Chapter Four "What the..."

              I sit alone in the main room of the magic shop, as we like to call it. I don't know why, it's not a shop, maybe because magic warehouse sounds stupid. I hold a sketch book, I'm trying to draw magic tricks. I don't know why I do this. I never come up with anything, if I ever do, I do it while I'm out, and even then it isn't much of a trick. Coming up with tricks is always Kary's thing. She is the one who told me to try this. I think I listen to her too much. That's when my best friend K.C. comes into the room.

              "Hey, idiot." says my best friend as I lay with my back on the couch.

              I don't look up. I just respond, "I got your idiot."

              "You are my idiot." He comes back with. I had seen this coming, one of us always says this. Not because we don't like each other, we're really like brothers. We do it because we both have a weird sense of humor.

              I jump up from the couch and land right in front of him. He wasn't far away, so it wasn't hard. K.C. stands a bit taller than me, not much but it is noticeable. Not that that matters to me, but it is true. I look at him with my evil funny grin and say. "Hey, I have this great trick. It involves impaling you on a bow, killing you and then bringing you back to life. I don't have the bring back to life part down yet, but lets try it and see if I figure it out as I go along." It's just a normal day in magic land.

              He looks at me and his grin is gone. "You got a phone call, 'Eminem'. I think it's from old friends." He says. Neither one of us likes it when my old friends call. This must have been the reason he set himself up so easy for me.

              "Aight." I say as I walk into the other room to get the phone. "Yeah?" I ask when I pick it up.

              "Tim's in the hospital. You know which one." A voice says. And the line goes dead. I know this guy, I've known him for years. I wouldn't be who I am today, that is why I hate him so much. But I could be dead somewhere, so that is why I love him so much. And I could be weak, that is why I respect him so much.

              I walk into the main room. "I'm going out for a bit, try not to set the place on fire... again." I said without looking back at my best friend. I never tell him what I am doing when I have to see my old friends, he doesn't want to know, and I like him too much to tell him.

              "I'm not making any promises." Responds my best friend. As I leave I hear Kary come in the room. I shut the door and wait a second. These two either get along great, or start to kill each other. I can't have my best friends kill each other. That's my job.

              I hear a voice, its Kary's. She asks "He's going to see old friends again, isn't he?"

              K.C. just responds "Yeah, sweets." He only calls her sweets when he's not hitting on her.

              Kary's voice starts up again. "When is he going to stop going through this?" This is all I hear. All I care about is these two not killing each other. That's my job. As long as that doesn't happen, then I'm happy. I don't want to spy on them.

              They are both very funny. K.C. really likes Kary, and he thinks she either doesn't like him or is playing hard to get. Neither of these are true. Kary actually likes K.C. a lot, but she doesn't want to get too close to him.

              You see, K.C. doesn't keep girlfriends very long. I can't criticize because I can't get them to begin with, so he's one up on me. But Kary doesn't like this behavior. She's scared because she thinks he'll treat her the same way. I know this because Kary talks to me a lot. I listen to her because she will ask me for advice, and then tell me how smart I am for telling her exactly what she wants to hear. I like feeling smart.

              But these two and their love lives aren't my problems at the moment. My friend Tim is in the hospital. There are about a hundred reasons that any of my 'old friends' could be in the hospital, so I'm not going to guess. But that is not the major problem. Tim I can handle. All my old friends, I can handle, it's the one who called that is the problem. A problem I don't want to face, and because God loves me so much, I'm already at the hospital.

              One of the doctors here is on the take, and he gets creative with the paper work if the price is right. That is why we came here, and why they still come here now. I know, because I've been laid up here before. That was a long time ago, but not long enough.

              After talking to the young chipmunk girl behind the counter, I quickly make my way to Tim's room. In front of Tim's room is two sets of benches. Each bench has three seats. There are 5 people against the wall away from Tim's room, and one person sitting by himself on the wall of Tim's room. I know all six of these people. None of the five are the kind you bring home to mama, and the one on the left scares the five on the right. I sit next to him.

              "You talk too D@#n much, Jimmy." I say and look straight ahead at the five who are now in front of me. All of them move against the wall a little further, like that is possible, even the rat that's twice Jimmy's size.

              Jimmy doesn't move. I'm the only one he wouldn't hit for saying that, and for sitting beside him. He hates that, which is why I did it. A long time ago he was my best friend. I met him a long time ago, I had just made my way to New York. I saw him and most of the people who now sit or stand in front of me. He said, what's your name, I told him my name was Mike. He said where you from Mike, Alabama, and pushed me. I stood back up and punched him in the face, knocking him onto his back. He spit out a tooth. The big rat in front of me laughed at him. Jimmy stood up and knocked one of the big rat's teeth out, too. I stood up and hit Jimmy again. I don't like bullies, I never have. Whenever I saw a bully picking on someone, I would beat him up. It's no big deal for me to get into a fight. Maybe if I had a father to tell me not to fight, it would be a big deal, but I don't have a father, or a mother. The first thing I remember is being in an orphanage. Lots of bullies for me to beat up there, so I was always in fights.

