Chapter 3

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March 21, 2001 - Wednesday

Dear Diary,

Ah, bliss! A few uninterrupted moments to scribble!

Drake is still asleep, and thus unable to have a little hissy-fit at the sight of a diary. Yomiko is also still asleep; Miss Makuhari, who has asked me to stop calling her that or she'd probably punch me, said with a little grin that Yomiko must still be tired from last night.

Honestly, I can see why! It sounded like it was quite the pillow-fight they were having next door! Drake grumbled heavily about it, about how the two of them have no shame, and about how he would never be able to sleep with all this noise going on.

He fell asleep two minutes later, so I don't feel terribly sorry for him.

Miss – er, Nancy is awake now, but she doesn't seem to be in the mood to talk, and is simply sitting on the other end of this couch here in the lobby, with a dreamy smile on her face. That really must have been some incredible pillow fight!

It's at times like this when I wish I had a very close friend like that. Unfortunately, working for Mr. Joker tends to kill any chance of a social life, which might be necessary for redeveloping close friendships with girls I now see all of twice a year. Of course, I suppose I could simply put my foot down and demand weekends and evenings like everyone else, but…well, I don't want to! Who needs a social life when you have Mr. Joker?

Oh, dear. Perhaps I'm in need of the electro-shock I considered as an option for Mr. Drake yesterday.

At any rate, onto the portion of the day not touched upon in yesterday's entry! And what a portion it was!

Now, I don't know if people's useless superpowers have personalities and human emotions or what, but if they do, then mine must be awfully touchy, because at around three-thirty this afternoon, Drake asked quite conversationally exactly what good extreme klutziness and unnatural self-preservation was supposed to do anyone.

I was about to reply quite truthfully that I didn't know, that I thought Mr. Joker had got utterly mad, and that I thought Mr. Gentleman had a remarkably sick sense of humour for agreeing with the idea, when the entire helicopter tilted wildly to one side. Miss Makuhari, Drake, and even Yomiko, who nevertheless remembered to grip the packet of sugar-filled snack-food she had been reading (earlier stolen from Drake's bag once she had read everything with words in Miss Makuhari's and mine) very tightly, managed to grab onto something sturdy.

I, however, went shooting at a diagonal into the cockpit, where I proceeded to land on poor, nervous little Acne's lap.

This, of course, did not help his piloting skills any, and thus did we go veering wildly about until he could regain his composure.

That, unfortunately, didn't happen until after we had side-swiped a building. I think we only scraped the bottom of the side of the helicopter against the top corner of the building. Still, this likely did not exactly help to improve the helicopter, which Acne insisted we had to land, because his uncle would absolutely kill him if the thing blew up in mid-air.

Miss Makuhari and Drake each had different bits of this to nitpick, while I stared in bewilderment at the sheer lack of logic which nearly rivaled mine, and Yomiko read Drake's aftershave bottle, which she had swiped from his bag earlier.

Miss Makuhari pointed out that if the thing exploded, his uncle wouldn't have to worry about killing him.

He began to look a little sheepish at this, and looked even more so when Drake added that the helicopter wasn't anywhere near blowing up – all he had done was scrape a little paint off the side.

Shrinking back into his vest, Acne (whose real name I really ought to learn) turned back to the controls, much to the relief of everyone aboard, and didn't say another word (again, much to the relief of everyone aboard).

Needless to say, when we landed in Yellowknife at a late, late hour, thanks to several rest stops for Acne, who declared that that scare had "messed him up for good", none of us were in the mood to even think of looking at exactly what we were to be doing while here.

And so, to bed went four very grateful people.

Unfortunately, morning comes very soon, and with it, the responsibilities of the day.

Basically, our mission is to retrieve a very valuable book on snow-shoeing lent to a high-school physical education teacher named Mr. Arthur Grove, in a little town three hours from Yellowknife (where we stayed, as the town had no hotel or lodgings not full for some festival or other – always a bad sign), called Coahan, which we drove to in a rental car on what quickly became one of the most harrowing car trips of my life. Roads…so…icy!

Northern bloody Canada! Why the bloody freezing Northwest Territories of bloody freezing Canada, when all that this utterly uninformed little idiot brought with her were things suited to a mild, slightly rainy climate?

