When Barbie Takes Over

9- Kidnapped (Again)

Chapter Nine:

Kidnapped (Again):

“Who is it from?” Quinn asked me at lunch on Friday.

“Er…my mom,” I lied quickly. On the screen of my phone was a simple text message. Most girls would love to get one like it, from any guy. But all I felt was curiosity.

‘Don’t make plans tonight. I’m taking you out for dinner,’ Garret had just texted me. I had yet to reply.

“What’s she want?” Quinn asked. She didn’t know that my parents never texted. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“Just organizing what’s for dinner,” I said easily.

“Mm, ‘kay,” Quinn said. She went back to doing her math homework.

‘Why? What makes you think I don’t already have plans?’ I asked Garrett. I held my phone under the table slightly so that even if Quinn happened to glance over at me, she wouldn’t see who I was texting.

Garrett texted me back almost immediately, ‘As a thank you. I’m paying. So just agree already.’

‘I can't just let you pay for me, you always do. And you have no reason to thank me,’ I told him.

‘You never let my mom pay you, so she gave me money and told me to use it on you. And I want to thank you for the photos.’

I was about to text him back and say that Ashley shouldn’t be paying me for watching Kyle and Maddy, because it wasn’t like I did much anyways; they entertained themselves. I was also going to tell him that giving him the photos took like five minutes of effort, the computer did the rest.

But then Garrett texted back, ending my protest for the moment. ‘I know you’re about to tell me no, I can see you. Just agree already. If you don’t, I’m kidnapping you.’

I looked around the area where Quinn and I ate lunch. It wasn’t the cafeteria but it was pretty much the same thing, just no food was sold here.

Sure enough, sitting on a bench across the room with a bunch of his friends was Garrett. He caught me looking at him and he smirked.

I just rolled my eyes and texted him back one last time. ‘You aren’t creepy at all. ;)’

‘I’ll pick you up at five. My mom can watch Alice.’

“Got it sorted?” Quinn asked as I tucked my phone away into my bag.

It took me a second to remember what she was talking about. “Yeah, it’s all cool.”

Quinn nodded and continued doing her homework, her head bobbed slightly as she stayed in tune to the music playing from her iPod.

When I picked Alice up from Ashley’s later that day, I felt like a terrible person. Both Maddy and Alice gave me their puppy dog faces and begged to let Alice stay. I wanted to let her. But it wasn’t fair to Ashley to just leave Alice there; especially with her mother visiting.

But they finally did smile when I told them that Alice would be coming back later that evening. I checked with Ashley and she confirmed that it would be alright for Alice to go back there later, until my parents got home.

“Why am I going back to Maddy’s later?” Alice asked as we made our way across the street.

“Because I’m going out with Garrett,” I told her.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Alice asked bluntly. As she looked up at me, her glasses slipped down her nose slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice.