A Girl, a Wolfe, and a Mall
Red, so called for the red stocking cap she was always seen wearing (her real name, which she despised, was Natasha), stuffed the parcel for her grandmother in her backpack and left the Brownstone building her parents lived in on the Upper West Side. Her grandmother, a rich elderly widow living alone in a nursing home across town (because Red's parents were both busy professionals and had no time to care for the old woman), had called and asked to see her the day before. Red's mother insisted she go, giving her subway fare and a package of a cake and a cross-stitch pattern to take to the lonely old woman. So Red donned her omnipresent red cap and headed out, because hey, she was getting to skip school with the full sponsorship of her parents, though skipping school wasn't something she did often.
The teenaged honor student pulled her headphones on as she left her building and headed for the nearest subway station that would take her across town. Red, as *Nsync blared in her ears, ignored the people around her for the most part, businessmen on their way to work, janitors on their way home, people coming and going, no one paying any attention to the girl, or anyone else on the train platform.
Red boarded the train with all confidence of a native of the city, having been riding the subway for a few years on her own. It had become impractical to make her parents chaperone her everywhere, so once she was 10, they let her go off alone, knowing she was a mature, responsible child (though even responsible children do foolish things occasionally).
The girl was content to stand at the back of the train until people got off and she could find a seat. A gentleman in a suit insisted she take his seat between another man in a suit, much like the one Will Smith wore in Men In Black, Red thought, and he was also sporting a full beard and wearing a wide brimmed fedora, and a grandmotherly looking woman dressed as a nurse. Red watched the people around her without watching them, and kept a hold of her pack the whole time. The man with the fedora looked up from the paper after the fourth stop, and did a double take when he saw Red sitting there.
"Why, Miss Red, shouldn't you be in school?" the man asked her.
"Oh, Mr. Wolfe, I didn't know that was you," came the reply, for she had recognized the man once she saw his eyes that were the same blue as Justin Timberlake's. "Mother insisted I go visit Gramma today, since she was so desperate to see me."
Mr. Wolfe smiled, for he too was going to see Red's grandmother. He was the elderly woman's lawyer, and was helping her to rewrite her will. "But what about the huge sale at the mall today? Surely you'd rather go there?"
Red's face lit up at the mention of the sale, then fell again as she remembered her promise to go visit her lonely grandmother. "I promised to visit Gramma today," she said. "I can miss the sale."
But Mr. Wolfe, knowing all about teenage girls, malls, and sales, having three teenaged daughters of his own said, "But this sale will only last a day. And it's Homecoming season, isn't it? Do you have a dress?" Mr. Wolfe asked, knowing from conversations with Gramma in the previous week that Red didn't yet have her Homecoming dress.
"Well," Red paused a moment, thinking. "I suppose an hour or two won't matter. I can go to the mall for a bit, then visit Gramma." Besides, she had been asked to Homecoming by a really cute guy. He wasn't as cute as Justin Timberlake, but he was still cute.
Mr. Wolfe smiled.
Red got off the train two stops later, heading for the mall with the super-sale. There were so many people at the mall that Red could barely get through the doors, let alone navigate the narrow aisles. The teen recognized friends from school who had also skipped out, but for an entirely different reason. Red began to feel guilty for having backed out of her promise to visit her grandmother, so after only a short while, she made her way back to the subway station and boarded the next train to make it the rest of the way across town, without having bought a thing.
Red climbed the steps out of the subway station amidst only a few other people. This stop wasn't one of the most popular, being far away from the central shopping and financial districts at the heart of the city. She walked the many blocks to the nursing home at a brisk pace, her conscience having kicked in and telling her to make it to Gramma before the old woman decided her granddaughter wasn't coming.
The young woman found her way to her grandmother's room without any problems. She was a frequent visitor (though usually on the weekends) and knew most of the staff, or at least recognized them. Red entered her grandmother's room without knocking for she was expected, and watched an unfamiliar nurse inject her grandmother's i.v. tube. Gramma appeared to be asleep, which Red found odd, because the old woman knew that her granddaughter should be visiting.
"Has she been asleep long?" Red piped up from near the door, and the nurse spun around. He looked vaguely familiar to the girl, but she couldn't place him. He had an average face, a goatee, though he was fairly tall and well built. And his eyes were that same wonderful shade of blue as her current love interest, Justin Timberlake.
"Oh, miss," the nurse said as he turned. "I didn't know anyone was there. No, she just went out."
"Will she sleep for long?" Red stepped farther inside the room to come to her grandmother's side.
"Oh yes, Red. Quite a long time," the nurse said, moving around behind the girl, closing and locking the door in one smooth gesture.
