Grace Garcia, her brother Louis, her best friend Caitlin, and Caitlin's dog Diego are kidnapped by a man calling himself The Watcher while visiting a store in Venice, Italy. The Watcher takes them to Rome and then Paris, holding them captive. The children work together to escape, finding food and water with the help of a doe in the forest. They make their way to the police and identify their kidnapper as John Cashy, using details they overheard. Police pursue Cashy and arrest him. The children are reunited with their parents and given a holiday in Paris by the police before returning safely home to Venice.

1. Long Gone
By Danielle Klappstein

2. My story started on one Saturday morning after my brother went to get the
newspaper. He woke my parents and I up by making a really high pitch scream. He called
for my mom and dad to see the newspaper.
Oh, I’m sorry I forgot to introduce myself to you. My name is Grace Garcia. My
friends call me GG. I live in Venice on one the streets. I turned 12 recently and have been
living in Venice for 10 years with my mother, Rose Garcia, my father, Geriano Garcia and
my older brother, Louis Garcia. My parents are from Mexico so that’s where I’m from.
Talking about my brother he is so mean and bossy. He think’s he is so smart but he’s not.
He’s just plain stupid. He missed a grade so now he is a grade younger than before. If he
was still in his own grade maybe he wouldn’t be so stupid. My mom goes mad and crazy
when he starts playing on his computer because once he starts he can never ever control
himself to stop. My mom has to actually take his computer away from him for two hours. I
wish he could disappear and turn into a really nice cute puppy so I can actually boss
around and talk to.
Today is Saturday, September 24th 2005. My brother was screaming when I
came out of my bedroom. He’s such a baby. He’s 14 and is screaming when he see’s the
newspaper. He’s nuts! “Let me see!” I yelled louder than my brothers scream for my
families attention. He stopped screaming and handed me the paper. It was terrible! The
headline was “Four Children Found Without Food And Drinks For 3 Days In Paris!” I have
to admit. I was like my brother Louis. I screamed as loud as possible because I was
scared. By the time my whole family read the paper we were a harmony of screaming!
Well not really my parents screaming but Louis and I were. My parents are going out to
lunch with my best friends parents. Caitlin is my bestest friend in the entire world! She also
has a really big german shepherd dog. His name is Diego. My parents hesitated to leave
us alone in the house until Louis convinced the parent to go have lunch so he can play
one of his games on his computer. Personally I don’t think he should go on his computer.
Caitlin came over five minutes ago and now the parents are going on and on
about staying in my house with Louis and Diego to look after us. “The good thing about
since the parents are out we can go to the St Marks Square and get some chocolate!”
Caitlin whispered to me.
“Yeah, lets go when Louis is in his room!” I replied. Louis just walked into his
room so we left to go to the square to buy some chocolate. Luckily Louis heard the door
shut so he followed the girls.
When Louis arrived we were at the back of the store looking at the chocolate.
“Got ya!” yelled Louis when he saw us. Louis took me to the front of the store where they
were arguing for about two minutes until Diego came up to me and tried to pull me to the
back of the store. “ No Diego! We can’t go to the staff room! We’ll get caught!” I said to
Diego while Louis was all of the sudden gone. I walked into the staff room and then the
lights switched off!
Bump, bump, bump, bump was what woke Louis up. We were in the back of a
truck! He saw Caitlin, Diego and I sleeping in the back of the truck. Immediately Louis
woke us up. We were all looking for a way out but the door was locked. We all looked for
the key but it was useless. The key wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the back of the truck. We
were stuck in the truck. “Guys, I never thought I would ever say this to you guys but I’m
scared. I want to go home. Gracie, I am so sorry. I want to go home!” Louis started crying
while saying that. Thats when Caitlin started crying and Diego was also looking sad and I,
Started to cry too.
It was Monday at two am when we arrived in Rome. We are now in a little room
with a tall man in it. He was wearing a mask and gloves. He told us that his name is The
Watcher. I don’t really think so because who has the name the Watcher?
While he was talking to us, our parents in Venice are now at the police worried
about us.

