Chapter 11

Jupie woke up and reached over to wake up Earl. The spot was empty. She opened her eyes and rolled over. Earl didn't sleep there last night. Jupie's heart began to beat faster. "Where was Earl"? She remembered him saying something about taking the hurkle to the dumping grounds. Then she remembered she didn't have a hurkle anymore. Her heart beat a little faster. Earl was missing and so was her hurkle. "What's going on"? Suddenly she remembered the country, Omeric and Elsie and everything that happened yesterday. Groaning loudly Jupie fell back on the back and pulled the covers over her head.

After getting dressed and bathing, though not in that order, Jupie went downstairs and made herself some breakfasting. She had done some thinking after plopping down on her bed with the covers over her head. What she had thought was that she was going to go and get her hurkle. And since Earl wasn't home there would be no argument. That was when she had started thinking about Earl and why he wasn't home. These thoughts depressed her and caused her to think it was time to stop thinking and start doing. What is what she was doing now. Which is why she was in her garage with no traveling craft.

For awhile she just stood there and looked at the space where the traveling craft was supposed to be. After a while she thought that she ought to think about what she should do now. Jupie went back into the kitchen and sat down to think about how she was going to get her traveling craft. The only problem was that the only thing she knew was that it was sitting somewhere in farming country , more precisely in Omeric and Elsie's front yard in farming country. As Jupie sat there thinking she decided to have a second breakfasting, which as all know, is impossible, since you can only break fasting once after that it's all ready broken. But since it was too early for brunch you couldn't call it brunch, but Jupie didn't think about that.

Luckily, while Jupie was finishing her second breakfasting the comuni rang.

"Hello?" said Jupie.

"Hello, is this, er, ah, does a Jupie live here?"

"Yes. This is her speaking."

"Oh. Good. Come get your bumpin' travellin' craft out of my yard."

"Omeric? Oh Omeric I wish I could, but I don't know where you live and Earl isn't back yet and I can't get there and ..."

"Okay. Okay. Hush up we'll come and get you," said Omeric and hung up the phone.

Chapter 12

Omeric sat in his traveling craft heading for the city, for the second time in as many days. He had left the city the other night after dropping off Jupie, a stranger that had run out of energy at his front door and here he was going back into the city to pick up the same stranger. "Why?" he asked himself. Supposedly it was just so that she could get her traveling craft out of his front yard, but he knew that there was really another reason. It would take more than an abandoned traveling craft to get him back into the city.

The scene is of the city. The city as it was twenty years ago. Omeric is a city cop. He's been on the force for a number of years, he has even managed to become a sergeant. But he still likes to work the beat. Even though his job is filled with danger and he doesn't get paid enough and it seems as fast as you put away one criminal, there is another one all ready taking over where the first one left off, Omeric enjoys his job.

But that was all about to change. He had been assigned to a burglary case. It sounded like any other burglary case he had seen over the years, and it was; except that the warehouse that the goods were stolen from belonged to some very special people. And these special people didn't like people they didn't invite messing with their stuff. Omeric was not on the invitation list and some special people were not happy.

Omeric arrived at the warehouse and as was standard procedure called for backup. He then stepped out of the traveling craft and looked around. The warehouse looked deserted. The police report said that a large piece of equipment had been stolen from here. If that were true there must have been some sort of vehicle involved, thought Omeric. Somewhere there has to be some sort of clue or some residue of fuel exhaust. All I have to do is find it and follow it back to the creep who stole the equipment. Then it's catch 'em, book 'em and throw 'em in jail, and if there lucky I might even read 'em their rights.

Omeric looked carefully around the outside of the warehouse and found absolutely no clues whatsoever. That was okay, it just gave him an excuse to go inside. The warehouse was basically empty. The only things in the warehouse were a desk, a chair and a small fury animal asleep in the corner. Whatever and whoever were here were gone without a trace. Omeric left and sat in his cop-craft and waited for backup to arrive.

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