Kn-Kn-Knock.

        Kn-Kn-KNOCK.

        KN-KN-KOCK.

        A plastic cup fell from the coffee table; it was swatted over by Felicia’s arm as she was startled, flailing, awake by what sounded like three fists knocking on her front door. What started as knocking escalated to pounding. Each thud, louder than the last, made it clear that this would not stop until she answered the door.

        Felicia had never seen a sight such as the one that awaited her once she opened her front door: two men, one a skeleton and one with a long, curly mustache several feet long, stood on her stoop. The skeleton was positioned a couple of steps away from the door, while Mr. Mustache was not an inch from Felicia’s face once the door was opened. She winced when she saw his fist in the air, expecting him to punch her. Based on the scowl of intent written upon his face, this seemed a real possibility. It took Felicia several seconds spent bracing for impact to realize that the position of his arm matched the position of his mustache ends; they were both cocked back, their very tips balled up into hairy fists of their own. Between the two hair balls and the actual fist, Felicia realized, were the sources of the triplicate knocking that had roused her.

        “Hi,” offered Mustache Guy, “Kerry, right? Or should I say, Felicia? We spoke earlier, on tha’ phone.”

        His eyelids drew closer as he spoke. His eyes grew smaller. Reluctantly, Felicia stepped aside and motioned for her visitors to come in.

        “So you’re his brother, huh?” uttered her deep, smoky voice as she followed them into her living room.

        A quick, light tapping sound caught Roger’s attention. It would not stop. Roger’s fixation with the pulsing grew until he thought he would be driven insane if it did not end. A glance downward revealed the source of the tapping to be his own bony finger, tittering uncontrollably against his pelvis. The skeleton searched the room for a distraction. There were ash trays on every surface, each housing one or more half-smoked, still-burning cigarettes. He counted three empty cartons of milk sitting on an armchair in the nearest corner. On the ground was a cup, rolling slowly in a semicircle. Anxious for something to do with his hands, Roger knelt down, grabbed the cup, and placed it on the coffee table. Something about the room and the woman in it gave him anxiety, and he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The second he had returning the cup to the table, the tittering resumed.

        “You were gonna to marry Ollie – and, all these years, I thought you’d done it – but you called the whole thing off, last minute. What the heck happened?” asked Mustache Guy, suppressing a cough itching to get out of his throat as a result of the smoldering cigarettes.

        “Oh, Oliver,” breathed Felicia, wistfully. As she continued, she was transported. She avoided making eye contact, gazing instead at a broken grandfather clock, no longer capable of keeping time, on the far side of the room.

        “We were in love. His parents – your parents – hated everything about me. But we didn’t care. We ran off. Figured we’d go to Hermann. After all, I grew up here. I knew a lot of folks here. Figured I could call in some favors, get me and Oliver some work. But then, night before the wedding, he changed. I… I couldn’t bear it. He was awful. Terrible. A monster!”

        A panic overtook her. In an instant, she was on the floor, fainted. Mustache Guy and Roger dashed towards her. Two strands of mustache padded her fall, cradling her like arms from underneath.

        “Felicia, snap out of it! I need you to tell me where my brother is. Where’s Ollie?!” shouted Mustache Guy, crouching by her side.

        Her eyes flitted open, but shut again instantly. Then she whispered, so quietly it was hard to hear her over the sounds of the burning cigarettes,

        “The Glangorias. He said… he was going to the Glangorias.”

        Mustache Guy withdrew his mustache from beneath her and made for the door, curtly saying,

        “Let’s go, Rog.”

        Without a moment’s hesitation, Roger stepped over Felicia’s sleeping body in pursuit of his friend. But, before the skeleton reached the door he turned around, hoisted Felicia onto the couch, and crushed out the ends of all of her cigarettes with his elbow. Only then did he resume following Mustache Guy to the truck.

Twobie here again.

        So, the day after those weirdos showed up things got more suspicious. And we came up with a plan of action.

