Mystery of the Neolodge: Part Six

TigerWing stood there with her beak ajar and her eyes bugged. Drawers from shelves had been pulled out, loose papers covered the floor, there were even floorboards that had been ripped out of the floor and were propped against the wall. Somebody had been desperately looking for something: the Storm Amulet.

TigerWing noticed something lying on the floor next to the door. It was a tiny gold ring. She picked it up and examined it. There was nothing special about it, except for the letters engraved on it: ‘M.A.’

M.A.? TigerWing wondered, Are those somebody’s initials? Before she could figure that out, Wiseguy, Tweetie and Cali came running after her.

“TigerWing… there you are!” Cali yelled, “We were worried about you--” Her voice trailed off when she looked inside of the Staff Room.

“Holy Fyora! What happened?” Tweetie asked.

“I…I don’t know,” TigerWing stuttered. She ordered Tweetie, “Go get somebody, and quick!”

When the staff returned to the room, they lifted up an overturned chair for TigerWing and made her sit down.

“Just tell us what happened,” said the green Aisha calmly.

TigerWing took a deep breath and said, “Well, after the lights went out, I was sure that I heard something in the hallway since we were sitting fairly close to the door. And I got up to see if somebody needed help, but there was nobody that I could see at first.” She waited to see if anybody was going to say anything. They didn’t so she continued, “Then somebody came out of this room, I could barely see their outline and they were carrying a flashlight. I’m sure our eyes made contact, even though I couldn’t see them, and then they pointed the flashlight at me and I covered my eyes. That’s when they ran away.”

Wiseguy, Tweetie, Cali and the Staff Members were listening to TigerWing intently. She decided not to mention the ring that she found with the letters on it.

“And you came in here and found the room ransacked?” The Aisha finished for her.

“Yes, ma’am. The vandal’s flashlight is over there.” She acknowledged where the light was laying, “but it won’t be much use because it’s broken.”

“Okay. Thank you. If you’re done eating then you and your siblings are excused.”

TigerWing thanked her and she and the others walked all the way upstairs, without saying a word. When they got to the third floor TigerWing shut and locked the door.

“The ransacked Staff Room was not all that I found.” She had hidden the ring in her wing feathers and was lucky that no one had seen it downstairs. She tossed it to Wiseguy who caught it and inspected it.

“M.A.?” He interrogated, “Oh my gosh! This could really narrow it down. I bet M.A. is someone’s initials!”

“Exactly,” said TigerWing, “And if we find out who’s initials those are, we can finally figure out who’s after the Storm Amulet!”

“But M.A. doesn’t match any of our top three suspects: Jack Kenton, Spectre and Capara,” said Cali.

“Don’t worry about that, Cali,” said Wiseguy, “Any of them could be using a fake name to hide their real identity.”

“Oh, and when the lights went out, I didn’t see Jack Kenton at all! He wasn’t at his table. Spectre was, but he wasn’t!”

“What about Capara?” Tweetie asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see her either.” TigerWing took the ring from Wiseguy, “This could easily belong to Spectre, I’m sure he has enough Neopoints for it. But I bet Capara couldn’t afford one…”

“But…but… what if somebody planted it there to frame someone else?” Cali asked.

TigerWing cried out in frustration, “Oh, we’ll never get this case solved. No one has the initials of M.A., someone could have planted the ring to take the suspicion off themself. This is getting tricky.”

“Don’t worry, TigerWing,” Wiseguy said, giving his sister a pat on the shoulder, “We’ll solve it.”

TigerWing sighed and nodded.

“Good investigating,” Wiseguy continued, “now, about the M.A. Neopet, I think that we could sneak down to the front desk, where that green Aisha works, distract her, and look in the file cabinet for all of the Neopets that are residing here.”

“Brilliant!” TigerWing whispered, “First thing tomorrow?”

“Yep,” said Wiseguy, “First thing tomorrow.”

“Oh, boy,” mumbled Cali sarcastically, “some vacation…”

***

“Okay, everyone know the plan?”

It was a little after eight in the morning and the Neolodge was not busy in the early hours. TigerWing woke feeling a little sick. Sneaking into a file cabinet with personal files was risky. It could easily get them kicked out. But Wiseguy was pumped and ready for action.

“Ready?”

Everyone nodded anxiously.

“Okay, Tweetie, go! Cali, get into position.”

