Taken

Chapter 33

RIKKI

 October 21, 2013 9:00 a.m.

 “Rikki, wake up,” Kelsi said.

 “What’s wrong?” I mumble.

 “There’s a note for you,” she replied as she handed me a piece of notebook paper.

 I read the note:

 Rikki,

 Carlos had to run an errand, and I’m over supervising the boys chopping wood. You and Kelsi can have the day to yourselves. See you later, babe.

 --Troy

 “What does it say?” questioned Kelsi.

 “It says we can have the day to ourselves,” I replied, ignoring the part where Troy called me 'babe'.

 “Oh, so what do you want to do?”

 “I don’t know. Should we go see what’s in the kitchen?” I asked. When we got into the kitchen, Kelsi and I began looking through all of the cupboards. “Well, it looks like they have enough groceries to feed an army.”

 “Yeah,” Kelsi agreed. “Let’s bake a cake.”

 Then I remembered why this day felt strange. It was October 21st, my best friend’s birthday. Now Bailey was going to have to spend her birthday without me. I began to feel sick.

 “Rikki, what’s wrong?” asked Kelsi.

 “Nothing, Kelsi, let’s just make that cake,” I replied, deciding that even though I couldn’t be there for Bailey on her birthday, I could still make her a cake. “Okay, where can we find a cake recipe?”

 “Well, we could see if that computer works,” Kelsi said, pointing at a computer sitting on a desk in the den.

 “Yeah, maybe the house has wifi,” I replied. “Hey, that means we could email our parents and tell them where we are!” I started typing away on the computer quickly. The computer didn’t have a password on it, so that was good. When I tried to go onto the Internet, it said that there was no wifi source.

 “Dang it,” said Kelsi.

 “Yeah, I’m mad. I actually thought we had a chance to get rescued. I guess Jeff’s smarter than we give him credit for. He must’ve turned the Internet source off before he left.”

 “Yeah, so what do we do now?” asked Kelsi.

 “I guess we’ll have to bake the old-fashioned way. Start looking for a cookbook.” After about five minutes, we found one cookbook. It had a few cake recipes, and we chose the chocolate cake recipe, since chocolate is Bailey’s favorite.

“Let’s get started. Okay, we have to measure two cups of flour,” I started. For the next half hour, we measured, stirred, and poured. When we finally got the cake in the oven, we were exhausted. A half hour later, the cake was ready. We took the cake out of the oven to cool and started to make a buttercream frosting.

Once the cake was cooled and the frosting was made, Kelsi and I found two butterknives and began to frost the cake. When we were done, we stepped back to observe our work.

"This cake looks really good. Rikki, are you sure there isn't something wrong?" Kelsi asked.

"Well, Kelsi, today is my best friend's 17th birthday. I'm sad that I can't be there for her today, so I thought baking a cake for her would be a good idea."

"Rikki, I'm so sorry. I'm sure Bailey would've loved the cake," Kelsi assured me.

"How did you know Bailey was my best friend?" I questioned Kelsi. I was sure that I had never mentioned Bailey before when Kelsi was awake.

"When we were back home, Kade talked about you all the time and how your best friend and his best friend were dating," Kelsi explained.

"Oh, yeah. Taylor and Bailey, that makes sense now. Wait, Kade talked about me all the time before we got kidnapped?" I inquired.

"Yeah, it was like you were the only thing he thought about. It would always be 'Rikki looked so cute today in her new jean jacket' or 'Taylor and Bailey are going out, should I ask Rikki out and see if we can double date?' and stuff like that," Kelsi said as she rolled her eyes.

"Really?" I asked smiling.

"Yeah, constantly, no joke."

"Well, back when we were at home, Adam would talk about you all the time," I said mischieviously.

"Really?" asked Kelsi excitedly.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he has a crush on you," I replied. "You have a crush on him, too, don't you?"

"Maybe a little..." Kelsi said sheepishly.

"Don't you lie to me, Kelsi."

"Okay, fine, I do like him. A lot," Kelsi admitted.

"Aww, that's so cute!" I squealed.

"Rikki," Kelsi groaned.

"Sorry. Now how about we eat this cake?" I suggested.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Kelsi, and the two of us ate the entire cake within a half hour.