Donkey Junior
In a quiet Brisbane suburb, two small-time criminals, Steve and Gaz, are strapped for cash. They come up with what they believe is a foolproof plan: kidnap the daughter of a tech entrepreneur and demand a ransom. Their target? Etta, a spirited 9-year-old girl who lives in the smart Woollowin neighbourhood with her dad, Sam a local tech entrepreneur.
Steve and Gaz do their homework. They watch Etta riding her scooter in Kalinga park each afternoon, laughing as she does daring tricks. “Easy target,” they think. Little do they know, they’re about to regret every single decision that’s brought them to this moment.
On a sunny Tuesday, the pair pull up in a beaten-up white van with tinted windows. Steve lures Etta with a story about a “lost puppy,” while Gaz waits to grab her. But before they can even complete the act, Etta hops into the van herself.
“You’re the kidnappers, right?” she asks, grinning. “This is going to be so fun!”
Steve and Gaz exchange confused looks but quickly drive off, thinking the easygoing child will make their job a breeze.
The trouble starts before they even get out of the suburb. Etta opens every single window in the van, shouting, “HELP! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED!” Passersby glance over, but instead of intervening, they just shake their heads at what looks like a dramatic kid.
When they arrive at Gaz’s dingy flat in Fortitude Valley, Etta refuses to walk upstairs. “Carry me,” she demands. Steve rolls his eyes but complies, only for Etta to slap him on the back of the head. “That’s for kidnapping me,” she says, laughing.
Once inside, she takes over. She insist they call her Donkey Junior and within an hour, she’s hacked into their Wi-Fi to play Roadblox on Steve’s laptop. She leaves a trail of glitter from her backpack all over the flat. Gaz tries to get her to sit quietly, but Etta insists on doing “TikTok dance battles” in the tiny living room, forcing the two men to join in.
Exhausted and ready for the ordeal to end, Steve and Gaz craft a ransom note to send to her father. They demand $10,000, confident that Sam will pay up immediately for his darling daughter.
To their horror, Etta reads the note over Steve’s shoulder. “ten thousand? That’s all I’m worth? My dad spends more on his latest computer gear.” She grabs a pen and crosses out the amount, writing “500,000 thousand” instead. “Make it worth his time.”
They reluctantly send the updated demand and wait for Sam’s reply. In the meantime, Etta decides she’s the boss of the flat. She orders pizza on Steve’s credit card, challenges Gaz to an arm-wrestling contest (she cheats), and forces them to play hide-and-seek. During one round, she hides so well that Steve and Gaz start panicking, thinking she’s escaped.
Finally, Sam replies to the ransom demand. But instead of agreeing to pay, he has a counteroffer:
“I’ll take Etta off your hands—but only if you pay me $5,000.”
Steve and Gaz are dumbfounded. Surely this is some kind of joke? But as Etta sets off their smoke alarm while trying to microwave popcorn, they realise it’s no joke at all.
“We can’t do this anymore, mate,” says Gaz, holding an ice pack to his head after being whacked with Etta’s scooter. “Pay the guy.”
That evening, they drive Etta back to her house in Kalinga. She spends the entire ride singing at the top of her lungs. At one point, she insists on taking over the aux cord to play her playlist, which consists entirely of remixes of “Baby Shark.”
When they arrive, Sam is waiting at the gate, sipping a coffee. Without a word, Steve hands him $5,000 in mixed notes, and Sam nods.
“Thanks for babysitting,” Sam says with a smirk. “She’s got a lot of energy, doesn’t she?”
Before Steve and Gaz can answer, Etta hugs them tightly. “Best. Day. Ever,” she chirps before running inside. As the door closes, she shouts, “See you guys tomorrow!”
Steve and Gaz drive away in silence, vowing never to commit another crime as long as they live.