A new day dawned bright and clear, so after a few minutes in the morning sunshine, Jimox and Teina moved into the shade of one of the large Castleland trees.
“Until we got that fence done, we had just been hiding in the Olde Towne Kid’s Motorway station, coming out to creep around and work on our projects quickly before anything tried to eat us.”
Teina
chuckled.
“We shot the last two wild dogs, kept creeping around for another week, then realized that we had actually done it — we had actually cleaned out the only dangerous animals in Similand.”
Kibi clapped, and the other listeners joined her.
Teina grinned. “There were cats and raccoons,” she admitted, “opossums, rats, and mice, but none of them were up to feasting on full-grown monkey mammals.”
Jimox smiled. “And once we cleaned out all the spoiled and unprotected food, most of the rats and mice vanished, too.”
“For a while,” Teina continued, “we didn’t know what to do. We were almost in shock. We could actually, for the first time, just live, but it had been so long that we had almost forgotten how!”
Everyone laughed or fluffed up their feathers.
“But as the days passed, and we became more and more sure that nothing dangerous remained in Similand, or could get back in, we started having some
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 131
ideas . . .”
In a red child’s wagon, a deep-cycle battery powered a sine-wave inverter, and a cord snaked across the Forestland plaza to where Teina swung an electric weed trimmer back and forth.
Jimox swept where Teina had already finished. Occasionally he glanced up and scanned the plaza for dogs, but three months without an intruder, and a few adjustments to the animal-proof fence, had made them feel quite safe.
Coming to the end of a long seam in the pavement, and the meter-high weeds that had called it home, she released the trigger and walked back to the wagon. “Down to twelve volts.”
“Good time to put it on the solar panel,” Jimox replied. “Lunch after I finish sweeping?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking up at the sky. “Sun’s gonna break through the clouds soon. Any chance we can try the shower today?”
“I think so, if I got all the right parts at the hardware store yesterday.”
They worked in silence for a few minutes, Teina coiling her cord and Jimox scooping the trimmings into a wheeled trash barrel. Then they held tails as she pulled the wagon and he rolled the barrel toward the front of Similand.
But as soon as they emerged from Forestland, and arrived at the wide pathway that encircled the World Tree, they both came to a sudden stop and stared at the ground.
“What is our two-quart sauce pan doing on the ground, right there?” Teina asked, looking at her partner with a smile.
Jimox didn’t answer, but quickly stepped to the wagon and pulled a pistol
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 132
from a holster.
Seeing his serious reaction, Teina scanned in all directions. “I take it . . .
you didn’t leave it there.”
“No,” he replied, joining her in scanning. “I’ve never taken it out of the motorway station.”
Teina swallowed. “Me neither.”
Convinced that no danger was close, Jimox knelt down to examine the evidence. “Weird. No slobber, no teeth marks on the handle. It’s completely clean and undamaged.”
“High Alert until we check the fence,” Teina asserted.
Jimox nodded, then put the sauce pan into the wagon.
On the short walk back to their dwelling in Olde Towne, they found three more items that neither of them had left, nor had any reason to bring outside.
They were especially confused when they came to a plastic bag of dried meat, with no signs of any attempt to open it.
Their home was secure, with no evidence that anything had broken in. But they could think of a dozen thing that were missing.
After a quick lunch eaten in tense silence, both wore double pistol belts as they stepped through the main exit gate to walk the outside perimeter of their sanctuary.
No breach in the fence, of any kind, was found.
For the next hour, they looked for clues in and around the motorway station, on the streets of Olde Towne, and in the plazas and pathways of Forestland, Castleland, and Machineland.
Nothing revealed itself.
They even climbed some of the ladders of the World Tree, and slid down the slides. Nothing.
Jimox took a slow breath as he looked around. “There’s no way we can check every nook and cranny in Similand.”
Teina sighed. “As much as I don’t like this idea . . . I guess we just have to wait for . . . whatever it is . . . to show itself.”
Jimox nodded. “But we stay on High Alert.”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 133
“Agreed.”
High Alert meant that only one of them could work, just as if they were outside the animal-proof fence. After getting the plumbing cart from its garage on the service street of Olde Towne, Teina rode, constantly scanning, while Jimox pushed.
At their destination, a small building with a flat roof exposed to the sun, Teina climbed the ladder and sprayed black paint onto the long pipe they had already installed that snaked back and forth all over the roof. Jimox paced with pistols handy and a frown on his face.
Once she came down, Jimox worked with pipe fittings and wrenches while Teina patrolled, and a couple of hours later, the mixing valve was installed and the project ready to be tested.
They looked at each other.
“This was supposed to be a fun addition to a safe and secure Similand,”
Jimox said with frustration.
Teina put an arm around him. “Whatever we’re dealing with — I’m guessing raccoon — I don’t think we should let it stop us from having fun.
We’re almost positive it’s not a dog. That’s the only thing we have to worry about, except maybe a lion or tiger from the zoo.”
