The land of Magical Mysteries

The land that came and went

It was Sunday again which meant it was finally the day off for the children. Joe, Besse, Fanny and Dick were all exited. Mother (Aunt to Dick) had said they could be off for the whole day and was packing them some cool cucumber sandwiches and cranberry juice. Singing in unison as the sun shone brightly they walked towards the enchanted wood. As they crossed over the border into the enchanted wood they could hear all the large redwood trees go “ Wisha Wisha Wisha”… Dick put his ear against one of the nice tall redwood trees and he heard them whisper,” We all welcome our friends who have helped preserve this forest and magical folk umpteen number of times with open branches” Dick laughed. Soon they where upon the largest tree in the forest where all their friends were at.. Little Silky, Moonface, Dame Washalot, Whathisname, the Sauscepanman, the angry pixie…

The red squirrel was waiting for them at the foot of the tree. “ Oh young sirs and madams, Moonface and the others are expecting you. I will let them know that you are here and he will let the basket down.” They were all happy to oblige. The day was rather warm to be climbing the tree all the way up. Soon one of Dame Washalots huge baskets came bumping down. They all got in and tugged on the rope. It went up like a roller coaster making it all the way up to Moonface’s house in no time. They knocked on the door to be welcomed by an aroma that tingled their senses beyond control. Moonface was beaming at them. He said,” Want a toffeshock?”. They all screamed,” Not now Moonface”

The Wrong Land of Dreams

“ What land is up in the cloud Moonface?”, asked Jo. “ It’s the land of Do as you please in an hour!”, beamed Moonface. The children all screamed in delight. An hour later they all climbed up the ladder into the cloud. One by one- Moonface, Silky, Fanny, Bessie, Jo, The saucepan man, Mr.Whatshisname and finally Dick. Once they were all up into the land was when it all went dark. A cloud cover cut the sunshine out with an eerie noise started playing in the background. Jo looked at Moonface and he saw something that had he had never seen terror on Monfaces’s face. Until then he had not felt scared. But now…

Everybody started screaming at once when Moonface shouted the loudest. “Calm down everyone. Do not be scared. Looks like we made a mistake with when the land of do as you please arrives.” Suddenly Silky screamed,” Look there is a round table and there are exactly 8 chairs”. They all walked towards it and saw there where 8 name cards with each of their names on it. Not knowing what else to do they sat down by their name tags. Once seated, a card magically appeared in front of Moonface. He read out aloud,” This is the land of magical mysteries. Moonface – you have been chosen to be the leader and moderator of this group. Now as we go along – each of you will be assigned a role- 4 strangers, a detective, a killer and a reporter based on an inner reading of you minds and abilities. The rules of the game are simple:

1) the killer can never proclaim to be the killer
2) the rest cannot lie about being the killer to put themselves above suspicion
3) you have 7 magical hours ( equivalent to 7 minutes in earth time) to rat out the killer
4) If you cannot rat out the killer or you break the rules you will be trapped in the land of magical mysteries forever…..

Now that Moonface had read his card- cards appeared in front of each of them that they picked up. Silky read aloud;” Reporter…” and she disappered. They all looked at each other in shock and terror. Moonface said with a strain in his voice.” Friends, I did not read everything I have in front of aloud. I am not supposed to. But get moving along and do not be scared. Trust me. Each of you read your cards. Our time clock is ticking.” Jo took up his card bravely and said, “ Detective..” .. vanishes… Dick,” Bookstore owner..”
..vanishes… The saucepanman ,” Diamond jweller..”.. vanishes.. Mr.Whatshisname,” Lumberjack..” .. vanishes.. Bessie,” Scheming socialite..” vanishes.. Fanny,” Bookstore assistant..” vanishes.

A Bit of Joe

As I walked down a dusky street of what seemed like a small town from the forties. I stopped to look at a map of the city. My card told me where my office would be. I was a successful private detective. The only private detective in this small town. I smiled to myself. I had always wanted to be a detective from one of those mystery novels. A watch come radio transmitter magically appeared on my hand and I heard Moonface say ,” Joe – keep the transmitter on at all times. I am the only one who can talk to you all at the same time. I know what each of you is doing and will try and keep anyone from breaking the rules. Good luck! I am now going to talk to each of the others…”

I walked up to my office. I opened the door. The view outside was now brilliant. The clouds had cleared and there was a beautiful rainbow outside. Things were looking up. I thought to myself—this ain’t so bad after all. I sure we can find out who the killer is. My pocket started tingling. I felt inside the dark brown overcoat I had been wearing. The card was trying to tell me something. I took the card out. It said – Go down the street to the diamond jewelers shop at once. I rushed out and ran down the street… looking out for the diamond jewelers shop. I heard Bessie scream. I ran into the shop and I found in bessies hand a diamond necklace to go with her elegant dress. The Saucepanman lay in the center of the room. Blood all over the place… Bessie was crying. I thought to myself,” No way Bessie my sweet little sister could have done that… could she have” I pondered. I was horrified. Could this be true? Was the dear Suacepanman really dead? I started to feel like puking.

