For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Poor Sky, she had taken her team on a vacation to Australia and the first night she lost 13 of her girls. Lost meaning that they were kidnapped. But how is it possible to kidnap 13 of our girls at once? These girls are well trained and wouldn’t give up that easily, plus they all have emergency buttons. So, why didn’t they use those buttons? I think Kat’s idea that these girls were drugged somehow makes sense and it must have been through gas of some kind getting into their rooms.
It didn’t affect the girls in the one room because of Sky and Angel being present and they can put protection around the room. Right now Sky, Angel, Cynthia and Soleil are talking with the men responsible for kidnapping the other girls. The boss of this group reminded Sky that he was in control of the situation, but Sky reminded him that his life was in her hands, quite literally. “Do you wish to see your beautiful friends again?” asked the boss. “Do you wish to live to see another sunset?” asked Sky.
The man laughed and the other men joined in. That’s when Sky gave the boss a hard backhanded slap, nearly knocking him off his chair. The other men tried to get up but for some reason none of them were able to stand. “Now,” said Sky, “we will start again and you will listen carefully. I want my friends back, right now, alive and unhurt, then I will let you and your men go free. Quite simple really, even you should be able to understand that.”
“We will go whenever we want young lady,” he said, “here is my card, call me when you change your mind about working for us. Our 13 jewels now belong to me. Give me 5 million dollars for each of them and I will give them back to you. If not, we have nothing more to talk about.” Sky looked at the card. “Well, let’s see, it says your name is Bradley Kingston,” said Sky, “and you own something called ‘Intimate Jewels, beautiful jewels for your intimate pleasure.’ Such a nice name for your evil business.” It was at this point I decided to join the conversation which I had been listening to since the beginning.
Cristy is already looking up this man’s history while Trixie is checking on this business venture of Mr. Kingston. “Mr. Kingston,” I said, “you have made a very foolish mistake kidnapping those 13 women. You see, they are mine, not yours, and they are not for sale. You kidnapped my women. I repeat, they are MY women, and I want them back. If you think you can just take them from me, then you are a very foolish man indeed. I can crush you and your organization very easily, I have done so to larger organizations than yours. So, be smart, give my girls back to me, now, and we will forget this ever happened.”
“You are a funny man, whoever you are!” said Kingston, laughing heartily, “Thinking that some vague voice will change anything, you are the fool sir, not me.” “My name is Steve Mackenzie,” I told him, “you can look me up quite easily, the name of my organization is Mackenzie’s Girls. Simple and to the point. Don’t anger me anymore Kingston, you have until 12 noon your time to return my girls. Your men may leave and take the message back with them, but, you will stay behind until my girls are returned.” I then left it in Sky’s hands to continue handling the matter for now.
“You heard my boss,” said Sky, “your men may leave, but you will stay with us.” “I stay with Mr. Kingston,” said the biggest man. “You are not given a choice,” said Sky. Angel went over to the man and took his hand and began to squeeze it. The man tried to hide his pain, but his red face and sweat appearing on his forehead gave it away. “And I wasn’t even trying hard,” said Angel to the man. Kingston then told his men to leave, so they did, and Sky took Kingston up to her room. The other girls watched to make sure those men did leave.
Once Sky had Kingston in her room, she quickly put him to sleep and brought him to us and we locked him in one of our safe rooms. We then watched as he woke up and looked around. There are no outside windows in that room, but there is a window in the door. Only the ghosts are allowed to go into that room, plus myself. He will remember everything this time, it was just a regular sleeping drug that Sky used. We watched him for a while then I decided to go have a talk with him.
Although the Black Wolves are in Australia now too, I had Sky bring Mac and Rock back here temporarily. I took Rock with me and we opened the door and went in to visit our ‘guest’. “I do hope you will find your accommodations comfortable Mr. Kingston,” I said, “I’m Steve and this is my bodyguard, Rock.” “How come I have never heard of you before?” asked Bradley, “I know everyone in Australia that’s in our business.” “But I don’t have an office in Australia,” I said, “my place of business is Europe, which is where you are right now. So don’t expect your friends to find you.”
“Then your deadline has passed already,” he said smiling, “obviously you know now that your plan didn’t work.” “I disagree with you Mr. Kingston,” I said, “there are still 2 hours before the deadline passes. You will know when that happens if my girls are not returned on time. Rock here will return and begin breaking bones, he loves doing that. I will warn you though, when he breaks bones, they are never the same again.” “There is no way that I’m in Europe!” he exclaimed, “You could not fly me here that fast, it is just not possible!”
“We like doing the impossible,” I said, “you are a very foolish man Kingston, just give my girls back and we will send you back home.” Meanwhile, back in Australia. “What are we going to do Mr. Kingston,” said Sam. “That idiot brother of mine,” said Hugh, “he had to take women from that large organization in Europe. Unfortunately we need Bradley too, we can’t touch our money in the bank without him, we can’t even get into this new safe without his fingerprint, handprint and his portion of the combination! Contact that woman at the hotel and tell her I want to meet her…”
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Good afternoon everyone! I hope you are all having a great week. This week they began working on our sewer system in the building. The main sewer pipes are old and have been leaking for some time, so the decision was made to replace them. That takes time. Two weeks of time. During this time we have no water and are unable to use any drains in sinks or showers, plus we can’t flush toilets.
The work is expected to be completed by April 6, providing they don’t run into unexpected problems. The last time they worked on replacing our water pipes, the two weeks of work turned into 4 weeks. Hopefully that doesn’t happen this time. It is mainly cloudy again today, though we have had a bit of sunshine for the past couple of hours.

