Murder At Byrd House
A Nightmare In Thirteen Acts
by M Alford (c) 1998
Chapter One
It was a dark and stormy night.
At the very end of a deep dark pine forest, at the top of a craggy mossy hill, there stood an old Victorian mansion. Every hall of the house was darkened, as the mansion was so large that fully lighting it would have overblown the electric bill even for its vastly wealthy owner. In fact, the only window in the black hulk that did have a weak, flickering light emanating from it was in the huge library. The fireplace, also huge, had a roaring fire in it, and before this fire sat multimillionaire Carmody Bavsurius, in a large ploofy barcalounger. He was reading a mystery novel:
"The old man had no way of knowing that at that very moment there was a killer on the loose. As of seven o'clock that evening a murderous fiend, having escaped the confines of the mental hospital, had been stalking the grounds of the peaceful, rustic house on the cliffs. While the rest of the world slept in oblivious safety and slumber, the bloodthirsty maniac lurked in the darkness, watching... waiting... biding his time for the perfect moment. Then... without warning... he STRUCK!! WHO was this monster, that killed without mercy and vanished without a trace? WHO was this psychotic animal who had no regard for law, justice, or human life?! WHO could it POSSIBLY BE?!?"
Bavsurius read page after page, his face contorted in horror. Light from the fire danced off his face and the faces of his cute little pink bunny slippers...
CRACK.
Bavsurius jumped, looking up in terror. Convinced that no one was in the room with him, he went back to his book. Then he frowned, sniffing the air. He smelled smoke. He looked down.
His bunnies were on fire.
Shrieking, Bavsurius leaped to his burning feet, yanking off the slippers and stomping on them to put the fire out. When it was done, he put the charred bunny slippers back on, sighing shakily.
BRRRIIINNNNGGG.
Bavsurius jumped once again, yelling. Cocking a glare at the telephone, which had made the noise, he put his book down on the chair to go answer the phone. The book lay open on the arm of the chair, the top of the page read thus:
MURDER AT BYRD HOUSE:
A MYSTERY IN THIRTEEN ACTS
The millionaire walked over to the phone and picked it up. "Helloo?" he greeted.
There was heavy panting on the other end. "You stupid blankety-blank pig, don't ever hang up on me!! I'LL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!!"
The millionaire frowned, confused. "Is that you, Judith?" he asked, wondering why his wife's voice was so deep.
The heavy breathing continued. "You're gonna die tonight, old man! Your number's up now!"
Ah, now he remembered. Judith had been dead for twenty years. "I'm sorry, sir, my number is unlisted. May I advise you to try dialing again. Good night, sir." He hung up on the panting, heaving voice.
The millionaire left the telephone and went to his nearby wet bar, which slid into the wall in a very cool James Bond way. Little did the tycoon know that these minutes were to become the last ones of his life. He got himself a cocktail and returned to the chair, but did not sit down. Instead he went over to the window, staring out at the dark and rain.
"That book," he murmured to himself. "That book says I am going to be murdered this very night, in this house. But it can't be! I've got so much to do with my life! Romance! Travel! Oprah! Not to mention that I'm being portrayed in the film version by Roddy McDowall, one of the greatest character actors of our time! They wouldn't spend the money for a big star like Roddy McDowall and then just kill him off in the first five minutes!"
A big sharp pointy knife zoomed through the air and lodged itself in the millionaire's back. Attached to the knife was a note that read, "WANNA BET?!"
Carmody Bavsurius gasped, staggered around the room in a death dance. He crashed into his antiques, injuring himself even more. He fell into his samurai sword collection, running himself through forty-seven times.
Getting up with a dagger still through him, he immediately stumbled against the lever that opened the kennel of his specially trained attack Doberman. Bavsurius shrieked as the snarling dog lunged from the chute and attacked him, attracted by the smell of blood. Both man and dog wrestled a while, then Bavsurius finally fought the animal off, but was mauled terribly. He collapsed on his desk-- and caught his neck on his letter opener, slashing his own throat.
Spurting blood everywhere, he fell into the draperies and crashed on the floor. The letter opener, still clutched in his hand, got stuck in the electric socket. Forty thousand volts of electricity shot through his body.
Jerking spasmodically, he gripped the drapes, trying to get up, but pulled them and the heavy iron curtain rod down on his head. He fell back-- against the loaded antique pistol on the table. It shot him through the heart. He fell forward-- crashing noisily on the floor.
