"Are you out of you mind? Bringing to owls to Roy's house? What is wrong with you?" Beatrice shouted at Mullet Fingers.
"That's fox was attacking them, what was I supposed to do?" Mullet Fingers retorted.
"Hm, I don't now, why not get rid of the fox!" Beatrice raged.
"Guys, guys! Calm down, alright?" Roy intervened as Mullet Fingers opened his mouth to shout back "Beatrice, it's alright, Mullet's staying here for a few days, my parents won't be home until Tuesday anyway, we'll just have to resolve this before then."
"And then what? We through the owls out?" Snapped Mullet Fingers.
"You're the one who took them from their home in the first place." Beatrice pointed out.
"Will you two just please stop fighting? If the neighbors hear shouting they may call the police and that's the last thing we want right now." Roy said.
"Bea, I'm handling it, ok? Don't worry. Tex won't get in trouble." Said Mullet Fingers.
"It's not him I'm worried about." Said Beatrice.
Mullet Fingers rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine too." He said.
His stepsister eyed him for a moment, then turned to Roy. "I've gotta go, make sure he doesn't get himself into any trouble alright?" She said sternly.
"Got it." Said Roy.
Beatrice gave her stepbrother another look of disapproval before bidding farewell to Roy and leaving.
"She's just sour cause I'm stayin with you and not her." Said Mullet Fingers.
"But she knows you can't stay with her, Lonna would ship you off to juvie again." Said Roy.
"That's exactly what I just said. Anyways, what's for dinner?" He asked rubbing his stomach.
"Didn't you eat enough at lunch?" Roy asked.
"Tex, I've been living on people's garbage for the past two months, I'm famished!" Said Mullet Fingers.
"Fine, fine. And it's Roy by the way." He always had to remind him that.
"Hey, that's the name you told me when I first met you, it's written in my head." Said Mullet Fingers, shrugging.
"Ok fine, Napoleon Bridger." Said Roy with a smirk.
Mullet Fingers scowled. "Alright, alright. You win, Roy." He said before departing to the kitchen.
Roy followed him down and went through the cupboards.
"Do you mind hot dogs?" Roy asked.
"I don't mind anything." Said Mullet Fingers.
Roy cooked several hot dogs for he and Mullet Fingers. "So what do you plan on doing about Muckle?" Roy asked while they ate.
"Ok, you know that crappy car of his? First, I'm gonna de-inflate all the tires. After that, I'll spray paint his windows black again, you should've seen his reaction the first time." Mullet Fingers said in an unnecessary undertone.
Roy knew he should try and stop his friend, but also knew he couldn't. "When are you going?" Roy asked.
"Right after we finish eating. I should be back around midnight." He said.
It was still pouring rain. Roy decided if he couldn't change Mullet's mind, he'd at least try to stop him from getting a cold.
"Can you at least wear some sneakers? Your sister'll kill both of us if you end up in the hospital again." Said Roy.
"And what happens if Muckle comes out and finds me? I can run way faster barefoot than in sneakers, haven't you ever tried it?" Mullet Fingers asked.
Roy hadn't. "But there's glass all over his lawn!" Roy pressed.
Mullet Fingers shrugged with one shoulder. "I told you, I've walked through worse." He said as his scarfed down his last hot dog.
"I'll be fine, don't worry. See ya in a bit." Said Mullet Fingers as he got up from the table and departed.
Meanwhile, outside Chuck Muckle's house, a black van was parked. Two men dressed in black sat inside. Some may say they were the F.B.I. but they actually worked under James Howan in the Mother Paula's company. One of them had a headset on. They waited silently in the car. Ten minutes passed. Then, they saw it. The black silhouette of a teenager, barefoot, about five foot eleven. He was creeping over to Muckle's house. One of the men pressed the headset to his mouth.
"We have a visual, Mr Howan." He said quietly.
"Good. Move in." Came Howan's voice.
The van started as the other man moved towards the back and stood by the back door. The van drove across the street and slowed as it passed the boy. The man in the back opened the door, grabbed the teenager, pulled him in and sped off. The struggling teenager's hands and feet were tied and his mouth was taped shut. The driver pressed the headset closer to his mouth again.
"We've got him, sir." He said.
"Excellent. I'm already on my way to the nearest Mother Paula's corporate building, get there quickly. Don't be seen." Howan ordered.
