Chapter 2, The International Spy Museum
August 6, 2014, 6 days until Tommy's third birthday.
The following morning, everybody got up early and headed down for breakfast, where Tommy filled all of the toddlers who he hadn't informed the previous night about what he had overheard on the airplane while traveling the previous day.
"So at the end of this week, we're not gonna be babies no more?" Phil asked.
Tommy nodded.
"You know, I'm gonna miss being a baby Phillip." Said Lil.
"Yeah, me too Lillian." Said Phil, as the twins started to cry.
"Now guys, maybe growing up will be fun! Besides, we're practically there, we just, gotta get through this nextest week, I'm sure by the end of this week, we're gonna be happy to be all growed up." Said Tommy.
Everyone went on to eat the rest of their breakfast, get ready to go, and before they all knew it, a lemozine arrived at the hotel to pick everyone up and take them to the International Spy Museum.
"Your chariot, awaits." Said the driver of the lemozine, as he got out and met Peter Albany, Taffy, and her band at the door of the hotel, confirming that it was the right group he was picking up, then, everybody got into the lemozine, and they were on their way.
Upon arriving at the International Spy Museum, they all climbed out of the lemonzine and went inside, where they met their tour guide. Once they met up with the tour guide, a skinny guy named Max, they started the tour, looking at the area of the museum that consisted of more modern spy gadgets. As the tour carried on, Tommy looked around, fascinated by everything he was seeing.
"So Tommy, I overheard you and your friends talking at breakfast. You really think you're going to be adults by the end of the week?" Bobby asked, as he was walking along side Tommy and Dil's double stroller.
"Well, my daddy said I wouldn't be a baby no more, so I guess that makes us growed ups." Tommy replied.
"So Tommy, what do you wanna do when you're all growed up then?" Chuckie asked, who was on the opposite side of the stroller, walking next to Dil's side.
"Well, I wish to be a spy, all of these things they use look really neat!" Said Tommy excitedly.
"I don't know, some of this stuff looks kind of creepy." Chuckie replied, as he looked around nervously.
"Well I wish to be a detective. Yep, Detective Bobby is who I'm gonna be." Said Bobby.
After going through several rooms of looking at gadgets, it was nearly time to move on to the next part of the tour.
"So before we move on to looking at the ancient history of spies, does anybody have any questions?" Asked Max the tour guide.
This caused all of the adults to huttle around Max, and start asking their burning questions, while Peter, Kelly, Taffy and her band went off to the gift shop to look around, as they were growing bored with the tour, and Kelly wanted some alone time with Peter, as she got this suspicious feeling that her parents didn't like seeing them together.
Zack happen to notice that the tour had stopped, and the adults were asking the tour guide several questions, that were causing the toddlers to get bored, so he struck up an idea.
"Hey, what are we sitting around here for, let's go on our own tour of the museum." Suggested Zack, as he climbed out of his stroller on to the floor of the museum.
"Good idea Zack, come on guys, let's go." Said Tommy, as everybody else followed in pursuit, and before everyone knew it, the toddlers were once again, off on their own, to check out the spy museum.
The first thing Tommy found on a nearby display case, appeared to be a bottle of shaving cream.
"Look at this guys." Said Tommy, picking up the bottle.
"It looks like that stuff my daddy uses on his face in the morning." Said Jesse, as Tommy handed him the bottle and he examined it, only he couldn't get the top off.
"Hey! The top doesn't open." Said Jesse, frustrated, as he threw the bottle to Kimi, who caught it, only to twist off the bottom.
"Wait a minute you guys, the bottom comes off." Said Kimi.
"You mean it opens upside down?" Zack asked, as he studied what Kimi had in her hand.
Peering into the open bottle of shaving cream, he saw it was empty.
"Wait a minute you guys, I don't think this is a real bottle of shaving cream." Said Tommy.
"It isn't?" Chuckie asked.
"No, this looks like something spies must use, to keep stuff a secret, you know, like how we hide our faces behind masks at Halloween." Said Tommy.
"Oh, I get it." Said Chuckie.
"And look, a camera!" Said Lil, as she got down a camera that was disguised to look like a cigarette lighter from a nearby display case.
"Doesn't look like any camera I ever sawed." Said Chuckie.
