Little Women and Little Heroes – A Short Story

The gunshots echoed around the room.

“No, no, no……”, a tiny voice shouted into the darkness. “Not Tony, we can’t have lost Tony.”

“Pull it together man. We’ve got to get the rest of the gang to safety. We’ll come back for Tony.”

In two’s the men made their way for cover. Safely in shelter one of them dared to turn on the light.

“Geoff, what are you doing? Do you want us to get caught?”

“Chill, we’re in the all-clear.” In the distance, they could hear glasses clinking, laughter and soft music. Still, it was clear some of the guys were nervous. They’d been caught out before and they knew the repercussions.

“Look we’ll hunker down here for a while. See if we can get one or two of those vehicles started and then head out.”

More laughter drifted through the air towards them, and they heard a door banging in the distance. Ignoring it they focussed on the cars. How many would they need to fit everyone in?

“Alex! James! Get yourselves back to bed this instant!” The bedroom light switched on startling two young boys. In the doorway stood an angry woman with her hands on her hips.

“Mum… It was just getting to the good bit,” Alex whined.

“You’ve already been told. Any more of that nonsense and James will be going home. You know you were only allowed to have a sleepover if you boys went to bed on time.” She walked into the room and removed some of the dolls the boys were playing with.

The boys skulked over to bed, wading through a trail of dolls and cars and toy guns.

“I expect this mess to be cleaned up first thing in the morning, then you can have these back.” His mother said then with a whoosh she switched off the light and closed the door.

“What now?” came a quiet voice in the dark. A dull torchlight appeared under the bedsheets.

“Give them five minutes to get back to their dinner party and we can play again.” “Yea, now we’ve really got to rescue Tony!”