“Whoa kid! Are you alright? You came in really hard,” the college-age store clerk said to me.
“Um…yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Not to be rude kid, but…shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I’m…uh-homeschooled. Online teacher was sick so I had the day off. Yeah!”
I turned my head to look out the display window. Past the red and black skateboard that I still had my eyes on, were Brett, Avery, Principal van Dooren walking like zombies behind Hector, stomping his feet against the ground and searching the streets for me.
I turned back to the store clerk and frantically asked, “Sir, do you have a pencil I could borrow?”
“A…pencil? What would you need one for?”
“I just really, really need to write something down. Please!”
“Okay uh… I think I have one in my pocket, I guess.”
He pulled one out and before he could even pass it to me, I snatched it out of his hand before he could even extend his arm out to me. I dashed behind the scooter section and sat myself down the ground. I had the pencil in my left hand and with my other, I pulled out the last two rubber controllers I had. One was blank, the other said, “I will let Andrew go to the library.” I just kept thinking and thinking. What am I going to do? I can’t just stick a controller that says, “I will go back to normal” on my three people brain comrades, the controller have already been used on them once. There’s still got to be a way!
I heard the bell of the front door ring. “Welcome to Swift’s Skate Store!” said the store clerk. I looked at the circular mirror hanging from the corner of the ceiling and the first thing I notice is the wide, bulky black shirt of Hector Markowski.
Hector! That’s it! He’s the one controlling my friends! In order to kill two, or rather three birds with one stone, I wrote, “I will let my slaves go on it.” Step one, complete! Now the second, and most difficult step, how to stick it on him.
I looked back up in the mirror. It looked like they were splitting up to search the store. Brett moved towards the helmet section, Avery shifted towards the skate section, Van Dooren kept watch out the display window, and Hector looked like he was heading towards the scooter section. The store was small, so I had to finish everything off quickly.
I crawled quietly to the back end of the aisle and hid behind it. I kept my eyes looking at the circular mirror. The boys and Hector were getting closer and closer to the back of the store. Silently as I could, I stuck my hand out and grabbed a small, blue scooter before Hector could notice me. I felt the sweat trickling down my neck as I slowly peeled the back off the rubber controller. Hector was getting deeper and deeper into the lane. Before I knew it, he was only a few yards away from my corner.
“Wait for it… wait for it…” I kept telling myself. When Hector was finally a foot away from my corner, I stuck the scooter right in front of his foot, making him tumble forward and face down.
He let out a loud yell as he thudded against the cold tiles. In a split second, I pounced on his back and pinned him down.
“Who’s weak now Hector? Huh? Tiny, stupid, wet-pantsed Andy has you beat! How do you like that? Huh?” I shouted at him.
Hector only let out a moan and turned his eye towards me. I positioned the rubber controller, ready to stick it on his big, fleshy arm, but before I could even move it downwards, two large, aggressive hands grabbed me by my shoulders. I immediately turned my head to see the two dark, blank eyes of Van Dooren staring gloomily at me. In the next second, he picked me up and threw me to the other side of the store.
I was airborne for about several seconds until I crashed into the shelves of the Helmet aisle. The whole shelf got knocked down by my impact and like dominoes, the skate, shin-pad, and sports shoes aisles were came down along with it.
My body just felt a huge wave of pressure from slamming against a whole aisle of helmets. My back was aching from landing on a layer of helmets, my ears were ringing from the booms of falling items, but it seemed as though nothing was broken.
“Whoa! Whoa! Sir! You cannot do that! I’m calling the police!” the store clerk yelled out in panic.
I heard Hector let out one more groan and shouted back, “You can’t call the fuzz! Get him boys!”
I turned my head over and saw Brett and Avery emerging out from mountains of fallen helmets and skates, both boys unscathed. They both lunged out at the store clerk, pinning him against the wall behind the cash register.
I rolled over and push myself up, but as I tried to stand myself up, a sharp pain attacked me at my ankle. My right ankle was sprained! It hurt so badly that I fell back down to my knees. I looked around, frantically thinking about what to do. The rubber controller I had was gone! More than likely, it fell out of my hand whilst I was flying across the store.
