Day 1

I was in a shed that looked as if it had been sitting here for years. Sunlight streamed through the rusted out holes in the galvanized iron roofing. It must have rained the night before. But it was the smell that hit me the most- a musty old scent hay that resembled…. hay. That’s it, I was lying in a pile of hay.

"Crrrrrrrrr." I heard someone snore beside me, as well as several other rustling noises not too far away. Make that ‘we’ were lying in a pile of hay. Wearily, I managed to lift my back off the ground and rub the sleep out of my eyes.

"Weird!" I thought to myself. I couldn’t remember a thing. All I knew was that I was with my friends Sean, Joe, Mike, and Brendon; and that we were cooped up in a shed somewhere (hopefully!) in New Zealand.

Well, that’s a start.

I rolled over and started pulling at Joe’s shoulder.

‘Wake up you guys!’

All I got out of him was a mumble that sounded familiar to the Klingon word ‘Go away, its only 8-o-clock’. I got frustrated and started punching him carelessly. How I regretted that. Joe, not knowing which dimension he was currently in, slapped me so hard that I did a complete barrel roll over the hay bale and rammed straight into Mike. (Did I mention Mike was strong?) The events that followed were ones filled with hay dust, screaming, me getting kicked in the face, yelling, and me getting kicked in the face some more.

Everyone suddenly stopped, almost on cue, and frantically looked at each other not knowing whether this was reality, or Entertainment Tonight. No one said a thing as the dust settled on us. I think Mike spoke for all of us when he shared with us his next words of wisdom.

‘Huh?’

It was then that everyone realized that we were all completely nude- stripped to the bare skin. I shivered at the thought.

‘Where the hell are we?’ asked Sean.

‘Who knows?’ I answered, cautiously feeling the back of my head. There I found what I was ‘looking for’- a large swollen bump on my head. For a second, I couldn’t actually find the words to express myself. It took a couple of seconds to get what I wanted to say out of my throat.

‘Hey guys, I’ve got a bump on the back of my head.’

‘So do I,’ said Brendon. ‘We all do."

‘Hey, maybe we were all knocked out and thrown in this shed,’ said Sean. He looked at me. Not at my eyes, but past them; as if he was searching for something that was on the tip of his tongue, but not quite there.

‘I remember!’ Joe suddenly piped up. ‘It was…those farmers.’

It suddenly came back to us all in a wave of nausea. Wide eyed, I felt the dizzying truth hit me. I saw what had happened in my mind like a dream being played over and over again: Those farmers dressed in black overalls, chasing us, their faces bearing down on us. I remember tripping over some manure, the ground rushing at me, that cold hand clamped on my shoulder, and then it all went black.

Brendon stood up.

‘We were running away from them…’ his voice faded. I followed Mike’s gaze- he was staring at Joe who had turned a sickly, pale white.

‘They, they were…’ he stammered. ‘…coming after us with those weapons, those sheep shearers!’ He collapsed into a sobbing heap on the ground.

‘Why?’ he cried. ‘Why are we here? This mission is too dangerous for us.’ I put my hand on his back, comforting him.

‘Its okay man, its gonna be alright. We all want the Kraft Dinner Company to stay open. We’ve got evidence that will bust them for good! I’ve still got the plans in my pocket, right here…’ My stomach lurched as I reached where my pocket had been and felt nothing but the cold skin on my bottom. Only one word could express my distraught state.

‘Bummer.’

Everyone took a good couple of moments to reflect on an embarrassing situation that had just gotten worse. We finally decided to explore our surroundings and as Mike put it: ‘Find something to wear!’

We gave ourselves a chance to look around and see exactly where we were. The shed was quite small, about 3 metres wide and, 5 metres long and 3 metres high. A pile of firewood sat in the corner. Two rotting, wooden posts supported the old roofing. The only place of entry visible was a door that had been bolted from the outside. It looked as if whoever put us here didn’t really care if we escaped. I peered through a crack in the wall and glanced at the outside world. I saw a field of grain and a small house about 200 metres away. I was torn from my tiny window when I heard a shout. It sounded like Sean. We rushed over to where he was standing behind some hay bales. Pushing some aside revealed a hidden compartment. Inside was a gas barbecue, food, and clothes!

We immediately got changed into what looked to be the local wardrobe- shorts that barely made it past your crauch, and bright blue vests that drooped around your shoulders. The vests looked like some sort of sport’s jersey. It had a number on the back and ‘ OTAGO HIGHLANDERS’ written on the front. I don’t know what I looked like, but the others would have made it to the quarterfinals of the Mr. Puniverse contest.

Our eyes gleamed with joy. It was like in the cartoons when the bad-guys find the gold, and their eyeballs turn into casino slot machines with money symbols, and that ‘ch-ching’ sound. We dug in: sausages and piles of these plastic bottles that were labeled: ‘Wattie’s Tomato Sauce’.

