"Yes," I thought, "The dreadlocked Jamaican!"
We were approaching the front of main hall, and I turned to see if the Jamaican was still there, and inquire as to whether anyone had information.
"Did you guys happen to see our housekeeping cart go by?" I asked, as if it were perfectly normal to lose one's transportation while on shift.
"Yeah," said our friend Tom, waving his hand toward the hill. "It went that way."
My heart started pounding faster. This reeked of shenanigans.
"Who was driving it?" I asked.
"Frodo," he said.
Shrieking with giggles and war-cries, Alex and I went bounding up the hill toward the dining hall. Around the corner came a golf cart, and we bore down on it, only to realize at the last moment that it was Steve from campus support again, probably on his way back from depositing Felix in the tub.
We tried to act nonchalant by diving behind the nearest tree. Once he had passed we came out again and recommenced our ascent. We had just reached the top of the hill when we heard the far-off whir of a golf cart. Turning around, we saw bobbing pink lights heading down the path to the main hall.
"Hey guys!" We heard as the cart slowed in front of the porch, "Anyone need some house-keeping done?"
Now Alex and I were galloping down the hill and back across the main field. When Frodo saw us he gave a maniacal laugh and kicked the cart back into gear.
"Quick Alex," I yelled breathlessly, "You follow the cart and I'll go around the other side of the building- we'll head him off at the bathrooms!"
Giggling with glee, I ran around the bushes and toward where the golf cart was now parked. I got there just in time to see Frodo jumping out, wearing my purple hat and one of the scarves, and carrying my purse.
"Haha!" He yelled. And with the most nimble footing I've ever seen from someone carrying a 10 pound women's shoulder bag, he turned on his heels and took off into the night.
"Get him, Alex!" I yelled, but she was too exhausted to make more than a half-hearted grab in his direction.
Defeated, the two of us staggered back to the cart and collapsed in its seats, panting.
"That idiot," I said, fishing the slipper out from under a linen bag and holding it up. "After all that he didn't even manage to get his shoe."
Now we were severely behind in our duties, and if we had any hope of being done before midnight we had do buckle down completely. 10:45 found us wandering the house-keeping shed like zombies, carrying mops and spray bottles and rags and putting them in all the wrong places, locking ourselves out and losing the keys, forgetting to turn lights off and start laundry, and finally, finally, turning in our checklist and heading once again for the staff dining hall.
On our way there we half-heartedly contemplated ways to keep the slipper shenanigans going.
"We could pretend its out here in the bushes," I said, "and then put it in the refrigerator while he goes out to look for it. OR we can pretend its in my tent, and one of us can take it up to the sanctuary instead!"
Alex moaned. "I need to go to bed," she said.
"Fine," I said, disgruntled that the night was reaching an anti-climax.
I perked up momentarily when we saw the Amazonian, looking vanquished, coming down the path.
"Seen anyone with one shoe?" I asked, smugly.
"He's waiting in the dining hall," she said, adding a rather forced, "Teehee!"
In the entrance, we peered around the screen door like Abbot and Costello. Frodo was inside bustling about, whistling as he slapped butter on toast. When he saw us he pretended to get angry, holding my bag over the compost, but it was a mediocre attempt and I easily swiped it out of his hands. Alex managed to get his slipper in the refrigerator un-noticed, but that was soon retrieved as well and we all sat down to rehash the night over toast and tea.
Alex had been right about the flattery; Frodo was positively beaming over his contribution to the mayhem. It had been him who had called in the fake "code brown"; after that, he had hid in a tree next to the main hall awaiting our arrival. He works in the production department, where they pride themselves on their stealthy "ninja" attributes. After the combination of camouflaging himself in the tree, stealing the golf cart, and fleeing into the shadows of the night, Frodo clearly felt worthy of his ninja status.
He had, however, almost been caught, when Steve Cleaver, M.O.D., had come across him sitting on the cafe steps and rifling through my purse.
"Um.... Frodo?" Steve asked.
"It's Liz's," Frodo quickly explained. "She has my shoe!"
At which point, I like to imagine, after a shift full of rubber snakes and runaway golf carts and men in ladies clothing and stolen footwear, Steve decided to call it a night and go drink a cold beer.
"That damn Liz O!" I imagine him saying into his beer.
Frodo was duly impressed to hear about Felix's abduction, and that I was in mild trouble with the executive director. But when he realized that his name might get embroiled in the situation, he quickly lost his cool ninja veneer. Alex and I assured him that we would never speak of the stolen golf cart again.
Then our friend Joe came in, and we recounted the whole story.
The second telling pushed Alex past her brink, and so she thanked us for an epic night and headed to bed.
I sat with Joe and Frodo and talked about pillaging and renegade behavior, and they counseled me on how best to lay low for a little while until the threat of trouble blew over. They both agreed, however, that if Frodo had earned the status of ninja, I had certainly earned mine as pirate.
We threw some oranges at each other, and then Frodo and I threw Felix back and forth, and then we all parted ways in good spirits. I wrapped Felix around my neck to take him to his new home in the woods of northeast, where he has been living in a tree and shrinking steadily ever since. Someday, he will make his return to campus, but only the renegade pirate knows when.
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