I own nothing.
It was well past morning in the cul-de-sac. Yet no children were to be seen on the streets.
No playing, no fighting. No singing, no yelling. No walking or running, nor skipping or jumping.
Perfect stillness and serenity, which in this cul-de-sac, meant only that this moment was the prelude to complete and utter chaos.
"WHERE IS IT?!"
Sarah's temper got the better of her rational mind, as she tore her room apart in a fury. Opening every drawer, tearing every pillow, uplifting everything she could looking for her object of interest.
Teeth clenching as every search came up empty, she made her way downstairs, preparing to verbally beat her brother until he'd coughed up the location of what she'd been looking for, or move up to a physical beating if he refused.
Descending the basement stairs and walking through the door to his bedroom, Sarah noticed that her brother, Ed, was still sleeping, drool pooling around his head as he snored.
It struck Sarah as somewhat odd, knowing that Ed was normally up before her to watch his movies, but it did nothing to halt her steps until she was on top of Ed, shaking him by his jacket collar.
"WHERE IS IT, ED! TELL ME OR I'LL TELL MOM!" she screamed into his ear, the sound traveling through his brain and blasting his eyes opened, lids flapping from the wind force.
"DON'T TELL MOM, SARAH! ED WILL FIND IT!"
Ed bolted up and awake, frantically looking around, making a less rage filled recreation of Sarah's earlier destruction of her own room. Upending his mattress, searching inside his chair, lifting his TV and shaking it to see if anything came out.
This proceeded for several moments until Ed finally stopped and looked dopey-eyed at Sarah.
"Uhhhhh, what am I looking for?"
Sarah's clenched teeth only parted to yell, "MY JEWELERY BOX, FATHEAD! WHERE'D YOU HIDE IT?!"
Ed began to sweat as he pleaded with his younger sister, "I do not know where your jewelry box is, Sarah. Honest!"
"You had to have taken it, Ed! I put it in my dresser before I went to bed last night, and YOU'RE the only one in the house stupid enough to go in my room! Now..." Sarah lunged forward once again to grab Ed by the head, "WHERE IS IT!?"
Ed collapsed to his knees in tears, pleading, "I spent last night watching a movie marathon, Sarah! Then I went to sleep! Then I dreamt I was a fish swimming in an ocean of gravy! I was down here all night, Sar-"
Ed's frantic words stopped dead as his eyes surveyed his room, gaze darting around behind Sarah.
"What're you looking at, Ed! TELL ME WHERE YOU HID IT!"
Ed's voice exploded, "MY ACTION FIGUREEEEEES!"
Ed threw Sarah aside as he ran to his bed, surveying the shelf above it, noting the disappearance of not only his action figures, but the comics that accompanied them too.
Looking around further, taking in the full sight of his room, he saw it was not the one shelf either. All his comics, action figures, movie and comic memorabilia just… gone.
Ed dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he wailed, "MY SPOTTED FYORGLING! BARON O' BEEF DIP! MY COMIC BOOKS! MY ACTION FIGURES! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Sarah peeled herself from the wall she'd been thrown into, preparing her retribution before she saw the state of Ed's room, and Ed himself.
She tried to avoid Ed's room as much as possible, for her own health as well as his. Being near this much filth sometimes made her physically ill, but even she knew something was clearly wrong. Her anger dissipated as she noted the absence of pretty much everything that ever made Ed, Ed.
No stupid comics strewn about the floor, no toys hanging or sitting clumsily on shelves or desks. Even his various posters were taken down, their absence marked by a clear outline of grime where they HAD been.
Putting her hand to her chin and looking pensively as Ed cried over his loss, Sarah set herself into a firm determination. Grabbing Ed by the wrist, she led him out of the room and upstairs, not stopping as she left their house.
Ed's bawling slowed to a sniffle as he left the traumatizing environment of his empty room.
"*sniff*Where are we going, Sarah?"
Sarah didn't look back as she replied, "To talk to Jimmy, doofus. You didn't take my jewelry box, so we need to find out who did!"
Ringing Jimmy's doorbell, Sarah waited for her friend to appear. She wasn't sure who to talk to about this, but Jimmy's house was closest.
