Back at the resting spot, we waited for Ichabod Crane to appear. After his portal opened we didn't have long to wait, he came out, happy to be joining us. Just before we left, he waved good-bye to Katrina Van Tassel, who waved good-bye back. Numbuh 274 also arrived through my compartment and said that he wanted to be a Superwolf Friend too. Everyone welcomed him, especially our fellow operatives, and another compartment appeared curtesy of Boss.
Another portal opened, and we went through into Richard Tyler's World. Everyone marveled at being in an Alternate Main World, except for Harry, Ron W, and Hermione because of course their World is another Alternate Main World.
We soon arrived at the Tyler's home, and Rip and the others waited behind as I went over to ring the doorbell. Mrs. Tyler soon opened the door.
"Hello Miranda, it's great to see you again…." Mrs. Tyler began; she then paused as her face fell. "Oh no…. I'm sorry but we forgot that you were bringing your friends over. Richard has already left to pick up a pound of nails at Guttmann's Hardware Store for Alan."
Alan was Mr. Tyler's first name.
"Why does Alan need…oh no, don't tell me he's still working on that treehouse?" I rolled my eyes as my friends caught up with me.
"He's almost finished if you want to see how he's doing." Mrs. Tyler nodded.
The team and other Superwolves and I nodded back.
"Our forgetting that you were coming was actually weird, it just flew out of our minds somehow." Mrs. Tyler added as she led us through the house into the backyard.
We indeed noticed that the treehouse was nearly complete, though my fellow operatives thought it looked amateurish. That was only because Kids Next Door treehouses are more like tree mansions with high-tech security, weapons, and food devices (you should see the milkshake makers! Yum!). Mr. Tyler greeted us before looking apologetic.
"Sorry about sending Richard on that errand, I think my slight fall made me forget that you and your friends were coming over today." He said.
"Fall?" Nazz said sympathetically. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, just a little thump thanks to a bucket and the ladder." Mr. Tyler muttered.
"Let me guess, the bucket hit you on the head and then you fell down with the ladder?" I guessed.
"Yeah, but don't worry no more fallen ladders for this treehouse." Mr. Tyler declared.
The team and other Superwolves and I noticed that he had hammered the ladder into the opening in the floor near the middle of the treehouse.
"You know he'll never go up there anyway." Rip said.
"Give him time, he might change his mind." Mr. Tyler replied.
"Oh well, it's okay we'll just catch up with Richard." I said. "I can track him down."
We left as we said good-bye, but to our surprise storm clouds suddenly blew in as the wind picked up.
"Please hurry and find him!" Mrs. Tyler called from the doorway. "Richard hates storms!"
"Don't worry!" I called back.
We left. Rip quickly put the domes up as rain started to pour down.
"Why won't Richard go into a treehouse?" Kit asked.
"Yeah," Numbuh Five agreed. "Treehouses are among the best things a kid could have."
"Richard follows statistics a little too well." I replied. "He's never really done anything that most kids normally do and overdoes it when he's trying to be safe."
The other Superwolves and the team shook their heads disbelievingly.
Soon we came to what looked like a homemade bike ramp, but despite the rain there were still some kids there.
"Hey, are you going to join Richard on the moon?" One boy teased.
"Aw go slide on some oil and land in a demolition area!" I snapped. "Idiots!"
"What do you see in him anyway?" A girl snapped back.
"A kinder heart than you guys obviously!" Rip retorted.
Some of the kids stuck their tongues out at us, but we couldn't retort because their parents suddenly called them inside.
"Heart-less roaches!" I called after them before leaving.
Some members of the team stuck their tongues out at the kids in agreement.
"Why do they act like that?" Clifford asked.
"They make fun of Richard just because he never joins them in anything and has a lot of safety gear." I explained. "A lot more than normal actually…."
"I didn't understand that joke about the moon…." Cleo interrupted.
"Huh? Oh, that was a reference to the way his bike looks." I explained. "Richard kinda put a lot of safety stuff on it."
"Where did that ramp back there come from anyway?" Kaya asked.
"Heh, the neighborhood kids set it up." I explained to my friends bitterly. "Richard's the only one who'll never try it."
The team and other Superwolves sighed and/or shook their heads. I could tell they both felt sorry for Richard in more ways than one.
"Say Miranda on the way back I'd like to try that bike ramp." Kevin said.
"Of course." I smiled. "Rip and I have done it before, it's a lot of fun."
As we continued on, the storm soon got to a point where no one should be outside at all: the thunder and lightning had arrived! Lighting struck the ground and trees all around us.
"Uh Miranda…." Goddard said awkwardly. "Miranda we're going to be struck by lightning!" He cried.
My friends screamed and ducked down, but I just calmly pressed a button on one of Rip's handlebars. A metal sheet shot up from Rip and hung over everyone like a flat umbrella. The lightning, instead of hitting us, hit the metal sheet and harmlessly passed into Rip.
"An electric guard." I grinned.
"Bloody brilliant." Ron W grinned back.
We continued on as I followed Richard's scent through a tunnel. We soon passed though a couple of stone pillars next to a path, and entered a forest. A bit further into the forest, we noticed a thick branch on the ground and a bike and helmet lying on the ground in front of a statue.
"Richard's bike!" I said.
"Even if you hadn't mentioned it I would've guessed as much." Kevin muttered.
