6. Muffin Mash
Well, this is getting weird.
Not like, I-was-riding-a-bicycle-and-fell-into-a-well-weird or whatever-is-wrong-with-Sour-Sweet kind of weird, but downright bizarre. I mean, Roseluck is missing, Wallflower is missing, and now Daisy is missing too. Not to mention that creep in the toilet. I actually came back there to ask him a few questions, but it seems that he woke up and ran away.
This is also strange on its own. No one whose head met with the toilet bowl at this speed should wake up so fast or be able to walk away like this. Trust me, I had enough blunt force trauma to the head to be a kind of an expert.
Remember kids: always wear helmets when cycling. Though if you fall into nettles, a helmet doesn’t help much.
Wait, I need to focus. It really doesn’t help that Lily is here. She may be playing tough, but deep down– Well, it’s not even deep down. Just like donkeys, she wears her fears right out there on her sleeves.
“Lily, be quiet,” I say. “I’m thinking what to do.”
“You were thinking for the last ten minutes and I didn’t say a word,” Lily replies.
“Yes, but you’re thinking too. It’s very distracting.”
“Oh, so now you’re like Sunset Shimmer?” she asks. “She can do this trick with reading thoughts and she said that after reading me, she had to somehow convince herself that the Were-Rabbit is not real.”
“Is it?” I ask. Actually, that’s kind of interesting. I mean, if our friends didn’t disappear, we could go and look for the Were-Rabbit, though I’m pretty sure Lily wouldn’t join us.
“Of course it is,” Lily says.
“What about his cousins, Was-Rabbit, Will-Be-Rabbit, and Has-Been-Rabbit?” I ask.
“What now?”
I shrug. “Nothing. Anyway, let’s liberally apply Occam’s Razor here–”
“What now?”
I swear, if she says ‘what now?’ once again, I’ll break another door. And my doctor said that I can only break one door a day.
“I read about it on Wikipedia,” I reply. “Anyway, we messed up the plans of a gang of murderous clowns. Now our friends have disappeared. We can safely assume the clowns kidnapped them, right?”
“This sounds worse when you say that,” Lily replies.
“And what can we do about that?” I ask.
“Go back home and forget we’ve ever met Wallflower?” Lily asks. I swear, somewhere there’s a door I’ll have to break because of her. “It’s not like anyone else at school had ever seen her, right? She may have been a collective hallucination.”
“Well, we can’t do much except for the thing we should’ve done yesterday,” I say, grabbing my phone. “We call this ginger cop with a big gun and hope for the best.”
“Yeah, that’s also an option,” Lily says. “Although, I still think–”
Okay, the idea that we imagined Wallflower and she never really existed is kind of amusing, but I think her luggage is still in our room back in the hotel and it’s a rather big pile of evidence of her existence. Hmm, evidence of existence. If there was absence of evidence of existence, I’d be on the fence.
In the meantime, I manage to call the Dunwich police. Time to be normal, I guess.
“Hello, I’d like to say that we were at your station yesterday, remember? We got arrested for killing a clown, but it wasn’t us,” I say.
“You’re not helping our case,” Lily mutters. Like she’d do it better, with bunnies and stuff.
“Well, now Wallflower, Daisy, and Roseluck are missing and I got attacked by some creep in the toilet. I wanted to ask him a few questions, but he ran away.”
“Is this some joke?” the guy on the other side of the line asks. Come on, they have a big, creepy abandoned amusement park in town and yet their cops are completely devoid of imagination.
“I assure you this is not a joke,” I reply. “You may ask the ginger woman with a big gun. She talked to Wallflower. You know Wallflower, right? Wears a sweater, constantly zones out, looks like a watermelon when she blushes–”
Suddenly, I hear only beeping. The guy hung up on me? Well, farðu í rassgat, helvítis drullukunta.
Oh right, time to look for alternative solutions. Maybe one of all those gardeners is like, a commando in disguise. Though I guess it’s more likely that someone is going commando. And this time it’s not even me.
Wait, I think I’m forgetting someone. Where is Tempest Shadow when you need her? I mean, if someone can rip those clowns a new one and find Wallflower, then it’s her. I look around but I’m pretty sure she’s not here. I mean, she’s taller than most people in the crowd so she’d be easy to spot.
“What are you thinking about?” Lily asks.