              Anyway, after that, Jimmy got up and looked at me, he took a swing at me and connected. I lost a tooth. We fought for the next ten minutes. After we finished adding more bruises to each other, Jimmy asked me to join them. I did, and I was there until two years ago.

              So now I look at the guys in front of me. I ask them, "What's wrong with Tim?"

              The large rat, who cowers in Jimmy's shadow, says, "He O.D.ed." and then nothing more. I get up and then walk into Tim's room. I sit beside his bed and look straight down, my arms are crossed and my eyes are closed. He's sitting there and looks at me. It takes him a little while to look at me, I don't know how long because I can't keep track of time well, and I really can't when I'm pissed.

              He looks at me and says "It was an accident, I was at a party and flirting with some girl, and I just kept doing more and more until it was too much and then I was in here when I woke up."

              I don't move, but I do answer him. I say, "I know you are just thinking out loud to see how F#$k!*g stupid that sounds, that way you won't say it to me because you know I am nowhere near that stupid." I stand up and look at him. "I don't think for one second everyone would be out there if this was that simple. I know you better than that." I walk away from him and look out the window. "If you drive some fast remote control car and wrap it around a tree, I'll be at your funeral. If you do something really stupid and make your way into the Darwin Awards, I'll F#@&ing be there. If you screw a girl and get something ajax won't wash off, I'll be there. But if you die from an overdose, I'll wait 'till the funeral's over so I can dance on your grave." I walk out of the room.

              I like Tim. He was always the best out of our little group, but I don't like what he does for fun, or the fact that he wants out of life. I hate people who try to end their life. I can tell by the way everyone out here is, none of them like what happened, either. I sit down beside Jimmy again, this time on the other side. I sit there for a long time, I don't know how long, I'm terrible at keeping track of time. No one says anything the whole time. It's a little awkward with Tim in the other room, and they don't see me much anymore.

              It's not long before I get tired of this. I stand up and walk back into Tim's room. I was too hard on him, but that's not the reason I'm going in there. I want to make sure he is alright. I sit beside his bed and begin to talk with him. Tim wasn't part of "old friends" when I joined all those years ago. He joined about 4 years ago. We were best friends from the start, because the two of us weren't like the others. But Tim changed some. He is still not the same as the rest, but not very different, either.

              It's not long before I get tired of this and want to go home. I tell Tim goodbye and walk out the door. As I walk by 'old friends', I look toward Jimmy, who is still sitting alone, and say, "Nice talking to you." None of them say anything, not even the fearless leader.

              I walk back home, not really surprising, because I like to walk everywhere. When I get home I see K.C. sitting on the couch. He doesn't even look up at me. I should have been insulted by now, but there's nothing from him, so I know something's wrong.

              I look at K.C. and say "Whatcha down about? Did they outlaw family marriages and now you can never tell your cousin how much you love her?" This is just how we are, we say stupid things that make little to no sense to each other all day long.

              "There's something wrong with Kary." Came from my best friend. I wait for the punch line. I wait awhile until it becomes eerie silence.

              So I tell my friend, "Either you forgot the punch line or I wised up and stopped listening to you."

              K.C. gets up slowly. If he would have gotten up fast I would have gotten ready to be tackled, but now I know for sure that he is serious. After he walks to me, he says "I'm serious, Mike. She won't talk to anybody. She's been moping around really bad today. She started to talk and then went crying to her room. Could you go talk to her? You're the only one she'll talk to."

              I don't pick on him, I know how he feels about her. So I just tell him, "I'll go talk to her." I do want to know what is going on, she is very close to me, and a darling to begin with. If I had a sister, and she just happened to be a chipmunk, she would probably be Kary, but hopefully not with a yankee accent.

              I walk down the hall till I get to her room. I knock on her door and say her name. She says "Come in 'Emi'." Her door wasn't locked, it never is during the day, but I'm afraid she would hurt my favorite neck if I just opened the door without knocking.

              I open the door. To my right is a chipmunk girl a little younger than me, maybe just a couple of years, I really don't know because she won't tell anyone her age, and I'm afraid to ask because she might have to kill me if I knew that valuable information.

