Emily The Strange_ The Lost Days Part 4

HAMHAWK:.

11 hours 33 minutes

Back to Raven. While pretending to be extremely busy taking notes, or studying my shoe or something for clues to my ident.i.ty, I was actually keeping a sharp half-eye on the counter region. All of a sudden she vanished. I mean, maybe I blinked for a microsecond longer than normal, but really, I was looking right at her, and she just vanished.

I glanced around really fast. Not a single customer was looking at the counter. She'd totally disappeared! With complete stealth I snuck to the counter, just in time to catch Raven slipping out through her homemade, wood-panel-camouflaged, no-doork.n.o.b-having, no-one-knows-I-went-to-the-breakroom secret little door. Pretty amazing, until I busted her using it. She didn't let on much, just made me a metric grip of sandwiches and much espresso.

Much! Espresso!! Later!!!

I've come up with a few possible scenarios of how I got here and lost my memory: 1. Something involving s.p.a.ce travel and being from a planet other than Earth. Yes, I do SEEM human...Could I just be humanoid?

2. I was on a family trip when I...fell out of the car...and b.u.mped my head...and my family is so large, or so absentminded, they still haven't noticed I'm missing.

3. I am a highly trained spy operating under cover so deep, my memories had to be erased.

4. I used to work with Rachel, previous employee of the El Dungeon, until Raven knocked us on the heads and took our jobs.

5. I used to work in umlaut's traveling medicine show until...yeah, see above.

6. I was living in a typical suburb of Anytown, USA, until I decided to escape my incredibly meaningless life by giving myself amnesia and hopping a bus to nowhere.

7. I was actually a cat named Earwig until being magically transformed into a human girl. By someone. For some reason.

8. I came here from 100 years in the future. The trip destroyed my memory.

9. I am a creature from another dimension.

10. I am a supernatural being recently risen from death.

11. I summoned myself out of the void.

12. I am a hologram.

13. I am the victim of a terrible practical joke.

All of these theories are flawed. Must find more clues.

Later Took in some night air with the cats, and then later, walking back to my alley, who should I run into but (Very) Regular Customer Curls, on one of his short trips outside the El Dungeon. It better be said up front that Curls, first of all, thinks he is much more important and popular than he actually is. Also, even though he is probably only a couple years older than I am, he doesn't seem to spend much time at school, or at home for that matter, since he's putting in around twenty-seven hours a day at the El Dungeon. And he pesters umlaut's pack as much as they'll let him. Clear case of social climbing. You can tell by the complicated s.h.i.+rts, and how he's trying out conversational gambits on you all the time.

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the extremely...hip Curls! (Ugh)

(VERY) REGULAR.

CUSTOMER C CURLS:.

Fancy meeting you here.

ME:.

Curls.

(V)RCC:.

Isn't it late for a missy without a sleeve to her name? What IS your name, anyway? c.o.c.kroach, right? No-Silverfish?

ME:.

Earwig.

(V)RCC:.

A ha haha ha! Sounds like a good nickname for RAVEN, with those ears of hers, and that wig...So, I heard you don't remember a thing past three days ago?

ME:.

[Turning and walking away.] Ugh. Later.

(V)RCC:.

Speaking of nicknames, Curls is a really stupid one. I prefer Ripper.

Day 5 Slept late and nearly missed the daylight completely. Huh, no big loss if you ask me. Unfortunately I did not sleep late enough to miss the chief of police, who came by to see if the umlaut posse had any heavy stacks of cash they needed taken off their hands. And like a good, efficient defender of the public peace, he took the opportunity to threaten me with a $123 ticket for unlicensed slingshot use.

I held out my innocent, empty hands. Raven gaped at us with her mouth open. Even umlaut and his crew halted their game of Calamity Poker to stare. "Slingshot?" I said. "I don't have a slingshot."

The chief looked at umlaut, who just looked confused. "Errrrm...I don't see a slingshot, Chief," he finally managed to say. Then the two of them got into a long discussion of the town ordinances being violated today by the medicine show and how much it was going to cost.

I left them to it, and hid in the fridge box.

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Later A baby dog is a puppy. A baby kangaroo is a joey. A baby eel is an elver. A baby cat is a...lemon. A baby cat is a...pimple. A baby cat is a...mitten.

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An adorable baby...pickle??

Am very frustrated.

