Nary, Nary, Quite Contrary

By David J. Wighton

A professional kidnapper captures a six-year-old blonde, blue-eyed girl named Maddy. She ends up in Safe Haven's slave ranch #24 where she is put to work in Big Momma's kitchen. Maddy may be safe there for a while, but she is still being hypnotized and she still has to wear a dog collar that zaps her.

Meanwhile, Lucas is selling doughnuts in Toronto with Theo. He runs afoul of a protection racket run by Doctor Sandman who orders Winker, Blinker and Nod to kill him. Fortunately, Lucas is protected by a blonde, blue-eyed guardian angel, named Azure. She reveals her existence to him and reveals what he must do to survive two assassination attempts. With the university shutting down for Christmas holidays, Lucas wonders if Azure will be around to protect him from a third assassination attempt. Do angels work during the Christmas holidays?

Meanwhile Theo has become sweet on a girl who has been imprisoned on an island surrounded by hungry alligators. This island is where Big Momma's ranch sends its slaves to retire in comfort. Comfort can be defined as starving to death or becoming an alligator lunch. Theo calls her 'Panther Girl' because she acts very much like a panther. Her real name is Nary Nary Quite Contrary. Marie, her mother, believes in a kind of religion. Marie claims that Theo is a god in her religion and he will rescue her and Nary and take them off the island. Yeah, right.

As the climax of the book approaches, Maddy sees a copter that will be leaving the slave ranch and hides inside it. Guess where that copter is going. Back in Toronto, Lucas learns that guardian angels don't work during Christmas holidays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David J. Wighton
• Release date: Sep 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310973222

David J. Wighton

David Wighton is a retired educator who enjoys writing youth novels when he's not on a basketball court coaching middle-school girls. The books in his Wilizy series peek at how people lived after the word's governments collapsed in the chaos that followed the catastrophic rise in ocean levels and the disappearance of the world's last deposits of oil. Luckily today, in the 2080s, the citizens of Alberta are safe because their It's Only Fair society uses brain-bands to zap people whenever they break a rule. That way, all children grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, they're also taught that women's ankles need to be covered so that men can't see them and turn into perverts. Plus, no-one in Alberta can have babies any more because the government manufactures them in a way that ensures that no child has an unfair advantage over any other child. All of this makes sense to Alberta's dictator, but not to Will and Izzy – two teenagers who are decidedly different from everyone else.Wighton's novels have strong teenage characters driving the plot and facing challenges that, in many respects, are no different from what teenagers face today. His novels are intended to entertain and readers will find adventure, romance, suspense, humour, a strong focus on family, plus a touch of whimsy. Wighton also writes to provoke a little thought about life in today's societies and what the future might bring. Teachers may find the series useful in the classroom and the novels are priced with that intent in mind.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Her name was Dee-Dee. She was eleven years old and her blonde ponytail was bobbing along behind her as she walked briskly back to her home on Mt. Pleasant Road in Port Angeles, Washington. It was a Friday. More specifically, it was 11:38 in the morning on a teachers' professional day on May 25, 2085. Dee-Dee had been at the pool on Peabody Street with her friends. When she returned to where she had parked and locked her bike, Dee-Dee discovered that the chain had broken. She had a tire pump in her backpack because one of her tires had a slow leak, but no tire pump could fix that chain. No worries. It was only two miles to her home – a distance that was nothing for a girl who was always running around the neighbourhood, playing soccer with the local U-13 team, and generally being the tomboy of the family.

Not wanting to delay her friends from getting home to their lunches, she told them that she'd walk the bike home and waved as they sped away. Dee-Dee also used her pinky ring computer to phone home to let her brother know that she had to walk home because of her stupid bike.

Dee-Dee looked at the broken chain closely, but did not touch it because the chain was all greasy and she didn't want to mess up her best summer clothes. These were her white short-shorts, her white ankle-high socks, and her white canvas lace-up shoes. She had a light-green, loose fitting tank top that was a perfect match to the cloth band that was around her ponytail. The match was perfect because her mom had sewed the tank top from fabric that Dee-Dee had chosen and this had been a leftover piece. Being on the business end of the sewing machine, Dee-Dee's mom was able to ensure that the tank top wasn't too tight, something that Dee-Dee had argued for mildly. She had tried All of my friends are wearing their tops tight this summer. Her mother replied with the standard parental refrain: If all your friends decided to jump off the Port Angeles city pier, would you too?

