"Won't you just be a darling and sell the toy? Brutus recently lost his favorite toy, tore it right to shreds, this thing would make a fine replacement You can always get a new one?" The teacher who wishes to deliver you into her rottie's maw says, the overpowering teacher holding your string, her tone midway between a pity-earning plea and a barked order. The other women, too, clamor over the possibility of buying you just for the chance to deliver you into the possession of their chosen monstrosity. Bulldogs. Rottweiler. Cats. Toddlers. This is not the sort of fate you can allow yourself to fall into. As the host of women peer pressure Miss Hensley to the brink, you begin to half wonder if one of the ladies is a plant, a spy serving on the staff to protect Gamell's daughter. If this hunch is true, the odds of a forced sale are staggering. You will likely die a plaything if you don't think fast.
But what can you do? The moment you let the women know you can move, you risk putting yourself in an even worse position. You would either blow your cover or reveal yourself as some advanced toy, something the ladies could plausibly offer far more than $50 for. The potential bidders pass you around and grope and prod at you, the attention from the giant ladies making it very hard for you to think straight. But you are an agent. A survivor. And are currently feeling an adrenaline rush the likes of which you haven't felt in a while. You quickly hatch a plan and act on it.
As the brown haired lady reaches for you, you briefly survey your surroundings . Her head is turned as she discusses how her 1, 2, and 3 year olds would likely make better use of you than a dog. Her attention is diverted, and only Miss Hensley seems to be directly looking at you. You make a quick, subtle motion the moment her hand grips the string. You sever the cabling and land awkwardly on the tabletop.
Now would be a good time to run. Or so a panicked mind would assume. But you manage to keep it cool and play dead. Well. You play dead at least. You are silently terrified, and it is all you can do to restrain that terror. What if one of the ladies saw you move? What if you are surreptitiously swiped up and placed in a purse? What if the sale goes through anyway?
There is a gasp, followed by a brief silence. Is your cover blown? You begin to contemplate activating Play Dead Mode, but find yourself recoiling at the thought of sacrificing all of your functions and leaving yourself defenseless.
"Oh my gosh . I am SO SORRY" The brown haired woman says, genuine sadness in her voice. The lady who was holding you at the time shakes her head and apologizes as well. "Oh no, I think it might be my fault, too. Oh dear...do you think it can be fixed?" Miss Hensley seizes on the opportunity by immediately grabbing on you, inspecting you, then shoving you into her purse. "I told you all I did not want to sell it, and now you've damaged it! Is this how the work culture is around here? Can't a lady just have her break in piece without other people breaking her property?" She quickly snatches the string up and shoves it into the purse. You wince at the thought of being declared her property, but break into a tiny chuckle as you realize that this merely means your cover is preserved.
None of the teachers dare lay claim to you. She might be out of her element in this pageantry of pedestrian politics, but there is no denying that she has an decisive advantage. The group has wronged her, and she is going to milk that for all it's worth. "Let me see the toy. I can fix it if you..." "I've had enough of you handling the toy. AND I need to go to the bathroom. Bye." Miss Hensley storms off, leaving the pack of hyenas behind.
Miss Hensley really does go to the restroom. Entering the teacher's restroom, she locks the door, sets her purse down beside the toilet, lowers her skirt, and takes a seat. She lifts you up out of the purse with one hand, secures you in her clutches, then grabs the string with the other. "I am so sorry." She whispers to you, carefully reattaching the string to your tiny body "There we go... nice and better." She says, seemingly trying her best to maintain the cover. You must not be alone in your suspicion that one of the teachers may be a spy herself. Still, you can't help but feel demeaned, not getting praised for your ingenious strategy.
Instead, Miss Hensley lowers her spare hand down to your bottom and snaps three times. Within moments, you begin to feel a warm, tingling sensation spread out from your lower regions before you find yourself paralyzed from head to toe, your body lying limp as if it were a ragdoll. She places you down into a secure spot in her purse and zips it up. The sounds of Miss Hensley's body, out of sight, relieving herself into the toilet soon follow.