        But before I tell you about that, I should tell you their names (so you know which one I am talking about when I talk about them). Fats’s dad dropped him off a little early for school and when he walked in the three weirdos were right in front of him because they must’ve walked in right before him. He was behind their backs, so they didn’t see him. Fats overheard them arguing about something. We’re not sure what it all means because Fats missed the first part of their conversation because he wasn’t inside yet, but here’s what he remembers them saying (and Fats has a really good memory because he acted in the kindergarten play as an oak tree which required him to memorize six lines, so this is most likely word-for-word):

PURPLE TIE MAN: I hated milk when I was a kid. Still do.

PIPE SMOKING MAN: Shut it, Guy! Kids love moo juice, right? Even if they don’t, their parents make ‘em drink it!

PURPLE TIE MAN: But Larry, I just-

        Twobie again. This isn’t part of what they said, I just need to tell you what happened next. The man with the pipe slapped the one with the purple tie across the face. Back to their conversation.

PIPE SMOKING MAN: Stop using my real name, dimwit!

PURPLE TIE MAN: Sorry Lar- I mean, Another Guy.

WHITE HAIRED MAN: Will you two stop fighting?! The plan is going to work, don’t worry about it. When has The Leader ever led us wrong before?

PIPE SMOKING MAN: Other Guy, you really are oblivious, you know that? Ignorance is bliss, man.

PURPLE TIE MAN: We should try it with cupcakes or something. That’d work way better.

WHITE HAIRED MAN: No, no, no! We’ve got a plan all figured out and I say we stick with it! I don’t want The Leader mad at us again.

PIPE SMOKING MAN: Can’t you think for yourself for once, Other Guy? If you’d take your lips off The Leader’s butt for two seconds…

        And then they walked into a ‘Staff Only’ room at the back of the school and Fats couldn’t follow them anymore because he is not a staff member so he went to homeroom. That’s all he heard, but it gave us some information. For one, these three dudes’ names are Guy, Other Guy, and Another Guy. Can you believe that? We came up with way better codenames than that for ourselves, and we’re just kids! Plus we know that Another Guy’s real name is Larry. So Guy is the bald one with the gray suit and purple tie, Other Guy is he bald one with the white hair and wrinkly face, and Another Guy (AKA Larry) is the one with the baseball cap and the pipe. Plus we found out that they work for somebody named The Leader, which sounds like a pretty important name so I wonder what she does.

        We also know that Guy doesn’t like milk, Another Guy (AKA Larry) is grouchy, and Other Guy is like the teacher’s pet if The Leader was a teacher. I don’t like to use the term “teacher’s pet” because I think it is mean and I have been called it before because I like Language Arts so much but it is the best way I can think of to describe Other Guy.

        I just wish we knew what they were up to. Unfortunately their conversation didn’t tell us what they are doing, just that they are doing something.

        Sorry if some of my paragraphs are short. Mrs. Ingle says that a paragraph is supposed to be at least three sentences and alot of mine in this letter are not. But she also says that each paragraph should focus on one main idea. What if I don’t have at least three sentences to write about each main idea? I think it is O.K. to write short paragraphs in that case, but I am apologizing anyway in case you don’t agree with me.

        So I told you that things started getting weirder with the three guys and that Fats, Metal Mouth and I came up with a plan. I told you about the conversation Fats heard so you would know the names of the three guys so it wouldn’t be as confusing when I write about them from now on.

        Later when all of the TAFBSers were eating lunch together like we always do we saw the strange stuff happen. First we noticed Guy leaning against the back wall of the cafeteria. He had a brown clipboard in his hands and was writing on it. He kept looking around the cafeteria at all of us eating lunch then looked back down at the clipboard and wrote more. We watched him do this for most of lunch.

        The only time we looked way from Guy was when a really quiet, shy kid who is new to our school this year came over and asked Metal Mouth to make a trade. Metal Mouth had a thing of stawberry milk and the kid said he would give him two jelly Krimpets for it. But Metal Mouth loves strawberry milk almost as much as I love Lloyd, my hamster. And that’s alot. After some haggling Metal Mouth and the kid agreed to trade half of the strawberry milk for three Krimpets, which was a pretty good deal considering Metal Mouth usually wouldn’t trade any of his strawberry milk even for a whole warehouse of jelly Krimpets. Also I was happy that the new kid came over to us at all because he doesn’t have any friends and alot of other kids at school make fun of him behind his back and to his face. I am glad he knows we are nice and wouldn’t do that.

