-Chapter Three-

::The Funeral::

Oh my head hurt.

I woke up in a bed with white sheets, the sun shining in on my face, and the right side of my head just throbbing.

Groggily, I opened my eyes and rubbed my head. What happened? I couldn't remember.

Then it all came flooding back. The party. Joey. The voices.

I looked around now. Nobody was here, but to my left there a door ajar and sunlight was pouring in through the crack. I decided to go out there.

I walked out the door, and to my amazement, no one was here. There should be animals walking around, enjoying the day, and making money. But no one was outside.

And where was Joey? Did they take his body away? Where was he anyways when he died? Wait, it was about fifty yards to the left of the large cliff. Yes that was it. I was sure of it.

I started to walk in that direction.

Wow. The sun can be hot. I haven't been out here for five minutes and already I'm sweating.

Trees started appearing around me, I was getting close to the site.

Few more yards and I would be there. I couldn't see that well, because the dense trees around here. I made a mental note to clear some trees and organize fruit orchards here instead.

I made it to the site. Yellow police tape surrounded the area, being taped from tree to tree, blocking the path. There was no dead body here, just a wide area of dark red stained grass. I stared in rejection. It really did happen…

I left the area quickly after that. I couldn't take it; Joey was my friend. He was one of the first animals that actually talked to me after that freak-incident on the first day.

I started to run towards the cliff in an emotional breakthrough. I kept running, and felt tears coming on. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn't do it. A tear streamed down my left cheek and quickly evaporated away.

Emotions switched, and now I was angry. Who killed Joey? Who in their right mind would kill such an innocent animal? I was sure he didn't do anything to make anyone mad. Why did Joey have to die! Why! Why?!

I made it to the top of the cliff, and my blood boiling inside. I stared out at the ocean, and listened to the wind blow. Everything was so peaceful, but fifty yards from this spot my friend just died. This angered me.

I grabbed a banana from the nearest tree and threw it as far as I could. My eyes pinpointed on it as it sailed its way through the air and landed with a yellow splatter in Apollo's yard. I hoped I didn't get in trouble for that.

The wind still blew into my face, ruffling my hair, as I sat down in the lush grass and stared out to the ocean. Somewhere down in the water there was a lot of splashing. My eyes focused on it and a shark was chasing a smaller fish, making lots of splashes. I wondered how my parents were doing back at home. Maybe I should go back. Maybe I shouldn't.

After a few minutes, I got up and calmly walked down the cliff, my emotions now under control. I decided to go check out the Bulletin Board by the Town Hall, to see what was up with the town.

I stared at the board. A big fat paper in bold font in front of the others said "The funeral for the death of Joey will be held at Skull Island at 9 this morning. Anyone interested in coming, please meet at the dock before 8:45 a.m. and Kapp'n will transport you to the funeral. R.I.P. Joey."

Right now it was 10:30 a.m.

So that's why no one was here, they were all paying their respects to Joey on some place called Skull Island. I wondered if that was where the animals' cemetery is.

So I have the whole island to myself. Cool, in a way. But what am I going to do for the next few hours? I didn't feel like fishing, but I was in a Sherlock Holmes mood. Let's go see if I can find any clues.

Down the cliff I went and I arrived at the police scene. Now how was I going to do this? Joey had an axe stuck in him; that much I knew. Did someone stab him? Or did someone throw it? Whitney was blabbering something last night about how "I knew we shouldn't let the human on the island", so that might be a clue. I had no idea where to start.

I ducked under the yellow police tape, and something attracted me to the blood stains on the ground. There were splatters, some more in areas than others. Joey was staggering it seemed like, like he was trying to walk still. I tried to make a video of Joey walking in the night in my head, to better visualize the scene.

In my head, a movie started to play, starring Joey the dead duck. He was walking along, and this shaded figure popped out from behind a tree and swung down at Joey from above with an axe in his hand, going from Joey's back to protrude out the other side. At first Joey ran forward, blood flowing out. Progressively, Joey started walking slower, dying, and intervals of blood on the ground appeared closer and compact, until finally Joey lay on his side and then I appeared in the scene, and watched Joey die. The couple came, and then I blacked out.

It made sense, staring at the stains on the grass. As sick as my mind re-created the image, it still made sense.

But who was the killer? Who would do this to Joey anyways? Revenge? It seemed like a sick kind of revenge to me, even if it was. I doubted that.

I stood there, staring at the scene, and a tree about fifteen feet away caught my eye. Something was on the trunk of the tree, and I walked over to the tree. It was almost like a blob of red…until I realized what it was.

Barely visible, because of the blood evaporating away, on the bark of the tree was a handprint. A handprint. Animals don't have handprints. Only humans do, everyone knows that.

I pressed my hand to size up with the other hand print on the tree, but my hand was slightly smaller.

So another human was here on the island last night. I was sure of it. Unless I touched the tree by accident after Wolfgang was carrying me, then my whole theory would be messed up. But the handprint was larger than mine. So it was different…

Again, I'm only fourteen, and my mind is going crazy. I probably got this idea off of a horror movie about some murderer in the woods or something.

A red dragonfly buzzed right by my face, and because I have yet to afford a bug net, I took off on foot after the insect and left the crime scene.

I was sitting in the upper branches of this pine tree enjoying the view. The first pine tree I crawled up in didn't work out so well; bees came out and left their signature on my face. The one I am sitting in now is bee-free and I'm enjoying a banana when a blow-horn blew out from sea.

Kapp'n was returning with the animals from Skull Island, I figured. It was probably about noon right now I thought. They've been gone long enough for a funeral.

I sat still up in my tree, and watched the animals climb off onto the wooden dock as they walked together in a big group. I saw Nook go over to the message board to, I guess take the funeral sign down. I watched as he pulled out a hammer and pried the nails loose from the sign that was covering the whole board. When Nook was done, he laid the tools and the sign on the ground to look back at the board to see if he left anything.

Nook had a strange look on his face; I thought his eyes were looking a little funny. It was hard to tell from this distance.

The raccoon then yelled something to the other animals. I guess he said "come over here" because they all ran over and huddled around the message board. Instantly, a few screams were heard and lots of talking. I needed to see what was going on over there.

I hopped lightly on my feet as I fell out of the tree, and walked over to the crowd.

I neared the group, about twenty feet from now, but I couldn't see the board yet. A few eyes glanced at me, and stared. But I don't care.

Now I was in the group, making my way to the front, to see what was going on at the board. After a minute of fighting through the huddle, I got to the front, and all the animals stood back as I did. I gasped as I looked at the board.

Written in blood, on the left side, was a giant letter 'J', seeming to be smeared with someone's hand. At the bottom of the J where the curve was, in small letters a word was written with a finger that read "Joey".

A voice piped up in the background that belonged to Tortimer.

"It has started."