"I met a kahd nised Kevahn at a Halloween stare earlaher tanahght. He tald me dat a group a kahds on Rodeo Drive was planahng on goahng doeswn ta da lahbrary tamorrow. They saahd day found out about some book. Some kahnd of book dat has ahnformatahon about what ahs goahng doeswn. Some gahrl nised Edahth ahs goahng too."     

Maybe it was hypocritical, but Shawn felt a little betrayed that the Rodeo Drive kids hadn't mentioned the book to him when they'd been meeting. Sure, he had promised Chris that they weren't really friends, but it's not like he'd known that at the time! He frowned grumpily. "Well, I guess we'll just have to make sure we beat them to it. What time does the library open?"

"I knew it!" Chris said. "I knew those losers were trying to 'one up' us."

"And not the good kind of one up like Seven Up or Mario."

"You see? I told you that they weren't like us." Chris said to Shawn

Tyrone seemed nonplussed. "Dunno. Kevahn saahd he found out about da boaahahght now from a kahd nised Jimmy. They're planahng on goahng ta da lahbrary tamorrow mornahng. It oprahsons at 8is."       

Shawn calmed down a little as he realized it probably wasn't personal on their part, but he still tried to look offended for Chris' sake. "All right, we'll just have to get there before they do. Maybe even a little before it opens."

"Told you so." Chris said, still clinging to the idea that Eidth and the others were up to no good.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:14, Mon 14 Mar 2022.

"Well, I'm not tellahng ya what ta does. I doesn't know ayone ahn dat neahghborhood. If ya're goahng doeswntawn,  ca I ask ya ta does a favor for me?"

Shawn still wanted to make up for his bad first impression with Tyrone, so he gave him a nod - not too eager, he didn't want to look like he was sucking up. Which he kinda was. "Sure, what is it?"

"A friend I know lahves ahn da house rahght next ta da lahbrary. I borrowed dahs slahngshot from hahm. 'S coo', bro. Just give da back ta him"

Tyrone produced the slingshot and handed it to Shawn.

Shawn took the slingshot and tucked it away somewhere safe. "Sure thing! What's the friend's name, just so I can make sure I give it to the right guy?"

"Bobby" Tyrone said in a crisp response. He folded his arms. Then he started to tell Shawn just how close Bobby lived to the library, how long he had lived there and described him so that Shawn would know how to get him the slingshot. The physical description....seemed very much like the Bobby Shawn had known for so long.

Shawn had felt sad for a moment when Tyrone reminded him of Bobby - though of course he assumed it was just a thing where two people had the same name. But when the physical description started, it brought him up short. It sounded exactly like the actual Bobby. He tried to play it cool, though, since most of the actual questions he had would've sounded crazy. "Sounds good. Did Bobby used to live near here? He sounds familiar."

"Nahh." Tyrone said, dismissing the idea. "Yo! Bobby's from da Mahdwest. But da boys been lahvahng doeswntawn for as long as I ca remember. Ah be baaad... He's a real fly shot wahth da slahngshot. Weez used ta go busta cap pahgeons doeswntawn!" Tyrone said, and his eyes wandered up to the ceiling as if he was remembering fond times with Bobby. It was either that or Tyrone was noticing the ceiling shake from the base that was booming to the sound of some Tina Turner song the adults were blasting from upstairs where the party was still raging.

"What about ya? Where is ya from? What's ya stary?" Tyrone asked Shawn. Though he had already been informed, it was clear Tyrone wanted to know more. Chris, for his part, winced, though it was hard to tell if it was the sound of the music or just the idea of hearing about Shawn's "story" that was bothering Chris.

Shawn was torn between believing this was some sort of weird coincidence, and suspecting some deeper strangeness happening. Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly ask 'do you feel like you always remembered him living downtown a couple months ago?'. And it didn't look like Chris had a lot of patience right now, so he just shrugged his shoulders in response to Tyrone's question. "Umm, I mean, there's not much to tell. I'm from Milwaukee, and my family moved here so I could be an actor. And now I'm here." With everything that had happened since he'd arrived, he wasn't sure how much more detail he could go into without talking about the general strangeness of the neighborhood.

