Meanwhile, Strickland was bewildered when the robot cops enter his office without the boys.
"What on Earth?!" He roared as the robots entered his office. "Where are the boys?!"
"We are sorry, Master, but we couldn't capture them." said the head bot.
"What?!" Strickland snapped. "What the heck are you talking about?! You're supposed to be state of the art hunting machines! I want them back now!"
"We could do that, unless you want to lose another one of us." The head robot replied.
"Well, how on earth could that had happened?" Strickland demanded.
"Let us show you, sir." the head bot turned on a monitor on his chest.
The monitor played footage of the Grimwood Ghouls attacking the robots with their supernatural abilities.
Strickland narrowed his eyes as he watched the footage, then he looked up at the head robot.
"Is this meant to depress me, or is this some kind of a joke?" He demanded.
"No sir, this is no joke!" the head robots insisted. "We are programmed for complete honesty. It would seem that these girls possess strange powers beyond human comprehension."
Strickland put on his reading glasses to take another good look at the footage, "It can't be! Those girls are...not human! They're monsters! Impossible!"
"Oh it is very possible, master." said one of the bots.
Strickland narrowed his eyes, "Either this is the result of the coffee I had this morning, or it's for real."
"We are afraid it is real." said another bot. "And we have reason to believe that these girls are trying to protect the boys."
Strickland took another look at the footage, and then he said, "You don't say..."
"We do say." said the robots.
"Policebots! Forget those brats!" Strickland grinned evilly. "We have bigger fish to fry!"
"I'm sure we do." The head robot said. "What do you propose?"
"You'll see..." Strickland said as he picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Is this HB News? Get me Heather Jasper Howls. I have a little something she may like..."
Strickland then started laughing maniacally.
Meanwhile, over at the manor, the boys were still out cold.
"Now that they're out cold, this is our perfect chance to send them back to wherever they came from before our maestro comes back." said Elsa.
"Well put, my dear Elsa." Sibella said. "Let us make haste."
The ghouls then one by one picked up the boys and prepared to head out.
"They look so cute when they're unconscious." Sibella looked lovingly at Logan's sleeping face as she carried him.
"They sure are." Winnie agreed.
"But we need to get them outta here." Tanis said. "Miss Grimwood will be back any minute."
"The little pipsqueak is right." Winnie nodded. "Come on, ghouls!"
The ghouls headed outside and into the woods.
"Okay, now where should we put them?" Sibella wondered.
"Hmmm..." The ghouls pondered as they looked around.
"How about over in that old shack?" Elsa pointed to an old abandoned shack.
"Excellent idea, Elsa dear." Sibella said. "Come dear ghouls. We have no time to waste."
"Good, because these boys are getting very heavy." Tanis said as she and Winnie tried to hold onto Grunt.
One by one, the ghouls carried the boys over to the old shack.
One by one, they each gently put the boys onto the floor.
"Awww they're so cute when they're sleeping." Phantasma batted her eyelashes.
"Now come on, let's back to school." Sibella whispered.
The other ghouls nodded and headed out of the shack.
"Night night." Tanis whispered.
She quickly kissed the boys goodnight and followed her classmates back to school.
No sooner did the ghouls returned into the school did Miss Grimwood make a return.
"Oh girls...I'm back..." She called out to her students.
"We're coming, Miss Grimwood!" Elsa called out.
The ghouls all headed downstairs for dinner with their headmistress.
When they got to the dining room, the octopus butler was finishing setting the table.
The ghouls all set down to the table and started to eat.
"Alright ghouls, now have you been brushing up on your work?" Miss. Grimwood asked the ghouls.
"Of course, Miss. Grimwood." Sibella said. "We live and breathe scare studies."
"Good." Miss. Grimwood nodded. "Because tomorrow night is our midterm exam and homecoming night, at which you're mummies and daddies will be attending to see if you'll be moving on in my academy."
The ghouls murmured and nodded.
"Oh..." Tanis sighed.
"What's wrong, Tanny?" Winnie asked as she wolfed down her meal (pun intended). "You look worse than Phanty when she found out the Phantom of the Opera was married."
"My mummy and daddy are coming tomorrow, and I haven't won a single trophy for my sarcopha...sarcaph...my mummy case."
The other ghouls shared looks with each other.
"Awww, don't feel so glum, Tanny." said Elsa. "My folks have never won a single trophy in the Monster Road Race and they're okay with it."
"But you don't understand, I need to win an award if I want to stay here at the academy or else my mummy and daddy will take me back home to Egypt." Tanis said as her eyes started to tear up. "I love this school. I don't wanna go home. Well, not yet at least."
"Your parents are expecting you to win an award, Tanis?" Sibella asked.
"Yes..." Tanis sobbed. "They want me to honor our mummy family name and they thought I'd improve if I went to this school. But I haven't made any progress and when they find out, they'll get really mad and I'll never see you guys again."
She started to cry into her wrapped hands.