3. The police search all over Venice looking for us. One of the policemen said that
the parents should stay at the police station just in case of a ransom call.
The Watcher asked the children for their parents phone number. He called the
parents and the call was directed to the police department where the police was asked
$100,000 USD per living. “Hello parents! I see you want to see your children and dog
again huh? So if you want to see them go to the St Marks Square with all the money. I
need $100,000 USD per living. Be there in tree hours and see them again or never see
them again! Put it in the grey van with the number plate of VT 5679. Good bye for now I
hope for you to see your children again!” The Watcher called the parents for ransom. “So
it’ll be $200,00 USD for Louis and Grace back. Oh police Greig may I please speak to you!
I do not have $200,000 USD! Please help my children!” Rose Garcia pleaded!
tree hours later in the small room in Rome. “Little children do not fear me! You
shall see you parents again if, and only if I get all of the money! Now get in the truck I must
get you to Paris where I live!” The Watcher threatened the children.
The next day Caitlin woke up in a small room where Louis, Diego and I were still
sleeping. She woke us up immediately.
It’s been one and a half days since we meet the bright sunlight because there
was no source of light but two candles. We also haven’t eaten or drunk anything since we
left Rome.
The Watcher walked into the room on the phone talking about renewing his
passport because his old passport needed to get renewed without knowing that we were
inside of the room. “My name is John Cashy. Yes J-O-H-N C-A-S-H-Y. I was born in Paris,
France in 1970, 25th of June. Yes, yes I will pick it up on Friday. Ok thanks....” As The
Watcher walked out of the room I whispered “Guys, I need your help. Louis remember that
his name is John Cahy. Caitlin remember he was born in 1970 on the 25th of June. I will
remember he was born here in Paris. We can get out of this mess, together! Grace your
hair is beautiful! I wish..... wait Caitlin! Yes, yes are you wearing those hair clips I gave to
you? Come on lets get out of here!” The children took Caitlin’s hair clips and did their best
to pick the lock. It almost 3 hours until Louis picked the lock. I looked at all of our hands
and we were full of cuts but we are getting out of here! “Caitlin. Since you are from France
you can speak and read french so get us straight to the police. Please!” Louis told Caitlin
in a hurry because we were all starving!
“What is this place? It looks like a forest.” Louis said to us looking disappointed.
“Look! That says police! We have to go in the forest!” as Caitlin said forest about
2 dozen of bat flew into us. We ducked because we didn’t want to get hit by a creepy scary
black bat. We walked for about an hour until we got tired. It was about midnight when we
stopped under a huge tree. I think it was an oak tree. It was very dark and since it started
to rain it will give us enough shelter. We sat down and before I could say a word I was
asleep.
The next morning it was a beautiful bright and early morning. I heard a little bunny
hopping by me waking me up with her hops. When I first heard the hops I thought
someone was coming to hurt us or take us back to the weird and scary man John. I got up
very quickly. She was one meter away from me. I was so relieved. I was a bit nervous but I
thought she was so cute so I reached out my hand. I was about 2 centimeters away from
her until a doe came and scared her away. She was the most beautiful doe I have ever
seen. The light was shining on her like she was here for a special reason. Like she is our
guardian. She came close to me. She was about 2 meters away from me without being
scared. She put this bag on the floor and laid down next to it as if she is waiting for me to
pick the bag up. The bag is made of a type of cloth. The cloth is white and it was pretty
dirty. I went very slowly to the doe. It’s head lifted of the ground when Diego started to
chase her. She stood up and ran as fast as I could. “NOO! COME BACK!” I yelled at the
doe because she is so kind. When Diego started to bark Louis and Caitlin both woke up