Dee-Dee was smart enough to claim that she wouldn't. But she didn't tell her mom that she planned to do exactly that this summer. All the parents of her friends used that same question whenever the girls tried to bend the rules a little. Would you jump off the pier if...? So she and her friends had decided to find out what was so bad about all of them jumping off the pier. Sure, the Juan de Fuca Strait would be cold, but so what? If lots of boys were around the pier, as was normal, they'd tell them that they were going to jump in the strait, take off all their clothes when they were in the water, and go skinny dipping. But they'd have swimsuits underneath. They hadn't worked out how they'd manage to put their soaking wet clothes back on. That thinking could come later. For now, Dee-Dee knew one thing for sure. She was jumping off the pier this summer.

Dee-Dee hadn't pushed too hard for a tight tank top because her real goal had been the white short-shorts. By now she had a good tan going for her and the stark white of the shorts and her socks made her legs look even browner. Her dad had not been pleased when he saw how the shorts fit, so she wasn't going to risk losing them by arguing for the tight tank top. As she walked home, Dee-Dee was thinking about asking her mom to make green shoelaces from the leftover fabric. She didn't notice the bike chain slipping off the sprockets and falling onto the sidewalk bordering Highway 101. She never even thought to ask herself how an almost new chain could have broken on a bike that was locked tightly onto the rusty bicycle rack next to a busy pool in downtown Port Angeles.

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Chapter 2

The man's name was Yanker. He was middle-aged, balding, slightly pudgy, and unremarkable in every way. Experienced recruiters working on a contract basis for the personnel officer of the Safe Haven Ranches never drew attention to themselves, be it in how they dressed or how they presented themselves when they were working. Yanker's designated recruitment area used to cover the Olympic Peninsula excluding Olympia, the state capital in its southeastern corner. Years ago, Yanker had lobbied hard for access to Olympia, but he didn't have to face Dee-Dee's form of rejection. If all your friends decided to kidnap young girls from Olympia's streets, would you too? Safe Haven's rejection of his request to expand his collection area had been based on caution: Keeping state officials in Olympia ignorant of how many young girls are disappearing from the state is simply prudent. Potential assets in Olympia will have to remain untouchable.

Back then, Yanker's designated kidnap area was strictly small town and rural. He had two decent-sized towns in Silverdale and Bremerton, but he could only dip into those towns occasionally without drawing attention to his activities. He had proven himself to Safe Haven's personnel officer over the last ten years – never once missing his yearly kidnap quota and never once coming close to being discovered. However the list of missing girls from the Olympic Peninsula was now becoming noticeable, as was the type of girls on that list. White, blue-eyed, and blonde. Yanker abducted the odd brunette occasionally even though his commission on them wasn't very high. This deviation from his normal kidnappings was just so that he could top up his retirement fund. The real money was made off the blondes.

Yanker continued to lobby for an expansion of his kidnap area into Olympia based on his experience, his reliability, and the perils of over-snatching in small rural towns. He argued that expanding his kidnap area was actually safer for Safe Haven than keeping him bottled up in the Olympic Peninsula because somebody would eventually notice the pattern. Two years ago, his persistence had paid off. Receiving permission to snatch young girls in Olympia was the reward for his long service to the company and to his single-minded devotion to his life's work – kidnapping young girls. Yanker didn't see himself as a seriously deranged individual or even as a pervert. He was just a local businessman who was providing a valued service at a very high price in a market that had few competitors.

