"Not it!!” Corey announced

Pesky's face flushed a bit, defensive against Edith's obvious annoyance.  He was just interested...  Seems like she'd appreciate that.

He squirmed a bit as he listened, feeling excited and scared at once.  The thought of talking to those kids was awesome, but he didn't want to have to go to Main Street to do it.  His mom would kill him.

"Hmm," Pesky wondered aloud, not wanting to sound scared, but not wanting to volunteer by accident either.  "Maybe we could invite the kids over here for questioning.  That way everybody's safe.  And we can show them the case files - might make them trust us more if they see we're serious."

He paused a beat, looking around.

"Whaddya think?"

Pesky looked about, catching Corey's eye first, the boy having abandoned the broken pulley and joining the small circle where the plan was being hatched.




"Not it!!” Corey announced again, this time at Pesky's idea.

Edith looked at Gary. Then at Corey. She gave Corey an annoyed look when he said 'not it.'




"Well, we have to find a way to invite them over. But we can't invite a person over unless we know where they live. So that still leaves us with having to find them." Edith said in an annoyed tone. She looked down at the case file.

"One of them is named Shawn. And the other one is Sara. No last name in the newspaper, just Shawn and Sara."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:46, Thu 03 Oct 2019.

"Hmmmm..." Gary said. "Well, we could go over there on Halloween. Then we'd have an excuse to knock on doors."

Edith gave Gary an annoyed look at his response.



"Nope." she said, rejecting this idea outright. "That will take too long. Halloween is weeks away. If we don't do something soon, there won't be any kids left to go trick or treating come Halloween. We could even disappear." She said dramatically.

Pesky sort of liked Gary's idea of going on Halloween.  It'd give them an excuse to be there and they could go as a group, not just two people.

But after seeing Edith's reaction, he didn't open his mouth.  And she did have a point about Halloween being so far away.  It felt like they needed to move on this, before another kid went missing.

"So, do we know when the kids have been going missing?  Like, what time?  Like, if they've all gone missing at night, maybe it would be safe to go over there during the day?"

He looked around for an answer, or at least a general reaction to his question, then a thought hit him.

"Ooh, whoever goes over there, I have walkie-talkies!  We can totally keep in contact with them!"  He sort of hoped that the "with them" he threw in at the end would make it clear that he, once again, was not volunteering to go.

It happened over the summer Gary said in a hushed, ominous tone. "It was just before you moved here. And kids on the other side of the neighborhood starting disappearing..." Gary stopped as if just saying the words was something forbidden or something that needed to be handles with care.

"First, there was this kid named Ron. He disappeared one day. And then, there was a kid named William. One day he was playing around in the street and then Poof! He was never seen again. Some people think that there's one of those creepy adults kidnapping kids. You know the kind that your Mom and Dad say 'Don't talk to Strangers.'" Gary explained.

Edith gave Gary an annoyed look at his response.



"And after that, it wasn't long before Ralph's face ended up on the back of milk carton." Edith said with disgust. "We're going to stop this here and now." She said promised and smacked her fist into her open palm.

smack!

smack!

Edith's huge noggin looked up at Pesky. "We'll need those walkie talkies." She said, but it sounded more like an order. She got up, case file in hand and started to walk about the tree house like a supervisor touring a facility and picking up slack.

"Corey. You run fast. So you should be one of the people that has to go." She said. Then she turned around and eyed Pesky and Gary, looking each kid over as if she was about to make a decision.

"Screw it, I'll go," Pesky said, taking a partial step forward.  He thumbed a gesture at Corey and added with a smile, "I'm faster than him anyway."

His face flushed, his body finally catching up with his words.

He added quickly, "But my mom can't find out.  Seriously.  I'll be the next kid on a milk carton if she does."

He felt a little panicked, almost immediately regretting his impulse.  But how rad would it be to solve this whole thing?  He couldn't help but smile a little, even as his heart raced.  And going a a team had to be safe, right?  Then the fear hit him again...

"They've never had two kids disappear at the same time have they?  I mean, we should be safe together, right?  Corey and me?"

Edith gave Gary an annoyed look at his response.



"Great!”Edith said showing the first look of what resembled a smile in....well, it had been a long time since Pedky saw a smile on Edith's face.


"You guys should be fine. But don’t forget this is a dangerous mission. Good thing I’ve planned it because I’m so smart. But that doesn’t mean that something bad can’t happen. Who knows what’s going on on Main Street" She said.

“Pesky, you’re in charge. You OK with that?”

"Of course," Pesky responded, puffing his chest out a little, despite the tension in his gut.  He snuck a sideways look at Corey to make sure it was ok with him, then turned back to Edith.

"So, what's the plan?  I mean, like, what do we do?"

"Here”Edith said taking a step towards Pesky and handing him a notebook.


"This is your notebook. It's not just any notebook. Its an investigative notebook. That means its what you need to keep all of the notes that you take." She rubbed her thumb against her chin as if she was still thinking on it.

“Think of it as kind of a journal.” She explained. "Since we don't know where these kids 'Shawn' and 'Sara' live, the best thing to do would be to start knocking on doors and asking. Make sure you take down the names of the neighbors and even the adults. This way you can use them as sources."

