Prompt 3

I had fun doing this one, though I feel it could use a little fixing up. It's a little it long, but I hope you'll enjoy!
Note: The prompt was: a woman gets a gun and when she goes to look for it two days later, she can't find it.
Annette Smith, now there’s a well-known name in this community. A few years ago, anyone that mentioned this name would have been laughed off. Annette Smith? That’s hardly the name one would pair with fame, it sounds like the name of an old woman who lives alone, with just her nine cats for company. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Annette, or as she preferred to be called, ‘Nette, was a lively, vivacious young woman. Was? I should say is, though she’s not that young anymore.
‘Nette grew up in the deep south, where owning a gun was practically tradition. She got her first gun on her tenth birthday, a marvelous nine millimeter. She was so proud of it, and learned how to shoot it extremely well. As she grew up, she began collecting guns. She especially collected rare guns that could only be found through ‘special’ dealers.
One day, while ‘Nette was rummaging through her uncle’s belongings, trying to help him decide what to put in his yard sale, she found a very rare, Parabellum-Pistole, also known as a Luger, in one of her uncle’s hundreds (or so it seemed) of boxes. Though the gun was popular in Germany in WWII, she knew her uncle had never even left his own city, never mind the country. Did he know how rare this was?
Casually, ‘Nette walked over to her uncle, who was routing through another box, chucking things out, one after another and muttering to himself. “Unca Chuck? Can I have this?” She asked, showing off her teeth in a bright grin, as if it didn’t really matter what he answered. “Whar is it?” he muttered distractedly. “Y’know, ye can ‘ave anything in those boxes, tha’ yer lil’ heart desires. Now keep workin’!” Chuck had a lot of junk, boxes and boxes of it. He was a collector of collections, but his house was growing too cluttered for his wife, so she gave him the ultimatum. It was her, or the junk, but one has got to go! So Chuck decided to get rid of the junk and enlist his entire family in helping him.
So she happily tucked the gun away, at went back to workin’ with a will. When she got home later that evening, after hours of going through box after box after box, she threw herself on the couch and groaned. “If I ever see another box again, it’ll be too soon!” She declared to the world in general. As she lay there, she felt something digging into her thigh. Then she remembered her treasure, she jumped up and took it out of her pocket. “Hmmm,” ‘Nette murmured, looking around her living room. “Where’re we gonna put you? Ye sure are special, so we need a special place. No, no regular ol’ drawer fer you!”
She finally decided to place it in her best hiding spot, at least till she could find a display case for it. “Nette carefully pulled out one of the bricks in her fire place, placed the gun in the little hidey-hole, and put the brick back. No one would find it, since only she knew of the hidey hole’s existence. So, ‘Nette went about her business, secure in the knowledge that her prized possession was safe and secure.
A couple of days later, ‘Nette was at a thrift store when she spotted the perfect display case. A large double racked mahogany display case which would look beautiful inside her home. She brought it over to the cashier, not even bothering to look at the price tag. No matter what it cost, she would have it. Having paid for it (only twenty-five dollars!) she took it home, and started setting it up. After putting some of her other “specials” in the case, she pulled out the brick in the fireplace, only to find…her gun wasn’t there! ‘Nette panicked. She was sure she had put it there, and that no one else knew of her perfect hiding spot. She reached her hand inside, nope, completely empty. Panting heavily, she started to break into a sweat. How could it have gone? She repeated to herself over and over. She called up her father, and told him the whole tale. Her father said that he would come over and help her look. Maybe she hadn’t placed it there; maybe it was actually somewhere else.
A couple of hours later, her entire house was turned upside-down, but there was still no sign of the gun. Her entire family was there at that point, trying to console her. Her sister, Marie, suggested that they check the fireplace once more. (Now of course, everyone knew about the “secret” hidey-hole.) So they took out the brick, shined a flashlight down to the back and – oh ho! What was this? There was a click as ‘Nette’s hand brushed the back of the wall. Slowly, the wall creaked open, on unused metal gears. A hidden room appeared. The family stood in awe, completely stunned at this turn of events. Suddenly, ‘Nettes youngest cousin shouted, “There!” and pointed. There, in the doorway of the hidden room, lay ‘Nettes gun. The room itself was covered in dust and old spiders, but under all that, was a desk, several chairs, and sheafs of papers.
‘Nette’s family called in the newspapers and anyone else they could think of to see this once hidden room. It turned out that this room had been used by spies for the union, who were pretending to work for the confederates. The papers held information that had not been known until now. So ‘Nette became a local hero, and her house was sold to the historical society. She still has her gun collection, though none led to any more quite as exciting discoveries.