"It's...."

"Chocolate Milk." Ralph's Mom finished, placing the glass in front of Ralph.

She went back to the counter to fix some more glasses, presumably for Corey, Kevin and Pesky.

Kevin sits down as well, glancing over to Pesky to give a small nod in agreement. To Ralph, he says, "If you ever need help with homework, you can come to my place and I'll help you."

He frowns, though, in immediate reaction to an apparent injustice that momentarily knocks the creepiness-factor of the situation right out of his thoughts: "Hey, why doesn't Ralph get to have hot chocolate too?"

"Oh, pardon me." Ralph's Mom said. "It's hot chocolate. I'm so sorry. When you get older you forget things. Go ahead, try it out. It's the best hot chocolate on the block guaranteed."


Ralph blew on the top of the glass, and took a sip, licking his lips with a smile.

Kevin frowns in confusion, and glances over towards Pesky and Corey as if to see if they found this as strange as he did.

Corey looked at Kevin, and then Ralph and then he gave a shrug, took hold of the glass filled with chocolate and took a sip. He licked his lips, indicating that it tasted good.

Of course, once Corey tries it, Kevin decides he certainly can't chicken out. Besides, it's chocolate!

"Thanks," Kevin says, as he picks up the glass, pausing only to get a sense of the temperature before taking a drink himself.

The chocolate milk was both delicious and savory. It hit the spot for sure. And, as advertised, was really something else, perhaps the best that Kevin had tasted.

"What's wrong boys? Why so silent?" The Old woman asked.

"Well" Corey said, looking at both Pesky and Kevin. "We're walking around the neighborhood and..." Corey looked at Kevin and Pesky as if looking for 'permission' to say what their objective was.

Kevin smiles, and says, "This is really great! It is chocolate milk after all, but it's good enough it doesn't matter."

More reassured that Ralph's mom isn't some evil alien — evil aliens couldn't make chocolate milk taste that good — Kevin nods to Corey and continues, "We're trying to find out what happened to the missing kids. Just by talking to people, mostly the kids around here, not doing anything dangerous," he adds quickly.

Then he takes another drink.

"Missing kids." The woman repeated with a cautious tone. "That's been happening." She admitted while shaking her head as if just imagining it was something terrible to think about. "I want you boys to stay safe. Make sure that you don't talk to any strangers that are coming by through the streets." She warned.

"Yes ma'am." Corey said, taking another sip of his chocolate.

"Yes Mom." Ralph said, taking another sip of his own. He gave Kevin a look. The look was one of agreement but also one of caution.

OOC: Kevin Rolls just Wits

20:40, Today: Kevin rolled 1 success using 3d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s.  Wits.

In that moment, Kevin discern something. It was Ralph. The small boy was mouthing something to him. Not a whisper. Silent lipreading gesture with his mouth. Ralph was telling him to get out of the house. To get out of there!

"Yes, ma'am," Kevin echoes Corey, before seeing Ralph's mouth moving. Doing his best to act as if he just remembered something, he hops to his feet, moving to leave and tug Corey and Pesky along as he says, "Whoops, we're supposed to be back by now,  gotta go or we'll be in big trouble! Bye, Ralph and Mrs... Ralph's mom!"

“Ok, Ok, we wouldn’t Want you to get in trouble!” The old woman said in a loud voice of Kevin good here as he was marching towards the door

With an expression that was half disappointment half-surprise Corey got up to, leaving Pesky at the table and tripping over his own shoelace nearly faceplanting into tile on the hallway, he caught up to Kevin and the two stood in front of the door that would lead them outside, the sound of movement in the kitchen behind them now, the clinking of glasses and the shuffling of feet

"Thanks again!" Kevin calls back after pausing to make sure Corey is okay, as he continues to the door, moving to pull it open. They can wait for Pesky outside, he figures.

OOC: Kevin Joins Thread

Kevin: Well, That Was Weird

Ralph's Mom turned to Pesky

"Do you have to go to?"

"Yes ma'am, I do," he said, pretending to look at his watch.  He'd seen part of the exchange between Ralph and Kevin - enough to know that he needed to get out.

"My mom will start to worry if I don't check in every couple of hours."

He collected his backpack, thanked Ralph's mom for the chocolate milk, and headed for the door.

As Pesky headed out the door, Ralph gave him a stare and nodded his head with a single gesture. Then, all of the sudden, the Radio went off as soon as Pesky’s hand grabbed on the door knob to pull the front door open:

“Pesky, you there? Did you find anything? We haven’t heard from you would like, a while...is everything OK?”

Pesky's face flushed red as his radio went off but, with a wave and a nod toward Ralph, he continued toward the door.

Once outside, he ran to his bike, dropped his pack, and grabbed his radio.  He pushed the button hard and said, "Dang it guys, I told you I would call you!  I'm right in the middle of something.  I'll report back as soon as I can, without ruining the investigation!"

He let go of the button, then quickly re-pressed, adding, "Over and out!"

'Pesky' joins thread, ‘Pesky’, Kevin: Well, That was Weird