As Sibella moved to place her hand on Tanis' back, the other girls shared looks with each other in concern.
"Oh poor Tanis..." Winnie said as her ears drooped.
"What are we gonna do?" Elsa asked her friends. "If she doesn't have a trophy, we'll never see her again."
"And there is no time to earn one before the exams tomorrow." Phantasma added. "There has to be some way to convince her parents to let her stay."
The ghouls all nodded thoughtfully as they watched Sibella comforting Tanis.
Meanwhile back in the old shack, the boys woke up from their fainting.
"Oh..." Flim groaned as he stretched his arms.
"What happened?" Logan wondered. "Where are we?"
"And more importantly, why is Grunt on my back?" Baxter tried to get off from underneath Grunt.
"I don't know." Flim groaned as he looked around. "Though we seem to be in a shack of sorts..."
"How do you know it's a shack?" Logan asked Flim.
"Because I'm your leader and I know everything, that's how!" Flim Flam retorted.
"Then I reckon you have an explanation on how we came to end up in here." Pierre piped up.
"Of course I do!" Flim Flam folded. "We...um...uh...well, you see..."
"So much for our fearless leader." Logan deadpanned.
The other boys all rolled their eyes in agreement.
"Well, from the looks of things, this might as well be our new home." Tug remarked.
"Yeah, it's small, but it will have to do." Miguel said.
"I wonder why this place is so empty and abandoned." wondered Logan.
"Beats me." Grunt shrugged.
The boys wandered around the shack, looking at all the stuff that was scattered around.
Jamal then saw something, "Hey! Look at this guys!"
Baxter, Grunt, and Logan saw what Jamal was talking about; it was a photo of a man in a military outfit and a long mustache.
"Jeepers! Who is that guy?" Baxter remarked. "He looks like that D-ick Dastardly guy in a military uniform."
The others gathered around him and took a closer look at the photo.
"Look! There's some sort of writing on it!" Tug pointed to a gold plated oval with something written on it.
"Allow me to look at it!" Flim Flam boasted. "As your leader, I am the one who has to figure these out."
"Ugh!" Logan rolled his eyes.
He grabbed the picture and squinted his eyes to read the inscription, "C...c...col...col...uh..."
"Well, what does it say, oh fearless leader?" Logan smirked.
"Well...uh..." Flim shuddered as he tried to read. "..uh...colon..."
"So much for being our fearless leader." Pierre remarked.
"Hey! I know what I'm doing!" Flim Flam snapped, then went back to the photo. "Colon...colon...uh...uh..."
"Give me that!" Logan snatched the photo from Flim. "It says, 'Colonel Calloway!'"
"Um...uh...I knew it that! I was just testing you!" Flim Flam said, out of pride.
"Sure you did!" Logan retorted. "Just like you knew how we were gonna get food and water or how we were supposed to build shelter in the middle of the woods!"
"Well, I..." Flim tried to retort, only for Logan to cut him off again.
"I think this must be the guy who used to live here in this shack and apparently, all of this stuff belongs to him." Logan said as he looked at the medals, trophies and photos on the shelf.
"And from the looks of things, I'd say he was quite the solider." Jamal said as he looked at a picture.
"I wonder why he has a shack in the middle of nowhere..." Miguel wondered. "Seems beyond loco to do that."
"Good question." Grunt nodded thoughtfully as they looked around the shack.
"Well his loss is our gain." said Flim Flam. "This place is as good as ours."
"Gee 'boss', that's a great idea, but there's one problem with that." Logan said. "What are we gonna do about food and water? And how are all eight of us going to sleep in this tiny shack?"
"Yeah." Grunt agreed. "In fact, it's only gonna be a matter a time before everyone gets wise by your tricks and then what?"
"Just give them the old Flim-Flam." Flim Flam smirked. "It always works."
"How can you possibly think you're qualified to be a leader?" Tug added. "I'm the oldest! I should be leader! Not some spoiled eight-year-old jerk with height issues!"
"Yeah!" Baxter agreed. "We did all your dirty work while you just stand around and do nothing and reap the rewards!"
That's what we thought!" Tug smirked. "Okay everyone, all those in favor of me being the new leader, raise your hand!"
Grunt, Baxter, Jamal and a couple of the boys raised their hands.
"Okay, now all those who want ME to be the leader!" Logan pointed to himself.
Pierre and Miguel raised their hands.
"Well, it's unanimous!" said Pierre. "Tug is the new leader of the gang!"
All the boys, except Flim Flam cheered for Tug on his victory.
As the boys cheered on, Flim Flam was looking around when he noticed something going on outside the shack.
"What's going on outside...?" He wondered as he got up. "Well, since the boys don't want me, I might as well as leave them here and go find out myself."
He walked over to the door and peeled outside to see what was going on.
Author's Note:
It looks like Flim-Flam ain't the leader anymore, but it also looks like they're in hot water now and so are the Grimwood Ghouls now that Strickland knows about them. Stay tuned for more!