Yanker's initial code name had been Yank Her. Now with success and credibility among his peers, he was in Safe Haven's books simply as Yanker. His abduction tactics had never been fancy – just brute strength and surprise. A young girl would feel safe riding her bike down the edge of the street as she came home from school. She wouldn't notice an anonymous looking deliveryman unloading some boxes from his copter. Until he yanked her off her bike. The chloroform pad to her nose and mouth required scant seconds to work. Yanker's technique was now so practiced that he didn't need the long-sleeved plaid shirts that he wore to protect himself from flailing arms and scratching fingernails. Regardless, he still wore them as camouflage. Plaid shirts were the standard clothing of the rural workingman in Washington State.

Teacher professional days were a special treat for Yanker because all the young girls would be celebrating their release from school confinement. Yanker was working an eight hour shift. He set up near the Port Angeles pool at 9 a.m. that morning. He had an alternate hunting ground for the afternoon, but saw that he wouldn't need it when one of the girls in his database cycled into the pool's parking lot.

Most school days, Yanker worked a 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift. He'd park his copter on a residential street at least one block away from the home of the girl he was stalking that day. She'd be coming home from school when parents and other adults would still be at work. The streets and homes would be mostly deserted. If he saw a potential witness on the street, he'd continue unloading as she rode by. Otherwise he'd yank her, subdue her, and then put her gently into the cargo bay of his anonymous looking copter. (Safe Haven didn't pay Yanker a commission if his recruits were bruised or harmed in any way during his kidnapping and delivery.) The empty cardboard boxes that he had been unloading were quickly tossed on top of her and he'd be gone in seconds.

Yanker knew that his cargo would stay unconscious long enough to fly north to Vancouver Island where he'd land in a deserted area and prepare her for the second stage of the delivery. That would mean adding restraints and dosing her with more chloroform. While worried parents were conducting a search for a missing girl on the Olympic Peninsula, Yanker would be in a foreign country. As night began to fall, he'd hop from Victoria across the Haro Strait to the San Juan Islands where he'd store her securely – still unconscious and unharmed. Early the next morning, he'd meet Safe Haven's personnel officer, transfer the girl into his copter, receive his commission, and then travel sedately back to the Olympic Peninsula. Yanker never knew where the personnel officer took the girl – a requirement for keeping his job. If he didn't know where his cargo ended up, he couldn't trade information about Safe Haven for a lighter jail sentence. Yanker never thought that he'd ever be caught, let alone serve time. He was just an anonymous deliveryman who was unremarkable in every way except for his cargo.

There was much more to Yanker's job than a one hour shift each afternoon. Given the scarcity of the desired product in his area, Yanker had to be patient. In the mornings, he'd drop into a community, scout for new blondes, and check up on potential assets that he had already identified. Elementary schools were the prime scouting area, but he wouldn't set his copter down near them. He's set down on the roads leading to the schools and look for walking or cycling blondes. When he spotted a new one, it might take several days, but he'd find out where she lived. At least once, he'd have to approach close enough to verify the colour of her eyes.

Over time, he had built a comprehensive database of young, blue-eyed blondes that lived in every single community in his recruitment area. He had a picture of each potential asset. A quick check on the database on his pinky ring computer would give him her home address. If an opportunity presented itself to add her to his list of successful kidnaps, Yanker didn't have to follow the little girl home; he knew where she was going and he'd be waiting for her at least one block away from her home. Being able to react immediately to an unexpected opportunity didn't happen by luck. It took planning. Lots of planning.

The need for effective planning is why he had changed his tactics. Yanker no longer used the brute force and surprise tactic. The insistent onset of pudge meant that he wasn't as spry as he used to be. Now he favoured the broken bicycle chain ploy. Disabling a bicycle chain was easy to accomplish simply by kneeling down to tie a shoelace and then using the short-handled boltcutter hidden inside his shirt. Walking recruits were much easier to kidnap than cycling recruits. However the new tactic meant that he had to throw the bicycle into the copter too. Bicycles without chains at the scene of a disappearance would be noticed. The chain-cutting tactic had one tiny risk – the chain would inevitably fall off. If it fell off close to her home, it might be discovered. That's why he favoured girls who had a long walk home. The chain would be long gone. As it was now.

Right now Yanker was waiting for his next blonde victim to walk her broken bike down Mount Pleasant Street. He was one block away from her home. The street was deserted except for the anonymous-looking man in a long-sleeved plaid shirt unloading boxes from his copter.