Right on top of a puddle of sulphuric acid.
His screams of agony as the acid ate his flesh were bloodcurdling to listen to. Then the chandelier over his desk plummeted down on top of him. CRASH. And there was silence.
Thunder grumbled. The pile of glass and metal moved. Bavsurius dragged himself out of the mess, gagging and struggling. He crawled shakily a few feet, desperately trying to save himself... get to the phone and call for help.....
The phone rang, as if by magic. Bavsurius stretched his bloody, burned hand toward it.
He watched in despair as his Doberman, thinking an intruder was trying to enter the house through the phone line, leaped through the air and attacked the ringing telephone, shaking it wildly in his jaws. The receiver fell off; the caller was panic-stricken. "Leggo me, you dumb mutt!! I'll gut you like a--" There was a snap as the phone line was jerked from the wall.
On the floor, unable to hold out any longer, Carmody Bavsurius collapsed face down on the rug. His stainless steel ashtray which was standing nearby fell over, registered a direct clanging hit on his skull, and he finally died.
Thunder crashed. Above the pointed spires of the black mansion known as Byrd House, the wind howled.
*******
It was a bright and sunny day.
On a pleasant country road, driving along in his BMW was Dr. Henry Verboten, a balding, middle-aged, stiff-lipped man in a cheap suit and an overcoat, even though the day was warm. As he drove, he was talking on his cellular phone to a medical colleague, on a matter of life-and-death importance. "I told you, Phil, I never harassed that woman! She's obviously lying!... I don't care if she IS a nun, she's lying!... What? I'm FIRED?! Whaddya mean, I'm fired?!... Oh, yeah? Oh, YEAH?! Well, same to you, buddy!"
He slammed the phone down, grumbling in disgust. "Make one little remark in passing to anyone anymore and they're ready to lock you up!" He dug into his coat pocket for the Pez dispenser he kept there, and popped a few of its contents into his mouth. "Nobody can take a joke these days!"
His musings were cut off by a chugging from the engine. "Oh, great, NOW what?!"
The car pulled to the side of road, steam rising from the hood. Dr. V. got out and popped the hood, and found the radiator had overheated. Seeing a car coming down the road, he stepped out and waved the car down. It pulled over and he gratefully opened the door. "Hey, pal, thanks a lot," he said to the driver. "Where you headed?"
The driver of the car was a bug-eyed, profusely sweating man with frizzy brown hair and a wigged-out expression behind his wire-rim glasses. He did not speak or look at Dr. V.
Dr. V. was somewhat unsettled, but pressed the man nonetheless. "Well, I'm headed to Timberton," he said.
Off in the distance, a wolf howled.
Dr. V. jerked, frowning. He listened, and then shrugged, continuing. "You mind dropping me off there?"
Silence. The driver glared fixedly out the windshield.
Dr. V. rolled his eyes. "Thanks a lot." He got in the car, against his better judgment. The car pulled away, driving down the dark country lane.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Hours passed, mile after mile passed, and Dr. V. watched the scenery in nervous silence. There was nothing from the driver; no greetings, no acknowledgement of the passenger, nothing.
Dr. V. decided to try for conversation. "Hey... hey, how about this weather, huh? You know, when I started out today it was sunny out. Now it looks like rain. You get this kind of weird weather a lot around here?
Silence.
Dr. V. nodded. "My thoughts exactly." Turning back to the window, he made a face, thinking he'd seen cheese with more personality than this guy. He popped a few Pezes from his dispenser, wondering when the next town was coming up, so he could make an excuse to get out.
In the driver's seat, the bug-eyed driver of the car made a move for the first time. Twitching slightly, he turned his head toward Dr. V. He stared at him for a full minute.
"HIIIIIIIIIII!!!" he suddenly shouted.
Dr. V. jumped a mile. He turned to see the driver's huge saucer eyes trained on him. "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!" the fellow shrilled again. Then he leaned way, way over, into Dr. V.'s personal space, grinning weirdly at his shoulder. "Hi!"
Dr. V. didn't know what to do. "Hello!" he croaked out hoarsely.
The driver leaned back, returning to his former position of driving and staring icily out the windshield. Dr. V. slowly untensed his muscles and looked desperately out the window for a rest stop.
All of a sudden, in the backseat, another insane-looking, sweaty, bug-eyed man popped up. "HIIIIIIIIIII!!!" he shrieked.
