"Come on Jodie. It'll be fun."
Heather and Michelle were currently going through a green protest stage. Both just turned twenty, they got a kick out of going out and protesting for various causes. The rights and wrongs weren't really their concern. The chance to protest was the thing.
Jodie was eighteen and hadn't been out on a protest before and the older two were eager to get her involved.
"Come on," said Heather. "We're protesting logging. Think of all those trees being chopped down robbing the birds of places to build their nests. Think of all those homeless possums. Think of poor daddy possum coming home to his family and finding it gone."
Jodie laughed. "Possums don't have problems with trees being chopped down. They just move into the nearest roof and pester the people there. But OK, I'll come. It'll be something different to do."
The girls headed off in Heathers little VW. It was old but it kept on going.
"We're supposed to meet up with the crowd just down the road from the main logging camp. Then we're all going to march on them and demand they cease," explained Heather to Jodie.
"I see. And if they decline to stop?" asked Jodie.
"Ah, then we take further steps. If you look in the glove-box you'll find a couple of pairs of handcuffs. We're going to lock ourselves to some trees they want to cut."
Jodie glanced in the glove-box, considered the contents and slowly nodded her head. "Pink, fluffy handcuffs. That'll send them a message all right. May I ask why you happened to have these available?"
Heather blushed, but didn't answer.
"Where is this camp?" asked Jodie, "and how do we get there?"
"I'm not sure where it is exactly, but we just follow the directions on the phone. We'll get there."
Half an hour later they were driving along a thickly wooded track.
"We must be getting near," said Heather. "We've gone about the right distance."
"We'd better be," said Michelle. "We've just lost signal on the phone so we're driving blind now."
"The meet is probably just around the next bend," said Heather hopefully.
They drove on and suddenly found they'd run out of road.
"Don't like to say I told you so, but I did warn you about those iphone maps," murmured Michelle.
"We can't be too far off," said Heather hopefully. "Maybe if we head down that path?"
"Maybe we don't," said Michelle. "That would probably get us really lost. How about we turn around and go back until we get a signal and can try Google maps instead."
Jodi laughed. "Are protest always this much fun?" she asked innocently.
The girls sat there, discussing options. They were all startled when the driver's door was suddenly wrenched open and a hand reached in and took the keys.
The girls looked up and out. Standing around the car were three large men. Loggers by the look of their clothes.
"What's wrong, girls?" asked one of the men. "Got separated from the rest of your vandal friends?"
Heather gulped, but spoke up. "We're not vandals. We're protesters. We're allowed to protest the logging."
"There's a difference between protesting and sabotage," said the logger's apparent spokesman. "Damage to our equipment is going to cost thousands to fix."
"That wasn't us," protested Michelle. "We wouldn't do that."
"So you say," snapped the logger. "Well, we're going to have our own little protest and you're the ones we'll be protesting about. Get out of the car."
Rather nervously the girls got out of the car, standing close to each other. One of the loggers then checked over the car, looking to see what equipment the girls had with them.
Climbing back out of the car, the logger was holding the handcuffs. "I'm Jack, by the way," he said. "Those two are Joe and Simon. I assume that you probably want to use these to fasten yourselves to trees?"
Seeing Heather's red face Jack nodded to himself. "OK," he said. "Seeing that's what you wanted to do, let's do it."
Indicating to Joe to bring Michelle with him, the two men marched the girls over to a large tree.
"OK, girls," said Jack with a smirk. "Hug the tree."
Heather and Michelle reluctantly put their arms around the tree and Jack laughed as he fastened the handcuffs to the girl's wrists, leaving the pair of them trapped.
"Is that what you intended to do?" queried Jack.