Richard's bike had a metal plate with two headlights on it, but the plate part had almost broken completely off from crashing into the statue. The bike also had two backlights and a tall pole with a flag on it on the back. I suddenly caught a glimpse of a building, and as we neared it – passing Richard's reflector vest on the grass – I realized that it was a library. Or at least it seemed like one, especially with the two lion statues. Knowing that Richard was obviously inside, we decided to go inside too. Fortunately the stairs leading to the doors weren't steep, so Rip managed to handle them without any trouble.
I used my wand to open the door, and we went inside to find the librarian looking through books on a book cart. It didn't take long for him to notice us, and when he did we were surprised that he didn't seem shocked to see cartoon characters in front of him!
"Welcome to the library." He said. "Don't tell me, you're all here for a special kind of book."
"Uh…." Hermione began.
"Allow me to guess," The librarian interrupted. "I have a special talent for guessing what people need."
"Like not, considering you don't have any food handy." Shaggy muttered.
The other Superwolves and the rest of the team and I smirked at his joke, even though we knew that he wasn't entirely joking.
"You're in need of a fantasy." The librarian said, not hearing Shaggy. "Brave knights, mythical fairies, ferocious dragons."
"Thanks, but no…." Numbuh Three said.
"Adventure, of course, you're in need of adventure." The librarian interrupted. "Dealing with wicked demons, cutthroat pirates…."
"No, we just finished one…." Sheen said.
"Horror!" The librarian said; lightning took this moment to flash. "Horror! Evil demons, wretched monsters, haunted houses, graveyards."
"Ro ray, rorget rit!" Scooby said.
"Uh no, we're just looking for my friend Richard have you seen him?" I said quickly.
The librarian looked a little embarrassed.
"Uh yes he just came in to use the telephone." He said. "Proceed in a north-easterly direction through there until you come into the rotunda, and then go west through the fiction section, you'll soon catch up with him. Just follow the exit signs if you lose your way."
"Thank you…." I began before our screaming cut me off.
We were speeding out of control through the aisles!
Still screaming, we zigzagged through the aisles. Rip and I were shocked to find that neither of us could stop our wild ride!
"Miranda you don't have to be in this much of a hurry!" Snowy cried.
"I'm not doing this!" I snapped.
I then half dove so that my left leg was on Rip's seat while the rest of me hung at Rip's side.
"We're on a conveyor belt!" I said.
Shocked, everyone looked to the sides to discover that this was true! Jenny, apparently noticing something, extended her neck to look over us and gasped.
"Miranda look out!" She cried, pulling her head back in and pointing past me.
I looked and screamed! We were nearing the rotunda and heading for one of the pillars that circled the rotunda!
"Hang on!" I cried. "I can't stop this thing!"
We flew off the conveyor belt, crashed into the pillar, and screamed as we flew through the air! Rip pulled in the compartments as we flew out of them. He then tumbled and re-crashed into another pillar, and lay there dazed. The rest of us crashed into the floor and lost consciousness immediately. Camera quickly pulled into a wide shot high in the air, and saw that Richard too was lying on the floor unconscious! Unexpectedly, the room started spinning! The lights lowered as the room spun until the lighting had turned a grayish-blue all around us.
"How did the room do that?" Camera muttered to himself.
He then noticed that some of us were starting to wake up, so he quickly flew over.
"Hey, are you guys all right?" He asked as the last of us woke up.
"Yeah, I think so." Stitch said.
"Okay, who's the wise guy who pulled that stunt?" Mandy asked angrily.
"I don't know but when I get a hold of him…." Grim said angrily.
"Hello?" Someone called as his voice echoed; it was Richard.
"Richard!" I said, going over to help him up. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, no cranial damage thank goodness." He said.
The lights started to come back on as we heard sword fighting and a galloping and neighing horse, but there was no one there who could've been causing the sounds…. We all froze as we looked around.
"Uh-oh." Richard said.
All of the aisles were dead ends!
"Looks like this library has trick walls." Scrappy said knowingly. "We encountered a lot during our mysteries."
"Don't worry, that doesn't mean that this is a haunted library." Fred said, noticing the look on most of our faces.
"Yes, a haunted library would have other features." Velma agreed. "For one thing the librarian back there would've acted as if this place was haunted."
Most of the rest of the team started to feel better, but then Lupin noticed something that worried even me.
"Guys!" He said. "Rip's gone!"
"WHAT?" We all cried.
"Rip Claw! Rip!" I cried desperately, running around.
No luck. We all stood still nervously, we never had an Adventure without Rip before! Plus it would've had to take powerful magic to take him away….
Suddenly, a drop of paint hit me on the nose as another drop of paint hit Richard on the hand!
"Huh?" Richard and some of the rest of us said as more drops of paint dripped onto the floor.
Looking up, we saw with shock that the mural was melting! Splashes of paint dripped down, causing us to jump from side to side. Richard threw off his rain jacket – which had gotten green paint on it – and we ran screaming towards an aisle.
"Okay not even magic paint is supposed to act like that!" Hermione said as we stopped at the end of the aisle.
"Or like that I'm betting." Tintin added nervously, looking at the pool of paint
The rest of us looked back, and grew wide-eyed: the paint had just formed the head of a dragon! We all gasped and ran away screaming as the paint flowed after us. Looking back now and then, we ran through the aisles, almost bumping into a bookshelf at one point before going around the corner.
"Help! Mister, mister, where's the exit?" Richard panicked as we ran out of the aisle.
Unfortunately, we ended up back at the rotunda!
Richard and most of the rest of us screamed as we looked down each aisle. We were trapped, the paint was coming from all directions!
"Help!" Richard cried.
We all screamed as the paint completely covered us!