Dr. V. jumped again, startled; twisting around just in time to see a third demented man pop up next to the second. "HIIIIIIIIII!!!" the guy shrieked. And then all three of them screamed it in unison: "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!"
"AAAAAAAAAUUGGHH!!!" Dr. V. screamed, opening the door and hurling himself out of the car. He went hurtling out, crashing on the dirt road -- directly into the path of an oncoming car. The car screeched to a halt a few inches shy of Dr. V's head.
Dr. V. lay there in the mud, shaking his head from the daze. He looked up and saw a petite blonde head poke out from the driver's window. "Hey! Get outta the road, ya moron!!" The horn beeped angrily.
Dr. V. twisted his head around to see her clearly. "Are you going to Timberton?" he asked. Past the buzzing in his ears, he heard a wolf howl.
The woman nodded. "Yeah, why?"
Dr. V. jumped up and ran around the car to the passenger's side, opened the door and climbed in. The woman stared at him. "Hey!" she protested. "Listen, mister, you want to ride, you're gonna hafta pay for gas!" she snapped. She was small, but loud. Platinum blonde hair straggled from the neat forties style it had been styled into. She wore a leather jacket with rhinestone studs and tiger-striped skintight pants. Her fingers were covered with fake rings, and pink feathers hung from one side of her baby face.
Dr. V. nodded hastily. "Anything, anything! Just go!"
The woman gave him a good glare, then shifted into drive and sped off down the road. Thunder grumbled.
*******
Cut to a middle-class split level home, somewhere in suburbia. The garage rock group known as the Pedestrians was sitting around at Andy Giek's parents' house early in the afternoon. It was a strange, quiet day. The sun shone brightly from a beautiful deep blue sky, but no one seemed to be out. Only occasionally did a car drive by the house on the well-kept suburban street. It was eighty-two degrees and would probably get hotter before the end of the day, so perhaps everyone was inside with their air conditioners on or, more likely, at the beach.
The band had retreated to the shade of the garage, and as usual they had their instruments out, but unusually, no one much felt like playing. The posters on the garage wall -- full-color renderings of the Ramones, Shakespear's Sister, and the Monkees, respectively -- looked down on the members of the band that were laying around the garage. Marie Ford, the lead singer, was rummaging through a trunk of old clothes that the band dressed up with, looking for a certain sequined black Dr. Seuss hat. Andy Giek, the bass guitarist, had gone out to the corner to get the mail. Dalia Bell, the lead guitarist, and Buddy Bergosian, the drummer, were flopped on the old secondhand couch, watching a Scooby-Doo rerun on the garage's black-and-white TV, Buddy lazily drumming a half-tempo beat with his sticks on his sneaker. The heat had crawled into their bones and everyone felt as if they'd just been awakened from a deep hard sleep.
"Does anybody really feel like playing today?" asked Buddy sleepily.
"Where is my hat?" demanded Marie, frustrated. "I can't find a bloody thing I'm looking for in here." Marie was not British but her heroine, Shakespear's Sister's lead singer Siobhan Fahey, was. Marie had spent two years of high school speaking in a fake English accent, and every once in a while she slipped back into it, unconsciously. She still dressed like the singer, and was even now clad in a black concert T-shirt, black tights, black combat boots, and had black eyeshadow coating her eyes, raccoon style. Her long black hair, usually in long ringlets, was tied back in two ponytails at back of her head. At the moment she was going through a sort of evil-ringmaster phase, so the tall stovepipe hat she was searching for was infinitely important. "Buddy, you didn't take my hat, did you?"
"No thanks." Buddy scratched his head through his own hat, a faded green beanie. "Got my own." Buddy was hardly ever seen without his beanie perched on his mess of dark hair. He was insanely tall and lanky, and bore a resemblance to a taller, unkempt Weird Al Yankovic. He was laid-back and easygoing, which led some people to the assumption that he was on drugs. (He wasn't, but he enjoyed the rumors.)
Dalia, a pretty, petite girl with a fine California tan, heaved an exhausted sigh, pulling her long blonde hair away from her sticky neck. "It's so hot," she groaned.
"This is silly." Marie stood, hands on hips. She looked very much like the poster of Siobhan Fahey, leering over her shoulder from the wall. "I think we should go for... a ride."
