Me: (Sitting in trademark authoress realm) ::blink, blink:: wow…I finally got this done. I apologize for taking so long to write this freakin’ chapter, but I’ve had a lot going on. For one thing, (makes a face) finals are coming up….

(Without the authoress even noticing just yet, the authoress realm scene changes to a typical kitchen scene, with a large group of people playing poker in the background)

…for another thing, (holds back of head as if in pain) I hit my head hard in school this week…

Duo: (mutters under his breath so the authoress doesn’t hear him) …killing the last few brain cells she might possibly have had….

Quatre: (looks up from game he is so obviously winning) how’d you do that?

Me: ^_^() I kinda fell out of my chair in biology class

G-Gang: O.o

Duo: and HOW exactly did that happen?

Me: well, I was leaning over to pick something up that… *coughmielliecough*… had dropped on the floor and…er…lost my balance. (starts giggling) hehe..it was pretty funny.

G-Gang: -_-()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Me: (notices for the first time what’s going on around her) Hey…what’s the deal with the cards? ((no pun intended!))

Heero: (doesn’t even bother to look up) entertainment

Me: I thought we did that gag already!

Heero: what gag? We were bored.

Me: bored, huh? (smirks her evil authoress smirk) looks like we’ll just hafta get this chapter under way.

(Scene fades to black as Duo’s last words ring out over the darkness)

Duo: Just great! NOW look at what you’ve done, Mr. ‘Perfect Sold-’ (the sound of a cocking gun shuts him up in a hurry….)

 Kari woke up with a start at the sound of somebody banging on something while shouting something in some language. (Descriptive, aren’t I?) Quickly, she climbed off the couch and met up with Quatre, Trowa, and Cathy, whom were all standing in the doorway of the room, looking out into the hallway and giggling like crazy. Letting curiosity get the better of her, she too peeked out to see was so funny, and nearly fell over laughing.

Poor, Poor Wu-chan (Wufei: WU-CHAN?!?!?) was standing right outside the bathroom door, banging on it like crazy and screaming something to whomever was inside. His hair had been let loose of it’s usual ponytail, and was currently a mess, indicating it had un-voluntarily been let down… 

Through the mass hysteria, the authoress walked back into the living room, dragging a tied-up, unusually-calm-for-a-chibi, waffle-munching Rachy-chan behind her.

“Mmmm…” was all Rachy-chan could say at this point. The authoress then leaves her in one of the corners of the room, still munching on her delicious waffles.

::notices that everybody is hysterical:: :: “What’s so funny?” ::

Unable to speak anymore, Quatre simply points to the hallway, and Wufei’s predicament.

“INJUSTICE!” Wufei screamed (among other things) while attempting to beat the door down.

::giggling like crazy:: :: “What’s the matter now?” ::

Red in the face from anger, Wufei turns away from his intended assassinee (is that even a word? @~@ ) towards the authoress.

“That damm-baka-onna-friend of yours stole my hair tie and ran into the bathroom! She’s been in there for about half an hour now!”

::confused:: :: “Now why on earth would she possible want to steal your hair tie?” ::

“Kami if I know! She already had one of her own, anyways…. I just want mine back!” and with that, he goes back to banging on the door, attempting to get Miellie out of the bathroom.

Above all the racket, however, a scream ever louder than Wufei’s ranting cries out.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” Quickly recognizing the voice as Relina’s, everybody (minus Miellie, who refuses to come out) runs towards the sound. It takes them about 15 minutes to realize that she’s on the second floor, 10 minutes to figure which direction, and another 5 to get there. As soon as they do, however, they come face-to-face with both Relina AND the authoress, who doesn’t appear out-of-breath or even tired at all.

“Waitaminute….how you get here so fast?” Wufei asks, while heavily breathing from all the running he and the four others just did.

::smirks:: :: “Did you forget about this?”:: ::holds up magic whip::

All but the authoress and the now-giggling Relina facefault.

“All right, fine…you dragged us up here, now what is it, Relina?” Kari asks.

