Ladybird Ladybird
Ladybird, ladybird, why do you sigh?
Is it because your love has waved you goodbye?
Ladybird, Ladybird, don’t feel so blue,
Tomorrow will be so much better for you.
The studio
audience grinned and clapped along as The Angels sang their latest hit, moving
in perfect synchronicity with each other as they stood behind the
microphones. On the left was Bobbi, with
her short blonde hair hidden under a red beret.
Her mini dress was of the same colour, with a square neckline, and she
was wearing a pair of cream coloured suede boots.
In the centre
was Roxanne, with her blonde hair falling down over the shoulders of her
mustard coloured dress. She was wearing
a pair of flat soled chocolate brown suede boots, while next to her Pammy had
on a purple minidress and patent leather black boots, her long red hair held
back by a thin purple scarf.
As they
turned and dipped at the end of the song, the audience broke out in wild
applause, all three smiling as the presenter said “Ladies and Gentlemen, The
Angels!”
They waved as
they walked off the stage, and into their dressing room, Pammy closing the door
before she collapsed into a large inflatable chair.
“I am SO glad
that’s done with,” she said with a sigh, “at least we have the day off
tomorrow.”
“Yeah – to
travel all the way up to Glasgow by car,” Bobbi said as she started to remove
her make up, “BOR-ING!”
“Why on earth
couldn’t we go by train,” Roxanne said quietly.
“Ask the boss
– if he ever turns up tonight,” Bobbi said as she stood up, “right now, let’s
get the car back to the hotel and try to get some sleep – if we need to drive
up, we need to be on the road by seven tomorrow morning.”
“There you
are,” Craig said as the three women came into the hotel lobby, a porter pushing
a trolley with their cases behind them.
Bobbi was wearing a pale blue jacket and pants, with white ankle boots,
and a matching beret. Roxanne had on a
white jersey and black trousers, with black heels, while Pammy was wearing a
red mini skirt and black jumper, with short red boots.
“Come on you
three – in the car, let’s get going,” Craig said as he shooed them out to the
waiting Jag, the porter putting the cases into his own car, “up the A1 and then
across country.”
“Oh deep deep
joy,” Bobbi said as they sat in the back of the car, and headed off. Craig started his car and followed, smiling
to himself as they headed for the Great North Road.
Two hours
later, the quartet were sitting in a roadside cafe, drinking coffee as the
driver went to make a phone call.
“Where are we
going to stop for lunch,” Roxanne asked.
“I know this
place in Wet herby – if we can get there by twelve, we’ll eat there,” Craig
said as the driver came back. “So drink
up – we’ll be on our way again.”
As the girls
sat in the back of the car, and moved off, Bobbi said “Can you put up the
privacy screen please?”
“Of course,
Madame,” the driver said as the clear screen slid up behind his head.
“Does Craig
seem all right to you today?”
“What, apart
from the fact he detests driving as much as we do?”
“Yes, apart
from that Roxanne,” Bobbi said as she rolled her eyes. “He looks as if he has something on his
mind.”
“Not that I
noticed,” Pammy said as the car moved to the left. “Hang on – why are we leaving the main road?”
Roxanne
looked round and said “I have no idea – driver, where...”
She stopped
talking as she heard the hissing sound, and a cloud of what looked like steam
started to fill the rear of the car.
Bobbi instinctively went to wind a window down, but the handle just
turned uselessly in her hand as the gas rose up, and the three girls started to
cough.
“What...
Wha’s gonnnn onnnnn,” Roxanne said as her eyelids fluttered, and her head fell
forward, the other two slumping in their seats as the gas slowly sent them into
a deep deep sleep...
Bobbi slowly
opened her eyes, the fog that was permeating her mind slowly clearing as she
allowed herself to come to. The last
thing she remembered was the fog in the back of the car, after she said that
Craig was acting strangely, and now...
She tried to
move her arms, and realised something was holding them together behind her back
– which would explain the numbness in her right arm. Taking a moment to close her eyes, she felt
with her long fingers, and realised there was some sort of rope wrapped around
and between her wrists, tied with a knot she could not quite reach.
