Chapter 3: Second Mission-Sandy and Eustace

Ed, Shnitzel, and Sandy waited patiently for Mr. Burns and Smithers to emerge from the bathroom (Eustace was still asleep). After about fifteen minutes, the duo finally came out.

"Feel better?" asked Sandy.

"Indeed," said Mr. Burns.

"Never better…" Smithers muttered.

"Next mission! Next mission!" said Ed.

"Well…all right," said Sandy. "Since Mr. Burns and Shnitzel completed their mission, I guess we can go on to the next one." She clicked on the folder entitled "Mission Two."

"Welcome to your second mission in the Hawthorne Mill,"Sandy read. "This mission is for Eustace and Sandy."

Sandy stopped reading and looked at the others. "Looks like I'm up," she said. "One of you is going to have to take over the computer while I'm gone."

Sandy looked at Shnitzel first. He shrugged and said, "Radda." He was immediately out; there was no way to understand any information he would be giving.

Ed, meanwhile, had sat down on the floor and had a blank expression on his face. "I'm counting my teeth!" he suddenly said.

Sandy gave an exasperated look at the two. "Why don't you two wake up Eustace?" she asked.

"Can do, chief!" said Ed. He and Shnitzel walked over to Eustace.

Sandy turned her attention to Mr. Burns and Smithers. Mr. Burns was eyeing the computer intently.

"Smithers, what does "ctrl" mean?" the old man asked his assistant.

Sandy looked at her last hope.

Smithers sighed. "Don't worry," he said. "I know how to work a computer." He sat down in the desk chair.

"OW!"

Sandy, Smithers, and Mr. Burns looked over at Ed, Shnitzel, and Eustace. The two had successfully woken the farmer up…by holding his nose.

"What did I do?" Eustace asked, sitting up.

"It's your turn to go in the house, Farmer!" said Ed.

"What if I don't want to?" asked Eustace.

"You have to," said Smithers. "If you don't do the mission, you don't get the hundred dollars."

"What?!" asked Eustace. "Outta my way!" He immediately got up and ran over to the backpacks, putting his gear on.

"What do we have to do in the house?" Sandy asked as she also put her gear on.

"Well, let's see…" said Smithers, looking at the computer screen.

"Sandy and Eustace are to enter the office of Hawthorne, the original owner of the Hawthorne Mill, and the next-door weaving loom room. Legend has it that even when Hawthorne was married to Lucy, he would venture over to the weaving loom room to…converse with the other girls."

Sandy, Shnitzel, Ed, and Eustace immediately got it. They all seemed caught off-guard.

"What?" asked Mr. Burns. "That was commonplace back in the day. I know for a fact that my grandfather did it numerous times."

Smithers continued to read.

"After the mill was closed down, there were claims that the ghost of Hawthorne, and even the ghosts of some of the weaving ladies, have remained in the rooms they became so accustomed with. Sandy and Eustace's job is to go to the rooms and detect any presence of Hawthorne or the weaving ladies."

"Well, that should be a cinch," said Sandy. "There's probably not going to be anything in there anyway."

"Don't be too sure," said Mr. Burns. "It wasn't a coincidence that those dressmakers dummies fell."

"Yeah…sure," said Sandy. "That was probably just the wind."

Mr. Burns narrowed his eyes. "Very well," he said. "Keep deluding yourself. You'll see once you get in there."

"…Right," said Sandy. "Just keep focused on those monitors, Smithers."

"Oh, don't worry," said Smithers. "I'm totally focused." He then looked around him; behind him, Ed, Shnitzel, and Mr. Burns had gathered around the computer behind him. "…Granted I don't suffocate first."

"Great," said Sandy. "See you soon."

She then left home base, with Eustace following while mumbling something under his breath.

The remaining four team members stayed crowded around the computer, waiting for something to happen. They were relieved when Sandy and Eustace appeared on the screen through their cameras.

Smithers picked up the walkie-talkie. "Sandy, state your location," he said into it.

"We're right outside the home base," said Sandy. "Where do we go now?"

"According to the map," said Smithers, looking at it, "You have to go through the room where Shnitzel and Mr. Burns previously were. There should be a door on the other side of the room with a staircase on the other side. Go up the stairs, and enter the second door on your left; this is the weaving room."

"Roger that," said Sandy.

Ed, Shnitzel, Burns, and Smithers watched intently as Sandy and Eustace made their way through the room with the pressing machine and the still overturned dressmakers dummies and found the door that led upstairs.

After going up the creaky old stairs, Sandy and Eustace found themselves in the upper reaches of the Hawthorne Mill. They found the second door to their left, and entered the room. The Weaving Room still had a few old weaving looms in it, covered in dust from years of not being used.

"Okay, we're in the weaving room," said Sandy. "Now what?"

"Let's see…" Smithers began to read the instructions again. "Eustace, you have to stay in the weaving room. Sandy, you go back in the hallway."

"What?" asked Eustace.

"Okay then," said Sandy, leaving the room.

"Eh…stupid weaving room without a stupid TV…" Eustace mumbled.