She had walked over to the window now, her back turned to the group as if she was in some kind of deep thought. Then Edith turned around, displaying her huge head again, face dead pan and serious.

"Be careful. It's just the other side of the neighborhood. But we don't want to take any chances. Kids just like you guys have already disappeared during the last year and even during the summer. They found a dead kid out in the woods there."

Corey didn't say anything. He just swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbing in a gesture of fear when Edith said the words 'dead kid.'

Pesky took the notebook solemnly, as if accepting an expensive relic.

He gulped at the words "dead kid".  He hadn't heard about anyone being found, only the disappearances.  He snuck another sideways look at Corey and could tell he was feeling nervous as well.

He steeled himself and said, "Ok.  Lemme run home and get my walkie-talkies.  Gotta feed the dog too, so I'll be a few minutes."

"Jesus I hope my mom doesn't find out about this," he added, mostly to himself.

He set the notebook down and headed for the ladder.  "I'll pick it up when I come back.  I don't want my mom to see it and ask what it is.  I'll be back in just a few...I'll hurry, promise."

With that, he climbed down the ladder, hopped on his bike, and headed home, the adrenaline pumping his legs even faster than usual.  He started going through the plan in his head, trying to think of anything else he might need.

-----

Once home, he ran to the kitchen to feed Penny.  She sat semi-patiently until he'd finished filling her food and water bowls.  He looked at her and said, "Ok," and she lunged at the bowl, her tail wagging as she began to eat.

With Penny fed, he ran upstairs to his room, throwing his walkie-talkies, a pen, and his trusty Boy Scout knife into a small backpack and slinging it over his shoulder.  "Be Prepared" was a scout motto after all.

Everything together, he walked downstairs semi-calmly and told his mom that he was going to play with Edith, Gary, and Corey in the treehouse.  She said something that sounded like, "Be careful," and Pesky hit the door at a run, before she could ask anymore questions.

-----

He arrived back at the treehouse out of breath, climbing the ladder and panting as he entered.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:25, Fri 11 Oct 2019.

"It took you long enough." Corey complained when Pesky's head had crossed the threshold of the tree house's entrance. In fact, Pesky had the impression going there that he had taken care of all of his responsibilities, what with the walky talkies and feeding Penny and getting some sort of permission from Mom.

"Not really. He was really quick." Gary contradicted.

"Let me see those”Edith said taking a step towards Pesky and holding her hand out to check the walkie-talkies. She had an annoyed look on her big, round face, but didn't offer any judgment of her own.

He set his backpack down gently, giving Corey an eyeroll.

He opened the pack, took out the two walkie-talkies, and gently handed them to Edith for her inspection.

Corey caught the eye roll as he climbed down the ladder. He was muttering to himself something about how he had been first to say 'not it' and was still being picked. It was a silent, petty complaint. But Edith was already buys inspecting the walkie-talkies and was too busy to notice.



"These look good. I'm probably the only one who is capable of inspecting thes because I'm so smart.”Edith said and holding her hand back out to return the walkie-talkies to Pesky. She didn't have anything else to say.

The weight of the mission and the potential consequences of Mom finding out suddenly pressed upon Pesky as the moment to set forth arrived.

Pesky took one of the walkie-talkies and put it back in his pack.

Now that they had gotten the stamp of approval from the Mighty Edith, it was time to begin executing the plan...except he didn't really know what the plan was, other than "talk to people."

He glanced back at Edith and asked, "So, what now?  Do we just go to Main Street and start talking to random people?  Who are the two kids we're supposed to find and question?"

"Ugh.”Edith complained and she turned her back on Pesky and complained to Gary. "I come up with the whole plan and file away the investigative work. I mean, I know I'm really smart, but do I have to do everything!?"

Then she turned back to Pesky. "You're the investigator. You can figure that part out." She said, in more of a 'leave me alone' kind of way."

Gary looked over at Pesky with a sheepish look that said: 'You know how she can be' or 'Sorry, I know I'm kind of the number 2, but I'm not going to do anything because I don't have a plan either.

Gary then settled for giving Pesky a helpless shrug of his shoulders.

Great.  Edith was supposed to have the plan, but it turned out that once again she was full of it.

He slung his pack over his shoulder and turned to Gary.  "Keep the walkie-talkie on channel two.  I'll let you know when we get to Main Street," he said, his tone more short than he intended.  It wasn't Gary's fault Edith was in a pissy mood.

He backed down the ladder and stood next to Corey, glancing back up at the treehouse entrance.

"Looks like we're on our own from here on out," he said finally.  "Might as well head that way."

He got on his bike, waiting for Corey to mount up as well, then started peddling toward Main Street, the pit of his stomach tightening as their mission became all too real.

Corey followed the instructions as Pesky explained, keeping the channel of communication on number 2, the sound of light static mixing with the pedaling of the bike. Corey began to complain again about how he shouldn't have been chosen as they made their way towards Main Street. Then he stopped suddenly.

"Wait a second..." Corey said, stopping his bike.

"Who is that?"



OOC: Pesky joins thread

Pesky: Wait a Second, Who is that?