Moving on, we made our way to the secondary school in which our overdue culprit teaches, only to find out that he had mysteriously gotten sick and ran screaming from the gymnasium just as he saw us approaching down the hallway.

This left the Phys Ed class without a teacher, and so one of us filled in.

Which one, you ask (or probably don't ask, being a diary)?

The most logical choice, of course.

And so, Yomiko and Nancy and I took off after the man, leaving poor Mr. Drake to deal with a group of unenthusiastic teenagers and an in-progress game of football (which one of those little snot-nosed brats derisively informed me was 'soccer', and that I should get my facts straight and learn something about sports, blondie; it's simply too bad rugby wasn't the sport in question, or I would have had to show the boy a thing or two about how one plays a sport).

Not that we had an easy time of it.

Nancy said she envied Drake, but I wouldn't have gone that far unless we had been tied up and being fed to rabid weasels with severe overbites.

We weren't, by the way.

We were, however, compelled to chase Mr. Grove from the town and into a snowed-over field.

And this is where we began to wish that we had had a chance to read that book on snow-shoeing.

Let's just say it's not nearly as easy as "strap a big wicker thing onto your foot and have at it".

It took two hours for one of us to be able to figure out how to move, and then it was only to tip over and land face-first in the snow.

Yes, that was me. What of it?

And what if my snowshoe caught on Yomiko's and sent her falling back into Nancy, which sent both of them falling at various angles into the snow in a heap?

I will say, though, that neither of them seemed to mind landing on each other in the snow as much as I'd thought they would. I suppose they'll laugh about it together later.

Finally, the three of us were able to grasp the art of maneuvering snowshoes, and were on our merry way.

Unfortunately, by then, it had been three hours, and Arthur Grove was hopelessly gone.

By this point, Drake was finished teaching the rest of the day's Phys Ed classes, and even coaching the after-school volleyball, floor-hockey, and wrestling teams, and came to find us, upon which he promptly demanded why the hell we hadn't used our various 'talents' to make the snowshoes work.

Yomiko blinked a lot, turned very red, and admitted that that probably would have been more productive than what we ended up doing. Nancy, also very red, agreed. I, also very red, simply stayed silent.

And Drake, naturally, grumbled some more.

Apparently, this isn't his lucky day.

I am beginning to wonder if this 'lucky day' thing of Drake's is merely a myth.

Once he got the three of us out of the snow and we merrily burned our snowshoes – rather unfortunately, as we borrowed them from a local, whom the British Library now owes a goodish bit of money, as we had enough between the four of us to buy a Tootsie Pop and a piece of chewing gum – we made our way back to the motel for some much-needed rest.

Ostensibly, we are going to spend tomorrow finding this man and his overdue book.

And now an angry, hulking blond apparition named Drake has just appeared in the lobby, demanding his socks, which he has apparently taken an entire day to miss, and thus, dear diary, I had best sign off for now.

Your faithful servant,

Wendy.

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March 22, 2001 – Thursday

Dear Diary,

I hate snow. I hate people who like snow. I hate people who cause me to be out in snow. I hate people who like causing me to be out in snow.

I also hate papaya, but that has little to do with the issue at hand, which is snow, and how much I hate it.

This morning, we woke up to find the world covered in a blanket of freezing white, and a steady snowfall still in progress.

When I asked the man behind the desk at the motel if this was normal at this time of year, I honestly thought he would burst a lung laughing. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until Drake threatened to really give him something to laugh about if he didn't answer the damn question soon.

The man answered calmly and soberly that yes, this was perfectly normal for the time of year, at which Yomiko, Nancy, and Drake looked relieved, and I felt dismayed.

They explained that there had been the chance that someone was manipulating the weather, thus proving this simple little 'training mission' to be anything but.


I told them they ought to stop watching the science fiction channel.

Drake told me to stop being a little smart-ass, told Yomiko to put down her book, which she had pulled out of her pocket when there came a lull in the conversation) and told Nancy to stop whistling, which she hadn't been doing.

I think he just didn't want her to feel left out.

Drake is so thoughtful.

After establishing that mounds and mounds of sticky, wet, heavy, and utterly infuriating snow is normal for the Northwest Territories of Canada in the middle of March, we set off after Mr. Grove and the world's most important ancient text on snowshoeing.

