//Who wants to take my finals for me?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Yeah, thought so.  I'll just have to take my mind off the stinkin' things for a few minutes-

And why is the fic developing Kim/Ron hints?  *squints at chapter*//

Musical Mayhem

"Thanks so much for giving us a lift, Mr. Trinedin," Kim shouted, hanging on tightly to the man's back.

"Oh, it's no problem!" he shouted back cheerfully over the motorcycle's loud motor.  "It's the least I can do for someone who saved our whole cross-country trip, right?"

"Aw, anyone could have found twenty-odd motorcycles drifting away in a flash flood!" Kim yelled.  A little ways back, Ron was still trying to convince another biker that helmets were cool, especially if he was going to drive like a maniac.

When the cyclists had pulled away from a beautiful, old-fashioned mansion in a cloud of smoke and loud rock music, Kim and Ron turned to the nervous old man waiting for them by the gate.

"Miss Possible?" he asked, his voice very squeaky.  "Oh, it's so very nice to meet you!  But in such circumstances…"

"Mr. Rohdan, right?" she said, smiling reassuringly.  "It's all right, sir.  Please, show us the room where the theft took place?"

"Of course, of course…"

The room was very heavily guarded, they found out quickly.  Not only were there three separate doors that were each made of reinforced steel and set to a certain password spoken in a certain cadence while the speaker stood in a certain way, but there were also infrared security beams throughout each of the three rooms within rooms and even along the hallway, as Ron found out when he tried to get a closer look at a playbill for "The West Side Story."

And, once in the room, there were absolutely no clues.

"I can't explain it!" Mr. Rohdan said tearfully, wringing his hands.  "There was no alarm, no nothing!  I came down here to dust and it- it was gone!"

Kim looked at the stand that had held the coveted mask, but there were still no clues.  "Could anyone else have had the passwords, Mr. Rohdan?"

"Well, yes, of course," he said, sounding surprised.  Kim and Ron turned to stare at him.  "This is the headquarters for the League Against the Modernization of Epics.  Epics, of course, meaning all classical works-"

Ron was chuckling.  "LAME.  I love it."

"Wait, so you're part of the League that Ms. Tayer was talking about?" Kim asked, glaring at Ron, who immediately tried to look as innocent as he could.

"Ms. Tayer!" Mr. Rohdan said, sounding affronted.  "Young lady, we have nothing more to do with Ms. Tayer.  That woman is a menace."

"That's what we thought, too," Ron offered.

"A menace?" Kim repeated, sounding confused.

"While it is well and good to prefer that works not be changed so as not to detract from the writer's original intentions, it is far from right to act like- like rowdy teenagers protesting a war!" Mr. Rohdan said hotly.  "Why, that woman- she defaced posters, sabotaged auditions; she even paid off critics to give horrible reviews!  We threw her out of the League as soon as we found out, of course.  That woman is a menace, I tell you.  But, without League funds, she obviously cannot do so much damage any longer."

He paused, looking slightly embarrassed, and said hurriedly, "We're not bad people, Miss Possible.  We want to preserve the original scripts, but we do not think that modernization is altogether terrible!  We just want the originals to survive."

"I understand, Mr. Rohdan," Kim said sympathetically.

"Yeah, and I agree- that woman is whacko!" Ron said, nodding decisively. 

Rufus chimed in with a vehement, "Yeah!"

"Well, we'll check around and keep you posted, Mr. Rohdan," Kim said, sounding defeated.  "But for now, we don't have anything.  Still, if the mask should be sold, we're bound to hear about it.  We'll get back to you, all right?"

"Of course, of course," he said, shaking her hand enthusiastically.  "And thank you again, Miss Possible."

"No problem at all," Ron said.  "Just another day in the life of a superteen."

"Right," Kim said, rolling her eyes.

*****

"I don't know about you," Ron said as they neared home after an old friend had dropped them off at the high school.  "But I've got a ton of homework to avoid.  Talk to you tomorrow, KP?"

