Episode X- Blanche and Ozwald and the Utopian Paint Heist

As they walked Blanche became curious about the four Ping Sons, and began talking to them. “

So what are your names?” The eldest piped up and said “I am Pong.” “I am Wing.” Another son said “No. I am Wing, you are Sing.” “Well one of us is Wing and one of us is Sing.” The third Son said to Blanche. The fourth son said “And I am Alastair.”

“Wha… Alastair?” Said Blanche. “So what do you boys know about your Father and his old partner?” The ninjas began to look at her suspiciously and look back and forth at each other untrustingly. “Who is this woman and why is she talking to us?” They whispered.

“Oh this is going to be a long voyage.” Blanche said to Ozwald. Suddenly she noticed some movement in the bushes quite a ways back from them. “Ozwald, boys, I think we are being followed.” They hastened their pace to try to reach the outskirts of the city again. Blanche thought they might look into the history of Mr. Ping’s old paint store. After a few hours walk, passing the spaceship wreckage once more, they reached the city. Then after finding some old news clippings at the local library on the town as it was some years ago, Blanche visited the old run down paint store. The Six of them walked in, the little bell chimed as they entered. It was dark, “Hello? Is anyone here?” She yelled, hoping someone might be in the back. “Ok split up and look for clues, anything, why someone would want so badly to steal paint, and kill for it.”

The Ninjas looked very official, systematically scouring through shelves of merchandise hoping to find anything. Soon they all stopped, and began standing around, looking at the walls and corners as if they didn’t know what they were doing there. “Did you forget why we are here?” Blanche said.

BAM!!! An entire shelf came crashing down at the far end of the store, and there stood Ozwald looking very guilty. “What on earth Ozwald! Must you break everything? Do you want the whole city to know we are in…” She stopped, noticing a door in the wall that had been hidden, entirely blocked by the large shelf up against the wall. “Ozwald you’re a genius! Look.” Blanche began inspecting the door, as it had no knob, for any way it might open. Suddenly they heard the little bell ring, someone had just entered the front of the store! The Scatterbrained ninjas poised themselves, ready for a fight.

The floor began to creak with each slow footstep, then it would pause. Someone was obviously trying to conceal their presence there, but the old floor made it impossible. Blanche and the others could hear them getting closer, just around the corner now. Ok, when he comes around that shelf, get him boys, Blanche whispered ever so quietly.

Hiyah!!! They cried as they unleashed their ninja skills on the unknown tracker as he rounded the corner, a scream, followed by a loud crash amongst the struggle. “Wait! Stop!” Shouted Blanche. “Don’t hurt him, he is not the enemy. Dr. Word?” She said, as the four Ping boys held in suspension a distinguished looking man with a white lab coat, a salt and pepper beard, and an ivory pipe he had been smoking, protruding from his chapped lips. “Blanchy Baby! It is you, I wasn’t sure, I was sneaking in here because I wanted to warn you, you are being followed. But I wasn’t sure this was you, as it might have been them. You can’t be too careful ya know.”

“Wait, you mean you aren’t the one following me?” Asked Blanche. “Well I was following them following you. But I guess they got sidetracked because they obviously didn’t get here first. But they must be right behind us, we need to get out of here quick.”

“What’s going on? Who is this?” Said Ozwald. “No time for introductions now, we are in danger.” Blanche hurriedly added. “Look Doctor, if we can find a way to get through this door it may be a way to escape.” Blanche Said  “Well the material of this door, it’s very heavy, there must be some leverage somewhere, it’s probably preasure sensitive, look for a loose brick or something of the sort.” Said Doctor Word.

All of them began feeling around the wall for anything that felt out of place. “Oh! Here.” Pong pulled on a loose brick and it slid, rock sliding against rock, then there was a deep boom, behind the wall and the door began to open quite silently. They all ran in and the door closed behind them. It was very dark back there, and hard to tell how big the room was, you couldn’t even make out the corners or the walls, there was a dim green glow coming from a small table. They got closer and found a large glass bowl of water in the center, and several small vials nearby. Each vial was labeled with what looked like different places. Some of them farmiliar, like Paris, Istanbul, Berlin, Boise Idaho, Cambodia etc. Others they had never heard of, Plasticityland, candy valley, dinker Island. One curious vial had something scribbled out and written under it was Paradise. Ozwald picked it up. “I wonder what these are for?” Doctor Word said. “They seem to all be filled with dirt.” Blanche said.

