"The Bad News"
Kevin lazily woke up. For a moment, he wondered where he was. He looked around and saw that he was in the basement. He clumsily crawled out of his sleeping bag and yawned. According to his watch, it was 7:45 in the morning. Getting to his feet, Kevin stretched his arms and legs, causing his pajama clothes to shift over his body. He sighed and caught sight of his parents. They were still asleep, snoring in separate sleeping bags.
Kevin glanced at his sister, Katie. She was also asleep. Kevin felt a slight chill as he saw Mr. Furry's head peeking out of Katie's sleeping bag. Kevin knew, deep down, that the ghost of that doctor, or whoever he was, had returned to the bear. Kevin felt rather uncomfortable watching Katie clutch Mr. Furry like that. She still didn't fully grasp the seriousness of the situation. Still, as long as Mr. Furry was with Katie, there wasn't much the ghost could do.
Kevin walked up the stairs and entered the living room. At that moment, Kevin wondered where Sandy had gotten to. He remembered seeing her fall asleep in the basement, but she wasn't there now.
Kevin searched the kitchen, quietly calling out her name. Kevin looked in the backyard, pantry, closet, and upstairs hallway. When Kevin peeked into Eustace and Muriel's room, he thought for sure that Courage would be sleeping on the foot of the bed. Well, Eustace and Muriel were still asleep and Courage wasn't there.
"Maybe Courage is upstairs in the attic," thought Kevin to himself. Kevin walked to the attic stairs and climbed them. He opened the door. Kevin spotted the computer and, on the other side of the room, the cot. There was a dog-sized lump under the covers.
"I'd better wake up Courage and ask if he knows where Sandy is," whispered Kevin to himself. He approached the cot and spotted a tuft of pink fur poking out of the top of it. Kevin reached down and threw back the sheets.
"Hey, Cour-…" began Kevin, but he stopped. He couldn't believe his eyes.
Courage was there alright. But so was Sandy, holding Courage in her arms. Both of them were asleep, but they tightened their eyes, due to the sudden brightness, and began waking up.
You can imagine the scene that followed.
Kevin screamed first. He was so startled by what he saw, that he jumped back from the cot like he'd been electrocuted. He lost his balance and stumbled backwards into the desk chair that sat in front of the computer.
Courage's eyes flew open. He saw Kevin sitting on the floor, screaming at him for some reason. Looking down slightly, Courage discovered why. He had fallen asleep in his cot alone last night, and now, to his surprise, Sandy was waking up next to him! Leaping up out of the bed, Courage shrieked with surprise and ended up with his back pressed up against the wall next to the cot.
Sandy was awake by now and began screaming too, partly because everyone else was screaming. Instinctively, Sandy reached down and pulled the covers up to her neck.
Fortunately, nobody else in the house woke up because of the screaming. But that didn't mean nobody heard screaming, as you're about to find out.
At the moment, however, Kevin had stopped screaming and began babbling a bunch of gibberish: "I…hu…wha…I...da….you!" Kevin pointed at the dogs with a quivering finger. "You….you…!"
Courage gulped. Kevin didn't really look mad, just shocked. Courage looked at Sandy again and suddenly knew exactly what Kevin must be thinking.
Sandy knew too because she suddenly held up her paw and kept saying, "It's okay, Kevin! We didn't do anything!" As a response, Kevin kept saying, "Are you sure?"
After a moment, Kevin began calming down. He was about to stand up, when suddenly a flash of movement caught his eye. Kevin turned and saw someone standing in the doorway.
"I heard some screaming!" shouted the intruder. "Is everyone al…?"
It was Agent Gammon. He stopped when he surveyed the scene before him. The Kevin kid was lying on his back breathing heavily while Courage and Sandy looked rather surprised and breathless between the sheets. They were all staring at Gammon.
