"Gammon, Zalost, and the Duck Brothers"

Agent Gammon's initial plan to solve their group's riddle didn't work.

Since their riddle talked about a ladder across the street, Gammon instructed Zalost and the Duck Brothers to start searching on the other side of the road for anything that looked like a ladder.

It wasn't until Zalost spoke up that Gammon realized his mistake. 

"Excuse me, Gammon," said Zalost.

"Hmm?" asked Gammon.

"Well, why are we looking for a ladder now?  Doesn't the riddle tell us to look for a red flag first?"

"Yeah, but don't you think it'd be easier and quicker to skip ahead a little?"

"Not really," answered Zalost.  "Normally one pays attention to the entire riddle in order to get it right."

Gammon thought about that for a moment.  "That's a good a point," he said finally.

The Duck Brothers ran over to Gammon and said that they found a ladder, but it was only a stepladder that someone threw away in an alley.  So, the group walked back across the street and looked at it.

"Does anyone see the red flag?" squawked the orange duck.

"I don't see any red flag anywhere!" said the green duck.

"It would help if everything wasn't so blue," said the blue duck.  (Since their eyes are different colors, their vision has a different colored tint to it.)

"What are you complaining about?" asked the green duck to the blue duck.

"I'm not complaining!" answered the blue duck.  "I just think it would help if we saw a better picture of everything!"

"Why don't you try…?"

"Oh, stop telling me what to do!"

"HEY!" shouted Gammon.  "Could we please get back to the riddle?"  In a frustrated mood, Gammon leaned back against the mailbox.

"I agree," agreed Zalost.  "I think…"

Zalost stopped.  He and the Duck Brothers stared oddly at Gammon.

"What?" asked Gammon uncomfortably.  "Is there a Chinese or Soviet flag behind me?" (Since both flags are red.)

"No," said Zalost.  Was it Gammon's imagination or was he trying to hide a smile?  "But…what's that on your shoulder?"

Gammon looked at his shoulder.  "There's nothing on it."

"No," said Zalost.  He was definitely smiling now.  "I mean, on the mailbox beside your shoulder."

"Oh," said Gammon.  "It's only the…"

Gammon stopped and stared.  Right next to his shoulder, in the down position, was the mailbox's little red flag.

Gammon turned back to Zalost.  "How long did you know it was there?"

"Since we came back across the street."

"Why didn't you tell me then?...and don't say 'because you didn't ask'!"

"I just wanted to have a little fun, that's all," laughed Zalost.  "It's been so long."

"…I'd rather have preferred 'because you didn't ask'," sighed Gammon.  On instinct, he flipped up the flag.

Seconds later, a 'whack-whack' sound was heard.  Everyone turned and stared.  Two of the planks from the picket fence had fallen onto the sidewalk!

Gammon looked at the riddle on the piece of paper.  "When the red flag's waving high…planks of wood will fall nearby…They will point across the street…to a ladder under your feet!"  Gammon gasped, "This is it!  We're on the right track!  All we gotta do is walk across the street in the direction of the planks and we find the ladder!  C'mon!"

Once again, they all crossed the street.  On the sidewalk, they stopped and looked down.  All that was there was a closed manhole.

"Jackpot," whispered Gammon.

It took quite a bit of effort to remove the manhole cover, but eventually the five detectives climbed down the metal rungs of the ladder into the sewer below.

They ended up in a dark, damp, smelly tunnel.  Luckily, this part of the Nowhere sewer system appeared to be dried up.

There was some writing on the adjacent wall.  Gammon grabbed a pocket flashlight and shown it on the wall.  It read: "Top sewage speed: 20 miles per hour."  But someone had scratched out all the words except the word "per" and drawn a big arrow pointing to the right.

"That's it!" proclaimed Gammon.  "Look for pepper without pep!  From the riddle!  Don't you see?  If you take the word 'pep' out of the word 'pepper', you wind up with 'per'!  We're on the right track!"

"Good," said the blue duck in a nasal voice, since he was holding his nose.  "The sooner we follow the arrow, the sooner we don't have to smell this horrible stench."

"I concur," said Zalost.

So, they traveled down the tunnel.  The more they traveled the darker it got, but thanks to Gammon's flashlight, they had plenty of light to lead the way.

"How far do we have to walk?" asked the blue duck.

As they turned a corner, Gammon shined the light back at his partners.  "I don't know.  All the riddle says is to watch out for your last STEP!!!"

Upon saying the word "step", Gammon's foot stepped on nothing but air.  For a few horrible seconds, the group walked off a ledge and fell a few feet below into a pool of foul water. 

The Duck Brothers managed to stay on the surface of the water, but Zalost couldn't swim.  He grabbed onto the ducks and Gammon in order to stay afloat.  Gammon looked up and saw an object poking out of the wall.  He reached up and grabbed it.  With a "Ka-chunk", the object swung down and stopped.

As soon as Gammon realized that he had just pulled some kind of lever, a pipe opened up nearby and the bewildered group slid down the long and winding water pipe, all the while wondering where the heck they were going.