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Chapter 6

I stared at them in horror and stood up; I needed to get out of there.

“Where are you going?” asked Wendy.

“I don’t know, somewhere, anywhere but here!” I yelled, picking up my pace and breaking into a jog, making me way to the entrance. The security guards stopping me on my way out, they picked me up and placed me on the couch again.  

“Marlon is the Prime-Minister of Wake Summer Island. We have to wear wigs to disguise ourselves from Astra, but that hasn’t worked,” she explained with a sigh.

Then it struck me I was adopted by the Prime-Minister and his family. I was basically the Prime-Minister’s daughter. I then realized that Lisa had known all along. How could she not tell me?

“Hazel, are you ok? You look a little pale” Wendy asked.

“Yea-Yeah, I’m fine” I stammered. “So why are you guys in America, Shouldn’t You be at Wake Summer Island?”

“Yeah, but you see we came here because we knew that Astra was at us. Before you ask why he is trying to get us, let’s just say Astra and Marlon were best of friends, but secretly Astra was jealous because Marlon always did everything better than him. They were both candidates to become president. Marlon won and that was the last straw for Astra. He simply couldn’t take it anymore and tried to kill Marlon, but failed. So he is out there trying to succeed. Also Astra can’t stand losing.”

I gasped, that was horrible. No wonder Lisa wanted me to do this, it was obvious now. Astra was Lisa’s boss so she made me get into this too!  Suddenly check, yes Juliet, By We the Kings started playing and my pocket started vibrating, I jumped in surprise.

Run, baby run

Don’t ever look back

They’ll tear us apart

If you give them the chance

It took me a while to realize that my phone was ringing.

“Are you going to answer that?” asked Aaron, raising an eyebrow. I grabbed my phone and hit the green phone icon on the keypad.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” replied a deep, low voice. It didn’t sound like anyone I knew and I hadn’t given my phone number to anyone, but Lisa.

“Umm, who are you?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter!” replied the voice. I was really starting to get crept out by then. I put the call on loud speaker so everyone could hear.

“I need to know who you are; I think you have the wrong number,”

“I said it doesn’t matter and I think I would know if I had the wrong number.” The person on the other end replied, clearly getting frustrated. “All you need to know is that we have Marlon. You have one month to get the money and give it to us, we will be waiting at Sunny Coast Beach, and if you call the police you are all doomed!” The line went dead.  

I was in a state of shock. Lisa never told me that she was going to give my number to other people. That was so unfair!

“Well how much money can we spare for Marlon?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but we could do some fundraising and then pay the rest of the money from our bank account,” She replied. 

“We could have a car wash and garage sale!” I yelled out before anyone else could even register what Wendy had said. Wait, what? Why am I helping them, aren’t I suppose to help Lisa and Astra? They all turned and started at me while Wendy wrote down what I said. “What?” I asked the boys.

“Nothing” they mumbled and looked away. I instantly felt bad, Marlon has been kidnapped and there I am being all happy.

“What else?” asked Wendy as I stared at the wall in concentration.

“What about a bake sale?” suggested Andrew.

“That’s a great idea, I love baking” I yelled in joy, jumping up off the chair “We could bake all sorts of cupcakes and cakes!”

“Jeez calm down lady, this isn’t some sort of carnival” I sat back down feeling guilty, not for the first time I had forgotten why we were doing this. Everyone in the house was feeling upset and there I was jumping up and down. We continued suggesting ideas for the fundraiser and eventually had a whole page.

“Ok so the most achievable things on the list are the garage sale and the bake sale. Andre, Aaron, Andrew go clean up the garage. Anything in good condition that we haven’t used in the last six months we will sell. Hazel, come with me. I know we have some recipes around here, but before you guys go, we need to think of a date for all this. We could have it all on the same day,” explained Wendy.

 “How about the 30th? Today is the 19th so we have about elven days,” advised Aaron.

“The 30th is good, now off you go!” I was surprised that the boys didn’t even complain, but then again who would if it would help bring your dad back?

 “Check over there in that drawer,” Wendy commandeered. I walked over to the drawer, it look quite old. It was black and dusty. I dusted the top and was shocked to discover there was writing on it; it read ‘Wake Summer Island Prize Money’ with some weird symbols engraved on each side. They looked like some sort of rose entwined with a long green stem, snaking up to another rose. With a great deal of effort I pulled open the very old chest of drawers to expose masses of big, brown, crinkled envelops. Stamped on the front of each with red ink was the same design as on the top of the drawers.

“Wendy!” I called out. I heard her before I saw her as I was looking down.

“Yes?” she replied appearing next to me. I pointed to envelops lying in the drawer. Instantly her face light up and a wide grin replaced the unhappy mood she had been in. “Yes!” she screamed pumping her fits in the air, dancing around in glee. I laughed sometimes she acted like such a child, but it was amusing.

“What is it?” I asked curious as to why she was so excited.

“Well why don’t you open one and find out. Just be very gently because this is Marlon’s key to freedom” she replied grinning cheekily.

 I grabbed an envelope and discovered it was much heavier than it looked, I nearly dropped it. I poked my finger from the side and made my way to the other end, ripping it as I went. I felt so joyful when I saw the contents I felt like twirling around in joy just as Wendy had done a few seconds before.