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Chapter 3

Yanker's plan had worked perfectly. He had timed Dee-Dee's approach so that he was standing by the side of his copter, a small empty carton held in each hand, waiting politely for her to pass before he crossed the sidewalk and put the cartons down with the others. Yanker made no eye contact, but he did see her glance at him. She sped up a little so that he wouldn't have to wait long for her to pass. Thank you, Dee-Dee said.

Dee-Dee paused and turned her head when she heard some boxes falling to the ground. She saw a white pad coming at her face, felt it pressed against her mouth and nose, and then everything went black. You're welcome, I'm sure, Yanker said. Child abductors appreciated polite victims.

Before thirty seconds had passed, Dee-Dee was buried on the copter floor underneath seven empty cardboard cartons. Her chainless bicycle was propped up against the copter's inside wall. Yanker strolled nonchalantly to the pilot side of the copter and opened the door. A gust of wind from above prompted him to look up, at which point he saw two open talons a foot or so above his head. Above the talons was a bulging belly covered in gray-greenish scales. Yanker felt the talons enclose his chest and pinch through his skin and into the flesh around his ribs. Then he was pulled into the air. Yanker's habit of trolling for victims on deserted streets wasn't working out too well for him this time. You might say that he received poetic justice. Yanker had been yanked.

As the ground below him receded, every muscle in Yanker's body that could react to fear, did so. Then he lost consciousness. A foul stench wafted up to the dragon's invisible nostrils. Bad smells are an occupational hazard, Momaka thought as she flapped Bob's wings. A little dip in the Juan de Fuca Strait would take care of it.

# # # # # # # #

Meanwhile back at the snatch site, an invisible Wanda had watched Dee-Dee's abduction. After Yanker had been talonized, she set the time-travel functions on her sling and time-travelled (TiTr'd) three minutes into the past. She had lots of time to walk invisibly to the corner where Dee-Dee was due to appear with her bike. As Dee-Dee approached the corner, Wanda stuck out an invisible foot and tripped her onto the sidewalk.

Dee-Dee fell awkwardly but tried to put out her hands to protect herself as she went down. She fell hard onto the cement, receiving a bloody nose and lacerating her hands in the process. Dee-Dee lost consciousness shortly after she sprawled onto the sidewalk – an invisible moist pad in Wanda's hand covering Dee-Dee's nose and mouth providing that desired result. Wanda collected Dee-Dee in one strong arm, her bike in the second arm, and TiTr'd into the future to arrive near the snatch site one minute after Yanker had disappeared into the sky hanging from the tips of two sharp talons. She let the bike clatter into the street and gently placed Dee-Dee in an awkward position on the cement sidewalk. Then she waited.

Oh you poor dear, a visible Wanda repeated several times as Dee-Dee tried to sit up. She was dizzy, her hands hurt, as did her nose. She couldn't remember what had happened and tried to make sense of it. She never thought at all about the possibility that she had just lost four minutes of her life.

I saw the whole thing, Wanda said. You were walking along with your bike and you must have tripped on your shoelace or something because you went down hard. I was in my copter, loading up some cartons. You're probably a little dizzy and you have a bloody nose, dear. Lie back on the grass and pinch this against it. Dee-Dee found a gauze pad resting against her nose and the aboriginal lady guided her hands to it. Pinch hard. You didn't get any blood on your nice clothes, but keep your hands away from them because they're all scraped and bloody. Just lie back and breathe deeply.

Dee-Dee did as the nice lady instructed, but she looked at her shoes first. One of the shoelaces was undone. Yanker wasn't the only hunter who could plan.

# # # # # # # #

Let's review for a moment what just happened. Yes, Wanda changed the future. But first, she let Yanker kidnap Dee-Dee and bury her under his empty cartons inside his copter. Then he himself was kidnapped. That means, as far as his impending trial was concerned, he was guilty of abducting the young girl. Yanker's past, present, and future lives on that deserted street were not changed by Wanda's actions. His future life beyond that deserted street will be affected by his close encounter with a dragon's talons, but Wanda's time-travel manipulations had nothing to do with that.