        After they traded and the new kid was walking away, Metal Mouth, Fats and me turned back to check on Guy but he was gone! The whole process of Metal Mouth and the new kid trading couldn’t have taken more than a minute, and from where Guy was standing he wasn’t near a door. He would have had to walk all the way around the cafeteria to get out and there’s no way he could have walked all that way when we only looked away for a little bit. So we looked all over to see if maybe he just moved to another part of the cafeteria but he was gone.

        This mysterious disappearance was very weird, and then something even weirder happened. Because we were already looking at the doors to see where Guy went we saw Another Guy (AKA Larry) come into the cafeteria. He had a big box that had COOKIES written on it and he carried it into the food line. I probably should have told you this earlier when I first mentioned the cafeteria but there are three doorways in it. One has a door and goes out to the hallway. The other two don’t have doors, one of them takes you into a little room inside of the cafeteria where the lunch men and ladies give you your food if you buy lunch and the other one takes you out of that room once you get your food and pay for it. I think that might be a comma splice. Sorry. Anyway, that little room with the food in it is called the food line. When you’re in there no one in the cafeteria can see you because you are on the other side of a concrete wall.

        So we couldn’t see Another Guy (AKA Larry) while he was in there. The weird thing is he came out the other food line doorway without the cookies. This wouldn’t normally be weird because you are probably thinking he was putting the cookies in the food line so kids could buy them. That’s what we thought. So I went to go get a cookie because school lunch snickerdoodles are really good and they are the only thing I ever buy in the food line because I always, always bring my lunch from home. But when I got into the food line there were no snickerdoodles! There weren’t any cookies at all!

        I asked Mr. Targon, one of the men who works in the food line, if there were any cookies and he said “I’m sorry, all of our cookies sold out right at the beginning of lunch. They were a hot seller today!” I was confused because I just saw Another Guy (AKA Larry) bring a whole box of cookies into the food line and no other kids went in between when he left and I went to go get a cookie, so there’s no way they could have sold all of the cookies he brought, so he never delivered any cookies! But where did he put the box?

        When I was telling this to Fats and Metal Mouth back at the lunch table, they were listening like normal until all of a sudden they looked real scared like they saw a ghost or something. Their faces looked alot like this:

        I thought they looked weird but I kept telling them about the cookies anyway because I thought they were making faces because they were so into my story. After I finished they both sighed and relaxed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Other Guy walk past us and to the spot at the back of the cafeteria where Guy had been. Then Fats said “What did he do to you?” and I said “What did who do to me?” and Metal Mouth said “Him! Other Guy!” and I said “What do you guys mean?!” and Fats said “You didn’t feel anything?” and I said “No. What are you talking about!” At this point I was getting really freaked out. “Other Guy was sneaking up behind you and he was reaching out towards your hair. But then he saw that we saw him so he stopped and walked away.” That made me get even more freaked out. I looked over towards where Other Guy just walked to and he was gone! We all looked around for him but didn’t see him anywhere in the cafeteria. Too weird.

        This is the part about the plan of action I promised to tell you about. TAFBS decided to split up and tail each of the three weirdos. Tail means follow them around and spy on them. My job was to tail Other Guy because he was trying to do something to my hair. Fats got Another Guy (AKA Larry) and Metal Mouth got Guy. There weren’t any specific reasons they got who they got like why I got who I got, they just picked. We started tailing the very next day.

        But that’s all I have time to write right now. I just looked at the clock and it is eleven o’clock! If my mom catches me up this late, she won’t be happy.

PS – I found out that “eggcorns” are actually “acorns” today when I got back a paper I wrote about Fats’ collection of them. Mrs. Ingle wrote the right spelling above the wrong one in her blue ink. A thing I like about Mrs. Ingle is that she doesn’t cross out wrong spelled words, she just writes the right spelling above them. And she never uses red pen. This makes me less anxious when I get papers back. So anyway I spelled acorn wrong earlier in this letter. It will be spelled right from now on. And AKA means also known as, in case you were wondering.

Dear Mr. Roger,

       I’m sorry if this letter doesn’t follow all the right English rules. Mrs. Ingle just taught us what run on sentences are last week so I’m not very good at not using them yet. And sometimes I use too many commas and sometimes not enough (I wish my teachers would make up their minds which one). But I’m trying to get as much information down as fast as I can, so my grammar isn’t going to be as good as it should be.

