This is part of a two-part story, for president's day. There'll be more coming later on, as you'll find out as you read. As usual, if you like it, hate it, are unfathomably confused by it, leave a review! Thanks. Enjoy :D
Ah, Paris… it's the most beautiful city in the world, without question. And it's home to the most beautiful and wonderful girl in the world, Carmelita Montoya Fox. But sometimes, such extreme beauty around you every second of every day… well… it can get pretty dull. Carmelita, no, she's never boring to be around, especially if she's trying to fire 50,000 volts into your back.
You might be questioning my sanity, but hear me out: you're sitting in your living room couch, staring outside of your safe house one night. You see the beautiful Eiffel Tower, standing heroically above all others, the Arc de Triomphe, the beautiful people strolling out beside their loved ones, laughing, smiling. Then you see the city's lights flicker on, enhancing that beauty tenfold. Now, imagine yourself, the next night, and the same thing happens. Tower, Arc, pedestrians, lights. Then again. And again. And this goes on for about… I don't know… five months? I'm not sure what got me noticing it, but eventually it just got to me. I needed to get out of Paris.
Apparently, the gang sympathized with me. They'd been feeling things were getting repetitive lately too. We decided that, to save our sanity and get some well-deserved R&R, we'd book a flight out of Paris. Out of France, even! The only question was… where? I thought India a while ago, but Bentley reminded me about the experiences we'd had in India, especially Bagdad (I'll tell you later). Then, out of the blue, Murray checked the calendar. He circled a date on the paper with a red marker, and tossed it to Bentley. He grinned. Then Bentley passed the calendar to me, and I understood; The Eighteenth of February, tomorrow, was President's Day in the United States.
We hadn't been to America since Mesa City; I was pretty excited to see it again. Since it was a day made to celebrate past and current presidents, we decided to go the heart of the country… Washington D.C. Bentley was psyched to finally get a chance to see the Smithsonian Museum, and I joined in his enthusiasm. There just had to be some interesting things inside that place, I'm sure they wouldn't miss it if a priceless artifact or two went missing on our trip. And Murray seemed to be really excited to see the Washington Monument, don't ask me why.
Getting the plane tickets wasn't too difficult. We had more than enough to pay for first class, where we wouldn't be disturbed by anyone. The trip was actually pretty calm too, hardly any turbulence for the entre flight. This would have been the shortest, and least painful, trip the gang had ever taken on a plane… if we hadn't been stupid before the flight.
"Bentley, I can understand why Murray and I were acting like idiots, but why didn't you stop us?" I clutched my stomach, feeling sicker than I had thought possible. The night before our flight, we had a huge party, celebrating the start of our first real break in weeks. I guess we kind of went crazy with the Pepsi and Peperoni, our stomachs were killing us.
"Well," The turtle said through his own pains, "The thought had passed my mind… but it seems my judgment was impaired." I could hear his stomach growl in pain, he bent over quickly, moaning. "Ugh… I feel like I'm going through a blitzkrieg, my stomach playing the part of Czechoslovakia… "
Murray was the one hurting the most; he had to have had at least two boxes, maybe three, of Gardoni's pizza, not to mention at least four boxes of its bread sticks. For once, he couldn't speak at all; I guess the pain was too much for him. I would have gone to help him, but he beat me to it. I watched as he bolted to the lavatory with his hand over his mouth. Bentley and I, if we weren't in such a state, probably would have broken out laughing, but we sympathized with the big guy. Over the six hour flight, I did the same at least twice, as did Bentley… If you don't mind, I'd like to stop talking about it; I'm still queasy.
"Well team?" We stood out in front of the Ronald Regan International Airport, in full tourist garb; Cameras, Baseball hats, blue jeans, the whole shebang. We did this in part because we had to stay undercover, and in part because… well, it was kind of fun! Normally, we're in our thief clothes, almost every time of the day, it was good to have a change. "Where do we start our vacation? The White house, Smithsonian, the Monuments?"
We all thought about it for a second. "I think we should split up. We can all see the best sites of the city, and meet back here at… oh…" Bentley looked at his watch, "3:00?"
It was about Noon right now, so it sounded like a good idea. I walked up to a stand beside us, and paid the woman attending it for three maps of the city. Funny… me paying for something. Who'd of thought it?
I decided that the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History was my first stop. Bentley and I walked together on the way there, talking about the site.
"Think of it… 9 research centers, and over 140 affiliate museums in the world! Think of all the information in that building, all of the history!"
Unbeknownst to him, I was. Bentley kept talking about how excited he was to be visiting the Aerospace museum of the complex. I nodded and agreed to his droning on, but my mind was elsewhere; actually, it was in the museum. Bentley was right, there had to be an immeasurable amount of artifacts and knowledge inside those walls! A grin formed on my face when I thought of all the loot in that place… oh, don't give me that look, I'm not a kleptomaniac! I've got respect for important artifacts of history! And did you forget, we only steal from other thieves.
Bentley and I walked into the gate of the museum complex, immediately our jaws dropped. If you haven't been to the Smithsonian, picture this: A huge building, about as big as an average-sized university, filled to the brim with ancient artifacts of history. There had to be a million different things in that building! Now imagine that there were nineteen different buildings, all standing near each other, each built-in a different style to fit the contents of the building.
"Oh… my… God!" I was slack-jawed. I tried to look around the entire complex, but there were so many buildings you couldn't see them all.
"Sly… welcome… to the greatest source of intellect in the world!"
I couldn't believe some of the things I saw in that museum… Bentley and I split up when the initial shock and awe wore off. He went out to the Science and Aerospace museum, while I veered off to the Natural History museum. As I stumbled out into the museum, my mouth was still open with awe. There were so many amazing artifacts in front of me, right in my reach! There was a tribal mask from the Jungles of Haiti; I could recognize the style from our last visit there. As I went further inside, the theme of the artifacts changed into different cultures and countries. America, Egypt, Brazil, Greece, Europe, Japan… there were so many!
'Sometimes I wished I forgot we only steal from other thieves…'
I was walking along in the Spain section, when I heard a voice. "Yes, yes, I know, you were right. This place is amazing-" the woman groaned, "Yes, I understand the situation. Frankly, I don't think we have anything to worry about, there's more than six hours till the ball. Why would anyone try anything before then?"
That feminine voice… I couldn't place it… it was so familiar, but it sounded so different from what I was used to. Wait… could it be? I ducked behind a nearby pillar, making sure she didn't see me. I saw the eyes of people walking around stare at me, confused. But I didn't care, I was determined to find who that voice belonged to. I curled my body around the pillar, trying to avoid eye level, when I found Inspector Carmelita Fox, standing fifteen feet away from me!
She was talking on her cell phone, to her father from what I heard. I was worried that she had seen me, but she had her back turned. For a second, I couldn't believe that it was her; why would she have been in America? The only possibility I could think of was that she was on vacation, too. It was weird, though, she was still dressed in her police woman garb. The only difference was that she was wearing an open dark blue sweater. I guess she was cold; D.C. in February wasn't exactly India in June.
Suddenly, a gong-like sound rang out. I was a bit startled, gasping slightly. Carmelita's ears pricked up, and she started to turn around. I quickly moved directly behind the pillar, and held my breath. I pushed down my baseball cap, put my hands in my pockets and briskly walked away. As I sprinted, I was thinking about what she said…
'What is going on here? Carmelita in D.C., a ball coming up in six hours...' I sighed to myself. 'Guess this vacation might not be so relaxing.
End of Part One: Part two comes on President's Day!