Kevin found himself on one side of the street pedaling along with Penelope. As Penelope and Kevin made their way towards Main street, they looked over and saw two other kids on the other side of the road heading in the same direction.

---

Pesky found himself on one side of the street pedaling along with Corey, just past the old, red fire hydrant. As Pesky and Corey made their way towards Main street, they looked over and saw two other kids on the other side of the road heading in the same direction.

Pesky slowed down imperceptibly, letting Corey catch up and get beside him.

"Who are they?  Do you know those kids?  They're not from Main Street are they?," his voice raising slightly with each question.

He was suddenly excited at the possibility of interviewing someone from Main Street without actually having to go over there.


OOC: Would Pesky know Sara from school even though she lived on Main?
This message was last edited by the player at 16:03, Fri 18 Oct 2019.

Penelope didn't answer.

OOC: Assume Peksy does not know her. Assume 'Penelope' does not know Pesky. Also, if Pesky comes into contact with Sara, assume that Pesky does not know Sara.

Kevin stops his bike, skidding to a stop, to see who Penelope's looking at. "I don't know, I just moved here today, remember. The only kids in the whole city I know are you and a few I play with at the tournaments."

Then he grins, and says, "Let's find out!" Looking each way to make sure no cars are coming, he peddles the bike across the road, catching up to the other kids. Smiling, he says, "Hi! I'm Kevin, that's Penelope."

Pesky watched as the two kids rode closer and parked in front of them.

He felt a little surprised when Kevin introduced himself and Penelope, though he wasn't sure why.  Maybe just because the kid seemed nice.  You didn't get that all the time around here.

"Hi.  I'm Peter, but most people just call me Pesky," he said, then added quickly, "Peter Eskind, that's how I got the nickname.  Not because I'm a pest."  He smiled, hoping they got the point, then gestured to his left.  "This is Corey."

Pausing only briefly to look them over, he asked, "You guys live around here?"

"Nice to meet you," Kevin says cheerfully to Pesky and Corey, though the words sound overpracticed. Then, returning to a more natural tone of voice, he answers, "As of today, I do. Just moving in on Rodeo. Penelope already lives here, over on Main Street. She's showing me around while my mom yells at the movers," he adds, half-joking.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:11, Tue 22 Oct 2019.

"Me and Pesky. We're both from Rodeo." Corey agreed, and he nodded at Kevin as if he fact that Kevin was also on Rodeo drive, even though he was new, was a 'shared' experience.

"I like to break stuff." Penelope told Pesky, as if this information was somehow important. It was unclear if this was actually an invitation to 'break stuff' or whether or not she was just saying it the way a kid says that they like Star Wars or girl might say something about My Little Pony.

Pesky's eyes widened as Kevin said that Penelope was from Main, but he stayed calm and let them finish their introductions.  He was kind of taken aback by Penelope's statement.  "That was random," he thought.

But without missing a beat, he said, "So you're from Main?  You know about all of those disappearances then, I guess."  Pausing, but not long enough for Penelope to respond, he added, "We were just on our way over there.  We're kind of, um, investigating the case.  Looking to interview some kids from there."

"And welcome to the neighborhood, by the way," he said with a nod to Kevin.

"You are?" Kevin looks surprised for a moment, but then grins, and says, "I guess that's why you're riding that way? Me too. I mean, I only read about it a few minutes ago, but Penelope is going to take me to see where some of the kids disappeared. I want to help solve it. My dad's taught me a lot about investigating, finding secrets. But you're probably way ahead of me. All I know so far is it has to do with ghosts or demons, but…"

He trails off as he starts to realize he's talking too much, and instead says a soft, "Sorry."

Pesky's hands tightened around his handlebars as Kevin said they were heading toward Main too.  If they could all go together...  Safety in numbers, right?

But he relaxed his grip as Kevin finished his sentence.  "What the hell?" he thought.  Demons.  Ghosts.  That was ridiculous, as neither of those things were real.  Still, an invisible shiver went through him at the thought.

Deciding to leave that supernatural out of it for now, he simply asked, "Cool!  Can we go with you?"

"I'm from Main, yeah." Penelope said, those huge eyes of hers magnified behind those glasses, giving her a Scooby-doo appearance.

Penelope looked over at Kevin for a moment as if she was seeing whether or not it was a good idea for Pesky and Corey to join them.

Then her head swiveled back to Pesky. She nodded, giving him and Corey the 'OK.' But it was tepid gesture, her fluffy hair swishing back and forth as she nodded.

"Yeah, I guess its OK." She said, perhaps warming to the idea. "But don't make too much noise. And everyone should be back by dark. It's like....things have gotten weird around here since last year. I, I dunno know if I can explain it."