       I guess I should tell you who I am. My name is Twobie (rhymes with “Ruby” but with a 2 at the beginning… I used to always tell people it rhymes with “Boobie” but most of my friends are boys and that made them laugh too much). Well, my name isn’t really Twobie, which is kind of a weird name and my parents would have to be pretty silly to name their daughter Twobie, but that’s what the rest of The Arthur Falcon Band Society calls me so that’s what I want you to call me.

       There are only 3 members in The Arthur Falcon Band Society – me, Fats, and Metal Mouth. Fats lives down the street from me, so we’ve been friends forever. He has to buy all of his clothes in “husky” size, but I think he’s due for a growth spurt one of these days that’ll even him out. Metal Mouth is a kid who Fats and me didn’t meet until we started third grade about two months ago. Let’s just say that there was a stainless steel shortage in the whole county on the day that they made his braces. Of course, Fats and Metal Mouth aren’t their real names just like my real name isn’t Twobie. We use those names to protect our identities. Just think of what might happen to our loved ones if our enimies knew who we really are!

       The Arthur Falcon Band Society (TAFBS for short) is a club the three of us started at recess on the first day of third grade. We had a bit of an argument over what to call ourselves. Fats wanted to name us The Falcons because he loves falcons. I wanted to call us The Chester A. Arthur Society on account of I like American history a lot and my favorite president is Chester A. Arthur because he put his money where his mouth was getting rid of corrupt government people with the Pendelton Act. And Metal Mouth wanted to name us The Rubber Band Ball because he’s always carrying around a big rubber band ball that he says he started making when he was three. I thought this was the stupidest name for a secret society that I’d ever heard, but I didn’t say that because sometimes you have to know the difference between what can be said and what has to be said so you don’t hurt your friend’s feelings. I thought The Falcons didn’t sound as bad, but I still think that The Chester A. Arthur Society was the best of the 3 names. Anyway we put together all the names to make The Arthur Falcon Band Society, which I think is a weird name and we’ll have to think of a better one someday but I like that it has one part thought of by each of us because we are a team now and teams work together.

       I’m pretty sure that was a run on sentence, but like I said, I don’t have time to go back and fix this like an English paper. Hopefully you get what I’m saying, run on or not.

       Something you should know about Fats is that he collects eggcorns. This is important to know because we were trying to get him some new eggcorns when the weird stuff started happening and the whole reason I’m writing this to you is because of that weird stuff. All through first and second grade Fats and I would spend one recess each week rummaging (that’s a new vocabulary word Mrs. Ingle taught us today that I really like) around under the trees for eggcorns to add to Fats’ collection. The first time we told Metal Mouth about this, he said he had a way better idea. Since eggcorns were kinda hard to find around the playground and you have to walk all over the place just to find a few of them, he said we should sell something except we’d charge eggcorns instead of money. That way other kids would find the eggcorns for us. Fats and I agreed that this was a pretty good idea.

       We decided to sell pretend icecream. Instead of cones we used leaves. Instead of icecream we used handfulls of woodchips. Our shop was under the big slide. I did most of the talking because I am the most charasmatic of us TAFBSers.

       I yelled, “Icecream! Get your icecream! Only one eggcorn buys you a cone of cool, refreshing icecream!” And we made 38 and one half eggcorns. While were working at our icecream shop, we saw the car pull up. See, the playground is right next to the school’s parking lot which my mom always says wasn’t the smartest idea on account of some kids might not know any better than to run into the parking lot and get hit by cars. I’ve never seen it happen yet, and I’ve been at Francis P. Mingleton Elementary since kindergarten, but she makes a good point. Anyway Metal Mouth saw this beat up looking car we’d never seen before drive up and pointed it out to me and Fats. We looked up and saw three men we’ve never seen before get out of it.

       One of them was wearing a gray suit and a purple tie. He was white and kinda bald and had a beard and glasses. The other two had matching outfits that were the same exact outfits that all of the janitors at school wear, blue shirts and tan pants. One of them was black, had a hat, and was smoking a pipe. The other was old and white with white hair. He was really wrinkly and was as bald as the first guy. I drew you a picture of them. I didn’t have a tan crayon for their pants, so I used red.