==========
What follows is a noisy but uneventful stretch of time. You find yourself completely helpless within the purse, left to stew in the shadows, silent amid the muffled giggles and banter and footfalls of giant gradeschoolers. It was Miss Hensley that jeopardized the mission by putting you in the path of the teachers, not you. It was your quick thinking that saved the mission while she stammered and half contemplated quite literally selling you. On the other hand, you might be safer in your current state than you were before.
As you lie there, you test the limits imposed on your body by the paralyzing agent. You find yourself awake, yet at the same time unmoving. A prisoner in your own body. You are able to breathe in and out through you nose, but your mouth is left shut, and your tongue feels warm and halfway to numbness. Finding this helplessness to be both dreadful and soporific, you drift off to sleep.
When you wake up, you hear the sound off Miss Hensley trying to calm the chitter-chatter of a class full of giant kids. The purse is now unzipped. You hear all sorts of banter. One girl, evidently a member of a ballet club, is talking to a friend about having a farting contest before practice. Another is mentioning a girl-scout camping trip. Another is talking about the book the class has been assigned to read, "The Borrowers." Of all the coincidences! You listen on with attentiveness and dread as the third graders express how interesting it would be to find a tiny person, and how much cooler it would be than just playing with a doll.
Soon enough Miss Hensley calls the class into session, and the chitter chattering children quiet down. Miss Hensley carries out the lesson plan to the best of her abilities. The kids are eventually assigned a quiz, and for the first time since you woke up, the world outside of the purse grows silent, aside from the scraping of pencils, breathing of young giants, and the occasional cough. As the test goes on, you find yourself slowly regaining your faculties. You get out of your bedding and groggily roam the interior of the purse, tripping over a tube of chapstick and landing against a feminine hygiene product. You lie there for now, confident that you can move, at least.
Eventually the quiz ends. The students begin to hand in their papers. From your current position, you can see the towering figures of young kids turning over their work to the teacher. A girl matching the picture of Colleen confidently strides forward and sets her paper down, and is soon followed by a pair of chatty girls. You freeze in fear as one of them peers down, looking at you with her mouth lightly agape. She silently appraises you with tilted head before moving on. You breathe a sigh of relief.
The room explodes into chatter as the teacher frees the kids to talk among themselves before recess. During the commotion, you feel motion as Miss Hensley lifts her purse up. She walks along the side of the room and quickly lowers her purse down. She gives you the signal, and you quickly climb out of the purse and dive into Colleen's bookbag's back pocket, which is thankfully just barely unzipped. You quickly make yourself at home in the back pocket of the bookbag, lying beside a Kleenex pack and breathing a sigh of relief when the class finally leaves. You did it. You managed to get into Colleen's bookbag unseen!
The door to the room creaks open five minutes later, accompanied by thudding footfalls. Could that be Miss Hensley? Or is it one of Mr Gamell's agents? Whoever it is, they're headed right your way
ZZZZZZZZIP. The bookbag's back pocket is swiftly unzipped. But staring at you is neither Miss Hensley nor one of Mr Gamell's agents...unless, that is, he has an eight year old in his employ. Peering down at you is the same girl who had spied you before. A blond haired Caucasian girl wielding a pair of garish pink shades, no doubt her excuse for being allowed back into the classroom You feel your blood run cold as the smiling third grader glances down at you with wonder and possessiveness, as if you were some new form of candy bar ready to unwrap and eat. You have been permitted no defense against her save for playing dead, and you have a feeling that's not going to help you here.
The girl pinches her fingers around your wrist and lifts you up before her. You see that she is wearing a white blouse with grinning cartoon butterflies and a rainbow adorning it. In addition to the blouse, she's wearing bluejean shorts and pink sandals. The girl smirks at you, tapping at your cheek with one of the tips of of her shades. "Hee hee~ I saw you move, little guy." The thieving little says, matter of factly. She must have spied you jumping into the bookbag earlier.
You continue to pretend to be lifeless. "You can't fake it lil guy. Whatever. You're coming to recess with me!" And with that, she lowers you down to her back pocket, shoves you inside, and then promptly buttons it up. She hums to herself happily as she skips off to recess, a tiny man in tow.
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