Sorceress' Scheme

The phone rang twice before someone picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hello?" Micky asked, not sure who was on the line.

A muffled 'gimme that' could be heard in the background and then another voice answered. "Hello?"

"Hello," Micky repeated, recognizing Nicole's voice.

There was a shouting and scuffling about on the other side and the phone was dropped. A few moments passed and then a calm sounding voice answered.

"Hi Uncle Micky," Thomas said.

"Hi Thomas," Micky replied, not bothering to ask how Thomas knew it was him. It was obvious. "Uh...what's going on over there?"

"Everybody's sick," Thomas replied. "Joanne's got a stomach virus and both babies have a cold. Mom's a bit overwhelmed."

"Oh," Micky replied.

"So what's up?"

"Um, actually I was wondering if you guys had any idea where Davy and Mike are," Micky replied. "Place is deserted."

Thomas sounded surprised when he answered. "It is?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know," Thomas confessed. "Dad was supposed to go over there tonight. He left about...an hour ago I guess. Nobody's there?"

Micky shook his head even though Thomas couldn't see him. "Nope," he replied. "Just me and Jenny."

"I wonder what happened," Thomas mumbled to himself. "Um..here, talk to Mom."

There was a short silence as the phone was passed on. "Hi Micky," Nicole said a moment later. "Sorry about that."

"No problem," he replied casually. "Sounds like a hospital over there."

"Something like that," she commented. "So what's the matter?"

Micky explained the situation once again and Nicole confessed that she had no clue as to where the others were either.

"That does sound rather strange," she told him. "You'd think somebody would have warned me. I told them not to go too far, with all the kids sick." She heaved a sigh.

"Jenny and I'll come over and help you out a bit," Micky offered. "We're gonna see if we can find some clues first."

"Okay. Thanks Micky. I think I'll send Thomas over there, too. He might be some help, and anyway, he looks kind of bored and I don't want him to get sick, too!"

Micky grinned. "Okay," he replied. "See you soon." With that he hung up the phone.

Jenny came back in the room just then and shook her head. "I didn't see anything suspicious," she told him. "Any help from next door?"

"They don't have a clue either," Micky reported. Before he could say another word, there came a knock from the door. "That must be Thomas."

"Thomas?" Jenny had never met Thomas. Micky swallowed a mental gulp as he went to answer the door. Those who weren't used to Thomas sometimes found him...well...weird.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. People found him weird, too.

Micky opened the door, and, true to his prediction, Thomas stood at the door. "Hey," Thomas greeted. "Any clues?"

Micky shook his head. "Nothing yet," he reported as he opened the door. "C'mon in."

"Nice to meet you, Jenny," Thomas said, introducing himself. "I'm Thomas."

Micky was afraid at first that Jenny might be a bit freaked out. If she got freaked out about Thomas, just wait until she found out about the rest of them. But if Jenny was freaked out, she didn't show it.

"Nice to meet you, Thomas," Jenny replied. "I'm glad I finally get to meet you."

Thomas grinned modestly and Micky smiled to himself. Thomas wasn't particularly used to girls - except his younger sisters, who didn't really count, since Joanne was four years younger and the other was only a baby.

"Okay let's get started on the search for clues," Micky decided, taking charge. "Jen, you take the living room, Tom, you take Davy's room, and me, I'll start with Mike's room. Meet back here in -" he glanced at his watch, "-a half hour. That's nine-thirty. Let me know if you find anything suspicious, okay?"

Jenny and Thomas nodded, and the three split up to search the house.

Jenny wasn't sure what she was supposed to be looking for, but she was pretty sure she wasn't finding it. She understood Micky's plan of giving her the living room. After all, it was the part of the house that she knew the best. She didn't know the guy's bedrooms at all (of course), and she doubted they'd find many clues in either the kitchen or the bathroom.

So she began searching the living room. At first glance, everything looked normal. She'd already looked a little through the room before and not seen anything, so she decided it would be a good idea to look even closer.

Jenny began with the sofa, searching under all the pillows and sofa cushions. Nothing out of the ordinary there, although she did find seventy - three cents. Then she searched under the rugs. Nothing there but two more pennies and a few dust bunnies. Under the couch produced the same results, so she moved on to the bandstand.

Carefully maneuvering her way around the delicate and most likely expensive instruments, she searched under the drum set, behind a few amplifiers, even in the sound hole of an acoustic guitar. Nothing but dust. Surely not out of the ordinary.

Jenny stood up and glanced at her watch. It was only 9:07. Hardly any time had passed. So she moved off the bandstand and searched behind the television. Nothing there but some old TV guides. She flipped through them, thinking that maybe there was a piece of paper inside them or something. But nothing. Only old articles.

Frowning to herself, Jenny thought of where to look next. She searched behind each and everyone of the pictures on the walls, taking up another 2 minutes of her time. Then she searched through some papers on the windowseat. Scribbled words that she assumed must be the start of a new song. Must be Mike's then, being that he was their most prolific songwriter. A guitar pick was amidst them as well, indicating he must have been playing and writing, and stopped, apparently, in the middle, dropping his pick into the music. On one of the papers he appeared to have stopped writing abruptly as well.

Nothing unusual, but perhaps a clue, Jenny thought to herself as she fumbled through the pile. Then she noticed something else. No pen. No pencil.

Although it was possible Mike could have put whatever writing implement he was using away after he had finished, she doubted it. From the scattered state of the papers and the incomplete and abrupt writings, she assumed he'd stopped in a hurry. Why would he take the time to put a pen away when he'd stopped so quickly he'd not even finished a word on the paper?

"Any luck?" she heard a voice call from up above, and she turned, startled, to see Micky standing on the stairs looking down at her.

"Yeah, I think so," she replied.

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