"It's really just a typical story." Chris chimed in, adding to what Shawn had said, but from his own jaded perspective. "His Mom is the latest girlfriend to my Dad. They're like girlfriend and boyfriend."

Chris' face wrinkled as if the idea grossed him out.

"Anyway, once he gets what he wants from her, he'll just toss her to the curb. That's what will happen, it usually does. The last one surprised me. Dad was with her for like 6 months. I don't expect this to be any different: fun times and then it goes away and they'll be fighting. And then after the fighting throwing stuff. And they'll she'll move out."

Chris jerked his finger at Shawn, all the while talking to Tyrone.

"And then....POOF! He'll be gone, you watch."

"YO! With muh beeotch! Is dat true Shawn?"

Shawn didn't like the thought that his Mom might be, well, anyone's girlfriend. He wasn't naïve, he knew that some kids' parents got divorced and sometimes they even got new parents. But that was an other kid thing, right? It was a lot to take in, and not something he wanted to do in front of two other kids he was trying to impress.

So he tried to push it aside and stop thinking too deeply about it. Instead, he shrugged and tried to seem unaffected by the whole thing, like Chris did. "I dunno. Chris is probably right, but that's all parent stuff. I can't do anything about it, so why worry?"

"True." Tyrone agreed, nodding his head and folding his arms, then leaning back against the wall, as if he himself was relaxing.

"Well, this book at the library better have some answers. We need to find a way to get at this as soon as possible. There was a rumor that some guy on Main Street is or was responsible for all the disappearing kids. Like a serial killer." Chris speculated.

Shawn nodded seriously, relieved that at least they weren't talking about his Mom anymore. Though they were talking about possible murders, which wasn't really better. "Well, there's bound to be something there. We just gotta figure out how it all fits." He kept coming back to the Bobby who lived downtown. Surely it wasn't...though maybe...

It seemed like the matter had been decided and that tomorrow there would be a big excursion to the library to get the book that might have answers or at least shed light on what was going on. Chris expressed a kind of relief to be able to finally see what had been going on with the missing kids and to be able to get the book downtown.

"Before those kids on Rodeo Drive get it." He added. "You know Edith is probably all smug hoping to get ahead in her investigation before us."

Tyrone didn't seem bothered one way or another by who got the book. He didn't seem worried about the kids or whether or not the investigation went on or didn't go on. He just shrugged and nodded, that crooked smile on his face as if he was excited, if anything, by the prospect of the two kids' clubs getting into some kind of fight over their respective investigations.

"I'm not going back upstairs!" Chris announced. "That music is so loud. I hate it. Why do people have to play loud music at parties? I don't understand. You can't even talk to someone who is right next to you."

"You know something?" Chris said to Shawn "Whenever I'm around loud music, it just gets really boring, you know? It's like being at school taking a test. You cant' talk to anyone you can't say anything. Except instead of things being quiet like during a test, its all loud."

"Well, do you guys want to watch Transformer cartoons and just fall asleep here?" Chris offered. "I think I have a few VHS tapes of my favorite episodes that I taped last year. You know, the one's with Bumble Bee. I like Megatron's voice because it sounds so evil and raspy." he commented.

Under normal circumstances, Shawn probably would've thought a lot like Tyrone did about the whole rivalry between Celebrity Boulevard and Rodeo Drive. The streets were right next to each other, who cares about who got to investigate things? But he'd been drafted onto Chris' team, which meant that he had to take it seriously - otherwise he might not get the book he needed.

Regardless, it had been a long night, and Shawn was entirely happy to go along with a plan that let them just hang out in the basement and fall asleep. He nodded agreeably. "That sounds good to me." He yawned a little, but as he tried to relax, a thought occurred. "Oh yeah! We've gotta make sure we get up early so we can get to the library. Do you have an alarm clock somewhere?"

Chris set the alarm clock and the boys settled into the coach, Tyrone popping the VHS of Transformers into the VCR. A grainy line appeared, across the screen, the audio temporarily distorted before the theme song started playing.

Soon, they were all asleep.