A GROOVY COOL ADVENTURE
GCA Part 1
“Can’t she stop? Please, she is driving me crazy!” Mike wondered why Janine had to come to the karaoke bar every single night. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to make a fool of herself every single night. A very high-pitched screeching sound made him cringe and frown. “Wow! I thought it was impossible for any human being to produce such a horrible, ear-piercing sound.”
Unaware of the murderous looks that Mike was throwing at her from behind the bar, Janine went on singing one of her favourite songs, even though it was sounding like a brand new song. Poor Janine! She couldn’t sing at all, but she came to the karaoke bar every night, and she always sang as many songs as she managed to. Why? Nobody knew. People started calling her “Crazy Singer”, but she didn’t care.
Finally, the last chords of the song echoed in the almost empty bar. “Give me a glass of water, Mike, please.” “Janine, you always ask me for a glass of water…” started saying Mike. “OK. Give me some orange juice then. Today I am feeling wild,” said Janine, tossing her head and slapping a man with her hair.
“Be careful, madam! You almost made me spill my beer,” said the man next to her. “Oh, I am sorry,” said Janine. She couldn’t hide her surprised look when she had a clear look of that man. The man had a very thick layer of white make-up on his face; his mouth was painted in deep red and looked bigger, as if the man were permanently smiling widely; and his eyes were a blur of spoilt make-up, with black trails where the man had apparently rubbed his eyes. The effect was quite a distressing one. That was not a funny clown. That was the image of desperation on a clownish make-up.
“Oh, I am sorry, sir,” Janine apologised again. “So, you are a clown, right? How nice!” “No, I am not a clown,” said the clown in an angry voice. “Oh, but I thought…” started Janine. “You thought wrong! Can you see any red nose on my face? Eh? Can you? Then I am not a stupid clown!” By now the clown was very angry. “OK, OK, no need to be so angry. I am sorry for having been so rude. My name is Janine. Who are you?” said Janine, who didn’t like to be around angry people, and that is why she was being friendly. “My name is Slappy McDeen, and I am a private investigator…”
“A private investigator? Indeed!” interrupted Mike, who had been eavesdropping all the time, while pretending to be wiping some glasses. “I have always wanted to be a private investigator! Are you working on any investigation now? Can I help?” He was so excited that he dropped some glasses to the floor, where they crashed loudly, startling everybody at the karaoke bar. “Don’t be ridiculous! You will never help me to do any investigation. You are far too noisy. You shouldn’t say out loud that you want to investigate people,” said Slappy McDeen, with a scornful look at Mike. “But you also said out loud that you are a private investigator,” pointed out Janine. “Why don’t you go and sing a song?” said Slappy McDeen, sarcastically. “Good idea! I will go and sing another one of my favourite songs,” and Janine went happily towards the small stage, among the groans of the rest of customers, who couldn’t believe they had to listen again to Janine and her horrible voice.
Mike continued talking to Slappy McDeen, trying to convince him of the advantages of working together. Finally, Slappy McDeen got tired of listening to him, paid for his beer, and started walking towards the door, leaving behind a sulky and fuming Mike. A boy tried to enter the karaoke bar at the same time as Slappy McDeen was trying to get out. The boy got paralysed at the sight of Slappy McDeen, blocking the way. The clown threw a menacing glance at the boy and said, “Move”. The boy moved his head slowly from side to side. “Move or I will make you move myself,” threatened Slappy McDeen. The boy looked into the clown’s eyes, left on the floor the guitar he was holding, and with a swift movement he slapped the clown across his face.
Everybody held their breath in astonishment. Their surprise was broken by a maniacal, hysterical, high-pitched laugh. It was Janine. She was bent in two, holding her tummy, laughing like crazy. “Janine, dear,” said Mike in a soothing voice, the kind of voice you use to talk to children or crazy people. “Can you tell us why are you laughing like that?” Janine could barely speak, but she managed to sober up enough to say, “It is very funny! Can’t you see it is very funny?”
People were looking at her quizzically, including Slappy McDeen and the boy with the guitar. “Oh, come on, people! His name is Slappy! Slappy got slapped!” And with these words, Janine resumed her laughing, this time rolling on the floor. Some people laughed at that, but Slappy didn’t find it funny at all, and grabbing the boy asked, “Why did you do that? Are you crazy? Are you looking for a good beating?” Slappy McDeen raised his hand as to punch the boy, but Mike stopped him. “He is just a boy! Don’t hit him. Let’s see what he has to say about it,” said Mike.
“My name is William and I hate clowns! I made a very simple request, a very simple request, and he didn’t do as I said!” exclaimed the angry boy. “What are you saying about a request?” asked both Slappy and Mike at the same time. Then they looked at each other and said, at the same time again, “Don’t copy me!” They stopped arguing when William kicked Slappy in his leg. “Hey, boy! Stop that!”
“I will stop if you make a balloon dog for me,” said William. Slappy McDeen let go of William’s arm as if he was burnt, and started shaking. “Why is that, William?” asked Mike. “I was only 8, and I went to the park with my mum. There was a clown there, and I asked him to make a balloon animal for me. He made it, but the balloon exploded when he handed it to me. I cried and asked for another one, but the clown didn’t want to,” explained William. “So you hate clowns since then?” asked Mike. “Yes,” said William, “but if that Slappy clown makes a balloon dog for me, I will forget that I hate clowns so much.”
“Slappy! Did you hear that? Just make that balloon animal and everything will be fine… Slappy?” Mike looked for the clown, and he finally found him sitting on the floor in a corner, rocking his body back and forth, and muttering, “I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…” “Why not?” asked William, ready to slap him again, but stopping when he had to cover his ears to protect them from the shrieking sounds coming from the stage, where Janine was destroying another song.
“I was learning to make balloons animals, but I was tired of blowing balloons, so I bought some tanks of helium gas. One day, while I was blowing some balloons to make the animal shapes, my parents came to my place. They wanted to try some helium so they could speak like a Smurf and have fun. They swallowed some of the gas from the tank, they immediately turned blue like a Smurf, and then they were dead,” told Slappy. “That’s terrible,” said Mike. “So helium is a poisonous gas?” “Helium is not poisonous, but the gas they gave me instead of the helium was. I stopped being a clown and I became a private investigator to try to find the people who killed my parents with their gas.”
“That’s a sad story,” said William, sitting next to Slappy McDeen. “Can I write a poem about that?” “Do you write poetry?” asked Slappy. “Yes, I do. And I play guitar.” “Then tell me one of your poems to cheer me up,” demanded Slappy. “I don’t remember any of my poems,” said William, toying with his guitar. “How come?” wondered Mike. “I write the poems and then send them to my friend Dan. He writes my poems in his blog, and the moment the poem goes live, I forget everything about it,” said William. “But I can play guitar for you.”
“A song? Will you play a song?” interrupted Janine, who had stopped singing when she noticed that every customer in the bar had left, probably running away from her and her terrible voice. “If you play a song, I can sing it,” beamed Janine. Mike frowned at that idea, even though by now he was getting used to ignoring her singing. “No, my songs have no lyrics,” said William. Janine looked disappointed, but sat down to listen to William playing his guitar. “I ran away from my house when I was 14, and now I am 16. I get some money by playing my guitar in the streets. This song is very special for me,” explained William.
