The Ones You Call When Everyone Else is Busy (7)

Captain Pancake cleared his throat, “Ahem, yes, well if you are all done laughing at me; let’s get to the task at hand. Nick why don’t you tell everyone about your puppy?  “Okay,” Nick stood up nervously; he was not used to speaking in front of large crowds. “My puppy is a German Sheppard. He’s about this high,” Nick said, indicating a spot on his leg right above his knee. “Or at least he was the last time I saw him. He’s only three months old and they grow pretty quickly in the beginning. His name is Chewy, after “Chewbacca” from Star Wars. That’s my favorite movie. Chewy is a really sweet puppy. He likes to play all day. I went to school one day and I locked him in the yard, just like I always do. I can’t leave him in the house because mom is afraid he will jump on the furniture. It’s okay though, we have a real big yard and he has a dog house and everything and I let him in as soon as I get home from school.” Nick took a breath and fought to hold back tears as he passed around a picture of himself and Chewy when he first got him. “I came home from school one day and he was gone. The gate, which was always locked, was open and Chewy was nowhere to be seen. My parents looked for him for a little while but they gave up. I won’t give up. I know that Chewy would not run away. He loves me and I love him. We’re best friends.”  Nick looked around at all the superheroes. He could tell they were trying not to cry too.  Bounce gave up trying. “That’s the saddest story I have ever heard,” he said between sobs. Captain Pancake rolled his eyes. He turned to Nick, “Nicholas, tell my emotional friends here what else you noticed in your search for Chewy.” “Well, I would always check for him after school and make sure the signs I posted of him were still around town but some of the signs started disappearing. They were being replaced with pictures of other dogs. More and more dogs were going missing and no one noticed it. I told my parents and they thought I was making things up. I tried telling my teachers, the police and even the newspapers. No one believed me, well my friend Kate believes me… about that anyway. No one believed me until I called The Ones You Call When Everyone Else Is Busy. That’s when Captain Pancake, here, came to my rescue. He believed me and he said you would all help me find him. So please, please, help me.”  “We will,” the superheroes all said together.

“Okay then,” said Captain Pancake, “it’s time to start Plan A and that plan is called: Spread out around the town and look for Chewy.”  He said it in his loudest, booming voice, trying to sound much more confident then he actually was.  “That’s your big plan?” asked Sixty Second Flight Girl. “Yes, and if that doesn’t work we will try Plan B.”  “What’s Plan B?” asked Nick hopefully. “Don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”Captain Pancake replied. Nick smacked his hand against his forehead and slowly rubbed his face like had had seen his dad do whenever he was frustrated. He wasn’t sure this was going to work at all.  Two weeks passed before it finally did.

Meanwhile….     

In a hilltop hideaway on the outside of town, Maniac Mike Mullins rubbed his hands together in greedy glee.  Mike liked to talk to himself.  He loved to hear the sound of his own voice as he planned his dirty deeds. “This time,” Mike said, “this time they won’t catch me! In this town, there are very few bumbling boys in blue (which is how Mike spoke about policeman) and there are no stupendously stupid superheroes to counter my criminal capers! I’m going to start my own criminal club. We will be wonderfully wicked and stupendously sinful.” As you can see, Mike loved alliteration, which is using the same letter again and again. The problem was, super villains did not appreciate Mike’s fine talent. Mike even tried to join up with other super villain teams but they always laughed before shutting the door on him. The police often didn’t appreciate it either. In fact, Maniac Mike Mullins and been loudly laughed at in almost every state around the country. Mike would only commit crimes when he could match the sound of their names to the city in which he was. Sometimes he was “Fencing Fancy Footwear in Philly” or “Selling Stolen Snapdragons in Schenectady” or “Ransacking Really Rich Residences in Roanoke.” Unfortunately for him, Mike was not a very good criminal and was often caught by the police. However, Mike had a habit of announcing his latest plans whenever he was caught like this, “I can’t believe you bumbling boys in blue messed up my moving Mickey Mouse merchandise in Minnesota maneuver.” It would start as a giggle but eventually the police would be doubled over laughing and Mike Mullins would make his escape. It was time to change his tactics. This time, he was going to step out of his comfort zone. Oh sure, he would still use alliteration as his terrifying technique but he was going to stop matching the crime to the town’s name. Maniac Mike Mullins was moving to Middleville.