Honestly, I didn't realize the British Library had so many…odd books. By 'odd', of course, I mean utterly useless.

Well, useless or not, the book had to be retrieved if any of us wanted to get home any time soon, and so off we went on our merry way.

Perhaps 'merry' is an exaggeration.

Off we went on our subdued, vaguely irritated way.

The first place we went back to was Coahan's only high school, from the day before. I didn't understand why on earth Arthur Grove would go back there, after being chased from it once. Mr. Drake just sort of smirked and said he knew the type: very dedicated, but not very bright.

This seemed to pan out very well, as almost the first person we ran into in the Phys Ed department was Mr. Grove himself.

Yomiko sealed off the other end of the hallway with some spare flyers advertising the sale of class rings beginning in only two weeks, while Drake and Nancy each grabbed an arm.

Me? Well, I took Drake's advice and stood very, very still, lest I trigger a disaster.

Mr. Grove broke down into tears and begged us not to hurt him; he had meant to return the book on time, but time had just slipped away from him, and he hadn't finished it yet.

At this point, Yomiko's eyes began to grow wide and teary with sympathy.

Then Mr. Grove explained, with a quaver in his voice, that when he saw us approaching, he had just sort of panicked.

Nancy asked, her tone implying that she would have scratched her head but for fear of looking silly, how on earth he had known what we had come for.

He scoffed and told us we had 'library' written all over us.

Drake nearly punched the poor man for this, but was distracted when Yomiko, who had been doing a bit of exploring, gave a squeal of delight, and the next moment danced back around the corner, clutching the missing book.

Mission accomplished.

Of course, though, it wasn't that easy.

There was still the little matter of collecting the overdue fine, which Mr. Grove refused to pay.

Ugh.

Eventually, since we wanted to get back to Yellowknife sometime before tomorrow, Drake held him down and Yomiko kept him still with a cue-card while Nancy went through his pockets for change.


He rather seemed to enjoy this part, which I can't figure out for the life of me.

We found $10.37 in Canadian currency, which basically meant that we could buy a gumdrop back in England. Thus, we gave it back to him, told him that his bill would be in the mail, and agreed as we left that we would simply split the overdue fine in the interest of getting out of there before one of us ended up teaching classes or drowning in snow as a direct result of snowshoes.

Finally, finally, mission accomplished. For real that time.

And now, it is much later, and we are back in the motel, trying to get a good night's sleep before someone finally sees fit to explain the next mission to us tomorrow.

I had expected to be allowed to go home tomorrow, but when I voiced this hope to Yomiko, Drake, and Nancy, Yomiko merely looked at me in wide-eyed sympathy, and Nancy chuckled a bit and called me a little optimist.

Drake said nothing. I think he's still mad about his socks yesterday.

At any rate, dear diary, I shall now sign off and go to sleep before Drake decides that ignoring me isn't as important as getting my poor harmless loose-leaf confidante out of his sight.

Your faithful servant,

Wendy.

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March 23, 2001 – Friday

Dear Diary,

Growl.

That is all.

Mr. Joker had better watch his back just as soon as we return, because he is going to have a very furious me to deal with.

And rest assured, that is a scary thing.

I am going to make life very, very miserable for him for a long, long time.

Or at least, for a few days.

I don't want to be mean, after all.

Still, I suppose I ought to explain what has made me Very, Very Angry.

This morning, I made a blithe morning spring out of bed, singing happily about the many joys of being alive.

Mr. Drake glared at me very scathingly, as my singing woke him up at least thirty seconds before he was going to have to get up, anyway. Men.

He nearly began to sing with joy, too, though, when I reminded him that we would be leaving Yellowknife today.

When Yomiko and Nancy came to meet us in the lobby, they both looked sleepy, but exceedingly happy. I suppose both were so overjoyed at the prospect of leaving this very snowy, cold, and miserable place, that they couldn't sleep last night, poor girls.

At any rate, us three girls crowded around Drake as he got in contact with Mr. Joker to find out where we would be going next, and where and when to meet Acne with the helicopter.

Mr. Joker replied as kindly as though he'd actually been doing us a favour, that he had decided that we would remain in Yellowknife one extra day – to give us time to relax and unwind after the last mission, you know.

Damn him.

