The Big Apple Posse

by Wendy R. Williams

  “Where did your aunt get chickens?” asked Amanda.

  “There is another apartment next door….” Thibodeaux started to tell Amanda, but then he saw the look on his Aunt’s face and stopped.

  “Why does your Auntie have chickens in the apartment next door?” asked Amanda.

  “Listen, it’s a secret. Can you just pretend you never saw this?” asked Thibodeaux.

  Miss Virginia surreptitiously put her finger to her mouth to signal them to be quiet.

  Amanda, Cindy, and Peter shook their heads simultaneously.

  “But why do we have to leave?” asked Thibodeaux.

  “Because the other bad guys may be come here if these two don’t come back,” said Auntie Tina.

  “But how are we going to leave?” asked Amanda.

  “Why in that hearse you are going to drive out of here,” said Auntie Tina. “We are going to get in the hearse and drive it over the George Washington bridge and see if we can find some cops.”

  “But what about them?” asked Cindy.

  “Well, these no-goods are going to go with us. We can hand all your evidence plus two no-goods to the cops and maybe everyone can just go home and someone will show up at work and turn the electricity on so I can have my elevator,” said Auntie Tina.

  “But how are you going to get downstairs?” asked Cindy.

  “All of you are going to help me down. I can walk if we go slow. So Thibodeaux, you take Amanda and go get the hearse and we will start traveling downstairs. And you two no-goods, Mr. Garvain is going to cut the tape that is holding you to the chair, but if you so much as move, you are going to get more of what you got before. Do you hear me? Take that tape off their mouths, too. But if you two start saying a bunch of stuff that gets me riled, it goes right back on,” said Auntie Tina.

  The two men nodded.

  Mr. Garvain pulled the tape off the two men’s mouths and started to cut the tape that was binding them to the chairs.

  “Hey kids. Come back here with me for just a second,” said Auntie Tina.

  All four followed her into the dining room. Auntie Tina shut the door.

  “Here, takes this card.” Auntie Tina handed a business card for a Benedicte Trudeau, Esq. to Amanda, Peter, and Cindy. “If you are ever in trouble again, I want you to call the number on the card and tell him that you are a friend of Tina de Bruni.”

  “But who is this Benedicte?” asked Amanda.

  “He handles stuff for me. If the phones had been working, he would have been able to fix this mess real fast,” said Auntie Tina.

  “He sure would,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Well thanks, but I think we will just go back to being normal kids,” said Amanda handing the card back.

  “That’s the idea. But keep the card just in case,” said Auntie Tina. “He can be your rabbit’s foot.”

  “Sure,” said Amanda. “But don’t you think this is over now?”

  “I hope so. What are you waiting for, got get the hearse. And, girl, I hope you meant what you said about that driving,” said Auntie Tina.

  “I can help her drive. I am going with them,” said Peter.

  “And so am I,” said Cindy. “We are all in this together.”

  “No, Cindy and Peter, I need you to stay here and help get Auntie Tina and Mr. Garvain and Miss Virginia get these two bad guys down to the lobby where we can pick them up. Can you do that for me?” said Amanda.

  “But I’m scared,” said Cindy.

  “No, you are not. Peter and you are the bravest kids I know,” said Amanda.

  “Ditto here. I am proud to be in the posse with you,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Now, hurry. We don’t know how long we have before more bad guys come,” said Amanda.

  Amanda hugged Peter and Cindy and told them, “I’m counting on you.” And then she followed Thibodeaux out in to the hallway and down the stairs.

  “We are going to go out through the basement. There is a short cut through the trash alley,” said Thibodeaux.

  Amanda followed Thibodeaux down the stairs into the basement and then out the back door. They ran down the alley to 104th Street and then headed to the West until they reached the corner and the funeral parlor. Thibodeaux used his key and he and Amanda entered the funeral parlor and Thibodeaux locked the door behind him. He led Amanda through the chapel where there was a body of a woman in a coffin next to some large sprays of flowers. Amanda screamed.

  “That lady’s doing okay. She’s just passing on and heading home,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Right,” Amanda said.

  Thibodeaux led Amanda around behind the coffin and opened a door into an alley and there was the hearse. Thibodeaux grabbed the keys from a nail by the door and went out to unlock the hearse door.

  Amanda looked inside the hearse, hoping there would not be a coffin inside, but the hearse was empty.

  “Okay, chauffeur girl, show us your stuff,” said Thibodeaux.

  Amanda started the engine and slowly drove the car down the alley and out onto Broadway. She drove to the corner and turned onto 105th.

  “When this is over, will we still be friends?” asked Thibodeaux.

  “I’ll always be your friend,” said Amanda.

  “But you live in Connecticut,” said Thibodeaux.

  “We come into the city all the time to see Cindy’s and Aunt Janey. You can go to one of Cindy’s shows with us next time,” said Amanda.

  “Maybe you can model when I have my fashion show,” said Thibodeaux.

  “You want me to model hip-hop fashion?” asked Amanda.

  “Hey, you’d look great,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Okay,” said Amanda.

