By late afternoon, Eli was left cleaning the rink from head to toe all by herself. Scrubbing the roller blades to make them shine (at least somewhat), left her hands raw and aching.
Getting fired from Forever 21 left her devastated, especially since the fire was not her fault in any shape or form. But Eli decided that she would get over it and at the moment, focus on taking out the trash.
The few skaters who did come, always brought a variety of junk food that smelled like feet when left over night. Sometimes, she got people who would come in and make Forever 21 jokes at her. How they knew her, Eli had no idea. Eli picked up the pieces of food with the tip of her fingers and threw them delicately into the trash bag. She then dragged the heavy bag, out to the side door of the Rink.
Once outside, she was about to heave the bag up into the dumpster when she saw two slumped figures against the wall. Remembering the time when she herself had been left helpless in the woods, she rushed to help them.
Eli cleaned her hands as best as possible on her black working pants. Thank god she decided to wear all black today or else the coke she had spilled on herself earlier would have been completely visible.
Close up, it was obvious that someone had knocked them unconscious. She leaned a little closer to see if the two men, as she could now identify, had any identification on them and found that the heavier guy had a wallet layed out on his stomach.
Though the splayed wallet was unnatural, Eli picked it up to find a name or a number to help out these people. She looked through the contents and found that there was only a blank card in the wallet with a scribbled number on the back. Eli wondered why a grown man would carry only a phone number with him in such a large wallet.
She was just about to go back inside to phone this number for help and information about the mysterious figures, when she heard a girl scream.
"Help, Help! This lady is robbing these poor men!"
Eli was so startled and so scared that she starting running- with the wallet in hand. She kept on running out of the alleyway between the rink and Walter Lanes.
She kept running until she was stopped by a thud and fell flat on her back on the ground. As she brushed herself off and stood up, she began to realize the situation she had just put herself in.
Why oh why had she ran? She hadn't done anything wrong. She was only trying to help them! Eli decided to go back and tell everyone the truth when the person she had bumped into alarmed her.
" Did you really steal that wallet? "
Eli looked down to see that she had held onto the wallet when she made a run for it. Things were not looking good at all. AT ALL.
It really did look like she had stolen their stuff. If Eli was doubting herself, who was going to believe her?
No comments:
Post a Comment