When he started playing, everybody regretted having asked him to do so. He played so poorly that, after ten minutes, one of the strings of the guitar broke. “I don’t understand why it happens all the time. I will run out of spare strings very soon,” said William. “Not soon enough,” said Mike under his breath.
At that moment, a man entered the karaoke bar and, when he saw Janine, he was kind of surprised. “What are you doing here?” asked the man. Janine jumped in her chair and tried to run away, but the man stopped her. “Hey, not so fast! I need more of your special tanks. Bring them to me tomorrow to the usual place,” said the man, with a hissing voice. “Special tanks? What are you talking about?” asked Slappy McDeen, who had stood up when he heard that. “Oh, yeah, our crazy singing friend here provides you with great poisonous tanks of gas that can be quite handy when you want to get rid of… things,” said the sinister man. “You! It was you! You killed my parents!” Janine wiggled and broke free from the man’s grip. She ran away, and Slappy McDeen ran after her, followed by the sinister man.
Mike was in shock. He wasn’t expecting such an unexpected twist. “Do you want to hear another song? I replaced the broken string,” said William. Mike stared at him and said, “No, you can’t even play guitar.”
A MORE THAN GROOVY COOL ADVENTURE
GCA Part 2
Taking into account everything that had taken place in the last hours (meeting Slappy, the apparition of William, and the unexpected revelation of Janine’s illegal activities), Mike thought that it was high time for him to change his life. He decided he would follow Slappy McDeen and try to become a Private Investigator. He was sure that his life would be much more interesting than just being a waiter.
“Hey, William! Would you like to run the bar in my absence?” asked Mike to the young boy, who was busy fixing the strings of the guitar and putting it out of tune.
“Oh, yes! And can I play my songs with my guitar?” said William, so enthusiastically that he broke two more strings of his guitar.
“Sure. You can play as much as you want,” said Mike, very happy since he wouldn’t listen to his horrible music again. And thus, Mike left in search of Slappy and Janine, leaving William in the bar, beaming.
William couldn’t believe his good luck. “Some hours ago I was homeless, and now I have a bar! And a karaoke bar, no less! I can play my music and serve drinks and play more music and…” William’s mouth fell wide open when he saw a girl enter the bar.
“Have you seen Janine?” said the girl.
“What?”
“Have you seen Janine?”
“What?”
“Are you an idiot? Or is it that you only know that word? You should read more, and then your vocabulary would be very rich,” said the girl, half exasperated, half amused.
“Hey! I am William! Don’t you remember me? We went to school together,” said William, who couldn’t take his eyes off this girl. “Oh! What is this funny feeling in my tummy? I think I am in love,” thought William.
“I am KT, and I am sorry, I don’t remember you. By the way, your tummy is rumbling so loud that I cannot even hear my own thoughts,” said the girl.
William saw how the girl tossed her hair after saying that, and he thought that she was very pretty. He closed his mouth and woke up from his dreamy state when she snapped her fingers right in front of his face.
“Oh, sorry! I remember you quite well. You used to sit in front of me, and my marks were very bad because…” He blushed, but continued speaking, “I remember you, KT. How to forget you, Katherine!”
“No, no, I am sure that you are mistaking me with someone else. My name is NOT Katherine.”
“Really? I would say that it is you. You used to enjoy at recess slipping into the school library, taking some books, then tearing them apart to throw the pieces all over the corridors,” said William, fully convinced that he was talking to the same KT.
“Whoa! Such a horrible thing to do! I love books! I adore books! You see this? Eh? You see this?” KT was so angry that she was hitting William on his face with a pinky padded thing he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Calm down! If you don’t stop hitting me, I won’t be able to see it,” complained William. “You are a little dragon, that is what you are, and you are very young to have such a bad temper.”
“I am 15 years old. So what? You are not too old yourself. This is a Kindle,” said KT, pointing at a padded rectangular thing, made of a thick fabric, patterned with pink and blue skulls, hearts, and stars.
“It has a weird shape.”
“Why?”
“Candles are cylindrical.”
“A Kindle! I said it is a Kindle, not a candle.” KT rolled her eyes and thought that now she had a mission. She would turn this illiterate boy into a cultured one. “I think you will be my Eliza…” muttered KT.
“What did you say about Eliza? Is she going to come?”
Rolling her eyes, KT said, “Oh, just forget it.”
William thought that KT was a bit weird and looked like a nerd, with her glasses and her Kindle in her arms, but he was more and more in love with her at every minute. “So, if your name is not Katherine, what is your name?”
“My name is Kooky Tooty.”
“Kooky Tooty?” William couldn’t help it and burst out laughing so much that he thought he was going to be laughing forever. But then he saw her expression and thought that, if he wanted to make her love him, it wasn’t too sensible to laugh at her. So he stopped laughing all of a sudden. “Sorry about that. What is the story behind your name?”
“Well, my mum had a teddy bear when she was a kid. The name of the teddy was Kooky Tooty. She loved her teddy so much that, when I was born, she named me after the teddy. I guess she wanted to have an alive teddy,” explained KT, bitterly.
“Just by giving you the name of a teddy doesn’t mean she loved the teddy better or more,” said William, soothingly.
“Really? Have you taken a look at me?” The truth is that William was so mesmerized looking at KT’s face and the hypnotic movement of her hair that he hadn’t seen the whole of her body yet. Now that he had a closer look, he noticed that KT was wearing very odd clothes.
“Kooky Tooty, the teddy bear, was wearing a pink shirt, blue trousers, and red glasses. My mum always dressed me up with the same clothes as the teddy. And now I am obsessed with pink, blue, and red, so everything I own has those colours,” explained Kooky Tooty, who looked like a life-size teddy bear, but without the fur.
“I think you are adorable, anyway,” said William, looking at KT and flapping his eyelashes, what had no effect on KT since William’s eyelashes were very short.
“Sorry?” said KT, stepping back.
“I love you! I want to write songs for you all day long! Stay with me!” said William, very passionately. KT was very surprised, and she would have been very moved by such a loving outburst if it weren’t because William tripped over some broken strings of his guitar and almost fell, and that made her laugh.
“Oh, you laugh at me… Oh, my heart! Oh, such a pain!” exclaimed William, clutching at his chest.
“Hey, stop the drama,” said KT. “I will be your girlfriend if you become a bookworm, just like me.”
“I will, I will!” exclaimed William, a bit too eagerly.
“And of course the strings of your guitar must be pink, red, or blue. By chance, it happens that I have some strings here with me. Choose one colour,” commanded KT.
“Red!”
“Good! I knew you would say blue. I can read others’ minds.”
“But I didn’t say blue, I said red…”
“Choose one colour!”
“Red!”
“Yay! I knew it again. Blue is a nice colour. Choose a colour one more time.”
“Blue!”
“Great! See? I told you I can read minds. Here you have the blue strings for your guitar.”
“But you made me say a colour three times! That is not reading minds.”
“Well, the truth is that I only had blue strings.”
“Then why did you make me choose?”
“To prove that I can read minds!” said KT, rolling her eyes.