“Huh…oh, yeah…” she quickly converts to dramatic-victim-mode and points to the closed doorway, “That!”

“What is it?” Quatre asks, getting just a little bit nervous. Relina is suddenly so shaken up, she can’t even respond.

“Umm…you and Quatre should go first, Trowa!” Cathy speaks up uneasily, while inching behind her younger, yet taller, brother. Trowa glances at Quatre, who returns the look, and the two of them proceed to the door. Slowly, Quatre turned the knob as they walked inside with Wufei, Kari, Relina, and the authoress close behind. Cathy chose to “Keep lookout…you know…’just in case’.”

Six dark figures entered a shadow-y room, devoid of all color. The first two appeared to be wearing long, 1940’s detective trench coats. They headed off the small group, each holding a gun in his hand and scouting the room for any signs of danger. Close behind, was another man a little shorter than the first two. He wore an old-fashioned, expensive business-executive suit with a Dick Tracey-styled hat. His job was apparently to keep the three girls behind him calm. 

The first of the girls was the most shaken up; she wore a floor-length, short-sleeved, black dress that looked like it was made for a funeral, along with old-fashioned, black, high-healed shoes. Adding to her dreary ensemble was one of those veiled hats that widows would wear in the old days. White gloves were on her hands as she held a tissue in one of them, occasionally dabbing at her eyes. Her face was pale and showed signs of shock. Her hair flowed straight down out from under the hat, and came down to around her waist.

Right behind her was a girl with medium-length hair that might have been blonde, if there were any color. She had on a just-below-the-knee-length skirt, a luscious fur coat, a very sophisticated, upper class, 1940’s dress hat (think those LARGE-rimmed things you see in old movies), old-fashioned dress shoes, and lots of expensive jewelry. Her hair was tied up in a style so that you could barely see it At a first glance, one would assume she was one of those stuck-up, snooty, rich brats, but her attitude reflected otherwise. She nervously trailed the shorter man and the solemn girl, attempting to comfort her friend while also nervously looking around for signs of danger.

The final member of the party appeared to be the least nervous of them all. She had on one of those really tight, short dresses that come down to a little above the knee. A shawl was wrapped around her arms, accenting the style of the dress, which is a no-sleeved v-neck. Decorative shoes adorned her feet, and she wore dark stockings as well. A gorgeous silver necklace encircled her neck, which dropped down into a small pendent of the letter “A.” Her hair, approximately just-below-the-shoulders in length, was styled so that it flowed in curvy waves around her face. If you want an idea of what that looks like, imagine one of those “helpless” victims from the old-fashion detective movies who always walk into the office begging for help with saxophone/drum music introducing them. Carefully, she walked about the room, gripping on to something inside of the small black purse she held in her hands.

Not a word is spoken between the bunch as slow, haunting music plays in the background. The only light, seeing as the door had shut immediately after the last person had entered, came from through the partially transparent shades covering the two windows. Through the shades, the outline of part of a New York City skyline could be scene. Scary-looking shadows were cast against the wall as the faint light continued to flow into the room. After about a minute or two of silence, two more figures burst into the room. The two were dressed in outfits rather similar to the Dick Tracey impersonator, except they could be best described as more casual looking. One had short, messy hair underneath his hat while the other wore his hair in a long braid reaching almost to his ankles.

“We heard screaming…what’s the matter?” the one without the braid spoke up. Noticing the shaken-up girl of the bunch, he hurriedly walked over to see if she was all right.

“We’re actually not sure” the blonde-haired detective-impersonator answered, “Relina said it was something in here, but she won’t say what.”

“Well, DUH!” Duo exclaimed, rolling his eyes, “Because you’re looking in the wrong place!”

“What are you talking about, you braided baka?” Wufei exclaimed

“Just look around you! This is obviously one of those scenes where whatever it is will come out of the closet, and here you are, looking out in the open!” With that, he walked over to the closet, opened the door…and was greeted with a pile of junk to the head.

