Chapter 4- She Strikes Again

    She sat in her jail cell, looking quite moody as she stuck her bony face through the iron bars, and only saw other inmates in their cells. She was quite frustrated, surrounded by a bunch of thugs, yet she was so much more than one of those rotten thugs, for she was a mastermind who could come up with the most devious of plans.
    She growled to herself, “Those cops think they’ve seen the last of me…”
    But none of the cops paid any notice to her words, and when they actually acknowledged that they heard her , none of them took her threats seriously. Every day to stir up her anger, she read the newspaper. She kept two newspapers with her at all times, the rest she threw, crumpled, into the back corner of her cell. The two she kept were the one showcasing the headline of fifteen Dalmatian puppies being missing, her greatest accomplishment, and the paper finally announcing that after her greatest criminal act of all, she was caught. One brought feelings of triumph, and the other brought feelings of outrage.
    Once again, she read those newspapers with a feeling of nostalgia and anger in her boiling up. She was so, so close… if her stupid thugs actually did their jobs properly and killed those rotten puppies when they were supposed to, she would’ve wound up with half a dozen beautiful fur coats and she would be able to continue. But no, due to the work of her stupid thugs, she was never able to get her dream coat, not to mention that her coat that she was wearing was taken by the police, and her ninety-nine puppies that she carefully collected, stopping from pet store to pet store to find all those puppies, carefully scheming slowly to obtain them all, all that effort, those years of scheming, it was all lost, those parents of some of those puppies came in and led them home. “You idiots!” she thought, remembering her thugs Horace and Jasper.
    The two of them managed to get out of jail on a technicality, because the judge was soft enough to only give them a month’s service in jail. But no, she, the mastermind, was stuck in there for years after years… for all she knew, she would never escape.
    She drew out her long cigarette and smoked in the dingy jail. Nowadays, she smoked more than ever since she had nothing else to do in the cramped, cold, and thoroughly uncomfortable jail. Sitting on her stool, she thought of how much she would love to get back at those rotten puppies… or those policemen… how much would she give to make another fur coat… she thought miserably as she looked down at her little jail gown.
    And once again, as he did day after day, the supervisor came in to the jail cell, delivering the food and newspapers to all the inmates. Stepping on a few papers that she read a few days ago, she collected her rations of moldy bread and rainwater and collected her newspaper and read it carefully. But upon reading it, she didn’t throw it aside after a few minutes like she did with all of its predecessors. She did not crumple it up and throw it into the corner. Instead, she carefully looked at the front page, her eyes widening in fury, and bulging out of their sockets as she took in every word.
    Reading in outrage, she noticed the cover stated, “Local Dalmatian Plantation Puppies On Show!” She noticed a large picture in front, where her old school friend Anita happily hugged her dog as his husband hugged his. Standing in front of them were five adolescent Dalmatians, all playing happily together in front of their parents, and all adorning five familiar red and blue collars.
    Grabbing the paper in outrage, she read on. She learned that they were going to the United States where they were planning to show their puppies, and found out that the show would only be in a week’s time.
She sat and thought for a moment, tapping her cigarette on her chin. Smiling wickedly, and plotting hurriedly, she decided. It had to be tonight. She knew that she, unlike the other thugs in this dingy prison, was clever enough to find a way out of there.
Pausing, and watching the supervisor take care of the other inmates, she noticed the pile of crumpled newspapers in her jail cell. And then, she had an idea, as she always did eventually. She smiled to herself, and then, quietly grabbed a newspaper and lit in on fire with her cigarette lighter.
She cackled quietly to herself, and then hurriedly threw the newspaper onto the pile of papers. At once, the papers caught fire viciously, and the fire began to spread. The smoke was beginning to leave the jail cell, and at last, the police guard noticed it.
“Fire!” she screamed, pretending to sound anguished and horrified. “There’s a fire!” she wailed even louder.
The fire continued to grow, and hurriedly, the supervisor unlocked the jail, and she was out. After putting the fire out, the jail cell was blackened and heavily damaged. “That was a close one, miss,” the supervisor stated. “Now we don’t know where to put you…”
But she smiled straight at the jailer. “I don’t think you need to put me anywhere.”
“What do you mean?” the supervisor asked, confused, but by then, it was too late. She had already gotten out her cigarette lighter, and lit the paper that featured her jailing. She lobbed it hurriedly at the jailer, and he gasped and fainted as she ran away out of the jail’s front door.
Running at breakneck speed, she grinned to herself with delight as she ran through the streets and the jail cell grew further and further out of sight. Cackling in triumph, a feeling of elation had finally crept over her, which never had in eight whole months. At last, she was free, and there was nothing that the police could do about it!