Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The Investigators, Inc. The Northern Mystery. Chapter 4. The Switch.
“Steve’s signal is very clear, he is not far away,” said Rock, “time to go looking around. Do not leave anything behind except our clothes.” Soon they went off looking for us and Brenda’s men watched as they left, making sure they were actually going before they went to check our room for that envelope. Then they quickly went up to our room on the second floor and once inside the main man of the group went and checked under the mattress right away.
Sure enough, the envelope with the coded message was there. “Amazing we never thought to look under the mattress,” said one man. “Well, it is a stupid place to hide something, everyone looks there first,” said the main man. “Yeah, except us,” said the third man. “Just do not keep mentioning that to Brenda,” said the main man, “she knows how to use that whip of hers.”
Meanwhile, back with Brenda and I… “What are you planning to do with us?”, I asked Brenda. She just laughed. “That should be obvious,” she answered, “you I will need to take with us for protection now that your friends have arrived. But your girlfriends are expendable.” “Why not let them go?”, I asked again, “after all, they cannot hurt you once you leave town, which is what you will be doing.”
“Oh, so you have decoded part of it?”, she asked. “Just the first couple of lines which were in Norwegian and one of my team members speaks Norwegian,” I answered. “That must be the girl with the odd name,” said Brenda. “Well, it is only odd to some people,” I said. “Whatever,” said Brenda, “but we will take her along, she might be useful since none of my team speaks Norwegian.”
“And the others?”, I asked. “I said they were expendable, but, I will let them live if you are willing to take some pain for them.” “Such as?”, I asked. She brought out a whip to show me. “One stripe for each of them,” she said, “and they live.” I did not really believe her, but it was worth taking a chance. She told me to take off my shirt and stand with my hands against the wall.
She then proceeded, and she was good at her whipping. Then she splashed something on my back which she said would help keep out infection. I think that hurt more than the whipping. She then called in a man and told him to get the girl in number 3. He brought Sigurbjorn in and Brenda told her to put bandages on me.
Right then the 3 men came back with the envelope. “Tell the druggist to come in,” said Brenda. That scared me, but Sigurbjorn touched my shoulder, her way to tell me to stay calm. I guess she noticed me tense up. “Do you have some mineral oil?”, asked Sigurbjorn, “it will help.” She told the man to mention that to the druggist.
An older man came in with a bottle of mineral oil and gave it to Sigurbjorn who rubbed it on my back before applying the bandages. “Here, look at this,” said Brenda to the druggist, and she handed him the coded message. Kristina, who is our ephemera specialist, copied the original message onto the same type of paper, perfectly, from what I could see last night.
We then hid the real copy in a safer location. She also made a few changes to the message to mess things up for Brenda. That could be a problem for Sigurbjorn and I, but it was necessary. “It is real,” he said after looking at it with a magnifying glass and feeling the paper. “Okay, get to the plane everyone, we leave now,” she said.
We just made it to the plane and got on board when our team members showed up and spotted us. Meow!=Give me small boom boom! Rock gave it to him and he ran as fast as his legs would go, and just managed to attach it to one of the front wheels, then he ran off to the side quickly. Rock pressed a button and a small explosion knocked the wheel off and the plane fell over coming to a halt.
Everyone came out and a gunfight began with my team. “Grab the girl and go!”, yelled Brenda as a van approached. But Muffin had arrived and “Thwock!”, poor Sigurbjorn went down like a stone. Brenda yelled back to forget her and the man began to leave, but, “Thwock!”, and down he went. Rock and the others came running over but the van got away.
“Do not worry about them,” I said slowly, holding my head which was bleeding. “Muffin, how could you miss and hit Sigurbjorn?”, asked Rock. Meow,meow.=Me not miss, want to hit Sugar so they not take her. Only use rubber ball to knock out. Oooo, I hope she not be mad at Muffin. “The others are in cells in that building,” I said, as I started to shake.
“He is going into shock now,” said Rossana. “I know how to deal with that,” said Tracy, and she got out a blanket while Benson carried me over to the building. Rock carried Sigurbjorn. The cats came running along with us. Rock and Benson went to get the other girls while Tracy helped me and the rest stood guard. Once Sigurbjorn and I were okay, we drove back to the hotel…
To Be Continued.
