Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Another Adventure With Dad.
Hello everyone on this cloudy and very rainy autumn day! We have a lot of rain and cloudy weather lately. That is knocking a lot of the nicely colored leaves off the trees. Just when it was starting to look so beautiful with all those different colors. Oh well, there will be more yet. The temperature improved quite a bit yesterday though, however, it was cooler today, but it will be warmer tomorrow. Then, um, cooler next week again. Typical fall weather. Up and down.
Okay, enough with the weather reports on to adventures! Now, just so you don’t think this happened just the other day, because it didn’t, I will let you know right from the start, it didn’t happen just the other day. It was quite a number of years ago, in my younger days. Not that I’m old now, I just look that way to fool everyone. Inside I’m just as young as ever. Unfortunately my body disagrees with me about the young part. Anyway, on to the adventures!
One warm autumn day Dad and I went digging for old bottles. Dad liked insulators better. But occasionally we would go bottle digging. Anyway, we were looking around this old abandoned place and came across what we figured was an old well. Full of water. “Wonder if it is a well”, I pondered. “Most likely,” said Dad. He put his shovel in a little ways. “Looks deep,” he said. “You only put the shovel in a little,” I said “see if you can touch bottom.” “It will be too deep,” said Dad. “I’ll try then,” I offered.
“NO!” said Dad and he swung the shovel away before I had a chance to grab for it. Unfortunately the shovel hit the side of the well. And it slipped out of Dad’s hand. There was this kind of quiet ‘sploop’. We both stood there watching the shovel disappear from sight down the well. “My new shovel,” Dad said quietly. “Yep, it certainly looks deep,” I said. “Bonehead!” exclaimed Dad. That’s good. At least he wasn’t upset about losing his shovel. “Oh well,” he said, “now I won’t be able to dig for bottles.”
“Sure you can, you can use my shovel,” I said cheerfully, “I brought my extra folding shovel, so I will use that one.” I always liked to be prepared. Especially knowing how accident prone Dad was. Dad just looked. He used to do that a lot. We were digging quite close together in this one spot and finding a few nice old bottles. But not usually a good idea to be so close. Anyway, I was trying to pry something out of the ground and Dad finally stopped digging to see what I was doing.
Right then my shovel broke free. And dirt went flying. Right in dad’s face. Oddly, he had his mouth open at the time too. He was going to ask what I was doing and he ended up getting dirt in his mouth. So now he was sputtering and spitting. “Bonehead!,” he exclaimed again. Not sure how he could be enjoying a mouthful of dirt. Dad said Bonehead a lot when we were together so I finally figured it must mean he was having a good time.
Anyway, Dad decided to take a break and have some coffee and I kept digging for a bit. I found a really nice old bottle quite quickly and took it over to show Dad. “Look at this one,” I said. I held it right in front of him. Then I brushed a bit more dirt off the bottle. “Oh,” I said. We both looked down. The dirt landed in Dad’s cup of coffee. Dad just looked. And sighed. He used to sigh a lot too.
“You seem to be having problems today,” I said. “Today?” he questioned. “Here, I’ll get you some more coffee,” I offered. Then I reached for the thermos. “NO,” shouted Dad as he also reached for the thermos. Unfortunately it fell and we both looked. “You should have put the lid on it,” I said. “I should have stayed in bed,” Dad replied. Strange thing to say.
“And miss out on all this fun we’re having today?” I asked. Oddly, Dad just sighed and said “Why me, why me?” For some reason Dad didn’t enjoy digging for old bottles. I’m not sure why, looking for insulators was much more dangerous. Oh well. That’s all for today everyone, I hope you have a great weekend and God bless!
Steve. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
The Investigators, Inc. Part 2. The Mysterious Mr. Flynn. Chapter 3. Traitors.
Jennifer and Steffie were in my room at the clinic visiting with me, though I didn’t know it. I was still unconscious, or something. Steffie then gave me a kiss when it was time to go, then she felt my forehead, which Jennifer thought was odd. Steffie looked up at Jennifer with a worried look. “Don’t worry Steffie,” said Jennifer, “Daddy is just sleeping so he can get better.” Then Steffie slid onto the floor and Jennifer quickly put her hand on my forehead too so she could understand why Steffie was suddenly worried. Now she was worried too and she took Steffie out of the room and called Sky.