"A ride?!" shouted Dalia and Buddy in unison. They jumped to their feet, suddenly energized, and all three started singing at the top of their lungs. This was a long-honored habit; every time they went somewhere they broke into song, much like on Scooby-Doo, when a groovy song would play every time the gang ran away from the monster. That was what had started the ritual for the Peds; they were huge fans of Scooby-Doo. For a while they had even taken to performing a cover of the theme song, complete with maniacal ghost cackles supplied by Marie. Now they ran around the garage, grabbing things they wanted to take to the beach (for the beach was invariably where they ended up when they went on these excursions), singing at the top of their lungs.
"Hey, guys, look at this!" Tall, skinny, bespectacled Andy came running into the garage, waving a piece of paper. "The mail's here!... whooaaYIPE!!" He had walked on one of his untied shoelaces and went flying. Andy was terribly accident-prone. He hit the floor and his velocity kept him hurtling right into his dad's tool bench, knocking the rickety legs loose and sending the whole thing crashing on top of him. CRASH!
"Jeez!" The Pedestrians came running, clustering over the pile of tools. "And, are you all right?!" asked Marie.
Andy's skinny hand waved limply, sticking out from the wreckage. "Yeah," his voice came, a weak groan. "I'm just gonna lie here... for a while....."
Dalia leaned over and snatched the mail off the floor, which had landed there, on top of a big grease stain. "Three-forty... yikes," she muttered, scanning the electric bill.
"Well, too late to kill the messenger," deadpanned Marie, looking down at the mess.
"Hey, look at this. Our next-to-last issue of Prizewinners Weekly," said Buddy, handing Marie a magazine.
Marie groaned. "No such luck. Andy, what were you so excited about? The TV Guide isn't even in this junk."
Andy dug himself out of the tools, limply waving a yellow envelope in the air. "I got a chain letter," he groaned.
"Chain letter?!" the three other Peds exclaimed together. Chain letters, along with black cats and Friday the thirteenth, were considered to be extremely lucky in the band's scheme of things. Instantly they all crashed toward Andy, grabbing for the letter. "Jinx! Jinx!" shouted Marie.
"Yeah!" cheered Buddy, coming up with a handful. He looked down at what he thought was the envelope and found himself looking at a scrap of Andy's shirt. "Sorry, man," Buddy said, wide-eyed.
Marie had wrested the note away from Dalia. "Got it!" She ripped it open before anyone else could snatch it away and read it, the others reaching over her shoulders. "Go away! Dear so-and-so... blah blah blah..." She made a face. "Oh, this isn't a chain letter! This is one of those bogus sweepstakes telling you you've won a vacation or something!"
"Lemme see!" Buddy ripped it out of her hands. "Car-modee Bav... I-can't-read-that-Enterprises. To the Ped-- hey, this is for all of us! Listen: 'To the Pedestrians; You have been cordially invited to spend a weekend at beautiful Byrd House'--" Buddy uttered a chuckle, "--Bird House, I get it! '...ful Byrd House, a rustic Victorian retreat on the edge of magnificent Byrd Lake. This package includes three days and two nights--' ...wow..." Buddy's eyes were getting wide. "Guys, I think this is on the level. I don't see anything about sending them money anywhere."
"Byrd Lake?" Dalia frowned. "Never heard of it. There's no lake called that around here. It's probably across the country in Washington somewhere."
"Yeah, I smell a ripoff," agreed Marie. "Look, it says 'room and board in return for services to be rendered'... what do you suppose that means?" She snickered, wiping her forehead. "Boy, it's hot. Look at it in the car, let's go already!"
The Peds walked away from Andy, still on the floor. Marie had dropped the letter and it landed on his chest. "You can keep it, Andy," said Dalia, smiling down at him. "You're on a grease spot, you know it?"
Andy frowned, squinting through his glasses at the letter. "Are you sure it's not a chain letter?" he moaned, disappointed.
So after the usual wacky banter tossed about during an average episode of the show, the Peds climbed into Marie's Buick and hauled off down the street, the stereo playing the Monkees' Headquarters at a comfortable background level, even though the volume knob in Marie's car was turned all the way up out of habit. Either the speakers were finally giving out after so many years of abuse, or the peculiar, muggy heat had cast its spell even on the music. Even the breeze rushing past the windows seemed hot instead of refreshing, and its whistling noise seemed to be subdued, as if the wind itself was too listless to make very much noise.