  “Did you say Okay?” asked Thibodeaux.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m supposed to be going back to New Orleans as soon as my Mamma finishes our house. But that’s been going on for almost five years now,” said Thibodeaux.

  “So if you move back, we will be email buddies,” said Amanda.

  “It won’t be the same,” said Thibodeaux.

  “No it won’t. But we will still be friends. You are a good guy to know when there is trouble,” said Amanda.

  “Well, I know one thing, girl, fashion shows or not, when we are both sixteen, I’m going to look you up,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Why sixteen?” asked Amanda.

  “Cuz you are not bad looking now, even though you’ve been covered in dirt since I met you. By the time you’re sixteen, you’ll be really hot!” said Thibodeaux.

  “Thanks. Well, you may be all right too. But you are going to have to stop being short,” said Amanda.

  “I’ll work on it. But right now, we need to finish this thing and get everyone out of town,” said Thibodeaux.

  Amanda pulled the hearse up in front of the apartment house.

  “You turn this thing around to go the other way, while I go get them,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Turn it around?” said Amanda.

  “You know. Make a U turn,” said Thibodeaux.

  Amanda turned the hearse around so it was heading out towards Broadway. Thibodeaux brought everyone outside and started loading them into the hearse quickly.

  “Put those two no-goods back towards the back and I will sit next to them and make sure they behave,” said Auntie Tina.

  Amazingly enough, Mr. Garvain, Miss Virginia, and Thibodeaux seemed to think that was a pretty good idea, letting the lady with the walker guard the bad guys, so they did what she told them to do.

  “Hey, you two no-goods. Are you going to be quiet or do you want me to get coffins from the funeral home where we got this hearse? We can drive you to New Jersey all snug like a bug in a box,” said Auntie Tina.

  The no-goods nodded and said that they would be very quiet. They did not have much choice. They were all wrapped in duct tape except for their mouths.

  Soon everyone was in the hearse. Thibodeaux and Amanda sat up front with Peter and Cindy between them while Mr. Garvain, Miss Virg
inia, Auntie Tina, and the two bad guys crouched in the back with the walker and the backpacks.

  “Make a right on Broadway and keep going straight until you hit 125th and then you turn left to the Westside Highway,” said Auntie Tina.

  Amanda drove the hearse up the deserted Broadway. There was no one in sight, not even when they passed Columbia University. When she reached 125th Street, she turned left and headed towards the Westside Highway.

  The Westside Highway was deserted too with no cars stranded in the middle, just a few on the side of the highway. Amanda drove slowly up the road.

  “Is this the fastest you can go?” asked Thibodeaux.

  “I told you I could drive. I did not say I was a good driver,” said Amanda.

  “Oh,” said Thibodeaux.

  Soon they reached the entrance to the bridge and Amanda drove slowly, afraid to drive the hearse that high above the ground, but she kept looking straight at the road and controlling the car. They had just started across the bridge when she heard a police helicopter above her head and a bull horn telling her to stop.

  Amanda pulled to the side of the deserted bridge.

  “Get out of the hearse,” the bull horn yelled.

  “Stay here,” said Amanda.

  She got out of the car and was standing by the side of the hearse on the windy bridge.

  “Hey, kid. Are you okay?” said the voice on the bull horn.

  Amanda nodded.

  “Who is driving?” asked the voice.

  “I am,” said Amanda.

  “Okay, get back in the hearse and drive to the other side real slow. Stop at the check point there,” said the voice.

  Amanda got back in the car and with the helicopter hovering over head she drove across and finally they were in New Jersey.

  There was a police road block up ahead. One of the policeman at the roadblocks yelled, “Stop where you are.”

  So Amanda stopped and opened the window and hollered, “We are just kids.”

  One of the policemen dressed in full body armor approached the car.

  “Well, you sure are. Who are you and what are you doing?”

  “We are just trying to drive out of New York City and we have two bad guys with us, some of the ones that blew up the city and we have proof that everything is going to be okay in the city and I really want to see my mother,” said Amanda.

  The policeman made everyone get out of the car and when he saw the two men who were duct taped together; he pulled them out and put them by the side of the road while he guarded them.

  “I want all of you to leave this hearse here and walk through the barricade and go into that diner,” said the policemen.

  “My Auntie needs her walker.”

  “That’s okay but if you are going to take anything in the hearse with you, you need to open your bags and put everything on the ground where I can see what you have and then you can repack,” said the policeman.

  So they did. They pulled the walker out and gave it to Auntie Tina and showed the policeman what they had in their backpacks and bags. And then leaving the hearse on the side of the road, they walked into New Jersey.

  When they got past the road block the policeman led them into a diner which was filled with police men and women working on laptops. The policeman made the thieves sit in one of the booths and motioned for another cop to guard them.

  The policeman then walked them to the back of the diner where there was a very official looking man sitting at a table.

  “Hello. I am Jonathan Marcum and I’m with the FBI. Are you Amanda, Peter, Cindy, and Thibodeaux?” asked the man.

  “Yes, we are and these are our friends, Mr. Garvain, Miss Virginia, and Auntie Tina. But how do you know our names?” asked Amanda.