 “Dirt? Well we need to figure something out soon, last I saw, Pungent Jim, the Terrible Rabbit Person, Scratch n’ Sniff, Harry Holchomb and the One with Olives on his fingers were not far behind you.” The Doctor said as he listened nervously for anything outside.  

“Maybe these vials do something.” Blanche said as she turned to see Ozwald fumbling with the “Paradise” vial, with its cork off. “Ozwald stop!” He jolted, dropping the vial right into the basin of water, the dirt spilling everywhere, instantly turning to murky muddy water on contact. Ozwald reacted trying to grab the vial out of the bowl. But as soon as his fingers broke the surface of the water he was violently sucked into the basin, being squeezed and stretched as if he was being sucked into a pinhole.

“Oh No!! Blanche screamed. “That idiot monkey! He must be dead.” Then they heard the faint sound of the front bell. “Ah! The door, the front door, they must have come here for something. Quick everyone put your hands in the water.” Doctor Word whispered anxiously. “What? No are you crazy? We don’t know what that was or where he went. He could be dead for all we know.” Blanche protested. “Well maybe, but maybe not, it may have just taken him to wherever this place is. Look the other vials are places. Either way we either risk it and maybe live, or if we stay here they will be dead for sure once they find us.” The Doctor said, then all at once they heard voices getting closer so they thrust their hands into the water and in a flash of green light all vanished in an instant.

Minutes later the dastardly criminals came through the door. “Now what was it we were supposed to get?” One large ugly one said, sucking on an olive on his pointer finger.

 “I told you, Harry sent us here for the vial that said ‘Paradise’ He wants to make some adjustments,” Said a gangly creepy looking fellow in a bunny costume. “Wait, it’s not here. Where is it? And why is the water all murky? Boss said no one uses this place but him.”

 “Well maybe it’s at the bottom,” Said the one with olives on his fingers. “Don’t touch it you fool, no one touch anything, till we tells the boss. Oh he is not going to be happy about this.”

Blanche began to come to, as light shone through her closed eyelids. She adjusted to the bright sun and slowly awoke to find herself lying on a white sand beach. Next to her were the Doctor and the scatterbrained Ninja’s. They too were just gaining consciousness. The sand was beautiful and glowing with the reflected sun, almost like glass crystals. It wasn’t course either, but soft to the touch. She looked up to find Ozwald entertaining himself with several beautifully colored flowers, while hanging from a perfect looking palm tree a bit up the shore. As they all stood to their feet they were taken aback at the awe inspiring scenery before them. The blue sky, crisp air with the snow-white sand all surrounded by the most colorful flowering trees and deep green bushes they had ever seen. “This place is a utopia,” all the Ping brothers said in unison. “I have never seen anything so breathtaking,” exclaimed Doctor Word. “I want to live here,” said Blanche.

They walked up the shore to where Ozwald was, and he ran to meet them. As they were walking and taking it all in Sing Ping tripped, being so mesmerized he wasn’t watching his footing. He caught himself by grabbing the branch of one of the trees, which tore under his weight. He fell with a thud, as they all stared at the exposed branch. Underneath the beautiful tree was what looked like plaster on some mold or scaffolding. It was a fake tree, just made to look beautiful on the outside.

 “What is all this?” said Blanche. “This is not real, just made to look real. Someone went to great lengths to make this look very appealing to whoever came here.” She said. “Oh don’t be silly Blanche, I highly doubt anyone has ever been here before. It’s scientifically improbable. It more likely evolved from small puddles of paint and bits of construction paper,” Said the Doctor. “ya your probably right,” Ozwald said.

