ADVENTURES OF LILLIAN

BY ABC-T

Milk and Cookies

I ran off the school bus, as I got home. I didn’t have a good day at school my friend told me she didn’t like me anymore. But she had done that all year and we were still friends. My mom says that eight-year-olds go through this friend thing. I listen to my mom on this because she is old and smart. Well not really old, but older then me, she is an adult.

Even though I know that my mom is right and that Jana and I will be friends again tomorrow, probably by first recess, it still upsets me. When I get upset like this I wait until I get home and eat cookies and milk. Daddy eats them with me.

He knows I get upset when one of my friends doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. Jana is my best friend and she told me she didn't want to be my friend anymore, today. I had no body to play with all through second recess and had to sit alone. I love swinging on the swings but I can’t do that because Jana likes swinging on the swings too.

I really wanted to swing on the swings today though because Mr. Andrews was pushing people on the swings today. I like him he’s cute. He isn’t as old as my parents he says he’s a teenager; I think he’s cute though. He is one of the Para’s in first grade; I have been told a Para is an assistant teacher.

He pushes kids on the swings a lot and I always like being pushed on the swings by him. I don’t get to spend a lot of time around him because he works in first grade, and first graders are just so young, I’m too old to play with them, I wish he worked in second grade with me.

So because Jana didn’t want to be my friend anymore I wasn’t able to get pushed on the swings, and I had no one to play with.

I was really upset so when I got off the bus and ran to my house. Daddy would eat milk and cookies with me, and then I would feel better. Milk and cookies always made me feel better.

I told daddy that we needed to have milk and cookies again for an afternoon snack. He understood right away I had problems with my friends again, and he gave me a hug. We went to the kitchen and he got the cookies out, but before he got the milk he grabbed me and picked me up.

He looked funny and I laughed at him. He then said that I had to earn milk and cookies today.

“Let’s play a game. I call it escape from the dungeon.” He said.

I always loved my daddy’s games they were fun he was always coming up with something new. Like 'race car'. We played that last week, we painted numbers on our faces and other things that were on racecars. He then raced me around the backyard, and I won.

“You can’t have milk and cookies until you escape from the dark dungeon. That’s if you ever escape.” And he pretended to laugh an evil laugh; it is a funny laugh though.

He carried me upstairs to his and mommy’s bedroom first. He went in mommy’s closet and got something out of a box. I couldn’t see what he got because he put it in his pocket. But then he grabbed something else, they were keys he had a lot of keys on the key ring.

He picked me up again and carried me to the garage. He went over to his workbench and told me to kneel down with my back to it. I did so and was still giggling the whole time; because my daddy’s game’s were always so much fun.

He got behind me and knelt down also, but he told me to keep looking forward. I heard him working with something metal and it was making a clicking noise, but I didn’t look behind me.

He then grabbed my wrist and was very gentle. He put something on one of my wrists and I heard the clicking again. Then the metal pressed against my right wrist and it felt like a bracelet.

He grabbed my other wrist and pulled it close to my other wrist. He was still being very gentle but he had both my arms on either side of a leg for the workbench. I heard clicking again and something went around my other wrist, it felt like the first.

Then I realized what it was, he put handcuffs on me. He handcuffed me to one of the table legs. I couldn’t turn around and look at the handcuffs and I couldn’t see behind me because I was handcuffed with my back to the table leg.

My daddy came in front again and said I had to escape. That would be easy I had played with toy handcuffs before they had a little notch on the side that released them. But there was no release button on these, I soon realized.

I didn’t like my daddy’s game anymore I didn’t know how to escape.

He laughed as I fidgeted with the handcuffs trying to find the release lever. “Here’s the keys honey.”

He handed me a whole big thing of keys, but I didn’t know which one was the right key. Again I got mad, “Daddy” I whined as he grinned even more.

He bent down in front of me again. He brushed my hair to the side and grabbed at the keys. “It’s this key honey.” He said. And gave the keys back to me.

He stood up and walked a few feet away again. He sat down in a chair and watched, as if I were a cartoon on TV. “Don’t drop the keys, because it will be hard to pick them back up.” He said right before they hit the floor.

I tried to move my hands down to pick them up, they were right at my foot. But the workbench had a bottom shelf, right below where my hands were cuffed. I couldn’t reach them with it in the way.

I looked at daddy he was still watching me. He must have read my mind because he told me, “No honey you have to pick them back up.”

I tried harder, but still couldn’t reach. I moved around a few times, as much as I could. It was still hard, I couldn’t reach them, but I kept trying.

I tried and tried and I was about to cry because I thought I was never going to get free.

“Daddy let me go, I don’t want to play anymore.” I told daddy.

“Honey if you don’t get yourself free you won’t have milk and cookies.” He said.