“To prove you can manipulate minds, more likely…” said William under his breath. “Oh, how I love you!” he exclaimed, trying to hug KT. But instead of KT’s body, he found himself hugging a Kindle device that KT had shoved into his arms quite at the right time. He looked at it. It was decorated with blue rabbits on a pink background.
“What is this?”
“That is your new Kindle. It contains 300 books. Since I am always trying to convince people to read more, I always carry a spare one on me,” said KT with a wide smile. “And my boyfriend will read all the books,” and then William got the so much desired hug, although he thought that maybe he was paying a very expensive price just to have a girlfriend. One second later, he was so happy that he forgot about any inconvenience.
“I came here looking for Janine. Do you know where she is?”
So William told her everything that had happened about Slappy’s parents dying poisoned and Janine being the one dealing with the poisonous tanks that poisoned Slappy’s parents. Janine was petrified, since she didn’t know about the illegal and criminal activities of her friend.
“I think I will wait till she appears. I will force her to read Crime and Punishment, so she can understand that she is doing bad things.” And then, KT sat at a table, turned her Kindle on, and started reading, while William changed the strings of his guitar for the blue ones.
While this was happening at the karaoke bar, Mike was wandering around the city, looking for Slappy and Janine. It wasn’t difficult to follow the way they had taken, since they had left a trail of destruction behind them: smashed car windows, a bent lamppost, a furious hot-dog seller with a lot of hot-dogs rolling on the floor, a pack of dogs running with hot-dogs in their mouths…
Finally, Mike arrived to a small warehouse. He knew it was the right place because he saw a gas tank rolling from inside the warehouse, crossing the road, and disappearing around the corner. Maybe it was looking for a rehab clinic for gas tanks, so it could remove all the poison it had inside. Shrugging his shoulders, Mike entered the warehouse and was a bit scared when he saw a big shape in a dark corner. The shape moaned and Mike jumped, startled. “Is it you, Mike?”
Mike recognised Slappy’s voice and hurried to the corner where he was lying on the floor. “What happened, Slappy? Why don’t you stand up? Where are Janine and that sinister man?”
“They are gone. I don’t know where they went, but I will find them.”
“Oh, Slappy! Your arm!”
“What about my arm?”
“Isn’t it painful?”
“A bit. Why are you asking?” Slappy looked at his left arm and gasped. His left arm was bent in an odd way, which was very inconvenient since he was left-handed.
“I think you should go to a hospital, so they can fix your arm.”
“Good idea, Mike, and then we will come back here to look for some evidence. Damn woman!”
“Did Janine do that to your arm?”
“Yes! When I followed her here, I tried to grab her arm so I could take her to the nearest police station. But then she turned around, took one of those gas tanks, and hit me. I didn’t know she was so strong.”
“Don’t worry, we will find her if we work together as a team.”
“Agreed, mate.”
And with the agreement of working together, they went to a hospital. Doctors eventually fixed Slappy’s arm, but now he had to carry his arm in a sling. Once back at the warehouse, they searched everywhere for some evidence of Janine’s address, but they couldn’t find anything.
“Be careful when moving those tanks, Mike, because….” BOOM!! Several tanks fell to the floor, breaking a bit part of the wall.
“What the…?” exclaimed Mike.
“I told you to be careful… Wait a second. What is that under that brick?” Slappy got closer to where the debris rested and removed a piece of parchment from under a brick.
“What is that?” asked Mike, who couldn’t see what Slappy was holding awkwardly in his right hand since he was left-handed.
“A message.”
“What does it say?” asked Mike, who was very excited.
“It says, Nobody will find me / Nobody but you / If you want to find me / In the park there is a clue,” Slappy recited the message and stared at Mike.
“Sounds like a mystery to be solved,” said Mike, feeling the adrenaline rush.
“Let’s go and try to find out what this is about, and we will deal with Janine later on.”
And so they left to search every park in the city, looking for a new clue.
GROOVIERESTERY COOLIERESTERY STORIESTERY
GCA Part 3
“Have you found anything?” asked Slappy McDeen, grumpily.
“Nothing yet,” said Mike, who was busy looking for something in the middle of a bush.
“You are not trying hard enough to find that damned clue,” stated Slappy McDeen.
“Oh, you think so? And you think that sitting on the grass while watching me looking for the clue is better?” retorted Mike.
“Hey, someone has to be the boss. You insisted in coming along with me. Nobody said that being a Private Investigator would be easy,” explained Slappy, calmly, while making gestures to the ice-cream man to get closer to his position in the grass.
“Can you at least try to figure out what the clue may look like?” asked Mike, who was fuming by then.
“Another piece of parchment, you reckon?” said Slappy, mockingly.
“Oh, how clever! And how original! A clown being funny,” said Mike, angrily and stomping his feet in frustration.
“I am not a clown!” exclaimed Slappy, jumping to his feet. Because of his sudden movement, half of his ice-cream fell on the grass. “See what you did? Now I just have half an ice-cream!”
“Oh, stop moaning about the ice-cream like a baby! Tell me what the first clue said. Let’s see if we can see any connection with something around this park,” said Mike, who was starting to feel a bit fed up. They had been searching all over the park for the last three days, and they had found nothing. Mike did all the searching, because Slappy said he was the boss, and anyway he was a bit useless with his arm in a sling.
“I cannot take the note out of my pocket. I just have one hand right now, and it is busy with my ice-cream,” said Slappy, who was clumsily trying to hold tight the ice-cream with his right hand, since he was left-handed. “Anyway, this thing about the mystery is boring me. I don’t want to go on with this.”
Mike’s mouth fell wide open. It was so open that it was a miracle that nobody mistook him for a mailbox. Even a parcel would have fit inside his mouth. That big was his surprise. “You want to quit?” asked an astonished Mike. “YOU WANT TO QUIT?” shouted Mike, so loud that he startled a couple of squirrels that had approached them to eat the fallen ice-cream. The poor squirrels started running away, but one of them bumped into Slappy’s leg, who staggered and let the rest of the ice-cream drop. The squirrel quickly took the fallen ice-cream and hurried away to hide among the flowery bushes.
“Look at what you did. You made me drop my ice-cream!” exclaimed Slappy. “This was the last straw. I had enough. I am going back to my original plan of finding Janine.”
“Janine can be anywhere by now! I won’t help you to find her,” declared Mike, who thought that he had had enough adventures to make him feel fine for at least a couple of days. He folded his arms with determination.
“Fine, go back to your stinky bar,” said Slappy.
“Fine, that is what I will do,” said Mike.
“Fine,” said Slappy.
“Fine,” said Mike.
“Fine,” said Slappy.
“Fine,” said Mike.
“Stop repeating what I say!” exclaimed both Slappy and Mike at the same time. They stare at each other, fuming, clenching their fists, and, when the squirrels were sitting comfortably on a tree, enjoying their ice-cream and waiting for the fight to start, both Slappy and Mike stuck their tongues out to each other and they started walking in opposite directions. What the people in the park thought it was the sound of the wind in the trees, actually was the disappointed sigh of the two squirrels, who had been looking forward to seeing those two stranger men fighting.
Some hours later, Mike arrived to his bar. Before entering, he had a feeling that something was not quite right. He pushed the door with an ominous feeling, crossed the door, and exclaimed, “Hey, William! I am back…what the…?” He looked around and he thought he was dreaming. No! He thought he was in the middle of a nightmare.