But something inside me prevailed. I comforted Bessie out of sight. The “press” was here. Silky walked in. She had a camera in her hand. She looked horrified. She then looked at her card- put on a brave face and started taking photographs. I asked silky curiously,” What did it say?” She looked at me pained and said,” You know Joe as much as I do- I can’t tell you that!”

I started looking for clues. I asked no one to touch the body. Dick came running in panting. His bookstore was right across the road. He winced at the gory sight. I saw a note stuffed in a teapot by the Saucepanman. I took it out and read out aloud; “Go ahead - make my day” I looked at the Saucepanman’s wrist. It was missing the transmitter. I looked around and saw that both Fanny and Mr.Whatshisname were missing. I looked at Dick and said, “ Dick was fanny with you?”. He looked at me and said,” Yeah, She was right behind…. “And then he looked at me horrified and started running back across the street. I followed him at equal pace, the others at my heels.

We found her all right. A sweet smile lit her saintly face. I could not stand it. The tips of her fingers were black. Dick looked at me horrified. Bessie had just about stopped crying, started howling again. Silky was abnormally calm for some reason. I could not figure out why. Could she be..

I started looking around for clues. Right beside Fanny was a book with a note sticking out which said, “ Blondie, don’t die blondie.. “. What the hell is this I thought. None of this made sense. Silky went about her way taking photographs. She looked at her card again. And then looked furiously at me. I did not know why! I gave her a curious look …

Mr.Whatshisname walked in. He was wearing an outfit of a lumberjack singing out aloud

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day.

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shopping and have buttered scones for tea

I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I like to press wild flowers.

I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars.
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Papa!!

Just the Lumberjack:
I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Papa!!

And giggling so he came and stopped in his tracks… Horrified. He looked from Joe to Dick to Bessie to dear Silky. We all looked at him in turn. He said,” Where’s the Saucepanman?”. I said,” He’s dead. We just saw his gory body across the street..” He looked at me confused and said,” I just went in there…There was no body.” This was becoming tiresome. As you would have it we rushed across the road to the place where we presumed the Saucepanman was. Mr.Whatshisname was right. There was no body. There was no blood. In fact there was no trace of a murder. The first thought that came to my mind was… had the Saucepanman faked his own death? Was he the killer? This was all too confusing for me.The lights suddenly went out. I heard Mr.Whatshisname scream. And then the lights came on. There was an axe sticking in the lumberjack. Silky started taking pictures. A note was stuck onto the woody part of the axe. I read it out aloud- “I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” I could not stand it any more. I ran out of the store. Down the street. I needed a Breadth of fresh air.

A Bit of Silky

Silky spoke into the microphone from her newspaper office, “ Moonface we just found Bessie dead. All the bodies have vanished into thin air. I have photos of each of the bodies. I feel like puking but I continue to gaze at them for some clue. I found a note by her that said-“ A man must know his limitations”.. I wanted to give it to Joe but he was nowhere to be seen… Do you think Joe did it?..” Moonface responded in a troubled voice ,” Silky you know that I cannot answer that… Keep at it with the photographs silky. That’s all I can say”.

There was a streak of lightning- and that was when she saw. Silky gave a small scream and ran outside- stuffing all the snuff pictures in her overcoat pocket. She screamed, “Joe wait up.” Joe did not turn back. He just kept running It started raining heavily. There was water all over. And then down an alley, the three that were stood.- Dick, Joe and Silky.

Dick screamed over the thundering rain,” Its one of us. We are all that is left.” Silky looked at them both and said, “ For what its worth, I found a note by Bessie that said a man must know his limitations” They looked at each other in terror. It had come down to this. They each looked at their cards for guidance. Time was almost up.

A little bit of Moonface :

They all were sitting in Moonface’s house on the top but one branch of the Magic Faraway tree. They were all beaming, having goodies and hot choclate and Moonface said particularly to Silky, Dick and Joe,” I knew you guys would figure it out.” Dick looked at Joe and said,” God Joe, what took you so long. I mean after all those Eastwood movies we saw together, I thought you would have it figured by the second chit. I am sorry all of you guys. But I had to “kill” you all to reduce the number of suspects. When I got to Bessie the land of magical mysteries figured out what I was doing and changed the rules of the game, Moonface told me I could not kill anybody else. I built it up so that Jo would get the clues. Silky how did you figure it was me?“ Silky beamed,” The photographs were helpful after all. They all showed the murderer was right handed and Joe is left handed.” They were all happy and Moonface said,” The land of Do as you please is here” They all screamed.