A Crazy Meeting

 A Crazy Meeting

“Can u keep a secret?”

“ Do we know each other?”

Hello, I am Mark Welingsley, 13 years old and I am currently in a train being asked to keep a secret from a person I have never seen in my entire life.

It all started today. For the vacation I persuaded my family to let me go to my Auntie’s house… alone. Some arguments and threats later I was all set. I arrived at the station at  exactly half past 12 with my bags ready and got to my seat. Suddenly, this total stranger walked up to me and asked me to keep a secret for him. 

“What are you talking about? Do we know each other?”

“Of course not! But I don’t think it will harm anyone to know a teeny tiny secret.”. 

I looked at him, utterly baffled. The boy was about my age, with very messy brown hair and brown eyes to match. He got a full Remus Lupin vibe from Harry Potter. If I knew any better I would have said, he is shy and calm.

My confusion must have shown on my face cause he suddenly said, “I will take this as a yes.”

Then I heard something, I certainly did not expect, “Snape killed ****! ****, ******, ***** died and Dumbledore was best friends with Grindelwald!”. He said it so fast I barely made out the words.

He was now breathing as if he had run a hundred miles.

“What was that for?”, I asked. Half frustrated, half amused.

“Everyone I know is reading Harry Potter. While I have completed the whole series, they have not reached Order of Pheonix. I have been keeping all these spoilers to myself for ages. And I have absolutely no experience in keeping a secret.”

“So u just decided to spill them to a random stranger?”

“Well… you looked like someone who reads a lot, so I guessed u have completed the series.”

“U guessed?!” That was the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

“Was I wrong?”

“Well no... but you can’t just tell spoilers of a book to a random stranger.” 

“Knew it! I always had a great instinct.”, after noticing the death stare I was giving him he quickly added, “I will of course keep that in mind for the next time. Anyway, I have to test your knowledge about Harry Potter!’

“Humph like you can ever beat me.” One of the things I was really proud of was my knowledge on Harry Potter. 

For the rest of the journey, both of us enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. I won in the quiz (like I predicted) And when we were mid-way discussing the flaws in the books, I realised that I was about to reach my station.

“I am here”, I announced. 

“Oh well, so am I”, he answered.

I was a bit surprised but nevermind. We parted at the station and I took one of the taxis outside and went towards my destination. Even though my first impression of that boy was that he was very loud and noisy, it was quite fun travelling with him. It reminds me that I forgot to ask his name. I FORGOT TO ASK THE NAME OF A BOY, I WAS TALKING DURING THE WHOLE JOURNEY!! I will ask him, if I ever met him again, although the chances are less than 1%

During the journey to my Auntie’s, I also remembered that my cousin will visit us as well. He isn’t my direct cousin, instead he is my cousin from my Uncle’s side, so I have really not met him. From what I heard about him, his parents passed away when he was young, so he takes turns staying at each relatives’ house. I feel rather sad for him, he must have felt so lonely while being tossed around from one house to another.

Finally I reached my aunt’s house. She lives in the countryside, so it was no surprise when I saw chickens, cows and a huge field. Aunt was feeding the chickens, when I arrived. I ran to greet her, as soon as she noticed me running towards her, she smiled her sweet smile.

“Aunt Morga!! I am here!”, I announced grandly.

“Yeah yeah, I saw you running towards me at the speed of a horse” We laughed and joked. Suddenly a head popped from inside of the house. “Aunt Morga, why are you laughing so much? Tell me the joke as well.” A boy came running towards her and hugged her. Then he looked at me…

“Noname?! You?!”, I yelled, startled to see the familiar face.

For some reason he looked more disgruntled than surprised.

“Noname?  Seriously? I confided my secrets with you to be called a Noname?”he said, shaking his head disapprovingly at me, “I thought, you could make something better.’

I couldn’t believe it! This guy just met a stranger he talked to the whole time during his journey in the same place where he is and all he cares about is that I called him “Noname”?!

Just as I was about to speak, Aunt interrefered, “You guys know each other?!” 

She was looking mildly amused, for no particular.

“Yes”, we both said at the same time.

“We met on the train, it was quite a meeting you know.”, I added while having him twist under my gaze. I literally thought that guy was being kidnapped or something when he said, “Can keep a secret?” And what he told me? Harry Potter spoilers!

“Oh I am glad you guys met already. Saves me a lot of trouble. Let me introduce you guys formally. Mark this is Andy, your cousin. And this is Mark, your cousin.”, Aunt said while pointing at each of us.

“Glad to finally know your name, Noname.”, I said sneering.

After a hearty lunch, we decided to take a walk around the field. By we, I mean Andy and me.

“Be careful around the field, there have  been awful a lot of robberies around here.”, Aunt warned.

“What do you mean Auntie?”, I asked.

“Someone has been stealing crops from the storage in the neighbourhood. After the crops, they are now starting to steal animals and anything valuable. We reported them to the cops but no luck finding them.”

“Don’t worry Aunt we wil be careful.”, Andy said while waving his hand. With that we took our leave.

We saw several different animals, along our way. Andy had vast amounts of knowledge on all kinds of animals, to my surprise. I feel like I have gotten surprised too many times today.

“What do you call the security outside of a Samsung Store?”, I asked suddenly.

“What do you call them?

“Guardians of the Galaxy.” Both of us laughed at this till our stomach hurt. Another one of the things I most pride myself on is my dad jokes.

“What do we call a crying sister?”, Andy asked me.

“A crisis!” Both of us answered at the same time. We were laughing so much, our legs turned into jelly and we tumbled on each other clutching our sides. 

“Bro, I don’t know why but I am feeling like I am sitting on a wooden plank.”

“Me too.”

We removed the mud from where we were sitting and saw a wooden trapdoor.

