The M&M Kids: Saving No. 7, Episode 1

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On a Saturday afternoon in September another dog disappeared in the town of Kentville. It was the fifth dog to go missing in only three days but, as yet, the authorities had not been alerted. Signs were just starting to go up and soon the pattern would become clear to the entire town.

At exactly the same moment that the dogs were disappearing, twelve kids tore outside their homes and ran, rode or skated their way to the fountain at General Grant Square. Next to the fountain was a huge old maple tree, reputed to have been alive when the good general was helping Lincoln win the Civil War. Attached to the maple tree was a box with a hinged lid. The box was a Geo Cache and their destination.

Just before they had bolted for the square, each kid had been on the same IM chat room, talking together and planning the next game. The game was GeoLock, named after Geo Caching and the amazing and brilliant British detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. They had created the game at school and then perfected it during afternoon and evening online chats.

They had been playing GeoLock every Saturday and Sunday afternoon for the past several weeks, at first with only six friends. But word had gotten out, and now their ranks had swelled. The game was quite simple, as long as you could raise the $279 needed to purchase a handheld GPS navigation system.

“Hurry up Matthew!” his sister Mich yelled. “I want to be one of the first to the cache.”

“Who cares?” said Matthew as he came running down the stairs. “We don’t need the GPS system, silly. As long as we’re together, we can find the prizes on our own.”

Michelle stamped her foot, pinned Matthew’s arms to his side and stared directly at him for a beat. “No, brother. We are NOT going to use our powers to win. That is called CHEATING and we agreed to not cheat when we play, because it would be too easy. Right?”

Matthew opened his mouth to yell at his bossy twin sister, but thought better of it and closed his mouth with a snap. Truth was she was right and they had agreed to not use their powers to win anything in an underhanded way. But the other truth was that he really wanted to crush all his friends and show up at the maple tree with ALL the prizes in hand and watch their mouths drop open in complete surprise. Yeah, THAT would be sweet.

“You’re right, Mich, no matter how much it pains me,” said Matthew as they rolled their bikes out of the garage and mounted. “Besides, I’m not paired with you. I’m with Richie who has ZERO power. Come on, let’s roll!”

Later that day all the kids hung out on the benches near the fountain, under the baleful stare of the bronzed General Grant. All the prizes had been recovered successfully and now war stories were being told. Matthew and Richie had found four of the ten prizes that were hidden within 50 feet of GPS coordinates placed inside the geocaching box on the maple tree. That gave their team the win and them the right to crow.

“Richie was amazing,” said Matthew. “Get us within 200 feet of the prize and he would guide us in like a hound dog!”

The others laughed, but Richie just stared at Matthew for a while until the laughter died down.
“Huh,” Richie said, “that’s not the way I remember it Matthew. You have it backwards. You were the one that acted like the hound dog and steered us right to the prize ever time. Come to think of it, you never even LOOKED at the GPS. What’s up with that, dude?”

Everyone stared at Matthew, who put up his hands and said, “Hey come on man, I’m just lucky is all. It’s not like I have “special powers”, he said, putting quote marks in the air with his fingers.

Brittany Andrews looked at Richie and nodded. “You’re right, Richie. I was on Matthew’s team last week and the same thing happened. I had the GPS and HE was the one that always found the prize. He would walk right to it without even asking me for the coordinates. I thought is was awesome but never thought about it until now, when the same thing happened. One time is lucky, two times is something else maybe.”

Once again they all looked at Matthew, who felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web. He looked around for help and finally landed on his sister, Mich, who was frowning and shaking her head at him. Then she stood and dramatically pointed a finger at her brother.

In a deep voice she said, “ He has had special powers since he was a baby. The force is strong in him. The force and power to throw out a lot of crap all the time!”

Everyone roared with laughter, except for Matthew, who stood up and started walking like Frankenstein with outstretched arms towards his sister. Mich did the proper thing and jumped over the bench and ran down the path, but Matthew KNEW what she was going to do and reached the spot before her.

They both were laughing as Matthew grabbed his sister and once again the psychic connection between them was joined. They could feel each other’s heart beats and then an electric shock in their heads as their minds entwined and linked together in a supernatural union.

They looked at Brittany and could clearly see her crush on Matthew. They looked at Richie and saw his sorrow for Max, his pet dog that had died last week. They looked at all of their friends and saw their inner thoughts, their loves and the things that weighed them down.

They had hidden it all their lives. No one knew, not their parents or their best friends. God knew of course and so they promised to only use their power for good, if at all possible. Separately they were smart and very intuitive with mild psychic powers, but together they were amazing and had to be careful about touching each other by accident lest the power overcome them and take them to places they dare not go.

“Hey goof balls!” Richie said to the twins. “Hello M&M kids…are you receiving?”

Mich and Matthew separated and laughed as their connection broke and the normal world came rushing back in. Matthew grabbed one of the prizes, a small stuffed Teddy Bear, and threw it at Richie.

“Here,” he said, “Receive this!”

Off they went, throwing prizes back and forth across the park, slowly making their way towards Gramma Moses’ where milk shakes would be consumed and more outrageous stories would be told.

Little did they know that by the time they finished their ice cream and stories, three more dogs would disappear.