Mysterious Happenings

Having Lissie back home was wonderful, and we became comfortable once more at our little boarding school... until...

"Karen!" Lula exclaimed,  "There's a sewing machine in here.  I've never seen it before and it looks like someone has been busy sewing costumes!"

"I've never seen it, either!" Karen said.  "There's some other things appearing out of no where in the Ice Cream Parlor.  Come and see!"

Ivy threw threw her arms up in surprise.  "Bea!  This state of the art kitchen showed up out of nowhere!  And someone made all this yummy stuff!"

Bea looked around in wonderment.  "It all looks so delicious!  But this kitchen isn't state of the art."

"It was in 1930," said Ivy, "but you are missing the point!  I think we might be haunted!"

"Oh my goodness," Bea squealed, "LEMON MERINGUE!"

"Bea, this is serious!  There could be ghosts... is that a torte?  And COOKIES!!!"

Later, upstairs in the bedroom....

"Have you seen the mask that goes with my hula costume?" Lula asked Ivy, "I can't find it anywhere!"

"No," Ivy wailed.  "My whole costume went missing!  I was going to be the Story Fairy, but now I have to be a cheerleader!"

Then in the living room....

Lissie, Kitty and Karen were getting ready for the big Halloween party when suddenly a lobster jumped out of the fireplace!  And all would be lost, if it weren't for Mini-Josie and PDQ Bach charging to the rescue.

"Get behind me!!  I'll save you!  Just get the butter and garlic ready!"

And in the parlor....

"Oh my cow's potatoes!!!" exclaimed Rose.  Where on earth did this monkey come from!!"

"Get it before it eats the bird" yelled Mini-Kirsten.

"Don't let it get me!" screamed Mini-Samantha.

Bea looked at Rose and said, "This is crazy!  Ghosts don't explain this!  What IS going on here?"

"Ivy, did you find anything?" asked Karen.

"Well, I'm not sure.  There's not much about ghosts that helps us.  We have no way to check EMF readings or find cold spots, and I for one don't want to find bones to salt and burn."

"Yikes!"

"But, there has been three blue moons, a blood moon and an eclipse lately, and I found an account of a little girl who was pulled into another dimension by the magnetic pull of an eclipse.  She switched places with an invisible being from that dimension."

"Do eclipses have a magnetic pull?" asked Mini-Ivy.

"I'm not sure that matters," mused Karen, it's the only lead we have."

"Right." said Ivy.  "It says here we need to look out for people talking backwards and we need to play ring-around-the-roses to send the person back to their dimension."

"So you think invisible inter-dimensional beings are sewing cosstumes for us, making gorumet desserts and sending lobsters and moneys to attack us?" asked Mini-Isabelle.

Mini-Kirsten screamed.  "The monkey knocked over the pitcher and Mini-Marie-Grace is down!"

"We cant get to Mini-Marie-Grace!  The lobster has us pinned!!"

"How does it go again?" Karen said, "Ring around the roses, pocket full of posies..."

Well, the monkey and the lobster ran away, to everyone's relief.  With everything quiet, the girls decided to go trick or treating as planned.

"Wow, what a creepy night to go trick or treating!" exclaimed Bea.

"Do we dare go to that house up on the hill?" asked Ivy.  "It looks haunted."

"I'm game, if you are!" said Lula. 

"Umm..., girls," whispered Kitty, "Don't look now, but I have this funny feeling we are being followed."

Queitly, slowly, the girls turned around and saw two mysterious strangers.

"Happy Halloween!" they said.

"EEEEEEKKKK!!!!" Karen screamed.

And thus we see, a roller-skating car hop costume may not have been the best choice of one who is so easily startled.

Later, at the Paws on Keys Halloween Party Extravaganza....

It was nice of Karen to invite the two new friends to the party, although she couldn't understand why they kept calling her Nerak.  And Mini-Marie-Grace seemed leery of the Mysterious Strangers' monkey.

And that is how Nannerl with her dear little pet monkey, and Marissa with a lobster came to be students at Paws on Keys.

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Happy Dolloween

Everyone!

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Credits

Vivian Guest & Karen Bush .............................................Story

Karen Bush ...........................................................Photos

We recommend as a good read, the book A Watcher in the Woods by Florence Engel Randall

for our older fans as well as the Disney movie, Watcher in the Woods 

starring Bette Davis and Lynn-Holly Johnson.  Both may be too scary for children under 8.

