User Unfriendly by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

It came out, "Huho, Huhin."
    It didn't make any difference how it came out: Robin was obviously in no mood for polite conversation.
    "Harek, get up." His voice never rose above a whisper, which probably meant there were guards nearby.
    I decided I'd better check before saying anything incriminating. I raised my head higher and looked around the cell. The place was about as big as a small bedroom. To the right was the corner obviously used as a latrine; to the left, a heavy wooden door with a barred peephole. The guards, if any, were outside. Robin and I were alone.
    "Harek." Robin was beginning to sound frantic. "Can you get up?"
    "Hi hont hoe, Huhin," I said.
    "What?" he asked.
    "Hi hont hoe, Huhin."
    "
What?
"
    I tried to push the gag out of my mouth with my tongue and repeated it. How difficult was it to understand "I don't know, Robin"?
    Either Robin caught on, or he'd had it with trying. From between clenched teeth he hissed, "Harek, if you don't get up by the count of five, I swear I'm going to pull loose these chains and jump up and down on your face."
    My head wasn't clear enough to wonder how he could pull himself loose, but it was clear enough to know I didn't want my face jumped up and down on. I rolled onto my right side and pushed with my legs.
    "One," Robin said, obviously unimpressed with my fish-out-of-water pantomime.
    I gave him a dirty look. OK, so I rolled over on my back, figuring I could do a sit-up. But that was so painful on my bound arms I kept rolling until I was on my left side.
    "Two," Robin said.
    Cut it out,
I warned him with what was meant to be a menacing narrowing of my eyes.
    "Three."
    I sighed and squirmed on the floor until I had my back against the dripping wall.
    "Four."
    Muttering under my breath, I braced my feet against the floor and slid myself up the wall. Wet and rough. It did wonders for my already sore back muscles.
    "Thank you," Robin said. "Now take a look at my right boot. My
right
boot, Harek," he repeated, before I even moved.
    I did my impersonation of Cornelius thinking about blowing someone's head apart, but I looked at his stupid boot. I considered making a snide remark, like maybe, "Real nice boot, Robin," but the gag was soaking up all the moisture from my mouth, and it seemed too much of an effort. Especially since he probably wouldn't understand me anyway.
    "Look at the upper part of the boot," Robin said. "The other side: the outside of my leg. Do you see the fancy stitching?"
    I nodded eagerly. It wasn't immediately obvious, but now that he'd pointed it out, I knew what it was, even as he said it.
    "There's a secret pocket there that holds my lock pick. Do you think you can get it out?"
    It was either that or wait here for another four days or until we were rescued, whichever came first. Where were the others, come to think of it? Was there anyone left
to
rescue us? I turned around and groped for Robin's boot with my hands tied behind me. The first thing I grabbed was his thigh, and he kicked me—hard—in the rear end.
    "Hey!" I cried indignantly.
    "Hey yourself."
    We glared at each other until it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if all our noise was going to alert the guards. I pressed myself against the cell door and peered out the tiny opening. I could see a long curved hall lined with doors. To the left, the hall continued until it disappeared into darkness. To the right, there were maybe five or six doors on either side, and then the guard area. Three men were sitting there, bent over a table: cards or dice, they were too far for me to be able to tell. And having too good a time to notice a little noise from us. Apparently we were the only prisoners, or at least the only ones with a torch in our cell.
    I went back to Robin, turned my back to him, and tried to grab lower on his leg.
    This time I got his knee.
    At least he didn't kick me, but he gave this warning growl like I was too dumb to figure out the difference between a boot and a knee.
    I started to