"Uh, sorry," apologized Gammon. "I was going to use the restroom down the hall and I heard some screaming so I…" Gammon paused. For some reason, those two pink dogs in bed brought a funny, almost humorous, expression to Gammon's face. "Am I, uh, interrupting something?"
Kevin, Courage, and Sandy were too stunned to answer. Gammon then felt it was wise to leave this little scene. He turned and headed back down to the kitchen.
Agent Gammon started eating an apple when Agent R walked in for some breakfast.
"Where've you been?" asked Agent R to Gammon. "You haven't been sneaking around Eustace and Muriel's room, have you?"
Gammon choked on a piece of apple.
"I guess not," said Agent R. "Find anything else interesting around here?"
"You could say that," muttered Gammon.
As Gammon watched Agent R turn back to the RV outside, Agent Gammon decided to keep what he just saw to himself.
For the rest of the morning, Kevin kept asking Sandy about last night. He kept asking Sandy, "Are you SURE you didn't do anything?" so many times, that she threatened to scratch Kevin's leg up if he asked again. Courage wondered about last night as well. Sandy assured him during breakfast that nothing happened and wouldn't say anything more about it because she was "too embarrassed by the whole thing." (Courage and Sandy didn't actually do anything, just to let you know. This story is PG rated, after all.) Courage also wanted to tell somebody about his fight with Mad Dog, but Courage felt like it was something that only he and the agents should know about. After all, there wasn't much point in worrying anyone else about it.
After Gammon and R returned to the RV, they decided to have breakfast there instead of the house. Some cereal, fruit, and coffee were what greeted Agents D.M. and Barsby. After breakfast, the agents argued about whether or not they should inform their boss about the "ghost and UFO." Agents Gammon and R wanted to call the Boss, but D.M. and Barsby opposed the thought. They feared that they didn't have enough information to report. Finally, the agents decided to postpone telling their boss. After last night's fight with Mad Dog, they still needed some more time to recover.
It was shortly after noon that Kevin received the bad news.
At that time, Eustace and Muriel were in town running an errand. The agents were also in Nowhere, eating lunch at a restaurant. Katie was upstairs playing a game on the computer. (The computer was letting Katie win most of the time. She seemed unaffected by the computer's attitude and kept Mr. Furry by her side as she played.) Kevin was in the kitchen finishing a snack when he heard his father's voice coming from the living room.
"Son? Could you come here a minute?" asked Carl.
Kevin walked into the living room and asked what was up. He saw his mother and father sitting on the couch and looking at him. With a shock, Kevin saw that his mother had been crying!
"What's wrong?" asked Kevin, with worry growing in his voice.
"Sit down, Kevin," said Carl, who pointed to the easy chair. "I'm afraid your mother and I have some…bad news."
Nervously, Kevin sat in the chair, looked at his parents, and sighed. "Okay…who…who died?"
"No one, Kevin," said Diane, tearfully.
"Then, what is it?" asked Kevin.
Carl sighed. "Son, there's no easy way to say this…" he began.
A myriad of thoughts were colliding in Kevin's head at that moment. He thought, "What could they tell me that's so awful? I won't get accepted into college? I'm adopted? Oh gawd, did they find out about Katie and the ghost that's in Mr. Furry?"
"Go on," urged Kevin out loud.
"There's no easy way for me to say what I have to tell you, son," said Carl. "So…I guess I'll just say it."
Here it comes, thought Kevin.
"Son….we've been evicted from our apartment."
Kevin gasped. "You and Mom?"
"No, Kevin. All of us," said Diane weakly. "We no longer live in our apartment."
Kevin couldn't believe it. He felt like someone had removed his stomach and his heart was sinking, sinking, sinking into a bottomless pit. Instantly, Kevin remembered their home; a two-story apartment with high rent and a bad neighborhood in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio. Kevin was stunned that their apartment was no longer theirs.
Kevin stared at his parents. "How…how did this happen?"
Carl sighed. "It started a few months ago. You remember my job, right Kevin?"
