====================== Reports ============================ Message: 3/9 Posted Author Letters To The Editor Sat Nov 20 BH News Services --------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside The Box by Larry McMasters. Hi, folks... normally my column deals with the stranger events that take place in this wacky town we call Beacon Harbor... but today, we might have the Letter Of The Year here. Here it is, in its entirety. Dear Beacon Harbor Observer: You may have heard my name whispered on the dark tongues of the criminal underworld, or stammered droolingly by frightened suspects in lockdown. The superstitious and cowardly lot of criminals have learned my name well - I am Mr. Furious, Crimefighter at Large, and I have a very important warning for the citizens of Beacon Harbor. I would not normally write a message like this for the newspaper, due to my desire for a very low profile and the ability to keep my actions secretive, but I believe I have uncovered a conspiracy that could shake the foundation of our society to its foundation. Time has come today, ladies and gentlemen, and it waits for no one. Last Friday night, two criminals in black suits kidnapped a cheerleader from the Beacon Harbor University football game at gunpoint and tried to escape getting what's coming to them for their previous robberies and skullduggery. I chased them down with my Fury-cycle, daringly leapt onto their speeding car to make the rescue... when none other than Andersen's own Booster Gold soared down from nowhere and interfered in my rescue efforts, throwing me to the sidewalk to let his partners in crime escape. Yes, you heard right... his PARTNERS IN CRIME. I know it comes as a shocking surprise to find that such a respected figurehead is actually in league with low-life thugs who would abduct an innocent and attractive cheerleader, but I'm afraid I have to open your eyes to the blinding citrus truth of justice and forthrightness. If the spokesman for Andersen Enterprises can be such a reprehensible scalawag of dirty dealings, can the same be said for Andersen herself? A question for the ages, noble citizens, and one I urge the police officers of this city to investigate and discover. I've said my piece, and hope you all think twice about who you trust... except for me, for I will always faithfully serve the citizenry by vanquishing the skulking demons of the underworld with my cunning powers. Please be cautious in the future, and stay away from the dangerous Booster Gold at all costs. Your Faithful Avenger of Justice and Kinship Mr. Furious - That was it, folks. Either a genius attempt at comedy or a really creepy freak out there. If you're reading this, 'Mr. Furious' - if that is your real name - please calm down, have some dip, and cut back on the caffeine. Check with your doctor, and I'm sure he can prescribe some really good anti-depressants... and perhaps a support group or two for anger management. Hope you enjoyed the laugh, folks. The folks around the office sure did. ============================================================= Kerrie's Ice Cream Palace--School House Road A cheerful ice cream shop run by Kerrie Kane, a plump, motherly woman with a beaming smile. A long, white counter runs from the front right half of the store all the way to the back wall. This counter is attended by circular, silver stool with patent red leather seats, each one fastened securly to the floor. Large glass freezers press up against the inner edge of the counter, display the 133 flavors of ice cream, sorbet and sherbert, each unique kind begging to be tasted, sampled, rolled over the tasted buds and savored. Stacks of waffle cones and sugar cones eagerly await their cold confection destiny. The wall behind the counter is filled with clear plastic cubbys, each one brimming with sprinkles, candy toppings, nuts and cherries. A hot-fudge dispenser hums to itself across the counter, silvery and patient. Canisters of whip cream sit next to blending and mixing machines of every description. A large sign high on the wall carries flavor names, sundae types and prices. The walls of the shop are covered with four-color posters of the available delights. Mike is sitting at a table over by the window, in a corner, head resting on one hand while he draws patterns on the tabletop with a spoon. The cellphone is lying on the table beside his ice cream. Roy stumbles out of the bathroom... perhaps having some sort of gastrointestinal emergency.. or maybe hyperventilating at the concept of talking to the cheerleader gal... but he's managed to make his way out now, looking around the parlor carefully for any sign of her... and she's gone. So he straightens up a bit, feeling a bit more confident. He takes a few steps toward the counter... digging out his change again. Blake bursts through the front door and casts about frantically, finally spotting the teenaged sodajerk behind the counter. He darts to the register and slams a twenty on the counter: "Change! Quick!!" Mike jumps and looks up. What the - oh, it's that guy again. Roy widens his eyes at this... that weird dude from the museum... okay, this is getting officially suspicious here... he lets the frantic guy by. "Hey, pal, what's going on?" he asks, his keen line of questioning sure to elicit the secret information.. As the sodajerk confusedly hits the NO SALE key on his register, Blake turns to his interrogator. "The very exischtansche of Beacon Harbor may hang in the balansche!" he exclaims, quite seriously (although there may be something odd in his expression that suggests that he