I shrug. “If you were Tempest Shadow, where would you be right now?”
“Drinking vodka, eating raw meat and steel nails, while torturing a POW,” Lily replies. “Why would you need her?”
“The police didn’t want to help, so I’m looking for a budget alternative,’ I say. “Also, I think you gave me an idea. You know those guys who have a stall here and they sell tools, lawnmowers and other stuff like that?”
“Do I want to know how you went from torturing POWs to lawnmowers?” Lily asks, looking at me unsurely.
“It’s simple, I divided fifteen by Friday,” I reply. “Let’s check out there.”
We walk to the stall. My idea turns out to be right – Tempest is there, looking at a large woodchipper. Hmm, I guess our garden would need such a thing – whenever we cut the tree branches, we never know what to do with them. My idea to burn them all for the glory of Satan wasn’t met with Wallflower’s approval, to put it mildly.
“Hi, Tempest,” I say. “What’s up?”
She looks at me, then at the woodchipper, and then, slowly, her gaze moves to Lily. “I was just wondering if a schoolgirl would fit in it.”
“You should talk to Wallflower,” I reply. “Just yesterday, she was thinking about using girl scouts as a basis of a healthy diet.”
Don't get me wrong. Wallflower is fine, but sometimes you just feel like one day she'll shoot you, eat your tongue, and nail your antlers to the wall as some kind of a trophy. I'm pretty sure she cheers for the hunters when watching Bambi.
“She may have a point.” Tempest shrugs. “Where is she, anyway?”
“That’s the thing,” I reply. “She went to the bathroom and never returned. And when I went to the bathroom, I had the weirdest thing happening to me…”
“Yeah, I know.” Tempest smirks. “You’d never guess what passes as food in the Asian Dawn Movement.”
“No, I mean this guy who tried to kidnap me and I left him unconscious in the stall,” I say. “Though I guess he got better because when we got back there he already left.”
Tempest’s eyes widen. “Wait, someone tried to kidnap you?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “And I guess they also managed to kidnap Roseluck and Daisy.”
“Did you call the police?”
I shrug. “They didn’t quite believe me. So I thought, you seem like you could find those clowns and give them a taste of Vietnam or something.”
“Vietnam?” She chuckles. “I’m not that old.”
“I don’t know, I’m bad with telling age.” I shrug. Seriously, I once thought Vice-Principal Luna was a student. I even told her not to park her car in the faculty lot and she keeps giving me weird looks. Or maybe it’s because I wrecked the lab one time too many.
“If you have to know, on the day I was born Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal to seize the Bar-Lev line,” she replies.
“Impossible,” I reply. “People don’t live that long.”
“She doesn’t mean that thing with Moses and his staff,” Lily says. Well, Tempest’s expression tells me about the same thing. I’m not really good with history; I only know the fun things, like that the Samurai era ended in 1868 and fax machines were invented in 1843, so technically a Samurai could use a fax machine.
The thing is, what would he use it for? Sending low-quality photos of their new katanas and wishing social media were invented earlier?
“So, your lack of historical knowledge aside, where did you last see Wallflower?” Tempest asks. I immediately stop thinking about the Samurai.
“She went to the bathroom and didn’t come back. Just like pretty much everyone, almost including myself,” I reply.
“Right.” Tempest rolls her eyes and looks at the woodchipper again. “Let’s see this bathroom.”
Tempest looks at the floor of the bathroom stall. She put on rubber gloves from her first-aid kit, though the stall, aside from the damage I did, looks much better than, for example, the one at the railway station back in Canterlot City. For starters, there are no syringes and you don’t get ten different diseases if you touch the seat. Assuming someone didn’t steal it.
Eventually she rubs the floor and sniffs her fingers. It’s a girls’ room, but I’d rather not do this if I were her. Some girls also have problems with aiming.
“Blood,” she says. “Exactly how many times did you bang this guy’s head against the bowl?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I kinda lost count.”
“Good,” Tempest replies. “There should be more blood there.”
She’s right, I must say. The trail of droplets goes all the way to the parking lot. It’s kinda like Hansel and Gretel and their trail of breadcrumbs, except with blood. So, I’d say Hansel and Gretel but more metal.
To think about it, the original is already pretty metal, with burning old ladies in the stove and stuff like that. I guess Tempest would like it. I’d tell her about that, but she seems to be busy. We just reached the parking lot and the trail ends.