©2022 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 
That was a narrow escape!!😳😲 That whipping had to be painful!!😬😬 But at least you got everybody back safe! Now, on to that letter! 😉😁😁
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Yes, we made it okay for this time, but I have a feeling Brenda will be back again looking for us, and this time she might not be so nice! What letter is that? Oh, that letter, well, I hid that one so good no one can ever find it! Um, yes, that whipping was painful, but worth it.😬👩👩👩👩🕵️
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Yes, I’m certain she’ll be back! Who on the team has a photographic memory 🤔 I’m sure you mentioned that before… anyway I hope they read the clues so you don’t need to give away the location of the real one?
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Our photographic memory person was killed a while back, she wasn’t with us for very long. However, there is someone else who is quite good at memory work too and hopefully she had time to memorize it all, because, well, the real one will never be found again.😬👩🕵️
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😬😬 Oh….😳😲 I hope so two then! Why would you do that??🤔🤔🙄🙄
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Well, you see, the paper got too close to this match I was holding and…foomph…it was gone in a flame! Then I crumbled the ashes into fine dust. But actually, 4 team members tried to memorize it, so we should be okay. I hope.🤔👩👩😺😺🕵️
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Boy… that’s taking a chance!!😬😬 I sure hope they don’t have dyslexia 😬😬
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Yes, it is kinda taking a chance, but it was the only way to keep it out of Brenda’s hands. I think she’s going to be a bit angry when she finds out, but hopefully we can keep one step ahead of her. Hmm, no one on our team with that name.🤔🕵️
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You need to find one!!😉 Ya never know when you’re going to have to read something I n a mirror 🪞 🤭🤭🤭
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If I do that I just need to stand backwards when I read. Simple. I just hope everyone remembers their part. Each one took a part to memorize, so all 4 of them are necessary to get the whole letter.🤔🕵️
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Ooooo…..😲😲 great thinking on your part!!😉😉 But what if one or more of them get killed or is in a coma or or… goes to nowhere land like you???😬😳
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Yes, well, that is always a possibility I guess. So much for my brilliant idea.🙄 We just have to keep them alive, that’s all.🤔🕵️
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That would be ideal..🤔🤔
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I always think so anyway. And it’s not that much to memorize, just one page each.🤔🕵️
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That’s all??😲 Oh well that should be easy….😳😏😏
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Yes, I thought so too, but just to make sure, I didn’t participate in this exercise.😬🕵️
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Another brilliant thought on your part!! That time off really sharpened you thinking thinker!!😁😊
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Well, I did have a little help in that area. I was going to help but everyone screamed NO at the same time so I figured they wanted to do it on their own.🤔🙄
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Obviously!!🤭🤭
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Still, Kat didn’t have to join them.
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She was just making sure you didn’t overwork yourself!😉
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That is true, besides I needed to plan out our next idea for finding this treasure.🤔🕵️
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That would be good to start to do!!🤔😊 You don’t want to wait until it’s too late..🤔
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Yes, that is so true, even though I have no idea where we are going yet, or if we are going anywhere.🤔🕵️
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It would seem that the town you’re in might be a good place to start! There could be clues that may lead you elsewhere but you need to start somewhere 😉 🤔
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Yes, and it will take Brenda a while to figure out that part about Norway was an addition of ours! But it should give us a good head start at least!🤔🕵️
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I’m guessing it won’t take very long long though. You better make sure to pack your backs full-on every gadget and specialty items you can carry! You may need them!!😁😊😬
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We are set and ready to go, once we find out where to go, can’t just go, we need to decode something before we can go wherever we need to go. But it will take Brenda time going to Norway and back, plus finding out she’s in the wrong place, that should give us a few days to decode something and be on our way.🤔😁🕵️
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Haha 😀 Smart move Muffin! haha 😂
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Brenda probably thought that Sigurbjorn had been shot accidentally by my team! Muffin is smart indeed!😻😻
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indeed haha
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