Payge - Narrator
Amber - Amber
Amber and I were in our tree house drawing up plans on December 12, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. We were in Joice, Iowa, and the bitter cold made made me wish I had brought a better jacket. Seeing how Amber was dressed so warmly made me jealous. I tried to distract myself with thinking of ideas on how this robbery was going to work.
“Amber?” I asked. “How are we going to rob a house?” I was still thinking this all over and I still wasn’t quite sure if I had the guts to.
She looked outside and replied, “We shouldn’t think about it now. Let’s just wing it.” Amber never thought ahead.
“But how are we going to choose a house to rob?” I wondered.
She thought about that for a second then said, “How about Maple Street. That’s the farthest away from the police station.”
I smiled, “Great idea! We will rob a house there and then we shouldn’t get caught. I can’t wait!” Then a chilly breeze came through the tree house and I suggested we went inside. “Mom! Can you make Amber and I some hot chocolate?” I yelled.

“I am a little cold,” Amber admitted.

I waited for an answer. “I guess we’ll have to make it ourselves.” I got the ingredients from the cabinets. Amber twirled a piece of hair around as she waited for the hot chocolate. The microwave beeped and I grabbed the hot mugs.

“When should we rob the house?” Amber asked.

“Around 2:00 am tomorrow because who would be up then?” I replied.
“Great idea!” Amber shouted. “So we’ll rob a house at 2:00 am tomorrow on Maple Street.” She grabbed her mug, and I looked outside.

“OW!” Amber cried. “I burned my tongue!”

I tossed her a piece of ice and she put it in her mouth right away. “Jeez, Amber. How can you be so dumb to drink that right away? I just took it out of the microwave.”
“I didn’t realize it was still so hot,” Amber said while sucking on the ice cube. “It looked yummy.”
I ignored her as I stared out the window. Pure white snow coated everything. It was so beautiful. Amber waved her hand in front of my face and asked, “Whatcha doing?”
“I’m thinking about the robbery,” I answered. “Our plan is really confusing. Let’s go over it before you go back to your house.”
“Okay. We can also edit our plan to make sure nothing goes wrong,” Amber said confidently.
We got busy perfecting our plan and finished at 4:30. We had went through it all and picked out anything that could go wrong. As we finished and parted ways, I could not help but worry. Before I knew it, it was 12:30. I hadn’t been able to sleep with so many things going through my head. I decided to head to the tree house to meet Amber. She said she had been there twenty minutes ago. I looked at my watch. It said 12:50. “Were you not able to sleep either?” I asked her.