Red turned at the quiet click of the lock and the mention of her nickname out of the nurse she didn't know, and backed up against the wall as the man advanced on her. "Mr. Wolfe, what are you doing?" she blurted, finally placing those beautiful eyes in the face of the wild man before her as belonging to her grandmothers lawyer.
The man approached menacingly. "Since I'm going to kill you now anyway, I may as well tell you," he said, as all villains do, preparing to reveal his grand scheme. "Yes, I am Mr. Wolfe. I came here today to get her to sign everything over to me in her will, and then kill her, and take it all." He laughed maniacally. "And since you, little Red, had to show up here, you will join your grandmother."
Red had continued to back up slowly as Mr. Wolfe stalked her and outlined his plan, and she had knocked the bedside phone off the hook on her way by. A light went off on the front desk, and the nurse there, a big man, picked it up, hearing the hushed conversation and grabbed the keys from the peg, hustling towards Gramma's room as fast as his bulk would allow.
Meanwhile, Red was backed up against the wall, Mr. Wolfe holding a hypodermic needle in one hand and fumbling with the buckle on his pants with the other. The lawyer gone bad had almost succeeded in getting his pants down when the door flew open and the nurse entered.
Mr. Wolfe spun around, wielding the needle like a knife, leaving Red behind him. Red, being the sensible girl that she was, kicked up with one leg and nailed Mr. Wolfe in the kidneys with one foot, sending him lurching forward, and he fell to the floor, cracking his chin and going unconscious.
"Nurse Hunter, Nurse Hunter," Red babbled to the huge nurse who was calling for some help to take Mr. Wolfe away and call the police. "He did something to Gramma! He made her go to sleep!"
"Calm down, Red," Nurse Hunter rumbled, moving to the trashcan near Gramma's bed. He found an empty bottle there, and yelled out the door for help. More nurses and a doctor came rushing in while Nurse Hunter hefted Red and carried her out so she wouldn't have to see her Gramma revived.
Red's parents were called to come get her, and she told the story of the day many times. To the cops that arrived, to the reporters that closely followed, to the representative from the Justin Timberlake fan club that heard her story on the news and wanted a story for their magazine, to her parents, and as part of a presentation to her class. Gramma was revived and brought back to health, choosing a new lawyer from a different firm to compose a new draft of her will, signing almost everything over to her granddaughter.
Red, so called for the red stocking cap she was always seen wearing (her real name, which she despised, was Natasha), stuffed the parcel for her grandmother in her backpack and left the Brownstone building her parents lived in on the Upper West Side. Her grandmother, a rich elderly widow living alone in a nursing home across town (because Red's parents were both busy professionals and had no time to care for the old woman), had called and asked to see her the day before. Red's mother insisted she go, giving her subway fare and a package of a cake and a cross-stitch pattern to take to the lonely old woman. So Red donned her omnipresent red cap and headed out, because hey, she was getting to skip school with the full sponsorship of her parents, though skipping school wasn't something she did often.
The teenaged honor student pulled her headphones on as she left her building and headed for the nearest subway station that would take her across town. Red, as *Nsync blared in her ears, ignored the people around her for the most part, businessmen on their way to work, janitors on their way home, people coming and going, no one paying any attention to the girl, or anyone else on the train platform.
Red boarded the train with all confidence of a native of the city, having been riding the subway for a few years on her own. It had become impractical to make her parents chaperone her everywhere, so once she was 10, they let her go off alone, knowing she was a mature, responsible child (though even responsible children do foolish things occasionally).
The girl was content to stand at the back of the train until people got off and she could find a seat. A gentleman in a suit insisted she take his seat between another man in a suit, much like the one Will Smith wore in Men In Black, Red thought, and he was also sporting a full beard and wearing a wide brimmed fedora, and a grandmotherly looking woman dressed as a nurse. Red watched the people around her without watching them, and kept a hold of her pack the whole time. The man with the fedora looked up from the paper after the fourth stop, and did a double take when he saw Red sitting there.
"Why, Miss Red, shouldn't you be in school?" the man asked her.
"Oh, Mr. Wolfe, I didn't know that was you," came the reply, for she had recognized the man once she saw his eyes that were the same blue as Justin Timberlake's. "Mother insisted I go visit Gramma today, since she was so desperate to see me."
Mr. Wolfe smiled, for he too was going to see Red's grandmother. He was the elderly woman's lawyer, and was helping her to rewrite her will. "But what about the huge sale at the mall today? Surely you'd rather go there?"
Red's face lit up at the mention of the sale, then fell again as she remembered her promise to go visit her lonely grandmother. "I promised to visit Gramma today," she said. "I can miss the sale."