Upon further inspection into the lovely forest behind the front of the island, they found a small pond. It was a beautiful placid lake that was as still as a mirror. It reflected all the trees and plants perfectly as though they were upside down duplicates. Wing Ping was thirsty so he stooped down to the edge of the pond to get a handful of the cool refreshing looking water. As he drank there arose a shadow which grew larger and larger and rose slowly toward the surface, “Look out Wing!” Alistair reached for him to pull his brother back, tossing him aside as a huge aquatic beast rose from the pond and grabbed him instead, pulling him under. “Alistair!!” They all shouted together. “What was that thing?” said Blanche. “Look over there, another one.” The Doctor yelled. On the other side of the lake arose another, what looked like a giant leach about the size of a rhinoceros. Then another, and another, they began emerging, up then back into the pond as fast as they came up, they would submerge again. “It’s a Seldrin,” said Ozwald. “How do you know that?” “Well look it has one of those little nametags on.” Ozwald pointed.

Sure enough it did, they all did those horrible monsterous beasts all had nametags and they all read ‘Hello My Name Is: Seldrin.’ “We have to do something to save Alistair,” Blanche insisted. “What do you suggest we do?” Asked Pong. Then Wing walked over to the edge of the pond and knelt down to get a drink. “Stop!” they all yelled, “What do you think you are doing? He had forgotten already. Suddenly a Seldrin lunged out of the water grabbing Wing with its giant suction mouth. They all grabbed his legs, pulling him back, as the Seldrin tried to suck on Wing’s head and pull him in. “He is trying to suck his brains out.” Doctor Word said.

Blanche jumped in the air with a war cry that rang through the lovely trees, kicking the Seldrin in the head with a flying roundhouse. It detached from Wing hurling them all backwards onto the shore. Blanche came falling down towards the water and another Seldrin surged from the water to try and engulf her. She landed on its back and held on for dear life as it thrashed about. She then got an idea. She started yelling “here I am, come get me, you Seldrin’s with your stupid name tags.” The Seldrin she was riding was still trying to rid himself of his unwelcome passenger. Then as they flopped close to shore 2 other Seldrin came up out of the water mouths wide open to latch on. They all had no eyes and seemed to sense body heat to be able to locate prey. At the last second she jumped off of the head of the one and onto land and the two other Seldrin stuck onto it, sucking its brain out. It let out a loud shrill roar as this was discomforting to have ones brain sucked out. Having no luck at retrieving Alistair the six of them were forced to run as fast as they could for the shore. Some driftwood had washed ashore which Blanched tied to one of the trees with a vine. She pulled a purple crayon from her pocket and upon it wrote these words:  “this is not a utopia turn back now,” In the hopes that it would be a deterrent for any future travelers who had the misfortunes of stumbling upon this bizzare island. ‘Danger to all who enter here,’ Ozwald wrote in the sand, Though that warning was washed away by a wave only seconds later.

“Wow, all this beautiful scenery has been placed here for the sole purpose of making this place look inviting. Just so we would go exploring and find that pond with those horrible things, and it cost Alistair his life. I think whoever went through all that trouble to steal that paint must have constructed this. It is all paper, paint and plaster. They made this whole world just to try and do us in.” Blanche exclaimed. The six of them gathered some logs and tied them together with twine. “We have to get off this little island now” said Doctor Word “I agree,” Said Pong. They all climbed aboard and went drifting off into the open ocean, in search of land, in search of more adventures, in search of evil-doers everywhere.

Episode IX –Blanche, Ozwald and the scatterbrained Ninjas

Blanche and Ozwald were loafing around the house in utter boredom, no one could find the wine, or the remote, and the toaster was broken. Ozwald was desperately wanting to toast something. Blanche assumed bread, when in actuality he wanted to toast another one of her hand carved wooden tin soldiers, brought back from India by her cousin Pearl. A midget Indian with two prosthetic arms carved them. She had grown suspicious of why the twelve-piece set had been slowly vanishing over the past several days.