              Kary is sitting on her bed with her back to the wall. She has her knees up to her chest and her arms are wrapped around her knees. She is looking down at the floor. If she is leaving, I don't think she likes the idea. She is wearing a pair of blue jeans and a red shirt, she has long hair, quite a pretty girl actually, which may be the only reason K.C. likes her, I have never known him to be very deep.

              I go and sit next to her on the bed, when I do she lays her head on my shoulder. This is pretty normal for us. It's always been like this. When I met her a year ago or so, it was one of the few times that I had a girlfriend. I used to sit up and talk with her, ask her advice, which usually got me into lots of trouble because I never remembered all of it. She would talk to me and ask me advice, I'm not sure why, but she did and I did my best not to say something stupid. It has been like that ever since.

              She looks at me and says "Mom is very sick, the doctors don't know what is wrong with her. I have to go be with her, to help her." I put my arm around her and I look to her and say "I've been wondering what's been bothering you for the last couple of days."

              She throws her arms around me and buries her head into my chest and says (well, really muffled, but I can understand her), "You could tell?"

              I say back to her, "Yeah, darlin', I can tell when something is botherin' ya, but why did ya wait this long to tell us?" My jacket is getting wet from her tears, I can tell she has been crying for awhile.

              "I was worried how everyone would take me leaving." She told me.

              I look to the closest thing to a sister that I have ever had. "Of course we'll miss ya honey, but we won't love ya any less, especially me. Although we might if you don't go take care of your mom."

              She looks up and says, "You mean it?"

              And I say, "Yeah, sweetie." After a little bit, she gets up and walks to her dresser, She starts to clean her face. A lot of her makeup has run while she cried. I'm not sure why she wears makeup, I think she looks better without it. I have told her this before, but she didn't listen to me, and now is not a time to tell her again.

              Being that she is the master of makeup... or is it the mistress of makeup? It probably is, but Mistress just sounds weird. Either way she knows her makeup, so it doesn't take long for her to get ready.

              After she's ready, we walk out into the main room to talk with everyone. It was two days later that she left to see her mom. I think her mom will get better. She is a nice woman. She says how sweet I am and such a good guy for Kary to hang around with. She's a terrible judge of character.

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              Wednesday was the Rangers day off, so every Wednesday the Rangers went their own way. Today, however, was a little different than normal. Dale wanted to go see his friend Mike and didn't want anyone to know about his new training. Today he was up before Chip, which only happens on the days that he came to bed right as Chip was going to sleep. He quickly got up and headed into the kitchen. Even in a hurry, Dale still had to have his cereal.

              Tammy had found that her training throughout the school year was for nothing. She was always the first one up, which means she just wait longer for everyone else to get up. But old habits are hard to break. She walked into the kitchen to get a snack before her work out, and there was Dale. *I don't think he's been up all night, he seems too awake. I wonder why he's up so early.* Being part red squirrel from her father's side and being mischievous to begin with, and also using detective training as an excuse no one would believe, Tammy decided to find out. She stayed behind the corner and Dale got up and put his dishes in the sink. He didn't wash them because he was too likely to break them and Monty would much prefer to wash dishes than to repair them.
Tammy pushed against the wall and into a shadow, and grabbed her tail and pulled it close to her so she would have the least chance of being seen. Dale started for the door and as he was about to open the door, he looked back. Tammy hoped she was in the shadow enough to not be seen. Dale then walked outside. Tammy followed slowly, remembering Zipper's advice about keeping a distance when following somebody. She hadn't even gotten out of the shadows when the door came flying open and Dale jumped in.

              "Ah ha!" came from Dale as he pointed into the room. This scared Tammy very badly. She was sure she was caught. Dale looked around and didn't see anybody. "Guess nobody was following me." And then Dale headed out the door. Tammy almost fell in the floor laughing at this, but she knew that wouldn't be very good for her stealth training. She headed out the door slowly. She was very careful not to make any noise. As she looked out she saw that Dale had already made it to the ground. Tammy sat on the branch and watched the way Dale went. *It looks like Dale is headed for the city.* Tammy saw that it would be a long way before Dale came to any trees, and if she waited that long she might lose him, so she headed down the back of the tree to keep from being seen by Dale. She quickly made it down to the ground. She quickly made her way around the tree and began to look for Dale. *Where did he go, he can't be that fast.* Tammy looked around for a bit. *There you are.* Dale had made his way to the closest bush and was a little hard to see from where Tammy was. Tammy stayed behind Dale far enough where Dale wouldn't be able to see her, not that she needed to, Dale had no idea where she was. Tammy quickly followed Dale much the same way she and Zipper had followed Mike and Dale just a week before. It wasn't long until Dale had come to the edge of the city.