“No,” She replied. “What time are we going to leave?”
“At 1:00,” I whispered. “ Just as planned.” Amber annoyed me sometimes because she forgets things easy.
We started walking over to Maple Street because it all was the way across town. We would get there about 1:50, but Amber kept getting behind as we wondered through town. “At the rate we’re going we won’t get there until noon,” I thought. We finally got to Maple Street, and we picked a house by ‘Eenie Meenie Miny Mo’. It ended up being on the end of the street. It was light blue with a wrap around porch. We headed over.
“Umm, Payge?” Amber questioned.
“What,” I whispered back.
“There is two police cars parked in the driveway.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure it’s nothing,” I watched as Amber walked up cautiously to the house. “Come on it’s okay. We just have to make this fast,” Amber worries too much, she can’t just let anything go. She pulled on a piece of hair and stared towards the dark house. She was pulling so hard I thought she would yank that piece of hair out of her head. I walked over to the window to check if anyone was home. Amber followed slowly.
“All clear,” I whispered. “Let’s check the front door to see if it’s unlocked.” Amber looked at me weirdly but followed to check the door. A surprised look crossed her face when I opened the unlocked door.
“That’s weird. The door is unlocked. Why would someone keep their door unlocked when they aren’t home?” Amber wondered out loud. “It makes it so much easier for people to get in.”
“Stop whining about it and be grateful,” I hissed. “It must be our lucky day.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The house was really fancy on the inside. Vases and portraits were everywhere. There was a big, crystal chandelier above the dining table. Amber and I had already decided on what we were taking, money. We figured it would take them longer to realize that money was gone than the crystal chandelier. It was also lighter and easier to conceal. We decided to look under the cushions of the couch, but we found nothing. Not even a penny.
“Amber let’s go check upstairs,” I whisper. “Before we check anywhere else.” Amber looked very confused as I said this, but she followed me up anyway. We saw a big room and walked in. In the middle was a gigantic king size bed. We both thought we should check under the mattress before going down stairs. We started to lift up the heavy mattress and saw a couple on it. Amber and I exchanged looks. We got so scared that we flipped the mattress and knocked out the couple! We found the money under the mattress, so I grabbed the bag and Amber stuffed it full. Then, we ran out the bedroom door and down the stairs. Amber almost tripped going down the stairs but kept going. The bedroom doors flew open and a tall guy with a mustache tripped and rolled down the stairs! While going down the stairs, Amber had managed to drop some marbles that were in her pocket. At any other time, I would have wondered, “Why did she have marbles in her pocket?” But in this certain case I didn’t think about it. He stepped on the marbles and fell on his head. After that, his wife came out and screamed bloody murder at us because we ruined her beauty sleep.
“Dude, she’s a cop. So is her husband!” Amber screamed at me and I realized that this was the wrong house to rob. That explained the cop cars. I wished at that moment that I had listened to Amber. I was so worried about the robbery that I didn’t realize all the stupid things I saw. A picture of them together graduating from a police academy and the two police uniforms in their bedroom. Just as her husband had did, she slipped on the marbles. I guess they had not been very good police officers if they were knocked out by Amber’s marbles.
“We got to go!” I yelled. Amber was just staring at the limp bodies of the cops. I wished that we had robbed a different house, one that didn’t have any people sleeping in it tonight. That way we wouldn’t have had to knock them out to get something. I grabbed Amber’s arm and we ran out the door. At least we still had the bag full of money. Then I looked at Amber. There was no bag. “We got to go back to get the money!” I cried. “We have to go get it!”
“Are you crazy?” Amber cried in disbelief. “If you want it, you can get it. I ain’t going back!”
“If we don’t go get it, it will be like we never accomplished anything. I’m going back,” I started walking toward the house. Amber caught up to me.
“I’m not saying I want to, but I’m coming with.”
When I made it to the front door Amber stopped, “I’m scared.”
“Then stay out here,” I had to get that bag. I didn’t want to have done all of that work for nothing. I quietly walked through the door and found the bag where Amber had been frozen. It was a couple inches away from the man. I grabbed it, but as I turned I slipped on the marbles and landed on the woman! It was so uncomfortable. I got up and slipped again! Amber helped me up this time and held onto me so I didn’t slip again. We finally made out the door and around the corner.
“I am never going there again.” Amber warned.
“Me, either,” I agreed. We ran down random streets until we made it home. I was so relieved at the sight of our treehouse.
We went in and sat down, but as soon as I sat down there was a voice, “We have you surrounded. Come out where we can see you.”
“Nobody is home!” Amber yelled.
I got so mad that I slapped her, “Amber, now they know we’re in here. You just yelled ‘Nobody is home!’” Amber can be so dumb at times. Then, our big sliding glass window shattered. I got really scared. There were four police officers in the doorway walking toward us. Two of them had their handcuffs out and ready. I put my hands on my head and turned around. Amber did the same.
“You ladies have the right to remain silent,” Bob the police officer said. He was putting handcuffs on Amber.
“We already are silent,” As soon as I said that I wished I hadn’t because of what came next.
Bob walked up to me and said, “What’s your name?”
“Payge,” I said annoyed. Why would he ask that stupid question?
“Well Payge, shut up!” Bob brought his hand back and punched me so hard I thought I died. I didn’t, but I got knocked out.
I woke up in a cold, dark cell. I didn’t know where I was or what was making that sound. I looked around and found Amber sleeping on the bottom bunk. She was snoring so loud she sounded like a motor. I got up and walked over to her to wake her up. “Amber, wake up.” I shook her awake. She looked at me and blinked. Then, she looked around the room. Amber must have been confused for a second, but she figured out where the heck we were.
“Hey you!” A guard yelled at us. “You get one phone call. Make it quick.” He unlocked the door and pointed to where the phone booth was. My mom wasn’t going to bail us out and neither was Amber’s.
“Who should we call?” Amber was getting worried. She hates confined spaces, especially ones with a locked door and no window.
“I don’t know Amber,” I told her. I seriously didn’t. I didn’t want to stay here any more than Amber did. Nobody that I could think of would bail us out. “Do you have anybody that might pay to get us out? I don’t.”
“All of my relatives are either poor, dead, or in jail,” Amber admitted. “Like us.”
In the end we decided to call our parents. Even though they wouldn’t bail us out, I had to tell my mom that I loved her and missed her, since it would be awhile before I could say that to her again. Amber agreed with me. After our call, we sat in our cell and wondered what we would do. As soon as I get out of here, Amber and I will always think about doing something before we do it. I thought about that as I laid on my top bunk and quietly cried myself to sleep.