I forgot about this: there are going to be spoilers for past Henry Danger episodes in this story, and I may or may not make references to new ones when they come out next month.
Piper did leave the park after a few minutes, shortly before Henry and the others did. While she did spend most of the ride fuming, her mind was buzzing with a new plan:
If Henry really was Kid Danger, then obviously they couldn't be in the same place at the same time… if that makes sense. Anyway, her idea was to find days when Kid Danger (oh, and Captain Man. Him too) did something and see where Henry was. Simple, right?
Actually, yeah, but she would have to do a bit of digging.
This job was made easier by the fact that she keeps a complete record of everything the super pair had done. When Piper arrived back at her house, she ran to her room and retrieved the binder she bought just for that purpose.
Armed with that, her laptop, a pad of paper, a pencil and some juice, Piper sat down on the couch and opened her binder to the last entry.
Not much was written there, it having been pretty recent, but that was the day that Captain Man and Kid Danger had to rescue an old lady from being pushed down a mountain. Piper hadn't gotten everything written down yet, but she remembered that Henry had been at work that day.
Wait. Piper realized something: that was the day of her prom. (Well, technically, the school only called it that, it wasn't really a prom.) But it got canceled because some water pipes burst and flooded the place. Piper, who had been having a crisis with two dates and a ruined "prom" dress, was relieved that she had some time to fix it.
But anyway, that's not the point.
The point is that Charlotte and Jasper were both at Junk N' Stuff that day, and they were wearing really, really weird outfits. Piper had brushed it off at the time, too concerned with her own problems. But now, it was kind of weirding her out.
Piper wrote down old lady down a mountain, Henry at work (supposedly) and went back a few pages in her binder.
The next event was similar, at least for Piper. That was the day Captain Man and Kid Danger were busy dealing with the toddler in the Man Cave. Piper had gone to Junk N' Stuff to make Henry fix her phone- it took over forty five minutes for him to come up.
Piper flipped through everything she had written down, as well as news clippings she had glued in. It fit.
She wrote on the paper some more.
Eventually, Piper gave up on writing things down and just flipped through the binder. From the Jandy Bridge incident to the more recent thing with Heather and the diamonds, Piper just couldn't find a time where she was with Henry while Kid Danger was around.
She sighed and closed the binder. God, that was a lot of work.
At least she knew one thing: in every incident, she was pretty sure that Henry wasn't around at the time.
One thing confused her, though: the whole "green truck" incident. She didn't like recalling hitting said truck, but she hadn't actually seen Henry once, even though she talked to him and was supposed to give her his house key.
Piper didn't know the whole story, obviously, but at any rate she was starting to get even more suspicious.
Still, though, she couldn't come up with any real proof.
Piper sighed and rubbed her eyes.
This, she thought, is going to be so much work.
Meanwhile, Henry and Charlotte were unsuccessfully trying to track down Dr. Minyak and Nurse Cohort. Schwoz was showing Ray a new weapon he was working on downstairs. Jasper was dealing with a particularly difficult customer in the store.
Actually, the difficult customer was the main reason why they hadn't found the pair of villains yet. Henry and Charlotte had gotten distracted watching all the drama with a bucket of popcorn.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we do not seek real human heads here."
"But my niece says she bought a boy's head for her daughter here once!"
"That head was FAKE, ma'am, it did not actually come from a human boy."
The lady started spitting out some very bad words. Jasper glanced up at one of the cameras, clearly begging for help.
"You think one of us should help him?" Charlotte tore her eyes away from the screen long enough to glance at Henry.
"Yeah, you can go help him."
"Me?!"
Henry shrugged. "Well, yeah."
The got into a silly little argument. In the end, after flipping a coin three times, Charlotte was the one to go upstairs.
Henry, looking forward to watching the drama unfold, got more popcorn and was just sitting back down when Ray and Schwoz came up the tubes.
"Hey, Henry! Look at what Schwoz ma- wait, what are you watching?"
"A lady up in Junk N' Stuff is giving Jasper a hard time, and Charlotte just went up to help him. Wanna watch?"
Ray and Schwoz took some popcorn out of the bucket ("Too much butter," Ray whined) and watched Charlotte attempt to help calm down the customer.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we do not sell real human heads here."
The lady launched her argument again. Charlotte looked over at the security camera like Jasper had earlier, only she was glaring at Henry. He and the others laughed.
The lady started whining again. "If you don't sell me what I want, I will tell! I… I will called Captain Man and Kid Danger on you!"
THAT made everyone down in the Man Cave real quiet. Then they all looked at each other and started laughing again.
In fact, they were laughing so hard and loudly that they almost didn't hear the emergency alarm go off.
Without turning on their camera, Ray answered. "Captain Man and Kid Danger" was all he could manage before snorting uncontrollably. Henry took as deep a breath as he could before spitting out, "what is your emergency."
The angry customer appeared on screen, and they could see her face more clearly now; it was covered in so much makeup she looked like Mulan, and also a bit like the Matchmaker because it was so smudged.
The lady immediately started whining. "These-" she called Charlotte and Jasper a very bad word that made everyone stop laughing "- in a junk shop refuse to sell me the item that I want!"
Pretending he didn't know, Henry asked, "What is it you're looking for, ma'am?" He covered his mouth in attempt to keep from laughing again, very glad they couldn't be seen by the customer.
"My niece said she bought a head here, and they say they have no real heads! Only imitation knockoffs."
Ray, though more emerging laughter, said, "Ma'am, this would not qualify as an emergency unless they had real heads for sale. Please-"
Before Ray could continue, the lady threw down her phone and stomped out of the store. Having seen it happen on another screen, Henry hung up and they watched her stomp back in for it and leave again.
Charlotte came back down to see Henry literally rolling on the floor laughing. Ray was leaning on the table, and Schwoz was sitting on the couch, laughing their butts off like there was no tomorrow.
Charlotte rolled her eyes and stomped back to her chair. "You wouldn't be laughing if you had to deal with her."
Henry managed to get up and stand next to her. "Come on, Char, if you were down here you'd be laughing, too."
He stared her down until she smiled. "I guess you're right."
Henry smiled. "Of course I'm right." Charlotte playfully smacked him and they actually started working.
So I just started school again... whoa.
Ciao, and Happy Reading!