The man in the back injected the boy with some kind of drug that immediately made him stop struggling and pass out.
Vice-President of the Mother Paula's company, James Howan, sat at his desk, awaiting a call. And then it came, the phone began to ring.
"Mrs Leep?" Howan answered.
"That's right. What's this I hear about my son?" A woman's voice snapped.
"It has come to my attention, Mrs Leep, that you have been trying to rid yourself of your son for the past few years, correct?" Howan asked.
"What's it to you?" Lonna Leep asked.
"As you know, your son has caused a lot of trouble with the Mother Paula's company in the past year. I, being the vice-president of the Mother Paula's corporation, have a proposition for you." Said Howan.
"I'm listen'n." Said Lonna.
"Mrs Leep, what would you say if I told you that you would never have to worry about your nuisance of a son ever again?" Howan asked.
"I'd say you was a genius, but I tell ya there ain't nothing or no one who can control that kid." Said Lonna.
A smirk curled on Howan's face. "Rest assured, Mrs Leep, I can. I just need your consent to go to any lengths necessary." Said Howan hopefully.
"Course you got my consent. I don't care what you do to that kid s'long as you keep him outta my hair." Said Lonna.
A grin had now broken out on Howan's face. "So I've got your full support on this?" He asked.
"That's what I just said ain't it?" Lonna snapped.
"Very good, Mrs Leep. I assure you, your son will never trouble you again." Said Howan before hanging up the phone.
He then picked the phone up again and called another number. "We have the mother's consent, you have the go-ahead as soon as he gets there." Said Howan.
"Yes, sir." Said the voice on the other end.
During the call between Lonna Leep and James Howan, someone had been listening on Lonna's end. Beatrice Leep was crouching around the corner, listening closely to the conversation.
"I'd say you was a genius, but I tell ya there ain't nothing or no one who can control the kid." Lonna said into the phone.
Beatrice automatically assumed they were talking about her stepbrother. She was very tempted to go and pick up the other phone to hear what Lonna's correspondent was saying, though she didn't risk it.
"Course you got my consent. I don't care what you do to that kid s'long as you keep him outta my hair." Lonna said into the phone.
Beatrice felt a sudden surge of anger. Now she knew they were talking about her stepbrother.
"That's what I just said ain't it?" Lonna snapped shortly before hanging up.
Lonna was walking down the hall as Beatrice jumped out and stood in front of her.
"What do you want?" She snapped.
"What are you doing to Napoleon?" Beatrice asked angrily.
"Wha- you weren't eavesdropping on my phone call were you?" Beatrice's stepmother snapped furiously.
"What's happening to him? Who were you talking to?" Beatrice asked.
"None of your business." Said Lonna, trying to shove past her.
Without thinking, Beatrice grabbed her stepmother and pinned her up against the wall.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO HIM?" She bellowed in Lonna's face.
"LEON! LEON HELP, YOUR DAUGHTER'S ATTACKING ME!" Screamed Lonna.
Beatrice's father rushed into the room and pulled his daughter off his wife. Beatrice was so livid she couldn't find words to express herself. She just turned and ran out the front door.
"YEAH YOU GO! AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK HERE!" Lonna shouted after her as she ran down the dark and rainy streets of Coconut Cove. As she ran, she was almost hit by a black van that had been speeding down the street.
Roy sat in his living room. He wondered if Mullet Fingers was at Muckle's house by now. There was a loud noise as a black van with a bad muffler roared past his house. Roy took no notice to it. He crept into his bedroom to check on to check on the owls. They were no longer nestled together in the old dog bed, but instead exploring Roy's room.
They're nocturnal. Roy remembered. He made sure the window was shut before closing the door and going back downstairs. When he got there, he jumped to find a soaked Beatrice standing in the middle of the living room.
"What's wrong?" Roy asked her, not needing to know how she got in.
"Wheres's Mullet? Is he still here?" She asked, looking around the house.
"No, he left for Muckle's house about an hour ago, why?" Roy asked.
"I heard Lonna talking on the phone, she was talking about him." Said Beatrice.
"So?" Roy asked.
"So, it sounded like the people she was talking to had him and...and are going to do something really bad to him." Said Beatrice worriedly.
"What was she saying to them?" Roy asked, now starting to get very worried himself.
