Chapter 10

Held captive in a music room, Flaky felt her head getting heavy. She knew that she had to find a way out.

It was clear that Giggles' only reason for inviting them is to trick them.

Was Flippy in on the gag, too? Remembering the smile that he sent her before the game of musical chairs, Flaky felt tears of anger and fear running down her cheeks.

"What am I doing here?" she cried aloud, getting up off the floor. I fell for that invitation, just like those others did.

Were were the others? If Giggles had to isolate them from the party, why couldn't she at the very least have imprisoned them all together instead of separating them?

Flaky's fear stirred her to action. She still had her bag her here. Her purse was in there. Hunting through its contents, she smiled as she felt the cool, smooth plastic of her debit card.

Flaky had seen people open doors with their credit or debit cards before. It was in fact Lifty who taught her how because she always forgot her key. It didn't always work. But it had to this time, Flaky thought.

It did work. As she left the room and closed the door firmly behind her, she let out the breath that she didn't even know that she was holding.

Looking down the long hall, Flaky saw that it was empty. Party sound echoed distantly along its length, but Giggles had apparently posted no guards.

In a house this big there had to be a back staircase.

There was. It too was unguarded, inviting Flaky to slip down and escape.

Flaky hurried down the stairs and went through a side door, and in a couple of minutes made it to a grassy slope beside the mansion, on her way to the long, winding driveway and home, to her mother's "I told you so."

Although there were people hurrying down the lantern lighted grounds, none paid any attention to the girl heading purposely down the slope. They seemed to be caught up in some kind of game, scurrying here and there, calling out to each other, using words that led Flaky to believe that they were on some kind of hunt. Another one of Giggles's idiotic games?

Her anger had carried her only as far as the edge of the lawn when uneasiness about leaving her friends took over. She didn't know the house and ground's and didn't have the faintest idea on where to start looking for the four... but she couldn't leave without them. At least, not until she was sure that they were okay.

Biting her lip, Flaky turned around and retraced her steps, reluctantly walking back towards the house.

Nutty had never had a reason in his life to be unhappy, as long as he had sugar he was fine. However right now he was more miserable than ever, on the night that had earlier filled him with nothing but breathless anticipation.

Why had he been taken from the party and locked in this place?

What was this place? It was so dark. He couldn't see a thing. It smelled faintly like the barn on Lumpy's farm. He never liked that farm, the spiders and aliens freaked him out.

But barns were big and wide, with huge ceilings and wide doors. The door that he'd come in was a regular door. A regular locked door, he reminded himself.

Why was he here? Why wasn't he at the party that he'd been invited to attend?

Nutty, using his hands as a guide, felt his way through the darkness and discovered a window. Even if he could get out somehow, he wasn't sure if he could make it back to the house. It was completely black outside. Without lights in the mansion, how could he find it? They'd come an awfully long way through the woods.

What kind of person was Giggles anyway, to invite people to a party and then hide them away, lock them up?

A terrible person. A mean person.

A click from the opposite door brought Nutty's head up. Someone was coming!

Nutty stood up, hope and expectancy flooding from his face. He was being rescued. The game was over. And it hadn't been so terrible, after all. Now he could find his friends and have the good time that he'd expected since the invite first arrived.

The door opened.

"BOY, AM I GLAD TO SEE YOU!" Nutty cried, hurrying forward through the darkness. "THANKS FOR COMING TO GET ME I THINK THAT I WAS GOING TO GO CRAZY IN HERE."

"No problem," his rescuer said with a smile. "Giggles said that you have been a very good sport. She wants to make it up to you, Just follow me, okay?"

Smiling with relief, Nutty followed eagerly.

"Hey, Giggles" a boy called to his hostess, who was dancing in the center of the room, "what's with the TV? There are only two faces up there now, what happened to the other three?"

Giggles shrugged. "Who knows? The systems probably got screwed up somewhere. Happens all the time. The cameras quit working and my dad throws a fit. It's no bug deal. Forget about it!"