Jubilee, Chapter 3: Sweet Dreams

Jubilee, Chapter 3: Sweet Dreams
"I know the name implies there's to be a lot of snow, but that's ridiculous!"

"Moonside?" Paula asked. "Don't you mean Fourside?"
"No, Moonside," Ness replied, the colour returning to his cheeks. "You know the golden statue that Carpainter held in Happy Happy Village? That's Mani Mani."
"That was Mani Mani?" Paula wondered, surprised. "I expected something intangible like Giygas is. Or was," she corrected.
"Yes, that was Mani Mani," Jeff replied. "I believe that Monotoli mentioned Mani Mani."
Paula thought about that for a second. "He did. But still, I'm surprised that that statue Carpainter seemed to worship was Mani Mani."
"Any way," Jeff continued, "Mani Mani created the alternate dimension of Moonside. The gate into Moonside was in Jackie's Café; the gate out was non-existent."
"Then how did you get out?" Paula pressed.
"I'll use an analogy here. Say Moonside is a bridge."
"Sure," Paula replied.
"Mani Mani was the keystone of Moonside, so without the keystone, without Mani Mani, Moonside broke down."
"I see," Tony observed. "You never told me that story."
"I didn't see a need," Jeff murmured.
Tony grumbled, and fell onto his bed.
"Returning to what we came here for..." Paula said. "What did you want us here for?"
"Tony and I want to go look for the Abstract Art, but Maxwell isn't letting us."
"He's not?" she pressed. "From what I've seen of him, he seems pretty nice, and would probably let you leave if it was that important."
"He doesn't consider it important, considering the Bicentennial Jubilee is coming. And he doesn't know the seriousness of the situation. So we need you to knock him out with your supernatural abilities."
"So, that's what you want us to do, Jeff?" Ness asked, careful to continue speaking in a whisper.
"Yes, that's right," Jeff replied.
"Is there any time you would prefer us to help you?" Paula inquired.
"I'd like you to return at about 3 P.M. Winters time," he explained. "We need a time that's reasonable for all parties involved: you two, and Tony and I."
"Why don't you just leave now?" Ness wondered.
"...good point. I guess I was exaggerating a bit." Jeff smiled stupidly.
"If you're done with us, we'll be going now," Ness said.
"Yeah, we're done," Tony complained from his bed. He looked at his paint set. It had only been a few hours ago that he had been painting. How could it have gone so wrong so quickly? he thought.
Ness opened the door. And found himself staring directly into Maxwell Labs' face.
"So, you're trying to knock me off, are you?" Maxwell said, glaring past Ness at Jeff. "Just so you could leave, and probably miss the jubilee celebrations?"
"PSI Hypnosis Alpha!" Ness cried.
Maxwell looked at Ness, disbelieving. "What was that for?"
"PSI Hypnosis Alpha!" Ness cried again.
Maxwell reached towards Ness, but then his hand flailed out, and he collapsed on the ground.
"Sweet dreams, Maxwell," Tony laughed, leaping up from the bed. He ran over to a table and picked up two jackets, then threw one to Jeff. "Let's go."
Ness, Paula, Jeff and Tony ran out of the dorm, jumping over Maxwell's body and scrambling down the stairs. They zipped their jackets up as they made their way to the door, a lucky move as they opened the door.
Paula was whipped with a blast of freezing air.
"Whoa!" she screamed. "That's cold. And I can feel it through my jacket."
"But it was above freezing when we came in," Ness said, his teeth chattering.
"That's impossible, Ness," Jeff said. "Winters' winter nights are always below zero; it's never above zero until a third of the way through spring."
Paula shivered. "But Best Friend's thermometre clearly said it was above zero."
Freezing, the four of them stumbled to the gate and climbed over it. They went to Best Friend to buy some coffee.

Maxwell struggled awake. He looked around. Tony and Jeff's dormitory door was closed.
He tried the knob. Locked.
"I guess they thought they could hide in their room," he said, giggling as he fumbled for his keyring. He brought the keyring out and unlocked the door. He opened it, and found nothing.
The room was completely empty.
One could tell it had been used; one bed showed a rumpling that could only come as a result of someone laying on it. Chairs were not pushed under the table, as they ought to have been; they were formed into a four-chair square.
"They're not here?" he murmured. "And after I told Jeff and Tony they weren't to leave, they left." He slammed the door closed, neglecting to lock it. Knowing that Jeff maintained a lab in the basement of the school, he chose to investigate that lab before blindly assuming they, in an unJeff-like fashion, would have walked into the sub-freezing Winters nights.