“Okay,” she
thought to herself, “let’s review.
Someone gassed us, and my hands are behind my back. I feel like my mouth is full of cotton wool
as well.”
She tried to
say “Hello,” but all she heard was “Hlllooo?”
“I guess my
mouth is full of something,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked down,
seeing the bands of rope around her legs and her ankles, and then closed them
again. “Tied up, gagged – I’ve been
kidnapped. Okay.”
She lay there
for a moment, before she opened her eyes wide and sat quickly up.
“VEBBBNKDNPPDDDD!”
she called out as she wriggled round, now feeling the rope round her waist as
well. The room had a small occasional
table, with a mirror on it, and in the reflection she could see the white scarf
that was tied over her mouth.
Bobbi stopped
struggling for a moment, calming herself down and allowing herself to take in
her surroundings. It was a room with a
bed and the table, and not a lot else – save for the heavy wooden door that had
a grill in the top half. She caught a
glimpse of a heavily bearded face looking in, and then nothing.
“Right,” she
said to herself as she looked round, “I’m tied up, gagged, and I have no idea
where the other two girls are. If this
is Craig’s fault, I am so going to kill him...”
Pammy raised
her head and looked round, her vision slowly clearing as she did so. She was sat in an old wooden chair, and as
her vision slowly cleared she saw she was in what appeared to be the drawing
room of a house, dust covers over most of the furniture. Something was pulling at the skin over her
mouth, as well as her wrists, and her legs felt strangely stiff.
As she opened
her eyes again, she saw the reason for the tugging on her wrists – the wide
band of silver tape that held her wrists down to the arms of the chair she was sitting
in.
Slowly
raising her legs, she saw more bands around her ankles and her legs, below and
above her knees, and realised that not only was she bound with the tape, the
tugging on the skin around her mouth almost certainly meant she was also gagged
with it.
“HLLPPPMMMM SSTHRNNMEEBDTHR!!!”
She stamped
her feet up and down and tried to pull her hands free, but it was to no avail –
the tape stretched a little, but was both too tightly and too thickly wound
round her, as she threw her head round in frustration and anger.
Which was the
exact moment something else occurred to Pammy.
Where were Bobbi and Roxanne?
“SMMMMBDDEEEHLPMMMMM!!!”
Roxanne
screamed through the thick white cloth that had been pulled between her lips,
her jaws aching as her teeth bit down on the increasingly large grey and damp
patch in her mouth. Her arms were raised
above her head, and secured to a pipe running about a foot above her bound
wrists, while her ankles and knees were secured with more rope.
She had seen
the same bearded man walk past at least twice, totally ignoring her, despite
her screams and calls. As she tugged
down on the pipe, however, she heard a slight creaking, and looking up she saw
the pipe had bent slightly, the joint a little loose.
“Hmmm,” she
thought to herself, “the question is – what’s in that pipe?” She looked round, and slowly pulled down,
stopping each time the pipe grated and waiting to see if someone would come.
Eventually,
she closed her eyes, said a silent prayer and pulled hard, falling to the side
as the pipe gave way, and as the rope slipped off she rolled quickly to the
side, hoping she had missed the hot steam that was now flowing from the pipe
over the floor, condensing quickly into water as it hit the flagstones.
Reaching up,
she pulled the scarf from her mouth and caught her breath, pushing herself into
a corner away from the water before she raised her wrists to her mouth and
started to pick at the knot holding the rope around them with her teeth.
Eventually,
the rope fell away from her hands, and she rubbed her wrists before untying her
legs, and then pulling the scarf away from round her neck.
“Someone’s
gonna pay for this,” she said quietly as she took her shoes off, to avoid the
sound of her stilettos on the floor, and walked to the door of the room. It was unlocked, as she slipped into a
corridor and walked slowly down it.
As she passed
on door, she heard some muffled calls, and stepped back to look in the open
grill.