“William! What happened to my bar?” It was a good question, indeed. Everywhere he looked at was covered in red, blue, and pink polka dots fabric. Polka dot curtains. Polka dot coasters. Polka dot tablecloths. Polka dot…
“Are you wearing a polka dot apron?” asked Mike to William, who blushed to every shade of red.
“Erm… yes,” said William, looking like he’d rather be travelling deep down in search of the center of the Earth.
“WHY? Why is my bar decorated all in polka dots? Why in those colours?” asked a very surprised Mike, who didn’t know whether he should be angry or amused by such an extravagant decoration.
“Because I like it and because I told him so. Now it looks like a happy place. Before it was very gloomy,” said another voice behind Mike. Mike turned around and found himself face to face with the weirdest girl in the entire world.
“What the…? Who are you?” exclaimed Mike.
“I am KT. I know my aspect is weird. When my mum was a little girl…” started saying KT, using the kind of voice we all use to tell a very long story.
“KT, darling,” interrupted William. “I think that guy over there is waiting for you to start the karaoke machine.”
“Oh, yes! Sorry, I am coming!” and saying so she hurried herself to the little stage, where she startled fumbling with the karaoke, so that the guy could sing.
“Long story. Her mum is very fond of a teddy bear,” explained William to Mike, who was looking at him with questioning eyes.
“I don’t care about that. I want to know why you changed my bar just because that girl told you so,” said Mike, who had decided to be angry instead of amused.
“Hey, Mike! Relax, man! You said the bar was mine now. So I can change it if I want to. KT is my girlfriend. If she wants polka dots, polka dots she will get,” said William, who didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
“I never said such a thing! I asked you to run the bar in my absence… What is that music?” asked Mike, who couldn’t believe his ears when the guy started singing a song.
“It is a polka song,” said William. “KT thought that it was the best music to match with the polka dots decoration.”
Mike thought, “This must be a nightmare.” He pinched his own arm, but he still could see the guy happily singing the song while following the rhythm with his left foot.
“Who is that?” asked William, looking at the bar’s door.
Mike turned around and had to make a big effort not to burst out laughing. The man that had just entered the bar was the funniest-looking person he had seen for a long time (apart from Slappy and apart from KT). The man, who was looking around the bar as if he were looking for someone, was wearing a small hat with a big brown feather, like the one used by old-fashioned hunters.
The man had very small eyes, and a long nose that looked like a bird’s beak. In a way, it could have been a very scary face if he weren’t wearing that funny hat.
Around his waist he had a very odd belt. It looked like a cartridge belt but, instead of small shots, the cartridge belt was holding small mayonnaise jars. From time to time, this eccentric man would take small sticks of vegetables from a bag hanging across his chest, dip them in the mayonnaise jars, and eat them.
But the weirdest thing about this man was the fact that he was all the time playing with a yo-yo. Rolling it up and down. Up and down. Non-stop. It was almost hypnotic. Mike had to nudge William’s ribs with his elbow to make him stop moving his head up and down, following the rolling of the yo-yo.
“Hey, you!” said the strange man.
“Who, me?” said both William and Mike at the same time.
“You. The one with the polka dots apron,” said the man, pointing at him with a carrot stick. “Have you seen Janine?”
Mike could sense this man was a trouble maker. Taking into account that William was sleepily looking at the rolling yo-yo, Mike decided to answer him. “Janine is not here. Who asks for her?”
“My name is Mr. Falcon,” said the man.
After hearing that, William started laughing out loud, and finally managed to say, “It suits you.” THUMP! Before he could even blink twice, Mr. Falcon had hit William’s forehead with the yo-yo.
“Don’t try to play the wise guy with me, boy,” threatened Mr. Falcon.
“Hey, you didn’t need to attack the boy. He is just a kid and he never knows when to keep his mouth closed,” said Mike, while William went to KT, rubbing his forehead, to see if he could get a hug to comfort him.
“I just need you to answer a very simple question,” said Mr. Falcon, impatiently.
“And I want to ask you a question too,” said Mike.
“Fair enough. What’s the question?” said Mr. Falcon.
“Do you think that eating so much mayonnaise is healthy?” asked Mike.
“Yes, because this mayonnaise is both lactose-free and gluten-free,” claimed Mr. Falcon.
“Ah, ok. Go ahead. What is your question?”
“I just want to know where Janine is,” said Mr. Falcon, looking more and more impatient.
“More people are looking for her. Why do you want to find her? Let’s sit down and chat about it. Do you want some pickles to eat with the mayonnaise?” said Mike.
THUMP!! Definitely, Mr. Falcon was the fastest person rolling and throwing a yo-yo to people’s heads. “Ouch! Why was that?”
“I hate pickles. That was for your information,” said Mr. Falcon, calmly.
“I think that saying No, thanks would have been better,” complained Mike.
“Anyways, if she is not here, I guess she will be at her hiding place,” said Mr. Falcon, heading towards the door.
“Where is her hiding place?” asked Mike.
“Nobody knows,” said Mr. Falcon.
“But you know where it is,” stated Mike.
“Of course. I am not nobody, I am Mr. Falcon.”
Then, Mike had what he thought it was a brilliant idea. “Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Falcon? I will pay for it,” offered Mike.
“Not at all. I love walking. Silly taxi drivers don’t let me eat mayonnaise from my jars inside their taxis.” And he left.
“Such a pity,” thought Mike, because his plan was to tell the taxi driver to tell him the address where he had taken Mr. Falcon to. Wait a minute…
“William! You are in charge again!” and Mike ran out of the bar, with the intention of following Mr. Falcon.
In another part of the city, Slappy McDeen was hidden behind a pair of big, industrial bins, looking intently at the door of a warehouse. “How many warehouses does Janine own?” wondered Slappy. He found this place, Janine’s hiding place, after eavesdropping a conversation between two youngsters (the young version of a ganster) in which he could figure out the words “tank”, “Janine”, and “poison”.
He followed them to this place, and since then he was hidden there, trying to figure out how to break into the place with just one arm. He knew that Janine was evil and dangerous.
Suddenly, some movement to his right startled him. It was a very strange man, eating mayonnaise straight from the jar. Slappy thought that this man was wearing the most ridiculous hat ever, but then he noticed something. The yo-yo.
And then he got distracted by a figure that was obviously following the strange man. Rolling his eyes, Slappy waited till the man went into the warehouse, and then he called Mike quietly.
“Pst! Pst! Hey, Mike, over here,” said Slappy.
“Slappy! What are you doing here?”
“I guess I am doing the same thing as you. How come you are following Mr. Falcon?”
Mike opened his eyes widely and asked, “You know Mr. Falcon?”
“I do. I was working at a funfair, and there was this old gypsy woman. Lots of people visited her booth every day, willing to know about their destiny. One day, this man went to the gypsy woman’s booth, and he came out with a yo-yo in his hands, making it roll frantically,” told Slappy.
“OK, you recognised him. But how do you know his name?” asked Mike.
“I heard some youngsters talking about Janine and they mentioned a certain Mr. Falcon, her boss. I didn’t know it was going to be Mr Yo-Yo,” said Slappy. “But this makes things easier.”
