Author's note: This is Toy Island, full of toys / For all the girls and all the boys / The carnival is lots of fun / So come together, every- oh, sorry, folks. That jingle is stuck in my head. Let's continue!
And Mat, even I don't know how long this story is going to be!
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Chapter 5: Uh-oh.
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SATURDAY 06:52 AM - TOY ISLAND MARIONETTE MOTEL
I yawned as I woke up. Sam followed suit. In the next room, Clover and Arnold woke up as well.
We met in the lobby. "I want to go on Toy Tunnel," Arnold reminded us. "Any chance that we might go?"
"We'll see after breakfast and a little sightseeing," Sam responded. "Leo and I want to look around a little, maybe take some pictures."
07:12 AM - TOY BLOCK CASTLE
Sam stood next to a flag atop one of the turrets. "Okay, Leo," she told me, "take the picture!"
I held up my 3D holo-camera and took the picture. "It's taken, Sam. Let's see what else there is to see."
Arnold called to us. "Hey, Sam, Leo, we're ready to go on Toy Tunnel. Come on!"
As we approached the Toy Tunnel entrance, I whispered something in Sam's ear. She nodded silently.
Sam approached Arnold. "I'm going with you on the first car. Clover and Leo will follow you in the next."
Arnold blinked. "What are you talking about? I'm ticketed with Clover, not you."
"I know that, Arnold. But it's a tradition of ours. When we've both got dates, we swap boyfriends for a moment to find out about each other's tastes. Don't worry, we'll swap back after the ride."
"Well, okay. Come on, let's go."
Arnold and Sam got on the ride. Clover and I pretended to follow, but backed out at the last second. Arnold never knew.
When Arnold's attention was elsewhere, Sam put her X-powder on speakerphone. I opened my DS and got the connection.
Clover glanced at me. "Why are you going through this, Leo?"
"Jason lost contact with me while he was on this ride," I explained. "I suspect that not everything on Toy Island is fun and games."
As if on cue, I heard two screams from my DS at the same time, and it nearly leaped out of my hands. The signal went dead. Time seemed to stop for a few seconds.
I pressed a few buttons on my DS. "At the same time as the screams," I concluded, "the X-powder was hit with some kind of wave, one tuned to the same frequency as brain waves."
"Maybe it hypnotized those two or something," Clover figured.
"Yeah. That'd explain why those two soldiers at the store looked just like Jason and Megan."
I pressed a few more buttons on my DS. "What are you doing now?" Clover inquired.
"Getting the tracking on Sam's hanna-tracer tattoo," I explained. "Ah! Got it. Looks like she's heading for the east corner of the park."
"Let's go check it out."
We ran off.
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Short chapter this time, but this is a good time to break off.
