Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 2

Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 2 Nephew of the Forgotten One: Chapter 2

Tracy
"Hold on, Picky!" I warned.
"What?" Picky reached for the door to the travelling entertainer's shack.
"Back when Ness was fighting against Giygas... there was something he told my mom about the shack," I explained. "Something about the mayor locking it."
"I remember that!" Picky retorted. "Reportedly, the Sharks had ransacked the place."
"Right," I confirmed. "But are the Sharks still active? I haven't heard much from the Onett Times about them in months."
"There's no harm in trying." Picky shrugged his shoulders. "I'll try the door."
He gripped the knob tightly, and twisted it. And twisted. And twisted.
"It's locked," he reported grimly.
"Great," I muttered. "Now what are we supposed to do?"
"Should we get Ness' help?" Picky offered.
"It would be helpful," I admitted, "but we shouldn't have to rely on him over and over. It wouldn't be right."
"I suppose you're right, Tracy."
I thought about 199X, tried to remember back to the headlines in the Onett Times then.
I closed my eyes; I always focused better with my eyes closed. I don't know why.
"Now I remember!" I opened my eyes as Picky snapped his fingers.
"What do you remember?" I inquired.
"A headline," he explained, "from 199X. It was 'Mayor of Onett teaches Sharks a lesson, brings peace to Onett'." "That's wrong!" I complained. "Ness beat the Sharks!"
"Right," Picky amended. "Not long after that, there was an amendment in the paper. There was a giant scandal.
"Apparently the OnettStar had slipped a few falsehoods into the Onett Times' printing press.
"The Star closed not long after. Their last headline was 'So called Mr. Leader Guy running for mayor of Onett'."
"Your point?" I asked kindly.
"We ought to ask the mayor what to do. Letting him take the credit doesn't matter to me, even if it's such a trivial position as this."
"I suppose you're right," I dejectedly admitted. "Let's go see the mayor."

"What do you mean we can't see the mayor?" Picky screamed at the receptionist.
"I'm sorry, but Mayor Strong can't be bothered right now," the receptionist curtly said, brushing us away.
"But it's an emergency!" I argued.
"Once more, I'm sorry," the receptionist explained, "but Mayor Strong can't be bothered by two kids right now. He's trying to handle the trouble with Red Night, and it's overwhelming him."
"Red Night?" Picky asked.
"It's the new scourge of all that's right with Onett. The police force can't even predict when they'll attack, yet they always attack at night."
"Why Red Night?" I amended.
"They always paint some insignia on the areas they vandalised. And they always paint those insignias in red paint."
"Would the travelling entertainer's shack be a recently vandalised area, perchance?" Picky asked.
The receptionist nodded.
"Thank you for your time!" I exclaimed as Picky dragged me out of the mayor's office.

"Tell me again what we're doing in the Onett post office?"
"It's quite simple," Picky muttered. "Red Night wouldn't be stupid enough to buy their paint in Onett; they'd be found out too quickly if they did. They would mail-order their paint."
"But that still makes no sense. They'd be found out if they mail-ordered it, too!"
"Who says the mail-order comes directly here? I expect that they've got operatives in other cities, sending them red paint when they run out. So I'll be checking for obvious patterns with sendings and receivings from the boxes here."
"Then why are we both here?"
"I need a distraction to get to the main computer system."
"That's where I come in, I suppose?"
"Right. Start acting like you've lost something important."

Picky
I slipped by the post office workers while Tracy pulled off the best acting job of her life. She'd played Desdemona in Onett Elementary's production of Othello this year, so that was a benefit to my cause.
I jumped onto one of the rear computer chairs.
"Now, to access the outgoing/incoming records of this post office."
I pounded the keyboard.
"Linux," I muttered.
I called up the current user. I smiled: It was root access.
I typed in the command to look for the outgoing/incoming records and the box allocation records.

slocate outgoing/incoming records
slocate box allocation records

I inserted a zip disk into a convenient zip drive, and copied the files onto the disk.
I reset the computer and left quickly.

As I left, I bent down and picked up nothing from the floor. I walked over to Tracy.
"Excuse me, miss," I said, fighting the urge to giggle, "but did you lose this earring?" I pulled the earring out of my right pocket.
Tracy's eyes widened.
"Why, thank you!" she exclaimed, hugging me warmly.
I blushed.
"No problem," I quickly said, and rushed out.