"But I can show you some of the houses." She offered. Then she kicked her bike into a higher gear.

"Why does everyone have to talk so dumb and scary-like?" Corey complained under his breath, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear.

Pesky ignored Corey's comment.  It had made him sound childish, and there was no time for that.

"Great," he said to Penelope.  "Thanks!"

Then, before he could say anything else, she took off.  She was fast, he thought, but not as fast as he was.  He pedaled harder to catch up.  When he finally pulled up beside her, he asked casually, "So, what'd you mean by 'don't make too much noise'?"

At the skeptical look he gets from Pesky, he says, "At least, that's what a witness said." He quite specifically does not look towards Penelope as he says this.

Then, he's nodding quickly in agreement with Penelope, and says, "Yeah, let's go together. Probably safer too. And I don't want to stay there after dark anyway." He also starts to pedal along after the girl.

"Yeah, is there someone grumpy there that doesn't like noisy kids? Or is it the noisiest kids who disappear?"

Corey silently grumbled his displeasure as the kids rode up the block.

Penelope's hair 'whishhhed' in the wind, trailing behind her like some fluffy, permed wig as she spoke.

"No. Nothing like that." Penelope said to Kevin and she was slightly shouting over the wind and the speed of the bicycles as they moved towards Main Street.

"Mrs. Barlow has organized a Neighborhood Watch. That's what they're calling it. They say its to make sure they keep an eye on the neighborhood, but it's really just to keep kids off the street and inside the house so kids can't have fun." Penelope explained.

"It sucks." She added. And with that she crossed the road onto Main Street, bicycle wheels spinning fast and propelling her forward.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:20, Sun 27 Oct 2019.

Pesky eyed the sign as they pedaled their way onto Main Street.  They were here.  He was tense, both with nervousness and excitement.  Where should they go?  Who should they talk to?

It seemed like Penelope was the obvious person to interview first.  He reminded himself to get the investigation notebook and pen out as soon as they stopped.  But while they were still riding, he reached back into his backpack with a very practiced hand and grabbed his walkie-talkie.  Making sure it was on the correct channel, he pressed the button and said simply, "We've arrived on Main."

He dropped the radio back into his pack, not waiting for a reply from Edith.  He'd fallen behind a bit, but now sped up, still following Penelope.

"Oh," Kevin says as Penelope describes the Neighbourhood Watch, frowning at the concept. "Yeah, totally sucks."

He looks over to Pesky when he talks into the walkie-talkie, looking very curious, and asks softly as if he was in a library, "Who were you talking to? Do we have more help?"

He looks around as well, taking in everything he can see of Main Street as he follows after Penelope. Trying to take in all the details he can to be able to remember it later.

Penelope raised an eyebrow as the walkie-talkie emitted a static sound, followed by a kids voice

Breaker-breaker 9-5. We read you loud and clear. Over

"That’s the House where Tiffany lived. She disappeared early this summer. The police have asked all sorts of questions. Her older brother Anthony and her younger, creepy brother Michael have been looking for her too." Penelope pointed at a two story, blue Colonial house as she spoke, the kids riding by it

To Kevin, Pesky nodded saying, "Yeah, that's our headquarters."  He said it a little proudly.  They weren't just playing around - they were on a mission, with a home base and everything.

He pulled up beside Penelope as she spoke, hearing about Tiffany and her family for the first time.

"Hey, Penelope.  Is there anywhere safe we could pull over for a few minutes?  We have some questions we'd like to ask you before we start our full investigation."

"Let her finish showing us around, then we can ask questions. We need to know everything we can before we start asking questions, so we know what questions to ask. That's what my dad says, anyway," Kevin says.

Travelling on a bite, he can't stop to take notes, so for the moment just memorizes what Penelope is saying.

"Is this even safe to be here?" Corey said to no one imparticular, and somehow, to everyone.

"I broke that window earlier in the summer." Penelope added, pointing to a house next door to the other house. It was a little side comment. But the window, it appeared, was broken, glass jagged, open and sharp. Like a hungry maw waiting to eat some kid. That house, it appeared, was abandoned.

Overall, there wasn't much activity on the street. Not at all. There was a silent, still vibe. Much different than that of Rodeo drive. It was like everyone was inside their homes. Just waiting. Or watching.

A little annoyed at Kevin's comment, he continued to ride in silence.

The house with the broken windows was creepy.  Abandoned and broken.  He wondered if the place had been empty for a long time, or if that was the house of someone who'd been taken.  Like their family just packed up and left, leaving the house to rot on its own.