And this is why I was extra-cold to him when Drake gave me the phone because he had asked to speak to me, to find out how I was doing thus far.

Unfortunately, I have the icky suspicion that he neither noticed nor cared.

The meanie.

With nothing to do except wile away the long hours until nightfall, when we could go back to sleep, we each went our separate ways.

Yomiko went out in search of a bookstore, having finished the book on snowshoeing on the way back to the motel last night.

Apparently, she had run out of bottles to read, too.

I wonder if she would consider giving me back my hand cream.

Nancy went out in search of a convenience store for some more shampoo and conditioner, since hers had gone missing. She kindly agreed to pick up some more hand cream for me, if I promised to pay her back the second we got near a bank.

Drake went out to find something nice for his daughter. He asked my opinion on this, and when I asked him in astonishment why, he said it was because he believes I think like her in a lot of ways.

Now, this isn't necessarily an insult. He clearly loves his daughter very much, and thus would not see anything wrong with the way she thinks.

However, as she is currently seven years old, I believe I am quite right to be a wee bit offended by this.

Well, I suppose now we're even for his socks, which I can't seem to find anywhere. I will have to make sure to check Yomiko's bag. She may have taken them to read the washing instructions.

At any rate, while everyone was out on their errands, I checked us all back into our rooms, took a nice little mid-morning nap that turned into a nice little mid-afternoon nap, too, and then decided to go to the nearest bar to meet a nice boy, who would invite me out on a date, which I could off-handedly mention to Mr. Joker at some point next week.

That did not pan out terribly well. Apparently, as the bartender explained to me, these are not men who will let a pretty face and a nice rack take their attention from their alcohol. In retrospect, I should have simply kept looking; surely, somewhere in a city the size of Yellowknife has to have a place nicer than the grubby little hole-in-the-wall I ambled into. But I was far too cold in my silly, weather-inappropriate blouse and rain coat by that point to consider anything but getting back to the motel.

Have finally realized that the bartender was trying to tell me that I have a nice rack.

I wonder what on earth he was talking about. A rack of what?

Either way, I shall simply have to invent a date to tell Mr. Joker about.

Later.

My inventiveness is about exhausted from the task of entertaining myself all day, even if I spent most of it asleep, which is catching up with me now, as I am not at all tired, although it is close to eleven in the evening, and I am in bed. It is mostly just for show, and because they turned off all the lights in the lobby, and I'm not about to go back outside again.

Mr. Drake is complaining about the lamp being on, and declaring that between this and Yomiko and Nancy's nightly pillow fight, he won't sleep a wink.

I have decided to stonily ignore him, and think wistfully about Mr. Joker, whom I have decided to forgive, although I still plan to invent a date for his benefit.

It is now several minutes later, and the ink has begun to run. I really ought to see about finding water-proof ink for when I'm thinking about Mr. Joker.

However, I am glad to report that Drake's gloomy prediction of not sleeping a wink has failed to come true.

I have just glanced over at the other bed, and he is sleeping so peacefully, and looks so altogether adorable when he's not grumbling, that I am beginning to ponder the idea of falling madly in love with him so that I can pine hopelessly over someone new for a change.

Have thought better of this, as Drake has begun to snore, and it is rather difficult to think romantic thoughts about someone currently making noises distinctly like those of a chainsaw, five feet away from you.

Have gone back to thinking wistful, romantic thoughts about Mr. Joker (resolving never to mention this brief swerving in loyalty).


However, I am finding it very difficult to concentrate, between Drake's snoring and Yomiko and Nancy's pillow-fighting.

Have just thrown a pillow at Mr. Drake and pounded the wall at Nancy and Yomiko, shouting at both aggravating problems,

"Do you people mind?! Some of us are trying to daydream in here!"

Yomiko and Nancy fell immediately silent, in a distinctly embarrassed-sounding silence.


Mr. Drake may be less contrite than they are, as he is currently advancing menacingly on me with my pillow, and informing me that it will not be my lucky day.

Oh, dear…

Your faithful servant,

Wendy.

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March 24, 2001 – Saturday

Dear Diary,

Very sleepy. Spent most night pillow-fighting Drake. All thoughts of falling madly in love with him for a bit of variety in my exceedingly dull love life have been quickly and ruthlessly cleared up, although I will admit that the man wields a pillow very effectively.

