Quite a boarding school!

by Bondwriter

13. Lewis' plan in action

The next Wednesday, after football practice, Keith walked back to St Peter, the house where his dorm was. He was by himself, for the coach had told Billy he had to go to the Main Office, which was located in the main building right in the middle of the school. Billy was his roommate and had been his friend for three years now.

They got along well. They had had a great football practice, and Keith was returning to his house satisfied with this autumn afternoon. They had won the game, and he had scored a few goals, which was enough to make him happy.

Now a good shower, getting rid of the homework, and they would have a fun evening with Billy. They had some talent with drawing, and they had gotten into drawing a full comic since the year had started. It was an adventure with a boy detective, his sidekick, and tons of villains whose main occupation seemed to tie up the detective and his friend.

He was thinking of how he would lay out his page with some new shenanigans by the villains, and was not really paying attention to what was going on around him. He just mindlessly followed the thin strip of cement that wound through the huge park, and was now reaching the undergrowth of a small wood that hid Saint Peter from the rest of the building.

Then, out of nowhere, three dark figures jumped on him. He had no time to react, and three pairs of arms had grabbed him. He had a flash of panic. He had not many enemies, but the few he had were some mean bastards. They all were cops' sons Billy and he had bet with and managed to relieve of a few pounds by showing them how he could not be kept by handcuffs.

They both were escapology specialists who prided themselves on getting out from many difficult tie-up positions. It was dark so he could not make out who his assailants were. But by the smell, and the size and build of the three kids holding his limbs and hand gagging him, he knew they were not the Boar or any of the other unsavoury bullies.

He did struggle, but to no avail, for very soon he felt rope encircling his wrists. That would be child play to get out of, but then his elbows were forcefully tied with another strand of soft but thick rope. The hand covering his mouth was removed, and he started insulting the attackers: "Let go of me, you b…mmmph!" This latest profanity was muffled by a ball of soft material that was packed inside his mouth.

Then two strips of tape got plastered over his lips, making his attempts at insulting his muggers futile. He tried to kick them, but now his arms were bound, they had little trouble in immobilizing his bare legs with coils of rope snugly wrapped at strategic points. In two minutes at the most they had him trussed up.

Keith was wondering what was going on. He was not frightened or shocked, since it was far from being the first time he was bound and gagged. And he knew by the way it had been done that these guys knew what they were doing. There had been no brutality but skilful technique put into overpowering him. The knots were not overly tight, and he felt them a bit. Three to four minutes to get out, he assessed. But he was dragged inside the wood, where he was made to stand against a maple tree, and more rope was used to truss him up.

He felt the three pairs of hands threading rope here and there, and (was it because of the darkness?) fondling his bare legs and his torso rather warmly. He still had no clue whatsoever as to the kids' identity. And he did not like their silence.

Not a word had been spoken; still they had perfectly coordinated their efforts so he soon was the regular guy in distress tightly tied to his tree. They did not draw the new ropes excessively tight, but still, having his arms behind his back was rather uncomfortable. And it would make escaping slightly longer than usual.

The three figures went back hiding behind a bush, as Keith was already feeling the rope work to find a way out. It had not been a minute when he heard someone coming on the path, whistling a Django Reinhardt tune. Billy! He moaned into the tight gag, but his friend apparently could not hear a thing!

The wind was against him, and he could wriggle and grunt all he could, Billy got seized as he had been. He heard a short struggle, a yell that was quickly muffled, and two minutes later, Billy was stood on the opposite side of the tree, and the three mysterious boys set to wrap him in ropes as they had his friend.

Billy had not suspected anything, but as he had been grabbed by surprise, he had suddenly realized that it was not by chance that he had been summoned to the Main Office. The secretary had looked at him in surprise as he had showed up after practice, wondering what he wanted; some administrative mistake, certainly, but nothing that had alarmed him. So he had walked back to Saint Peter joyfully, in a similar state of mind as his friend's ten minutes before.

He first had thought Keith had gotten friends to pull some prank on him, but when he got pulled over towards the tree, he saw that his friend was already there and apparently well trussed up. Once the three "villains" were done taking care of Billy, threading ropes behind Keith so the two sets of cords were each tying up a different boy, a torch was lit up, revealing to Lewis, Ben and Fred's eyes the result of their efforts.

Lewis spoke up. "So we were told you were escapologists? I've always wondered how these tricks worked… I guess you're going to show us!"

The only reply was two disgruntled grunts from the two truly upset boys. The remark from Ben did not soothe their anger.

"Aren't they cute in their little football kits? And there's not much they can do about us… Ah! Ah!" Keith and Billy now knew who was making fun of their sportswear. It was this shy kid whom they knew from maths class. And his two friends, who seemed content in watching them wriggling ever so slightly in their footie kits.

It had to be said also that at Thomas More, the football uniforms were rather unusual, due to the mass purchase of Adidas kits twenty years back, which had allowed the team to wear out of date sportswear for the last fifteen years. The Beckenbauer shorts were very short shorts, not that Keith and Billy minded too much having their thighs bare, or for that matter seeing their team-mates' legs. Of course there were some sniggers from opponents when they had to play outside, but as they kicked butts on a regular basis, the sniggers usually turned into moans.

"Indeed they are!" Fred added, "and how much time should we give them to try and get out?"

"Fifteen minutes seem reasonable if they are any good…" Lewis gloated. "Let's leave them alone now. We'll come back later to see if they managed. But I doubt it!" He chuckled, and the three friends moved away.

Even though speech was impossible, Keith and Billy soon realised the major mistake Lewis and his cronies had made. They had left each other's knots within reach of both boys' hands. So less than two minutes later, the ropes' grip loosened. And from there, in one minute at the most they were released from the tree.

They hopped a little so they stood back to back to untie the ropes holding their arms; another two minutes and they had the use of their arms. Then, each of them got rid of the gag; as they removed the ropes wrapped around their legs, they whispered…

"Are you OK Billy?"

"Yeah, no sweat. This is just a bunch of amateurs."

"Yup!" Keith replied.

Of course, this was not entirely true, but they would not admit the other boys knew their stuff after they had screwed up big time at the last minute. "Is it time for some payback?"

"You bet, K., we've got all we need here!"

It wasn't easy to see in the dark, but Keith saw Billy waving the coils of rope and the stuff that had been used to gag them.

© Copyright Bondwriter 2006

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