"Yeah," answered Kevin. Carl worked for a technology corporation with an office downtown.
"Well, about ten weeks ago, my boss asked me to withdraw some money from a supposed investor. 'Investigatory reasons,' he said. So, I made a few online transactions and that was it. What I didn't know was that my boss had been sued recently by a competing company for some reason or another, and he wanted to get back at them. Are you following me so far?"
"Yeah, Dad."
"Well, my boss decided the best way to get back at our competition was for them to lose money. So, I ended up swindling money illegally from our competing company."
"What?" whispered Kevin in shock.
"I had no clue that I was doing something illegal! My boss lied to me by saying that it was just a 'mandatory operation.' Kevin, remember about a month ago when I said I was going on a 'week-long business meeting' downtown?"
"Yeah," whispered Kevin. His throat was beginning to tighten.
"I was actually going to court, which can be defined as a 'business meeting'. My boss and several workers, including myself, were on trial. The trial went by much quicker than I anticipated. My boss ended up going to jail and all the involved workers lost their jobs."
"But, I thought only you made the transaction!" blurted out Kevin.
"I did, but other workers knew about it too. Anyway, we all got laid off. When our landlord, Mr. Baker, heard about my case, he pointed out a policy in our lease that read… 'Any tenant involved in criminal activity of any degree or magnitude will henceforth be eradicated from the premises.' In other words, we had to leave."
Now things were beginning to come into focus for Kevin. That explained why Carl and Diane were packing things into boxes before their trip to California. That also explained why they brought so much stuff with them on the trip. Of course, they didn't know they would stop in Nowhere on the way over. Kevin did, of course, because of the nightmares he kept having (from my "Courage and the Hendersons" story.)
Kevin tried calming himself down. "Why did we drive all the way to Aunt Vivian's and Uncle Mike's house?"
Diane spoke up. "They called us about some real estate that they thought we'd be interested in. Once we were there, we changed our minds, apparently. Property prices in San Fran are high this year."
"But we can't live here forever!" shouted Kevin, his arms motioning to the house around him. "Where are we gonna live?"
"We're still searching, son. We're still searching," said Carl. Diane began crying again and Carl leaned over to comfort her.
Kevin heard some more whimpering off to the side. Kevin turned and saw Sandy at the foot of the stairs. She was weeping on Courage's shoulder. Courage looked like he was about to cry too.
"Does anyone else know?" asked Kevin.
"We talked to Eustace and Muriel. Muriel was a bit more sympathetic than her husband, the old geezer."
"Carl!" scolded Diane.
"Anyway, they agreed to go into town today and ask a travel agent about property prices in this state."
So that's why Eustace and Muriel went to town today, thought Courage. Courage hugged Sandy, her face wet with tears. Courage wished that the Hendersons could live in the same town, or at least the same state, as he did.
Kevin sighed and then turned angrily to his parents. "Why didn't you tell me any of this??!!"
"You were too stressed out with high school, Kevin," exclaimed Diane. "Semester exams were your 'top priority', and you recently broke up with your girlfriend too. We decided it was best to wait until you were ready to hear."
"And what about Katie? When are you gonna tell her?"
"Kevin, you know Katie's far too young to take this matter maturely. This isn't something we can talk about over the dining room table…if we still had it."
"You mean our furniture's been repossessed?!"
"Only the dining room and coffee tables that Mr. Baker loaned us. We've kept everything else."
"I can't believe this! I can't believe you two could do something like this and not even tell me!"
"Kevin!" called Carl. But Kevin was already running up the stairs with the dogs right behind him.
Kevin didn't want to disturb Katie in the attic, so he tossed himself into the bathroom and broke down. Courage and Sandy comforted him as best they could by nudging their heads against Kevin's arms and licking his tears. It took about an hour for Kevin to return to normal. That was when he heard a knock on the bathroom door. It was Katie. She walked over to Kevin and the dogs and sat down with them. Kevin placed his arms around his little sister.
