The Yarn Wars, Part 8

This is my last post before I go on vacation!  I should be blogging again around the beginning of September.  I won’t be answering email or comments, not because I don’t want to, but because there’s no technology.

I will do a vacation post when I get back if you’re interested.  I don’t dare tell you before I go in case someone decides to stalk me.  😉

So, here’s part 9 of The Yarn Wars!  A while ago I estimated 12 parts total, but I’ve written 17, and the end isn’t really in sight.  I’m also at 11,200 words, so we’ll see how it turns out.

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Lots of suggestions were given for sneaking into the office, but not very many of them were good.

“Dress up as a clown and scare the guards into letting us in!”

“Rent a yarn cart and chase them around with it?”

“Bungee jump from the top of the building! Wait.  How would we get to the top of the building?”

“Ask them nicely?”

Finally, Lynnea hit upon a good idea, if not the easiest to execute.  “Disguise ourselves and sneak in tomorrow morning, lock ourselves in the office, and search it!”

Kira agreed with her new friend, so the two snuck into Lynnea’s house to find some disguises.

Lynnea woke up her little sister.  “Lily, can you go into Mommy’s room for tonight?”

Lily protested.  “I’m commmmfortable!”

“Please? It’s really important,” begged Lynnea.

“I don’t wanna.”

“I’ll pay you,” Lynnea offered as a last resort.  “I will crochet you a cowl the first chance I get.”

“Okay,” said Lily, brightening instantly.  “I like your crochet.”  She bounded out of the room and headed into Mrs. Ayres’s room, narrowly missing the closet where Kira was hiding.

“You can come out now,” Lynnea whispered.

The Ayres were fairly poor, as were most crocheters.  Lynnea didn’t have a lot of clothing, and all of it looked pretty much the same.  So her closet was out.

“We need some work uniforms,” Kira suggested.  “It’s disgusting, but we could look in the Dumpster.  Lots of people chuck stuff like that.”

After hours of digging through trash, Lynnea finally found something that resembled clothing.  “Kira!” she whisper-shouted.  “Over here!”

Kira obliged.  “Cool!” she exclaimed, scooping up the pile of clothing.  “These’ll work perfectly.”

They found a public bathroom and scrubbed the clothes in the sink.  The sun was starting to come up, and pretty soon the office would open.

“How do I look?” asked Lynnea, coming out of the stall.  She had tamed her waist-length black hair into a neat braid, and the work uniform made her look in her twenties instead of teens.  The uniform consisted of a knee-length black skirt and a gray ruffly shirt.  Lynnea felt like she was going to a funeral.

Kira came out of the other stall in a similar getup, except she was wearing pants instead of a skirt.  She had coaxed her blonde hair into an elaborate bun and looked very much like a grown-up.  She began to giggle when she saw Lynnea in her disguise.  Lynnea did the same.

“Well…” said the girls at the same time.

Kira continued.  “I guess we should go?”

Neither wanted to leave the relative safety of the trash dump, but it was essential.  They started out for Puget Sound, where the government offices were located.

Lynnea kept looking around her as they walked, trying not to look like a tourist.  As far as she knew, there weren’t any tourists in Seattle.  Actually, she had never seen anyone that wasn’t from either Crochetside or Knitside.  What was up with that?

Lynnea opened her mouth to point this out to Kira, but suddenly her companion stopped.  She gestured to the building in front of them, and Lynnea knew with a sickening feeling that this was their destination.  She really didn’t want to try and do this.  They could get put in prison, or maybe even killed.  But she couldn’t afford to panic.

“Act normal,” hissed Kira as they approached the door.

“ID cards, please,” said the guard at the door, looking expectantly at the two.

This time it was Kira that froze.  Neither of them had thought about perhaps needing to prove their identity!

Lynnea ignored the panic rising in her and said, “Oh no! I totally forgot!”

“Did you lose it again?” asked a lady, walking up beside Lynnea. “How many times, Hilary!”

Lynnea realized that the lady thought she knew Lynnea.  She played along.  “I know, I’m so careless,” she wailed.  “Now I’ll have to go home, and I’ll be late for work again, and you know how the boss is about all this.  I just can’t afford to be fired! I promised my friend I would go to the yarn store with her!”

“It’s all about yarn around here, isn’t it?” asked the guard, smiling.  “I sure wonder why.”  Next to Lynnea, the lady laughed.

What was so funny?  Lynnea and Kira laughed anyway.

“Okay, you can go in today, Hilary,” said the guard.  “But you better not forget your card again.”

“Thanks so much,” Lynnea said, not having to fake her relief.  “C’mon,” she continued, tugging Kira’s arm.  “I want to show you my chair so we can figure out how to yarn cover it!”

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I hope you all have a wonderful month!  I’ll miss checking on your lovely blogs, but I’ll catch up when I get back.   I’m excited for the break in technology, the modern world seems too fixated on electronics.  (Me included.)

I’ll talk to you in about two weeks!