"So, if we're not gonna stop and talk, where are we going?"

Corey looked across to both Kevin and Pesky. "Let's just go and get back as soon as possible" He urged.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:42, Sat 02 Nov 2019.

Kevin's real reason to object to stopping becomes apparent as he says, "Yeah, this place is creepy. But, wanna see where someone disappeared."

"Maybe... Maybe we should stop and talk, I guess," he finally admits, after a few more moments of thought.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:01, Sat 02 Nov 2019.

"Stop, here?" Penelope asked, coming to a stop, her puffy hair wafting to one side of her face. A hand came up to adjust her eye glasses.

"I was gonna show you who I think is responsible for all of this." Penelope said. A chilly breeze picked up and a few leaves tumbled by the ground a the foot of Kevin's front bicycle tire.

"There's this fat kid named Ralph. And his friend Shawn." Penelope said. "They live just up there on Main Street." She explained.

"This started to get really weird around her at the beginning of the summer. Really weird. I swear, one moment, around June, they were living in the same house. And everyone knew that Ralph and his friend, an older kid named Shawn, weren't brothers, but that Shawn's parents had let this fat, little kid named Ralph live with them because they were good friends. Before that, no one had even seen Ralph."

"Next thing you know, when kids started disappearing, Ralph had his own house on the block. Just ---poof! Just like that. People acted like Ralph had always lived here. Always been a part of the town. People even started saying things like they remembered how Ralph had been in their kindergarten class."

"Someone changed all of the memories."

"People don't think its true. But I know better." She affirmed.

the Walkie-talkie emitted a low, crispy, static sound, followed by a kids voice. By all accounts, Pesky could tell that it was Gary's voice.

Breaker-breaker 9-5. We need an update. Has your team found any evidence of missing kids? Over.

But Gary forgot to take his hand off the button. Everyone could hear him say "Ahhhh! A spider! Get it off of me! then there was a loud banging sound followed my a muffling as if the walky-talkie had been dropped.

Pesky listened to Penelope's story with jaw-dropping interest.  To think that she might already have a lot of this case pieced together...  Though some of her story was obviously baloney - changing people's memories? - some of her story was awesome.

He got off his bike and pulled out his notebook and pen.  He scribbled names and sketched out the story as quickly as he could.  Then he threw the stuff back in his pack and got back on his bike.

"Man.  So where does Ralph live?"

Just as he got the words out of his mouth, the walkie-talkie went off.  He reached back to get it, glad the other kids would be able to see him in his official capacity.  Then stupid Gary got scared by a stupid spider and forgot to let go of the stupid button.  Jackass.

Pesky's face turned red, embarrassed.  He pressed the button to speak, then immediately let it go.  He thought for a second, realizing that all eyes were on him.

He pressed the button again.  "Smooth move Ex-Lax," he said to Gary.  "D'you get that spider taken care of ok, or do you need me to come get it?"

His frustration left him and he returned to the matter at hand.  "We've made contact with someone on Main.  Collecting information now."  He released then re-pressed the button.  "And don't call me, I'll call you.  I don't need this thing going off if we're in the middle of investigating some place.  Could jeopardize the whole mission.  Over and out."

He chucked the radio back into his pack and looked at Penelope.  "Sorry.  Please, lead the way."

Corey gave a little snicker when Pesky said the word 'ex-lax', but for the most part the boy remained quiet.

Penelope peddled on, making sure this time that she was riding the bike nice and slow. Kevin and Pesky could hear the spinning of the tire and the crackle of the fall leaves beneath them as she made her way slowly down the road. Only one hand was one her handle bars as she used to the other to gesture to different houses.

"Yeah. Ralph is just up the street." She said. Then she pointed at another house. "This house right here is Mr. Magruder's house. He's the street's Creep-O. He's really weird. Everyone on the block has been told to stay away from this house. There's a rumor that he puts razors in apples and hands them out on Halloween." She said.

Then moving onto the next house.

It was like right out of some police movie. There was yellow police tape over the door. Actual yellow police tape that said "DO NOT CROSS."



"That's..." Penelope said, voice fading a little bit like she was taking in the sight herself for the first time. "That's where Bradford lives."

Kevin pulls out his own notepad, one of those pocket notebook that reporters use. He starts writing down the notes, though he has to pause to giggle at the spider attack heard over the radio. "Does Ralph live on his own, or have parents?" The former, after all, would be much weirder.

He pockets the notebook again and pedals after the others when they start to move. He looks at the house of the 'Creep-O' with some curiosity, but then his eyes widen as they get to the next spot and see the police tape. "Who's Bradford? I wish I had a camera."