              *He's going to see Mike again. That has to be it, that's the only thing down this alley. Why? Oh well, I'll find out later.* As she waited on the edge of the forest, she could tell that it would be harder to follow him now. The alley looked more cleared out than before. *How am I supposed to follow him now?* She wondered. Then Tammy noticed the small building on the right. A drain pipe hung from the side. *That looks good.* Tammy quickly made for the side of the building and climbed up the side of the drain pipe. She quickly made her way to the first floor windowsill. She began to run along side it. She didn't have to worry about being seen by Dale now. As Tammy ran, she quickly overtook Dale and made it to the area he was going to first. There was a drain pipe beside the small door that led to the magic shop. *I wonder if that will work?* Tammy walked up to it, and this one, like the one that she had climbed up was twice her size. It could very easily conceal her from any red nosed chipmunks she was hiding from. Tammy began to slide down the drainpipe very slowly so that she wouldn't make any noise. She made it down to the bottom before Dale made it to the door. *Good, this way I'll be able to hide and surprise him.* Dale walked up to the door and looked back the way he came, this was all Tammy needed. She quickly jumped from the drain pipe and landed on Dale, sending them both to the ground.

              "Gotcha! Like the panther stocks her prey, I slightly crept up on you. You never saw it coming. I'm the master of stealth." Boasted Tammy as she got off her prey. "Now, what is so secretive about coming to see Mike that you didn't want the rest of us to know about it?"

              "Well, I was wanting to... uhhh..." Dale couldn't come up with one of his genius ideas. He had been caught and couldn't think of anything that would make sense.

              "You were going to have Mike teach you magic, weren't you! Why didn't you want the rest of us to know?"

              "Because I'm tired of getting tied up and not being able to do anything. I want to be able to contribute to the team!" replied Dale.

              "No, you just want to be able to impress Gadget." Replied Tammy. Dale would have responded, if he had any idea how to counter this obvious observation, but the door they were standing next to came flying open. Two mice, each caring a staff came out, each seemed a bit surprised to see the chipmunk and the squirrel.

              "Oh, it's just you, I thought there was someone we didn't want here." Replied Mike, with K.C. standing at his side. They both lowered their staves.

              "Didn't you remember you said I could come today?" asked Dale.

              "Sorry, had a bit on my mind the last few days. Come on in." Replied Mike. The four of them went inside.

              "Wowzers, can you two really fight with those?" asked an excited Dale and a giggle came from Tammy as she heard this.

              "Yes we can." Responded K.C.

              "Oh, is that what ya call whatcha been doing, huh?" responded the mischevious southerner.

              "I do alright." countered K.C., at which point Mike used his staff and knocked the staff out of K.C.'s hands and barely caught it before it hit the ground. Dale stood back and was amazed, Tammy just giggled some more at Dale's and K.C. reaction.

              "Why did you do that? You still don't think it's my fault that she left?" asked K.C.

              "She didn't leave because of you. She liked you a lot actually. I really do think she had family problems." Responded Mike.

              "What? She liked me? Why didn't you tell me? Why are you telling me now?" asked K.C.

              "Well, rock star, I didn't tell you because she told me not too, and I'm telling ya now because all my promises have been kept, and I don't want you moping around thinking I'm mad at ya every time I pick on you. We've been acting like this long before Kary and we'll probably be doing it long after we're dead." Responded Mike as he put his hand on K.C.'s shoulder to let him know for sure that all was forgiven.

              "Who's Kary?" Asked the curious squirrel.

              "One of the other magicians. She had her own trick and helped out another magician by letting him saw her in half. That last part isn't a big deal, but her own trick was a major one in the show." Answered K.C.

              "Hey, we could help." Dale said as he looked toward Tammy with an evil look in his eye.

              "Oh, your not getting me to lay down in a box and cut me into two pieces!" responded Tammy.

              "Actually, ya would stand up in a box and get cut into 3 pieces." Answered Mike.

              "Ok, I'll help if you want me too." Responded Tammy who stopped pretending to be mad and was excited about being up on stage.

              K.C. looked over at Mike. "Do you think we should?"

              "Don't see any reason why not. They are rescue rangers after all, can't trust many folks more than them." Mike looked over at Dale and Tammy. "Are ya'll sure ya want to do this? It takes a lot of practice and hard work. And the next show is only 2 weeks away. You would have to practice just about everyday."

              "Yes." responded both of the rangers.

              "Well, you better explain the rules to them first. I have some things to take care of. See you later." K.C. said, as he left through the door that Tammy and Dale had just come through.

              "Alright, what I'm about to tell ya, can't go to anyone, not even your friends. Alright?" asked Mike. Both of the rangers agreed to the secrecy.

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