Doris Elliot

About the Author:

Charlie Flint is 12 years old and loves to eat and sleep.

Life is like a chicken with its head cut off. You run around trying to make sense of what is going on all around you, until you realize you are just going to die. EVERYONE is going to die. So it just sucks. Everything and everybody sucks. This is what Doris Elliott thinks about her life right now. Her brother sucks. Her dad sucks. Her mom sucks. School sucks. Heck, the only place that Doris thinks doesn't suck, is New York City. But, she has never actually been there, and her mother says the New York is dangerous and she can’t go. Doris is not afraid of anything. Doris is not a chicken with its head cut off.

Currently, our Doris is sitting in bed. It is 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Her matted red hair is covering her freckled face. Right now, any other 14 year old in Ohio would be awake. After all, it is 10 o’clock. But not Doris Elliott. You see Doris is like an owl. She sleeps during the day and she is awake during the night. But Doris is a human. And humans are very different than owls. With the exception of Doris. Right now Doris should not be in bed right now, and she has to go to church. And she HATES church. As a matter of fact, Doris hates a lot of things. Let's make a list.

Things Doris hates: Things Doris loves:

School Girl scout cookies

Church Hats

Alarm clocks New York city

Babys The radio

Ohio Bread

Raisins Winning

Cats

Jazz

Doris stays in bed for about five minutes, until her sucky mother pulls her out. Doris is then forced to church and barely survives. Now, 24 hours later, she is riding on a train full of strangers to one of the biggest cities on earth. Now, you are probably wondering what Doris is doing here. Shouldn't she be in Ohio bored to death? Yes. Yes she should. Doris does not have any money, and she has not traveled anywhere farther than the grocery store. So as you may now think, Doris is completely unprepared for New York City.

But how did Doris get here? She ran away. After Doris FINALLY got out of bed, (at 12:00) her dad got mad at her for not taking out the trash. And before Doris thought her family sucked, well now it sucked even more. So Doris ran away to the train station. Actually, she kind of jogged. More like a slow walk. But that isn't important. Then Doris hid her tall lanky body behind a wide-hipped woman and somehow, got onto the train. Well, that brings us back to current time.

Well, Doris thought that the ride to New York would be quick, kind of like ripping off a band-aid. Except not as painful. Little did she know, the train ride was 6 hours and 17 minutes. And she did not pack a snack. And she did not eat breakfast.

When Doris got off the train, it was dark outside. She was cold, tired and hungry, and she wanted to go home. Doris turned to go back to the train, only to see it speed away from the station.

“Crap” she mumbled.

You see, Doris is a good person, she does not swear unless it is needed. Right now, she needed to swear. Doris heard her stomach rumble and she knew, that she had to eat. Many people don't realize how difficult it is to find food and a place to sleep when you don’t have any money, and you look like a beggar. Doris gave up on her search for food and tried to find a nice alley to sleep. Even when you add nice to it, that does not mean that it is really nice.

Doris darted into an eerie alley, and sank down into the shadows. Her eyelids started to close into a deep slumber. Later, (Doris did not know how long) she heard voices in the deserted alley. Still in the shadows, she peaked over a stack of old milk crates. She saw several shadows yelling and wrestling. It seemed like they were all fighting one person. Doris looked closer and saw that it was a tall man. The argument started getting more physical. The biggest one of the group threw the man against the wall. Doris saw his head smash against the brick, and his body sank into a pool of moonlight. There was lots of blood. Lots. She smelled the iron odor waft through her nose. It was covering the man's waxy mustache. Doris let out a gasp. It was quiet, but it echoed through the silence.

“WHOS THERE.” Boomed a deep voice. Crap. Crap, crap, and crap. Doris stayed dead quiet, she didn’t even breath.

*thump*

*thump*

*thump*

The biggest man limped over to Doris. He grabbed the front of her dirty shirt and dragged her into the light.

“What did you see?” he growled. Doris stayed silent.

“WHAT DID YOU SEE?” He spat into her face. Doris twisted to get out of his grip. She wanted to go home to lay in her own bed. Another man walked next to her.

“Whaddya see girly? Answer the man!” He drunkenly drawled out.

“He asked you what you saw. ANSWER THE GODDAMN MAN!” yet another man appeared, looking scarier than the last. His crooked mustache twitched, and his eyes showed no color. Doris tried to run away, but the limping man held on tight. Her whole body went limp with fear. She tried to scream, but no words came out. She felt a burlap sack swallow her up, with the itchy fabric against her body. Doris heard the clanging of metal steps, as she felt herself trudge upwards. Doris tried to scream, but her voice got swallowed up into the night. She heard glass breaking and felt shards come through the small holes.

Doris felt her leg ache. Her whole body ached in fact, and the burlap didn’t help.

*SLAM*

Doris got dumped onto the cold dusty floor. She wiggled her way out of the sack, right into a colony of spider webs. Doris did not know where she was, and she was scared. So she quivered her lip and did something she did not do often. She cried. And this was not a sniffle, this was a full-on sob. Can you think of something more pathetic than blubbering in an abandoned apartment? I can’t. Doris rarely cries. The only time Doris remembers crying was when her pet fish named Florence died.