I looked back up and saw the red and black skateboard, still at the display window behind a price tag that said $99.99. On all fours, I quickly crawled towards the skateboard, hoping I would hop on top of it and roll myself out of the store.
Hector yelled out behind me, “Brett! Avery! Get hi-“
“If they let go, he’ll call the cops!” I interrupted him.
It looked like I outsmarted Hector as he stopped midsentence. “Van Dooren! Get him!”
He was coming for me! His thundering footsteps were getting louder and louder as he was rushing towards me. I just kept crawling. There was clutter everywhere, making crawling feel like fighting against a stream. I kept crawling and crawling. I was finally at the edge of the sea of clutter and I could finally pull myself onto the smooth tile floor. Van Dooren was still coming for me, so I still pushed. Something made my hand roll and slip. I looked back forward and realized it was just a simple roller skate. I wasn’t sure if it was instinct or wits, but I took the skate and rolled it right at Principal Van Dooren. He immediately stepped on it, lost his balance, and fell on a pile of helmets.
“Don’t stop! Keep crawling!” I told myself.
“You! I’m going to get you Andy!” Hector roared at me.
I still didn’t stop for even a moment, I kept crawling and crawling. I could hear Hector dragging his feet against the ocean of skates, helmets, sports shoes, and shin-pads as he was gaining on me.
I was finally at the display window! I reached up and nudged the skateboard until it fell to the floor. I turned back around and I saw that Hector was only a few yards away from me. No time to think of anything else. Just like the roller skate, I rolled the beautiful skateboard that I finally got my hands on towards the menacing behemoth. He managed to dodge the rolling skateboard by jumping backwards, but the bulky beast ended up landing on a fallen bicycle helmet and fell down to the ground.
It was quite a sight really; he landed so hard that the ground shook, pencils and pens fell off the front desk, and the object on the ground bounced up an inch off the ground.
“My knee! You stupid twerp! I think you busted my knee!” he roared with extreme anger.
The first thought that came to my mind when I heard him say that was, “Good, he’ll stay down.”
I caught my breath and reached for a pencil on the ground. I reached down my pocket and pulled out the rubber stopper the gypsy gave back to me. I erased the old command and wrote, “I will release my slaves” on it with scratchy handwriting.
Hector was still flopping, tossing, and turning like a dying whale whilst rubbing his knee. I didn’t care about the pain anymore for some reason. I limped towards Hector, fell down to his level, and stuck the controller on him.
Hector fell limp. I thought I killed for a moment, until he finally spoke, with a monotonous, robot-like voice, “Slaves, I release you!”
I waited for a second and looked towards Brett and Avery who still had the store clerk pinned against the wall. They both immediately let their grips go, their bodies loosened up from their tenseness, and they took a few steps back.
“Brett, what are we doing?” Avery asked Brett.
“No clue. Where are we and how did we get here?” he asked back.
“Whoa! Excuse me sir, personal space, please!” Avery said to the clerk as he pushed him away.
I didn’t know how I was feeling at that moment. In three words, I would say it was a mixture of calm, relieved, and especially, happy.
That feeling was interrupted as Hector grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and started yanking my head back and forth while he shouted, “You idiot! You are going to pay for this! I’m going to punch you so hard that it’ll-”
Before he could finish, two sets of arms pulled me away and lifted me off the ground.
“Hey! Hey! Enough is enough you pompous wind bag!” Brett yelled at Hector while wrapping my arm around his neck.
“Yeah, do everyone a favor and bug off,” Avery added as he was doing to the same thing.
“Oh…. What happened?” Principal Van Dooren moaned as he arose from the debris. “Boys, what’s going on? Did we leave school grounds without a permission slip?”
“That’s not all you did,” the store clerk responded as he was attempting to dial 9-1-1 on the store phone.
I turned my head towards him and said, “Wait! Sir, if you please let us go to the hospital right now, I will give you my allowance, sweep, mop, and dust this store for the next six months. Deal?”
The clerk was quiet at first, dialed the number on the phone, and said, “Hi, can we please get an ambulance down to Swift’s Sports Goods, please?”
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