Free Between a Wok and a Hard Place by Tamar Myers Page A

sideways, of course - but had forgotten to unbuckle my shoulder harness. A bruised bosom was all I
    had to show for my efforts.
    "Well? Will you help me?” she wailed piteously.
    It was worse than having to chose between fried I liver and boiled turnips. Despite what I may say about her, I love
    my sister deeply, and her welfare is always on my mind. But how could I possibly choose between allowing my dear,
    sweet sister to wallow in the depths of despair and sending her into the arms of a maniacal mantis? Mama, how could you
    do this to me? And you too, Papa! You had no business dying before your jobs were finished. A tanker full of milk and a
    truck full of shoes is a flimsy excuse if you ask me.
    "Magdalena!" Zelda's tear-stained face was now just inches from mine. She may not have bought them at the golden
    arches, but she had definitely eaten onion rings for lunch.
    "Okay, I'll do my best," I said. Deep within my bruised bosom I knew I had made the right decision. Perhaps not for
    me, but for my baby sister.
     
    9
    I heard the faint moans and rhythmic thuds while I was still on the back porch. When I opened the back door I had my
    second chance to faint, but with nothing to break my fall, I just stood there and stared.
    Freni Hostetler was sitting in a ladder-back chair, which in itself is not unusual, given her age, but she was taped to it.
    With duct tape. Yards and yards of it had been wrapped around her ample frame. Fortunately her face had not been
    covered, except for a small strip across her mouth. She looked like a gray cocoon topped with a Hostetler head.
    Mercifully, after a few seconds my brain switched me over to auto-pilot.
    "Dial 911," I said calmly. "Walk over to the phone and dial 911."
    I didn't. And not just because Hernia doesn't have 911. I mean, I could have called Melvin, who would have sent
    Zelda zinging right back. But it was the tape over Freni's mouth that diverted me. Once when I was sleeping Susannah
    had taped my mouth closed - just as a joke, mind you, because I was snoring - and it was the most uncomfortable
    sensation I ever experienced, my wedding night excluded.
    Driven by empathy, not caution, I ripped that tape off my cousin's mouth.
    "Ach du heimer!" Freni shrieked, and with good reason. I had quite forgotten that she had a mustache any fifteen-
    year-old boy would be proud to call his own.
    "Sorry, dear. Can you breathe?"
    "Of course I can! I'm talking, aren't I? Unwrap me this second, Magdalena. When I get my hands on them, they'll wish
    they'd never seen this old Amish woman."
    "Who is they, Freni?" I was unwrapping as fast as I could, but duct tape is hard to part from cotton clothing.
    "Robbers? Where is Susannah?" My heart was pounding and my fingers were shaking, which didn't make the unwrapping
    any easier.
    "How should I know where Susannah is?" Freni barked. "Maybe they have her wrapped up, too."
    "Oh, my baby sister," I wailed. Then a horrible, but quite possible situation occurred to me. "They didn't - uh - well -
    are you all right?"
    "Gut Himmel! Of course I'm not all right! I'm seventy-eight years old, for crying out loud. Just wait until you get to be
    my age, Magdalena, then you'll see."
    "You're not seventy-eight, for pete's sake, you're only seventy-four. I wanted to know if you were raped." I whispered
    the word.
    "Ach du leiber! They're only children, Magdalena."
    "The robbers were children?"
    Freni shook her head in despair. She was unbound, but still at the end of her tether. "Snitzkaupf" she said, rapping
    her head with her knuckles.
    "So I have a head full of dried apple slices," I said humbly. "Please explain."
    Through a mixture of Dutch and English I learned that the villains were the three Dixon children. Apparently they had
    come into the kitchen looking for sweets, and Freni, who is usually such an obliging person, had refused their request
    because she didn't have their parents' explicit permission. Shortly after that Freni had sat down - just for a