Soon Doris ran out of tears, and she wanted, no, she NEEDED to go back home. The sun had come up, so she could see her surroundings. The apartment looked like it had not been occupied for 50 years now. The yellow wallpaper was peeling and a musty smell had filled her nostrils. She saw where she had entered the room. There was shattered glass all over the floor. Her legs had pins and needles, and she was still groggy from the night before. Doris drifted off into a deep sleep.

“Is she awake?”

“Shut up Craig, she could hear us!”

Doris cracked her eyes open, hoping to expect her safe Ohio all around her, only to find she was still in the abandoned apartment. Above her stood the three men from last night. Actually only two were standing, one was lying on the floor from an obvious hangover. The biggest man with a limp looked a lot less frightening in broad daylight. But the man with the glassed over eyes was still just as terrifying. They obviously did not know that she was awake yet, so they kept on talking, and Doris kept on listening.

“What are we going to do with her? ARE WE GOING TO KILL HER?” The drunkenly sprawled body on the floor asked.

“SHUT UP CRAIG!” The glassy-eyed man screamed at him. Doris jolted upright from the sound, and turned to the men. Their mean faces looked down at her. Right then Doris remembered what her father had said to her when she was five years old.

Don’t let people know you are scared.

Of course saying this to five year old Doris had most certainly scared her. This had never applied to her, because she had never been scared. Accept when Florence died. Doris stood up, her full height of 5 feet and 7 inches. She looked the men straight in the eye and ran. She did not get very far, about 1 or 2 feet. She tripped over the drunk man (who she now knew was Craig) and rolled onto the floor.

“OW! She… She… Tripped… Owww….” Craig mumbled before sinking into a deep sleep.

“Sweet Jesus Christ Craig! When will ya ever get off the whiskey?” The glass-eyed man sighed. He reached down and dragged Doris to her feet. His ice-cold hand made Doris wince, and her arm turned bright red. When Doris was on both feet, he looked her straight in the eye, and said five very frightening words.

“You. Will. Not. Leave…. EVER.” Doris trembled, and her lower lip quivered.

You can’t cry again, not this time. Doris thought.

The scary man kept on talking, “I don’t want you to tell anyone what you have seen, so you will stay here… FOREVER!”

The men all walked out of the room to lock the door and Doris was left alone with her thoughts. Doris remembered how she got into the apartment, so she ran over to the smashed window. The ladder was gone, and the building was about four stories tall. Doris got woozy looking down, so she backed up and slumped against the wall. She found herself trapped by a mouthful of cobwebs and a noseful of dust.

Now Doris worriedly thought about what would happen if she did not get out… starvation, madness, death? She did not want to live with any of these things, so Doris hatched a plan. She did not know if the men were going to come back to see if she was still there.

Use weakness to your advantage.

Another saying from Doris’s father that had scared the bejeezus out of her. But Doris thought this might work. To make Doris’s plan work, she needed to get the three kidnappers into the room.

*Step*

*Thud*

*Step*

*Thud*

*Step*

*Thud*

*Step*

*Creak*

Perfect, a loose floorboard! Doris needed something that could get the kidnappers attention. With both hands, Doris grabbed the floorboard and tried to remove it from its original position. When it finally came up Doris winced at the thing she was going to do next. She could see the next apartment through the broken glass, and it looked inhabited. With all her might, Doris heaved the wooden plank out the window and through the next. She then quickly hid next to the window so people would not see her. Now all Doris had to do, was wait.

An hour later, Doris heard thuds up the stairs. Her idea was going as planned! Craig, Glass-eye, and Limp were standing in front of her.

“We heard some people saying that somebody was staying in the old abandoned apartment… something about ghost throwing wood through people's windows?” Craig said. Now part two of Doris’s plan.

“Do Y'all mind if I have a private talk with you?” she pointed at Limp. The men exchanged looks, and reluctantly, the big man with a limp stepped forward. Doris gave the men a withering look, and shooed them out of the room. Doris then, screamed

“FREE BEER! FIRST COME FIRST SERVE!” She smiled to herself as she heard Craig trot down the stairs. Limp was still standing in the room, and as fast as she could, Doris darted away faster then he could move. Now glass eye. Doris knew he would be the hardest one to escape. Quietly Doris ran to the exit. She skidded to a halt as she saw Glass eye looking the other way. Doris felt the cobwebs brush her cheek as she tiptoed away to her freedom.

Dear Craig, Glass-Eye, and Limp,

Boy, you all should work on kidnapping people! (You aren’t very good at it.) Anyway, I’m off to Ohio... Boring old Ohio. Well, I can officially say that I outsmarted you. I am pretty sure that I am going to get grounded when I get home, but at least I have been to one of the biggest cities. I have to say, it was not all that I expected. I think that I have learned my lesson though. Never go to a big city without an escape plan!

Your hostage, Doris Elliott