Emily The Strange_ The Lost Days Part 5

RAVEN:.

Uhhhhhhhhhhh...

A:.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh, dear. Though the brightest light in the heavens may s.h.i.+ne for man, it doth not s.h.i.+ne for you. In your eyes, but never in your mind.

R:.

........ Thank you?

A:.

Did umlaut mention to you that I have magical powers beyond your wildest dreams?

R:.

Uhh...no.

A:.

Right, well, I was just kidding. Seriously, though, I do have a great set of guns.

ME:.

[Snorting from under the counter.]

A:.

I look into your eyes, Raven, and what do I find? Nothing more than lint and espresso recipes. And this, my deadly doll, this is what drives me wild for you! I must have you!

R:.

Uhhhhhhhhhh??

A:.

I'll pick you up tomorrow evening at eight, darling. Wear something revealing. And don't forget-I'm very generou$$$!

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[The dollar signs are mine, but you could practically hear them hissing on his snakey tongue.]

Then he left, and as soon as he was gone, umlaut stormed over to the counter to convince Raven she wasn't going to date his creepy friend. I'm NOT writing down their conversation. It was extremely tiresome and full of "Uhhhhhhhhh..." (Raven) and "Blood and Gor!" (umlaut). Here's what I picked up between naps: 1. umlaut has a terrible crush on Raven.

2. Attikol always goes for ladies umlaut has crushes on.

3. All the dolls in Attikol's show are modeled after real ladies he has known.

4. This one time, Attikol filled all the waterways of Venice, Italy, with bubble bath just because this one lady dared him to.

5. This other time, Attikol had the streets of San Francisco rearranged just so this other lady's favorite show The Streets of San Francisco would be more accurate The Streets of San Francisco would be more accurate.

6. This other other other time, Attikol paid a sheik-ton of money to hold a fake Super Bowl just so he could make umlaut think his team had lost. other time, Attikol paid a sheik-ton of money to hold a fake Super Bowl just so he could make umlaut think his team had lost.

7. And once, Attikol paid a team of n.o.bel Prizewinning scientists to create a new kind of whoopie cus.h.i.+on to embarra.s.s umlaut in front of his lady friends.

8. For supposedly being friends, Attikol and umlaut seem to hate each other's guts an awful lot.

9. Attikol likes recreational straitjacketing, volcano diving, and cement boots (on other people).

10. Attikol has this bad habit of making life difficult for people who cross him, which is why umlaut can never keep a girlfriend and has had both his kneecaps broken.

11. Attikol also has a huge ego, which is his main weak spot.

12. Raven can buy some Attikol-free time if she can give him a challenge that's super hard (or just very time-consuming).

13. I do not care about this drama even just one little bit, but the challenge of coming up with a challenge for Attikol sounds pretty fun.

Day 6 Am feeling extremely peeved that I did not pay more attention to the stupid street-sweeping schedule. My lean-to has received an $86 ticket for being "parked" in a street-sweeping zone. Grrr!

Went back to the bus depot and tried to talk myself into picking a new town, but Myself reminded me that if I go, I'll be leaving behind not only $243 in tickets and some fairly annoying people, but any clues to my ident.i.ty that might exist.

Will try to stick it out here a while longer.

Am not pleased.

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Later OK-something pretty odd just happened here at the minipark. Had been feeling very motivated to figure out who I am and what happened to me so I can leave this ridiculous town forever. Decided to retrace my steps, try to jolt my memory a bit. Stood around in front of the El Dungeon for a while and then walked up and down the streets, checking the scene. Eventually ended up at the minipark. I was sitting on the bench, completely bored, and thought I'd practice my aim with the ol' slingshot. There were still plenty of lovely shooting rocks under the bench. Dead ahead from where I sat was the solo tree, and about five feet up the trunk I noticed this knothole. I aimed, and got it solid on the first shot. And then I heard this click from the bench. I turned around to see that one of the bra.s.s letters on the plaque, the "d" in "LeStrande," was now pushed forward just a little bit.

Weird! I ran my fingers around it, tried to pull it out, then gave it a little push, and the thing flipped upside down...and became a "g." Huh. It was...kind of le strange.