       Fats, Metal Mouth and me agreed that there was something suspicious about these men and we started keeping our eye on them. I think that it would be sorta weird to just send you a picture of the bad guys, so I drew you this picture of the good guys (and gal). See if you can figure out whos who.

       That’s all the time I have to write now. My mom is coming upstairs to tell me to go to bed! I still have alot to tell you before I send this to you.

PS – I’ll bet your wondering why my codename is Twobie. It was originally Josie Two By Four, because a two by four is a type of wood that is really skinny and I am really skinny. But Josie Two By Four is alot of syllables to say, so Fats and I decided to shorten it to Twobie. Also my hair isn’t really purple, it’s dark brown. Purple is my favorite color and I sometimes wish my hair was purple. I like dark brown too. Also I think I revealed too much information when I told you my name is Josie but my eraser is so used up I can’t erase it even if I try (I did try), so that’ll have to be our little secret.

        Being thoroughly abnormal and being an included member of society are by no means mutually exclusive, realized Roger, whose abnormality was that he had no skin on his body; as he sat across one of Tilghman Library’s many ancient wooden tables from his best friend Mustache Guy and poured over archival newspapers, Roger felt less lonesome than he ever had.

        And yet it had never before occurred to Roger that he had been lonely; he grew up secluded from the outside world, receiving his education from his mother and working behind closed doors as both dishwasher and cook for a small Thai restaurant. Both his mom and Mr. Cosmé Titan, his boss, had been more than enough company for the young skeleton. It was not until he met and befriended Mustache Guy, a one-time-self-employed-carpenter, that Roger realized how alone he had been during his childhood and early adolescence. Only after experiencing the joys of his and Mustache Guy’s friendship did Roger recognize the pains of aloneness. How lucky, he thought, to not recognize a sixteen-year-long period of total isolation until emerging out from it.

        In this short time since surfacing out of seclusion, Roger had worn many hats: he defended his home from violent attackers, apprenticed with a master carpenter, traveled further from home than he had ever been (learning to drive along the way), did battle with giant robots, and now was deeply entrenched in the business of private investigation. Roger and Mustache Guy sat on creaky wooden chairs and inhaled the library’s fumes, at once delightful and stale, of old books and old wood and old people, in an effort to track down one Oliver “Ollie” “Limburger” Guy.

        Each newspaper was scrutinized for signs of a wedding announcement containing the name of Mustache Guy’s long lost older brother. Making this job difficult was the unfortunate fact that the list of unknowns was greater than the list of knows; they knew roundabout what year Ollie and his bride were wed, because Mustache Guy remembered it happening when he was two or three years old (around 1976); they knew the groom’s name was Oliver Guy; and they knew the ceremony was probably performed in the Greater Neilson County region because Limburger and his fiancé were in The Seaside – smack dab in the middle of Neilson County – prior to running away and eloping. They did not know the bride’s name (first or last), the month or even season they were wed, nor the exact location in which they were wed. Neilson County encompassed two cities and fifteen towns. Using this information, Roger and Mustache Guy narrowed their search down to the four biggest libraries in the county and took advantage of the extensive newspaper archives at each.

        It was in the third of these four libraries, the Tilghman Library, that Roger sat and contemplated how blissfully unaware he had been of his loneliness.

        “Rog? Rog? Anyone home?” asked Mustache Guy with a growing grin as he rapped lightly on the crown of Roger’s skull. The skeleton was too deep in thought to notice.

        “ROG!” Mustache Guy barked playfully. Roger shook free from his thoughts.

        Get it together, Roger. We’ve got a job to do here! he thought to himself.

        “Sorry,” said the skeleton aloud. “Where were we? Right – two and a half libraries worth of newspapers and nothing to show for it but bags under our eyes. We must be getting close. We’ve got to be!”

        “Ya might be right. Still haven’t found anythin’ myself, while you were day dreamin’ over there, or whatever it was you were doin’. But whether or not we’re gettin’ close to findin’ Limburger, I think there’s a little filly over at the circulation desk who wants to get close to you.”

