Author's Note: Again, working on more than one chapter per day. I finished chapter ten this afternoon and am already writing chapter eleven while waiting for my dad, so we can go for a walk together. Then I am going to force him to watch The Goonies. My beloved favorite movie. He thinks I love it so much because there is an actor I am in love with in it. Which is kind of creepy, because everyone except Brand is a good 4 or 5 years younger than I am, and the guy who plays Brand isn't my type sweatdrop Eh, well. The actual adventure will come soon, I promise upon promise.

We'd been sitting on the rock for nearly an hour when Brand said, "Dammit! I forgot to see if the train left. I blame you and your bloody breathing problems, Mikey." He shot Mikey a nasty look. He mumbled under his breath, and I could pick out the phrases "Damn kid" "I'll give you a breathing problem" and a word I am not willing to repeat. At this Andy smacked him lightly in the back of the head in reprimand, and he stopped muttering.

"Don't worry about it," said Andy. "I'm sure he's gone."

But something in the pit of my stomach didn't think so.

As usual (well, not really), I was right. We got back to the tavern around 5:30, and our friend Grover was sitting there with another man I didn't recognize. The other man was the picture of a nineteenth century gentleman, complete with a top hat and a cigar. I motioned to Brand, but he'd already seen Grover. Apparently Grover had seen us too, and whispered something to his comrade. Even if he hadn't spotted us before, Mouth's outburst of "jerk alert" would have caught his attention.

The gentleman leaned over to see past Rover and inspected us.

"Chunk," Mikey whispered. "Do the Truffle Shuffle."

"Now?"

"Do it!" he hissed.

Chunk climbed on the bench, pulled up his shirt and wiggled about, his unattractive rolls of belly fat jiggling. The gentleman looked away, disgusted. I hoped he hadn't gotten too good of a look. Then again, we were unmistakable. How many groups like us do you see traveling around?

We hurried back into our rooms as fast as we could.

"Good grief," said Brand, sinking down on one of the beds. "Good grief."

"Who was that with him?" Andy asked.

"Abraham Lincoln," Mikey piped up. I smiled at him, and he laughed quietly.

"I'm getting concerned," Brand said seriously. "He dropped his accent on the train, mentioned Daniel Bradford, and now is here...he suspects something, I know it. I don't think HE thinks we're on the run from the law anymore."

"I bet we're on the run from the police by now," said Andy. "Someone must have alerted them."

"But like I said before, nobody would expect us to get on the livestock train," I pointed out, remembering the cows. Urgh. I really hate cows. I would be perfectly fine if I never had to get close to them again.

Someone knocked on our door. "God, why did he have to see us? Why did he have to choose THIS pub?" Brand spat out quietly, motioning for the rest of us to go into the closet. When we were all safely (and uncomfortably) crammed into the closet, I heard him say, "Who is it?" I didn't hear a reply, but Brand said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Do come in," and the door opened and shut. "Come on out, guys, it's only Mouth."

Brand opened the doors to the closet and Andy, Mikey and I tumbled out in a heap. Mouth cracked up. "What is this, a threesome?"

"Shut up, Mouth," Mikey said.

Mouth's face turned serious. "You guys, something is going on. I really, really don't think that this Grover guy means good news, and neither does his top-hatted friend. I've checked the map, the place isn't too far, let's just go now!"

"Mouth, we can't do that," said Andy.

"Why not? If we wait until tomorrow we could give Grover and his partner in crime a head start."

"Wait," I said. "We are not positive he is looking for the same thing as we are."

"Of course he is!" Brand said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You heard him talking about Daniel Bradford, he said he was looking for him. I'm nearly sure of it."

"Yes, but how would he know where he is going?" I asked. "The boys have the map!"

"That may be true, but he somehow found his way to Jajowe. He must know where he is going to an extent," Andy pointed out.

Suddenly all the lights went out, including our own lamp. I guess that meant that the tavern was closing. Brand lit a lantern and we all went back to conversing about the possibilities.

Eventually Mouth went back to his room, and Data came over carrying a lantern, announcing, "We should get an early start, guys! My clock, says it's 9. Go to bed NOW!"

"Nine o'clock?" I asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "Why the hell would we want..."

He put his hand over my mouth. "Go to bed and be quiet!" And he left, closing the door with finality. The room was completely dark.

Damn.

I guess I didn't realize how truly tired I was until I sank down into bed next to Andy. Brand and Mikey were sharing the other bed, the one closer to the closet. Mikey's steady, slow breathing indicated that he was already asleep. Andy turned over in bed and nestled her head into the space between the two pillows. That's the last thing I remember.

At least until the next morning, or rather, I estimated, about 5 a.m. when someone came barging into the room. My first thought was, Why don't they lock the doors of the rooms in this place? My second thought was, Oh god, it's Grover and Abe!

But no, it was only Data and Brand. Data was holding a lantern, and Brand looked absolutely ferocious. He had a wild look in his eyes.