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Spent about an hour shooting rocks at pretty much everything else in the park, but nothing else happened. Am excited to poke around town more and see what other weird surprises I can find. More secret doors concealed in wood paneling, for example. Mysterious SCHNEIDER door possibly hiding...I don't know, fascinating "Schneider"-related treasures. Portals to other dimensions. Bizarre elaborate chain-reaction contraptions that have waited centuries for me to come along and trigger them. YESSSSS!

If only!

Later-walking around town some more Noticed four police officers standing around getting this dog to catch and eat wadded-up money. Once they had used up their small bills they moved up to twenties. Amazing.

Saw a loooong line of people waiting to get inside City Hall. Um, by "loooong," I mean twenty-three people. Hey, that must be at least half the Blackrock population. Did not really want to make eye contact with any of them, let alone have a conversation, but curiosity was kind of killing me. Asked some lady what they were all doing and she said it was ticket-paying day and everyone was waiting in line to pay various tickets and fines. Pretty much the most soul-crus.h.i.+ng thing I've heard all day.

People are still giving me suspicious glares. Wish I knew why. Wonder if it was because I had four black cats following me.

Some lady tried to hand me a flyer encouraging Blackrock citizens to have their phones charged up for St. Clare's Day. Told her no thanks since I have no phone. Her face showed Pure Horror.

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Happened to be walking by the junk-mail factory in time to see Sizzle, Petal, and Grapey ending their day s.h.i.+ft, to be replaced by HamHawk, Hurk, and Steve beginning the evening s.h.i.+ft.

Am noticing that no one else in Blackrock looks like the people in the medicine show. Why do they even come here?

No one else in ANY small town looks like Raven. What's she doing here?

DITTO ME.

Later-back at the minipark, AGAIN Found another cat collar like the one that said "Miles," this one for "NeeChee." It was under the bench at the minipark, snagged on the bottom of the seat, and impossible to see unless you were actually lying on your back under the bench, pretending it was an antigravity machine, which I kind of happened to be doing. Will see if Nitzer, Cabbage, or McFreely answers to "NeeChee."

Later Back at the El Dungeon. Am still grinning (inside) about the funny stuff that just went down.

Attikol came to pick up Raven for her date-reeking of the same brutal cologne umlaut wears. He was all "Raven, dahling..." and I was all snorting, and Raven was all silent and pointing at me. So I told him his challenge, nice and loud in front of everyone, how he would have to move all the buildings in Blackrock one inch to the east before she would go out with him. You should have seen his face. It got all fake-sad and understanding, but you could tell he was irked. "You've been listening to umlaut," he said. "Don't listen to umlaut, he's jealous of his own codpiece! He's just a boy, Raven. You need a man. You need ME."

But Raven shook her head and crouched down under her cape, and Attikol took off to go lean on buildings, or something. Then we could laugh at him all we wanted.

Later I have the four black cats to thank for helping me come up with that challenge while I slept. Here's what I dreamed: I was hanging out with the cats in the alley. One of them-Nitzer, the one with six toes and the white stripes on his tail-was staring at me really strangely, and then he put his front paws up on my refrigerator box and shoved it over an inch. Then he meowed, and I understood him! He was telling me to look underneath. I lifted it up a bit, and all this black hair came up from a hole in the ground under my lean-to. It was pretty gross, but I wasn't scared; I knew it was just Raven's wig. Then we walked around town and the cats did the same thing to a bunch of other buildings. All of them had different stuff under them: squid ink, crude oil, chocolate pudding, espresso, mola.s.ses...Finally we ended up right back at the El Dungeon. But they didn't move it, and that's how I knew what the challenge had to be. Pretty cool, actually, that Attikol really went for it. When he's done, I want to walk around town to see what was under all those buildings.

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The lean--to as I dreamed it. Raven's wig.

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Later You know, that Curls is kind of a rapscallion. He followed me out back to the alley and stood around chatting about nothing and preventing me from going peacefully into my refrigerator box. Luckily it's well disguised, so I don't think he knows I live in it.

Eventually, since Curls clearly wasn't going anywhere, I left. For lack of anywhere better to go, I ended up at Jakey's trailer. First thing he said, after "Hi," was "Baby cat? Kitten." Had to slap my forehead in disgust and relief.

ME:.

Thanks, man. Thought I was losing my mind.

JAKEY:.

I don't think you need to worry. You know a lot of stuff about the world that most people don't.