Blanche had been looking through the news paper at the obituaries to see if any of her old friends had passed away while she was gone on her adventure. She ran across an add for a private investigator. A poor family was looking to hire a detective to find the assassin of their father and husband, who was the trolley conductor on 7^thstreet. This criminal was also thought to be responsible for the burglarizing of a chain of paint stores down town. Now blanche, having taken a class on private eye work about 37 years back, was just the woman for the job.

“Ozwald!”she said, startling him from his mischievous activity, and causing him to fumble a half scorched tin soldier and quickly hide it behind his back.

. “Why are you grinning? Anyway I’ve got a job for us to do. We are going to take this case, and help this poor family out. What are you doing over there, and why is the toaster on? Quick go wake Rip Van Winkle, he can come along. Ozwald slowly stepped down from the stool, hands still behind his back, and with his back hugging the wall casually made his way to Rip’s room, inconspicuously tossing the burnt antique into a corner on his way.

“Rip! Wake up! We are going to solve a case.” Ozwald banged on his door. Rip jumped up and tripped on a roller skate that was left out, and went careening into the dresser with a thud.

“What is he doing in there?” “I don’t know.” He ran out trying to hold up his pants while tightening his belt.

“ The wheel of cheese was not mine!!” yelled Rip, then coming to he said, “Ok, wha… what, I’m up, I’m up.”

Blanche picked up the phone and made the call to the family telling them they would take the case.

The three made their way outside and caught a taxi to the house of the family for questioning. Upon arrival they were warmly welcomed and treated to a hospitable lunch of asparagus and grilled cactus with vegemite.

It turns out, Dan, who was the husband recently killed, went to work driving the trolley as usual like he did every day. From what the police gathered, the burglar had tried to board the trolley carrying several cans of recently stolen paint. Dan, being a just man, and seeing that the criminal had just fled the store, tried to stop him by not letting him on the train. The paint thief started waving a gun at him telling him to drive and it went off and shot Dan the trolley driver.

The criminal fled the scene and no one got a good look at him except for a small blind boy, well known for making up stories. So they decided to go on the trail of the criminal and thought a good place to start would be the outskirts of the city, in the wilderness. (criminals always flee into the wilderness).

One morning when the three woke, and began to walk along the road, out in the field there was a llama. And then there wasn’t. They continued walking hoping someone would drive past; see them and they could hitch a ride.

Finally after passing a few road lizards, several cow pies, the carcass of a coyote and some wreckage from an unknown spacecraft, which they let be, (Blanche thought it not a good idea to get involved with an alien cover up) a rusty orange flatbed pickup truck passed, carrying some sheep and a pile of hay.

It stopped and the driver yelled, “Come on hop in! Where ya’ headed?” They gratefully climbed in with the kind farmer. He had hair almost as orange as his truck, a woven straw hat, only a few teeth and a green flannel shirt. They told him of their adventures and how they were trying to solve a murder. He asked “what brings you way out here to Beckerville?” Neither Blanche, Rip nor Oswald, after thinking about it, quite knew why. They were just here. They had been wandering for days.

“Well how bouts’ I take you folks back to my place? And we can figure things out from there. My wife makes a mean sweet potato pie.”

Ozwald was ecstatic. “Yah that sounds great!”Blanche said. What is your name anyway?” “Name’s Dolf. Dolf Jirgin”

“well Dolf, I am Blanche and these are my friends, Ozwald the monkey back there picking the sheeps nose, and Rip.” As she looked out the window at passing sage Blanche asked, “So Dolf have you lived in, what do you call this… Beckerville? All your life?” There was no reply, and the truck started to veer off the road. She turned and Dolf had fallen asleep hunched over the wheel snoring away.

The truck went tearing through the sagebrush bumping up and down over rocks. It was headed right for a cliff! Blanche grabbed the steering wheel and turned the truck back toward the road while Rip shook Dolf trying to wake him. He jolted awake and they all brought the truck to a stop.

Rip declared that he had to go see a man about a horse as he nearly had an accident in anticipation of an accident. “What was that all about Dolf? You fell asleep.”