However Dee-Dee's future life is a different matter. In preventing her from approaching Yanker's kidnapping site, by rendering her unconscious, by skipping her four minutes into her future, and by placing her onto the ground next to Yanker's empty copter after he had been carried away by a drooling dragon, Wanda removed four minutes of what was going to be Dee-Dee's life. Nobody else's life was affected. Just Dee-Dee's. She was not aware that she had been unconscious for four minutes. She didn't realize that the place where she had tripped and the place where she had woken up were a block apart. She'd never know that she had slipped through Yanker's clutches. She wasn't even aware that a man like Yanker had been waiting for her. She emerged unscathed, with the exception of a few scrapes.

You may ask how Wanda and Momaka were able to plan such a precise operation. Here's what happened. The Raging Gardeners (Granny and the other Wilizy women who hunted down perverts) had conducted a wide-ranging TiTr'ng search for blonde blue-eyed girls who had disappeared in Washington State. A Bremerton girl had gone missing from the Pendergast Regional Park on April 21, 2085. They had TiTr'd to that specific day and place and saw Yanker in action for the first time. That sighting allowed them to find more of his victims. The Raging Gardeners were especially interested in Yanker's escape route into Canada. They made a few plans and Granny polished up her deputy badge.

Starting in April 2085, the Gardeners TiTr'd into Yanker's future in six hour gaps, looking for his next kidnap victim. This was a full team effort. Yolanda was the Gardener who actually found Yanker cutting Dee-Dee's bike chain, but it could have been any of them. Knowing the exact day and time that he'd kidnap Dee-Dee, Wanda and Bob (the invisible dragon) could plan to be there waiting for him.

Melissa had proposed the idea of finding an abduction, TiTr'ng back a couple of minutes, tripping the expected victim, and then skipping her past the kidnap into her future. They knew that they couldn't just rescue the victim from the kidnapper – she'd have the memory of the attack. They had to prevent her from being kidnapped but, at the same time, they had to let Yanker kidnap his victim so that they could convict him for his crime. Melissa had the necessary strategic thinking to come up with the solution. The Gardeners would use this remove a small piece of the victim's life strategy many more times in the years ahead, but only when the kidnapping occurred where nobody could witness it. Fortunately for the victims, and unfortunately for the kidnappers, avoiding witnesses was high on the kidnappers' priorities. The Raging Gardeners had a similar preference for deserted kidnap sites because of Bob's attention grabbing appearance.

# # # # # # # #

Yanker woke up that afternoon to find himself in a clearing. The first thing that he looked for was a beast with sharp talons and a scale covered belly. He didn't see one. He did see two wolves. One wolf started to lick Yanker's neck with a long pink tongue. The other hunched over Yanker's left leg and peed on it. That was Patella letting Yanker know what she thought of him.

I wouldn't move too quickly if I were you.

Yanker found the source of the voice. An elderly aboriginal lady. She was all dressed up in some fancy ceremonial clothes with a black eagle feather in her white hair. Lie still. That black wolf at your throat is hungry. She's a messy eater at the best of times. Try not to make any sudden movement. I'll be back.

True to her word, the aboriginal chief came back with a high canvas campstool, set it up on Yanker's right side so that he could see her, and then sat down with a groan. Two other women followed her. One was aboriginal and she too had a black feather in her hair and wore ceremonial robes. The other looked Asian and she wore a fancy set of clothes too. Red and black satin. They also sat on campstools, but they were on his left side.

Scapula, you can go now, the chief said. Scapula took that instruction literally, poised herself over Yanker's right leg, and let rip.

My badge, the old lady said and held out a shield of some kind for Yanker to see. I'm known as Granny. I am a deputy of the British Columbia detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The badge I'm showing you gives me the authority to detain suspected criminals, question them, determine if they have broken any laws, and apply justice as required within the Aboriginal Nation. By treaty, my authority also extends to B.C. This clearing is on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. You're on trial for kidnapping and I will be your judge. Just so you know, kidnapping is a capital crime in B.C.