Later Questions: 1. How come the police are letting me camp out in a refrigerator box in the alley instead of offering me a place to stay indoors, or something?

2. Why is RAVEN just letting me camp out in a refrigerator box in the alley? And by the way, where and when does SHE sleep?

3. Does she look familiar or do I just want to think that?

4. Is she actually dull in the brain or do I just want to think that?

5. What DID happen to Rachel, former employee of the El Dungeon? Did she quit, was she fired, did she move away, did she just disappear? Or something...worse?

6. How'd I get those suspicious bruises on my arm?

7. How long does a medicine, gun, and doll show stick around a small town, usually?

8. Is their medicine as poisonous as it tastes?

9. How did Miles lose his collar, and where's his owner?

10. What if I still have amnesia a year from now? Or...20 years from now?

11. Will I ever forgive my family for not coming to my rescue?

12. [Insert 1300 other questions I could ask about my family, myself, and my former life.]

13. Is it silly of me to think I'll figure this out by following "clues" when I haven't figured out a single thing in 5 days?

Later Still no leads on my ident.i.ty. Instead I am using my brainpower trying to figure out how Calamity Poker is played. After watching the umlaut crew play forty-odd games, I think I know the basic rules of gameplay. The person with the highest social rank (i.e., umlaut) is always the Dealer. The Dealer chooses everyone else's position at the table. The more the Dealer likes you, the closer you get to sit to him. The two players sitting the farthest from the Dealer (called the Beast and the Maiden) put money in the pot before the cards are dealt. Every player gets two cards face down. These are called the Ballroom Cards. Players who have recently offended the Dealer usually get their Ballroom Cards "accidentally" face up. In between rounds of betting, the Dealer puts three community cards (called the Knife, the Rope, and the Candlestick) face up on the table.

Instead of being ranked, all hands have a point value, which usually has to be argued about for a long time at high volume before anything is decided. Cards can have different point values according to the day of the week, combination with other cards in the same hand, or phase of the moon. The Dealer makes the final decision on the value of each player's hand. If two (or more) players have hands of the same value, those players go into a Challenge Round-usually a choice between Games of Chance; Embarra.s.sing Truth; or Feats of Strength, Skill, and Endurance. And all Challenge Rounds are overseen and judged by the Dealer.

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Calamity Poker in progress!

I've also noticed that bets under $500 are rare, and always laughed at. Man, how much money is that medicine show bringing in?

I should probably admit that the umlaut crew is turning out to be more entertaining than annoying, and I guess I could be wrong about umlaut being Raven's enemy. Maybe he's just more interesting that way. Seems like, in all the books and movies, whenever you have a rundown (but lovable) cafe frequented by a bunch of pathetic (but lovable) underdogs, then obviously the rich, obnoxious, fas.h.i.+onable out-of-towners who spend all their spare time there, drinking coffee and breaking furniture and, I don't know, secretly planning to buy it, bulldoze it, and turn it into a strip mall, have to be the enemy. Except in this case, I don't know if the cafe or the underdogs who come here are lovable. Or if there's really any problem with the umlauts spending their money breaking and replacing the El Dungeon's furniture. It's definitely not my concern why Raven tolerates them hanging out here. Actually, I think Raven, being Raven, would tolerate a lot of things even worse than umlaut. I could picture her, for example, putting up with a colony of plague rats nesting in her wig, without much of a fuss.

Also: I think it's peculiar that I seem to know something about "all the books and movies" when I can't actually remember any specific books or movies. And another thing: I keep getting this feeling that there's a song that really relates to my situation-being a stranger, even to myself, and thinking everyone around me is strange-but I don't remember a single actual song I may ever have known. Not even the one you sing to someone whose birthday it is.

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Clearly my mind is very odd!!!

Later More intrigue at the El Dungeon! umlaut's friend Attikol finally came in. You know, the guy who runs the Deadly Dollhouse. But instead of hanging out playing Calamity Poker like the other nuisances, all he did was flirt with Raven! I may have forgotten to mention that Raven is fairly gorgeous, and Attikol seemed kind of smitten. You wouldn't believe the lines he was spitting. I was embarra.s.sed.

As usual, I was hiding under the counter, so I heard every word.

ATTIKOL:.

So, you're the new girl. My friend umlaut neglected to tell me you were such a dream incarnate.