“Uh…I meant to do that!” he attempted to recover as the two detective-impersonators helped him out of the mess. As soon as he was out of the junk, and not blocking the view any more, Relina gave out a piercing scream and pointed to inside the closet--

_______________________________________________________

Duo: HA! I TOLD you whatever it was would be in the closet!

Me: Will you knock it off and let me get back to the story already!!!!!

Duo: Eep! Gomen!

_______________________________________________________

--where a body was lying, face down. Upon closer examination, it appeared to be… Dorothy! After running out of air from screaming so much, Relina passed out into Heero’s arms as everybody else just gasped. Duo is the first person to speak up:

“OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED DOROTHY!!! THOSE BAS--” (thinking it over for a minute, Duo comes to the conclusion that it would be unnecessary to really finish the rest of the quote)

“…you mean THIS is what you dragged us here for, Rei? And her I thought it was something serious!” Heero speaks up to the unconscious figure in his arms. At the sound of his voice, Relina suddenly ‘wakes up’, and stands up straight, perfectly fine except for the scowl on her face.

“Well, excuse me for trying to get into character!” she exclaims while still scowling, “I was going for an Emmy!”

A knock at the door breaks the mood, as the entire scene switches to color at the sound. Each person, though still in their 1940’s-style clothing, now has a color sceme to him or her. Wufei is yellow; Relina is Black (sorry, no pink for the princess this time! ^_~); Kari is beige/brown; Quatre/Trowa are tan, white, and black; Heero is Dark-Green; Duo is Navy-Blue; the authoress is red.

_________________________________________________________

Duo: (starts humming the song ‘Lady in Red’)

Me: (Glares at Duo)

Duo: (looks as innocent as possible) What?

_________________________________________________________

Immediately after the introduction of color, Cathy walks into the room. She has on a tight-fitting, just-below-the-knee-length blue skirt, fancy white blouse with ruffles around the edges, blue dress shoes, and her hair pulled back into a loose bun.

“Someone’s at the door.” She stated unnecessarily. As a group, everybody rushes to the front door. (Ever seen the movie, “Clue” ? Think of that scene for what’s happening; those of you who have seen it, know what I’m talking about, but for those of you who don’t: Imagine all these people, so nicely dressed up, running around and then crowding around the door like a bunch of little kindergarteners….that’s pretty much what this scene could be described as) After about 5 minutes of Duo attempting to pull open the door, Relina finally reaches into her pocket and pulls out the key to unlock it.

“Uh…I knew that!” Duo once again attempted to amend his idiocy as he grabbed the key from her and opened the door.

There, in one of those New-England-1940’s-policeman-uniforms (I think they’re called “Bobbi uniforms), stood a young girl of 15 years of age.

“Somebody report a murder?” she asked in a very professional voice.

“Uh…no.” Duo answered, seeing as he was in the very front of the group.

“Well, I want a part in this story, so can I come in, anyways?” she asked while sweatdropping. This caused everyone else in the room to sweatdrop as well.

: “Sure, Sam…come in” ::

(A/N- This is the same Sam from way back in ch 2, FYI)

 Everyone gathered inside the living room, where Rachy-chan was still munching away happily on her waffles over in the corner (no one says anything about that, though, because at least she’s stopped causing trouble). All but the authoress and Sam sat on either of the couches. The authoress was sitting in a large, black beanbag chair she had ‘poofed’ in a few minutes prior. Sam was standing so that she could speak to everyone at once. As everyone settled down, however, yet another commotion arose out of the blue.

“HELP! THEY WON’T GO AWAAAAAAY!” Both Hilde and Sally, still in their Pajamas, came running in the room, followed by two bouncing tennis balls left over from Chapter 4. In attempt to hide from their pursuers, the two girls tried diving behind the couch. Unfortunately, as soon as they had hit the floor, the tennis balls bounced straight over to them, hit each girl on the head, and then somehow managed to hit every other single person in the room at least once, before mysteriously finding the exit to the room and bouncing out again.