"Okay, I'm back in the hallway," said Sandy, looking around; the place was pitch black. The only supplied light was her flashlight.

"Okay, enter the first room on the left of the stairs; the room before the weaving room. This should be Hawthorne's office," Smithers instructed.

"Something's not gonna eat her when she walks in there, right?" Ed could be heard asking in the background.

"Radda?" asked Shnitzel.

"Come on, you two," said Smithers. "Don't make this situation more stressful than it hast to be."

While Smithers was talking to Ed and Shnitzel, Sandy was making her way into Hawthorne's office. Just as she was about to enter…

Creeeeak…

Sandy whipped her head around. Smithers saw this on the monitors.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Uh…no," said Sandy. "This old place is just a little rickety on its foundation."

Sandy finally entered the room. There wasn't much in it anymore; there was an old looking file cabinet in the corner, and a couple of chairs. But the most prominent feature was the ancient desk in the middle of the room.

"I'm in the office," said Sandy. "Now what?"

"Eustace, sit down at one of the weaving looms," Smithers instructed.

"Bah…" Eustace grunted, but he did it anyway. He wanted that money bad. "All right, I'm at the stupid loom."

"From his office, Hawthorne could hear the weavers working on the looms," Smithers explained. "Eustace is going to work one of the looms to see if we can get any reaction from Hawthorne's ghost. If there is a reaction, Sandy will pick it up with the EMF meter."

"I've got the meter," said Sandy. "Whenever you're ready, Eustace."

"Eh…" Eustace went into mumbling mode again. "Okay…gotta work the loom…how do ya work this thing…?" He finally spotted the bar that you slammed down to tighten the weaved cloth. He reached up and grabbed onto it, but years of no use made it stuck. He bent over a little more until his hat was sticking into the area where you put the yarn (A/N: I have no idea if that's accurate or not, so if it isn't, I'm sorry).

Meanwhile, Sandy and the others were waiting for a reaction. Sandy wasn't seeing much of a reaction on the EMF meter.

"Anything yet?" asked Smithers.

"Nope," said Sandy. She looked around the office again. Like anything was really going to happen…

SLAM!

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Sandy jumped at the sudden scream from Eustace. She was about to run out of the room and see what was wrong, when suddenly…

All the drawers on the filing cabinet suddenly shot open, and to the other side of Sandy, one of the legs of the desk suddenly gave way and caused a loud THUMP on the floor.

"We're getting a reading on the EMF meter!" Smithers exclaimed. "What's going on in there?"

"I'll tell you what's going on in there!" Mr. Burns said in the background. "Hawthorne is reacting to the sound of his lady friends working! That's what's happening!"

"Sir, with all due respect, you're not helping!" said Smithers. "Is everyone all right over there?!"

"Yeah!" said Sandy, getting a little nervous. "I'm sure that…this place is just fallin' apart. Like I said, this isn't the best foundation. I'm gonna see if Eustace is okay!"

Sandy did want to see if Eustace was okay, but she also didn't want to spend any more time in that creepy office than she had to. She sped out of the office and back into the weaving room. However, she was greeted with a sight she wasn't exactly expecting to find.

Eustace's hat was caught in the weaving loom, and he was attempting to yank it out. The only problem was that the hat was wedged hard below the weaving bar.

"You okay, Farmer?" asked Sandy.

"Stupid loom!" said Eustace. "It grabbed me hat and now it won't let go!"

"Well, I think we've found enough evidence," said Sandy. "Just get it out and let's…"

SLAM! SLAM!

There were two other looms in the room, and without warning, both their bars slammed down. This caused both Sandy and Eustace to jump; Eustace jumping made him give one last tremendous tug, which freed his hat and sent him tumbling backward.

"We just got another huge spike on the EMF meter!" Smithers exclaimed. "Is everything all right?!"

"I think we got enough evidence!" Sandy responded. "We're coming back!"

"We'd better!" Eustace barked, getting up. "If we gotta spend the rest of the night here with all this going on, I'm gonna spend it in that chair!"

With that, Sandy and Eustace ran out of the room, back down the stairs, through the presser room, back outside, and straight back into home base.

Everyone else turned around.

"Well," said Smithers, "you certainly wasted no time getting back here."

"Still think it's just the wind?" Mr. Burns asked Sandy.

Sandy sighed. "Okay, it wasn't the wind…but I'm sure there's perfectly scientific explanation as to why that happened." She paused. "I…just can't think of it now."

"Works for me," said Eustace, taking his backpack off and going right back to the recliner.

"There, there, miss," Ed said to Sandy. "There is plenty to be ashamed of."

"Ra radda radda radda ra radda?" Shnitzel asked Ed.

Ed looked back at Shnitzel. "…No, I don't know what it means," he said. "What does it mean?"

"So, I'm guessing this means we're ready to move onto the third mission?" asked Mr. Burns.

"I guess so," said Sandy, who had regained most of her composure. "And there's only two people who haven't gone anywhere yet…"

All eyes (except for Eustace, who had fallen asleep again) turned to Ed and Smithers.

"YAY!" Ed cheered.

"Oh, goody…" said Smithers, with much less enthusiasm.