8 Days
Kaitlin
I was playing with my sister, Anna, in the front yard. She threw the ball over my head and it rolled into the street. I chased after it when Anna yelled something at me so I turned to look at her. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my side and I blacked out.
Anna
I saw a big car coming so I yelled at my sister. She turned to look at me and the car hit her. She was lying down in the street and a man came out of the car and picked her up. I yelled at him and he threw my sister in the back of the car and came and got me too. I tried to yell for my mommy but she didn’t hear me. The scary man put me in the back with sissy before she could come. It was really dark back there, it seemed like I was in a cave. I saw a box and pushed it to the door and I tried to hide sissy and I in another, but he found us. I closed my eyes and he took us to a small room. Sissy wouldn’t wake up, so I went to sleep too.
Kaitlin
I woke up in a tiny, decaying room with my sister sleeping on my lap. The paint was peeling off the walls and the floor was stained. There was a small mouse hole behind where the door would be when it’s open. There was a small window near the ceiling, but it was boarded up with old, rotten wood. My sister was in a ball, and my back hurt from sleeping there as well I got her comfortable. I put my hoodie on her and found a sweat shirt, which I made into a cot by hanging it from two nails in the wall. It was pretty low to the ground, and the sweat shirt was pretty big, but I was slightly worried she would fall, so I slept next to the ‘bed.’

I woke up when the man came again. He took me out of the small room, and brought me into an even smaller room, with only a ladder and a chair. He told me to go to the shop around the corner, and that it would have a sign that said “Bagels” in green. He handed me a list and some money and told me to get the things on the list. I nodded, and started to head up the ladder. When I was a few steps up, and planning escape, he grabbed my arm and said “remember, I have your sister. Understand?” Immediately my eyes popped out of my head and I nodded. I could only imagine what he meant after a certain point, but there was no way that it could be good. In that moment, I was probably the most scared I had ever, and most likely will ever be in my life.
Anna
There was a loud noise that woke me up. I was in my sister’s jacket and was sleeping in a hanging shirt. I fumbled out of the shirt and tried to figure out what the noise was. I couldn’t find anything that would make a noise, and then I noticed that sissy was gone. I was really hungry so I looked for food, but I couldn’t find any. I saw a door so I tried to open it. Maybe there was food on the other side! It wouldn’t open so I knocked on it. No one came, so I knocked again and again and again and I yelled. The mean man came and told me to be quiet. I told him that I was hungry and needed food. He just looked down at me and said “soon.” I thought that I wouldn’t be as hungry if I was sleeping, so I went back to sleep. It’s not like I could do anything else anyway.
Kaitlin

I got to the shop and grabbed the things on the list. Two bagels, a granola bar, a bag of M&Ms and a soda. As I was looking for the things I saw the cashier staring at me through the corner of my eye. I shrugged it off, thinking he was wondering why I was buying food by myself. I went up to the counter to pay and the money was the perfect amount, not one penny over. The man gave me a bag and before I could take it off the counter he stuck in a newspaper. He said ‘give this to… eh… whoever is watching you.”
I headed back and looked at the newspaper. I looked down in shock at the cover story. It read “Two Girls Missing: Have You Seen Them?” Under the title was a picture of me and my sister. I started to put it in the bag, but ran into someone when I was looking down. I shoved the paper in the bag, and hoped they didn’t recognize me for the sake of Anna. I apologized, and they looked down. I have to admit, I almost had a heart attack, but she luckily didn’t see the newspaper. She simply was looking at my shirt. “My cousin goes there,” she stated, staring at my school soccer team shirt. Suddenly I remembered Anna. “Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but I really got to go.” I told her, hoping she couldn’t tell how afraid I was. “Ok. See you later.” She exclaimed. I walked around the corner, hiding in the crowd and hoping she wouldn’t find me. It was a miracle she hadn’t recognized me from the paper. Even if she didn’t see it in my bag, she could have seen it at home or in a shop. As soon as I turned the corner, I hoped the fence into the neighborhood and hit the ground running. I had to make up the minute or two I spent talking to her, or who knows what would happen to Anna. I got back to the yard and found the wood plank. I quietly moved it away from the opening and climbed in. I closed it and hopped down the rest of the way.
I saw the man in the chair and gave him the bag. He took out the newspaper and gave me back the bag. Without saying a word, he opened the door to the room. He motioned for me to go in, where I joined my sister on the floor. I didn’t know when our next meal would be, so I carefully rationed the food. I gave both of us a quarter of one of the bagels, 10 M&Ms, and 3 capfuls of soda. I did this every time we got hungry until the bagels and M&Ms were gone. There was still soda the next time, so I split up the granola bar. Luckily, the man came and got me to get more food in the middle of our “meal.”
This happened every time, about 5 times, every 2 days. Each time I saw the girl and learned a little bit more about her and her cousin. I found out that the cousin was my best friend and the girl I ran into every time was going to see her in a few days. She was catching on, she saw me wearing the same clothes every day, and getting dirtier each time. Also, after a few times of me going back and forth, the man would give us the comics and puzzles. I thought of a plan on the way back as soon as I found out. We had a secret code; I could easily use it to communicate with my friend. I decided to write a letter on the crossword or an empty space. The man would never know, he knew we shoved the paper in the mouse hole when we were done, he would never find it there. So that was what I did. I planned out the letter and wrote down the code. Once decoded, it read “Walk along sidewalk from bagel shop past school. Turn corner near church. Go over fence. Follow wall. Find wood. Move wood. Climb down. Be quiet. Go through door.” Right now it just looked like a bunch of random numbers. I folded and shoved the small strip of paper into my sock, and carefully put my shoe back on. I ripped and crumpled the rest of the paper and shoved it as far back in the mouse hole as I could reach.
Just then the man started to open the door. Before he came in I put my finger over my mouth to gesture Anna to be quiet. She nodded as he walked in and I went along with the usual schedule. Usually, I wished I wouldn’t run into the girl on the way back, like I always did, but today that was the only thing that mattered. When I bought the usual items, and was far enough away from the bagel shop that the cashier wouldn’t see, I slyly reached down to “itch” my foot. I grabbed the paper from my shoe and when I looked up a feeling of complete and utter joy filled my face. It was my best friend, Gina’s, cousin! I passed her the note and knocked the look off my face. It turned to desperation and sadness. “Give this to Gina. Don’t waste time. She’ll know what to do. Tell her it’s Kaitlin, that she’s been kidnapped. These are directions, for the police.” I said, as quickly as possible.
The look on the girl’s face was priceless. "I have to go now." I said, leaving the stunned girl behind.
Luckily the plan worked well. She gave Gina the letter, who decoded it for the police. They came, and knew exactly what to do. We were wrapped in towels and carried to our parents car as the police to the hand-cuffed stranger to jail, we were finally home.