OOC: Sorry, have been sick for a few days. I'm probably pushing myself too fast to dictate, but wanted to get this out since I hadn't gotten to warn you that I was dealing with a sore throat.

His parents had warned him about people putting razor blades in apples.  They went through his candy every Halloween, just to make sure it was safe, though Pesky was sure his dad also used it as an excuse to grab all of his Reese's cups.

He made note to stay away from Magruder's house, then remembered that there was no way he'd be on Main Street on Halloween anyway.

They coasted for another minute until they saw what Penelope said was Bradford's house.  Pesky gulped at the sight of the yellow police tape.  Reality hit him and his face flushed as panic seeped in.

When he got himself gathered, he asked, "Why is there police tape on the house?"  Then, as his own question sank in, he added, "Are kids being taken from inside their own homes?!"

Corey had gone completely silent, his own eyes now registering a sense of near panic. His face looked pale.

Penelope on the other hand, was fielding the questions by looking at Kevin and then Pesky. Each time she moved her head, the trailing, permed hair thrashed about.

"Bradford....I don't know. Someone broke into his house maybe. That's what they told me when I asked." She said looking at Kevin, even though Pesky had asked the question. It had been Pesky that asked the question, hadn't it? She stared at the house, not saying anything for a moment. "My Mom won't tell me what happened." She said. Then she shrugged. "The other kids don't know because no one really comes outside to play anymore."

Then as if waking up from her own fog, she said to Pesky "No, it's nothing like that. At least I don't think so. No one is getting taken from their homes. It's more that they're just kind of disappearing. I mean, not like you think, even though that's what's happening. A lot of kids started disappearing and then, on top of that, other kids started to move because their parents sold the homes to get out of the neighborhood. And so that's like double the kids that are disappearing. But the second group disappears the normal way."

Penelope turned to Kevin.

"Ralph shouldn't even be here. I didn't see him until all the sudden he was living at Shawn's house. And I don't know why Shawn's parents let him live there. The kid is like, at least five years younger than Shawn. Then all of the sudden Ralph is Shawn's brother and he's always lived at Shawn's house."

"Then all of the sudden Ralph isn't just living in his own house, he's living with his own Mom. And that Mom didn't always live in the neighborhood. And she didn't move into the neighborhood. A different family lived there. Then all of the sudden it's Ralph's house and his Mom and him had always lived there and Ralph had never lived at Shawn's house. None of it makes sense, and everyone is just going along with it like it always was that way."

"Bradford? Bradford looks like some nerdy kid with big glasses. He's another one who just 'always lived here.' But until recently, no one had ever seen him. Sometimes he walks around with a puppet. Like, what do you call those people on stages that work with Puppets and make it so the Puppet talks but they don't?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:38, Thu 07 Nov 2019.

"Ventriloquist," Pesky said absently, then looked at Penelope.  "Ventriloquist's dummies."

He tried to take in everything she said, his brow furrowed as he listened intently, but it just made no sense.  Nothing about any of what she said made any sense.

Kevin opens his mouth to answer Penelope, but Pesky gets there first. He once again starts taking notes, looking thoughtful as he does. "I'm a nerd too, but that's weird beyond being nerdy. That's, like, creepy weird."

Once he is done with notes, he starts tapping his hand on the handlebar absently as he looks at the police tape, then gets excited as an idea hits, "Maybe they're not ghosts or demons, but aliens! They can mess with memories, and they could be taking the missing kids. It would explain why they seem weird, too. They're trying to act like normal kids, to blend in, but don't understand us enough to do it?"

"That would make sense." Corey, said, chiming in and warming to Kevin's idea. However, the effect was slightly dampened by a chilling autumn breeze that came in, brushing Corey's hair across his forehead and making him bundle up for a few seconds, eyes squinting from cold.

"Did you ever see the show War of the Worlds? That's exactly what happens. The aliens come and they take over people's bodies to support an alien commando raid. They end up looking like real people, but the aliens are inside of them."

"No. No. No. No." Penelope said shaking her head. "It's nothing like that. I'm not trying to ask a question or to try to find out how things happened. Or even trying to defend something."

"It's happening, exactly like I said."

"There was an Evil Circus. And an evil clown that started to kill and snatch kids."

"Then, a Puppet. A dummy. What you said: a Ventriloquist's dummy. It destroyed all the of the evil things in the Evil Circus."

"But it isn't over, because kids keep disappearing. And whatever is happening is changing everyone's memories in town."

"Okaaaaaay. Well. That's not what I was expecting when I came over here to Main Street." Corey, said. He looked over at both Kevin and Peksy to see if they thought Penelope was crazy or not.