Sarah noted another oddity of the morning, being that, it wasn't morning. At least not exactly. According to the sun, it's probably a good two to three hours after she normally wakes up.
She'd felt odd, having woken up before her alarm went off, but thought nothing of it before she had started getting dressed for the day.
Ed was still sniffling and sobbing beside her, which clenched her heart uncomfortably,
in a way she wasn't entirely familiar with.
They'd get their stuff back and everything would be okay again; Ed could go back to being his happy dim self, reading his comics and playing with his toys, and Sarah could proudly flaunt her earrings and bracelets for her friends to see.
She heard the soft tinkling of feet on the other end of the door, a clear sign of Jimmy's arrival, so she wasn't surprised as the door opened to reveal him.
She WAS surprised by the red rings surrounding his eyes, as his lips wobbled and he spoke.
"Sarah! Oh, I'm so happy you're here!"
"What's going on, Jimmy?" Sarah said as she stepped forward.
Jimmy screeched, "My entire porcelain unicorn collection has been stolen, Sarah! Someone made away with it in the night! I feel so violated!"
Jimmy snatched Sarah, and sequentially Ed, forward as he buried his face into Sarah's shirt.
Sarah grimaced as she realized this was larger than she thought. Setting herself to comforting Jimmy for the moment, she released Ed, who sniffled louder without a comforting hand in contact with him.
"It'll be okay, Jimmy. Let's go get the other kids and we'll find out who took them."
Jimmy looked up with glassy eyes as he replied.
"Okay, Sarah."
Soon enough a group had formed in the middle of their circular street.
Sarah, Ed, Jimmy, Nazz, and Kevin argued amongst themselves over their missing items.
Nazz and Kevin, like Sarah Jimmy and Ed, were also stolen from in the middle of the night.
Nazz was missing her jewelry box as well, though with the several years she had on Sarah, hers was a much greater collection.
Kevin on the other hand had his tools stolen, as well as his collection of baseball cards.
Needless to say, the group was none too happy at the pattern forming.
"Who could have done this?" Nazz asked, arms crossed defensively over her chest. It weirded her out to think someone was in her room while she slept, intent on robbing her.
A friend playing a mean prank? Some creepy drifter who simply picked a random set of houses? Or some perverted unknown neighbor who'd been watching them? Each possibility increasingly unsettling.
"No idea, but whoever it was is gonna get a pounding!" Kevin stated, furiously slamming his fist into his other palm.
"We're gonna get my comic books back, right, Sarah?" Ed said, his sniffling finally slowed to a much more manageable wetness in his throat.
Sarah, as gently as Sarah could, patted Ed comfortingly on the shoulder.
"Sure, Big Brother. We'll get your comics back when we find whoever took all our stuff."
Sarah was again about to proceed to the next house before she was violently tackled to the ground.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS IT!?"
Eddy leaned over Sarah with a death grip on her shirt, foaming at the mouth as he interrogated his supposed captive.
Sarah broke his grip with a punch to the face, dizzying him and sending him backwards.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT, FISH FACE?!" Sarah yelled, her already short patience with Eddy drained in an instant.
Eddy sat up, shaking away the stars circling around him before growling and yelling once more.
"My records! All of my records are gone!" he gripped Sarah again, "And my record player! And my speakers! AND MY MIRROR BALL!"
Leaning over and getting right into Sarah's face, "WHERE ARE THEY?!"
Sarah reversed his hold, so that she was the one leaning over him to yell, "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?!"
Eddy, momentarily kowtowed by his lack of intimidation towards Sarah, squeeze out from under her hate filled gaze to look towards the other children around.
"Then which one of you was it?! Kevin, Ed?!"
Kevin scoffed, "Why would I take your records, Do-… Eddy?"
Eddy snarled as he growled out, "They're vintage! Collectible!"
Nazz butted in, "None of us stole your records, Eddy, we ALL got stolen from. We're trying to find out who did it."
Eddy paused as his thoughts stirred.
"Then who was it?!"
"Good lord, what's going on here!"
Edd walked from his house, looking frazzled, and more than a little disturbed.