isn't as serious as he'd like to appear). "The end of the world asch we know it!!" He turns back to the blinking sodajerk and slams his palm on the counter. "Faschter!" he cries. "Can't you go any faschter??" The sodajerk eeps and begins frantically digging coins out of the till and attempting to count them. Mike watches with growing interest. This could be entertaining. Roy widens his eyes in alarm, taking this freak at face value. "My god, what's the problem... and how will change solve it?! I've got about five bucks in change here... will that be enough?" he asks, worried about the fate of this fair city... and mentally casing the area to find a place to change... there is a phone booth outside... Mike watches with a mixture of interest, worry and mild skepticism. Yeah, right... Blake shakes his head morosely. "Gone...all of it...No!" he cries to the sodajerk, who has begun to sweat. "Ten-fifty in quartersch, schix- scheventy in dimesch, and two-eighty in nickelsch! Don't you know anything about schaving the world??" The sodajerk starts over. Roy blinks a bit. "Come on, man, the whole city's at stake!" he says in an oddly stalwart-sounding voice. "What's going to happen if you don't get your correct change?! Good god, man, spill it!" he says, grabbing his lapels and demanding his attention. "Great scott!" Mike stands up, remembering at the last moment to pocket Meg's phone. She's gonna want that back. He heads in the general direction of the others. "Hey, give him a chance, Blake." The sodajerk finally manages to count out the correct change. With a sigh of relief, Blake sweeps it all into a ziplock bag. "That wasch pretty good, kid," he informs the teen. "In the event of an actual emerganschy, you would probably schave the world. Get yourschelf schome ische cream." He turns to the others. "You were good too," he says. "Hi Mike." Roy widens his eyes, feeling bamboozled, led astray and run amok by this ruse. "You... that was a LIE?!" he snaps, looking pretty angry at this. "A LIE?! You unimaginable bastard!" he spouts, regarding him with disgust and heading towards the door in a magnificent exit, only to catch his shoelace on a chair and go spilling onto the floor rather painfully. Mike blinks, startled, at Roy - and then the irritable little weirdo trips over. Mike makes a valiant attempt not to laugh. It fails miserably. "Way to make an exit..." Blake nods. "He'sch *really* good," he asserts, then walks to Roy's side. "But maybe a bit over the top...You okay?" Roy picks himself up... humiliaion being the name of the day... and he just can't handle it anymore... so he drops the indignancy and sighs. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." he says as he rubs his arm and untangles his shoelace. "Sorry..." he says, almost reflexively.. Mike just kinda hovers in the background and snickers. It's funny because it isn't me. Blake steps back towards the counter. "Don't be schorry," he says, and puts a handful of change in the tip jar as the now-nervous sodajerk blinks. "*I'm* schorry. I juscht have odd waysch of entertaining myschelf." Looks back at Roy. "You're *schure* you're okay?" Roy stretches his jaw a bit, seemingly convinced that he should mellow out for the rest of today. "Yah... I'm fine. You just shouldn't go scaring people like that. Could get you into a heap of trouble..." he warns, glaring only slightly... then catching note of Uncle Mike there... great, just what he needs. An embarassing story about himself circulating back to her... Mike finally stops laughing at poor Roy and says to Blake, "You know, he's kinda right. You nearly killed the soda guy. And you just tipped him about five dollars in quarters." Blake stands at the counter, attempting to seal up the ziplock with his bandaged hand. "I know. It hasch," he answers Roy. "But I get bored. Schue me." He looks around at Mike, still futilely working at the ziplock. "Thisch guy?" He nods at the kid, who flinches. "He had it coming." He casts a smirk at the kid, who proceeds to look guilty. Then Blake shrugs and focuses his attention on the ziplock. "Anywaysch, my world really doesch come schcreeching to a halt if I can't do my laundry." Roy feels a slight hint of indignancy at his selfishness... but is just too drained to have his rage... take... over tonight. "You know what they say about the boy who cried monkey..." he says... not quite noticing he just mangled the expression. Mike gives Roy an odd look. "He got his proverbs mixed up a lot?" he offers. Roy nods to Mike. "Proverbially, yeah...." he responds, kneeling down to tie his shoe and look a bit surly. Blake gives up on sealing the bag and just stuffs it away in his jacket, risking a leak. "Well," he says. "Guessch I've done all I can do here. Later." He heads for the door. Mike blinks at Blake. "Um, okay. Bye." He looks to Roy. "Listen, I'm sorry I laughed at you, are you really all right? That was a heck of a fall." Roy stands up again, looking only slightly at Uncle Mike... only now realizing it was HIM who was laughing... "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine... thanks..." he says, eyeing the colorful little freak as he leaves, debating whether or not to keep him here... or at least find out more about him. "Who is that guy?" he asks... noting him in the Official Suspicious Character list... Blake suddenly reappears in the door. "Hey Mike!" he cries, scaring the sodajerk so bad he finally has to go into the backroom. "I juscht remembered." He comes back in, pulling a scrap of newspaper out of his (other) jacket pocket. "Meg," he states. Mike starts