Here we go with the next episode, 'Bag of Money'! Anyway, enjoy!
Have you ever had one of those days where one thing leads to another? Well, I had one of those days...
Let me set it up. Me, Nadine, Phoebe, Sheena and new member Lila were just joining up with Olga, Sharlene, Carver and a couple other friends as we were sitting around Olga's room as Olga peeked, then shut the door. We were all in our 'NO PEOPLE' shirts, Lila was wearing hers on top of her dress.
Olga sighed as she sat down and pulled out her gavel, sitting down at her desk and tapping it with the gavel. "Okay, daddy's at a golf game, and mom's doing community service. For what, I'm afraid I can't say. But either way, it gives me enough time for this!"
Olga smiled. "I call this NO PEOPLE meeting to order, the National Organization for People's Earnesty Over People's Love for Engorgement. Brother Carver, the minutes of our last meeting."
Carver nodded as he got up and coughed. "8:01, we started the meeting. 8:05, we started to complain and gripe. 8:08, we started griping and complaining. 8:15, we ate food, griped and complained. Then we all went home to eat, gripe and complain."
Carver then sat down.
"Thank you, Carver, that was NOT what happened at our last meeting, but we'll take it for what it's worth." Olga said.
"Olga, there's nothing we come here to do. I have a feeling you just call these meetings because you just want to talk to people." Sharlene frowned.
"Sorry to say, Olga, but... we haven't had a food-related crime over the past couple months." I explained. "Nor an animal one for that matter."
"The black haired kid with the square glasses is right!" Jackie frowned. "Is there any particular reason you're calling these meetings or are you just bored with your regular life?"
"Number two." Olga sighed. "Sorry to keep calling you guys like this, but there's not a whole lot to do. Besides, we hang out, don't we? It's a good get together." Olga smiled. "Besides, I always bring the snacks..."
"Which is the perfect reason to come, come on, dish it out, baby!" Sharlene smirked.
Olga sighed. "I suppose there's not a whole lot we can do... very well, I'll get the snacks."
As Olga came over, Lila sighed. "You say this was a very active club?"
"It was during a very good time." I sighed. "Though now I'm not sure what we can do with this idea..."
"Maybe if we had a little funding, we could probably go nationwide with NO PEOPLE." Sharlene sighed. "Though, where we get the money for it, I'm not sure..."
Phoebe then pulled me down to the side. "Wait a minute! Rhonda, maybe you can get your parents to fund NO PEOPLE! Maybe if we can get people aware of their weight or the safety of animals, maybe we can really go national!"
"I don't know... do you think the government will go for it?" I whispered.
"Why not?" Phoebe shrugged.
I paused to think about this. "I'll have to talk with my parents, but maybe with the right amount of money, maybe we can go for it! Why not?"
Phoebe smiled as we saw Olga came in. I was ready to present my idea to her.
A little later that day, after we were dismissed from the meeting, I went over to my place and talked with my parents, offering the idea to them.
"I don't know, sweetheart." My mom sighed. "I mean, we love Olga, but your little club, while it does mean well, usually gets into a LOT of trouble."
"But mom, think of this!" I said as I laid it down on her. "If we can make NO PEOPLE go nationwide, we'd be a lot famous, helping other people learn to be nice... lose weight, help people protect wildlife... make sure we get along safely!"
My mom and dad looked at me as my dad sighed a bit, "Our little girl certainly has changed since the first day of her preschool... honey, how can we say no to that?"
"Well... if it's for a good cause..." My mom turned to me. "I suppose we'll give your club fifty bucks to start with. We can call Olga tonight and see where it goes from there..."
I nodded. "All right, Mom. You can do that..."
"Okay, sweetheart. We'll see what we can offer..." My mom told me.
A little later, I decided to take a ride around town, examining my phone. You know, I always used this to call... but I don't know what the other features were... I couldn't help but be distracted by the small circular piece on the top of my phone. What was it, anyway? Maybe there was something in my phone that explained it, but I had no clue.
"Hey, Rhonda." Arnold said as he joined me on the bus, he seemed to be holding a bag of some kind.
"Hey, Arnold. Hey, could you help me with this?" I said as I pointed to my phone.
"I don't know much about machines, but maybe I can try to see what I can do." Arnold said. "What is it you want to know about your phone?"