“Who makes a trapdoor in a field?, I asked Andy.

“Let's go down and check, shall we?”

With that we went down the trapdoor. It was really dark inside but surprisingly there were many lamps inside.

“Woah this place is amazing”, Andy cried.

We began to explore the trapdoor. I suddenly felt something on my foot and the next moment I was dangling in the air… upside down.

“Andy! Help me with this!”

Andy came to my shouting and after one look at me, he started laughing so hard veins popped out of his face . I was already embarrassed and Andy was making sure that I would never forget it.

After laughing as if he will never laugh again in his entire life, Andy cut the rope which was around my foot with a sharp stone and set me down.

I was just glad to finally see the world the right way. But suddenly something caught my eye.

“Hey! Its sacks of crops”, I announced, pointing at a small mountain in the tunnel. There were also many kinds of tools beside the sacks.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?”, Andy asked and we shared a meaningful glance.

 ***

“You are just in time for dinner boys.”, Aunt Morga said as we came inside.

Little did she know that like those four children in the Famous Five by Enid Blyton, we two have also solved a mystery as soon as we came!

Because Andy and I were sharing one room, we decided to keep our observations to ourselves… for now. We were so quiet that Aunt Morga was getting suspicious of us so we decided to go to bed early saying that we were tired from the field walk.

“When do you think they will make a move?”, Andy asked as soon as I closed the door.

“I don’t know… let’s go there tonight.”, I answered.

“That's why we are best friends.”, Andy said while pointing at me and I pointed at him with my eyebrow raised. Andy collapsed in laughter as soon as he saw my eyebrows.

“Dude, that's soo cool”

“I know right? Let’s wait till Aunt is asleep, then we

will make our move.”

So we waited until half past midnight till we could not hear anything from downstairs.

“Let’s go.” I whispered to Andy as soon as I was sure the road was clear.

So we sneaked out of the house and rushed to the trap door. Andy helped to open it and we descended the stairs. As soon as we descended I switched on the light. And someone suddenly threw a blanket upon the both of us!

We looked at each other in the darkness and even though we could not see each other’s faces we knew we both were thinking the same thing. This was it. We are never going to see the sunlight again. We are both going to die here, in a lonely tunnel with no one but each other at our side.

They started to tie our hands and lead us somewhere. Then they removed the blanket. Before my eyes could even adjust to the brightness I heard a familiar voice,

“Mark! Andy! What are you two doing here?!” 

I looked up and saw Aunt Morga hovering above us and looking very shocked and angry.

“I...we can explain!”, I stuttered.

I took in my surroundings and saw several familiar faces from the village. Look, now I was really confused. What is happening here?! The villagers cannot be stealing their own crops can they?

I looked towards Andy and saw my expressions mirrored on him. I knew he was just as confused as I was.

“So... ?”, Aunt said impatiently. I was having a feeling that we were in big trouble and I can tell Andy was thinking the same thing.

“We… we saw this trapdoor while we were taking a walk around the field...and..” I stuttered.

“And we came inside and saw many sacks of crops and different tools so we...we concluded...that”, Andy continued.

“We concluded that this was the thieves’ lair”, I finally finished.

“And you thought it would be a good idea to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to explore a presumed lair of a gang of thieves stealing crops.”, Aunt said furiously.

“What is this anyway? Why are you guys here? Why are there sacks of crops mounted over each other?”, I asked, trying to change the topic.

“We made this tunnel to keep our crops safe from those thieves. We decided to patrol it with some local village cops” she pointed at some two men, “Your chance to explain”

“Well...we...we wanted…” Andy started, but at that exact moment we heard footsteps from the other side of the trap door. Both of us heaved a huge sigh of relief. But the relief didn’t stay for long.

Someone was descending the stairs now and from the looks of my Aunt and other villagers, we weren’t short of patrollers.

“Are they the thieves?” I whispered to Andy.

“I think so. How did they know about this place?”, Andy whispered back.

“Dunno”

Aunt shushed us and someone switched the lights off. Whoever was coming down was not unprepared. There was a lot of clanking of tools and footsteps of heavy boots. I was hoping that someone was ready with the blanket and ropes.

As they came down with a thud someone bestowed the Almighty blanket upon them. Even though I could not see anything but I can hear them struggle from under the blanket. The cops got their guns ready and pointed at them. At once, they stopped struggling and stayed still. Someone was now tying their hands as tools fell down. At last, they removed the blanket with a swish and switched on the light.

“Markus?! Agnus?! Why is it you guys?!” someone said while pointing at the two burglers.

Andy and I had no idea what was happening so we decided to keep our mouth shut.

“Why can’t it be us?!”, the tall bulgar said. “You guys kicked us out of the village when we were younger and now when we can finally take our revenge you ruined it as well! We were going to steal your crops and animals until you don’t have anything! Nothing at all!”

He was going mad! His eyes were popping and he was laughing menacingly

“Well not much of a revenge was it?”, one of the cops teased him.

“Who says?”, the short burglar said. I saw something shining in their sleeves and pointed it to Andy. We both exchanged a meaningful glance and picked one stone each.

Just as they were about to make a move I shouted, “NOW!”

Andy and I both threw the stones at the exact same time, catching the thieves off guard. They lost their grips on their knives and the cops cuffed their hands in case they further tried anything.

Andy and I high fived each other and got out of that tunnel after the cops escorted the burglars back. I looked at Andy and said,

“Well it didn’t go quite as expected did it?”

“Nah but at least we were of some help.”, Andy replied.

“And considering the fact that you two saved someone’s life, I can reduce your punishment a bit”, Aunt Morga said from behind us, “You two are grounded for full three weeks.”

“Ugh!!”, we both exclaimed. “I guess heroes are not always praised.”, I whispered to Andy and he replied,

“But then again, reality is different from a book.”