"I'm scared," said Katie.
Kevin looked at her. He knew she couldn't be talking about the eviction. "Me too," said Kevin.
"I'm scared of Stromwell," muttered Katie.
"Who?" asked Kevin with a start. Courage and Sandy stared at each other. They noticed that Katie didn't have Mr. Furry with her.
"Doctor Stromwell. The ghost inside Mr. Furry. He said his name was Dr. Stromwell."
"Ah," said Kevin, rather matter-of-factually. But his mind was spinning. At last, they had a name for the ghost. Kevin could see that Courage and Sandy were excited too. Kevin looked back at Katie. "Well, there's no need to be scared. As long as you keep that bear with you and listen to what the ghost says."
"Really?" asked Katie.
"Well," corrected Kevin. "If he tells you something that I'd never tell you to do, don't do it, okay?"
"Okay," answered Katie, who squeezed Kevin.
Katie, Kevin, and the pooches remained there until Muriel and Eustace returned from town.
Unfortunately, by now, the agents knew about the Henderson's eviction. How? When they finished eating lunch, they spotted Eustace and Muriel leaving the travel agent place. They went inside and talked to travel agent, who ended up telling them about Eustace and Muriel asking for state property prices for their recently evicted friends, the Hendersons. The travel agent even called the Hendersons' landlord, at the secret agents' request, who confirmed the information, much to the secret agents' surprise.
On the way back, Agent R had an announcement. "I think we've been letting our personal feelings get in the way of our job."
"What do you mean?" asked D.M.
Agent R continued. "We've delayed information to our boss. We've become too accustomed to our surroundings. We've become too friendly. It's time we follow standard procedures and do the necessary interrogations…starting with that Kevin kid."
"Yeah, that's guy's weird," said Gammon in the passenger seat. "This morning, I found him and the dogs…"
"Gammon, do we really need to hear that story again?" interrupted Agent R. "Anyway, what with the eviction on his family and all, he's going to be an easy shell to crack."
In the back, D.M. and Barsby glanced at each other. They knew that following 'standard procedures' would make this operation a lot less fun.
At around four o'clock, Kevin stood alone in the living room. The rest of his family, Eustace, Muriel, and the dogs were all in the basement. Apparently, some mice were discovered down there, and since the Hendersons didn't want to sleep in a mouse-infested room, everybody decided to pitch in and see if they could find the mice. Kevin, however, decided to watch some TV instead. He was about to turn it on when he heard a voice from upstairs.
"Hey, Kevin!" It was Agent R. "Could you come up here? I need some help!"
As Kevin walked up the stairs, he heard someone walking up the stairs behind him. Looking over his shoulder, it turned out to be Agent Darkest Moon. She was wearing a secret agent uniform. She spoke up before Kevin could comment on the outfit.
"Is Agent R up there?" she asked.
They reached the top of the stairs. "Where are you?!" shouted Kevin.
"In the attic! Hurry!" yelled Agent R.
"C'mon!" said Kevin to D.M. behind him. "He needs our help!"
The closer they got to the attic, the sicker D.M. started to feel. She knew what she was gonna have to do, and she wasn't gonna like it. She felt compelled to say, "It's a trap, Kevin!", but she had her orders.
When Kevin opened the door and walked in, he was greeted with a bizarre sight.
The computer and the cot were where they always were. A shade was pulled over the only window in the room. A tall lamp provided the only light in the dimly-lit room. The light shined down on a chair. Behind the chair, Agents Gammon, Barsby, and R stood still, with their secret agent outfits and sunglasses. None of them smiled, which gave them sinister, almost 'Matrix'-like qualities.
Agent R pointed to the chair in front of him. "Sit down, Kevin," he said.
Kevin whirled around only to discover that the door was shut! D.M. had locked him in!
Agent R's voice spoke up again. "I think it's time we had a little chat, Kevin."