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"So where did Sarah say the factory workers are anyway?"
Mickey the skunk Moehog questioned her friend. Lydia the cloud Chomby pointed
to the seaside parkway.
"The workers in the Cotton Warehouse are now
working in the merchandise booths," Lydia replied as she looked at the mulitcoloured
booths that lined the warehouse. The three friends walked back down the parkway,
listening to the vendors trying to sell their souvenirs.
"Get your Babaa plushies--"
"A sample of real Cotton Island cotton--"
"Googly-eyed acorns--"
"But which one of these booths is owned by one
of those factory worker people?" Toby the orange Buzz inquired. Dozens of booths
lined the parkway, so it was definitely a hard choice.
"Excuse me?" Lydia asked a Nimmo at one of the
booths. "We've heard that some of the stands here are owned by former workers
of the Cotton Warehouse. Could you tell us which ones?" The Nimmo looked up.
"Sure, just purchase a pamphlet here for the
Cotton Island Public Library," the Nimmo replied. He held up a pink piece of
paper.
"You expect us to pay for your advertising of
your crummy library?" she asked.
"Fine, don't pay, I guess I won't tell you which--"
"Fine!" Lydia scowled. She grabbed a handful
of Neopoints and tossed them at the vendor. The Nimmo gave a big toothy smile
and handed the pamphlet to Lydia. She pocketed it without looking at it.
"Those vendors are at the far end of the parkway,"
the Nimmo said as he pointed to the far end of the parkway. Lydia didn't bother
to say 'thanks' as she stormed off down the parkway followed by Mickey and Toby
who were sure to keep a safe distance. They arrived at the final ten booths.
They were all Myncis who didn't say much. They were obvious amateurs at the
vending 'business'.
"Do you ten work at the warehouse?" Toby inquired.
"We did work there," one of the Myncis replied.
"And we're not going back," another Mynci added.
"We aren't going to make you go back. We were
just wondering why you left," Mickey answered.
"It's haunted! We worked there a week ago and
some ghost scared us out of our job!" exclaimed the first Mynci.
"Yeah! It was going to give us wedgies and stuff,"
another Mynci added. They all shuddered.
"I'm sure. This mystery of 'The Ghost of Cotton
Island' sounds amazingly like 'The Lazy Workers of Cotton Island'," spat Lydia.
"Why would we fake that? A nice cushy job in
Cotton Island's richest industry!" cried another Mynci. Lydia sighed and suddenly
walked off.
"Wait up!" Toby exclaimed as he and Mickey jogged
up. "Why'd you leave?"
"What else are we supposed to do? These workers
are just lazy," muttered the Chomby. She stormed off to the hotel when a pamphlet
dropped out of her pocket.
"Wait! What's this?" Toby asked. He picked the
pamphlet off of the ground. It was the paper the Nimmo had sold to Lydia. On
the front was a picture of the Cotton Island Public Library.
"Hey, the library! I bet there are archives of
the newspaper here. On the day the workers quit because of the ghost, there
was probably an article about it! Maybe we can look it up," suggested Mickey.
Lydia ran back and jumped for joy.
"You're a genius Mickey, a genius! Come on, let's
go!"
***
Mickey, Toby and Lydia climbed the stone steps of the Cotton Island Public
Library. They entered the old building and looked around. It was nearly empty
besides the ageing Blumaroo behind the desk. The three friends looked around
until they saw an old computer. Toby sat down in front of it and began typing.
"Newspaper archives... newspaper archives...
aha, here we go. The Cotton Island Tribune," Toby said. He began searching for
the issue from a week ago. He typed in the date and hit 'Enter'.
"Toby, that issue is from seven days ago! The
ghost incident was six days ago," Lydia pointed out. But on the front page they
saw their Sarah looking quite angry.
"What's this?" asked Mickey. Toby looked it over.
"It's an article about an election or something.
Apparently Sarah ran for mayor of Cotton Island but lost. Some other dude was
elected because the citizens didn't want Sarah to quit her job at the Cotton
Warehouse," Toby read.
"Do you think the election and the ghost problem
are linked?" Mickey asked. Lydia shook her head.
"I doubt it, probably just a coincidence. But
we're here to look for information about the ghost thing, remember?" Lydia asked.
Toby clicked on the issue the day later. Sure enough, the computer showed the
front page had a picture of Sarah and the Mynci workers.
"It says the workers were working in the warehouse
when all of a sudden a ghost approached them. They didn't get to see too much
of the ghost because they ran out screaming. The warehouse had been searched--just
like Sarah told us--with no prevail."
"Well that didn't help. We aren't any more educated
about the ghost than we were an hour ago," Mickey muttered.
"There's only one more thing we can do. We have
to search the factory ourselves!" Lydia exclaimed.
"We can't!" Toby cried.
"Don't think we have much of a choice. Tonight.
We can sneak out of the hotel and go over there to check things out. We can
even bring Sarah with us," Mickey replied.
The three friends left the library and headed
back to the Neolodge. It had been a long, eventful day but it was time to go
to bed. Tomorrow would prove to be just as eventful.
***
Sarah awoke with a start to the knocking of her front door. She ran over to
the door and opened to see Lydia, Toby and Mickey standing there. The Elephante
looked at her watch which said 10:00. She wiped her eyes.
"What do you want?" she asked groggily.
"We're going to the warehouse now to find the
ghost!" Lydia exclaimed. "Want to come along with us?"
"You can't go in there, it's dangerous!" Sarah
exclaimed.
"How dangerous could it be? Will the big bad
ghost get us? If we don't find anything, we'll go back again. We went the the
library yesterday and looked it up. We didn't find much so we're going to the
warehouse!" Mickey exclaimed. Sarah shook her head.
"I don't know. Sorry guys," she replied.
"Well, I'll guess we'll go alone," Lydia replied.
The three friends ran off to the warehouse. Sarah looked out the door at the
three running pets. She knew she would have to go too.
To be continued...
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