“Why easier? We have to fight against two persons to manage to take Janine to the police station,” explained Mike to Slappy, who was smiling mischievously.
“Because I know how to destroy Mr. Falcon. The Gypsy Woman told me that the very moment he stops playing with the yo-yo, he will start shrinking till he finally disappears,” said Slappy.
“Oh, such a horrible thing!” exclaimed Mike. “Let’s do it!”
“Will you help me, Mike? After all our arguments?” asked Slappy.
“Of course, dude! Forget about the past,” said Mike, reassuringly.
What happened in the following half an hour was a blur of rapid events, in which there was a lot of punching, screaming, kicking, scratching, yelling, thumping, and more sounds and actions related to a good fight. Somehow, Mike managed to grab the yo-yo while Mr. Falcon was trying to hit Mike’s head. With a swift, jerky movement, Mike took the yo-yo away from Mr. Falcon.
Mr. Falcon looked horrified, and screaming “No!” he started to shrink at a fast pace till he disappeared with a final “POP!”
The only problem was that Janine had run away while Slappy and Mike were watching Mr. Falcon disappear.
“Oh, man! She escaped again!” screamed a frustrated Slappy. “What’s that next to the door?”
Mike took the little piece of parchment and said, “It is the clue we were looking for at the park.”
Mike and Slappy stared at each other with utter shock. What does Janine have to do with the mystery of the clues?
Groovy Cool Adventure
GCA Part 4
Mike was sitting at a table in a corner of the karaoke-bar. His karaoke-bar… but right now he didn’t feel the bar was his any longer.
“I would have never decorated my bar like this,” thought Mike, while staring at the polka-dots pattern of the tablecloth.
The polka dots surrounding him kept on distracting him from his train of thoughts. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened just two days ago. Finding that little piece of parchment in Janine’s place was disturbing. How many secrets did Janine hold? It was shocking. Who would have thought that the crazy woman who used to destroy song after song every single night was going to be so dangerous?
A terrible noise woke up Mike from his dreamy state with a startle. “William! Are you OK?”
William certainly didn’t look OK. He was sprawled on the floor, his face covered by the ridiculous polka-dots apron, and his left foot inside his guitar…
“William! Your guitar! YOUR GUITAR!” screamed KT, hysterically.
William fought with the apron till he finally was free of it and looked at Mike. He was staring at him, wide-eyed. William then turned around, looking for KT, and he discovered her horrified look, hands covering her mouth. Finally, he looked at his guitar.
The poor guitar was completely smashed, since William had pushed his foot through it. “Oh no!” exclaimed William. “My most valuable possession! The love of my life!” KT coughed loudly and William rectified, “The second love of my life!” KT coughed a second time, tapping with a finger a Kindle she was holding in her hands, “Oh, the third love of my life!” exclaimed William, looking at KT out of the corner of his eye. KT looked happy. William sighed in relief.
“Yeah, yeah… we all know how fond of your guitar you are,” said Mike, pulling William off the floor. “But there is nothing we can do about it. It is completely destroyed, it is a mess, it is beyond repair, it is so broken that…”
“OK, OK, I got the idea,” sobbed William. He couldn’t believe he had been so clumsy as to trip over a chair and step on his guitar. Next time he gets a guitar he should remember not to leave it on the floor.
“Anyways, it is your fault that I have broken my guitar.”
“My fault? How can it be my fault?” exclaimed a bewildered Mike.
“Yes, your fault! A woman gave me a letter for you and I was going to give it to you when I tripped, so…”
“Hold on a minute… A woman gave you a letter? A letter for me?”
“Yes, a woman gave me a letter for you. It is right here,” said William, stretching his hand out to Mike.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, why?”
“There is nothing in your hand.”
And it was true. William’s outstretched hand was empty. They realized that the letter should be somewhere on the floor where William had tripped. They searched and searched, but the letter was nowhere to be seen.
“What are you looking for, William?” asked KT, curiosity dancing in her spectacled eyes.
“We are looking for a letter,” said Mike, a bit too brusquely, but he couldn’t help it. KT really got on his nerves.
“Is William your new name?” snapped KT.
“Nope,” said Mike, coldly.
“Then let William speak for himself,” said KT, folding her arms and turning away.
Mike threw an exasperated look to KT, and he got a surprise. He launched himself towards KT, taking her off-guard, struggling with her, trying to reach to her back.
“Oi! What are you doing to my girlfriend?” shouted William, trying to pull Mike apart from KT.
“The letter! She has the letter!” exclaimed Mike. “It is in her back pocket!”
“It’s not a letter. It’s just an envelope! Get off me!” complained KT.
“A letter or an envelope… it doesn’t make any difference. Give it to me!”
“A letter must have an address on it. There is nothing on this one, so it is an envelope.”
“OK then! An envelope it is! But it is MY envelope, so give it to me!”
“Got it!” exclaimed William, before getting the biggest slap ever from KT. “Ouch! Why did you slap me?”
“Because you pinched my… and you are not supposed to do that!”
“Sorry,” said William, looking down. But he wasn’t sorry at all. He saw the opportunity and jumped at it.
“Who serves here?” the booming voice startled them. They looked towards the bar and they saw a red-haired guy, perched on one of the stools.
“I’m coming!” and William ran to the bar. Once he was there and faced the red-haired guy, his face went white.
“You!”
“Oh! Look who is here! Isn’t it William? Well, well, this is an unexpected surprise.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I am meeting a certain Slappy McDeen here. I didn’t know I was going to meet you here too,” said the red-haired guy with a cunning smile.
“Hey, William, do you know him?” asked KT, glancing sideways to the red-haired stranger.
“Yes,” whispered William. His face still had an ashen quality. He gulped and, at that same moment, Slappy McDeen entered the karaoke-bar.
“Mike! Mike! Where are you?”
Mike was still in the same place where William and KT had left him. He was staring blankly in front of him while clutching the letter in one hand. “I am here,” he finally said. It was very difficult to talk with a dry mouth.
Slappy turned towards Mike and headed in his direction, not noticing the red-haired guy at the bar who was calling him.
“He doesn’t listen to me! I have come here just to talk to him and he doesn’t listen to me!” the red haired guy exclaimed angrily.
“He will listen to you soon. Do you want me to do something to keep you entertained while he talks to Mike? I can read one of my poems…”
He couldn’t go on. The red-haired guy jumped over the bar, grabbed William’s arms, shook him violently, and finally punched him in his face. The commotion made Mike react, and he ran to help William, followed closely by Slappy. Both men dived behind the bar and tried to separate them. They managed to do that, and then they had to cover their ears with their hands because KT was piercing the air with her hysterical shrieks after seeing the state of William’s face.
“Stop screaming!” shouted Slappy.
More shrieking,hysterically waving her arms up and down.
“Stop doing that, I said!”
Piercing shrieks and pulling of her hair.
“Stop or I will break your Kindle!”
KT immediately went silent.
Within the silent bar (all the customers had run away when the brawl started), it was easier to focus on the events at hand.
“Woof! What are you doing here?”
“Don’t play with me, Slappy. You told me to come here.”