I've been kidnapped, Yanker tried.

I don't know anything about that, Granny said. I found you here in this clearing and recognized your face. We've been looking at you for some time now. Yanker didn't recognize the significance of the difference of somebody looking AT him, rather than somebody looking FOR him. Time-travellers tend to develop a subtle sense of humour that only they can appreciate.

If kidnapping is against the law, then somebody broke a law to bring me into B.C. I was kidnapped.

By whom? It wasn't me. Describe your kidnapper.

Big scary flying animal of some kind with a long tail, talons on the end of its legs, and a long drooling snout.

Do you seriously think I'll believe that?

Yanker shook his head No and went to his back-up plan. I was drugged, he tried.

By a flying monster. Sure you were. Would you like to confess to kidnapping a lot of young girls?

I'm innocent.

Set up the big screen, the judge said to the other two women.

# # # # # # # #

To improve his viewing pleasure, Yanker was allowed to put his back against a tree and extend both feet comfortably in front of him. Each wolf put her head on a shoe and appeared to be asleep. Except when he twitched. At that point, they'd do a fang check to see how much edible flesh he had over his anklebones.

I've put together a little montage of your trips into B.C. Stop me at any time if you wish to relive the lowlights of your life.

Yanker saw himself pulling a girl out of his copter, putting her under restraints, re-chloroforming her, and then putting her back into his copter. Over and over the scene was repeated, but with a different girl each time. The tapes were even date-stamped. Partway through the montage, he noticed that the judge's two helpers had disappeared. He heard scraping sounds in the woods behind him and wondered what they were doing. But only briefly. He was thinking more about how B.C. had surveillance technology that was unheard of in the United States.

Clear evidence of guilt, I'd say, the judge remarked. Do you have anything to say in your defense?

I never hurt them.

But you kidnapped them and sold them to somebody who did hurt them. I find you guilty of kidnapping. The penalty is death. We apply justice in B.C. a little differently than you may like. You'll die in the next five minutes. Perhaps ten minutes depending on how long it takes me to fill out your death certificate. The judge paused. How painfully you die is yet to be determined. Then she started on her paperwork.

Yanker looked around. Escape was impossible with the wolves lying on his feet. He felt a rush of wind in his hair and looked up. Black shape. Long wings flapping noisily. Black tail trailing behind. Big black scaly head with two long yellow fangs protruding out of dark red lips. It's the monster, Yanker called out. I was kidnapped, just like I said.

Where? the judge asked.

Up there, Yanker said and pointed right above the clearing. When he looked up again, nothing was there.

You're probably hallucinating. Perhaps you're seeing the kind of afterlife that is waiting for you. Why don't you tell me why you've been kidnapping young, blue-eyed, blonde girls? That'll slow down this paperwork.

# # # # # # # #

Granny administered the painless death and then she and Wanda carried the body into the clearing where the scraping sounds had originated. The grave was now ready for Yanker. But they put his corpse on the ground next to it.

The copters with the audience are landing now, Granny.

I'm going home, Wanda. I'll be soaking in a tub with lots and lots of soap. Let's talk tomorrow about what Yanker told us.

Granny flickered out of sight. Wanda returned to the clearing where Yanker had been convicted and waited for the others to gather for the ritualized cleansing ceremony. Everything about that ceremony is the same as I described in my previous book, Bob, the Invisible Dragon. Except for the following:

• Wanda and Dreamer were the first two women from the audience to vent their anger on Yanker's dead body. When Dreamer saw how viciously Wanda attacked the dead pervert with her knife, she found another knife and did the same. When they had exhausted their fury and had made their throats raw with their screams, they embraced for the longest time, cleaned up, and then flew back to Clearwater where Dreamer had been living after the terrible incident in Wizard's bedroom. She had tried to meet with Wizard but he had not answered any of her messages.

• Mac entered the burial clearing next and chose to use her own ceremonial sword. She was finished in about five minutes, but part of that time was cleaning up afterwards. The sounds drifting out of the burial clearing were nowhere near as angry as what she had expressed the previous time.

• Momaka