Davy opened his eyes to the bright sun glaring through the big window of Samantha's living room. He had laid back down on the couch after saying goodbye to Samantha, who had left for work earlier that morning. As soon as he had settled back in, he was out. After all, it had been a stressful night and being so worked up, it was hard to sleep. He doubted if he'd slept at all, just waiting for Micky to jump out from behind the couch with a butterfly net in hand. He was amazed how many small noises he had woken to and how many he swore sounded just like Mick sneaking up on him. When the daylight finally came, he had felt safe enough to finally catch a wink.

He swung his legs down and got up, stretching and straightening his hair. He looked around the small, neat apartment. It was a pretty nice set up. He decided he might stay a few more days. Rustling around in the grocery bags he had put beside the couch last night, he began pulling out breakfast items and setting them on the coffee table. He reached back in the bag, feeling around, then stopped.

Quite suddenly, a bad feeling had struck him. He slowly looked back at the table where a colorful piece of paper sat. It dawned on Davy in the next instant when he realized the strange note had replaced his beloved maracas.

He ran to the table and snatched up the note. He was scared to read it, but the possible whereabouts of his maracas scared him even more. Looking at the ominous note, Davy thought it should have taken a good hour to construct, but then, remembering it was Micky, guessed it probably only took ten minutes. The letters had been cut out of magazines and glued to the paper, making it quite difficult for him to read.

Mr. I ones, If you ever want to SEE your precious Mar acas again, you Will bring your self to 1334 N Beach wood drive, under the deck, high noOn. come a lone Don't GET the p 0 lice inv loved. Sign ed, An e NE my

A cruel image flashed in Davy's mind of his wonderful mismatched instruments all alone and in the cold, terrible clutches of Dolenz! He could imagine them being dismembered bead by bead, or smashed against the floor, or hidden forever in some dark corner to rot, never to be loved and played again. The anger and fear welled up inside him and he took off at high speed out the front door, nevermind that it was only ten o'clock.

~M~

After Mike had practiced with Peter their newer song and lost a G string on the last chord, he gently placed the blonde guitar back into its case by the bandstand. He walked over to the small calendar on their wall, which was filled with Mike's handwriting and no one else's, and marked a date when he could go visit the guitar store and buy a new string, since they had just run out of backups. He sighed. Sometimes it felt like he was the only one around here that actually did anything to keep their lives running. But, looking at the state of the pad and knowing that half of the crew was gone, decided that he'd best clean up or no one would.

He started picking up things and putting them back where they belonged. Peter practiced his part once more before starting on the dishes. Soon, Mike had a small pile of Peter's things in his arms that hadn't found a home yet. He decided he'd go put them on Peter's bed to deal with when he was done with dishes.

What he found was an open window and a torn apart mess.

"Aw, man."

~M~

Peter rinsed off the last plate, feeling much better after playing with Mike. That is until he heard Mike from the other room.

"Peter! Come in here."

Peter gulped, automatically assuming the worst and praying Mike would have pity on him. He walked to his bedroom, stopping in the door frame to stare at the mess within. His bedsheets were in a tangled pile at the foot of the bed, most of the contents of his drawers had been ferociously strewn onto the floor and one of his favorite shirts, a brown and white checked dress shirt, had many large holes in it. On top of everything else, a large assortment of buttons, ranging from big, pink, square buttons to small, Buddha-shaped buttons were scattered across everything.

Peter gasped in dismay, "My button collection!" He immediately dove to the floor, frantically picking up the scattered rain of plastic, wood, and metal bits. Mike kneeled down to help.

"So, what happened?" he questioned.

"I don't know! But it wasn't nice."

Mike looked at the open window while depositing a small handful of buttons into Peter's hand. He noticed some more on the windowsill and went to collect them, wondering how they'd gotten there. He leaned out the window to look for clues and caught sight of the wreckage below. The trash cans were spilled and thoroughly rifled through. Garbage was everywhere and Mike didn't like that he recognized it. The work of a raccoon.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"You finish up in here. I've got to go pick up the trash. I think a raccoon got in here."

"Do you think it's still in here?"

"No, but... keep an eye out."

Peter kept at it, hoping desperately that he would be able to find all of his buttons. He deposited the results of the first sweep in the jar that he had found. Strangely, the jar was completely empty of buttons. It hadn't just fallen. Someone or something had picked them all out and thrown them about. Hopefully they hadn't absconded with any. Peter would have a hard enough time reorganizing them. He picked up his wad of sheets and beat them out to straighten them and see if any buttons would fall. A few did, but when he lowered the sheets, he saw a head in the window.

"Psst! Petah! I need your 'elp!"

Peter's eyes widened. Davy was in bad with Micky, and if Peter got involved, he knew he would be too. He shook his head mutely.

"Come on! Please?"

Peter, in the face of Davy's polite plea for help couldn't take this any longer. He ran from the room, hoping the problem would go away.

~M~

When Mike got outside with his extra trash bags and really took in the damage, he sighed. He righted the first can and opened his bag, attempting to shovel in as much as he could before he had to pick banana peels and moldy bread slices up one by one. He got all the trash cans up and the torn bags into new bags before he decided to speak up.

"Davy, how long you gonna stand there?"

"Oh, hi, Mike." Davy stepped around the moth-eaten couch and rusty floor lamp comprising a portion of Micky's furniture pile to be repurposed in future. "Just— having second thoughts."

"Well give me whichever ones, first or second, while you help me clean up."

Davy held open the new trash bags while Mike deposited the garbage inside. "I need your help," he confessed.

"Oh. So you're not just coming back home?"

Davy heard the tone and answered cautiously. "Well, not exactly."

"So...?" Mike inserted some disapproval.

Davy sighed anxiously. "Well, you're the closest thing we have to a policeman or detective or lawyer—"

"What?"

"I got a note." His voice turned from nervous to stricken, causing Mike to frown.

"From?"

Davy seemed almost mute for a moment, working his jaw without a sound coming out. Then, "How do you respond to a ransom note?"

Mike's face turned to panic, or at least the coolest, calmest panic of anyone who thought his clear thinking and ability to defend and protect his best friends—what he considered one of his biggest responsibilities—had just failed him. Davy could see him mentally counting all four. "You're all here. Or, I just saw Micky—"

"No, no." Davy quickly corrected before Mike started to think of a grand scheme to save Peter or Micky or both. "It's my maracas."

"What?" Mike's previous train of thought crashed before he jumped onto the next one and put things together. "Micky stole them?"

Davy nodded and Mike thought he saw tears welling up until Davy took a deep breath and looked straight into his eyes again. This time Mike saw rage.

"Well," Mike said decidedly, "we'll go put him straight."

Losing his cool again, Davy exclaimed, "But...but my maracas!"

"What about them?"

"We've got to think of their safety!"

"What do you m—"

"Read the note." Davy shoved it into Mike's hands.

Mike looked at it skeptically then mouthed an 'oh' as he turned it right side up and continued to read the note with all seriousness. At the end, he looked up at Davy. He had been expecting something worse and he was now beginning to worry about Davy, who was staring at him expectantly.

"Well, I guess we should meet him at noon and see what he wants," he said practically.

Davy's jaw dropped, "That's your plan? To play along?"

Mike was almost at his tipping point for the amount of drama he could take in one day. He crossed his arms, "You got anything better, Shotgun?"

"Wah...but," Davy stuttered, then lost his pride, "...hhm, no."

"Alright then." He placed the bag back into the trash can and headed for the deck. "Are you going to come in or hide for two hours?" Davy quickly caught up with Mike.

"Both."