The car left town and cruised along the highway, past evergreens and oaks. It turned off the main road and cruised along a paved hamlet, past farms with rusty old Ford trucks sitting in the ditch. No one was in much of a hurry to get anywhere, so they cruised on for quite some time, enjoying the heady summer heat and taking in the sights, such as they were. In the back, Buddy and Dalia were trying to think of words that rhymed with "glorious" (not as part of a songwriting exercise, it was just something they were doing). Up front, as Marie drove, Andy studied the note, as he had since they'd left the house. "This is the weirdest letter," he said, squinting at it. "It says 'Carmody Bav... bav... anyway, it says this enterprises and then it's signed 'Madame Veralyne Bobola'. Who's that, I wonder?"
"Lemme see." Dalia put out her hand for the letter, and Andy gave it to her. She studied it for a while, then stared. "Well, at least we know it isn't a form letter. 'As a brilliant example to the youth of today, your talented, up-and-coming band has earned a place at our lovely resort.' Boy, they sure cake it on thick, don't they?"
Marie was smiling at this praise. "Ooh, I like that lady!"
"Hey, maybe she's a record executive!" offered Buddy. "Maybe they're gonna sign us to a contract! That Carmody name, doesn't that sound familiar? Maybe it's a record company!" He punctuated his sentence by completing a drumroll on his size 14 sneaker.
Finally, as there was nowhere else to go, Marie turned onto the road for their usual summer fun spot, Lake Transparent. They took another turn off the highway, onto a paved, reduced-speed road. A mile or so in the pavement ended, and the car began to kick up a fierce amount of dust as it sped along the sandy road. But when they came to the turnoff that led to the public swimming part of the lake, Marie passed it, driving onward past the bend. The pines gathered closer around the road as if to watch this curiosity -- the only intrepid car in years to venture down the uninhabited path. The sunlight shafted through the trees and cast sharp beams inside the increasingly dusty air of the car. "Marie, where are you going?" asked Andy, turning his head from a half-argument he and Buddy had been having about their scores on Earthworm Jim. "This isn't the road to the lake."
Marie looked out the dash window with an odd, tightlipped expression. "I know," she said. "I just wanted to come down here first. I always wondered what was down this road, but we never come down here. I'll turn back in a little while." But time passed and the trees grew thicker around them, and though she passed many tiny little paths leading off into the forest, Marie did not turn into one to turn around. The road grew narrower and began to twist in snaky bends, and the car slowed down till it was crawling at thirty in order to negotiate the corners.
"Man, what are you doing?" Buddy asked, after another long conversation spell. "Marie, there's no houses out here. You're gonna get stuck in the sand and there's not going to be anyone to help us out."
Dalia rolled her eyes. "Oh, really! What do you think we brought along you big strong hunky men for?" She chuckled.
Buddy leaned back in the backseat, indefensive. "Aw, hard work hurts my pancreas," he complained.
"Are you looking for something?" asked Andy. "You look like you're looking for a house or something."
Marie shook her head, somewhat exasperated. "I don't know," she said slowly. "All day I've felt like I've just woken up from a dream about someplace. I feel like going to look for it. It's up here by the lake somewhere... around one of these dirt roads. I keep feeling like I'm just about to turn a corner and see..." Her brow furrowed, trying to come up with what she meant.
"The lake!" finished Buddy. Marie rolled her eyes.
Andy had gotten into the glovebox and, rummaging, had found a map in the mess. "This is weird," he murmured, scanning the map through his black-rimmed granny glasses, the lenses of which were coated with a thin film of dust. "Hey, didn't we turn off the Garter Creek Road? Well, according to this, this road shouldn't be here. I don't see it at all. Look--" He leaned back, pointing with a skinny finger at the squiggly lines on the map to Dalia, who leaned over to look. "It's the Garter Creek... oh, I can't see. Can you hold--" and then he put his finger right through the paper as he tried to hand it to Dalia and take off his glasses at the same time. "--oh, whoops. Here... sorry..." His sleeve button then proceeded to hook itself on the leather headrest of his seat. "Oh, God..."
Buddy grinned with a mouthful of teeth. "Smooth one, Claws!" he cheered.
Dalia took the map with a grimace. "That's all right. Don't, you'll rip it worse. Hold still..." She finally got it separated from Andy's unfortunate fingers. Smoothing out the torn pieces against the backboard of her knee, she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, squinting at the map. "Here's the campground," she murmured, tracing the path. "Here's the road... well..." She frowned. "According to this, the only road is the one that leads to the beach. It doesn't go on after... it just doesn't. That's weird."