I snapped right back with “I don’t want them anymore, I want to be let go.” I screamed.

But daddy just stayed calm and said, “You won’t eat dinner either and you will have to go to bed right when I let you out.”

“No daddy.” I yelled at him again then started to cry.

I cried a cried but he just stayed there watching me, I didn’t love him anymore and I told him so as I was crying.

I told him I would tell mommy, but he still didn’t care. Why was he doing this to me?

I stopped crying and said, “Alright, I’ll keep playing.”

“That’s great honey.” He said and got up and walked away. He came back with tissues in his hand and dried my face. I wanted to do that myself but he wouldn’t uncuff me.

After drying my face and making me blow my nose, like I was a little girl again, he sat back down.

I tried some more but I still couldn’t reach them. There must have been a way to reach them though, and I was going to find it.

I kept trying as I was trying to think of a different way, but it seemed impossible.

I was thinking and thinking but couldn’t think of a way. I was still in the same spot and I could see fifteen minutes had gone by on the clock. My wrists were hurting and I think I had a splinter in my arm from the wood. I wanted to cry again.

Daddy just kept watching me. Then he got out of his chair. He walked to a corner on the garage and I watched him. He got down on his hands and knees and rubbed his fingers on the ground. He then bought his fingers to his nose.

Then he bent down toward the spot he was examining in the garage. He got real close and sniffed it. “Oh its oil.” He said but that didn’t mean anything to me.

Then as he walked back over to his chair I got an idea. I shuffled around until I could bend down and with my teeth I picked the keys up. I had thought of the way to get them with no ones help, I was so proud.

I bend back up and turned my head. I pushed my hands and bent them as much as I could, to get them on the side of me. I then let go of the keys with my teeth; they again dropped by my feet. I didn’t work my hands weren’t close enough; I needed to stretch a little bit more, the keys just brushed my fingertips.

I bend down again and picked the keys up. I tried again to drop them into my hand. But even stretched as much as I could I couldn’t drop them in my hand.

I picked them up a third time and tried this time I managed to catch one of the keys between my fingertips. It was slipping though, I hurried and moved both hands behind me again and dropped the keys between my fingertips into my other hand. Yeah I had the keys.

I smiled up at my daddy and saw he was really happy. But then he got up and went in the kitchen. He left the door open to the garage but I couldn’t see into the kitchen at what he was doing.

I was worried he wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t remember the key and they all felt the same. I needed daddy to show me the key again.

He then came back with a cup of milk and a cookie. He bent down in front of me, and dipped the cookie in the milk. The cup was very full and some of the milk spilled over the edge as he dipped the cookie in.

He held the cookie in front of me and I took a bite. He then dipped it back in the milk and pulled it out again. But this time he didn’t give me a bite; he put the rest of the cookie in his mouth. I pouted.

He gave me a drink of milk though, before setting the cup on the workbench.

He reached behind me and showed me the key again. I grasped it between my fingers and wasn’t going to drop it again.

He then went and sat back down. “Honey don’t move around too much, don’t shake the bench. The milk is right on the edge. If you shake the bench you will cause the milk to spill on you.”

That was stupid why would he set it right on the edge? It seemed like he wanted it to spill on me. I didn’t want it to spill on me. Mommy would get upset because I would be all wet.

I was really careful and tried to find the keyhole, on the handcuffs. I found a hole but the key didn’t seem to fit. I kept trying but it wouldn’t fit.

I looked up at my daddy again, “Daddy the key wo…”

He interrupted me “Careful honey the milk.” He said and it spilled all over me.

Only a few drops got on my t-shirt. But my jeans were all wet.

I wanted to cry again, now mommy would be mad at me because my pants would still be wet. I didn’t want to play my daddy’s game anymore.

“We will wash and dry them before mommy gets home, don’t worry honey. We can put them in the dryer.” He said.

That made me smile again, daddy always thought of everything.

I looked at him again and finished what I was trying to say. “Daddy the key won’t fit in the hole. I don’t think I have the right key.”

“Sure you have the right key honey. You just have to find the right hole, feel around on the handcuffs for a bigger hole.”

I tried to find a bigger hole but they all seemed the same. Then I found one there were five holes in the handcuffs how confusing. The key fit in and I turned it. But it was hard to turn with the way my hands were.

I felt the thing click and it loosened around my wrist. Yeah I found the hole. I tried to move my hand a little and this time I got better access, it turned and loosened. I was free.

I stood up and walked to daddy, the handcuff was still on one wrist but I was free. He helped me with the last handcuff and I was free. I rubbed my wrists a few times before following daddy into the laundry room.

I pulled down my pants and daddy put them in the dryer. With me in only my t-shirt and panties, Daddy and I went back to the kitchen and we had milk and cookies.