"Another secret gadget then." Said Zack.
"Yep." Bobby replied, as he had joined up with the toddlers at this point, who were eyeing all of the gadgets in the museum, and instead of putting them back, they were leaving them on the floor.
"Hey look! Poop!" Said Phil, as he picked up what appeared to be dog poop, only after playing with it for a few minutes, he noticed a door on the bottom that opened up.
"Hey! This isn't real poop, it looks like another hiding place." Said Phil.
"But what would somebody wanna hide in poop?" Zack asked.
"I don't know but it looks like the right size to hide a key." Phil suggested, as his sister started to grab at it.
"I wanna see the poop Phillip." Argued Lil, as she tried to grab at the dogpoop exhibit.
"Hey, I saw it first, it's mine!" Argued Phil.
"Mine!" Argued Lil, who grabbed at Phil's hands, causing Phil to lose his grip on the dogpoop gadget, sending it flying across the room, causing it to land on the floor, where another group touring happened to walk in its path, and one of the adults tripped on the dogpoop gadget, and fell to the floor.
"Guys, we'd better get out of here before we get in trouble." Said Chuckie nervously, fearing they'd get caught by the tour of people who were stopped by their mess, so the toddlers quickly dropped all of the spy gadgets they had been looking at on the floor of the museum, as they scurried off to another room.
The room they arrived in, had something else that was even more interesting to the rugrats.
"Wanna see what it's like to be a real spy? Come crawl through this replica of a real airduct, and get the total spy experience!" Said a tour guide, who was near a ladder that climbed up to a replica of an airduct for kids and adults alike to crawl through.
"Wow! That looks really neat you guys, I wanna give it a try." Said Tommy, as he made his way up to the line that had gathered of kids who were interested in checking out the airduct.
When they approached the line, they ran into a two-year-old toddler with buttery blond hair, who turned, and stopped dead in her tracks, as her eyes landed on Phil. Upon staring at Phil, the little girl's jaw dropped, amazed by what she saw.
"What's wrong Phillip?" Lil asked, noticing Phil had the same goofy dreamy expression on his face.
"A girl." Phil replied in a seductive tone.
Noticing this, Tommy and Zack turned to see who Phil was staring at.
"Oh my gosh! That's Hazel! Rosie's bestest friend." Said Tommy and Zack simultaneously, as both of them had met her at one time or another over the last few months. Tommy met Hazel at Rosie's birthday party, and Zack met her when he accompanied his aunt on a business trip to Boston, and they attended a barbecue at Rosie's apartment.
"Hi Tommy, hi Zack, what a pleasant surprise! I wasn't aspecting to see you guys here." Said Hazel.
"Hi Hazel." Said Zack.
"So, uh, where's Rosie?" Tommy asked.
"Rosie's not here, but she'll be coming in a few days. I'm here with my mommy and daddy, as they're on something called a business trip. They had meetings or something, so they lefted me with a friend of theirs who works here at the Spy Museum, and I was about to check out the airduct." Said Hazel, as she turned her gaze towards Phil again.
"Uh, hi Hazel." Said Phil, as he pulled out a worm from his overalls pocket, and offered it to Hazel, dangling it in front of her face.
"Put that away Phillip, I don't know if she likes wormies like we do." Said Lil.
"Actually, I love wormies." Said Hazel, as she started to nibble on one end of the worm, Phil, putting his mouth on the other end of the worm.
It was like a Lady and the Tramp moment, as Hazel and Phil ate the dangling worm, inching their toddler faces, closer and closer to one another, until there was no worm left, and their faces were practically touching.
"Wow! That was nummy!" Said Hazel.
"Yeah, it was." Said Phil in that dreamy voice.
"What's your name?" Hazel asked.
Lost in space, Phil nearly didn't notice what Hazel was saying, until Lil poked him in the ribs.
"Oh, uh, my name's Phil." Said Phil.
"What a nice name." Said Hazel, as she and Phil continued to stare at one another, and get to know one another.
Lil, feeling sad and neglected, turned towards the others.
"Something wrong Lil?" Tommy asked.
"Phil don't wanna play with me no more. He'd rather be with Hazel." Lil replied.