 The fact was, Mike was kind of lonely. In Middleville though, Mike had family. In town lived his dear Aunt Mildred. Mildred Mullins was a law-abiding woman. Her only crime, if one could even call it that, was that she loved her twin sons so much that she did everything for them, even though they were fully grown adults.  Her sons were named Matthew and Malcolm Mullins. Matthew and Malcolm were 18 years old. They were a pleasantly plump pair who still dressed in exactly the same outfits. Because their mother would never see them as grown men, she still bought all their clothes. She dressed them in matching plaid short pants, suspenders and color coordinated shirts. When they went out they wore identical hats, usually a baseball cap with the peak turned sideways. They thought it made them look tough.  The twins would have never thought to protest, because besides being extremely lazy, they were not very smart. Mildred Mullins thought her sons were the most brilliant boys on earth. She spoke to them in baby talk. She defended them no matter what they did and no matter how wrong it was.  If they stole candy from a baby, she said it was just because they were still growing boys and very hungry. If they made fun of other people, it was just because they were not sure of themselves.  If they knocked kids over, it was because they were playing too hard or the other kids did something wrong. What Matt and Malcolm Mullins were, in fact, were bullies. They were the perfect partners in crime for Maniac Michael Mullins current scandalous scheme. He had them working right now on “taking thousands from the town’s trusted treasury.”  Matt and Malcolm would do all the dirty deeds. Mike wanted to be in charge this time and his cousins were so cheerfully committing crimes that they listened to everything Mike said, sort of.

Mike was also searching for more villains to join his loathsome lair. He booted up his computer and placed an ad on criminalslist.com. It read, “Have you been rudely ridiculed? Have your schemes been seen as silly and simple? I’m starting a new nefarious network. Please join me and together we will wage wicked war and start senseless scandals.” Middleville was the perfect place to plot evil schemes. It was big enough that no one would notice a small group of evildoers setting up their lair and if there were crimes perpetrated on the city, well it would take a while to solve them. After placing the ad, it was time for him to call and check on the progress.

Matt’s cell phone rang and he raced from one room to the next, carefully shutting the door behind him. “Hey boss,” Matt said nervously.  “Matt, are we making progress on pilfering pennies?” Matt tried not to laugh.  It was known throughout the family that Mike Mullins had an awful temper when people laughed at him.  “Sure boss, sure. We just need to step out for a few more, uh, supplies. Malcolm is working on that right now.” “You two talentless turtles need to transpose that treasure today! I’ve never perceived such pathetic pillaging in all my life. You should be gleefully getting ready to get away with gallons of greenbacks by now.”  This time Matt did laugh just a little. Not only did he find Maniac Mike’s speech funny, but he was also giggling at the thought of all the money he and Malcolm would have when this was all over. They planned on moving somewhere no one would ever think to look. Malcolm thought they should move to another country, Hawaii. Matt was going to drive the whole way there. Neither of them realized that their crafty, double-talking boss had never explained exactly how much money they were going to get. Maniac Mike had planned to give them a gallon jug of coins each. He knew that would keep them busy for a while, whether they would make it farther than the town’s video arcade or not, he wasn’t sure. “Did you dare to disrespect my diction? “ Maniac Mike asked. He could feel his left eye starting to twitch.  Matt gulped, “No boss, no, I haven’t even seen a dictionary.  I was laughing at Malcolm, he just came back with toys, I mean from gathering supplies. We have to get back to work now, bye.” Matt tumbled over his words and hung up the phone before Maniac Mike could start yelling.