Vigilante PAW

Chapter Thirty-Three: A Mayor's Mistake

The silence of a previously calm morning was broken by the annoying buzz of Ryder's pup pad, which rattled against the surface of the nightstand beside his bed. His eyes shot open as his arm slowly reached over to slam on top of it, as though it were an alarm clock's snooze button. Unfortunately for him, though, he was only left with two choices. Pick up, or allow it to continuously ring until the person on the other side gave up trying to call...

Yeah, that would never happen.

The exhausted boy rolled over, futilely trying to reach his pup pad without getting up. After a few attempts that all proved that it was pointless to try and not get up, he sat up in his bed and slowly picked up his pup pad, answering the call.

"Hello...?" Ryder yawned, rubbing his eyes.

On the other side of the call was Katie, who was still in her own home, wearing her pajamas, "Hey, Ryder."

"Hey, Katie, what's up?"

"What, you thought I was bluffing when I said I'd be keeping tabs on you from now on?" The young blonde raised an eyebrow.

Ryder's cheeks burned with embarrassment, "You don't have to check in, you know? I'm not a kid..."

"Ryder. We're both kids. We're ten."

"That's not fair!" The young leader argued, "We've been ten for years!"

Katie sighed, "That's besides the point!" She leaned closer to the camera, "When did you go to sleep last night?"

"You know you can't use the PAW Patrol emergency line to—"

"Not sleeping for days before this was the real emergency. Now answer the question."

"Um... I went to sleep right after I sent the pups to bed!" He smiled nervously, "...A few hours after I sent them to bed..."

"How many hours after?"

"I dunno... Six?"

"SIX?" Ryder's pup pad cartoonishly shot up into the air as Katie yelled on the other side of the call. Upon falling back into the boy's hands, she sighed, "Well, it's a start when it comes to sleeping more. Now go take a shower."

"What?"

"Go take a shower. Now. You wanna get back on track? It's time to get into a routine."

"I took a shower last night!"

"Hm? Really?"

Ryder nodded, "Yeah, really. It was soon after I put the pups to bed. I remembered what Chase told me about me being smelly."\

Katie smiled nervously, "He wasn't wrong."

"Thanks for rubbing it in," Ryder's eyelids lowered, unamused by his friend's comment.

"How have missions been, by the way?" The young leader heard her ask as he stood up, stretching his back.

He glances at the screen of his pup pad, "There haven't been many missions since that news about Marshall spread. The most notable of which was helping Goodway with something involving Chickaletta."

"...Right, Mayor Goodway."

Ryder raised an eyebrow, hearing the tone of his friend's voice shift to a more bleak tone, "Did something happen with Mayor Goodway?"

"Something's been bugging me for a while," Katie began, "I know a lot of you think of Marshall as a thief, but why were Mayor Goodway, and some of the other citizens so harsh with him? Just because they all thought Marshall stole from Adventure Bay didn't mean they had to act like he never helped all of them out at some point."