Chapter 17

B-As the girls were sleeping Poppy was taking the watch. She pretty much just loved to poke her nose out the window and smell the fresh air. And there was just something about that big moon in the sky that she just loved to look at. Howling, she thought, was overrated. It was just so much more enjoyable to look at it and contemplate life. But a noise burst her bubble of wonder, it wasn’t a large noise but very noticeable to Poppy’s sharp ears. A tiny clipping noise, like that of possibly flowers. Poppy searched the nearby hedges and found the culprit. Two figures stood by the hedgerows cutting of flowers and acting very suspicious. Poppy thought this warranted waking up the girls and whined. Both Sarah and Betsy stumbled out of bed and to the window. “What is it girl?” asked Betsy. Poppy pointed with her nose towards the figures. “Well now, that is odd,” said Sarah. “What would two people be doing cutting off flowers from hedgerows and acting very suspicious.” “Too bad we can’t see their faces,” mumbled Betsy, who was still very sleepy and not really wanting to figure it out. But after the girls had gone to bed, Sarah was troubled by the thought that both of the figures seemed very familiar, she just couldn’t put her finger on it.
S-The next morning the girls went out to investigate. All of the tops of the Begonias had been chopped off. "Well this is a bad sign" sighed Betsy. "Indeed" Sarah replied, "It appears that someone has it out for us. Perhaps we're getting a little too close for comfort to the murderer!" "Perfect!" gleamed Betsy. Poppy began sniffing intently at the mangled begonias, her ears perked up. "I think she may have the scent!" exclaimed Betsy. Poppy took off rather quickly along the path the girls had taken the other day. She veered into the forest and stopped at the base of a tree. "A clue!" exclaimed Betsy. "I don't see why we have to go through all of this trouble. We already know that Simon is the murderer. Lets go tell the Popo already," sighed Sarah leaning against a tree gazing into the sky. There was a muffled shriek. Sarah whipped around and saw a very tall man with his hand over Betsy's mouth dragging her into the forest! Poppy was crying and frantically trying to bite the man's legs off, but to no avail. Sarah would have to do some quick thinking to get themselves out of this terrible mess!
B-But Betsy was sick a tired of being the gosh dang damsel in distress! She didn't need Sarah's help, although it was always welcome, because she knew self defense perfectly well! Well, she more or less knew the gist of it. So as she was biting and kicking and screaming and punching she thought of a better idea, why not try talking her way out of it. So she wiggled her way around so that she had a better view of her captor (it always is more intimidating to people when you're looking at them) and she found that he was really quite attractive! But that was beside the point, because he was trying to kidnap her. "Excuse me," she said authoritatively, "but can you tell me why you're trying to kidnap me?" "Oh," replied her captor. "Is that what this looks like? This isn't how I wanted to start things off at all! Why do I always mess things up!?" And then he got this really quite adorable disgruntled look on his face. (C'mon! Can't I have one cute person like me? PS This is not part of the story) "So, what are you going to do with me? Or do you always kidnap girls when you like them? Or do you not like me?" asked Betsy who was quite put out with the idea of him not liking her.
S-"Well you see," he replied, "that tree that you were inspecting just so happened to have some of deathly nightgrip mushrooms at the bottom. If you had even just so slightly stepped on one of them a toxic gas would have been released and you would have been dead in minutes. You were getting awfully close to stepping on one." "Oh, I see." replied Betsy, a little disappointed, "Why didn't you just say so?" "I panicked! Dead people are so messy!" he exclaimed, "and actually we need to be really careful throughout this whole area. This is where the largest colony of the night grip resides." Betsy glanced around nervously and saw some violently purple mushrooms scattered about. She wondered how she had missed them. They seemed so dreadfully ominous now.
B-"I thank you kind sir, but I fear that I have nothing to offer you as thanks for your kind deed!" exclaimed Betsy. "Well, a kiss from a fair maiden would be thanks enough for a lowly forest-man like me," stated the man. As he stooped down, because you see, he was rather tall, Sarah burst forth from the tree's (she had been watching the whole exchange from a conveniently placed bush) and cried "Stop you fiend! Back! Do you know what you are doing!? Betsy, get away from him! You haven't even known him for more than five minutes and during three of those you thought he was kidnapping you! What about 'Don't talk to strangers'? I'm pretty sure that 'Don't kiss strangers' is an obvious one." Betsy was blushing by now because all of what Sarah has said was true, but there was just something about him that seemed like you could trust him. But look what Simon turned out to be...




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