“No, I told you to wait for me outside the bar.”
“So what? I was thirsty. And I am glad I entered. Long time since the last time I saw William,” he looked at William viciously.
“Do you know him, William?” asked Mike.
“Yes, he was a bully in my class when I was at High School.”
“Bully? Who are you calling bully?” Woof tried to punch him again, but Slappy twisted his arm behind his back.
“Dear, dear, you should be nicer. If you behave like this, I won’t do any business with you,” said Slappy.
Mike wondered what kind of business Slappy could have with such a vicious bully, but he decided it was none of his business. He was more worried about the content of the letter that was crumpled in his right hand.
“Will you behave if I let go of you?” asked Slappy.
“It depends,” answered Woof, defiantly.
“It depends? It depends on what?”
“If that stupid William says again the word poem, I will have to kill him,” said Woof, quite matter-of-factly.
“Why is that?” asked a horrified Mike.
“Nobody knows why, but he always gets mad when he hears that word, and since I am a poet…” explained William, who was half-hiding behind KT.
“OK, let’s do it like this: William will promise not to say the P word, and Woof will promise not to beat or kill anyone. Deal?” said Slappy.
“Deal,” said William, eagerly.
“Deal,” said Woof, reluctantly.
“Good boys,” said Slappy, mockingly. He let go of Woof, who sat down while rubbing his arm, and added, “Woof, wait here till I finish talking with Mike. Then we can discuss our business.”
“Wait a minute. The nature of our business has changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Finding William here has been a lucky thing. Let’s say I know things about him that can give an unexpected twist to our business.”
Slappy was more than shocked. He was perplexed beyond words. But now he had to deal with Mike about Janine and the mysterious clues.
“Wait here. It won’t take me long.”
Slappy went towards Mike, who was sitting at a table in a dark corner of the bar.
“Hey, Mike! We need to decide when we are going to go on looking for the next clues. I really want to find that evil Janine…” He stopped talking when he noticed that Mike wasn’t listening to him, toying absent-mindedly with the polka-dots tablecloth. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you remember what the piece of parchment says? The piece of parchment we found when we made Mr. Falcon disappear? When we lost Janine again?”
“Yes, of course I remember. It says, ‘You are close, so close, you just need to find the shore’.”
“Exactly,” said Mike, enigmatically.
“So?” Slappy was getting impatient.
“Today a woman came and gave William this letter. She said it was a letter for me.” Mike handed the letter to Slappy, “Read it.”
Slappy took the letter and read it.
You want to find the shore, and that’s important for me.
You want to find the shore. Ask McDeen, since he is the key.
Slappy finished reading and looked at Mike, whose steele stare was piercing him. Slappy was speechless. He knew who the woman was. You cannot run away from the past. The past always finds you.
GROOVY COOL ADVENTURES
GCA Part 5
Slappy sat on a chair very slowly. He was in shock. He couldn’t believe that she had dared to get so close to him. He considered pretending that he didn’t have a clue about what the letter was about. Too late. Mike had clearly noticed that something was wrong.
“Who wrote that letter, Slappy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on! Spare me the lies! You are obviously upset about the letter. Who is that woman?” The menacing tone was pretty clear in Mike’s voice.
“That’s not your business.” Slappy stood up and went towards the bar, where Woof was waiting for him.
“Hey! You cannot just walk away like that. Of course it is my business. That woman sent the letter to me!”
Slappy turned around to face Mike. “Yes, she sent the letter to you, but the letter is about me, so I will keep it.”
“You can keep it. I just want to know what is going on.”
“Trust me, Mike, sometimes it is better not to know too much.” With those enigmatic words, Slappy resumed his walking towards the bar, leaving an angry and perplexed Mike behind. What was Slappy hiding? What could it be so bad as to make Slappy go so pale under his clownish make-up? Mike couldn’t figure it out.
“Hey, girl!” called Slappy, once he made it to the bar.
“My name is KT,” said KT, fuming.
“OK, OK, I want some olives.”
“There are no olives in the bar.”
“But I want olives, and Woof here also wants olives. Don’t you want olives, Woof?”
“Yes, I want olives. Bring me olives! NOW!” said Woof, shaking fists at KT.
“She said that there are no olives in the bar,” intervened William.
Woof threw such a murderous look at William that William hid under the bar, trembling.
“Great! I have the most pathetic boyfriend in the world,” muttered KT, shaking her head. “I will go to the nearest supermarket to get some olives. Is that OK?”
“You better hurry up,” said Woof through gritted teeth.
“What if I don’t hurry up?” said KT, facing Woof, eyes half-closed with a threatening glint.
“I will… erm… you will…” and he finally went silent. That was a first for Woof. He wasn’t used to feeling intimidated by others. He was a bully after all! So KT said goodbye and left the bar in search of the so-wanted olives. She didn’t know that her movements were being closely observed…
“Hey, William, you can come out from under the bar,” said Slappy, since Woof was still looking a bit dumbfounded.
“No, thank you, I am pretty comfortable down here.” And he was. He had found a little notebook lying on the floor and had started scribbling some words, trying to create some poems for KT. Maybe she would feel so happy that she would forget that he was such a pathetic coward.
“OK, stay there then. Hey! Hey, Mike! Where are you going?”
Mike was already at the door and he didn’t stop to answer. He was tired of lies. He was tired of mysteries. If Slappy wasn’t going to tell him everything about the letter, he would try to discover the truth himself. After all, he had always wanted to be a private investigator. It was time to prove he was suitable for the job. It was time to sink or swim.
“The letter talks about the clues, and we have found all the clues in places where Janine had been. It is obvious that I need to find Janine so she can explain all this,” thought Mike.
“AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!” A piercing scream made Mike jump. He looked across the street and saw KT, who was screaming hysterically while pulling her hair, and jumping up and down.
“Oh, no! That crazy KT again! I will pretend I didn’t see her,” and walking faster, Mike disappeared around the corner.
KT’s screams were catching the attention of lots of people, so little by little she was surrounded by a small crowd. A woman approached her and started telling people to mind their own businesses and leave the poor girl alone, so very soon there was just the two of them in that part of the street.
The woman touched KT’s arm very gently and said, “What’s wrong? Why are you shouting like that? Are you hurt? Did someone bother you? Are you feeling…?”
“You ask too many questions,” interrupted KT, who had sobered up when she noticed that the woman wasn’t going to stop asking her all those questions.
“I just wanted to be sure that you are OK. Are you OK? Are you in pain? Did you come from that karaoke bar? Where are you going?”
“Stop! I am fine. I just tripped over and my Kindle fell on the floor. It hit the kerb and the screen is all broken. I cannot use it any more.” KT started sobbing again.
“Oh, dear, it seems that you were very fond of that Kindle, but it is not the end of the world. It is just a gadget and…”
“Just a gadget! Just a gadget!” exclaimed KT, fuming and stomping her feet.
“OK, OK, it is a very sad loss,” said the woman, desperately.
“That’s better,” said KT. “Thanks for showing concern. Bye.”
“Wait! I saw you came from that karaoke bar over there. Can I ask you a question? Do you know Slappy McDeen? Do you know if he is in there now?”
“Those are three questions, actually. You really like questioning people, right? Who are you?”
