"Here, let me see that leg. You get over here and let me fix that leg." Auntie Tina pulled Amanda over and gestured for her to sit on the stool next to the sink where she removed the bandage and started cleaning her leg.

"Now I am really mad. Those no good thieves better look out if I get near them," said Auntie Tina.

Peter suddenly shouted, "I have access."

"Great. Email Mom and tell her where we are. Maybe she can come get us," said Amanda.

Peter wrote a quick email to his mom. "Here Thibodeaux, tell my mother where we are."

Thibodeaux quickly typed the address and directions and then Peter hit send and the email left.

"Now, we need to decide what you can wear today," said Auntie Tina as she looked around the room at Peter and Amanda who were wearing men's size extra large white tee shirts with their coats on top because it was cold in the apartment.

Mr. Garvain and Miss Virginia were wearing transit worker uniforms.

"Thibodeaux, you lend these kids some of your clothes and I am going to take Miss Virginia to look in my closet.

Just then a very sleepy Cindy walked into the kitchen wrapped up in a bedspread. She was completely swallowed by the men's extra large tee shirt she had worn to sleep.

"Here sweetie, you just sit down and eat some waffles. Do you drink coffee too?" asked Auntie Tina.

Cindy shook her head. Miss Virginia handed Cindy a glass of water and then she followed Auntie Tina down the hall to find some clothes.

"Come on kids, I'll get you decked out to do some rappin'," said Thibodeaux.

Thibodeaux took Amanda and Peter down the hall to his room to find some clothes.

"I will look for something that will fit you," Amanda told Cindy.

Cindy sat at the table eating. Mr. Garvain was sitting with her, drinking coffee. He tried to talk to Cindy, but Cindy was simply too tired to try.

"Perhaps you should try to drink some coffee, dear. It might perk you up," said Mr. Garvain.

"I'm nine years old," said Cindy. "Nine year old kids should not be drinking coffee."

"But of course not. Whatever was I thinking," said Mr. Garvain.

"They shouldn't be drinking or smoking cigarettes, either," said Cindy.

"Please don't think that I...." Mr. Garvain decided to quit talking.

Down the hall, Aunt Tina found a pair of pants and a shirt that she gave to Miss Virginia. Thibodeaux decked out Amanda and Peter to look like rappers and then he told Amanda, "Here, take these clothes to Cindy."

"Thanks, I will have my mother send your clothes to the cleaners and then mail them back to you. It will be so nice to think about things like how to get clothes cleaned," said Amanda.

Amanda walked into the kitchen and handed the clothes to Cindy and told her to get dressed.

As soon as everyone was dressed, they all moved into the living room to talk.

"I think Cindy, Peter, and I need to try to get home to Connecticut," said Amanda. "The roads up here are not as blocked with empty cars. People must have been able to drive out of here."

"Well, I would take you but I don't have a car and I don't drive," said Auntie Tina.

"Miss Virginia and I never learned to drive. We have lived in the city our entire lives," said Mr. Garvain.

"I drive," said Amanda.

"You what?" said Cindy. "You don't drive, you are twelve years old. Just because you drink coffee, that doesn't mean you can drive."

"My grandfather taught me. He lives on a ranch in West Texas and there are a lot of roads on his ranch so he always lets Peter and me drive when we stay with him in the summer. He even let me drive to town with him in the front seat, but don't you dare tell Mom," said Amanda.

"Your mom does not know you drive?" asked Cindy.

"She knows we drive on the ranch, she just does not know about the driving to town part," said Amanda.

"How can Peter drive?" asked Thibodeaux. "He's too short."

"He sits on two phone books," said Amanda.

Everyone laughed and Peter got mad. "You shouldn't have told them that."

"Sorry. But it doesn't help that I know how to drive, we don't have a car," said Amanda.

"We could take one of Uncle Jefferson's hearses. I have the keys to his funeral parlor cuz I get paid to get all dressed up in a black suit and help load the flowers into the hearse after the service. Everyone says I look great and I get lots of tips," said Thibodeaux.