All sweatdrop while holding their head in pain as a sound that suspiciously sounds like chuckling comes from the direction of the two tennis balls.

“Lemme guess…Miellie?” Sam asked as she got up off the floor after being knocked down. No one says anything, but simply nods.

:: “What was your first clue?” ::

“Anyways,” Sam attempted to bring the subject back to her original purpose for entering this fic in the first place, “I’ll hafta ask you all some questions about where you were during the time of the murder” 

“Murder?” Sally and Hilde asked at the exact same time. Not quite feeling up to explaining the whole thing, the authoress simply hands them a copy of the first four pages of chapter 5 to get them caught up with what’s been going on.

By the time they finished reading it, their clothes miraculously changed to something very similar to Cathy’s ensemble. Not to mention the fact that the entire scene had gone black and white again…

“What’s the deal with the color coming and fading? Are you on a low-budget or something?” Hilde asked the authoress, noticing the absence of color once again.

:: “Gimme a break; I’m trying to set the mood for this story and you guys aren’t helping!” ::

“Does that mean you’ll fire us and find other characters to write about?” Duo asked hopefully.

:: “Mmm….no.” ::

Sam cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention yet again, “As I was saying….uh…” she stutters as she tries to figure out how to question this bunch, “…raise your hand if you don’t have an alibi!”

THE biggest sweatdrop that could ever appear on a non-anime characters formed over her head as pretty much every person in the room unworriedly raised their hands, both from the stupidity of the question and the reply.

“You guys aren’t really making this easy for me, you know?”

:: “Maybe it would help it you go explore the crime scene” ::

“Good idea!” And with that, Sam took off in search of the crime scene.

10 minutes later…

Sam wandered back into the room, apparently confused.

:: “Forget something?” ::

“Uh…yeah…” she began, while blushing from embarrassment.

:: “Second floor, the third room from the end of the west wing hallway.” ::

“Thanks” Once again, Sam leaves the room, heading off in search of the crime scene.

As Sam leave in search of possible clues in a case no one else really cares much about, everyone else in the room starts to settle down for a bit, until Wufei remembers what he had started in the beginning of the chapter:.

DAMN BAKA ONNA STILL HAS MY HAIR TIE! KISSAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” He screamed, running back to the front of the closed bathroom door, his loose hair occasionally getting in his face since it’s no longer pulled back or hidden under a hat. Sweatdropping, everyone chooses to ignore him this time.

The next ten minutes or so are relatively uneventful, save for the argument between Trowa and Duo over whether he should hafta wear earphones when listening to his stupid pokemon soundtrack CD. At the mention of the word CD, the authoress gets an idea 

:: “How about I turn Napster on, and we can do Karaoke?!?!?” ::

“NO!” Everyone screams at once. Ignoring them completely, however, the author quickly turns Napster on the computer, turns the volume up so everyone can hear it over Wufei’s ranting (which currently is revolving around something called ‘the injustice of onna bathroom privileges’) and starts to play the first song she could think of 

“You don't know how you met me

You don't know why, you cant turn around and say good-bye

All you know is when im with you I make you free

And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea…”

Almost immediately after the song came on, Wufei’s rants immediately came to a half for some reason. Fearing that the poor guy had finally given himself a heart attack after all that, everyone quickly rushed out to see what happened. There, they saw a sight that would’ve shocked ANYBODY. Wufei just stared with his eyes bulging in surprise and his mouth WIDE open.

There, standing in the doorway of the now-open bathroom door was

“MEIRAN?!?!?!?!?” Wufei exclaimed, as if he’s seen a ghost (but then again, if it WERE Meiran, he would have!)

Giggling, the black-haired figure shook her head in response as she ran to the living room and up onto the stage which had suddenly appeared as soon as she pointed her sparkly toothpick wand. As the song continued playing on the authoress’ Napster, she sang along, wildly off-key and dancing a little to the tune:

“I'm singing....