“They had another van,” Tempest says, pointing at the concrete surface of the parking lot. Near the last drop of blood we found there’s a pair of muddy tyre tracks, leading towards the road. “Judging from the tyres, it must’ve been another Transit.”
“Do they make them or what?” Lily asks. “They could give one to me. We need to get back home, somehow.”
“Maybe they stole ten of them and just take another one when they need it.” Tempest shrugs. “It’s like back in Russia, if I needed a new Lada, I’d always find one parked somewhere.” She looks at us. “Just don’t mention that to anyone, okay?”
“Don’t worry, we won’t tell,” I reply. “So, how do we chase them?”
“Wait a second.” Tempest looks at the tracks. “Judging by the mud on the tyres, they must’ve come from some forest. The mud in the amusement park is different, not to mention that there’s probably still a lot of police there.” She raises her head and looks at the road. “They went east. Let’s hope they didn’t bury your friends somewhere.”
“Oh great,” Lily mutters. “I may be able to explain to my parents why the van is gone, but it may be more difficult with Daisy.”
“Not to mention Wallflower,” I say. “How will we even chase them?”
“Wait a second, I’ll get my motorbike,” Tempest replies.
After a while, she rides back to us. It’s a huge Harley-Davidson with a sidecar. There’s, of course, a pirate flag on the sidecar because why not. I need to put one on my bicycle when I get home. Tempest stops by us and hands me a spare helmet.
“Sit behind me,” she says and turns to Lily. “You, sit in the sidecar and take care of my tree. Don’t touch the rifle, though.”
“You have a rifle there?” Lily asks, looking into the sidecar.
“Of course,” Tempest replies. “You don’t?”
“I wouldn’t be allowed to park at the school’s parking lot.” Lily sighs and sits in the sidecar, holding Tempest’s bonsai tree. “Will I get a helmet too?”
“Nah, there’s nothing in your head that needs protecting and I don’t have a third one,” Tempest replies. “If you drop Ivan, I’ll drag you behind the motorcycle, so watch out.”
“You named your tree Ivan?” I ask, giving Lily The Great Roberto. After all, we can’t leave him at the stall.
“Sure, why not.” Tempest turns the throttle, darting forward. Good thing I have the helmet because I nearly fall off the motorbike. Lily is a bit safer in the sidecar – well, unless we lose it, then Lily and our trees may be in trouble. Though at least they’d have a rifle, but something tells me Ivan knows how to use it better than Lily.
“Do we have any plan?” I ask, hoping that Tempest hears me over the sound of the engine. “Or are we going east until we end up in the forest?”
“That’s exactly the plan,” Tempest replies. “Though I still see some muddy marks on the road, so we might be on the right path.”
“Well, I hope so,” Lily mutters. “Or else it means I’m in danger.”
“You’re in constant danger of accidentally falling out of the sidecar.” Tempest turns to me. “Does she always complain about everything? Where did you even find her?”
“She had a van,” I reply. “And you’d better look at the road.”
Tempest turns back, right in time to dodge a truck going in the opposite direction. “Why did you need a van?”
“Wallflower is a bit crazy about The Great Roberto and she didn’t want me to steal the school bus,” I say. “I mean, we’d only borrow it. And it’d totally work if I only asked Indigo to hotwire it. Her sister is in prison for–”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s an interesting story.” Tempest sighs. “Although school buses are pretty noticeable once they’re not going towards the school.”
“Did you try–”
“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll deny that it ever happened,” Tempest says. “But let’s say that the tank crews found it very suspicious. Especially since it was the middle of Summer.”
I shrug. “Well, there are no tanks here.”
“Still, police patrols…”
Oh, she definitely overestimates the police here. I don’t think they have a tank. Besides, did someone ever pull over a school bus? I mean, they sometimes check if the bus is okay and if the driver is sober before a school trip, but later? I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this.
Though on the other hand, an almost empty school bus driven by Wallflower could be a bit suspicious. Especially since I’m not sure Wallflower can drive a bus. Or anything bigger than a bicycle for that matter.
Tempest turns the motorbike and the sudden change of direction snaps me out of my thoughts. We left the town behind and Tempest just drove onto a narrow forest road, stopping by the group of pine trees. I look around and my detective sense is tingling – there are tyre marks on the ground.