"Well it's true." Penelope said, brushing her hair to one side. "It's truer than true."

Just then a gust of wind came by. Then it picked up, making Penelope shield her face. Corey gritted his teeth against the cold of the wind.

"Windy..." Penelope said. But both Kevin and Pesky could only hear the first part of the word, sounding like "Win---" as the chilly breeze grew stronger and louder, drowning out Penelope's voice.

"Wait a second," Pesky said, starting to feel like he was being pranked.

"So, the evil circus came to town and kids started disappearing.  Then a ventriloquist's dummy killed everything from the evil circus.  Right?"  He continued without waiting for an answer.  "Then how come kids are still disappearing?  If everything from the evil circus was killed?  That makes zero sense, Penelope."

Even Kevin — who has believed everything so far — looks skeptical now, when she gets to the part about the dummy killing the evil clown. "Even if that's true," he says in a hesitant voice, "it doesn't mean…"

He trails off as the wind picks up, and he has to scramble to put away his notepad before it blows away. He tries to shout over the wind, "LET'S GO SOMEWHERE WARMER!"

Now might have been a time when Corey would normally chime in with his own comment, often a complaint or a doubt of some kind. But this time, he was just covering his face and grimacing.

Penelope scooted her bike over towards the two large pine trees on a nearby yard, shielding herself from the wind.

“You can believe anything you wanna believe. And that’s fine with me. I don’t know how the kids are disappearing now. You notice how it’s colder on Main Street? It’s all part of what’s going on. I think that that Shawn kid with the Dummy might know. He’s a child actor star too.”

"It’s not that I don’t believe you Penelope. It’s just that everything you’re saying sounds like something out of a bad movie or a weird dream. I mean, it reminds of the movie Labrynth with David Bowie. Remember in the movie, when the little kid gets kidnapped and.....hey, what’s that?" Corey, stopped, pointing to an animal that was crossing the street.

“Chiiiiii.” The raccoon emitted a gravely, throaty whine that most little girls would have probably considered adorable.

“That’s Rocco. He’s the neighborhood raccoon.” Penelope explained. “ I like ‘em a lot. Mostly because he breaks into stuff and kind of does his own thing.” She said, starting to peddle onward now that the wind had died down to a manageable level of cold, gust.

Nodding to what Corey says, Kevin says, "Yeah, it's like out of a movie." He pulls back a bit on his bike seat as he sees the raccoon. "He doesn't have rabies, does he?"

He starts to pedal after the others the end, though staying as far from the raccoon as their path lets him.

Apparently, wild animals are scarier to him than a possible demon infected street where kids are vanishing.

Once past the animal, he says, "Um, anyway, could still be aliens. Maybe they didn't want the evil clown killing the kids they wanted to take? Or maybe they are nice aliens, like in Cocoon, and they were trying to help stop kids from being taken too? Way too many possibilities, especially if they aren't even aliens. Gotta find evidence, whatever the truth is. Grown-ups keep lots of records and stuff, even of really boring stuff, so I bet there's something to show if memories changed."

The racooon scurried away and out of sight as the kids moved on.

"Evidence." Penelope said. "Say, what's your deal anyway?" She said to Kevin. "Where are you from again? You gotta remember, with all of these things happening, I tend to forget things."

Then, as if remembering soemthing. "Oh right, Cacoon. That's pretty rad. I like that. Cacoon was really radical with the nice aliens." Then she sighed.

"But it's not like that." She lamented. "This freaky thing that's going on. I think it's really about the Dummy now. It started with the Circus and now it's really the Dummy. I tell you what? I'll bring you guys to Ralph and then Shawn. Ralph because he knows a lot about the Circus. And then Shawn....well, I havent' seen Shawn in a while. But from what I hear he's locked up in that house all day because all he does is practice with that Dummy of his."

For a second, Kevin looks like he's getting frustrated, but then apparently a thought startles him. "Did you only start forgetting things when this weird stuff started?"

Then he answers the questions, reminding her about himself, "Dad's a reporter, I play chess. I just moved into a house on Rodeo, I came from Fresno."

He brightens immediately when she suggests going to see Ralph and Shawn. "Yeah, let's go meet them!" He glances over to Corey and Pesky as if to see what they think.

"That sounds like a good idea, Penelope," Pesky said, looking at Kevin.

Finally, some interviews with people who might know something.  He pulled the walkie-talkie out and told home base, "Heading to our first interview.  Will send details when interview is complete.  Over and out."

Putting the radio back in his pack, he agreed, "Let's go see Ralph."

OOC: Kevin and Pesky Join Thread

Kevin, Pesky: The First Interview - Ralph’s House