“My name is Drilly Allen, and I am an old friend of Slappy.”
“If you are a friend of Slappy, why don’t you go to the karaoke bar and check if he is there yourself?” KT turned around to go and buy the olives, but Drilly Allen grabbed her arm.
“Please, I need you to do me a favour.”
“Get off me! I don’t even know you!”
“I am the woman who gave the letter to the polka-dot boy at the karaoke bar.”
That made KT pay attention. “Go on.”
“I know things, terrible things that would change things a lot.”
“What things?”
“Things about Slappy.”
KT got frozen. “I have never trusted that clown. What can I do to help you?”
“Well, I need you to give a letter to someone called William. It is very important.”
“William is the polka-dot boy, as you called him.”
“Oh, really? Well, the fact is that someone gave me this letter for him, but I cannot go and deliver it because I don’t want to meet Slappy.”
“But you said that you were old friends,” said a suspicious KT.
“It is complicated. Can you please give William the letter?” By now, Drilly Allen was nervously looking around her.
“Yes, sure, give me the letter,” agreed KT, who wanted to know who was sending letters to her boyfriend.
“Thank you so much!” and after giving her the letter, Drilly Allen ran away.
“Drilly Allen… how strange. Let’s see what William has to say about this letter.”
KT bought the olives and went back to the karaoke bar. She got a bit angry when she saw that William was alone, sitting on a stool at the bar, writing furiously on a notebook.
“Where are Slappy and Woof?” asked KT, throwing the bag with the olives behind the bar, where they hit the floor with a soft thump.
“They left. I think they were going to do some DIY stuff,” answered William, absent-mindedly.
“DIY stuff? What are you talking about?”
“I am not sure. I was under the bar. But they said something about looking for a drill and an Allen key. Do you think they are going to assemble one of those Swedish bookshelves?” said William, still writing.
KT’s eyes opened as wide as they could go. Allen key… A drill… They weren’t going to fix furniture. They were looking for Drilly Allen! “Oh! She must be the key to solve the mystery of the letters and the clues!” thought KT.
“Quickly, William! Tell me where they went!”
“I don’t know, KT. But it happened something very strange before they left… I came out from under the bar and I saw that Slappy was putting the letter under Woof’s nose. Woof sniffed the letter a couple of times and then he started running towards the street. Slappy went after him,” explained William. “Isn’t it weird?”
“Yes, it is weird. As it is weird the fact that unknown women send you letters,” said KT, putting the letter in front of William.
“Is that for me?” asked William, forgetting about the poems he was writing.
“Yes, it is,” said KT, folding arms and turning around. “Read it and tell me what it says.”
A bewildered William opened the envelope, took the letter out, and started reading. He couldn’t believe his eyes. How could they…? Who knew…? He thought that everything was forgotten by now.
Since William was so quiet, KT turned around to look at him, and she could see that William was pale, really pale, as if he had seen a ghost. He certainly hadn’t seen a ghost, but ghosts from the past can be equally scary.
“What’s wrong, William? You look sick.” KT was worried, since William was starting to look greenish.
“Nothing, it’s nothing… I need to go out. I need fresh air,” said a shaky William, while taking the apron off.
“You cannot tell me that it is nothing, William. You look horrible! I will go with you…”
“NO!” exclaimed William, a horrified look in his face. “I mean, someone has to stay here in the bar. What if someone comes? You stay here, and I will be fine.” Then, William headed towards the door and disappeared, leaving an annoyed and stupefied KT behind.
“This is incredible. I want to help him and he just disappears. All of this is very mysterious. Everything sounds fishy to me here. First that letter to Slappy, then Mike gets upset because of that same letter and the clues, and now William and his letter… Where is Mike when someone needs answers?”
Mike was hiding behind a car, near the warehouse where Janine used to hide and where Mr. Falcon was defeated by Slappy and Mike. He had been questioning some youngsters in the park about her, and finally one of them told him that Janine had gone back to that warehouse. Mike was waiting for the right moment to go inside and try to talk to Janine. After all, Janine knew him. He had listened to her many nights, while she was singing all those horrible songs at the karaoke bar. Maybe she wouldn’t go mad at him. He had to try at least; he needed some answers.
The shot startled him and he fell backwards. A shot? He wondered what was going on inside the warehouse. He was going to go and see when he heard the second shot. Gosh! He decided it was a better idea to stay hidden behind the car.
A rusty noise. The door of the warehouse slowly sliding to one side. And Mike opened his eyes so wide that he thought his eyeballs would pop out. Running with a gun in his hands, escaping from the warehouse, was Woof! What the…? Once he made sure that Woof was away, Mike ran towards the warehouse and, being careful of not touching anything, he entered. The sight was terrible. Janine was lying on the floor, blood-covered, and next to her there was an unknown woman, also covered in the crimson liquid.
“I must call the police. I will make an anonymous call once I am out of here,” decided Mike.
He started heading towards the door to escape from the crime scene when something caught his eye. There was something white in one of Janine’s hands. He got closer and saw it was a crumpled piece of paper. Carefully, he took it and saw it was a note.
“Another clue!”
Opening the piece of paper hastily, he could read:
The shore, the shore,
Long forgotten rhyming words.
Ask the poet. He will know.
After finishing reading the note, Mike thought that things were even more complicated than before. But now he knew what his next step would be.
GCA6
A DARKER GROOVY COOL ADVENTURE
"What did you do?!"
"I... I got nervous..." mumbled Woof.
"You got nervous! Is that the only explanation you can come up with?"
Slappy was pacing the room anxiously pulling out his hair in desperation. He couldn't believe that Woof had been so stupid.
"I don't understand why you had to kill Drilly Allen when I specifically told you what you had to do!" Slappy was beyond angry.
"I know you said that I just had to scare her and take the documents, but then this other woman came out of a room and tried to hit me with an iron bar. I had to shoot her! It was her or me!" explained a very nervous Woof, who had a weird twitch in his left eye.
"Wait a minute... Another woman? You have killed another woman? Why?!" Slappy was pulling his hair out so hard that he found himself holding locks of his hair in his closed fists.
"I told you! She wanted to hit me with an iron bar! And then I had to kill Drilly Allen. She was a witness!" Woof was trying to make excuses, but he wasn't any successful.
"This makes things really difficult now! Stupid!" shouted a very angry Slappy.
Poor Woof wasn't feeling quite the bully just then. He was so scared of what he had just done, and of Slappy's reaction, that he even looked smaller. Oh, fear and its shrinking effect... Indeed, Woof was wishing that the ground could just open under his feet and swallow him up. However, he wasn't going to be so lucky... He should face the consequences.
"Do you know who that woman was? Or why was Drilly Allen with her?" asked Slappy.
"I had never seen her before. But Drilly Allen screamed her name when she tried to attack me. I think the name was Janine..."
THUMP! Slappy hit the floor so hard that Woof jumped in the air, surprised.
"Are... are you OK, Slappy?" asked Woof, tentatively.
Slappy was looking every shade of pale under his clownish layers of make-up. He looked at Woof, and he guessed that the kid was talking because he was moving his lips. But he couldn't hear him. His ears were buzzing with a single word: "Dead! Dead! Dead!"