That night...
"Hurry up!" I motioned for Tracy to hurry in my house. "Mom and Mr. Prettyman are out at the Elegant tonight, so we've got all the time in the world."
"What'd you get at the post office earlier?" she asked me, closing the door behind her.
"Just the outgoing/incoming records for the post office. I still have to get the paring program installed, though," I explained.
"Paring program?" Tracy inquired.
"I took a little money out of my own bank account. For reasons beyond my knowledge, it had increased by approximately 300 dollars. I used it to buy a program called StatsPare. The name's description enough."
I took the StatsPare CD out of the case and inserted it in my iMac's CD drive; it installed with some ease. I ejected the CD and rebooted my system, just like the install program said to do.
Once my iMac had rebooted, I re-inserted the CD. The StatsPare main screen popped up.
"Hey, Tracy! Insert this disk in the zip drive!" I tossed the drive to her. "Over there!" I pointed.
She did as I requested.
"Thanks, Tracy!"
"Why is your zip drive so far away from your iMac?" she asked me.
"Size restrictions. This desk can only hold my iMac, keyboard and CDs. I have to put any extra peripherals on the end tables. That's another thing I need: a bigger computer desk."
"Oh," she replied.
"No matter. I just need to run the file on that zip disk through StatsPare and find any common bonds among boxes."
"What kind of common bonds?" Tracy once more requested. "I know I'm probably getting annoying, but..."
"Don't worry," I assured her. "Anyway, the common bonds I'm looking for is consistencies with respect to an outgoing parcel or letter preceding an incoming parcel of a somewhat constant weight each time."
"How so?" Tracy blushed temporarily.
"I know that Red Night is smart. But it's not perfect. Red Night will make a mistake. Eventually. And I'm sure that their mistake will come with importing the red paint they use. They were wise not to buy it here, but buying it period was a giant mistake."
I loaded the information packet for each receiving box into StatsPare.
The clickety-clack of my keyboard as I set the parameters for paring nearly drowned out a call from next door.
Tracy went out to hear it properly and returned in about two minutes.
"I'm sorry, Picky," she dejectedly reported, "but Ness wants me home." She left, but turned around. "For supper," she quickly added.
"I'll call you when I get something."

Tracy
"So," Ness began, "did you get to Giant Step yet?"
"No, we couldn't. Red Night vandalised the travelling entertainer's shack, and that's the only way to get there, right? So we have to stop Red Night before we get there."
"I'm sure you could probably use the trees near Giant Step to get there," Ness offered, "and just completely bypass defeating Red Night as it is."
"Would that work?" I shot back. "I mean, let Red Night run havoc? Wouldn't it be better to just shut them down?"

After supper, Picky called me over. He'd found something that he thought I might be intrigued to see.
An owl hooted as I walked across Lemon Boulevard. Picky and I live on Lemon Boulevard. In fact, we're the only families who live on that boulevard.
"What do you have?" I asked him. He was sitting on his doorstep. I hoped I hadn't left him waiting too long.
"Let's just say that I did find a nice consistency among the outgoing/incoming records. And you'll be pleasantly surprised by it all."

I blinked at the iMac's screen. Picky was right: I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued, all at the same time.
"So," he asked, "what do you think?"

CONSISTENCY FOUND
Box 1384	Letter		Sent Threed June 01, 2001
Box 1384	Parcel		Received Threed June 03, 2001
Box 1384	Letter		Sent Twoson June 04, 2001
Box 1384	Parcel		Received Twoson June 05, 2001
Box 1384	Letter		Sent Fourside June 06, 2001
Box 1384	Parcel		Received Fourside June 08, 2001
Box 1384	Letter		Sent Happy Happy Village via Twoson June 09, 2001
Box 1384	Parcel		Received Happy Happy Village via Twoson June 10, 2001

"I... just can't believe it. Red Night has a post office box?"
"It does, Tracy," Picky replied, "and soon we'll be able to shut them down for good."
Now that I think about it, I wondered, why was Ness so anxious when I mentioned Red Night?
"Don't forget this!" Picky highlighted something I'd overlooked.

Box 1384	Letter		Sent Onett June 11, 2001
Box 1035	Letter		Received Onett June 11, 2001
Box 1035	Letter		Sent Happy Happy Village via Twoson June 11, 2001
Box 1384	Parcel		Received Happy Happy Village via Twoson June 12, 2001

"They've got someone else working for them?" I mused.
Then an explosion rocked my world! Then another!

Picky
"Tracy!" I warned. "Get down on the floor!"
"You think I didn't know that?" she sarcastically replied.
In fact, she was already on the floor!
"Anyway," I muttered, "we ought to get out and identify what happened..."

We got out, having found we had left the door open. The Onett Fire Station had already arrived and was going to work on putting out the fire. Mysteriously, there was no fire.
"Mayor Strong!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
It was not strange to see Mayor Strong at odd happenings. In Onett proper, that is. He never really bothered with Lemon Boulevard happenings.
"Red Night," he curtly answered. He didn't need to explain more. I knew as soon as he said it: Red Night smoke bombed my house.
"Excuse me for a second," I said, and wandered around to the back of my house.

There it was! I looked at the smoke bomb. It seemed like there was some sort of concussion device placed on one side of the bomb that, hitting the side of the house, would result in an explosion. Then another, tossed in the front door, would result in the smoke that forced us out.
"Pickford Minch!" a stern male voice exclaimed in a reprimanding tone.
Oh no... I thought. Belet Prettyman.
"I would have thought more of you, Pickford," Mr. Prettyman lectured, "but when she saw the fire department heading up here, your mother insisted that we check on you. You're nothing more than a smokebug!"
"Belet?" my mother asked. "What's going on?"
"Dearest Lardna!" Mr. Prettyman exclaimed. "I just found your pitiful little son, Pick...y about to set off another smoke bomb. Just like the one that brought us up here to begin with."
"But!" I pleaded. "I didn't set off any at all! This was the one that started it all!"
Mom looked at me, and looked at her common-law husband. I'm betting she wondered who to believe.
She knelt down beside me. Yes! She was going to believe me!
"Picky..."
Time literatelly slowed down; I couldn't hold my excitement back!
"...you're grounded for a year."