So like what mom possibly wanted her to be? Even more reason not to do it... "That's what he is, for sure," Sara nodded again, smirking. "Loser star."

"Loser Star! Loser Star! Loser, Loser, Loser Star!!!" Jimmy shouted. "Come on, Come on! Say it with me! Say it with me! Hahaah!" Jimmy encouraged Sara to join in, jumping around and shouting 'Loser Star' with him.

"Shawn is a loser star!"

"Loser Star! Loser Star! Loser, Loser, Loser Star!!!" Jimmy shouted again, this time laughing.

"Oh hey, you know what I heard? I heard that he's really into like dolls. Isn't that weird? I heard he has like a favorite doll or something that he plays with. No really, it's true. I know because one day I was walking by his house and I heard him and his Dad fighting. It's weird. You know no one knows where his Mom went either. If you look at his house you'll never see her around."

"Hey, are you going Trick or Treating on Rodeo Drive, Main Street or all over?"

"I'll go all over," Sara grinned. A doll, huh? Something to look out for, she guessed.

"Dang it, Jimmy!"

Pesky bends over panting, hands on his knees.

"What are you doing?"

Kevin comes running around the corner just a couple of seconds after Pesky, just as out of breath but grinning. "Your tracks… were really easy to follow," he says as he tries to catch his breath.

Pesky's tone of voice, however, reminds him why they were tracking down the other kids in the first place, and he quickly grows more serious again as he starts to regain a more normal rate of breathing.

"Hey guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuyyyzzz!!!" Jimmy greeted Kevin and Pesky with drawn out tittering.

"Wasn't that fun! And cool! Hah! We got you! We got you so bad! We were throwing rocks too! Awesome and radical. Totally...what's that word that Bart uses? Tubular!!! Totally tubular!!!"

"Tracks?" Jimmy picked up his foot and examined the bottom of his red, converse sneaker. "Oh, man!!" He lamented.

Though miffed at Jimmy letting them get followed... Sara thought about it for a moment and decided she didn't care. She faced the boys nonchallantly. "Got you good! I bet you were scared."

Kevin rolls his eyes, and says, "Yeah, of course we were, you were throwing rocks at us! If all you wanted to do was scare us there is way more funny ways of doing that without trying to hurt us."

That was probably all he had initially intended to say, but instantly it's like he needs to fill in an example, "Like, last Halloween one guy pretended to be a Halloween decoration but then jumped up right as we got close. That was scary and funny, and didn't hurt anybody! Well, except my big brother scraped his hand when he jumped back and fell on the sidewalk, but… I guess it doesn't matter right now," he concludes kind of sheepishly, as he seems to once again realize he's being a motormouth.

Ignoring Jimmy, Pesky turns to the girl with him.

"I've seen you around.  I'm Peter - friends call me Pesky."

"You should be careful who you hang around," he said, turning to Jimmy.  "Some people just like to get into trouble for no reason."

Sara watched him, unimpressed, but perhaps a bit confused. Was he warning Jimmy about her, or her about Jimmy...? Either way, she didn't care for it. "I'm Sara," she introduced herself. "I don't remember you, though. Why do they call you pesky?" She'd have to remember that one.

Pesky glared at Jimmy for another moment before turning back to Sara, his glare softening.

"Peter Eskind.  Just got shortened to Pesky 'cause there's another kid named Peter in my class."

That seems to remind Kevin, and he looks back to Sara to introduce himself as well, "And I'm Kevin. I just moved here a few days ago."

"Eh.." Jimmy said, jumping a bit as if he couldn't sit still. "Great. Everyone knows everyone now, hehehe." He jibed.

"So, now that we're all familiar with each...." Then Jimmy stopped. He tilted his head. He was looking at Kevin.

"Waaaaait a second.  I know you." Jimmy said. "Aren't you that famous chess kid?"

Kevin looks surprised for just moment as he's recognized, but then nods quickly. "Yeah. Does that mean you play chess too?" he asks hopefully.

"Or was it one of those news stories where a reporter wanted to know if I was the next Bobby Fischer? All of those are kind of the same. Wish they'd talk about the games I played, or even asked me something different sometime," he adds this last statement as the thought occurs to him.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:19, Sun 03 May 2020.

"Whatever..." Sara rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. She could care less about chess and the kids that play it. "So what were you doing up there when we scared you?"

"Wait!" Jimmy said to Sara, wanting to say something first. Jimmy looked around to see if anyone else knew what he and Kevin were talking about.


"I don't remember." Jimmy answered Kevin

"It could have been one of those things. Maybe an article or something. Maybe the Bobby article." Jimmy said.

"We can talk about the opening move you like to play. I know something about chess, heheheh" Jimmy said.

"But first I want to do this" Jimmy extended his hand to Sara, Kevin and Pesky. And then, extended the index finger of his hand.

"Pull my finger." He said.

"Jesus, Jimmy, grow up.  This is serious," he says, ignoring Jimmy's finger.

He turns to address Sara.  "We were talking about our investigation."  He looks around, lowering his voice slightly.  "We're trying to find out what's going on around here - why kids keep going missing."

Kevin grins to Jimmy, either happy that he's found someone who knows a bit about chess or maybe sharing his sense of humour, but nods in agreement with Pesky. To Sara, he adds, "We think we have a suspect, too."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:35, Tue 05 May 2020.

Just then Gary came walking up, panting like he'd been running for a while and with a concerned look on his face.



"Guys....*pant*...where'd you....*breath*...go? I was looking for...*pant*....you all." He said to Kevin and Pesky.

And then to Sara. "I'm...*breath*....Gary." He hunched over both knees, breathing heavily.

"Your friend?" Sara asked no one in particular as Gary came up. Not waiting for the answer, she turned towards Kevin. "So who's the suspect?" the girl asked, lowering her voice conspiratorily.

Kevin looks back to Gary, and reaches out a hand for his shoulder in case he needs support, and says, "Sorry, I thought you'd see the tracks too!"

He looks back to Sara then, and says, "What do you know about Ralph's 'mom'?" The quotation marks are practically in his tone of voice, and he wrinkles his nose just a tiny bit even mentioning her.

Who? Did she even know a Ralph? But rather than expose her ignorance, Sara parried with a question: "She's really a monster, isn't she?"

Kevin gives a serious nod, not even seeming to realize he's been deflected, "I think so. Ralph says he used to have a different mom, and I think this new one's doing something to mess with his memories. And she didn't talk like a human. She said things that didn't make any sense at all, not even grown-up-sense. And Ralph warned us not to eat any of her food, and told us to get out of there as soon as we started talking about the missing kids in front of her."

After giving this evidence, he concludes, "I think she's an alien. Aliens can mess with people's memories and they abduct people all the time! But she might just be some crazy lady, or we might be wrong about her at all, so we gotta get proof."

OOC: Sorry about the long delay there, RL hit me hard this week.