“OH my
goodness,” she said quietly as she turned the door handle, and walked in,
putting her finger to her lips as she walked over and untied Bobbi’s wrists and
legs.
As Bobbi
rubbed her wrists, Roxanne removed the scarf covering her mouth, and then eased
out the grey cloth that had been pushed in.
“Thanks,”
Bobbi gasped as she coughed, “what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t
know,” Roxanne said, “I was in a room, tied to a pipe, but managed to get free,
then I found you. Pammy?”
“No idea –
but we need to...”
She put her finger
to her lips as both girls heard footsteps approaching, and stood either side of
the door. The footsteps stopped for a
moment, went on – and then came back again as the door opened, and the bearded
man came in.
“GET HIM!”
He was taken
completely by surprise as Roxanne and Bobbi jumped him, falling to the floor
and hitting his head on the flag stones.
This dazed him enough for the girls to pull his arms behind his back,
and Bobbi to tie them together with a discarded length of rope, then sit on his
back as Roxanne tied his ankles together.
“Right,” she
said as the two girls rolled him over, and she yanked at the beard, “Bets this
is false?”
“Nope,” Bobbi
said as he yelped in pain, and then stuffed the discarded cloth into his mouth,
before the two of them made their way out into the corridor.
“We need to
find Pammy and raise the alarm,” Roxanne whispered as they walked out of the
corridor, into the hallway of some sort of stately home.
“There might
be a phone in here,” Bobbi said as she opened one door, and then said “No phone
– but I found Pammy.”
“Grllsssfknngdd,”
Pammy said as they came in, Roxanne peeling the tape away from her wrists as
Bobbi removed the covering from her mouth.
“What the hell happened to us?”
“At a guess,
we were kidnapped,” Bobbi said, “but right now, we need to get out of
here.” Looking round, she saw a set of curtains,
and walking over she pulled them to the side to reveal a set of doors leading
out to a garden.
“Leave them
to me,” Roxanne said as she ran up and kicked at the door with her foot,
sending it open with a crack as the three girls went outside.
“What about
your shoes,” Bobbi said as she looked at Roxanne.
“Forget them
– let’s get out of here,” she said as the three girls ran across the lawn, and
climbed the low wall to find themselves on a road.
“You know
something,” Pammy said as they walked along, “this is like an episode of a bad
kid’s cartoon.”
Bobbi and
Roxanne stopped for a moment and looked at Pammy, as she said “What?”
“I’m going to
kill him,” Bobbi said as they heard a car coming along. Flagging it down, they looked at the passing
driver as he said “want a lift girls?”
“Please,”
they said as they got into the back.
“Where do you
want to go?”
“A police
station,” Patty said, but Bobbi shook her head.
“No, can you
take us to a hotel in the nearest town?
The biggest there is...”
“Hang on a
minute,” Pammy said as they got out of the car outside the country house hotel,
“Isn’t that Craig’s car?”
“Yes it is –
come on girls,” Roxanne said as they walked in, and headed straight for the
bar. As they came in, Craig looked over,
as did the man sitting with him.
“Oh... Er...”
“Exactly,”
Roxanne said as they stood in front of Craig and the driver. “Got anything to say for yourself, dirtball?”
“April Fool?”
“IT’s
October,” Roxanne said as she felled Craig with a perfect left hook, and then
looked at the driver. “Our clothes –
where are they?”
“In his car,”
he said as he looked at Craig.
“Bring them
in, then disappear,” Bobbi said as she walked to the reception. “May I use your phone please?”
Picking up
the receiver, she dialled a number.
“Daddy? We need your help – Craig tried to kidnap us,
but we got free.
“Oakland
Lodge Hotel, Grantham.
“Thanks
Daddy,” Bobbi said as she walked back into the room.
“Your dad on
his way?”
“Oh yes,”
Bobbi said as he sat on Craig, “and this idiot is in deep, deep guano. Daddy doesn’t like people hurting his little
girl – they tend to end up hurt themselves.”
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