"Would he mind if we took a hearse?" asked Amanda.

"Well, if he is there, we can ask him to drive us out of here and if he is not, I know, we'll just leave another note," said Thibodeaux.

"Okay. That's a plan," said Peter. "Mom still has not emailed us back. I am getting some spam but nothing from her."

"Here, let me email some of my friends in Connecticut. I will tell them to tell their mothers and maybe they will know how to reach our mother."

Amanda sat down at Peter's computer and started to send a group email to her friends, letting them know what happened and where they were. She also sent them the files just for good measure. Amanda was feeling pretty good about what she had just done when suddenly there was a knock on the door.

Auntie Tina started to slowly walk to the door to answer it when Amanda said. "Wait. Can you tell who it is before you open the door?"

"Who is it?" Auntie Tina shouted through the door.

There was no answer.

"Who is it?" Auntie Tina shouted again.

There was still no answer.

Amanda walked over to the door and looked through the peep hole. "It's them. It's the bad guys who grabbed Thibodeaux and came to Mr. Garvain and Miss Virginia's house.

"How did they get here? I threw away the flash drive," said Peter.

"It must have left something on your computer when you downloaded it. Maybe they saw the email with the address," said Amanda. "I know they did not see us come here."

"No. No. It's the I-Phone. Oh man, I let them take my I-Phone and the bill comes here. They must have gone on the internet and figured it out," said Thibodeaux.

"Thibodeaux, what's this about your losing your I-Phone. That was a present," said Auntie Tina.

"What are we going to do?" interrupted Miss Virginia. "We cannot call the cops and there is no back way here."

"Well, we are the adults and we are going to take care of the situation," said Auntie Tina. "Boy, I'll talk to you about that I-Phone later," Auntie Tina told Thibodeaux. "Miss Virginia, Mr. Garvain, you are with me."

Mr. Garvain and Miss Virginia looked surprised and scared but then they both said, "Of course."

"Thibodeaux, you take those kids and all their stuff next door," said Auntie Tina.

"We can't go next door. They will grab us in the hall," said Peter.

"You just get your things and follow Thibodeaux and don't you come back in here until I tell you to," said Auntie Tina as she picked up the duct tape Thibodeaux had left on the counter.

Peter picked up his laptop and they all followed Thibodeaux who took them into Auntie Tina's bedroom. He opened the door to a closet that was filled to the brim with clothes.

"Are we going to hide in a closet?" asked Cindy.

"Just follow me," said Thibodeaux. He pulled the clothes apart and then reached into the back of the closet and opened a hidden door and walked through it.

The children followed Thibodeaux into another closet on the other side and out into a bedroom. After they were through, Thibodeaux pulled all of Auntie Tina's clothes back to where they had been and closed the door.

They were in another apartment. But this one was pink, very pink. Pink walls and pink and white upholstery on all the painted white wood furniture. All the curtains were ruffled, pink. Even the rugs were pink.

"Whose apartment is this and why is it so pink?" asked Cindy.

"It's my cousin Vanessa's and that woman just loves her pink. Aunt Tina may own the building, but this apartment is rent controlled so Vanessa is supposed to be living here full time, but she went on vacation to Jamaica and met this man and she hasn't been back since. But Auntie Tina and I are taking care of things, making it look like she still lives here cuz like Auntie Tina says, Vanessa's done that kind of thing before and she always comes back home. So we come over here and turn on the lights and use the air conditioning and talk on the phone so the other tenants don't get suspicious. That's why we put the door in," said Thibodeaux.

"She does not mind you having a door to her bedroom?" asked Amanda.

"Probably so, Vanessa is a gal who likes her company, but she will have to come back to complain about that," said Thibodeaux.

"How long has she been gone?" asked Cindy.

"Just five years."

"Oh," said Cindy.

