[Episode 10]
And then, in a twinkling1, we heard on the stairs
Footsteps that thundered, laden2 with cares.
The sounds they grew louder, turned all heads around,
Down the stairs with his toys, he came with a bound3.
WT Sharpe and
dreams raced into the living room, where they discovered
DaleDe on the carpet, sobbing uncontrollably as he clutched his slimy
Wiki-Blocks to this chest.
"
Dale! What's the matter? Did you see somebody?" asked
WT Sharpe, turning swiftly
4 to look around the seemingly
5 empty room (empty, that is, if you don't count dead bodies). "I wonder if
ravenne has any air freshener -- it's getting a little pungent
6 in here."
dreams knelt next to
Dale "What's the matter sweetie? Why are you crying? Has someone broken your
Wiki-Blocks?"
"Someone stole some of my
Wiki-Blocks!" sobbed
DaleDe. "I had a complete set ... and ... and .... now they're not all here! I've searched everywhere! Look! I'm missing the
E-book Reader Matrix and the
E-book conversion blocks -- they're some of the most important blocks in the set! And here's only the
E-book stores block, but not the
Free eBooks block. I've got the
Poems at MobileRead block, but biggest block in the set, the
FAQ block is gone! Who stole my blocks? Who?"
dreams sorted through the slimy mess on the carpet.
DaleDe was right -- around half of the
Wiki-Blocks were gone. The dirty fiend
7 had even taken the
Notable eBook Uploads block.
WT Sharpe and
dreams began to search the living room, trying to locate the missing blocks.
Dale remained sobbing as he tried, unsuccessfully, to arrange the remaining blocks into some structure that could still hold on to the remaining information.
Suddenly
Dale sprang to his feet and cried "Maybe
Nate took some of them upstairs to his room. He was doing some research before he wrote his letter to Santa -- that's right -- he was looking up that new
Pocketbook eReader!"
Before anyone could stop him,
Dale raced to the stair case and bounded up the steps!
SMASH
.
.
.
BOUNCE
.
.
.
BOUNCE
.
.
.
BOUNCE
.
.
.
BOUNCE
Helplessly,
WT Sharpe and
dreams watched
DaleDe's limp body, amidst a flurry of
Wiki-Blocks, fall down the stairs head first, striking each step in a monotonous rhythm of death. The deathly hush
8 was punctuated
9intermittently
10as random blocks continued to bounce down the stairs. Finally, the last block rolled to a dead stop, next to
Dale's battered head.
dreams opened her mouth to scream yet again, but was interrupted by
ravenne entering the room, wearing her winter coat, hat, and boots. "Gott im Himmel! Was soll all this racket? Did Santa and the reindeer just fall down the chimney?"
WT Sharpe silently pointed towards the bottom of the stairs.
"Ja, another one. I'll clean up when I get back. You always warned him, dreams, to put away his little blocks or else there would be a nasty accident. Looks like he didn't listen to you." remarked
ravenne "Hmmm .... another of your lethal predictions came true, oder wie oder was?"
dreams shook her head from side to side in silent denial, unable to reply to yet another accusation.
"Look guys ... another fiendish booby trap
11!"
WT Sharpe had walked up the stairs to the step where
DaleDe had tripped and fallen. "The murderer glued some of
Dale's blocks together with the sticky punch to make a false step
12. It was much too fragile to bear his weight - especially if he was running up the stairs. When his foot slammed down on it, it crumbled back into separate blocks, sending poor
DaleDe to his doom!
DaleDe was murdered!"
"Ja, ja ... lot of that going round tonight. So ... The carolers are still coming, and I don't trust any food in this house. So I'm going to the grocery store for all new food," announced
ravenne.
"
Alex ordered us to stay together, remember?" asked
dreams.
"Not doing us a lot of good is it?" retorted
ravenne. "
WT Sharpe can walk me to my car in case I'm attacked by a serial-killer snowman in the yard. Let's go
WT Sharpe."
WT Sharpe shrugged and accompanied
ravenne out the back door to her car, leaving the door open so he and
dreams could see each other the entire time.
dreams sank down on the carpet. Carolers still coming ... it was still Christmas Eve ... it seemed as if they had been trapped in this web of terror for days! Weeks! But Christmas was still going to arrive .... tonight. Would any of them be around to see it?
She blindly reached out and found
WT Sharpe's ukulele. A lifetime ago he had been sitting on that sofa, restringing it with new wires, to accompany the carolers. Tears gently splashed onto its polished wood as she gently plucked the shiny new wires, producing a pitiful melody.
PLUNK! PLUNK! PLINK! PLUNK! PLUNK!
[End of Episode 10]
1 in a twinkling: in einem Augenblick
2 laden: geladen
3 bound: Sprung
4 swiftly: eilig
5 seemingly: scheinbar
6 pungent: scharf, stechend
7 fiend: Unhold
8 hush: Stille
9 to punctuate: unterbrechen
10 intermittently: stoßweise
11 booby-trap: Falle
12 false step: Fehltritt