Sunny was not being a team player at all now that she had ultra cheap
jogging shoes and sweat pants on. She ran, crawled, climbed and did all of
it so fast she didn’t even pay attention to Lisa who was unhappily trying
to keep up with her. Finally, after an hour and a half of one of them
zooming along the pathways and the other, trying to catch up and knock
some sense into her, they arrived…at a cul-de-sac.

“Damn!” Sunny pounded her fist into the wall in front of her. Lisa showed
up from behind, perfectly distressed, “Now that’s magnificent. All this
running around as if you knew the place like your own back yard, and look
where you got us.” She complained out of breath.

The other CotKer turned to her defensively, “ Right! It’s my fault now
isn’t it? So easy to blame the newbie. I thought I told you how I did
*not* have a sense of direction.”

“Then why didn’t you stop when I called you for the hundredth time?”

Sunny held her chin up smugly and didn’t answer. She walked past her
companion to the mouth of the cul-de-sac and looked at the rest of the
passages, “There is no need for an argument now. Lets pick another way.”

Lisa raised her head to voice a fair objection when she saw the young
Knightie bolt away once more and disappear around a curve. She grumbled
and got her feet moving again in hopes of catching her wild cohort while
cursing Kezia for teaming her up with the Knightie.

------------

Nicole was confident when she showed the others the heap of newspapers and
torn boxes scattered all over the ground.

“She was here.”

Kezia reached down and gave her best imitation of a homicide detective
smelling the residues left at a scene, “Garlic juice,” she said, “At least
the llama had been here.”

“And since Mr. Spitz would never leave Kyer alone—his being a stuffed
animal only one of the many reasons—I’d say we got a lead on our leader.”
Jenieve put in.

Nicole looked around and wondered, “But where could she have gone? Look,
there are close to a million forks here.” She pointed at the mixed up
labyrinth in front of them.

“No problem,” replied Kezia, “Us getting here so fast shows how perfect
our plan is. I’d say we stick to the yarns and marks and keep following
the paths until we reach something. If we discover that we are going the
wrong way, we can simply return and chose another one. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” The other two replied. They started by picking the most
attractive and least scary looking tunnel among them all and went on their
search.

-----------

After hitting their fourth cul-de-sac Sunny finally gave up and slumped to
the floor in defeat. Lisa was looking miserable by the time she reached
her and slowed down to look at another solid wall barricading their way.

Sunny looked up and quietly said, “We can still return and try…”

“NO!” snapped Lisa, “Enough is enough. Lets go back and out of here to
meet the others. It’s almost three hours now since we started this
fruitless and absurd search.”

This time it was the Knightie who unhappily complied.

------------

“That’s enough. We’ll go back. And I’m sure that never again in my life
will I use the word ‘Bingo’ for anything.” Desiree moaned.

Andrea looked at the wall dejectedly. Yes, those were her exact feelings
too. She couldn’t believe they had spent a good three hours walking in
circles down here. What if Kyer too was trapped in a maze just like this
one? She didn’t want to think about that now so with a feeble sigh, she
joined her companions on their way out of the tunnels.

 --------------

“It’s the wrong way.” Jenieve commented.

“We’ll go back.” said Kezia, I’m sure there will be enough time to search
another one.”

She looked at Nicole who was holding the flashlight, “Would you please
light up the end of the yarn and the first mark we put on the wall.”

Nicole walked back along the way they had come from. A minute of silence
followed and then they both heard her gasp. Kezia and Jenieve rushed to
where she was, asking worriedly, “What is it Nicole?”

“Look at these. They’re all screwed up.”

Kezia and Jenieve stared up in utter shock as they observed the walls all
being marked by different colors of nail varnish and different crazy
nonsensical messages. There was no way they could find their color-coded
guiding messages on this doodle board and still have time to search
another tunnel. To make matters even worse, someone had torn their yarn
too and tied in into weird bows and ties.

“The Ratpackers.” Kezia growled under her breath.

“What are we to do now?” Asked Nicole. She danced the flashlight along the
walls that were full of absurd, childish and sometimes, obscene doodles of
rats and cheese and a few portraits of Screed. This definitely was the
work of a Ratpacker.

Kezia took a deep breath and said, “Well, I think we have to spend the
rest of our time finding our own way out of here. This was exactly what I
feared would happen. Now lets focus on not getting lost here again.”

It took the three of them one full hour to figure out their own marks
among the jumble on the walls and find their way back to where they had
started.

-------------

The CotK looked like a beaten army when they drove back to their head
quarters that afternoon. Their second unfortunate adventure in the tunnels
had left them weary and miserable and they hated knowing that they might
have to do it again as the poor faction leader was still somewhere down in
that maze.

The fact that their cab driver Stephano had not been at his post when they
had emerged from the tunnels was the least of their annoyances. Kezia had
called another cab and soon they were on their way back to the Comfy
Cottage.

There was a moment of shock and utter joy when they walked into the house
and found Kyer sitting comfortably and all cleaned up on a couch opposite
to none other than the Italian driver himself. The teammates all let out a
relieved and equally bewildered sigh, neither of them able to understand
how their leader could be sitting here while they had spent the entire day
down in the sewers searching for her.

“He found me.” Said a happy and still woozy looking Kyer, pointing at
Stephano.

“Are you ok?” Asked Lisa in a worried voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I almost ate Mr. Spitz. But I’m fine now.”

Stephano stood up and walked to Kezia handing her the walkie-talkie she
had place in his hands hours ago. “Here signorina. It wasa very useful.”
He gave her a mischievous grin.

She looked at him bewildered, “But we never even had a chance to use these
today.”

The man continued to smile while walking out of the room. As he reached
the door he turned and said, “Justa press the red button. That’s all you
needa to do to get it to work.”

He was out of the room when Kezia finally looked down at the toy in her
hand and realized her mistake. Oh my god, she thought. She had picked them
in a hurry and hadn’t had time to notice what they truly were. She wanted
to dispose it before it could create an embarrassing moment when Kyer, in
her haze and fractured happiness, picked up another one of the
professional looking devices that was left on the coffee table in front of
her and pressed the button. A typical Disneyish voice reminiscence of Tim
Allan’s Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story rang through the living room, yelling
jollily:

“To infinity and beyonnnnnnnnnnnnd.”

The End