“Oh did I? Oh craminy! If the Mrs. Finds out she’ll have my hide. See she don’t like me drivin’ on account a’ I fall asleep sometimes and scares folks.”

“Well you sure scared us.” Ozwald was swinging on the open door waiting for Rip, and just as Rip was finishing up his business behind a bush, Dolf went out again and with his foot on the gas, the truck took off down the road at full speed. Blanche grabbed Ozwald who was clinging for life to the open door and pulled him in. Leaving Rip standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

Luckily they got close to the town and Blanche who was steering the truck was able to kill the engine so it coasted to a stop in front of a house. Across the street, a little old Irish woman came running out of an old farmhouse, flailing her arms and shaking a broom and shouting. She had to be about 4 foot 9 but stubborn as spit.

“Dolf! Dang your hide! You went off drivin’ again while I was out.” She saw the two passengers as she came up to the window. “Oh well excuse me, hello dears, I didn’t know he had company with him.”

“Luckily! Or he’d have gone over a cliff.” Blanche said.

“I’m Barbara, Dolf’s wife. Are you his mother?”

“Wha… No! I’m not.”

“Oh, you look old enough to be his mother. I just never met his mother. He never bothered to bring her over, and I just thought that you might be his mother.”

Blanche made no reply out of resentment. Wandering back into the farmhouse and motioning for them to follow her she mumbled to herself, half out loud for all who cared to hear,

“well goodness knows what goes through his mind…after 40 years of marriage you’d think a man would introduce you to his own mother. How I’ll ever survive such a man… Heaven knows.”

She brought them in, sat them down and made them some herbal tea. “How did you people run into Dolf? Where is he anyway?”

“You left him in the truck” Said Blanche.

“Oh, yes well, I’ll get him later, he’ll be fine.” Blanche thought “I’m not so worried about him, it’s everyone else in a five mile radius I worry about, with him behind a wheel.”

“So Dolf, bless his heart, as you may have gathered, is a narcoleptic. He falls asleep randomly and anywhere. Driving, eating, using his table saw…”

“You let him use a table saw?!” Blanche exclaimed.

“Have some blueberries dearie” said Barbara.

“Um we’d love to stay and get to know you but um, we are trying to solve a murder.”

“Goodness gracious! A murder? A whodunit. How exciting. I love mysteries.”

“Someone from the city, you may have seen it in the paper.”

“That Cab driver?” Said Barbara.

“Trolley but yes. Do you know anything?”

“I wish I could help Ma’am but aint nobody in this crazy township gonna be of any help.”

“Crazy? What do you mean crazy?”

“Everyone here has something mentally or physically wrong with them, or both. It’s sort of a reject town all the outcasts founded cause no where else would take em’”

“Really? Like what?” asked Ozwald.

“Well the nice China man next door, all four of his sons are severely scatterbrained, with an attention span of about 23 seconds. Martha across the street talks to water, lakes glasses, horse troughs, anything. Bill, four houses down on the right rhymes everything he says.”

“Wow, crazy!” Said Blanche.

“Your monkey would fit in just fine here.”

Blanche looked over to find Ozwald had wrapped himself in a hand sewn eastern run and was attempting to roll himself down a flight of stairs.

“Ozzy! Get out of that rug right now! And get over here. And what about you? What is wrong with you Barbara?” Blanche said.

“I married Dolf. You know, those Chinese sons I told you about, they might be perfect to help you on your quest. They are excellent at sneaking around stealthily and take orders well. They also know martial arts.”

“Hmmm I don’t know. I guess if they were caught they couldn’t give us away because they couldn’t remember huh?”

Meanwhile Rip was still standing on the side of the road in the middle of the dessert.

So Blanche and Ozwald went next door to Mr. Ping and explained their situation to him. He was very warm and friendly to them and emphatically supported the idea of having his four ninja sons accompany her on her journey, as they were doing him no good there.

Mr. Ping was in the paint business once, but was cheated out of his company by his selfish backstabbing partner. He warned them that he suspected him as the killer of the Trolley driver.

So off the six of them went passing Dolf still asleep in the truck.