Follow me

Everything is alright

I'll be the one to tuck you in at night

And if you want to leave

I can guarantee

You won't find nobody else like me”

“Oh, my god…that’s that Skitzo author from the last chapter!!!” Kari exclaimed in realization as she recognized the voice.

:: OoO :: :: “MIELLIE?!?!?!?!?!?” ::

The girl before everyone was no longer the blonde-haired skitzo from Chapter 4. Somehow, she had gotten ahold of black hair dye and dyed her hair black, cut it to just above her shoulders, and tied it in rough pigtails on either side of her head; she really did look like Meiran!

“I’m not worried ‘bout the rings you wear

Cause as long as no one knows

That nobody can care

Your fellin guilty

And I'm well aware

But you don't look ashamed

And baby I'm not scared

Im singin...”

At this point, everyone has gotten over the shock (pretty much) of Miellie’s new look, and sat down in the living room, watching her make a fool of herself—I mean—perform.

“Follow me

Everything is alright

I'll be the one to tuck you in at night

And if you want to leave

I can guarantee

You won't find nobody else like me

Won't give you money

I can't give you the sky

It better off if you don't ask why

I'm not the reason that you go stranded

We'll be alright if you don't ask me to stay

Follow me

Everything is alright

I'll be the one to tuck you in at night

And if you want to leave

I can guarantee

You won't find nobody else like me

You don't know how you met me

You don't know why, you cant turn around and say good-bye

All you know is when im with you I make you free

And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea

I'm singing....

Follow me

Everything is alright

I'll be the one to tuck you in at night

And if you want to leave

I can guarantee

You won't find nobody else like me….”

As the song ended, everyone in the room clapped wildly. Miellie simply giggled and took a bow…then another…then another….then bowed to the wall…then everyone realized that she had been eating sugar again!

:: “Miellie, get off the stage now!” ::

“Noooooo! I wanna sing another song!” She exclaimed as she used her toothpick wand to corrupt the authoress’ Napster to play the song she wanted. As the music came on (right in the middle of the song just so she could skip to her favorite part), she started singing again:

“….You called me strong, you called me weak
but still your secrets I will keep You took for granted all the times I
never let you down
You stumbled in and bumped your head, if
not for me then you'd be dead
I picked you up and put you back
on solid ground….”

“Ahhhhhh! Nooo! The Evil song!!” Rachy-chan screamed from the corner of her room as she attempted to cover her ears.

:: “That does it…Hilde, you got your mallet?” ::

Though attempting to cover her own ears, she responded, “no, I lost it!”

:: “Then there’s only one thing to do…” :: ::although it is bad for her circulation, takes a deep breath:: :: “JJ!!!!” ::

Suddenly, the little brother of the authoress, JJ, pops up out of nowhere. Contrary to the last time, he now has on a cooking pot for a helmet, pillows tied around his waist and legs, a shield-with-build-in-capri-sun-holder in one hand, and his giant, even-bigger-than-Hilde’s mallet 

“W-what?” he stuttered nervously in fear of seeing any more clowns, while sipping his Capri Sun he finally found.

::points to Miellie:: :: “She’s a clown!” ::

Looking over a Miellie, JJ screams like a girl, faints, wakes up again, runs over to the skitzo girl on the stage, and bonks her on the head with his mallet, knocking her unconscious right in the middle of asking if we’d still call her ‘superman’ if she’s go crazy (what? Don’t tell me you don’t know the lyrics by NOW!)…the mallet squeaks on contact.

Turning to the reader, JJ says, “hehe…it goes ‘squeak’!”

::rolls her eyes:: :: “That’s lovely, JJ, now leave!”

He refuses to move.

::gives him a Deathglare::

See JJ run. See JJ run like heck. See JJ run like heck…straight into the wall, knocking him unconscious.

“Oh…so it’s a hereditary thing?” Duo asks.

:: “Naw…he’s just been hanging around me too long.” :: ::quickly zaps unconscious little brother back to the real world before he wakes up::

As Wufei, Heero, and Duo bring Miellie back into the room she and Wufei were originally playing games in, Sam ran back down the stairway, ecstatic about something.