The temperature is presently 30F (-1C) and we did get some snow overnight again, though not much. There are definitely more eagles around now, so that means they are returning from the south. Plus more Canada geese are here as well. There isn’t much bare ground for them to forage for food though, but I guess they will survive okay.

Common Goldeneye reflecting on the river.
There is some open water showing on the lake now and other areas where the ice has become dangerously thin. But the ice never gets very thick on this end of the lake anyway due to the strong current. Spring is coming. Slowly. I enjoy spring. The cold weather goes and the warm south wind blows. Everything comes to life again. The green pops out everywhere. Birds begin to return.

I am looking forward to spring’s arrival. I wasn’t feeling well the last couple of days so I missed posting Tuesday’s Laughter. So, I decided to add it onto today’s post to give you a few chuckles, or maybe some groans. Here we go…
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A mostly-bald man went to his barber, who had a lush head of wavy hair. He said, “If you could make my head look like yours, I’d give you $5000!”
The barber promptly started shaving his own head.
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Waldo wears a striped shirt because he doesn’t want to be spotted.
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Person #1: Hungary!!!!
Person #2: Then you should probably eat.
Person #1: Maybe I can find something if I Czech the fridge.
Person #2: There is Norway you can find anything in your fridge.
Person #1: You are really Russian out your puns!
Person #2: It is kind of hard to ex-Spain.
Person #1: Really? I don’t Bolivia.
Person #2: Uganda be kidding me!
Person #1: Denmark my words, you will never find any better puns.
Person #2: Kenya think of anymore?
Person #3: I am surprised you guys didn’t think to look for Turkey in the fridge.
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Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum to not upset your children.
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YOU might be a school employee if you believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, “Boy, the kids sure are mellow today.”
YOU might be a school employee if you encourage an obnoxious parent to check into charter schools or home schooling and are willing to donate the U-Haul boxes should they decide to move out of the district.
YOU might be a school employee if you think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
YOU might be a school employee if you can’t imagine how covering your students chair with Velcro and then requiring uniforms made out of the corresponding Velcro could ever be misunderstood by the public.
YOU might be a school employee if meeting a child’s parent instantly answers this question, “Why is this kid like this?”
YOU might be a school employee if you know how many days, minutes, and seconds are left in the school year.
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That’s all for today everyone, I hope you have a great day and God bless!
Steve. ©2026 Steve McLeod.