"Don't worry Lil, I'll take care of you, and we'll go into that airduct together, as it looks like fun!" Said Jesse, as he came up to Lil and grabbed her hand.
"Wait! Let go Jesse, I'm not ready yet." Cried Lil, as the hyper active two-year-old was barely paying attention, until Lil pushed him to the ground, causing him to cry.
"Hey, that wasn't very nice, you made Jesse cry." Said Kimi, as she came over to see if Jesse was ok.
Once Jesse was calmed down and Phil and Hazel had enough of staring longingly at one another, Tommy got everybody's attention, as it was finally their turn to climb up the ladder and crawl through the airduct.
"Guys, are you ready? It's our turn." Said Tommy.
"Our turn to do what?" Phil asked.
"To crawl through the airduct maze thing. Come on Chuckie." Said Tommy, as he started up the ladder, Chuckie, starting to hesitantly follow him, when Zack got in his way.
"Uh, what are you doing Zack?" Chuckie asked.
"Come on Chuckie, you know you're afraid of heights and the dark, do you really, wanna go up there?" Zack asked.
"No, but, Tommy wants me to go with him." Chuckie replied.
"If I'm not mistaken and I'm not, isn't this our lastest week as babies?" Zack asked.
"Yeah? What's your point?" Chuckie asked.
"Well, I know you and Tommy are bestest friends and all, but I've noticed in the time I've known you guys, that it seems as if he doesn't seem to really care about your feelings." Said Zack.
"I do too care about him." Tommy shouted, now halfway up the ladder to the airduct replica.
Chuckie just stood dead in his tracks on the floor, turning his gaze from Tommy to Zack, then back at Tommy, who was inching even closer to the dark opening of the airduct replica, then back at Zack again. Then, once Tommy was in the opening of the airduct, he turned around, his face staring back down at Chuckie, waiting for him to come up and join him.
"Are you really gonna let Tommy lead you around for the rest of your life? If we really are gonna be all growed up at the end of this trip, I certainly wouldn't wanna be following somebody around forever. There comes a time Chuckie, when you need to make your own choices, and not always go along with everybody else." Whispered Zack into Chuckie's ear at this point.
Chuckie gulped and took a deep breath. For the first time in his four years of life, he realized that what Zack was saying was right. If he was going to be an adult, then he needed to start sticking up for himself, and if he didn't want to do something, he shouldn't just go along with it to please everybody else, he should do what he felt was best. So for the first time in a while, other than that time when he refused to go to the greenhouse, and then refusing to help Tommy find Dil in the forrest, he made up his mind, and did the most difficult thing he's done, as by this point, the trip had more or less, been going smoothly, nothing really bad had happened to him yet, like they had the other instances he declined Tommy's adventures. Rather, so in his eyes, this was a first, as he took a deep breath, and did one of the hardest things he ever did.
"Yeah, well, I don't wanna go this time. It's too dark and scary, and nothing you say is gonna get me to change my mind." Snapped Chuckie.
Tommy just stared out of the airduct back at Chuckie, looking puzzled.
"Come on Chuckie, it will be fun!" Said Tommy.
"Uh Tommy, I think Chuckie is trying to tell you something. He doesn't wanna go, and nothing you say or do, is gonna get him to change his mind. And to tell you the honest truth, maybe being a spy is something you wanna do, and I do think it's all interesting and all, but it doesn't interest me nearly as much. Go on Tommy, after all, if we're gonna grow up at the end of this trip, shouldn't we be finding on our own what we wanna do when we're all grown up? Well I think so, and so, Tommy, looks like you're on your own for this one. Good luck, and tell us how it all turns out when you come out the other side." Said Zack.
"Ok, fine, I guess I'll go by myself then." Said Tommy with a sigh, as the purple haired two-year-old toddler slowly turned around, and crawled through the airduct, leaving his friends and brother behind, as he took a step towards his dream profession at this point.
While crawling through the airduct, Tommy spotted a bright green glowing light out of the corner of his eye. Curious, he quietly crawled over to it, only to find there was a dropoff. However, because the green light didn't illuminate the area a ton, Tommy didn't realize it was a droppoff, until it was too late.