“I figured out who did it!” She exclaimed, still running….

A large number of people were all sitting in a dark, crowded room awaiting the verdict. Once again, the scene has been switched to Black-and-White-1940’s-genre, costumes and all. Only the swooshing of the fan as it spins slowly on the ceiling can be heard until the authoress breaks the silence.

:: “All right, Sam…who do you think did it?” ::

“Hold up!” she exclaimed, excitedly, “don’t you want to heard HOW I came to my conclusion?”

“Not really,” Kari stated, obviously bored by the whole thing.

“Well, too bad; I wanna tell. It all started when I first walked in the room known as the ‘crime scene’. It was pretty easy to tell who had already been in there as soon as I entered…the place smelled of three things: 1) light perfume…”

: “Coming from us” : all the girls, including the authoress, exclaimed at once.

“Right. The second item was rather hard to place, but I figured out that it had to be mint…”

:: “Mint? As in…Milanoes?!?” ::

“Right.” Everyone turned to look at Rachy-chan, who simply grined back at them all.

“That really doesn’t help much; from what I recall, she ran practically everywhere in the house last chapter!” Quatre pointed out.

“That’s true, but that also brings me to my third and final scented clue…chocolate.”

“CHOCOLATE?!?” everyone repeated in unison.

::“That probably came from Rachy as well; she had a lot of sugar with her at the time.”::

“Ahh…but the question is; where did it go?” Sam couldn’t help but smirk as everyone else appeared puzzled. Looking over a Rachy, for the first time, everyone realized that she was completely free of any evidence of eating chocolate. “You wanna answer that, Rachel?” 

“Rachy-chan give Dorko some chocolate to eat, then Dorko lay down and take a nap!” Rachy beamed, still high under the influence of all the sugar she’d eaten earlier, “Silly girl ended up falling in the closet! Funny place for a nap!”

Suddenly, Quatre’s eyes went wide open as he remembered something, “But…Dorothy’s allergic to chocolate!!!”

“Which comes to my solution; Chocolate was indeed the murder weapon! Therefore, it was Rachy-chan who killed Dorothy!”

“RACHY?!?!?!?!” Everyone exclaimed, while gawking at the smirking chibi.

“Oops” she said, not at all sorry.

“Well, my work is done; see ya in school, Jen!” after giving her long explanation, Sam left through the front door back to the real world.

:: “Bye, Sam” ::

“Wow…Dorothy was killed by chocolate” Duo muttered loud enough so everyone could hear him, “…Cool!”

:: “Hey, I know; wanna have a celebration in honor of Sam solving the mystery?” ::

“…is this going to be anything like the LAST party an authoress threw for us?” Heero spoke up.

Kari, unable to contain herself from the happiness that her most hated enemy was gone, got up and started singing and dancing:

DING-DONG

THE DORKO’S DEAD

THAT’S WHAT I SAID:

DORKO’S DEAD

DING-DONG

THAT BAKA DORKO’S DEAD….!!!!

As she sang, everyone started singing along, until the entire house was filled with the sound of a large group of people singing and dancing…to absolutely no music…all still in their 1940’s clothing….in black and white….

With a smile on her face, Kari slowly woke up from her wonderful slumber. When realization hit her, she bolted upright to a sitting position. As her vision became clearer and the sleep left her, she saw a dark room with almost nobody in it, save for her, Quatre (who was still asleep on the couch opposite hers), Trowa, and Cathy (both of whom were listening to their Pokemon Soundtrack CD’s and playing their Game boys quietly. Off in the distance, she could hear the faint whining of Wufei complaining that Meillie was, once again, cheating somehow; the sound of pitter-pattering as the authoress was heading back downstairs…dragging something (probably that little psycho, Kari thought) behind her. But it wasn’t until Dorothy walked into the room, glass of water in hand, that Kari realized it had all been a dream. And she had only one thing to say about that:

 “…damn!”

_______________________________________________________________

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E-mail ~J.C.~