CHAPTER 1: DETECTIVE SNOOPY P.I
It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly a shot rang out. The door slammed. The maid screamed. Then suddenly a pirate ship appeared on the horizon. While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up. A light snow was falling and the little girl with the tattered shall had not sold a violet all day. Yes, Snoopy was busy typing up his 'Greatest American Novel' on top of his doghouse.
"Good grief, Charlie Brown, why can't you have a normal dog like everyone else?" Schroeder argued from inside the Brown's house, attempting a Rubik cube Lucy got him for his birthday.
"I don't know, Schroeder. When I got him from the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm years ago, he seemed all normal; he fetched sticks and played ball of course, but then he just started to become independent, if you know what I mean." Charlie Brown suggested.
"You look like a nervous wreck, Charlie Brown. Something on your mind?"
"Schroeder, how can you be so calm?"
"Beethoven music is very soothing, Charlie Brown…maybe you should listen to some occasionally."
"Gee, thanks…" before either of them could say anything, the phone rang.
"I'll bet it's Frieda." the blonde boy guessed.
"Well what if it's Lucy?" the round-headed-kid asked.
"I'm cool with that, Charlie Brown."
"Hello, this is Charlie Brown…who'm I talking to?"
"Hello, Chuck, it's Peppermint Patty! C-can I borrow your dog?" he knew that husky girl's voice anywhere.
"Oh, hi Peppermint Patty, is it safe to ask what the heck you need Snoopy for? I mean, right now he's busy typing and I hate bothering him when he's in great concentration…what I'm trying to ask is 'what's so important'?" Charlie Brown answered.
"No time to talk, Chuck; but since you asked, I'll tell you: I'm playing detective and I need a sidekick to help me search for clues to solve any whodoneit we come across. That and I can't find Marcie anywhere…before I can borrow Snoopy, is she with you? I don't want to call on a one kid/one dog search party if she's with you."
"No; Schroeder is with me on the couch and Linus and Sally are at the kitchen table for tutoring though…can I ask them if they've seen Marcie?"
"Go ahead, Chuck-o. I've already asked Lucille, Patty, Violet and Pigpen…I got nowhere with interrogating them."
"Sure, be right back, Peppermint Patty." And with that, Charlie Brown handed the phone to Schroeder before walking to the kitchen table. "Miss Sally Brown, where were you all day?" he began.
"Well, I was at home all day, Big Brother! You should know that!" his little sister argued. "Why?"
"Peppermint Patty wants to know if you two saw Marcie."
"Nope, haven't seen her"
"Linus?"
"Nope, sorry, Charlie Brown…I was at the library earlier today and didn't see her, that's a rarity." Linus admitted.
"Okay then…I'll see if Schroeder saw her" the blockhead sighed, walking back to the couch.
"I already told you, Patty, NO! I haven't seen Marcie either." Schroeder argued on the phone bitterly.
"I already asked Linus and Sally"
"Any luck?"
"Pfft, none at all"
"Wait, Patty, can you ask the others if they saw her? It can help us a lot"
"I guess so, but that's what's troubling me…a few years ago, I dialed Ol' Chuck to see how he was, he told me stuff that was going on at home; you know, the usual stuff a detective asks: who, what, where, when, why, how. He told me WHO he was with, WHENthey showed up, WHERE they were, WHEN they came, WHY they were there and HOW they were feeling
"Not only that, but whenever Marcie is stressed, she heads to Chuck's ol' place. I just, went out on a guessing limb." Patty admitted.
"Dang." Charlie Brown sighed over the phone. "Well, she's not here today…ask ANYONE else! Have you asked Franco yet?" he suggested.
Leave it to good ol', wishy washy, failure face, blockhead Charlie Brown to suggest asking these kind of questions. Peppermint Patty didn't mind though and answered that she and him hadn't seen her either. In addition, when the freckled girl asked to borrow Snoopy a few questions later, the white beagle looked up from his typewriter in the greatest annoyance of annoyances the world has ever seen.
"I hate it…whenever I work on a climax, someone spoils the moment." He sighed, jumping down from the doghouse and walking into the living room. "You called?"
"Yes, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty needs a world famous detective" Schroeder explained.
"This is a job for the Detective Snoopy P.I!"
"Detective Snoopy P.I?" the boys asked.
"Puppy Investigator" the dog replied.
"Wait, Snoopy isn't a puppy!" Sally called out from the kitchen.
"We know!" Linus sighed, wanting to cling onto something, yet couldn't. He was stable without his blanket though and shrugged it off, hoping the clinginess would go away soon.
Sally sighed. "Looks like my former Babboo and tutor is still not over losing his blanket" she pointed out.
"Not thoroughly."
"But you're still grieving losing it, right?"
"Yeah, we all grieve when we lose someone or something very dear to us, Sally."
Snoopy raced out the door and darted straight to Peppermint Patty's house. Ringing the doorbell, she and Franco answered the door.
"Gutentang, Snoopy" the latter smiled worriedly.
"I hear I have to take a case" the beagle thought.
"It's for you, Freundin."
"Got it, come in, Snoop." Patty called out.
"So, I've got a case to crack, where do I begin?" Snoopy barked.
"Now go around town and ask people what they know on Marcie and her last whereabouts…and don't bother asking her parents; they're not at home."
Snoopy sighed. "Now let's see…I'll start by asking Lucy and Rerun…then I'll ask Frieda, Patty, Violet, Pigpen and Shermy…and then I'll ask Claudia and her sister…what's her name again? Hmm…it starts with a K, I know that though and…"
"Just go, Snoopy!" the tomboy shouted.
"I'm going, I'm going!" he whimpered, walking towards Lucy's house.
NEXT CHAPTER: EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY