After

months of secret watching through his dad’s binoculars
—just after school, one autumn afternoon, outside the green
mesh gates, whose sliding bolt defined the boundary between
the playground and the one-way street where parents stalled their cars—

he pounced, and took himself as hostage. ‘Do exactly as
I say,’ he said, and forced himself to cycle to the safe
house in the suburbs, checking all the way for any trace
of special agents, which he never saw, but wished he had.

‘In all good conscience, why?’ his prisoner tried to ask before
he phoned the local rag, and in a funny voice had claimed
responsibility. A puzzled telesales rep blamed
her boyfriend’s brother. ‘Little prick. Piss off.’ The editor

just thought it all a hoax, even when the ransom note
arrived: Dad, Pay Up or Else. The hostage, subject to
all kinds of deprivation and abuse (he never knew
he had it in him), almost cracked, named names and times, and wrote

a signed confession. But he didn’t. Instead he told him made
up stories, something like the ones he wanted him to tell,
and faced his bleak imprisonment like a man. Just as well.
There’d be no quick release. The ransom’s still unpaid.