Meanwhile, Paula was looking at Best Friend's thermometre. Her eyes widened as she saw the mercury rise above zero again.
"Jeff!" she cried. "Come look!"
Jeff came over and looked at the thermometre. He adjusted his glasses, then took them off and cleaned them on a handkerchief before putting them on again. "Huh? It can't be above zero..."
"But it is," Paula pressed. "Explain that."
"I'd love to, Paula," Jeff admitted, "but I can't. It's impossible. The thermometre has to be defective."
"It's a mercury thermometre," Paula muttered. She smiled at Jeff. "Would you like to explain how a mercury thermometre can give incorrect temperatures?"
Jeff gulped the rest of his coffee. "Let's go."
"You don't want to admit that you were wrong or that some things can't be explained, Jeff?" Paula asked. "Like PSI?"
"PSI can be explained, Paula. All humans should be able to use only 10% of their brains. That gives us 90% of untapped potential, and occasionally there are people born who can tap into that extra 90%. PSI would be the powers in that 90%, the powers a stark minority of the population can access."
Paula harrumphed.
"You doubt my explanation?" Jeff demanded.
"I would think that would be obvious," Paula laughed. "Just kidding!"
Jeff's face turned a very bright shade of red.
"If you two are done, we should get going," Ness observed. "Who knows if Maxwell's awake yet, beside Maxwell himself?"
Taking that advice to heart, the four headed back into the abnormally above-zero Winters winter night.

Maxwell pulled out his keyring again. Fumbling with the keys, he finally found the one that opened the door and inserted it into the keylock. He turned it and opened the door.
He walked into Jeff's laboratory. He saw something covered in tarpaulin, and assumed it was the Starman chassis Jeff was ranting about. Whatever that was.
He looked around. The laboratory seemed to be empty. "Jeff!" he cried. "If you can hear me, come out now!" He paused to think of a suitable threat. "Come out now or you and Tony will be restricted to your dormitory for the next two months."
He was sure that that threat would elicit a response for Jeff would never risk missing the Bicentennial Jubilee. So, Maxwell reasoned, Jeff would then soon appear, begging for forgiveness.
"I'm serious!" he yelled. Seeing no response, he immediately assumed what he should have immediately thought: Jeff and his friends had left the grounds. He ran out of the lab, locking the door, then he ran upstairs and outside. It had started to snow.
Maxwell smiled. "They would not be foolish enough to travel far in this blizzard. I'll wait here, and they'll receive their punishment once they decide to return."
He returned inside, closed the front doors, and pulled up a chair. He sat down, waiting for Ness, Paula, Jeff and Tony to return. If only Maxwell knew that, although to him it seemed like a blizzard, the blizzard was limited to a small radius around Snow Wood. Beyond that, there was only the snow that had previously fallen.

Jeff turned around.
"Why in the world is it snowing in that confined space?"
"What do you mean, Jeff?" Tony asked, turning around. His eyes widened, watching the snow fall around Snow Wood. "I know the name implies there's to be a lot of snow, but that's ridiculous!" he exclaimed.
Ness and Paula also turned around, and they also were shocked by what they saw.
"I can't believe that," Ness said. "It makes no sense."
"Something's messing around with Mother Nature," Paula stated bluntly. "It's the only way you can explain the weird temperature variations and this snow."
"I'll have to side with Paula on this," Jeff admitted. "But we should check it out." He led the way, but suddenly halted. Something fell rapidly in front of him, impacting the ground and sinking in the snow.
He picked it up. "A letter attached to a rock," he observed. He untied the string and rolled the rock away. He read the letter. "'Don't worry. Keep doing what you were doing.' That's all the letter says."
"Who would say something like that?" Tony wondered.
"I'm not sure, Tony," Jeff said, "but as much as it hurts me to say this, I think we should do what the letter recommends: keep looking for the Abstract Art."
"You can't be serious!" Paula cried. "It's a blizzard over there! People could be hurt!"
As if waiting for that line, the blizzard weakened a bit, becoming heavy snowfall.
"Or not," Ness mused. "At any rate, I agree with Jeff. The kids and faculty at Snow Wood can take care of themselves."
Paula turned to Tony. "Surely you can't have decided to go along with this insanity, right?"
Tony lowered his eyes. "I trust Jeff's intuition. If he thinks persisting is best, it probably is."
Probably, Paula thought. That leaves a 49% change at the most that it isn't the best.
She sighed. "OK, I'm coming along. To chaperone you three. I don't want the three of you getting in over your head."
"I'm glad you saw things our way, Paula," Jeff said.