“Do you think they are here?” I ask.
“Either that or we’re going to really scare some kids with a van.” Tempest hops off the motorbike and walks to the sidecar. “Move your ass,” she mutters to Lily, and grabs the rifle. My knowledge of guns comes solely from video games, but I guess it’s some bolt-action model with a scope. Maybe she likes to occasionally shoot some deer on her way home. Or maybe she really wants kids to get off her lawn.
“Now, we have to be quiet,” Tempest whispers. “We’ll follow the tyre marks and see where they take us.”
“That’s your whole plan?” Lily asks.
“If you have a better one, I’m listening.” Tempest rolls her eyes and walks down the path, holding the rifle in her hands. “If someone asks, I’ll say that we’re hunting and hope they don’t notice that we’re the most visible group of hunters ever.”
“I don’t find hunting ethical,” Lily whispers. There are good moments to share such opinions, but I guess it’s not one of them.
“Me neither,” Tempest replies. So, there goes my theory about deer. “Since I’ve lived here, I only shot a poacher in the ass.”
The bushes around us get thicker as we go deeper into the forest. We’re still following the road, though Tempest occasionally looks around and prompts us to hide in the thick foliage. Not sure why – so far the only living thing we’ve met is a northern harrier. Guess it won’t snitch on us to the clowns, assuming they’re even here.
Suddenly, Tempest stops and jumps into the small ditch next to the road. If she didn’t, I’d probably fall into it, knowing my luck. Still, I follow her there while Lily just looks at us as if we were crazy.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Over there.” Tempest points at something in front of her. I look there and see my friend from the toilet. He has a black eye and his clothes are torn, so I guess he still remembers me. Still, he’s looking around, although without much enthusiasm. Guess no one wanted to be a guard, but he drew the short straw or something.
Well, considering the way he looks right now, he drew the short straw when it comes to life in general.
“It’s him,” I whisper to Tempest.
“Now, I’ll show you how to be stealthy,” Tempest replies. “Come to me when he goes down.”
She gets out of the ditch and crawls towards the guy. Let me tell you, guards in video games are harder to get around than him. As soon as he turns his back to us, Tempest darts from the bushes and soon the guy is lying on the ground, half-conscious after getting the butt of the rifle to the back of the head.
Lily and I join her as quietly as we can. Tempest is not in a hurry – she produces a large knife and shows it to the guy.
“If you scream, I’ll give you a free brain surgery,” she says. “Unfortunately, I’m the worst neurosurgeon in the world. How many friends do you have there?”
“Two,” the guy replies. “Though Jewel is not well right now.”
“What happened to Jewel?” Tempest asks.
“You know that psycho who looks like a fir in a sweater?” He winces. “Jewel gave her a shovel so she’d dig her own grave and the next thing you know, she caught a shovel with her face.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Wallflower,” I mutter. “So there’s one guy there?”
“Yeah, and he’s digging now,” the guy replies.
“Okay then.” Tempest punches the guy again, knocking him out. “Good night.” She turns to me and Lily. “We have to hurry before the guy is done digging.”
We rush through the bushes until we see a small clearing. There’s a van there and a very angry short guy digging a hole. It’d make a nice genre painting, especially with additional details, such as an unconscious woman lying next to the van and Wallflower, Daisy, and Roseluck standing next to her, tied, and watching the guy. Looks like they’re fine, though Roseluck’s face tells me that she’s about to have an accident. Wallflower, on the other hand, seems like everything is according to her plan. Maybe she’s just getting excited when someone’s about to die, even if it’s her.
“Wait here,” Tempest whispers, raising her rifle and getting out of the bushes. “Hey, you!” she exclaims. “Don’t you know that only I can bury my victims here? Find yourself another forest.”
I must admit the guy is fast. He drops the shovel, grabs a gun and shields himself with Daisy. “Drop that!” he shouts.
“Hey, why me?” Daisy asks. What a great time to whine.
“Because the green one has a death wish and I don’t want your friend to throw up on me!” the guy replies. He still has the remains of clown make-up on his face, but unlike his companions, he doesn’t look like he got punched enough today.
“Hey, I don’t throw up!” Roseluck exclaims. If they start arguing who’d make a better hostage, I’ll get out of those bushes and offer myself as a candidate. I’ve never been taken hostage before.