But Mr. Wolfe, knowing all about teenage girls, malls, and sales, having three teenaged daughters of his own said, "But this sale will only last a day. And it's Homecoming season, isn't it? Do you have a dress?" Mr. Wolfe asked, knowing from conversations with Gramma in the previous week that Red didn't yet have her Homecoming dress.
"Well," Red paused a moment, thinking. "I suppose an hour or two won't matter. I can go to the mall for a bit, then visit Gramma." Besides, she had been asked to Homecoming by a really cute guy. He wasn't as cute as Justin Timberlake, but he was still cute.
Mr. Wolfe smiled.
Red got off the train two stops later, heading for the mall with the super-sale. There were so many people at the mall that Red could barely get through the doors, let alone navigate the narrow aisles. The teen recognized friends from school who had also skipped out, but for an entirely different reason. Red began to feel guilty for having backed out of her promise to visit her grandmother, so after only a short while, she made her way back to the subway station and boarded the next train to make it the rest of the way across town, without having bought a thing.
Red climbed the steps out of the subway station amidst only a few other people. This stop wasn't one of the most popular, being far away from the central shopping and financial districts at the heart of the city. She walked the many blocks to the nursing home at a brisk pace, her conscience having kicked in and telling her to make it to Gramma before the old woman decided her granddaughter wasn't coming.
The young woman found her way to her grandmother's room without any problems. She was a frequent visitor (though usually on the weekends) and knew most of the staff, or at least recognized them. Red entered her grandmother's room without knocking for she was expected, and watched an unfamiliar nurse inject her grandmother's i.v. tube. Gramma appeared to be asleep, which Red found odd, because the old woman knew that her granddaughter should be visiting.
"Has she been asleep long?" Red piped up from near the door, and the nurse spun around. He looked vaguely familiar to the girl, but she couldn't place him. He had an average face, a goatee, though he was fairly tall and well built. And his eyes were that same wonderful shade of blue as her current love interest, Justin Timberlake.
"Oh, miss," the nurse said as he turned. "I didn't know anyone was there. No, she just went out."
"Will she sleep for long?" Red stepped farther inside the room to come to her grandmother's side.
"Oh yes, Red. Quite a long time," the nurse said, moving around behind the girl, closing and locking the door in one smooth gesture.
Red turned at the quiet click of the lock and the mention of her nickname out of the nurse she didn't know, and backed up against the wall as the man advanced on her. "Mr. Wolfe, what are you doing?" she blurted, finally placing those beautiful eyes in the face of the wild man before her as belonging to her grandmothers lawyer.
The man approached menacingly. "Since I'm going to kill you now anyway, I may as well tell you," he said, as all villains do, preparing to reveal his grand scheme. "Yes, I am Mr. Wolfe. I came here today to get her to sign everything over to me in her will, and then kill her, and take it all." He laughed maniacally. "And since you, little Red, had to show up here, you will join your grandmother."
Red had continued to back up slowly as Mr. Wolfe stalked her and outlined his plan, and she had knocked the bedside phone off the hook on her way by. A light went off on the front desk, and the nurse there, a big man, picked it up, hearing the hushed conversation and grabbed the keys from the peg, hustling towards Gramma's room as fast as his bulk would allow.
Meanwhile, Red was backed up against the wall, Mr. Wolfe holding a hypodermic needle in one hand and fumbling with the buckle on his pants with the other. The lawyer gone bad had almost succeeded in getting his pants down when the door flew open and the nurse entered.
Mr. Wolfe spun around, wielding the needle like a knife, leaving Red behind him. Red, being the sensible girl that she was, kicked up with one leg and nailed Mr. Wolfe in the kidneys with one foot, sending him lurching forward, and he fell to the floor, cracking his chin and going unconscious.
"Nurse Hunter, Nurse Hunter," Red babbled to the huge nurse who was calling for some help to take Mr. Wolfe away and call the police. "He did something to Gramma! He made her go to sleep!"
"Calm down, Red," Nurse Hunter rumbled, moving to the trashcan near Gramma's bed. He found an empty bottle there, and yelled out the door for help. More nurses and a doctor came rushing in while Nurse Hunter hefted Red and carried her out so she wouldn't have to see her Gramma revived.
Red's parents were called to come get her, and she told the story of the day many times. To the cops that arrived, to the reporters that closely followed, to the representative from the Justin Timberlake fan club that heard her story on the news and wanted a story for their magazine, to her parents, and as part of a presentation to her class. Gramma was revived and brought back to health, choosing a new lawyer from a different firm to compose a new draft of her will, signing almost everything over to her granddaughter.