CHAPTER SEVEN: FASTFORWARD
Over the next few weeks, I trained Zavier
to be a scarer. She had a lot of potential.
We
had already signed a job application at M.I. and she'd been accepted.
She was rated at number twenty-five on the score board, with a total
of almost three thousand points.
We
went to work, scared, teamed up for lunch break, and went home joking
and laughing. I learned loads more stuff about her. She was seventeen
and had never been to a concert in her life. While growing up, she'd
always wanted to be a herpatologist, like her big brother was before
he'd passed away. When she was seven, her mother had died of a heart
attack from being overweight. She'd never known her father and she
had been moved from several different group homes until they'd placed
her in an orphanage. Because she had a bad attitude, no one would
adopt her and no one would pay any attention to her. She didn't have
many friends and if anyone tried beating her up on her way home from
school, she'd either give in or fight back. She'd never run. She knew
almost everything about me now. (I bet if you asked nicely, she'd
tell you the reason I kidnapped her at five was not becasue I'm a
twisted maniac lizard who wanted to get rich, but because Waternoose
was such a freak on the scream shortage, and he threatened to fire me
if I didn't agree to help).
In
our free time, we went to the beach, rented movies, spied on the
other reptiles in the apartment or played jokes on each other. It
wasn't until about two months later that I realized I would have
killed just to keep her in this world. We had become good friends. As
for Sullivan, she didn't like him so much anymore. She said he was
too much of a 'goody-goody' and was too happy too often. She didn't
much like teddy bears. I could agree with her on those
terms.
It was a
fair week in February when we went to the mall again. This time,
Zavier knew her way around a little better and we played in the
arcade some more.
"What
do you want for dinner?" she asked as we played our last game of
pinball. She beat me. I shrugged. "I dunno. How 'bout
sandwiches?" I suggested. "Race ya!" I cried, bounding
towards the doors. I heard her cry "Hey!" and the silent
footfalls as she ran after me. I laughed, almost there, but then I
realized something wasn't right. CHAPTER SEVEN: OH NO!
I
noticed she wasn't behind me anymore. I looked around, expecting her
to sneak up and try to jump me, but no Zavier.
"Zavier?"
I called. No answer. A few people looked at me funny, but I glared at
them and they minded their own buisness. "Zave?" I called
again. Now I was beginning to know how Sullivan felt when "Boo"
ran off. Where could she have gone to? I asked myself. Suddenly, I
heard a muffled cry.
"Randmmff!"
I spun around and saw two monsters holding a struggling Zavier. They
were running for the doors!
"Zave!
Hey, let go of her!" I snarled at the two unknown monsters. They
just shook their heads at me and, with one final tug, they pulled
Zavier outside. Zavier gave me one last panicked, desperate look and
disappeared inside a blue car with a vanity plate. It said I SPY. I
ran outside, hoping to catch them, but the car had already started
off.
"Zavier!"
I yelled after them. Uh-oh. This is bad.