“Here I am, what’s the problem?” asked Sky looking around. “Auntie Sky will play with you now Steffie,” said Jennifer, “so take her sliding first, then the spinner.” Sky’s eyes got real big when Jennifer said that. “But I, but she…” Sky began. “Let’s go Auntie Sky!” exclaimed Steffie. They soon disappeared and Jennifer called Kat to come quickly to my room and then she called Samantha. “What’s wrong sis?” asked Kat. “Steve is cold, he shouldn’t be cold,” said Jennifer. She was so worried right now that she could barely stand. Kat called Angel and Friskie to come right away.
Angel began with giving me some low doses of energy while Kat did her work. “Cristy,” said Friskie, “check the security video for Steve’s room, immediately!” “On it Friskie!” replied Cristy. The the broadcast went over our speakers. “Red Alert! Now, Now!” That got everyone running around quickly and the whole chateau and clinic were sealed off immediately. “Only Doc was in there,” said Cristy. Friskie told Kat that Doc had been in the room and had done something with the machine monitoring me. “He turned it off!” said Kat, “That’s what he did.”
We have a new rule here now, when a Red Alert is issued the nearest ghost to the children takes them to one of the safe rooms and stays with them. This time it was Sky since she was playing with Steffie at the time. However, Kat needed her so she sent Kristina to take her place and Sky arrived to help Kat. “I don’t know if we can give Steve anymore of my blood,” said Sky, “too much might kill him.” Kat just looked at her. “Right, I’ll tell Samantha to get things set up,” said Sky. “Everything is ready,” said Samantha at that moment.
“See, I get things done quickly,” said Sky with a smile. Kat just shook her head saying, “why me, why me?” Soon everything was back to normal for me and Angel was giving added strength to Jennifer. “Why wasn’t I allowed to come in and help?” asked Doc. “You tried to kill Steve,” said Kat, “did you forget about the security cameras in this place?” “I did no such thing!” said Doc, “I wasn’t feeling well after dinner and went straight to bed.”
Kat asked Cristy to check the security cameras in Doc’s room and the hallway, waiting area and hallway to the clinic. “He’s right Kat,” said Cristy, “and looking at the man in the other video in Steve’s room, it looks more like a woman, take a look.” Cristy showed the video to Kat and she agreed it must be a woman, but who? That wasn’t hard to find out though it was a surprise. They knew it had to be someone about the same size as Doc, but he’s a fairly big man, bigger than any of the women on the team.
But a woman was here that is normally over with the Black Wolves with her husband. Their children are here during the week for school and she sometimes comes over here to help with the cooking. It is Josephine, the wife of Ives. She was immediately detained and locked up. Apparently Nico had talked with her and Ives about helping to kill Steve and he would share his $4 million with them. They would then leave and hide out in a different country somewhere in South America. It was a rather poor decision on their part.
However, because of the children, Kat and Jennifer just told them to leave. They were given money to fly anywhere they wanted, plus extra to start over. Then they were taken to the airport the next day where they got a flight to a French speaking country in Africa. If I had died, they would have had Josephine arrested for murder. I am back in my room recovering once again and doing much better this time, but it will take some time for complete recovery.
Kat and Jennifer are now planning the trip to the San Francisco Bay area in order to try and find this mysterious Mr. Flynn. Although she isn’t quite so mysterious anymore now that we know her real name, Donna Filing, and we know where she lives. Well, most of the time she lives there anyway. It is possible that she has other places of residence around the world like many other people. Maybe we should start doing that too. But then we would have to spread ourselves out too thin since we couldn’t trust other people to look after each of the places for us when we are not living there.
Although Sienna’s security team is excellent now and completely trustworthy. Although, as we just found out here, we thought all of our people were trustworthy too, but sometimes greed gets in the way. Perhaps we need to pay our people more, or perhaps I should say, maybe we need to pay our people. Just 2 days later we found out that Ives and his family were found dead in the house they had rented, all were shot. Mr. Flynn, or Donna, has a long reach.
That was a very bad mistake on her part. Donna obviously doesn’t like failure, however, the children were innocent and there was no need to kill them. Kat and Jennifer have picked out the teams to go after Donna Filing. Kat and her Wildcats plus The Black Wolves will be the lead teams for this one. Sky and her Bad Girls will be backup. That will leave 4 of the ghosts at home this time though Sky can come and pick up 2 more if needed but it isn’t likely that will be necessary.
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
