Someone in Trouble

Chapter 18: Fun and Games

"Where's my car?" Stingy panted as he ran fast as he could out of Lazy Park. Stephanie had been right. Robbie was acting strange, all right. He'd gone completely coo-coo! With a cry of relief Stingy found his car right where he'd left it parked beside the brick wall. The boy didn't bother with the door, instead diving straight into the driver's seat. The vehicle sputtered and coughed to life and he was off, motoring for home.

The car hugged the corner with a squeal of its tires as Stingy rounded the bend. He gasped and jerked the wheel to the side, veering around the deep pothole that waited on the other side. He always forgot this hole was here and it always nearly left him totaled.

"They really need to fix this street!" Stingy bumped and skidded a little until he regained control of the car. At least there was nothing but clear roads ahead of him now—

Another pothole yawned open in front of the car that Stingy had never seen before. Yanking on the steering wheel again the boy narrowly managed to swerve out of the way of the freshly dug pit. He rose up out of his seat with how much the car bumped and jostled on the torn up pavement.

"What is going on?!" Stingy boggled at the state of his road. There were more potholes than ever before! He swerved and veered, dodged and careened through the impromptu obstacle course, avoiding pits and mountains of dirt alike. Had Robbie done all of this?

He had no time to think about it as suddenly the ground bucked and crumbled in a grinding tumult, giving out from under his tires. Stingy could do nothing but hold on to the wheel and shriek as the car dipped and slid into the sinkhole. He landed with a crash at the bottom.

"Oh, no," Stingy moaned and coughed, clearing his throat of dirt and dust. "Is my car okay?" He peered around himself. The vehicle had landed on all four tires at the bottom of the hole and was dinged up with rocks and rubble but otherwise seemed okay. "But what about me?" Stingy turned his concerns away from the car and looked at his predicament. "How am I going to get out of here?"

A head popped over the side of the hole, looking down at Stingy. Stingy's brief surge of hope was dashed as he recognized Robbie's distinctively coiffed hair.

"Car trouble?" Robbie called down in pleasant tones. "Need a hand?"

Stingy was too shaken up to speak. But when Robbie extended an arm down towards him the boy didn't have many other options available. He stood up in his car and reached out to take Robbie's hand.

Robbie grabbed Stingy by the wrist. Instead of pulling him up, however, he ripped out the cufflink secured to the fancy boy's sleeve.

"Hey!" Stingy cried out with a mix of shock and indignation. "That's mine!"

Robbie released him and Stingy fell back into the seat of his car. The man left him with a nasty chuckle.

"Three down..."

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The sight of the yellow and red paneling of her uncle's house gave Stephanie an extra burst of speed and she ran full force into the door, throwing it wide open.

"Uncle Milford, Uncle Milford!" she gasped and stumbled over the threshold. Her uncle stood in the kitchen puttering around the oven where a cake was baking.

"Why, Stephanie! What on earth is the matter?" the portly man asked. Stephanie ran into the kitchen and caught herself on the table, upsetting a fruit bowl.

"It's Robbie Rotten," she stammered as she tried to catch her breath, "he's gone totally crazy! He's chasing us around and—"

"Oh yes, Mr. Rotten!" Mayor Meanswell declared richly. "He told me all about the game you were going to be playing today. Why, he even told me you might say something like this as part of the game, too! Such a good man to get so involved with all of your activities." The mayor chuckled as he pulled on his oven mitts.

"But uncle," Stephanie sputtered, "it's NOT a—!"

"Hello-o-o in there," Robbie stood in the open doorway of the house, his lanky silhouette filling the frame. "Do I spy a mouse in the house?"

"Uncle Milford!" Stephanie cried.

"Now, now, you run along and have fun, my dear," Mayor Meanswell waved her off with his oven mitt. "Just remember, no roughhousing indoors!"

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Pixel didn't stop running until he had made it all the way to his own house. He collapsed onto his sofa as soon as he was safe inside and his mind went into overdrive trying to catch up with himself. He hoped Ziggy and Trixie were okay and wondered if Stingy and Stephanie had gotten away. But what was Robbie's malfunction?

"Gotta check the video feeds," Pixel murmured to himself. He needed more data before he could figure out what was going on. He moved to his desk and booted up the computer. With a thrum the wall of monitors flickered on and filled his room with their comforting green glow. Already he started to feel better. Technology would help him figure this out.

But when Pixel tried to click on the desktop of his primary monitor nothing happened. He tried to move the cursor around but it remained frozen in the center of the screen.

"Huh? What's going on with the mouse?" Pixel couldn't click on anything! He pulled the mouse up off of the desk to check the optical lens on the bottom but the cord went taut, caught on something. With a sharp tug Pixel pulled the device free to take a closer look—

INSTALLATION OF MOUSETRAP-DOT-EXE COMPLETE , the computer pinged with a pop-up alert. INITIATING PROGRAM.

"What?!" Pixel hadn't been downloading anything! He held the unplugged mouse up higher. What was that on the end of the plug? A purple flash drive? "Robbie—!"

The steady green light of the monitors suddenly went an alarming shade of red. They flashed over and over and blared their warnings at Pixel.

WARNING

SYSTEM ERROR

WARNING

CRITICAL FAILURE

"Major glitch!" Pixel banged on the keyboard, trying to put a halt to the fatal scripts that filled up the screens. But the computer wouldn't even respond to the keyboard anymore.

All around him his machines went haywire beeping and flashing, stuttering on fragmented loops and churning through nonsensical data. Pixel was assaulted with all the confusing noises and images to the point where he couldn't think straight, couldn't do anything to stop it. The computers chugged and churned and smoke began to fill the room.

Outside someone was banging on the door. "Pixel!" they were shouting, barely audible over the alarms from the computers. Pixel could hardly see through the thickening smoke as he stumbled away from his desk.

The door flew open and gave him a rectangle of bright light to run towards, the fuzzy blue of the sky a welcome sight. He tripped in his eagerness to get out and threw himself as best he could towards the door. As he reached out towards the blue it seemed to reach in towards him, too. Before he realized it there were two strong hands grabbing hold of him.

For one terrible instant Pixel thought it was Robbie and tried to struggle free. But they didn't let go, holding firm yet gentle. They whisked him up and whirled him out into the open before setting him down carefully on his feet.

Pixel gasped in the fresh air and stared blearily up at the person who'd caught him.

"Sportacus!" he exclaimed.

Sportacus was a sight for sore eyes in his sky blue uniform, and Pixel's eyes were already watery from the smoke. This was no optical illusion. He was really here!

"Are you all right?" Sportacus asked, his face tense with concern. There would be time for a proper reunion later.

"I am now," Pixel said, "but my computer's going nuclear! It's going to blow if I don't get it shut down!"

"I'll take care of it," Sportacus said. Without any further deliberation the man leapt through the open doorway and disappeared into the dark and smoky house.