"I told you that cloning someone would be a bad idea!" Paula exclaimed, looking first at Ness and then at Jeff. "Now you’ve set a Ness clone loose in Summers!"
"Oh, what harm can he do anyway?" said Ness. He was trying to be optimistic about the situation, even though he was depressed about losing his clone. "What trouble could he get into? He’s a clone of me!"
"My point exactly," said Paula.
"But seriously, I don’t understand it! He couldn’t have gotten very far. He has to be here somewhere," Poo said. "How could he disappear?"
"Poo’s right. He has to be here," Ness agreed. "I mean, Summers is a island. And we just made him today, so it’s not like he knows how to swim or ask for a ride on a boat or anything."
"Unless..." Paula was thinking. She knew there had to be an explanation for Mike’s disappearance.
"Unless what?" Ness interrupted her.
"Unless he teleported somewhere else!" Paula blurted out. "He’s an exact clone of you! If that’s true, then Mike should have the same psychic powers as Ness, right, Jeff?"
All eyes fell on Jeff. "Uh, yeah, sure, I guess so," Jeff replied, a little unsure of himself. "I hadn’t really thought about that."
"See? I told you," said Paula. "You guys should have thought about it before you went fooling around with the Twinning Ray!"
"Yeah, okay," said Ness, shrugging off Paula’s comments. "So where do we start looking?"
"He could be anywhere," Poo added, and it was then that they realized that they had a lot of searching to do.
"Great," said Jeff sarcastically. "And Paula and I can’t teleport unless we’re with someone who knows how," he whined.
"That’s okay. We can split up," Ness said, happy that they were finally getting somewhere. "I’ll go with Paula, and Jeff can go with Poo." Ness reached out to take Paula’s hand, but she pulled it away before he could.
"Yeah, right," said Paula, annoyed. "I’m going with Poo. You can take Jeff." Ness looked hurt as she took Poo’s hand. "Come on, let’s get going. Where do you wanna try first?
"How about Twoson or Dalaam, since the two of us know those places best?" Poo suggested.
"Let’s try Dalaam, because it’s smaller and will take less time to cover," Paula replied.
"All right. Here we go!" Poo and Paula began circling around, picking up speed, until suddenly they vanished, leaving Ness and Jeff standing alone.
Jeff looked at Ness. "Ouch," he said, putting one hand on Ness’s shoulder. "Man, that’s gotta hurt."
"What?" asked Ness, as if he didn’t know. "You mean Paula? Oh, who cares anyway?"
Jeff could tell by the look on Ness’s face that he wasn’t being sincere. "Oh, who are you kidding, Ness? I know you hate to fight with Paula."
"Fighting with Paula is the same as fighting with anyone else," Ness said defensively. "Now let’s go. Maybe Mike went back to Onett." They started to make a circle, and within seconds, they were gone.
It was hours before the foursome reunited in front of the shop in Summers. They were all exhausted from the long day of searching for Mike.
"We went to Dalaam first," Paula reported. "We also checked Twoson, Threed, Fourside, and the Deep Darkness."
"And?" Ness was hoping that they’d have some new information, although he knew that if they had, Mike would be with them.
"Nothing," she answered, depressed and tired. "Did you guys have any luck?"
"Nope." Ness shook his head. "We teleported back to Onett first, just to see if Mike had decided to go home. He wasn’t there, so we went to Winters. Then we tried Scaraba, Saturn Valley, and the Tenda Village. Nothing."
"Did you guys check the Lost Underworld?" asked Poo.
"Uh, no. We thought you guys were gonna go there," Ness replied nervously. "You mean Mike might be wandering around the Lost Underworld right now, with all those dinosaurs?"
"He has to be there!" Paula exclaimed. "We’ve looked everywhere else."
"Yeah, you’re right! Let’s teleport there right now!" Ness was about to get going when Paula stopped him.
"Ness," she said, "I know you want to find Mike. We all do. But I don’t think it’s the smartest thing to go walking around the Lost Underworld at night. It’s dark out, and we’re tired. We might not be strong enough to fight off some of those dinosaurs. We could get hurt."
"Paula’s right," said Poo. "We might be better off going there tomorrow, after we’ve all gone home and had a good night’s rest."
"But what about Mike?" Ness worried. "What if something happens to him?"
"Do you want to risk your life right now to find him?" asked Paula. "Ness, all I’m saying is that it would be really dangerous to venture out now. Besides, it’s late and our families are probably worried sick about us. Can’t we make plans to go to the Lost Underworld tomorrow?"
Ness sighed. "You’re right," he said. "Let’s all go home now."
"All right," said Poo. "Shall we meet in Onett again tomorrow?"
"Sure. That sounds good," said Ness. "Come on Jeff, I’ll take you back to Winters," he added, making a point of looking right at Paula as he said it.
Paula’s eyes opened wide. She was a little surprised that Ness hadn’t volunteered to bring her home. "Well, fine then," she said, turning her head away from Ness and Jeff. "Poo, let’s go to Twoson."
"Okay," Poo said as he took Paula’s hand. Within seconds, they had teleported away.
"Well, so much for them," Ness said.
"You mean, so much for her," Jeff corrected. "Now, let’s get going." The two of them teleported to Winters, Jeff’s home country. Ness helped Jeff climb over the brick wall which surrounded the Snow Wood Boarding School where Jeff was studying. There was a special summer program going on there, so Jeff hadn’t gone home for the summer. Once Jeff was safely inside, Ness headed for home.
Ness came home to a seemingly empty house. He was sure that his mother was already asleep, and it was long past Tracy’s bedtime. His dog, King, slept soundly on the couch in the living room. Ness was too tired to move the dog, so he let King stay there.
To his surprise, when he got upstairs, he saw his mother. She was awake after all. "Oh, hi Mom," said Ness quickly as he walked over to open the door to his room. "Sorry I was out so late. Oh, by the way, Paula, Jeff, Poo, and I are going to the Lost Underworld tomorrow."
Ness’s mother frowned. "You’re not going anywhere," she said, clearly upset about something.
"What do you mean, Mom?" Ness was puzzled. His mother had never complained about him running off to the Lost Underworld before, or anywhere else for that matter.
Disappointment and anger became present in Ness’s mother’s voice. "I just got off the phone with Captain Strong of the Onett Police. You’re in big trouble."