The story so far: Rhea manages to get across to the room where Sam, his mother and grandmother are held hostage. Quickly Sam, tells her how to get out of the house and get help. When he hears the thieves are hungry, he volunteers to make tea and sandwiches for them, in the hope that he can help Rhea escape and get help.
As soon as Sam left the room, Rhea went back inside and undid the ropes that tied Sam’s mother. Sarita Kumar looked a bit dazed, but she asked, “Are you okay?”
Rhea whispered, “I’m okay, aunty. Help is coming. Just lock the door from inside when we shout out to you!”
Mrs.Kumar nodded and as soon as Rhea crept back into the cupboard, she hauled herself up a bit and tried to undo her right shoe to relief the throbbing on her foot.
Then she lay down again in the same position and partially closed her eyes, so that she could see the open door and the men when they returned.
Meanwhile, Rhea closed the cupboard panel and as she fumbled to open the panel on the other side, something heavy fall on her. It was a large flat parcel. She set it back in place and opened the panel and went into Sam’s cupboard.
She had an idea. They were searching for money, right? Why not let them believe they had found some?
An idea
Rhea rummaged in the cupboard. She knew that one side of the cupboard had all Sam’s old toys and board games. Quickly, she emptied the ‘cash’ from the Monopoly box, then added some of Sam’s flip books that felt like bundles of money. She found a cloth bag with Sam’s coloured pens and pencils and she dumped them on the floor of the cupboard and put all the ‘money’ into the bag. She found a thick plastic bag in which Sam had wrapped his precious remote controlled car. Rhea emptied the plastic bag and put the ‘money’ inside and folded it so that it felt like a big amount of cash.
The remote controlled car gave her another idea. She picked up the controls, then stuck one of Sam’s old wind-up toys inside the car — and she was ready.
She got out of the cupboard and crept to the door. She could see Sam in the kitchen and hear the men in the drawing room. She moved across to the door that led out from Sam’s room to the veranda. The door was flush with the wall and covered by a huge poster of Iron Man. It opened outward and she pushed it gently and slid into the veranda space.
There was a lot of junk here. She hid the bag behind some boxes of washing powder near the washing machine. Then she wound up the toy and started the car and left the remote on the windowsill, pressed down, and rushed back into the bedroom and dived into the laundry box. The toy let out a musical ring that could easily be a cell phone and the car moved around bumping into things, toppling cartons and steel containers.
The men heard the noise and rushed to the kitchen. The leader spun Sam around to face him. “What are you up to?” he snarled.
To Be Continued...
