STAY INSIDE! (part 1)
a Crumb Hill tale
Officer Gurt woke up with the sun as he typically did. He looked for a moment at his wife lying next to him and swung his feet over the edge of the bed and into their slippers. After starting the stove to boil water for coffee, he went to the front door and picked up the day’s copy of The Crumb Herald.
But he was caught by the bold headline on the front page:
STAY INSIDE!
Looking further at the copy, he saw that every column of text was composed of the same two words, repeated over and over.
Stay inside! Stay inside! Stay inside! Stay inside! Stay inside! Stay inside!
He stood for a moment staring at the strange edition of the newspaper.
What’s today’s date? he thought. No, it’s not Crumbfoolery Day.
While he puzzled over the strange paper, he closed the door and paced over to their telephone to call the editor of The Crumb Herald, Edgar Splind. He looked at the clock on the wall and knew it was early, but this seemed like a worthwhile reason to call.
He picked up the receiver and dialed Edgar’s number. It rang four times before being answered by a groggy voice.
“Hello?” said Splind.
“Edward, it’s Gurt. What is this in the paper?”
“What? What do you mean?” said the groggy voice, clearly still waking up.
“What do you mean by ‘Stay inside,’ exactly? Is it some sort of joke? You know Crumbfoolery Day isn’t for three months.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gurt. It’s too early for this.”
“Edgar, go look at your paper,” demanded Gurt.
“Ok, hold on.” The line was quiet for a minute as Gurt listened to Splind’s feet treading away from the phone. Then, “Gurt, I don’t know what this is…” His voice trailed off. He was audibly shaken.
Gurt heard him frantically flipping through the pages of the paper and muttering to himself. “Whaa…”
“Gurt, I’ll have to call you back. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know who did this,” said Splind, now fully awake.
“You didn’t have anything to do with it?” asked Gurt.
“No, Gurt! We had a normal issue set to come out today. My daughter’s recital details were going to be in it! I have to go,” and the line went dead.
Officer Gurt hung up the telephone and looked back at the paper still in his hands. What a curious thing. Of course, it was far from the first curious thing to happen in Crumb Hill.
He flipped through the pages and each one said the same thing: Stay inside!
There must be something he was missing. He walked over to the stove, poured his coffee, and then sat at the table to more closely examine the paper. His wife had heard the conversation and come to the dining room too. Gurt showed her the paper and the two of them looked through it page by page.
His hunch was right: there was one small hint left on the inside of the last page. All of the headlines and columns said the same two words as all the rest, but there a clue as to what was going on. A little poem was printed at the very bottom of the page:
Dangling Jerry
smoking his chains
come out to play
and see what remains
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Day 74 of 100 Days of Blog
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