Tweetie walked up to the front desk near the Aisha. Tweetie drew the Aisha’s attention to a long hallway. She followed Tweetie and quickly disappeared out of sight. Cali stood watch to signal the others when Tweetie and Aisha were coming returning. Wiseguy and TigerWing dove over to the desk and yanked open the file cabinet. TigerWing flipped through the files to look for anything with a ‘M’ or an ‘A’. She found “Alina Filson’, ‘Mikey Emerson’ and ‘Larry Mibbs’. No one had the initials M.A. But how could that be?

Cali waved casually to an imaginary friend and Wiseguy saw the signal. He shut the file cabinet and he and TigerWing jumped over to the couches, pretending to read the Neopian Times. Tweetie and the Aisha returned. She gave him a warm smile, he thanked her and they left.

“Any luck?” Tweetie asked as they climbed the marble staircase.

“Nobody in the Neolodge has the initials M.A.,” Wiseguy said soberly, “I don’t understand!”

“Shh,” said TigerWing, “Stop for a second, this is Capara’s floor.” She crept along the wall and stopped at room number 2-E. “At least I think it is.”

“Why, hello, everyone!” The group spun around to face Capara the Kyrii smiling broadly. “Why are you on my floor? Did you want something?”

“Uhh,” TigerWing fished for an excuse, “Yeah, yeah, we wanted to know if you… wanted to play tennis with us?” It was such a stupid request. They barely even knew her.

“Well, where’s your rackets?” Capara asked suspiciously.

“We were about to get them,” said Tweetie, “But we wanted to make sure that you were going to play first.”

“But… how can we play with five of us?”

“Oh…” said Cali, “I…uh, hurt my paw the other day while swimming, so I won’t be playing,” she lied.

“Oh, alright then.” Capara entered her room and TigerWing took a little peak inside. It was pretty filthy. She guessed that judging by the state of the room, it was Fleapit Motel. She grimaced at the filth, but smiled when Capara fetched her tennis racket.

“So, what do you think about the ransacked Staff Room?” Wiseguy asked casually on their way upstairs.

“I think that it was just awful,” said Capara frowning and pretending to be sad.

She’s such a phony… TigerWing thought, at least tennis won’t be so bad.

As the game started under the sun, TigerWing couldn’t concentrate. She kept thinking about the mysterious M.A. Someone must have been using a fake name, then. Well, it is a smart thing to do, TigerWing thought. She was thinking so hard about the Storm Amulet that a tennis ball popped her in the head.

“Sorry!” Yelled Tweetie, “Looks like my aim was a bit high!”

TigerWing shook it off and served it to Wiseguy.

Sam’s coming back from Mystery Island tomorrow…if we don’t have this case solved by then, we can just forget about it. We have to find another clue or find out who M.A. is…

***

TigerWing lounged on the sofa in the Lobby that night, not really knowing how she got there. She fingered the gold ring and looked closely at the initials. She was shocked that they didn’t match any of the suspects.

“Ready to turn in?” Cali asked and TigerWing jumped. She forgot that her siblings were sitting next to her.

“Yeah, I need a long rest.” She got up and tucked the ring into her wing feathers. They started up the stairs, but TigerWing stopped,

“I don’t believe it. I’ve lost our room key!” she exclaimed.

“You guys go ahead,” Cali told Wiseguy and Tweetie, “We’ll split up and search the ground floor and the tennis courts. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” TigerWing agreed and she headed for the dining room while Cali searched the tennis courts. It was awfully late, and TigerWing’s legs were tired from playing tennis. She scanned the floor for a brass key. Eight minutes passed. She hoped that Cali found it.

“Hey, TigerWing!”

She spun around. The green Aisha was coming towards her, “I think you dropped your room key.”

“Oh!” TigerWing was relieved, “Thank you.” She took if from the Aisha, but it slipped from her feathers and fell to the floor. The Aisha bent down to pick it up and something fell out of her jacket pocket. TigerWing politely picked up the piece of plastic. It looked like a nametag. At first, TigerWing didn’t notice anything. Then she looked at the name printed in black letters:

Myrah Asylo.

TigerWing gasped: M.A.!

“You… but you can’t be…” she stammered. The Aisha’s pleasant smile and friendly face melted away and an angry expression and narrowed eyes replaced it. She grabbed TigerWing roughly by the wing,

“Follow me! Now!”

To be continued...