"DOUBLE DEE!" Said Ed, abandoning Sarah's side to hug his lifelong friend.
Edd choked as his much larger and stronger friend hugged him tightly, clearly upset if the tear stained, red-rimmed eyes were anything to go off of.
"Ed! What's the matter?" Edd asked as he gently pried himself from the vice grip crushing his sternum, moving Ed's hands to the much more manageable position of tightening onto Edd's shirt as an anchor.
"They stole my comic books, Double Dee! Attack Of The 40ft Were-Gopher! Invasion Of The Belly Button Snatchers! MY FIRST EDITION COPY OF EVIL TIM'S RE-VENGEANCE 2!"
Double Dee patted Ed's head as he continued to cry, the flood walls opening once again.
"There there, Ed. We'll figure this out."
The other kids informed Edd of their similar predicaments, and his nervous demeanor made way to a much more befuddled one.
"It seems we're all in the same boat then."
"Double Dee! Not you too!" Ed shouted sympathetically.
"Indeed, Ed. When I awoke, my room had been pilfered. Whoever it was accosted me of some of my lab equipment, as well as my geode collection!"
Eddy scowled absently, "Who'd want a stupid rock collection?"
Double Dee huffed, offended.
"I'll have you know, Eddy, that some of those geodes are worth quite a lot to some people. They're precious minerals!"
The trademark dollar signs overtook Eddy's eyes as he shouted out, "Precious?! Minerals?! Why don't we just start selling rocks for our scams?"
The rest of the children scowled at Eddy's remark, reminded of his old ways that had yet to fully go away.
Eddy noticed the scowls, and turned nervously towards them.
"Uh- I mean, why DIDN'T we sells rocks back then? Ha ha, yeah. Back when we scammed people a long time ago, I meant."
Kevin sneered, "Sure that's what you meant, Dork."
"People please! Calmer heads must prevail here," Edd turned as he started mumbling to himself, the rest of the kids barely following his train of thought.
"Someone broke into all our houses, made away with our items, and left no trace of who it was," Edd began to pace, mulling over this problem in his head.
Eddy stayed silent for a few moments, a quizzical look on his face before his eyes popped out in realization.
"Wait a minute! This is literally just a rehash of episode one!"
Kicking the dirt at his feet in frustration, he squawked, "These writers are getting lazier every story I tell ya. We're going to go home and find out we just forgot where we put them or something!"
Edd looked up from his musings to reply.
"Please, Eddy. I think we've evolved past the contrived narratives of season one," he mumbled under his breath, "or season five for that matter.
"Besides. I looked all over my room, and my person. All over my entire house even. My items are gone, Eddy!"
Eddy grumbled, before allowing Edd to continue.
"It could be that Ed was sleepwalking again… but he normally steals food when he sleepwalks. Who else, who else..."
Eddy thought for one moment before exclaiming, "Jonny!"
Looking up, "Jonny?"
Grabbing Edd by the hat, Eddy reiterated.
"Jonny! He was our first person of interest for the last serial toucher incident!"
Edd shook himself free of Eddy's grip, "But he was cleared of all charges, Eddy! Remember? There WAS no serial toucher."
"Think about it though, Double Dee. If there HAD been one, he was our main suspect! He's always touching stuff he's not supposed to."
At the utterance, the rest of the kids of the cul-de-sac scowled and turned towards one of the houses they hadn't approached in months.
Nestled between the house of Nazz and Rolf sat the house of Jonny 2x4, named aptly for the hunk of wood he'd carried around for as long as anyone remembered.
Edd shifted uncomfortably.
"Be that as it may, Eddy, Jonny simply doesn't have the motive. He's annoying, not kleptomaniacal."
Sarah, having enough of the back and forth said, "Let's go talk to him!"
Kevin agreed, "Let's go get some answers."
Without another word, the group approached the house, most of their minds already made up.
Welp, I haven't written anything in a hot minute.
What better way to get back into writing than to write for an old, dead cartoon that hasn't had a new piece of media for over a decade, and whose fans are more dormant than Yellowstone?
Don't know whether this is good, and I can give no guarantee as to an update schedule, but I enjoyed writing it.
Reviews are always welcome.
Have a nice day.