He ran down the hallway to
Annie's door and stopped for a minute to let his breathing return
to normal. He smoothed down his hair, knocked, and opened
the door without waiting for a response.
"Hey, Fi," Clu said, attempting to be casual and not
let his excitement bleed through his cool, collected exterior.
"What are you doing?"
She looked up from her computer with an expression of mild
annoyance. "Typing. What are you doing?"
"I found it," he said, smiling like the Cheshire cat.
"And we know you wrote it, because Jack didn't write
it to Annie and I didn't write it to Jack. So who'd you
write it to?"
She arched an eyebrow and closed her laptop with a sigh.
"Define 'it,' please, because I'm completely
lost."
He tossed the folded-up paper at her and sat down on the bed.
She unfolded it and read it over quickly. "Wow,
this is really great, Clu."
"You wrote it for me, didn't you?" he asked gleefully.
"Well, no, I didn't write it."
He looked slightly disappointed, but only momentarily.
"So who do you think it was?"
"I don't know," Fi said with a glimmer of mischief, a
plot clearly brewing in her mind, "but if it wasn't written
by you, me, Jack, or Annie, we should definitely find out
who the real author is."
Fi's plot was pretty simple, really. It consisted of
leaving the letter out in the open and observing surreptitiously
to discover the true author, who would surely snatch it up and
deliver it to its rightful recipient... or not. Clu and Fi
snuck down the hall and she casually tossed the paper on the
couch while he made a distraction by falling down noisily.
Then they retreated and observed from the shadowy hallway.
Jack and Annie eventually emerged as well, but nothing was
happening of any interest. After about 15 minutes, they all
thought of other things they could be doing with this time and
scattered.
It wasn't until later that evening that someone did pick up the
poem. The bus had stopped. Ned, Irene, Carey, Jack,
Fi, Clu, and Annie had all debussed at a gas station to reload on
soft drinks, unhealthy snack foods, and local newspapers.
Molly had fallen asleep on the couch a couple of hours ago,
and she woke up to the unfamiliar sensation of a still bus.
She sat up groggily and felt something stabbing her from
below. She pulled the paper from beneath her and unfolded
it. Unlike the others, she didn't bother to speculate as to
the original author or its intended recipient. She
retreated to her usual sleeping quarters and retrieved her
guitar, then returned to the couch and began working out a
melody.