Yomiko has just asked me if I'm okay, and what the heck Drake and I were doing last night, anyway.

Have just told her rather pettishly that it was the same thing that she and Nancy have been doing every night.

An eerie silence has just fallen over the diner, particularly our table, broken only by the sound of Drake choking uncontrollably on a bit of pancake.

Nancy and Yomiko are alternately staring at me incredulously, and at Drake accusingly, and Nancy has muttered something about him steering clear of Joker for a while.

What a strange group I'm with!

Now Mr. Drake, who has managed to safely swallow his bit of pancake at last, is explaining frantically that we were not doing THAT – that he was simply beating the living hell out of me with a pillow, as no other non-lethal weapon presented itself, and killing one's fellow agents tends to be frowned upon.

Have just asked what on earth Nancy and Yomiko have been doing, then.

Have obviously asked the wrong question; everybody currently bright red.

Nancy has offered to explain, if I will put down the damn diary and listen.

Am going to comply.

It is now several minutes later. I am currently as bright-red as everyone else, and none of us have much of an appetite anymore.

Oh, hold on; Drake's better now. He's just shrugged, said it's not his business, and gone back to breakfast.

However, he still seems to be watching the scene very…er, watchfully.

And now I've just apologized profusely for shoving my foot so far into my mouth that the end of my shoe is knocking against the back of my throat.

Nancy has simply shrugged and said that maybe they have been a little quieter, and that I have an interesting way of turning a phrase, by the way.

Yomiko has jumped in here, in relation to the first part, not the second, adding that she really thought the walls were thicker in those places.

Drake is blushing again, and has just gruffly asked us to drop it, and so I've left off after telling Yomiko and Nancy that they're the cutest couple I've ever seen (quite true, although Yomiko and anyone on earth would probably be that – she has a way of raising the cuteness factor of the nearby environment; maybe it's the glasses. Hmm…perhaps I ought to invest…no, never mind).

At any rate, we're about to leave the diner to catch the helicopter, and thus I had best stop scribbling for now, as Drake's expression is once again suggesting a suddenly airborne diary and a very unfortunate passer-by.

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You know, being a field agent is doing distinctly harmful things to my wide-eyed girlish adoration of Mr. Joker. I have a feeling that a few more missions might kill it entirely.

We have just found out what our next mission shall be. We are to wrest a multi-volume set about the Bermuda Triangle from an FBI agent who claimed upon borrowing it that this may be his greatest clue yet to the whereabouts of his sister.

I do hate some of the people we meet in the library business.

However, just wait; I haven't reached the best part yet.

He, his partner (a pretty red-haired woman – I might think about trying that hairstyle someday; I think I'd wear a chin-length bob rather well), and the books are all headed directly for the Bermuda Triangle.

Mr. Joker tells us that the extensive surveillance this fellow has been under leads them to believe that he hopes to trigger an alien abduction by taking the books to the Bermuda Triangle itself.

I wonder if I did lasting damage by knocking him into the doorframe when I tripped over my shoe on the way to get him and his partner some tea.


I'd best not mention to the others that I may very well be responsible for the fact that we are currently on our way some town or other in the vicinity of the Bermuda Bloody Triangle.

They've enough reason to be annoyed with me right now.

Sigh.

However, I've quite abandoned the idea that my wide-eyed girlish adoration for Mr. Joker is fading at all.

I was making fairly decent progress toward a good, strong grudge, and I was even able to convince myself that he's kind of effeminate (the only man I know who uses hand cream), but he had to go and ruin it by telling me in a very kind, thoughtful voice that he hoped I was doing well, and he'd like to meet when we returned to discuss the missions – that perhaps we could go somewhere for a drink or two – and that he was looking forward to it.

I still don't remember my response too clearly, but I heard someone giggling like a dopey, lovestruck idiot after I gave the transmitter to Yomiko, and I have a terrible suspicion that the sound came out of me.

After all, what else could that amused, knowing expression of Nancy's meant?

Well, probably any number of things.

Perhaps I simply get paranoid when I'm horribly over-tired. Going to see if a nap convinces me that the entire world has not known for years that I'm very…appreciative of Mr. Joker's various charms.

Your faithful servant,

Wendy.

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