Down in a forbidden area of the museum, two guys dressed in spy museum tour guide uniforms, one of which, was holding the green glow stick above his head, were waiting a floor below, just waiting for somebody to come to them that they could use to spy for them. They were about to give up, when Tommy fell through the dropoff, landing in the guy's arms who was carrying the glow stick.
"I got him Mikey, I got him." Said the guy who was holding the glow stick, as he quickly turned it off, while Mikey, using a remote control, replaced the gap in the airduct replica that led down to the forbidden area, with the side of the wall that was originally suppose to be there.
"Come on Bob, let's get out of here." Said Mike, as he and Bob quietly crept out of the forbidden area of the museum to an allie outside the back of the building.
Once outside in broad daylight, Tommy got a better look at these two men who had grabbed him, rescuing him from what could have been a dangerous fall had he hit hard on the floor down below. As he studied these guys, he noticed that something looked familiar to him. Then, it hit him. These guys were the same two people who took him away from his home nearly two years ago. It happened one day not long after his first birthday. His dad was off working on an invention, his mom had gone off to do some shopping, and his grandpa had just finished telling him something about how half price sales hadn't existed in his day, how they had to walk fifteen miles to the store, and pay full price when they got there. Bored, Tommy pretended to go to sleep, tricking his grandpa into thinking it was a good idea, so he turned on his fishing channel, and fell asleep in his chair. Once he was asleep, Tommy noticed the front door had been left wide open, so he crawled outside, only to find a purple ball in the grass. He started playing with it, when two men, who looked exactly like the ones he was staring at at this very moment, had grabbed him up and took him away. Unhappy, he started to cry, but the smaller of the two guys thought he wanted to eat a banana, when all he really wanted was the ball.
Of course, they eventually gave in and gave him the ball, calming him down, but they still took him back to their apartment, where Tommy proceeded to throw their jewls into the toilet and vacuum up some cash. Eventually, after fed up with his behavior, they returned Tommy to his parents, only to have their ransom note blow in their face as they were driving away, causing them to run a red light, get caught by the Police, and facing up to a year and a half in jail. Now, here they were, out of prison, and hitting the streets of Washington D.C. as they were out to collect some serious dough, only to find a child in the process. As they studied the child, they noticed something familiar about him.
"What are you an idiot? We get out of jail, after taking a child, Mr. Thump's kid, and now look at you Bob, taking another child again?" Mike screamed.
Bob put a finger to his lips.
"You want us to get caught? Besides, he looks vaguely familiar, but not totally. The kid's older than the last one, got hair, and he's not crying uncontrollably." Said Bob.
Mike studied him over.
"Well, you're right Bob, he is kind of cute." Said Mike.
"Not only cute, but he's just what we need to distract the people." Said Bob.
"Distract them?" Mike asked.
"Of course distract them. He's gonna spy for us. What's your name kid?" Bob asked, as he knelt down to Tommy's level.
Of course, Tommy had learned a few more words after saying Reptar a few months ago, his own name, wasn't one of them, so he said the only name he knew the grown ups would understand.
"Reptar." Said Tommy.
"Reptar, your family must be pretty lame if they named you after a dinosaur on TV." Said Mike.
"Now come on Bob, he probably just, hasn't learned how to say his real name yet. But wait! Kid, you're gonna be our spy, as we see to saving America, and whenever you see danger, Reptar, is your code word, got it?" Mike asked, thinking the kid would understand and take orders.
Of course, eager to become a spy, little did they know that Tommy was taking in all of this information, he figured they most likely wouldn't get far, and he'd somehow, find his friends in the process, and get away, only soon he'd learn he was very wrong. No matter, he decided to play along for now, as he smiled and nodded.
"Wow, the kid's smart. Ok, let's go." Said Bob, as he picked up Tommy, and they snuck into a backentrance of the spy museum, and quietly snuck off to the office at the gift shop, as it was nearing time for the shop to close down for an hour while the clerk went off to have lunch, giving them the perfect opportunity to sneak in and grab the money from the cash register.
Meanwhile, back at the museum, the adults had noticed the toddlers had all gone missing, so they were all running through the museum looking for them, when Didi, now outside the gift shop, tripped over one of the gadgets that the toddlers had dropped on the floor, nearly tripping over her own two feet, as the itinerary for their trip flew out of her purse, into the air, and was caught by Bob, who was hurtled beneath a clothes rack of t-shirts that were for sale in the gift shop. Upon catching the piece of paper, he looked at over, in awe at the list he saw, as they all seemed like perfect tourist attractions to hit, and obtain the money they made, making them rich.