"But what is your Aunt going to do about those bad men?" asked Amanda.

"Well, I wouldn't mess with Auntie Tina. She may be using a walker, but she is one fierce woman. My mom and Vanessa said they were really scared of her when they were young. But I'm not scared, she is old now and besides, I think she likes boys," said Thibodeaux.

"I'm not a boy," said Cindy.

"Well, my Mamma and Vanessa are still alive so you should be okay," said Thibodeaux. "Hey, when this is over, you kids need to work on your sense of humor."

"But, what is she going to do?" asked Amanda.

"Oh, she'll conjure up something. She'll throw some Voodoo or Santeria on them," said Thibodeaux.

"She does Voodoo?" Amanda was horrified.

"No, not real voodoo. She was a drama teacher, not some kind of priestess. She puts it together every year for the Halloween carnival at the church. Auntie told me she does not believe in Voodoo, Santeria or black magic, she just does it to scare people. But sometimes I wonder with all those altars and chickens and some of the folks who hang around here..." said Thibodeaux.

"Chickens. Why do you keep talking about chickens?" asked Cindy.

Amanda moved closer to Cindy and Peter.

"Hey, kids. I'm just kidding," said Thibodeaux, but he did not look like he was kidding.

Amanda sat down on the bed. It seemed crazy not to worry when the three old people next door were supposed to take care of the bad guys, but Thibodeaux wasn't worried and he did not seem crazy at all. And it was so nice to let someone grown up take care of something.

They sat surrounded by pink ruffles for what seemed like hours, but perhaps wasn't. Suddenly, there was a rustling sound in the closet next door and they could hear Auntie Tina's voice. "See that door there. Just open it and go get the kids." And Miss Virginia walked into the room.

Miss Virginia looked very excited and pleased with herself but she was physically a mess and covered in blood stains. "Come on kids. We took care of it. It is okay for you to come back next door."

So the posse followed Miss Virginia back through the hidden door in the closet and down the hall through the kitchen into the dining room. There, seated on two dining room chairs where two of the bad guys who had broke into Tiffany's and followed them to Mr. Garvain's home. They had duct tape wrapped all around their arms and torso and their legs and upper bodies were duct taped to the chairs and they had duct tape over their mouths. All the shades and curtains were drawn and the apartment was lit with black light from some portable flashlights. There were lit candles with a strange scent on every available surface and an old battery operated tape recorder on the kitchen counter. There were splatters of what looked like blood all over the vinyl floor, but the bad guys did not look like they were bleeding, just messy.

"Good. I'm glad you are duct taped to the chair. You are very bad men to blow up Tiffany's," said Cindy to the men who could not reply.

"What happened?" said Amanda.

"Well your aunt conjured up a little black magic and almost scared these two men to death. Well, she actually scared the bedickens out of Miss Virginia and me but we were on her side so, well, we were in favor if what she was doing. Right, Miss Virginia?"

"Right. I have never in my life...."

"Now, remember how you promised to keep everything secret," said Auntie Tina.

"Well, yes and we will. Not that anyone would believe it if we told them. But our lips are sealed. Not a word will escape our mouths and we want to be on your good side for the rest of our lives," said Mr. Garvain.

"Both you and your sister were of a lot of help. There is no way I could have handled all those chickens without you," said Auntie Tina.

"Chickens?" asked Amanda.

"We had to do a little butchering, and Miss Virginia and Mr. Garvain got a little bloody. It is a shame we all have to leave because, I could cook up a nice chicken fry," said Auntie Tina.

"Where did your aunt get chickens?" asked Amanda.

"There is another apartment next door...." Thibodeaux started to tell Amanda, but then he saw the look on his Aunt's face and stopped.

"Why does your Auntie have chickens in the apartment next door?" asked Amanda.

"Listen, it's a secret. Can you just pretend you never saw this?" asked Thibodeaux.

Miss Virginia surreptitiously put her finger to her mouth to signal them to be quiet.