Jimox smiled. “Nothing that big could have gotten into the motorway station. I’ll go with your raccoon theory. Okay, I’m on watch, you’re testing this contraption.”
Teina opened the main valve a little, and heard water flow up the pipe toward the roof. She waited, watching the shower head, while Jimox tried not to.
A minute later, steam came hissing out of the shower head. “Too hot,”
Teina declared.
“Increase the flow,” Jimox counseled.
Soon they had liquid water — scalding hot, but at least liquid. Once the flow to the roof pipe was at maximum, and the water was still too hot, Teina started adjusting the cold side of the mixing valve. “Ahhh! I’m on watch, you get first shower!”
Jimox was nervous at first, but soon relaxed into the first hot shower he
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had had in a decade.
When they finally got home at close to sunset, both their mouths fell open.
Most of their belongings and supplies were gone, and the few that remained were scattered around the room as if a tornado had come through.
“I would have been scared,” Sata admitted.
“Angry,” Mati added.
“Curious,” Rini suggested.
“Worried,”
Ashley
said.
“We were all those things!” Teina shared, then coughed and nearly turned blue.
Jimox stroked her ragged white fur until she relaxed. “Luckily, our bed was still there. But we didn’t get much sleep that night.”
With wide eyes, Kibi nodded. “I can understand why!”
As soon as first light crept into the sky, both young monkey mammals were wide awake. A package of dried fruit — somehow missed by the unknown invaders — served as breakfast.
Teina was not in a good mood. “We have to start all over, scrounge up food, cooking stuff, tools . . . everything!”
Jimox scooted close and surrounded her with his arms and tail. “I’m frustrated too. Let’s take it a step at a time. Maybe morning light will give us a clue about where our stuff is.”
“In some stupid coon’s nest somewhere! The only reason they left us breakfast was they couldn’t carry it all!”
Their patience was sorely tested waiting for sunrise, but a package of old cookies from Jimox’ day pack helped pass the time. While they nibbled in silence, pistols were checked and extra ammunition pocketed.
In the clear light of day, clues were not hard to find. Packages of food, some already pecked open by birds, had been dropped along two streets of Olde Towne, and around the World Tree.
Jimox knelt down. “Pecking, but no teeth marks, not even little sharp teeth like a raccoon.”
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Teina
frowned.
They continued to follow the evidence. It led them directly to Castleland.
At first, the trail seemed to go everywhere at once in the part of Similand dedicated to the age of glory and battle. With guns drawn, they poked their heads into several rides and walk-through attractions, but in each case, the trail went cold. They fared no better in the snack bars, or the Castle Kitchen itself.
That left the three castles.
A package of crackers lay on the drawbridge to the Knight’s Castle, and a bird flew off as they approached, but they found nothing more, even after taking the entire walk-through route that allowed them to peek into every room.
They stood in the plaza and looked at the two remaining options. Three or four items could be seen on the approaches to both the Fairy Castle and the Witch’s Castle.
“Your choice,” Jimox said, spinning the cylinder of his pistol.
“I don’t care. Fairy.”
They paused briefly at each item, and again saw no evidence of dogs or raccoons.
In the Party Room, among all the dishes and decorations, they spotted their bag of pry bars and bolt cutters. Jimox frowned. “No bird, smaller than an eagle, could carry that.”
The Magic Room contained every color of fairy dust, gemstones galore, racks of magic wands, and their gas camp stove. “Not even an eagle could have carried that here!” Teina declared with a very puzzled expression, looking it over. “And what animal would set it up, on its legs, with the gas bottle beside it, all neat and tidy, and the gas hose not even twisted? That’s even hard for me! ”
Jimox chuckled. “So . . . the raccoon theory is in question . . .”
“Serious
question!”
Next on the walk-through route, they arrived at the Fairy King and Queen’s Chamber.
Most of their belongings could be seen, scattered around the room. Some were on tables, a few on shelves, but many still on the floor. Even as the pair
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looked on, two or three items floated through the air and landed on a table or shelf. Sometimes they remained, but if they didn’t fit, they rose back into the air and floated somewhere else.
Jimox and Teina stood with their mouths hanging open.
The elderly monkey mammals grinned at their listeners.
“Ghossstsss!”
T’sss’lisss
whispered.
Teina nodded. “But then something happened that changed everything! ”
More of their possessions floated in through a window as the young pair stood gazing at the strange scene before them. Invisible forces seemed to be trying to organize it all, just as it had been at the Kid’s Motorway station.
Regaining her wits, Teina recognized a small golden glow. “Giona!”
The little ghost, who had traveled with them ever since Paradise Lodge, zoomed over.
“What’s going on?” Teina asked pointedly.
Giona made a tiny sound that might have been a giggle, then said two words clearly. “Stay . . . here!”
Teina tried to ask another question, but the ghost whizzed away.
A few moments later, the ground started shaking, hanging lights and decorations began swinging, food and other things fell from shelves and tables, crashing sounds could be heard outside, and dust billowed in through the passageway.
Jimox and Teina wrapped their arms and tails around each other, and thought they were going to die.