"Janine is dead?" Slappy managed to utter those three words, but he was so dumbstruck that he couldn't say more. He stayed there, sitting on the floor, staring at Woof, staring at Janine's murderer, staring at the person who had killed the only person who could have solved the mystery of the clues.
Woof looked even smaller and he tried to say something, but he was stammering so badly that he failed miserably.
"Don't even try to excuse yourself again, Woof! At least I hope that nobody saw you while leaving the place," said Slappy, who was standing again, pacing the room once more.
Woof's face turned purple and he tried to run away, but Slappy was faster and blocked the way.
"Don't tell me you did more stupid things," said Slappy through gritted teeth, slowly, intently, a menacing glint in his eyes.
"Well, I felt like someone was looking at me when I left that warehouse running. I was holding the gun in my hand and I couldn't hide it fast enough. I turned around but I didn't see anyone... But I am not sure if..."
"Enough! Let's go to the karaoke bar. I need to find out if they already know about Janine's death. You can tell me more about your stupidity at dealing with a very simple task on our way there."
So Slappy and Woof headed towards the bar. Slappy couldn't stop thinking about Janine. But he had other worries. What was Mike up to? Why had he left the bar so suddenly? It was very inconvenient that he had read that letter. Also, he couldn't figure out how they were going to manage to look calm in front of the others. They should pretend they don't know anything about Janine or Drilly Allen.
Slappy looked sideways at Woof and thought, "Gosh! The kid is a mess! I will have to think of some way to make his behaviour seem less odd..."
Slappy resumed his steady walking pace, wondering about Mike's whereabouts. And the fact was that Mike wasn't that far away from them...
After making such a macabre discovery, Mike left the warehouse, tipped the police about the incident by using a public phone, and hid nearby to spy the police's arrival. He couldn't stop re-reading the clue once and once again while he waited there.
He just had to wait for half an hour. Very soon, the place was packed with police cars, bathing the buildings in red and blue, creating an eerie atmosphere in the dark alley where Janine's warehouse was. The resonant lights almost blinded Mike while he was trying to sneak away past the police. He turned the corner and bumped into something that made him fall backwards. In the split second Mike closed his eyes while falling and hitting the ground, he couldn't see what he had collided with. But he heard the voice...
"Gimme some change."
Mike opened his eyes when he felt a couple of hands fumbling with his clothes, trying to get into his pockets. Mike jerked away from him and quickly rose from the floor. In his haste to ran away, he hit the kerb with his right foot, twisted his ankle, and fell again.
"Ouch! Get off me!" exclaimed Mike, who could see that the voice belonged to the filthiest man he had ever seen. The stench coming from this man made Mike retch a couple of times.
"Gimme some change. Me wants some food," said the beggar, who was moving towards Mike very slowly.
Mike tried to escape, but the beggar was faster. He grabbed Mike's arms and helped him to his feet. Their faces were very close for a moment, and Mike thought that...
"Hey! I know you! You are Kelvin Granger!" exclaimed Mike, who had recognised the man under the many layers of dirt covering his face.
The man let go of Mike's arms as if biten by a rabid dog, turned around and tried to run. But Mike, limping, went after him and stopped him.
"The fact you tried to run away proves that I am right. Hey, Kelvin! You used to be a good customer at my bar, don't you recognise me? I'm Mike!"
But the bum looked at him with dreamy, teary eyes, and said, "Kelvin Granger is dead. He died long ago..."
Suddenly, Kelvin Granger's stare got harder, looking at Mike intently. With a sudden movement, he hugged Mike with unexpected strength and whispered in Mike's ear, "Kelvin is dead... dead... like Janine... I saw you in there..." Then he released Mike, who felt like vomiting, and went back to his sleepy, looney state, humming some nonsense words.
Mike panicked. That man had seen him inside the warehouse with the copies. What if he tells the police? Uh-oh... Wait a minute... Mike saw something showing from the bum's coat pocket. It looked like some kind of official documents. Thinking that Kelvin wouldn't notice, Mike tried to remove the documents from the mucky pocket.
Kelvin was faster again. He clasped the documents firmly with his hand and said, "Documents for change."
Clever, thought Mike, this Kelvin guy was insanely clever. "OK. Here you go. Now give me the documents."
Kelvin took the ten dollars note that Mike was offering him and sniffed it. And then he handed the documents to Mike. When Mike had a look at the papers, his eyes opened in bewilderment.
"Well, well, this is even more interesting than the clue I found on Janine's body," murmured Mike. He decided he should start moving if he wanted to reach the bottom of this matter. So he left, limping briskly.
* * * * *
KT thought that things had gone pretty crazy since she met William. And things weren't looking any better since William got that mysterious letter that Drilly Allen had given her. The situation with Slappy, Woof, and Mike wasn't helping either to make her feel fine. By the way, where were all of them?
Just while she was thinking that Slappy was the one who had started all that madness, both Slappy and Woof entered the bar. KT stopped rinsing the glasses and asked, "What are you doing here?" in a belligerent tone.
"Dear, dear, you should be nicer. Why don't you turn the TV off? I have a terrible headache," said Slappy, rubbing his temple.
"I don't want to. I am watching a program about new book releases."
"OK then. Give me a glass of orange soda. What do you want, Woof?" said Slappy, turning to face the stool next to him... but it was empty.
"He is over there," said KT.
Woof was trying to climb to the small stage, but he fell and was lying there, stroking the wooden floor while staring blankly in front of him.
"What's wrong with him?" asked KT, a bit worried.
"Not sure. I found him in a park. He was smoking something with a gang of guys," improvised Slappy, shrugging his shoulders.
"So you weren't looking for Drilly Allen, then?" asked KT, casually and trying to look innocent.
At the sound of the name, Woof stood up as if something had stung him, took a gun out of his pocket, and headed towards KT, who was paralysed with shock.
"What do you know about Drilly Allen? What? Tell me!" yelled Woof. He seemed ready to pull the trigger, so Slappy jumped over the counter and tackled KT. They heard the shot once they were safe under the bar.
"Woof! Calm down! She doesn't know anything!" said Slappy.
They heard hurried footsteps, peeped over the bar, and saw that Woof was gone.
"Why did he do that?" exclaimed KT, who was shaking uncontrollably.
"I don't know, but now I have to go," and Slappy left the bar, in search of Woof, leaving a puzzled KT behind.
KT couldn't believe what had just happened. She got the feeling that something weird was going on concerning Slappy and Drilly Allen, but Woof's reaction at the mentioning of her name was too much for her understanding. She sat down and tried to relax while watching her favourite programme. However, five minutes later the program was interrupted by a fanfare sound, the kind of music to announce "Breaking News".
"We apologise for the interruption of the programme KINDLE LOVERS. We have just known that a young man has just been rescued from one of the lakes located in the local park. Apparently, the young man was seen having an argument with someone when, suddenly, he fell into the water. A member of the emergency services informed us that this young man cannot swim, but he somehow managed to stay above the water until he was rescued. He is in shock at the local hospital, so we are asking for the audience's help to know the identity of this young man. Here it is a picture of him..."
Staring at the TV screen, KT couldn't believe her eyes. "William..." she said with strangled voice before hurriedly closing the bar and running towards the local hospital.