The Case of the Missing Girl

One day, Lissie was missing.  No one could find her anywhere.   Rose, being sad, began to dress in Lissie's clothes so the other girls would not miss her.

I know!  I will dress in Lissie's clothes so we will not miss her!

Karen and Lula remembered they had seen Lissie in the pumpkin patch.  They saw some gnomes running away, but no Lissie.  Leaping to the obvious conclusion, Lula screamed, "Oh No! The gnomes turned her into a pumpkin!"

"Lissie!" Karen cried, "Speak to me!"

Ivy, as usual, went to Google for help.

"Lissie isn't answering her phone or her emails.  Where could she be?

Days passed.  It was Lissie's turn to work in the ice cream parlor.  The girls were surprised to see PDQ Bach serving.

"Bach,why are you serving at the ice cream parlor?", Kitty asked.

"Woof, woof, growl."

"What? Lissie told you to fill in for you?"

Lula whispered to Bea, "I'm not sure he washed his paws first."

"This is serious!" Bea exclaimed, "We HAVE to find Lissie!"

The girls made a plan to go see Vivian up in northern Utah, since their big people were going there.  

"Will one cookie be enough for our trip?" Karen asked.  "We don't know how long it will take to find Lissie."
"You're right," answered Rose.  "I'll pack two and we can convince the big people to stop and keep us supplied."

Everytime the big people stopped, Karen and Rose got out and looked for Lissie.

"Lissie!" Rose called, over and over again.
"I don't see her anywhere," Karen said.  "Perhaps, we should go back in time."
"Okay, but I will have to do a rain dance."
"Did it work?" asked Karen.
"Yeah, but you singing 'Rain, Rain, go away' didn't help."

"OK, Karen, we made it back in time to the late Cretaceous period and got a ride on this nice dinosaur.  Now let's see if Felicity is around here!"
"Great!, But first, let's get some hot chocolate!" said mini Ivy.
"Stay focused," Karen said, "We need to find Lissie.  And besides, hot chocolate hasn't even been invented yet."
"If that is the case," said mini Isabelle, "the most important thing for us to do is go invent hot chocolate."

And that is how we got hot chocolate today, but that is another story.

Finally, the girls reached Vivian in northern Utah.  

"Look, Vivian, who I found in the leafpile!"
"It's Hermoine, the cat!"
"Do you think she knows where Lissie is?"
"Meow.  Meeeow.  (She's not in my leaf pile!)"

Meanwhile, back at home, Bach was missing his Lissie.

"You know, Rose," said Karen, "if I went missing there's only place I'd go."
"Big Rock Candy Mountain!" exclaimed Rose.

"This is an awesome place, Karen," Rose said, "but I don't think Lissie's here."
"You could be right.  But maybe we should look behind the pepperment tree over there."

But Lissie wasn't anywhere to be found.  Soon after they arrived back home at Paws On Keys, a package was found on their doorstep.

"Where did his box come from?" exclaimed Lula.  "What is in it?"
Karen said, "I don't know, but Bach's really excited about it!"
Ivy said, "Open it before he digs himself in!"
"Maybe it's popcorn!" Kitty said excitedly.
"Why do you say that, Kitty?" asked Bea.
"Because digging into a box of popcorn sounds good!"
Rose said, "Okay, let's open it!  But I get the torch this time!"

"Hey! Let me out of here!" someone shouted.

The girls all hurried and opened the box.

Lissie sat up and gasped, "Thanks for letting me out!  It was getting hard to breathe!"

"Lissie!  Lissie!  " Everyone shouted.  "It's Lissie!"

Later...

"What do you mean, you didn't know where I was," asked Lissie, didn't you get my note?"
"Note?" asked Rose, "Oh yeah!  It's in my pocket!  I forgot to open it!"

"Dear Friends, 

                            I'm going away for a while.  Don't worry.  I'm goint to the hospital for a simple procedure called a headactomy, followed by a right and left armectomy, and then a right and left legectomy.  So no big deal.  When it's done, I'll feel like a whole new person!  See you soon!

                                                Love, 

                                                        Lissie"

"Woooof.  (Never leave again!)"