Scooping the Snoop!
"Urghh!" Stella growled with clenched fists. "How does she keep getting our stories!?"
Lincoln and his friends were huddled in the Action News Team room, the lot of them fussing and frowning over a pinboard with various images of Katherine Mulligan and potential information leakers strewn across it, each with bits of string tying them together in various ways. Or least, that's how it had been up until this point.
Now every suggested leaker had been cleared, and there was nothing tying the reporter to any of her potential sources.
"I don't think it really matters anymore…" Clyde slumped in defeat. "She's a full-fledged reporter, with a full-fledged budget and a van! Face it guys- we're outclassed." He looked around the room, filled with their equipment and mementoes of hard-earnt middle-school reporting. "Ahh… we had a good run guys, but it's like Doctor Lopez says; you've gotta know when to quit."
"We're not quitting." Stella scowled. "We worked hard to get those scoops, and we're not just going to give and let her steal them! We just need to think of a way to get to her…" She got up and paced for a moment, then her expression brightened; "Lincoln! You could knock her up- I bet she won't be as quick on the scoop with swollen ankles!"
"Uh, sorry Stella," Lincoln awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Mom said she'd cut my pocket money for expenses if I bring home another kid."
"Shoot!" Stella resuming pacing. "We need to think of something!"
"Hmm… I dunno, I'd hate to say it; but Clyde's got a point" Rusty tapped his chin in thought. "I mean, we're just a school news team up against the real news- what chance do we have?"
Lincoln was about to sigh in his own despairing agreement and kiss his all too short reporter's career (and the snazzy suit Leni made him) goodbye- but then Rusty's words caught in the sieve of his mind, and he brightened up; "wait- what did you just say Rusty?"
"We're doomed?" Rusty raised his hands in confusion.
"No, the part about Kate Mull-something being 'real news'!" Lincoln's eyes gleamed with a certain something the entire group was VERY familiar with;
The spark of a plan.
"Uh…" Rusty thought back; "they're the real news and we're just a bunch of kids doing a school paper-"
"Blog now," Stella shook her head in despair. "Principal Ramirez cut our budget again."
"Yeah, and that's just the thing!" Lincoln declared with a grin; "we're nobody!"
There was a moment of silence.
"Yeah, so?" Liam shrugged. "We already had that on point pardner."
"But Katherine Mullberry isn't nobody!" Lincoln pointed at the woman in question's picture; "and neither is her network!
But for some reason, she's going around stealing our stories." He excitedly explained; "stories about dogs pooping at our school! Spaghetti Pizza and- well, actually Mick Swagger hanging out in disguise might actually be in her ballpark- but the rest?
Waaay too small for her…"
"Except they aren't," Stella pondered. "Royal Woods just isn't really that exciting, except for you and your sisters-"
"But ever since Lisa got blackmail on the network's biggest shareholders, they can't report on my family anymore!" Lincoln nodded. "So, she's going around doing all this instead!"
"Well, that's great Lincoln, but I don't see how it helps us." Rusty sceptically countered. "We already knew she was stealing our scoops anyway."
"But that's the point!" Lincoln snapped his fingers and grinned; "there's one story Katherine Milligan can't scoop!"
He swept his hand towards the pinboard; "and I think we're already right on it…"
It was a hot day at the Royal Woods Baseball Stadium, but that didn't deter the crowd in the stands from cheering their home team as they batted- or booing the opposition when they made it a new base.
The Sun's rays also failed to strip the spirits from the intrepid reporters waiting in the 'staff' section of the stands, their eyes upon the various poorly-paid part timers' currents handing out refreshments to any who dared part with their pennies.
"All right guys," Rusty turned to his crew, namely Liam with a camera. "Word on the street is that Flip's the one supplying those weenier-dogs, and we all know his are all past their use by date- so we're gonna go up to the concessions manager and confront him!"
"Got it!" Liam pointed his camera to the main concessions booth. "Let's get him!"
The two rushed forwards, nimbly dodging what still-standing members of the crowd there were to find the manager hunched over in his booth with the dead-eyed stare of a man well past caring about anything of note.
"Hey!" Rusty skidded to a halt, Liam barely a step behind him. "Mr Obersw- OOF!"
Both gingers found themselves bowled over as a certain yellow-clad reporter and her cameraman suddenly barged their way past them.
"Katherine Mulligan here with a breaking story!" The reporter declared before the booth, barely after her camera ticked on. "We've just received word that the hotdogs being served at the local stadium are actually expired!"
A few nearby crowd members froze and looked at their meals with suspicion; and The Manager suddenly looked a lot more alive as Mulligan shoved her microphone in his face.