"What is that circular piece on the top?" I asked, pointing to that circular piece.
"Looks like a camera lens..." Arnold said in shock. "You mean you didn't know you had a camera phone on you this whole time? Rhonda, you're the richest girl I know, you should be lucky to get one of these!"
"Wait... a camera phone?" I said, looking at it.
"Yeah, look, if you swing it around like this..." Arnold said as he pushed a couple of buttons... and the next thing I knew, I saw Arnold's face and my own on the phone. "...you get the camera view."
Arnold pushed the button on the side of the phone as the picture froze.
"Cool!" I smiled as I took the phone. "I never knew that!"
As I started to look around with my new view of the camera phone, I started talking to Arnold, "So what you got in the bag, Arnold?"
"Oh, that. Well, there's a lot of money in this bag, but I'm turning it in to the police. Sid and Gerald are going to be there with me. See, yesterday, we were walking along when we found this bag of money, exactly three thousand nine hundred and thirty seven dollars. I gave the idea to turn it to the police, since this isn't our money..."
"I'm listening..." I said as I noticed an old woman with a peg leg, pink hair and one eyebrow holding a lot of grocery bags sitting next to Arnold. I couldn't resist snapping a picture.
"Well, anyway..." Arnold said as we scooted over a bit.
"Thank you, younglings." The old woman said as I continued snapping pictures... I noticed a bird popping out of her hair, I had to snap a photo right there.
"Anyway, Sid and Gerald lent the money to me so that we could turn it in today." Arnold said as I snapped another photograph of him. Arnold frowned. "I know you like your new toy, but can you please refrain from snapping pictures for a minute?"
"One more, one more!" I said as the bus stopped and the old woman picked up the bags. I quickly snapped a picture of the bags she was holding. "Okay, continue."
"Yeah..." Arnold sighed. "Anyway, that is about it... if you'd like, you can come along to see us turn in the money."
"All right, I suppose I don't have anything better to do..." I said. "Other than play with my new camera!"
Arnold sighed as I started taking pictures.
Pretty soon, we arrived at the police station as Gerald and Sid were waiting. Sid sighed as he said, "Why did you bring Rhonda?"
"She just came along for the trip." Arnold explained as I started snapping a picture of Gerald and Sid. "And she just figured out her own phone was a camera phone."
"Isn't it cool!" I smiled as I snapped a photo of the bag Arnold was holding. As I looked at the new picture, I noticed something peculiar.
"Well, let's go turn it in." Gerald said.
"Turn in what, that bag of bird seed?" I asked.
"Bird seed?" Arnold said as he, Gerald and Sid stopped as Arnold looked at the bag again. "Bir- oh no! That old lady on the bus, she must have taken it by mistake!"
"What are you talking about?" Gerald frowned.
"Where's our money?" Sid frowned.
"There was this old lady on the bus, and she had pink hair, and a peg leg... and one eyebrow. And she had a bunch of plastic bags with her, and she must have taken my bag by mistake." Arnold said.
"Let me get this straight." Gerald frowned. "A lady with a peg leg and one eyebrow..."
"And pink hair? That is the craziest story I have ever heard!" Sid frowned.
"I know it sounds a little weird, but it's true! Rhonda was there, she... actually, hang on!" Arnold said. "Rhonda, can I borrow your phone?"
"Sure." I said as I gave him the phone as Arnold was starting to push a couple of buttons. Gerald and Sid just watched, Sid with a disbelieving look on his eye as Arnold nodded. "Rhonda, could you please explain each picture you took to them as if talking in a slide show?"
"Certainly." I said as I took the phone.
"And in this picture, you can see the old lady has a pigeon in her hair." I said, pointing towards my phone as Gerald and Sid stared wide-eyed. "And as you can see in THIS picture..."
"Okay, okay!" Sid said in shock. "If there's photographic evidence, we believe you! Just stop talking like that!"
"Sorry, man." Gerald said, looking down. "I guess you are still true blue."
"It's all right. I know it was a pretty crazy story." Arnold sighed in relief.
"But we just lost our reward!" Sid groaned. "Now that old lady's going to notice the money, and she can either keep it for herself, or turn it in, whichever one comes first!"
