It was a calm afternoon in Falmouth. It was also the weekend, which was a good reason for why it was so calm. Sundays were a good day to catch up in things that needed doing, as the traffic was much lighter than normal. Those who knew of this were sure to take advantage of this state of affairs to do things that they had not had much time to do during the week.
Izzy was one such person. There had been some reading she had wanted to do, but had sadly struggled to find the time to do so, and had taken now as the opportunity to do it. The light was on- Izzy would have preferred to use natural light, but her bedroom was on the wrong side of the house. She usually got a face full of sun in the morning, but by the afternoon it was round the other side of the house, which was inconvenient for light purposes. Not to mention heat. Like many properties in Britain, the house wasn't air conditioned, so it was very hot during the peak period when the summer temperatures went a bit crazy.
Unlike Sunny. Her home was in a sheltered spot at the bottom of a cliff, so it avoided the worst of the daily sunlight. The sunsets from it were unbeateable, though, and the six of them enjoyed gathering at the top of the lighthouse and standing on the outer railing around the lamp room as the sun went down in the sky.
Izzy turned her mind back to her book. Sunny had recommended this one to her. Sure, it was a little old, but it contained interesting information, and that was all that concerned her. Besides, a text published in 2008 can hardly be that out of date, right?
As she dug deeper into the pages, her eyes flowing over the words, she spotted something interesting in the passage she was reading.
"Ooh!" she said. "Something about a lost engine?"
She continued reading. The book stated that something that archeologists had been trying to solve for decades was a missing engine. Accounts appeared in differing parts of Britain about a 'lost engine'. These weren't unheard of, but not as common as you might think. Britain isn't the largest of places, after all.
But as she went on to read, establishing this was considerably harder than people had thought. Indeed, researchers had found identifying where it was remarkably hard, and had no clue where it was. Izzy looked at the bottom and spotted a footnote at the end of the chapter, identifying the author of the information as one A. K. Yearling.
"Isn't that the person who wrote those children's novels?" Izzy thought. "The ones about the archeologist?"
She pulled out her phone and typed a message. Hey guys! I've got something interesting to show you! See you at the Magnolia Tearooms!
She then got a flurry of responses from her friends, confirming they would be over.
The six poured over the information at the Magnolia Tearooms whilst enjoying a various supply of cold drinks. Pipp glanced over to somebody else and shrugged. "How can they think of drinking hot drinks in weather like this?" she said. "We're already sweating buckets as it is!"
"Makes you glad more modern buildings have climate control, eh?" Hitch said.
"The logic behind it is that hot drinks make you sweat, therefore cooling you down." Misty had suddenly entered the conversation.
"So you make yourself hotter to cool yourself down?" Sunny replied. "That seems counterintuitive. Why not just cool yourself down first and skip the extra step?"
"Besides, we live in an air conditioned house, Pipp," Zipp said. "Not everybody has that luxury." She turned to Sunny. "How's the new blend going?"
"Oh, the Alicorn?" Sunny said. "It's flying off the shelves faster than I can make it. Turns out blending grape, banana, and raspberry works really well."
"Anyway," Izzy said, "what do you guys think about this lost engine business? Or A. K. Yearling?"
"Based on our prior experience with missing things and magic objects it's worth pursuing," Hitch said. "No doubt our friend Opaline will want it as well."
Pipp's phone suddenly beeped, and she checked it. "Chaos and smoothies? What's this?"
"They really did use that headline, didn't they?" Hitch groaned. "Are they ever going to let us forget about that job switch?"
"But there's something else on the town Facebook page!" Pipp added. "There's a speaker coming to visit, a guy called Firelight, about something called the Lost Engine. That's convenient. Zipp, can you check for tickets? The link is broken on my end."
Zipp took a look. "Nope. Looks to be sold out. Then again it is in a few day's time, so it's hardly surprising."
Sunny then had an idea. "He's an academic? Perhaps I'll have more luck."
Argyle was putting the last of the cups away (with Sunny's help of course). He glanced over. "Sunny, you have the 'can I ask you something' face on," he said.
Sunny nodded. "When in town earlier, we saw somebody called Firelight is coming to talk at the University."
Argyle's face lit up. "I haven't talked with him in years! It was a few decades back, but he and I did several photography trips into Eastern Europe to photograph some of the last steam locomotives. What's he coming to speak about?"
"Something about a lost engine being lost somewhere."
Argyle nodded. "That is a mysterious case. I've been trying to unpack it myself. No success yet, but perhaps if he and I combine our information we may have more success. Any spaces left?"
"No. It's all sold out, at least according to Zipp."
"Well, there is a way around that," Argyle mentioned. "As I am on the university payroll, I think I can pull a few strings that will get us into that talk. They usually set aside a considerable number of seats for staff and group. I think I can exploit the loopholes they left in the system."