I picked a bottle up in one hand. It looked like a pale, runny ketchup. As the leader of the group, I felt an obligation to attempt consuming this so-called ‘edible’ substance. I stared at the others as if looking for answers, but they just stared right back at me. I cautiously opened the lid and squeezed some of the watery medium into the palm of my hand. Unlike normal ketchup, it sort of dribbled onto my skin. I took one last pleading look at my merciless friends. I slowly brought my hand to my mouth, then decided that I’d better get it over with quickly.

What can I say? It was like no other ketchup I ‘d tasted before. It was cold and sweet, a brisk flavour that seeped into my tongue. I clamped my mouth shut, analyzing it for as long as possible, until I could take it no more. I rejected the vile liquid into the hay and bent over retching. After I had finished, I wiped my face on my shirt. I stood there embarrassed, while my friends were in tears laughing. I looked at Mike. I could tell he was trying not to look at me.

‘What?’

‘Oh nothing, Adam.’ I heard him holding back his laughter by snorting through his nose.

‘Tell me!’ My voice got louder. He couldn’t resist it.

‘Uh, Adam-you missed a spot.’ The trickles of embarrassment exploded into a torrent as I sensed my face turn bright red. I slowly touched my mouth and felt the half-dried sauce, crusted over the top of my lip. Shamefully, I scratched off my ‘ketchup moustache’.

At first nothing happened. We all looked up expecting the roof to cave in. Sean sighed.

‘Phew, I thought for a second something bad was going to happen…’ That just proved even more that Murphy’s law was correct.

Once again, what can I say? One minute the shed was there, and the next it was a five-thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on a three acre field, and we were in the middle of it. I looked at the house that looked even closer; afraid that whoever was in there heard us. We gathered up our belongings from the wrecked shed and were just about to leave when a miracle happened. I spotted something white on an old tree log a few metres away. In an instance, I knew it was the envelope with the plans in it. We didn’t have time to celebrate, but just enough to think of how dumb these people were.

What a sight we must have been, staggering through a recently harvested field with clothing that exposed three-quarters of our body to the chill of the evening air. Brendon and I carrying the food supplies, Sean holding what little personal items we had left, with Mike and Joe bringing up the rear (In this case, that meant dragging a gas barbecue across a barren field while trying to avoid randomly placed cowpats).

It took us about half and hour to reach the side of the road. Sean had a watch, a compass and a map, but it didn’t matter- we could be in Timbuktu for all I cared! So there we sat at the edge of the road with no sign of traffic, taking turns sticking out our thumbs.

It was almost dark before anything came along, and we expected the truck to pass right by like any person who had a drop of sense in their mind would. As the Ford pickup and trailer screeched to a halt in the middle of the highway, I knew we were dealing with a society like none we had encountered before.

‘G’day, mates!’ the driver said in a gruff kiwi accent as he stuck his head out the window. ‘You boys are Highlanders fans,’ he said looking at our shirts. ‘Where ya heading?’ It took me a moment to remember where we were supposed to meet to get home safely.

‘Ah, Auckland, I think.’ I knew immediately when he started cracking up laughing that it was obvious we had no idea where we were. We looked at him strangely.

‘Ha, ha! You boys aren’t from around here, are you? If you didn’t know, the nearest place from here is Timaru.’ I wrenched the detailed map of the North Island out of Sean’s hands and furiously scanned the page, trying to find the place. The driver took one glance at the map and had another laughing fit. He was cackling so hard that he barely managed to talk.

‘Sorry mates, but you’re in the South Island!’

‘They never gave us a map of the South Island though,’ said Joe.

‘That’s because we’re not meant to be hear, duh,’ I replied sarcastically. The driver had recovered and talked to us seriously. He stuck his thumb in the direction of the large trailer behind him.

‘Well, I’ve gotta take these guys up to Blenheim. You can hitch a ride with us, and then walk up to Picton. From there you can catch the ferry across the Cook Straight to Wellington.’ We knew where that was and were extremely grateful for letting us ride with him.

‘Hop in the back there with your gear. It’s a little cramped with those guys, but its better than nothing.’ I didn’t understand what he meant by ‘those guys’ until we were speeding along the road in a trailer with a whole bunch of sheep breathing down our necks.

For once, the others and I felt a surge of warm hope pump through our veins. We would make it back to Auckland and fly home. Home, it seemed such a distant place. However, I knew we’d make it back there one day. I got so caught up in my thoughts that I completely forgot that we’d been sent out here on a mission, a mission to save our favourite macaroni & cheese dinner. I held the precious envelope in my hand, stroking it, thinking of our group and what we’d risked to come out here. The rush of pride made sit up for a minute. We were heroes! We were the Kraft Dinner Crusade! My rush of pride was suddenly muted as I sat down again, only to find I had moved my bottom to where a fresh pile of sheep droppings had just been laid.