Some Kind of Trouble

Reluctantly, he handed over the key.

Immediately, the bigger boy released him. He ran to the far end of the stone chamber, cowering into the crack between the wall and the floor, hoping to disappear. It had worked once before, and his instinct told him it was his only chance to see daylight again.

“Do mine first, Frankie!” squealed the smaller, light-haired boy, turning his back to reveal slim wrists bound by child-sized steel handcuffs.

Frankie, who had busted the chain of his too-tight cuffs by bashing them repeatedly on the stone doorframe, squinted to unlock his partner’s cuffs in the flickering light from a single gas lamp dangling on a rusty chain. “Hold still, Squirrel, I can’t get the key in there.” Frankie was big for his age, a fact that his mother never failed to remind him of as she had trouble getting him enough to eat. Compared to his six sisters, he was an animal. At twelve years old, he was nearly 6 feet tall and had already traded his short pants for the longer overalls worn by most men in the village. He really didn’t like to wear the longer, more formal garment. It set him apart from his friends and made him seem much older than he was. Men twice his age sized him up when he went into Greenville with his oldest sister Susanne to get supplies for her new homestead. Whenever he was away from the ranch his adrenaline was high, his fight or flight reflexes on tap. As a result, he had a hair trigger, was quick to anger, and usually in some kind of trouble. Combined with his general adolescent gangliness and lack of fine motor skills, this made Frankie feel like a walking disaster capable of chaos and destruction beyond his control.

In the underground chamber, He worked clumsily and methodically to release Squirrel. After many tries, the slender boy’s cuffs clicked open with a dull click. “Woohoo, we’re free!” chirped Squirrel, leaping to his feet and swinging his arms in giant circles to limber up. He was about six inches shorter than Frankie and wiry. Squirrel was charged by an invisible and unending energy source. From the time he lept from bed in the morning to the time his drooping eyelids forced him to sleep each night, he was in near-constant motion. Unlike Frankie, who was on-guard against those who would test his skill and strength, Squirrel actively sought out larger boys to challenge. Boys like Frankie.

The first time Squirrel saw Frankie he was baling hay on his uncle’s farm. Frankie was hired on to help finish the job, and Squirrel watched in wide-eyed wonder as he cleared row after row of the golden sheaths like sweeping crumbs off a table, and carried two bales to the wagon at a time. Later, Squirrel insulted one of Frankie’s sisters to get a quarrel started and the two wrestled for fifteen minutes in the dry dust behind the Smithson’s chicken coop. Frankie bloodied Squirrel’s nose and held him to the ground until he apologized. They were inseparable ever since.

The two boys assessed their current situation.

“Where do you reckon we are, Frankie?”

Squirrel asked, craning his neck to see into the din corners of the room. They had been blindfolded when the Sherrif dumped them in here yesterday morning.

“Don’t rightly know, Squirrel. There ain’t no door nor window that I can see. I’m damn hungry, though, little buddy.”

“Yeah, me too.” Despite his small size, Squirrel needed calories to fuel his constant movement. “Where did that mongrel go, anyway?”

Shivering against the wall, he tried to shrink even further in size. There was only one way out of this chamber, and he had to go through those boys to get there. He was as surprised as anyone when they appeared yesterday, just as he was uncurling from sleep and sniffing the morning air for promises of the day’s adventure. He was an independent dog and didn’t mind living alone. He knew how to seek humans when he needed them, for food or pets or sometimes he could convince one to throw a stick or ball. He was not as skilled, however, at getting rid of surprise guests.

He knew about the handcuffs, though. He had seen those things used down here before, and he knew about the small metal bone humans called “key” and where it was kept in the chamber. He didn’t know these humans, but he liked all young boys. He felt their free-willed vibrations. So he would try to help.

I’m writing 750+ words a day of fiction and publishing them here for the next 100 days. These are written quickly with minimal editing and based off a daily prompt.

Day 7 // Prompt (first line): Reluctantly, he handed over the key.

Originally published at stasiland.blogspot.com.