Before he could show the sheet to Mike, the clerk walked by, noticing Bob and Tommy beneath the shirts.
"May I help you?" The clerk asked.
"Uh yes, I am looking for a shirt for my sweet little boy here." Bob lied, pointing down at Tommy, who was smiling and giggling, as he pointed up at the lady.
"Oh, what an adorable little child. Well, our children's section is this way." Said the clerk, as she led Bob and Tommy to another part of the store.
By this time, Didi had gotten up off of the floor and caught up with the others, as they frantically searched the museum.
At the airduct replica, everyone except for Chuckie decided to crawl through it, not because they were interested in being spies, but just, because they wanted to see what it was like. Kimi was the first to crawl through, followed by Zack, then Bobby, then Jesse, then Lil, then Hazel, then Phil, with Dil at the end of the line. Chuckie noticed a pathway where he could walk around the outside, so he did just that, as Kimi came sliding down the slide at the opposite end of the airduct replica, nearly knocking Chuckie over. Once everybody else had come out, and Dil had toddled over to the group, Chuckie couldn't help but notice that something didn't seem right.
"Something wrong Chuckie?" Phil asked.
"Uh guys, where's Tommy?" Chuckie asked.
"I don't know." Phil replied.
"Yeah! We didn't see him inside the crawly thing." Said Lil.
"Maybe he already came out and is looking for us. We'd better go find him." Said Bobby, as he was about to lead the toddlers through the museum to go look for Tommy.
No sooner were they about to go look for him though, when their parents, Susie and Angelica, as well as Taffy, her band, Peter, Kelly, and Derek, had all caught up to them.
"There you kids are. Bobby, you know better than to be wandering off like that now." Said Martha.
"It was Tommy and Zack's idea to go exploring the museum." Said Bobby.
"You got quite an imagination there Bobby, but that doesn't give you an excuse to be wandering off by yourself." Said Howie G.
Didi looked at the kids, noticing that Tommy was missing.
"Where is Tommy?" Didi asked.
"I don't know." Stu replied.
"Well, he's gone!" Didi cried, as they started looking all over the museum.
Back at the gift shop, while the clerk was helping Bob and Tommy pick out a shirt, Mike used this opportunity to sneak back behind the cash register, and sneak all of the cash out of the drawer. Noticing the clerk was coming back, he quickly stuffed the huge wad of cash into his pocket, ducked under the counter, crawled out quickly, purching himself behind a clothes rack, then made his way to the back of the store, where he found Bob and Tommy looking at the children's section. Mike tapped Bob on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"I got it, I got the money. Let's get out of here before we get caught." Whispered Mike into Bob's ear.
Without saying a word, he snatched up Tommy, and the two criminals and their newly found toddler distraction, left the museum in a flash, where they made a mad dash for the outskirts of town, to an abandoned bomb shelter in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, the bomb shelter's metal door was propped open, so they could get inside, where sat a pile of old newspapers, an ice chest, two small cots, and a couple of wooden trunks They had been secretly hiding out here for several months, and they hoped they wouldn't have to hide out here too much longer, as the place got very hot during the summer months.
Back at the spy museum, after being unable to find Tommy after looking for several minutes, they reported him missing to security, who went off looking for him, and agreed to bring him to the Spy Café if he was found. Stu gave the security guard a recent photo of the child, then the gang all went and found some lunch.
"Try the fish tacos Didi, they're out of this world!" Said Martha, as she took another bite of her fish taco.
"And this mulka java is to die for!" Added Betty, as she took another sip of her coffee.
But poor Didi was nearly beside herself. Her oldest child, lost, and so far, nobody had found him. Then, if that wasn't enough to disturb the poor mother, she reached into her purse to see what was next on their schedule, when she found her itinerary missing.
"Has anyone seen my itinerary?" Didi asked.
"No Deed I thought you had it." Stu replied, as he sat across from her, eating a hamburger.
"Well, it's gone too." Cried Didi, as she burst into tears.