"Any comment from the Concession Stand?"
As the soon to be sued supervision hastily issued his excuses, the Action New Team scowled at being scooped yet again- but this time the lens of yet another camera gleamed from just a little away.
"Are you sure we can do this?" Clyde asked with his usual anxiety, "I mean, what if we're banned from Dairyland!?"
"Relax Clyde," Lincoln cheerily waved his concerns away. "Just keep that camera on hand and we'll be just fine… now!"
Lincoln stood up, revealing his snappy blue reporter's suit and a waterslide behind him. Or rather, a milk slide and accompanying milk-filled pool.
"Ahem!" He coughed into his hand, and Clyde reluctantly stood up and steadied the camera. "Rolling in three, two on-"
"Katherine Mulligan here at The Dairyland Amoosement Park!" The reporter's snappy intro cut Lincoln off, and the two sourly turned to witness Mulligan and her cameraman standing before the lake of lactose just a little ways away. "For years this facility has been a source of joy to the residents of Royal Woods with its milky magnificence! But we've received word that the park's management may have had a change of heart- or rather of milk!"
The reporter swiftly turned to draw a measuring cup through the white pool behind her, and drew it up so the camera could see the contents. For a second, a hint of sanity crossed Mulligan's face before she chugged it-
And spat out the contents in disgust in a violent spray to the ground. The yellow-clad woman glared up with milky lips into the camera; "soy. It seems that Dairyland no longer lives up to its name!"
The milk loving Clyde just shook his head in despair, but Lincoln's annoyance vanished as he checked Stella and Zach's position- and the oddly camera-shaped hat the girl had adorned her head with.
"… and could you explain your choice to disregard, nay; abandon your two wheeled way of life!?" Mulligan gasped as she shoved her microphone in Papa Wheelie's face. "This Reporter needs to know!"
"I…" Papa Wheelie and his 'gang' were frozen in sweaty distress; the reporter and her cameraman having sprung out of the bushes to reveal that they'd been recording their secret unicycle sessions.
As per usual, the Action News Team were sprawled about nearby, this time it was Zach and Liam's turn to tumble into the park grass. But unlike the other times-
"This is Stella Zhau reporting!"
Mulligan hadn't scooped them at all.
"Excuse me-" Mulligan's outrage ended as she stood up and spotted Stella and the remaining three of the team stepping out of the bushes. "Oh, sorry kids- you snooze you lose and all that. This Reporter has this story in the bag!"
"Yeah?" Lincoln smugly snarked, "well we don't need your story, we've got one here already!"
"Eh?" Mulligan's cameraman looked around in confusion, and Mulligan seemed little better.
Nonetheless Stella took the 'stage' and Clyde focussed the camera on her as she stood before Mulligan. "For the past week the Action News Team has been scooped by a rival agency! At the Stadium, at DairyLand and even at our local school- and the one who did so was none other than one Catherine Mulberry!"
Mulligan's eyes twitched. "This Reporter's name is Katherine Mulligan."
She threw her accusing finger at Mulligan and shoved her microphone into the rival reporter's face. "Ms Mulberry, you've been stealing stories from a school news crew- reporting on pet pooping and old weiners, what do you have to say for yourself!?"
Mulligan's jaw dropped. "I-er-" something clicked behind her eyes as she spotted Rusty. "… Oh God damnit Rodney!"
"… So yeah, it turns out that Rusty's Dad was the leaker," Lincoln shook his head, and gently rocked the basket that contained his latest offspring.
She seemed to like it.
"Sounds like something he'd do," Ronnie's voice was slightly tinny through Lincoln's old speakers. "And Mulley?"
"Well, the local news was already on thin ice, there's just not much to talk about in Royal Woods- after this I think the reporter lady's going to Great Lakes or something." Lincoln shrugged. "So look out for that."
"She's not getting fired?"
"Nope, Principal Ramirez says it was 'inappropriate use of school property' so she confiscated our equipment." Lincoln scowled, "but Zach was listening in on her for a while though so we all know it was actually because the network paid her off."
"Tough break," Ronnie sympathised. "Can't you do anything- Lisa has connections right?"
"Yeah, but those are her connections." Lincoln shuddered. "And you don't wanna know what I'd have to do to get her to help me with something like this."
"So she's just going to get away with it!?"
"Not quite," Lincoln grinned, and he pulled up a set of photos. "Stella and the guys still have their personal files at home- so now it's a bigger story about corruption and stuff!
Just you wait Ronnie Anne- the Royal Woods Action News Team will get the scoop of the century-"
"Hhnngg!" Lincoln's baby groaned and the boy's face greened.
"... As long as I don't get stuck on babysitter duty again that is."