"She said she didn't care what they did to him as long as they kept him out of her hair." Said Beatrice.
"That doesn't mean they have him, they're probably just planning on capturing him. And you know how he is, he's impossible to catch." Said Roy.
"No, Roy, it sounded like they already had him and were just getting Lonna's permission to hurt him! You didn't hear the conversation, I did. Do you know where he went?" Beatrice asked him.
"Yeah, like I said, he went to Chuck Muckles house to mess some stuff up." Said Roy.
"And you let him!" Cried Beatrice "I told you to keep him out of trouble, cowgirl!"
"You know that once he's made up his mind there's no changing it!" Roy shouted back.
"So? You could've used other ways, like tying him up or locking him in a room or something." Said Beatrice.
"Do you honestly think that could hold him? Why are we wasting our time arguing about it? If he really is in trouble then we should be looking for him." Said Roy, rushing towards the door.
Beatrice agreed and followed him. The rain was finally starting to let up.
Napoleon Bridger Leep was tied to a chair in a small room with one light. He had several little devices attached to his bare chest and his feet were in a bucket of cold water. He guessed he knew what this was for. He sat in the empty room for nearly thirty minutes before the door opened. In walked several men. Two men, dressed in what looked like prison guard uniforms, a tall bald man with round glasses and a grey suit bearing a Mother Paula's emblem on his breast pocket, an ugly short woman dressed in a red dress, an extremely long nose with a wart on the end (Mullet Fingers tried not to laugh) holding a clip board and pen and a young girl who looked like she was in her twenties with curly red hair.
"Do you know who I am, Mr Leep?" The bald man asked.
"A big jerk." Mullet Fingers replied.
The young girl giggled, but then stopped when the bald man looked at her dangerously.
"No, Mr Leep, I am James Howan, Vice-President of the Mother Paula's company. Tell me, do you have and idea how much trouble you've caused me over the last year?" He asked, eying Mullet Fingers over his round glasses.
"No, but I sure hope it was a lot." Said Mullet Fingers darkly.
The young girl was trying hard not to giggle this time. The woman that looked like a witch was jotting down notes on her clipboard. James Howan forced a smile.
"Yes, a lot. Do you know what this machine is?" He said gesturing to the device Mullet Fingers was hooked up to.
He couldn't think of a reply to this, so he remained silent, with a bad feeling that he was about to find out what the machine did the hard way.
"No? Well, Mr Leep, this machine is going to make you pay for all the hell you've put me and the Mother Paula's company through in the last year." Said Howan with a horrible smirk.
"You can't. You hurt me, you go to jail." Said Mullet Fingers.
"Oh, I think not, Mr Leep. You see, I've received consent from you're dear mother to do anything I wish to you in order to keep you out of her hair. Anything I wish!" Sneered Howan.
The young girl was no longer holding back giggles. She looked very upset.
"Would you like to see how it works, Mr Leep?" Howan asked.
"Do your worst." Said Mullet Fingers.
"Hm. We'll see how confident you are after testing out my machine." Said Howan. He turned to one of the guards "Let's give him a four." He said.
The guard turned a tiny dial on a control pad. He then pressed a button and the device and immediately Mullet Fingers felt volts of electricity running through his body. He wanted to burst out screaming, but didn't. He just sat there, glaring at Howan, who did not look impressed.
"Five." Said Howan.
The dial clicked and more pain hit Mullet Fingers. Still, his expression went unchanged.
"Seven!" Snarled Howan.
Now the pain was unbearable, even for someone like Mullet Fingers. He was biting his lip as hard as he could, he could taste blood. His eyes were closed tightly, trying not to scream. He was sure he would hear Howan snarl eight st any second, but instead, a girls voice shouted "Stop it! Stop it you're hurting him!"
Mullet Fingers opened his eyes to see the young girl with red hair tugging at Howan's sleeve.
"Thank you for that second opinion, Miss Rouge, but hurting him is exactly what I intend this machine to do." Said Howan.
"James!" She cried "If you don't stop this then I'll quit!"
Howan immediately raised his hand and the machine shut down.
"Well, Mr Leep, you're in luck. It seems that some of our staff seem to have some concern as to what becomes of you. Until tomorrow, then." Said Howan as he turned on his heel and left the room.
His accomplices followed him. The young girl named Miss Rouge looked back at him sympathetically before shutting the door behind her.