"Look at that guys, my mommy is upset, all cuz my brother is gone." Said Dil.
"I miss Tommy too Dil." Said Chuckie.
"Well, never fear, it's Detective Bobby, on the job." Said Bobby with a determined look on his face.
"Wow Bobby, you're gonna get to be a detective after all." Said Kimi with a grin.
"Yep, and if I was able to get Roger back when he was kidnapped, all because mom forgot to renew his tags, and, if I could find my mom's missing rare pair of slippers during spring cleaning, then who says I can't find Tommy?" Said Bobby.
"I bet you could find him." Said Kimi.
"I bet I can too." Said Bobby, as he and the toddlers, dug into their lunches.
No sooner had everybody finished, when the security guard they had spoken to earlier, came into the Spy Café, a sad look on his face.
"I'm sorry to say that we can't find your son anywhere, and believe me, we even looked in all forbidden places in the museum." Said the security guard disappointingly.
Didi, broke down crying.
"Now mam, we know this must be hard for you, but I should ask, do you guys live around here?" The security guard asked.
"Actually, we're from out of town, but here's the number of the hotel where we are staying." Said Stu, as he pulled out his cell phone and brought up the number for the hotel in his contact list.
The security guard wrote down the number on a piece of paper.
"We'll be sure to give you a call if your son should show up. How long will you be staying?" The security guard asked.
"We leave on the morning of August 11th." Stu replied.
The security guard took this down, and went on his way. After everybody had finished lunch, they checked in with Taffy, since at this point, she was the only one left with a copy of the itinerary.
"This is all we had scheduled for today, though I need to get back to the hotel for my band to rehearse. Tomorrow is our trip to the National Zoo." Said Taffy, as she picked up her shopping bags of suvineers, and everybody headed out of Spy Cafe, to the outside of the museum, where the limo was waiting for them to take them back to their hotel.
Meanwhile at the bomb shelter, Bob and Mike were getting hungry, so they pulled out some trout on a stick out of their ice chest to have for lunch.
"Here tiger, try this, it's fishy and delicious!" Said Bob, as he dangled some trout on a stick in front of Tommy.
As Tommy stared at the fish, he thought back to the last time he had some. It was on that camping trip, when he got food poisoning. Not wanting any, for fear of getting sick again, he collapsed to the ground and started crying. Overhearing the child's cries, Bob then realized who they were dealing with.
"Wait a second Mike, that cry, it sounds familiar." Said Bob.
"You're right Bob, it does sound familiar. Don't tell me, we're dealing with Mister Thump's kid again." Said Mike.
"Yep, and now, we know he doesn't like fish or bananas. Oh boy, this is going to be harder than we thought." Said Bob, as he pulled the itinerary out of his pocket and showed it to Mike, who studied it.
"Where did you find this?" Mike asked.
"It flew into my hand back at the gift shop." Bob replied.
"Well, I see whoever threw this, looks like they have a pretty jam packed schedule. Today, they went to the International Spy Museum, tomorrow, it looks like a trip to the National Zoo, then the following day, it looks like a trip to the Museum of Natural History, then, the day after that, a trip to the Jefferson Memorial, and a trip to the Library of Congress, and on the last day, they're going to be attending the Nationals Stadium for that big baseball game everybody keeps talking about." Said Mike, as he read down the list.
"And that's where we're going." Said Bob.
"Not in front of the kid." Mike hissed in a low whisper into Bob's ear.
"Well, no worries Mikey, I have it all worked out. Just trust me." Whispered Bob.
"Well, we got out of the Spy Museum without getting caught, I guess, we can hit these other places on the list as well before hitting the White House next Monday, where we'll kill the President, and take over the country." Mike whispered into Bob's ear, as Bob quietly chuckled evily to himself.
By this time, Tommy had stopped crying, as he grew bored trying to listen into the whispering of Bob and Mike, so he curled up on a pile of old newspapers in the corner of the bomb shelter, and fell asleep, as the sun started to set in the sky.
And this, ends chapter 2. So, will the gang find Tommy? Will Bob and Mike succeed at steeling the money from all of the venues listed on the itinerary? We'll see what happens, as everybody continues to venture to these other tourist attractions, in chapters to come, so please, do stay tuned!