Kids Can Fly: The Best Present

The other two men got to talking to each other, and I got the gist of what they were saying. It was ransom time. How much could they get for me? One million? Two million? They decided to try for three.

"You'll never get that much!" I said.

"If we don't, you're dead meat!" they said.

"If you kill me, my Dad will get the police to find you, and then you 'll be dead meat too," I said.

"We don't care!" they said.

I didn't know what to say after that so I shut up.

The big man with the stubble on his chin got a phone from his pocket and rang my place. He told my Dad how much money he wanted and where to leave it, then he put the phone back in his pocket and lit a cigarette.

"Tomorrow," he said, "We're going to swap you for a suitcase full of money."

"My Dad won't do it," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't care about me."

"We might as well wipe you out now then," said the thin man with the dark glasses. (I thought he must have been a bit stupid, wearing sunnies in that gloomy old room, but I didn't tell him that of course.)

"He cares enough to pay a ransom," he said.

Fair enough, I thought, yeah, the guy's right. Dad will probably pay a ransom, but not three million! I wondered if right at that moment Dad might be setting a trap. He might have cops all round the place already, all creeping up quietly, with guns and tear gas?. He might get them to shoot first and ask questions later. He could do that he's so rich, he could get a cop to do anything he wanted. I reckon. He wouldn't care if the cops shot me as well! As long as Dad got his money back, that was the main thing for him.

I hated my Dad a bit, because he loved money so much. Here I was, nearly nine years old and I'd never been out with him, or gone anywhere with him. Just him and me I mean. Sure, we'd talked, and he always said he loved me, but he was always busy. Or he'd say he would do something and then the phone would ring and he's have to go back to his office. Accountants, lawyers, solicitors, bankers, real important people, always wanting to see him. And that's who he always saw. But never me.