4. and ran to me. I told them everything about the bunny and the doe. I told them about how
the doe gave me the bag. We all looked into the bag. It was food! There was six pieces of
bread! We had a little bit of food. We all ate the same amount of food and then we had
another rest. Even Diego had some bread. We would eat anything to survive. “Do you hear
that? What is that?” Louis said to us.
“I think it’s, it’s water!” I said to them. We ran as fast as we can running after
Diego. He was drinking as much water as possible by the time we got there. We jumped
into the water and drank as much as possible until we felt sick! We swam until Caitlin
realized that we should thank the doe for helping us to find food and maybe water. We
looked as much as possible and then Caitlin thought she say him. I don’t think she did
because Louis and I didn’t but if she did see her she did say thank you. After we knew we
had thanked her we left to go to the police. There was a sign about two hours after we
walked. It lead us straight to a huge building made of bricks that are crumbling.
“Um, that means police. Lets go in!” Caitlin said to us in excitement.
“Excuse me. Can you speak english?” Louis said to the policemen. “Yes of
course! We are the english police department. What is the problem?” The police at the
desk asked us. When Caitlin saw the police at the desk say that they are the english police
department she felt ashamed for not knowing how to translate the word english.
“ We live in Venice, we were taken by the Watcher!” I said really loudly. When I
said that all of the policemen looked up and then started to walk closer to us. We all felt
nervous for a minute until one of the men asked if we needed help to find our parents.
That’s when Caitlin started to make a speech.
“His real name is John Cashy. He was born here in Paris on the 25th of June
1970! Please help my friends and I! Please!” Caitlin said as she began to cry. All of the
policemen started to laugh really loudly! The room was filled with laughter. “John Cashy is
the head of this department! Are you crazy child?!” one of the men said very rudely. “Woof,
Woof, Woof!” Diego came running into the department. “Diego there you are I thought I
lost you!” Caitlin screamed as she started to cry again.
“Wait, look. There is John Cashy’s passport. Wait theres two. One named John
Cashy and one called James Jackson. Everything is the same but the name! There let us
get home please!” I said to the men! We took the policemen to the place where John
Cashy kept us. I was very scared to be back in that place because of what happened. He
wasn’t in the room that we were in. Infact I don’t think he was even in the house! I felt
hopeless. I asked the police to take me to the nearest coffee shop because I was starving!
“Do we know that man?” Caitlin said to us.
“It’s him! It’s JOHN CASHY!” Louis yelled. As he yelled the man looked up. It was
John Cashy. The second John looked up the police he ran. He ran as fast as he could to
get to his car. When he got in his car, he drove away. While he was driving one of the
policemen took us back to the police station. We are now protected by about Four to
Seven policemen. Five police car’s chased him. We know this because there is a camera
in all of the police cars so we can see what's going on. The policemen finally caught up to
him. There was one police car in front of the car. One on the right, one on the left and one
behind the car. The policemen were all holding out guns. When I saw that I got really
scared. I always had a fear of guns and now I see one for real life. They were going to
shoot John. “STOP!” I yelled at the policemen in the cars. “Do not shoot him. Only bring
him to jail. Please I don’t want to see another gun ever again in my life! STOP!” I said to
the camera. The guy driving in the left car said bring him in. The other policemen put John
in the left car. He is finally captured! “We are saved!” Caitlin said to us in relief. We
thanked the policemen and they started to thank us for helping them to capture John
Cashy. They called our parents to come to Paris to pick us up.
Our parents came to Paris. When they arrived they gave us the biggest hug ever!
We decided to have a two weeks holiday in Paris because what we have been through.

5. We stayed at a resort two minutes drive from the Eiffel Tower. The great thing is that we
didn’t pay anything. The police payed for us for helping us capture John Cashy.
We finally arrived at home in Venice. Diego was as happy as I have ever seen him before.
We are home, learning to obey our parents for everything. But we were also stars! In the
end I am actually glad to have a brother like Louis! We are heros!
The End