        Mustache Guy’s grin grew bigger by the second. He directed the curious skeleton’s attention towards the front desk, behind which sat the most attractive young lady Roger had ever laid eyes upon. The girl, who Roger estimated was between sixteen and eighteen years old, had obviously been caught red-handed staring directly at him, for she shot her glance down at her feet and a rosy color overtook her face the moment they accidentally locked eyes. Roger could not help but smile knowing that this girl had been looking in his direction. But as they so often do in these earliest moments of awkward teenage romance, second thoughts immediately began to cloud his judgment.

        “There’s no way a girl like that could be interested in me. I’m a skeleton, for Pete’s sake! I mean, look at her skin – all rosy and pale and perfect. It would be hard enough to get a date with her if I was a typical pimply teenager, let alone one with no skin at all. She was probably just staring and wondering how a freak like me could be alive in the first place,” said an increasingly dejected Roger.

        Mustache Guy was quick to shoot back,

        “Now, come on. You don’t know that. I’ll bet’cha she’s got a little crush on you, handsome fella ya are. Strong check bones, manly jaw line, straight spine and whatnot. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t give you the eyes across a musty old library? Stop bein’ such a wimp – go over there and talk to her!”

        Amidst this welcome distraction, neither Mustache Guy nor Roger noticed the wedding announcement FELICIA BURKOWITZ TO WED OLIVER GUY staring up at them from the table. Instead, Mustache Guy’s attention was fixed on Roger, who reluctantly swaggered towards the circulation desk with a nervous smile on his face.

        What on Earth am I going to say to her? Anxious thoughts fired through his brain. Meanwhile, she glanced up, saw that he was approaching, and immediately hid her face again. It changed from merely rosy to beet red.

        “…Hello,” announced Roger cordially after a pause. She gave him a long opportunity to offer anything else before responding,

        “Hi. May I help you find anything?”

        “Oh, no. I was just wondering what, uh, your name is.” Roger’s heart nearly beat out of his ribcage.

        “Me? I’m Gracie. Gracie Katrina Diana Worthington, actually.”

        “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with that many names before. They must’ve had to staple extra pages onto your birth certificate.”

        A joke, he thought. I made a joke! Where is this stuff coming from?

        A laugh escaped Gracie.

        “Very funny, Mister. Well, you can call me Gracie, or some of my friends take my middle two initials and call me K.D., or if you’re so inclined you may call me Miss Worthington. What do people call you?”

        “Well Miss Worthington, my name is Roger. You can call me Roger, for short.” This joke was met with no reaction from Gracie.

        Rats! I’m dying out here.

        “Alrighty, Roger. Do you mind if I ask you what you and your friend, who, by the way, hasn’t blinked since he started staring at us the minute you walked over here” – she waved enthusiastically at Mustache Guy who, caught, buried his face in the newspapers and counted to twenty before peeking up – “What is it exactly you two are looking for in all those papers?”

        “What, those? We’re searching for his brother who disappeared sixteen years ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Do you want to go out sometime? With me?”

        Did I just say that?

        “Well, aren’t you a forward one? You know, I don’t give my number out to every pile of bones that walks in the door, but seeing as you are the cutest pile of bones I’ve ever seen I think I’ll make an exception.” She scribbled her telephone number on a blank library due date card and pushed it across the desk to Roger. “I’m working crazy hours all week, but I’m free Saturday night. Give me a call one night this week and we’ll figure it out.” Her confident smile was mirrored in Roger’s shy one.

        As he walked back to the table with a spring in his step and Gracie’s number in hand, Roger could not help but notice Mustache Guy’s manic, toothy smile; he looked almost on the verge of tears. Roger looked into his glistening eyes and said,

        “Geesh, you’re so happy you’d think it was you who got a phone number and a date, not me!”

        “Yeah, yeah. Congrats on that, you stud!” returned Mustache Guy distractedly. “But that’s hardly the reason I’m excited. Get a load of this,” he said, slapping a newspaper onto the well-worn wooden table. Impossible to miss was a wedding announcement reading:

FELICIA BURKOWITZ TO WED OLIVER GUY
Congratulations to Miss Felicia Burkowitz on her engagement to Mr. Oliver Guy. The couple plan to marry on February 14^th, 1976. Rabbi Walter Meshiem to perform the ceremony in Burkowitz’s hometown of Hermann.