“Considering what you do when stressed, throwing up would be preferable,” Wallflower mutters and turns to Tempest. “He’s bluffing! If he wanted to kill us, he’d already do that and dig a hole at his leisure!”
“Can you not provoke him while he’s aiming at me?” Daisy rolls her eyes.
“He didn’t shoot me when I started my little shovel rampage,” Wallflower replies. “Guess he beat the other guy to death with a pot by a sheer accident.”
“Shut up!” the guy exclaims, his hand trembling. Let’s hope his fingers don’t twitch.
“Yeah, shut up, Wallflower,” Daisy says. Does she have Stockholm syndrome already? “Or we can trade places, if you want.”
“Sure, why not,” Wallflower replies.
“I don’t agree!” the guy exclaims, shuddering. “And I’m holding you hostage, so I think I have a say in this matter.”
“Man, I know kids in Eastern Europe who could hold hostages better than you,” Tempest says.
He aims his gun at Tempest. “Weren’t you supposed to drop that? I’m getting nervous when someone’s aiming at me.”
“I may drop it, but I wanted to wait until you settle matters with your hostages.” Tempest shrugs. “Or maybe you drop your gun and I promise Wallflower won’t visit you in prison.”
“No way I’m going to prison,” the guy replies, pulling Daisy towards the van. “Nobody move or I’ll shoot!”
“Whom?” Wallflower asks.
“You, if you don’t shut up!”
“And if he doesn’t, I will,” Tempest says. “I swear, you kids are gonna give me a heart attack.”
“Tell me about it.” The clown guy rolls his eyes. “It was already hard enough when my old gang got arrested and I had to rob this bank with morons like Jewel, Crowbar, and the late Halligan Bar, who couldn’t even tell his own van from the other one. And then Jewel had a brilliant idea to kidnap those kids because ‘they totally know where our money went’!” He sighs. “At the police station, that’s where! And now I’m stuck with those meddling kids and I can’t even yell at Jewel for that because she got shoveled.” He looks at Tempest. “On a side note, what did you do to Crowbar?”
“He’ll be fine-ish,” Tempest replies. “If it’s so bad, why don’t you give them to me and get out of here?”
“What if you shoot me then?” he asks. “I don’t trust someone who looks like they got run over by a lawnmower and just jumps out of bushes with a rifle and yells at me.”
“A lawnmower?” Tempest aims her rifle at the former clown. “That was a whole tank company, you idiot!”
“See? This is why I have trust issues!” The guy aims his gun at Tempest again. “You’d better drop your gun or I’ll– aargh!” His scream is followed by a gunshot. He looks at his gun, or rather a half of it – it seems like the barrel had been shot off.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Tempest says. “I was voted the worst sniper in Sarajevo three times in a row.”
“And you’re telling me this only now!?” Daisy exclaims, before turning around and headbutting the former clown dude who was resting himself against the van, holding his nose. “Be happy that my hands are tied!”
“It seems I arrived just in time!” Copper Top walks out of the bushes, blowing smoke off the barrel of her revolver. She twirls it a few times and puts it back in the holster. “You’re all arrested, at least until I figure out what happened here. Yes, you two in the bushes too.” She turns to me. “The news of your call reached me, but you could’ve at least told us that you went to search for the kidnappers along with–” She looks at Tempest. “Whoever you are, cowgirl.”
“I am a cowgirl, huh?” Tempest rolls her eyes. “And now excuse me, I’m gonna untie Daisy, if she promises that she won’t kill this guy.”
Lily and I walk to Wallflower and Roseluck to untie them. Well, guess we’ll soon get cuffed by the police again, but they may as well get a moment of freedom.
“You know what?” Wallflower says. “Next time I want to take us somewhere, smack me with a newspaper or something.”
“Don’t worry,” I reply. “Next time we’re going somewhere, I’ll choose a place.”
“Oh no…” Wallflower mutters.
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I actually looked up the bit about the fax machine. Samey, nice job! :) Anyway, all's well that ends... well? Hmm, the gang's all alive and only slightly mentally-scarred. Yeah, this was a good ending for them.
Muffin is best narrator
bte
van
Ooh, Scooby reference.
10682627
Fixed
10682609
Not as good for the clowns, I guess, though I think the guy prefers prison over Wallflower.