  “And were those two men with all the duct tape some of the bad guys who blew up the city to steal the jewels?” asked the man.

  “You know? How do you know?” asked Amanda.

  “Well some very brave ten year old boy named Peter has been sending us proof of what happened to the city. And now, that you are here, I want you all to tell me all about what happened,” said the man.

  And so they did. They sat down and talked and talked. First Amanda told what happened, then Peter, then Thibodeaux. Even Cindy told her version of what happened and about how brave she had been. After the children were through talking, Mr. Garvain, Miss Virginia, and Auntie Tina told their version of the events.

  By then it was night. They were still sitting at the back table eating some hamburgers that one of the policemen had made when Amanda, Peter, and Cindy’s moms arrived.

  Melanie Wolinski and Aunt Janey ran into the diner. “I am never going to leave you alone again,” said Melanie Wolinski as she hugged her children.

  “Oh, Cindy. I am so sorry. I should have been there with you,” said Aunt Janey.

  “Hey, we did okay. We are tougher than we look,” said Amanda.

  “They sure are,” said the cop.

  Cindy saw Amanda looking at her. “And Amanda took care of me. She took care of me and Peter and Thibodeaux.”

  “You took care of them?” asked Melanie.

  “Of course I did. They are my family,” said Amanda.

  “Hey, I took care of myself,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Yes, you did. You’ve got some skills,” said Amanda.

  “Whatever are you wearing?” asked Aunt Janey looking at Cindy, Amanda, and Peter who were all dressed like rappers.

  “I lent them some of my clothing designs. They look pretty cool,” said Thibodeaux.

  Aunt Janey opened her mouth to say something and then stopped and said, “Why yes they do.”

  “I was so worried. You were all Peter and Cindy had and I know you don’t…,” said Melanie.

  “Why were you worried? Why wouldn’t I want to take care of them? I’m the oldest and they are my family,” said Amanda.

  “Hey, I did my part,” said Peter.

  “So, did I,” said Cindy.

  “You were both wonderful. I was very proud of you,” said Amanda.

  Melanie looked as though she could not believe what she was seeing. “But sometimes you don’t….”

  “This sure wasn’t sometimes,” said Thibodeaux.

  “No it wasn’t,” said Melanie.

  Melanie looked at Amanda with a surprised and proud look on her face; she did not say anything more about how Amanda did not like Peter and Cindy.

  “But what did you eat? How did you survive?” asked Aunt Janey.

  “A lot of stores had open doors. People must have just run away and not locked their doors. So we took food and batteries and stuff, but we always left a note about what we took. When the city is safe again, we need to go back to the stores where we were and pay for things. Is that okay, Mom?” asked Amanda.

  “Of course it is. I am so glad you found food. Aunt Janey and I were so worried. We did not know if you were alive, if you were hurt, if you were scared,” said Melanie.

  Amanda hugged her mother. “We were okay. We were all okay.”

  “These are some very brave and smart kids,” said Mr. Marcum.

  “Yes they are, Miss Virginia and I are very impressed,” said Mr. Garvain.

  “We most certainly are,” said Miss Virginia.

  “But now we can go home and everything will be the same as it always was. All your new friends can come with us and we will camp out until you can return to your homes in the city. Aunt Janey and Cindy will also stay with us too until we know it is safe to return,” Melanie said to Thibodeaux, Auntie Tina, Mr. Garvain, and Miss Virginia.

  “We need to get home quickly. This poor woman is using a walker,” said Aunt Janey.

  “Thank you very much for your courtesy,” said Mr. Garvain.

  “We will be very grateful to be your guests, although I do want to return home as soon as possible. New York is my home,” said Miss Virginia.

  “Me too,” said Cindy.

  “Hey, I am just grateful to have any
home that is not under water or covered in flour,” said Thibodeaux.

  “Well Harlem has been my home for all my life and I want to go back home right now. Will someone please drive that hearse back across the river?” said Auntie Tina.

  No one answered her.

  Amanda looked back across the river at the city they had just left and thought nothing would ever be the same. The city would come back, but she would never be the suburban girl she had been. None of them would. Even Cindy looked like a little adult as she stood hugging her mom. They were all different. Life would never be the same, even if they wanted it to be.

  “We were the lucky ones,” Amanda told Mr. Marcum.

  “No, you were the smart ones,” said Mr. Marcum.

  “Yes, we were,” said Amanda. “We did what we had to do; we figured it out.”

  The End

  TEEN Action Adventure Story

  Copyright © 2011 by Wendy R. Williams

  First Kindle Original Edition, December 2011

  ISBN # 978-0-9836672-1-6

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce or transmit this book or any part thereof by any means whatsoever, without written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Address story inquiries to:

  Wendy R. Williams

  Oval Concierge

  276 First Avenue

  New York, New York 10009

  bigappleposse@newyorkcool.com

  Address illustration inquiries to:

  essoclaffi@gmail.com

  http://www.esofii.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/The.Big.Apple.Posse

  The Big Apple Posse Trilogy is dedicated to Megan, Justin and Chloe.

  Table of Contents

  Chapters:

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Illustrations

  by Sophie Escabasse

  A They are found