It was a lazy Sunday afternoon; the wind was blowing softly, the branches of the tree’s swaying gently from side to side. It was the perfect time for fox in the snow, at least so dannypie thought as he sauntered casually towards his house. The hellish ordeal also known as the Macroeconomics 2 exam was over. As Danny entered his house, he didn’t know that anything was wrong, in fact he thought that everything was just perfect, he made a mug of blackcurrant and elderflower tea and headed upstairs to play on #sinister. Danny logged on and noticed Archel sitting quietly and someone known only as e0. “Where’s Sadie?” Danny wondered to himself. He asked the question out loud and almost jumped out his chair as e0 replied: “Sadie. Has been kidnapped. You must pay us. 1000 unmarked bags of haribo. In the next 48 hours. If you ever want to see Sadie again. You will be given more instructions. Soon.” Danny sat there shaken, “Archel, Archel” he cried, there was no reply from miss Archel, she was obviously out to lunch. Danny, (A.K.A the pie) knew exactly what he had to do. He’d promised that it would be over, that he wanted the quiet life, that’s why he moved back to Stevenston, even went to university. He knew now that he was needed though to find Sadie and bring fun filled Sadieisms back to sinister. He picked up the phone: “Apples?” “Pie?” “Apples!” “Pie!” “Sadie’s been kidnapped, I’ve booked your flight, get over here as soon as you can.” “But my job…I thought that we’d given up, tried to pursue a life of normality?” “Sadie needs us apples, just use your cover” “Okay.” Amy Apples got off the phone and ran into work, she packed her belongings and threw her quilt cover over the boss, she stopped to doodle a little fox on the notepad and then promptly jumped on an apple plane. She was over at the pie’s house in just under an hour. “Thank god you’re here apples.” Danny said with relief “What clues do we have?” “ Just this note.” Danny passed her the note and she scanned it quickly taking in every word once, twice, then three times. “God this guy’s really got our apples in a juicer. You know we can’t do this alone don’t you?” Apples asked “Yes, we need him back, but he’s a celebrity now, and he vowed to give up the detective work for good…” “Don’t worry we’ll get him” apples quickly interjected She picked up the apple phone and dialled “Chuey baby, how are you?” “Oh I’m just fine, I’m sitting drinking some red bull and eating paste.” Answered the chu-ster “Listen we need your help, Sadie’s been kidnapped we gotta get 1000 bags of haribo to the kidnappers. Please come help us Chuey, we gotta save Sadie” “1000 bags that’s impossible, don’t worry I’ll be right over” Chu slammed down the phone and rushed to meet apples and pie. They met outside Sadie’s house. There was no time for hellos, no time for hugs for friends who hadn’t met in years. Kung fu Chu kicked Sadie’s door down with an almighty Waaa-Chaa kick. They rushed inside, all calling for Sadie, screaming for her, hoping it had all been a hoax. It hadn’t. Pie rushed upstairs to look for clues, for anything. Apples looked downstairs while Mr. Chu headed to the fridge to find a can of red bull. Amy and Danny searched the whole house from top to bottom finding nothing except for a little pack of sweets saying gummy sheep. Sadie never ate sweets, her teeth couldn’t handle it. They decided it was a CLUE. The Chu found a note in the fridge though; he stood with his can of red bull in one hand and read the note out loud: “I knew you’d come here. Well done. Your next instructions. Leave the haribo. In the Sini-house.” “The Sini-house!” Pie cried out in surprise, “Nobody’s been to the house-house for years, we all thought it was haunted and were to scared to go into the attic.” “Well we HAFTA!” Chu cried out. Chu started to rush out the door when dannypie screamed out: “STOP! Wait I have it, sheep, haribo, Sadie, it all points to one thing: Johnsheep!” “NO!” Chu and apples both cried out in disbelief. “No wait it’s our little sheep, it just can’t be” apples said with a puzzled look “Don’t you think I don’t know that? It has to be though, we at least have to go and question him.” They all left Sadie’s with perplexed, worried looks on their faces and set off to question the sheep. “Listen we won’t interrogate him, we’ll just ask him a few nice questions over a chocolate milkshake…” “Red Bull for me” Kenny interjected quickly “Of course red bull for you, and we’ll ask him if he knows what happened then we’ll take him to the Sini-house and wait and see what happens.” Danny told them as they walked towards Johnsheep’s door. Dannypie knocked on the little sheep handle softly and as john came to the door a look of delight passed Danny’s face before reality dawned on him again and he realised that he could be looking at the Sadie-thief right between the eyes. They questioned the sheep but to no avail, they did however persuade john to take a trip to Sini-house and stay for a few days. They were unsure of John’s guilt but they gave him the benefit of the doubt whilst agreeing between them to keep a close eye on them. “You know…this reminds me of the case a few years ago with your evil sister chuella Devil. You know the only person who could solve that……………” “THE LLEW” Amy, Chu and Mr. Sheep both cried out at once. “That’s right kids, the only person to outdo the Chu, is the LLEW, the greatest detective we have ever known” “Isn’t she a hermit now though?” Apples enquired “Yeh she lives in a hill in a forest” Johnsheep replied “I heard she hasn’t spoke in three years, she just sits and meditates and writes out Dorothy parkerisms for day’s on end” Chu added “We have got to at least try, listen I’ll go visit her, she can help us.” Danny left to visit THE LLEW, with him he took frankINCENSE sticks, gold by ryan adams and a look of mirth. He hadn’t seen his old