"Good grief, Brand," I groaned. "What is it? It's too early!"

"Chunk is missing!" Data said, coming over and jumping on the end of my bed. "Wake up, Luna! Wake up NOW!"

"I'm awake!" I rolled out of bed. I mean, I literally rolled out of the bed and onto the wooden floor. "Oof!"

"We can't find Chunk anywhere!" said Brand, his voice cracking at the first syllable of 'anywhere.' "We've looked all over the tavern, in the bathrooms, behind the bar, the closets, everywhere!"

I lifted myself off of the floor into a sitting position. "Chunk is hard to miss, guys," I said, still half asleep and not fully understanding the predicament.

"Luna, Data Bond 007 commands you to wake up right...NOW!" said Data loudly, swinging the lantern in front of my face and accidentally hitting me in the head with it, knocking me over.

"God, Double-O-Negative!" yelled Mouth, coming in from outside the doorframe. "You've probably knocked her out now, you're causing more problems than you're solving!"

I was starting to wake up now, and stood up, rubbing the tender bump on my head. "Owww..."

"You're jinxed, Data," teased Mouth. "If she spends another freakin' day in your presence she'll die!"

Data looked hurt, but he knelt down next to me. "Chunk. Is. Missing," he repeated. "Brand says Grover took him away!"

I leapt up, frightened. "Someone ask the bartender if he saw Grover leave last night!"

"Andy's doing that right now," Brand said. I immediately sat down on the bed, feeling disappointed that someone had thought of that before I did. And why didn't they wake me immediately?

Right on cue, Andy came rushing in with Mikey. "The bartender says that they both spent the night here. Both of them should still be here."

"Find out where they are staying!" Brand practically screeched. "We can't lose him! Search their room if you can!"

Mikey slumped down next to me. The lights in the tavern chose this moment to come on again, and I could see fear and worry reflected in his eyes. "We're going to find Chunk, aren't we? We need to, we can't go on an adventure without Chunk!" I noticed that his face looked tearstained. The gurgling in his chest started up again, but he pulled his inhaler out of his jeans pocket and pushed the button on top. The dreaded sound went away.

I turned away from Mikey and looked back at Brand. He stared at me, his gaze was intense and I felt like his eyes were piercing my very flesh. I was tempted to wince, but simply stared back. "Are you bloody COMING?" he finally erupted.

I looked back at Mikey, who just sat there, looking defeated. This kid, who never gave up on the One-Eyed Willy adventure. Never gave up on busting the Fratellis, didn't give up when Data fell down the hole in the floor, didn't give up when Andy played the wrong notes on the piano of bones. But here he was, giving up on someone that he cared about.

"No," I said simply. Brand threw up his hands and stomped out the door.

"Why are you giving up, Mikey?" I asked. "You never give up!"

"I haven't."

"Why aren't you doing anything?"

"We never checked this room, you know."

"Well, why not!"

"I asked Brand about it, and he said Chunk couldn't be in here, because he would have heard him come in."

So Mikey and I scoured the room. We looked under the sink cupboard. We looked in the closet.

Mikey pulled out all of the drawers in the dresser. It was so absurd I couldn't help but laugh. "Why the hell are you looking in there?"

Mikey simply looked at me. "You never know," he said seriously.

He then made me look under Andy's and my bed, and he looked under his and Brand's.

Sure enough, there was Chunk, sleeping soundly under my bed. He was wearing footie pajamas, and held some kind of animal that had been patched so many times over I couldn't tell what it was.

I started laughing. And couldn't stop. Chunk still didn't wake up, which just made me laugh harder.

"What's going on?" Andy's voice called from down the hall.

"We found Chunk!" Mikey said happily.

The whole gang came rushing into the room, cramming to get through the doorway. "You found Chunk?" "Where is he?" "How the hell did he fit under the bed?"

"He...he won't..." I choked out.

"What?" Andy asked. "He won't what?"

"He won't...wake up!" I said, laughing even harder than before. I don't know why exactly I found this to be so funny, but pretty soon everyone else was nearly rolling on the floor. Chunk finally did wake up a couple minutes later and screamed, "Where am I?" in such a panic that we started up again, Chunk included (that was, after he had gotten over the embarrassment of sleeping under our bed and being caught in his footie pajamas with his stuffed whatsit).

"Well," Mikey said, a few minutes later after we had all regained our breath again. "Since we're all awake, let's go on and get going."

"I just want to get out of here, because there are going to be a lot of tired guests trying to chop our limbs off," I said.

"I want out because Grover and his friend were not happy at all when I barged into their room," Brand said. "They probably want to kill us more now than they did before..."

"Wait..." said Chunk. "They wanted to kill us before?"

Brand shook his head. "It's just a suspicion. Don't worry about it." As if that settled it. But I saw the way Chunk looked at him. I knew what that look meant. Put into words, it translated as "You know something I don't know, and it pisses me off that you aren't telling me, you jerk."