"See you then, Ron," Kim said, waving as Ron split off to walk to his house.  She wasn't being good company, anyway- she kept thinking about what Mr. Rohdan had said about Ms. Tayer.  "Defaced posters, sabotaged, paid critics?  That woman is a nut-"

Defaced posters, sabotaged-

"I have to check the school," Kim said, her eyes widening.

Once inside, she quickly found what she was looking for.  Pulling out the Kimmunicator, she called up Wade.  "Hey, is this what I think it is?"

Wade peered at the length of rope in Kim's hand.  "Looks like it's been cut- but carefully, so that it wouldn't actually break until it had been used a few times."

"Like in practice," Kim said grimly.  The mirror showed similar signs of tampering- the frame had been loosened, so that the glass would gradually come loose and finally just slip out all the way and shatter.  And when she went up to the lights and sound room, she found that the CD player had a pin lying inside, where a spinning CD might knock it after getting badly scratched.

"Someone's gone to a lot of trouble," Wade said, sounding mildly impressed.  "I don't think anyone would have thought to look at any of these things.  And most of them could have been avoided for a while, too- there are other ropes for the curtain, the mirror might not have been moved so much, and there is another CD player in there, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is," Kim said, already inspecting it.  "But this one's clean."

"You better check the other props and the ropes, too.  Just in case."

"Yeah, I'll-"  Kim was cut off as something dark flashed by in the corner of her vision.  "What was that?!"

"What?"

"Hush."  She peered into the darkness, walking soundlessly to the door.  What was out there?

Then half of a completely white, eyeless face was right in front of her and Kim screamed in shock.  Someone pushed her, shut the door, and Kim found that the mysterious intruder had jammed a chair underneath the knob.  It didn't take too long to work it free, but it was long enough for the villain to flee.

"Hard luck, Kim," Wade said sympathetically.

"I'll do better next time," she said determinedly.  "And I bet there's going to be a next time, too- sooner than we think."

*****

"You mean I missed it?" Ron complained, walking with Kim to class.  "The Phantom showing up at the school!  And I missed it!"

"What are you talking about?" Kim asked.

"The half-mask is the mask of the Phantom, Kim!  You know, the Phantom of the Opera?  Like the musical we're doing?" Ron paused, his eyes going wider.  "And like-"

"The mask that was stolen from Mr. Rohdan!" Kim finished.  She slapped her hand against her forehead.  "Oh, duh!"

"Hey, we can't be on top of things all the time," Ron said, shrugging.  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to fail a history test."

It was at the musical practice when they finally started up the conversation again.

"So you really think it was Ms. Tayer?" Ron whispered, holding up the script to keep from distracting Marion, who was still upset with him.  "You think she's the reason why I got everything messed up the other day?"

"Well, not the tape," Kim said dryly.  "But the other things, yeah.  You just have that kind of luck, Ron."

"Oh, some of it's not too bad," Josh said from behind them.  "He's pretty lucky that I was paying attention to when I was supposed to go on stage, after all."

Ron was blushing again. "Oh, sorry, man.  I-"

"Don't worry about it."  Josh laughed.  "Just don't get distracted during the actual musical, all right?"

He went out on stage, leaving Kim blushing and Ron looking down at his script disconsolately.  "I really probably should have stayed out of this, hey, KP?"

"You're doing a fine job," Kim denied immediately.  "It's the second practice, anyway, and you just found out that it was someone else's fault that half the cast thinks-"

"That I'm an idiot?"

"I was going to say clumsy."

"Okay, okay, okay!  Let's try that again, with some real feeling, guys!  You're supposed to be in love, here!" Jessie yelled, calling out to Josh and Marion, though Ron and Kim jumped.

"Okay, I better go cue Chris in," Ron said then, waving at Kim.  "Have fun moving stuff around!"

"Of course," Kim said, laughing.  "Oh, Ron!  Going to stay out tonight with me and wait for our mysterious Phantom?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Ron called back before disappearing into the maze that was the dressing room area.  Kim turned back to the stage, watching Josh and Marion act at being in love with a dull ache of jealousy.  What she wouldn't give to play that role.

Of course, she'd get the next best thing: taking down the villain and, just possibly, earning Josh's admiration.

"It's not a bad thing to hope that she strikes again soon, right?" Kim whispered.

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