mentor for years and years and was more than a little excited and nervous, he hoped she would talk, would help them, they needed her now more than ever. He took some hot chocolate and the complete book of Dorothy parker poems too. Meanwhile back at Sini-house: Kenny and Apples are going through the clues over and over again, trying to find something they missed, Johnny is sitting eating crumpets and drinking chocolate milkshake when a thought strikes him: “Hey can I see the ransom notes?” Ken and Amy look at him with slight suspicion before handing the note over to the sheep. “Yip just as I thought, look at the grammar,” he shows them the note again, waving it under their faces with triumph as he feels suspicion lift from him “Good god he’s right” Chu exclaims, “only one man writes with sentences as short as that: The boy Gillanders.” “Right I’ll go get him and bring him back to the sini-house” Kenny tells them, “don’t do anything until Danny gets back with news from THE LLEW.” Ken runs off to find Gillanders before it’s too late. Meanwhile Dannypie is bravely making his way through the forest filled with lions, the pie has an affinity with lions though and isn’t too scared, he manages to tame a little friendly lion who gives him a ride to the house of THE LLEW. The door is slightly ajar, Danny knocks but there is no answer. He quietly enters and creeps up the stairs. “Come in I’ve been expecting you” LLEW calls out. Danny rushes in and sees LLEW sitting on her chair knitting a scarf. “You were expecting me?” Danny asks with surprise, “how could you have been expecting me?” “Well Amy left a message on my phone saying you were coming” “Ahhhh, you always taught me to look for the obvious, but can I ask you, I thought you didn’t speak?” “Oh sorry, I can stop if you want…” “No ma’am, we’re desperate for your help.” Danny hands her over the gifts. “Well first we must consult the chocolate.” Llew boils some milk and makes a yummy cup of hot chocolate, she passes one to Danny and sits back down “You’re looking at it the wrong way, who has motive? Who was at the scene of the crime? Who was brave enough to suggest the sini-house? Finally, who can imitate any writing style in the whole world without raising even slight suspicion? Answer these questions you must, then you will have your answer. Now you must leave me, I have knitting to catch up on and a stack of books to get through.” Danny wished LLEW goodbye, wishing he had time to talk to her, to tell her how important she was, but he didn’t. He jumped on the plane back to meet Ken and Amy going through the clues in his head. Who was at the crime? No-one he could think of. Who can imitate writing styles? He didn’t even know why this was important, he thought long and hard but couldn’t come up with any answers until it dawned on him… Archel was at the scene of the crime. She wasn’t at Sadie’s house but she was all on her own when he came into #sini. She could have programmed that e0 to leave that message about Sadie. Archel also was brave enough to suggest the sini-house, he forgot how hardcore she was. If anyone would be brave enough to go the house they once thought haunted it HAD to be Archel. Danny got off the plane and quickly picked up the phone, he hoped Archel wouldn’t suspect he knew anything as he punched the numbers into the phone. “Hi Archel it’s Danny, I have a favour to ask you?” Danny tries to stay calmly as possible as he waits to hear Archel’s reply “Oh hi Danny, I haven’t heard from you in AGES, go on…” “Well remember the sini-house?” “Uh-huh” “Well I wanna have a party in it and you’re the only one brave enough to check the attic to see what that noise is.” “Okay I’ll be over in half an hour.” Danny obviously couldn’t see the other end of the phone but Archel had a huge grin on her face. Danny met Archel outside the house and they both walked in together to be confronted with a confused shout from Ken and Amy of “What’s Archel doing here?” “Errr what’s Mr. Gillanders doing here?” “Well it was him that did it…I thought.” Amy says confusedly. Suddenly it all clicks into place for Danny. Of course, the grammar, the sentences. It all pointed to Gillanders, just like the sheep and Haribo pointed to Johnsheep. Only Archel could imitate the writing style of such a writer. Danny sits everyone down and makes them hot chocolate. He begins the explanation: “Who was at the scene of the crime?” “No-one…” Blurts amy out, “errr, there was no-one there Danny” “See that’s where I went wrong, Archel was there, she was in the chatroom, she programmed the bot, she could have left the note at Sadie’s anytime, Sadie never uses her fridge, it could have been there for weeks for all we know.” “Ahhhh…..” Ken sighs “Then I thought who could possibly even suggest this scary house?” “Archel!” John shouted out “Exactly, she is hardcore, we’re all too twee and scared to come here but Archel’s a hard kid. Then the whole Gillanders thing just confirmed it…Archel is the only person who could have imitated the style of Gillanders. Gillanders obviously couldn’t do it because he was away on holiday, so it had to be a forgery, of course I didn’t even know about Gillanders until I returned and saw him here but still things were already pointing towards Archel.” “Yes it was me.” Archel giggles “WHY ARCHEL WHY?” They all cry out at once “Oh it’s very simple, I need 1000 bags of haribo in order to cast my spell to take over…THE WORLD” “MY GAWD!” Danny exclaimed with fear in his voice “Well either that or Sadie’s eating pancakes out my backdoor and I had to think of some way to get all you guys to come to the Brighton Picnic” Realisation dawns on all their faces. Danny let’s out a giggle “You cheated miss Archel.” “Yip I did. Let’s go join everyone else at the picnic now, shall we?” Fade out. Dannypie xxx _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+