"I told you!" said Andy, looking up at them triumphantly. His glasses, which he'd cleaned with his fingers, were now smeared with dirt and barely usable. "I said-- ah... ah-CHOOO!"
Marie rolled her eyes. "Oh, man, you and the dust! How do you leave the house every day without exploding into flames or something?"
Andy shook his head, arm covering his face. He turned and leaned out the window like a dog on a car ride. "Ah-choo! Ah-CHOO!!"
"Three... four..." Marie counted.
"Dibs on six!" Buddy claimed.
Dalia was less optimistic. "I'll take five," she said.
"Five..." Marie grinned darkly at her life-long friend sneezing uncontrollably out the window. "...six..."
Buddy grinned. "Pay up, gorgeous," he told Dalia.
Andy flopped back in his seat, apparently having rid his body of all foreign substances. Then, just when it looked like he was through... "Ah-CHOOO-- oww!!" The blast was so powerful it had doubled him over, and he'd slammed his forehead into the dashboard. Marie burst out cackling, her signature witch-cackle that went so well with her dark, witch-child appearance.
Dalia was happy, too. "Ha! Seven! It's a draw! Yes it is!" She began beating up Buddy, who was shaking his head doggedly. "It is so!"
Buddy cringed, using his cap to defend himself with. "No way, no way!" he called out under Dalia's playful blows.
Meanwhile, the car had been getting further and further in the deep woods. Suddenly Andy sat up in the seat. "Hey, wait a minute!" He was staring at the letter again, which Dalia had handed back to him. "Wait a minute, listen, guys! Byrd Lake. Byrd House?"
"We get it, we get it," said Marie. "It's a birdhouse, like for birdseed and such. We got it a hundred years ago, And!"
Andy blinked. "Oh-- birdhouse! Oh my God, that's funny!" He burst out giggling; a jerky, asthmatic kind of chuckle, like George McFly in Back to The Future.
Everyone groaned. Dalia leaned over the seat. "What were you going to say, Andy?" she asked kindly.
Andy got back on track. "Well, Byrd Lake. Doesn't that sound familiar to you? Lake Transparent wasn't always named that, it's just since we've been born that it was like that."
"Hey, yeah!" Buddy snapped his fingers. "Back in the 70's, when they were throwing up condos and suburbs all over the place!"
"Hey, have some respect." Marie looked stern. "I come from the suburbs, bub!"
"Well, there's your problem!" grinned Buddy. "No, anyway, I remember my dad talking about the city was going to flatten the woods and set up another development out here back when I was three or something. He said someone sicced a pack of hippies and Greenpeace guys on them, and they actually got the developers to leave it alone. But the maps were already changed and since no one lives up here, nobody cared. They might as well have renamed it Lake Plastic for all the subtlety they used."
"The point to this story is what?" asked Marie, getting impatient.
Buddy looked smug. "Lake Transparent," he informed them, "used to be called Byrd Lake."
"Look out!!" shouted Dalia.
Marie turned back to the wheel just in time to see the tree right in her path. "Jeez!!--"
She swerved, but not in time. The tree hooked the bumper of her Buick and there was a loud bang. The car went skidding, then came to a stop. A gigantic cloud of dust went rising into the fading sunlight.
The silence that followed was broken as Marie opened her door, her dismayed grumbles echoing through the forest. "Great!!" she yelled, upon catching sight of the flattened tire. "That's just great! My stepsister's car! She's never going to let me hear the end of this!"
Andy got out of the car as well, surveying the damage. "Oh wow, Marie, your tire's... gee, it's ripped right through!" he exclaimed.
Marie threw up her arms. "Lovely," she muttered.
Buddy looked sheepish. "Gee, Marie, I'm sorry. If I hadn't been gabbing maybe you would have seen it in time."
Dalia came around to the front of the car. "Well, look, it wasn't really anybody's fault! Look at where this tree is, it's growing right in the middle of the road!"
"Must be a dead end," decided Buddy.
Dalia shook her head. "No, look, the road goes on after it. It's almost like someone put it here on... purpose..."
The Peds were silent, perplexed by the odd tree. "Oh, well," sighed Marie, "no use overanalyzing it. I guess if we get the spare tire on, I can get us back to town okay."
There was silence. "Does... anyone know how to change a tire?" Andy ventured timidly.
On to chapter two
e-mail