I woke up seeing rubber ducks everywhere. No joke. Before I realized I was tied to a metal chair in an unfamiliar room, I noticed the rubber ducks sitting on the bookshelves along every single wall. The urge to bust out of this chair and grab a rubber ducky was almost too much to bear. If I had to, I would examine every single on of the ducks, just to find my one and only unique rubber ducky.
Wherever I was, I knew who had put me here: Mr. Reeds. He had fed me lies and then betrayed me. Could I trust anyone? Seriously. I had been beat up by a masked figure in the boy’s bathroom, and now I had been beat up by my math teacher. This was turning out to be the weirdest day of my life. And I had a feeling that it was far from over.
Now that I knew who had stolen my rubber ducky, I needed to find out why. Why had Mr. Reeds gone to so much trouble just to steal my rubber ducky? And what was up with all these other rubber duckies? Was he collecting them? Or was he looking for a certain one? These were the questions that I had no answers to. These were the questions that I hoped Mr. Reeds could answer.
As if on queue, a door on the other side of the room opened and in strolled Green aka Mr. Reeds. But this time there was something different about him. Then I noticed it. In Mr. Reed’s right hand was a pistol. Oh, boy he meant business.
Green walked right up to me and waved his pistol in my face as he talked. “Enjoy your rest?”
I smiled even in the threat of death. “Yes I did, thank you very much.” Even though secretly I was scared out of my pants, I tried not to let it show.
“Good. Now, I bet you are very curious to know what is really going on here. Don’t worry, I will make everything clear. Do you have any questions before I start?”
“Are you a collector?”
Green looked confused. “Excuse me?”
I nodded towards the rubber ducks that lined the walls. “Do you collect rubber ducks?”
Mr. Reeds laughed. “Yes, in a sense. I will explain that part shortly. Let me explain. As you may have guessed, everything that I told you at the school was a lie. I’m not part of CTU. In fact, I’m actually a terrorist.”
My mouth dropped open. Mr. Reeds, my Algebra teacher, was a terrorist?! What the heck?
Mr. Reeds continued to talk, his gun now positioned at his hip. “Brundon, the reason I stole your rubber ducky is because your rubber ducky is special. I have been all around the world stealing rubber ducks and your rubber ducky was the last rubber ducky in the world that I didn’t have. You see, I’m looking for something inside of these ducks and none of the ducks I stole had it. So I knew it had to be in your duck. That’s why I went after your rubber duck.”
It was all making sense now. The puzzle pieces were slowly forming together. But there were just a couple things I still needed to know. So I asked the obvious question.
“What is in my rubber ducky that you want?”
Mr. Reeds grinned. “That is the question that I have been asked for the past ten years.”
I gulped. He had been searching for the right rubber duck for ten years? Wow, this man was on a mission. And now, with my duck, his mission was finally over.
Mr. Reeds seemed to hesitate. “I can’t believe you had it this whole time and you didn’t realize what was really of inside it. All of those baths with it and you didn’t feel that it was different? Wow.”
I was fed up with all of Green’s dramatic talk. “Cut to the chase, Green.”
“Unfortunately, I do not think I can tell you what is in your precious duck. This is all top secret, you see. If I were to tell you and then you somehow miraculously escaped, I would be done for. No, it’s better if I leave that part a mystery.”
I sighed and hung my head. I had been so close to making Mr. Reeds tell me the final puzzle peace. Now I would have to solve it on my own.
CLICK. There was no mistaking that sound. I had heard it in countless movies. I jerked my head back up and found out that I was right. Green’s pistol was cocked, loaded, and aimed straight at my head.
“I’m sorry, Brundon, but I can’t let you live. You know too much and you will only get in the way.”
I said nothing. There was nothing I could say that would change Mr. Reed’s mind. I was tied to a chair and a terrorist was aiming a gun at my head, eager to blow my brains out. What a great way to die. Maybe someone would find my body and label me a hero.
This was the end of my sad, pathetically short life. I couldn’t say that it had been a great life, but it was comforting to know that I would die in the midst of the biggest mystery of my life.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the gunshot that would end my life. But it never came.
Instead, I heard something crash to the ground. Then I heard lots of indistinct yelling. A rush of wind ruffled my hair and that’s when I opened my eyes and saw: chaos. The crash that I had heard was the door being knocked down and the yelling was coming from several different directions.
The newcomers that had burst in had guns and they looked like they meant business. But they had no one to use their guns on because of one small problem: Green had disappeared. Where he had gone or how he had escaped so fast was a mystery. Seeing that the area was secure, the men that had barged in walked over to me.
The one in the front began to speak to me. For some reason he looked very familiar. “What is your name?”
“B-Brundon Fields.” I hated it when I stuttered.
“How did you get here?”
“I was captured.”
“By who?”
“Mr. Reeds, but he likes to be called Green.”
The leader nodded. “Well, Brundon, we are here to help. Let me introduce ourselves. We are CTU, Counter Terrorist Unit and my name is Jack Bauer. We are following a lead on some terrorist activity in this area. Can you help us?”
Did I just hear him right? Did he say his name was Jack Bauer? It couldn’t be. Was it really the Jack Bauer? The hero from 24? No way.
“Answer me, kid.”
I nodded, in shock about what had just happened. “Yes, I can help, Mr. Bauer. But I have one question first.”
“Call me Jack. What’s your question?”
“Are you the real Jack Bauer from the TV show?”
Jack nodded. “I sure am. All that stuff was real. But enough of that. How did you end up strapped to this chair?”
My eyes widened. “I will tell you everything I know.”
Jack nodded. “Good choice.”
I took a deep breath and told Jack and the rest of his men everything that had happened from this morning before school until now. Telling other people seemed to help and it also reinforced all of the details in my mind.
After I had finished telling the story, Jack whistled. “That is some story, kid.”
I started to panic. “You don’t believe me?”
Jack shook his head. “No, I believe you, it’s just one odd chain of events. It would be hard to believe if it weren’t for all of these ducks on the walls.”
I laughed. “Very true! What do we do next?”
“We go find Green.”
That seemed simple enough. I just hoped we weren’t too late, because I still needed my rubber ducky back.
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