"Don't worry, Sid. As they say, good things comes to those who wait." Arnold smiled. "Maybe we'll get the money back, maybe we won't. But who knows? It was worth a shot, though."
Gerald nodded. "That's right, Sid. No need to get all fussy."
Sid sighed. "I suppose you're right. Well, I guess that's that, then. I might as well get my frog and practice catching him."
"Oh, is that frog-catching contest coming up?" I asked, out of curiosity.
"Not for another week or so, but you never know." Sid said.
"Cool." I nodded as we walked together.
"You know, I just heard Simmons and Pataki are about to announce their next new play for the upcoming theater performance." Gerald said.
"Oh really?" I asked as we kept walking down.
"Yeah... from Fuzzy Slippers. What a guy, that Fuzzy Slippers. Anyway, they're going to announce it sometime this week. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I'm curious to see what it is." Gerald smiled.
"Wow..." I said as we continued walking and talking.
Me, Arnold and Gerald were sitting around as we watched Sid releasing his frog, letting it hop around. Sid snuck around as he managed to catch his pet frog. I snapped a picture as Arnold and Gerald clapped. Sid smiled as he put his frog back in his cage. "Thank you, thank you..."
We noticed Sid was still looking down, depressed as we looked at each other, before Arnold said, "What's wrong, Sid?"
"I guess I'm still depressed we didn't get the reward money. Who knows what that old lady is doing with it right now?" Sid groaned.
"Don't worry about it, Sid." Gerald frowned. "So we lost a chance to get a reward, it's not the end of the world."
"Besides, good things come to those who wait, didn't I just say that?" Arnold said as I continued snapping a picture of a tree.
"Well..." Sid looked up... and saw a police car coming by. "Say... isn't that the old woman you told us about?"
Arnold, Gerald and I looked up to see the old woman coming out of the car, motioning to us. Arnold looked over and nodded. "Yeah, that's her. And looks like she still has the bag of money. I still have the bird seed, so I guess we can explain what happened."
Sid smiled as he said, "She didn't turn it in, thank God!"
"Like I told you, good things come to those who wait." Arnold smiled as he, Gerald and Sid walked off.
"Keep an eye on Sidney, would you, Rhonda?" Sid said.
"All right." I said, using the new camera phone to take a picture. I sighed as I sat down. It was fun playing with this camera phone, but I eventually got bored of it. If only I had...
"...she may be on to us."
Was that Curly?
I hid behind the bushes as I looked out. Indeed, there he was, talking with Caroline. Those two orange cloaked figures were with them as well, weirdly enough.
Caroline sighed as I watched. "I was afraid of this. Because of some of the changes, I was afraid she may have caught on to some clues..."
"Well, just as long as she doesn't know about where SHE is, we're set." The first orange cloaked figure, who spoke in a nasally like voice... say, that voice seemed familiar. Could it be I heard it before, in a dream?... was looking at some odd device.
"But I'm afraid it's not going to be enough. We need to keep this ruse going. No matter what happens, a life has to be saved!" Caroline said.
"But how do we do that, na no da? It's bad enough there's been a few screw-ups!" The other black cloaked figure, sounding like a female little kid, said.
"I know, I know..." Caroline groaned. "Look, as long as Solara doesn't find her, we're fine! After all, we're still good. Either way, we need to be careful!"
"Right..." The nasally sounding cloaked figure sighed as he sipped on his soda.
I couldn't resist snapping a quick picture before turning back.
"Did you hear something?" The female sounding cloaked figure said, but I knew I didn't have time as I saw Sid, Arnold and Gerald come back.
"Great, you're back, let's go!" I said as I handed Sidney to Sid.
"But-" Sid started.
"I said let's go!" I said as I started pushing them off.
"What is this all about?" Arnold asked as I pushed them off.
"I can't explain, I just... want a change of scenery, that's all." I said as we started walking faster.
I looked back. I knew any minute now Curly, Caroline or one of those cloaked figures would investigate where I was. Just pray to God they didn't follow me...
And thank God they didn't.
There's episode one hundred and thirty-three! How'd you like it? The last scene, this is a set-up for something that's coming along a LOT later... but for now, it adds to the mystery. Well, anyway, read, review, criticize and suggest, folks! And don't forget to check out or add tropes to the TVTropes page of this story!