to answer Roy. "He's just some guy - " and then he's interrupted. "Meg?" he repeats. "What's she done now?" Roy turns back to The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with interest, sizing him up now that he's mentioned Meg... maybe he's ANOTHER freak that has it in for her... maybe he could make some money as her bodyguard... Blake waves the paper scrap like a banner. "Kidnapped. Sche was kidnapped? Have you scheen her? And who'sch this Mischter Furiousch guy? D'you think he'sch schome kind of criminal maschtermind? Or juscht schome whiny nutcasche off the schtreet?" Mike raises his hands. "Whoa, whoa, slow down, okay? Of course I've seen her. I was just *talking* to her, you missed her by about ten minutes. She's fine." He produces the phone and waves it vaguely. "She left her phone." He leaves the other part. Mr Furious? What kind of name is that for anyone? Roy widens his eyes briefly, only to narrow them again... struggling not to reveal anything by his reaction. "Yeah... yeah, I read that thing... but... uh..." Here's a chance to redeem himself! "I, uh... I saw part of that big chase he was talking about in that thing. This big scary guy on a motorcycle chasing down this car... and I think I saw a cheerleader in the car... it went by REALLY fast, though..." he says... Blake frowns at Roy and then at the paper. "Oh," he says. "Okay, Meg'sch fine and the letter-writer'sch juscht schome random biker guy. Check." He crumples the paper and tosses it in the tipjar. "I only read one paper a schentury and I get a falsche alarm. Figuresch." Mike grins at Blake. "Thanks, though, I appreciate you worrying about her." He glances at Roy. "So...you didn't actually see anything, then." Roy narrows his eyes at Blake a bit. "Well... Don't know if I'd call it a 'random biker guy'... he seemed.. uh... pretty impressive." Don't lay it on TOO thick, Roy... He turns to Mike. "Well, I DID see the chase... and I think I saw the beginning of that jump he wrote about... so I think that columnist was a little off-base..." That's it, sound like you have no vested interest in it.. Blake just shrugs at Roy. "If he wasch *really* impresschive he would have schaved that girl, right? What do you think, hisch alternator went out?" Mike chuckles. "He probably ran out of gas. You can just imagine him slowing down while the car with the girl in it speeds dramatically away. Eventually he has to get off and push his huge superbike back to town." He chuckles some more. Roy takes a deep breath, doing is very best not to overreact here. After a moment, he says "Well.. he explains it in the letter he wrote... that Booster Gold guy stopped him from getting the job done. Something about that guy always seemed wrong to me... so I wouldn't put it past 'im..." he says, hoping he sounds calm enough to not arouse suspicion. Blake pauses, then nods slowly. "Maybe," he says agreeably enough. "And schometimesch...the bad guysch get away. And there'sch nothing you can do. No matter how big your schuperbike isch." Mike frowns. "Hey, no, I've seen that Booster Gold guy. He's all right." He indicates his black eye. "If it wasn't for him this could've been a lot worse." Roy glances back to Mike... contradictory evidence? "What DID happen to your face, Meg's Uncle? I mean, she's not here now... I guess you can talk about it..." He does take note of Blake's comment... and appreciates the wisdom of it. Or at least the rationalization ability it grants him. "And who are you?" he asks of Blake... Blake is taken offguard by the question. "Uh," he says. "My name'sch Blake Schullivan," he answers at length. "I'm juscht...nobody." he tacks on as an afterthought. Mike shrugs uneasily. "Uh, some kids were saying unrepeatable things about Meg. And I lost my temper." He sounds like he's admitting something truly heinous. "And he was a lot bigger than me." As an afterthought, he says to Blake, "You're not nobody. Don't be weird." Roy takes in these responses, mentally noting that Mike's request of Blake has come much too late. But he takes more interest in Mike's story. "What kids? Is Meg famous or something? I mean, she gets kidnapped, kids are talking smack about her when she's not around... what's up with that?" Mike shrugs again. "She's just - she's the sort of girl who catches a lot of attention. She's pretty and smart and she never stops talking, ever. People like her." Roy narrows his eyes... and supposes he could have figured as much. No hope for him... none at all. Shouldn't have even harbored it secretly. "Ah... okay." he says, nodding to Mike."So.. Blake... are you gonna apologize to that guy or not?" he says, suddenly sounding a little accusatory. Blake blinks at Roy. "Are you scheriousch?" he demands. "After what he did?--Oh. I guessch you wouldn't know what he did. Well, I caught him picking on schome kidsch. I didn't feel like dealing with him then so I waited until I wasch up to it. I don't know...I think I could have been more creative." Mike clears his throat. "Um, if you two don't mind, I gotta get going. Sleep and stuff." Roy looks back towards the sodajerk. "Oh... well... okay, then..." he says to Blake, nodding to Mike. "All right, then... uh... it was nice meeting you guys..." He might have to move Blake to a different Official Character list... maybe not quite as Suspicious... Blake nods to Mike and Roy, "I gotta go too." He pats his pocket, which jingles. "Laundry. Bye." And he's off. For real now. No, I mean it. Mike grins at Roy. "You too. Seeya around." Roy watches the two of them leave... then turns back to get some ice cream.