Disclaimer: I don't own the MBS or any related things to it. I only own my OC's and the plot.

This is about a year after the Prisoners Dilemma; Kate is 14, Reynie and Sticky are both 13, and Constance is 5. Enjoy!

"So..." Kate asked Reynie at the lunch table.

Reynie took a drink of his orange juice and said: "So, if we raise enough money, we'll be able to buy it."

"And how, may I ask, are we going to do that?" asked Sticky, "It's not like we can open a lemonade stand and just magically get enough money to buy a new laptop computer."

Suddenly the phone rang and Milligan got it.

Hello?...yes, but how do you know her?...alright, I'll put her on. Kate, it's for you." Milligan called.

"Hello?" Kate asked into the phone.

"Hey, Kate! How are you?" the voice on the other end said cheerfully.

Kate blinked. "J-johann? Is that really you?"

"Yep." he replied, "The one and only Johann Shoenburg! Long time no see, yeah?"

"Yeah..." she murmured.

"Kate, are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine, Jani. Look, I need to go, but I'll talk to you later, 'kay?" he gave Kate his phone and cell phone number, said 'goodbye', then hung up.

"Who was that?" Rhonda asked Kate when she came back to the table.

"Her friend." Constance answered for her.

"Constance, you know it's not nice to delve into people's minds like that. Please say that you are sorry." warned , Mr. Benedict who, even though (or perhaps because), his narcolepsy had been cured, was wearing a green plaid suit.

"Though I must say I am quite sorry, I must say that I hate calamari." Constance said.

"It's alright," Kate replied, avoiding her gaze by checking that her bucket was in order.

After lunch, Reynie, Sticky, and Kate went to the Washington's backyard to talk. They spent a lot of time there, as it was also the ideal place to have meetings in the day, if they wanted to. There was a huge tree in the yard that had a tree house in it, and above that there was a big birdhouse for Madge. They had made a flag for it that read 'Her Majesty the Queen's Tree house' that was at the highest it could go for all the world to see. The tree house itself had four chairs and a table and also a secret compartment that they had somehow convinced Milligan to install. It also had a rope and pulley system with a large[er] blue bucket attached to it. The children climbed up the rope ladder and sat down. Reynie opened the secret compartment and pulled out some paper and a pencil. "What was your friend's name?" he asked.

Kate looked up from her bucket. "His full name? Or just his first and last?"

"Only first and last, please," Reynie said.

"Alright, his name is Joann Shoenburg and he's a friend of mine from the circus. He has two brothers named Erich and Frederich, but everybody calls Frederich 'Hansi' 'cause he doesn't like his first name for some reason. Also, Hansi and Erich are twins but they don't look exactly the same; Hansi has one blue eye and one green eye, and Erich just has green eyes. Both of them are 13. They were all orphans but adopted by some people in the circus. Jani used to have a fraternal twin sister named Zoey, but she died when they were seven from whooping cough. Jani is 16 and really tall and probably has his drivers license by now. You got all that?" she asked Reynie, who was scribbling furiously. He nodded. When he was done, Sticky read it, cataloguing it all in his brain. They did this with all of their 'files' so that if they got lost or destroyed they would still have the information. Suddenly there was a furious clanging from the ground. Kate reached out the door and pulled on the rope. In a few seconds, the bucket came into view, with Constance riding inside.

"About time." she grumbled, clambering into the tree house. When she looked up, she pulled off an envelope taped to the underside of the table. She hastily sat down and handed it to Reynie.

Reynie carefully opened the envelope and started to read aloud:

"A man is lying drowned in a dead forest far from water.

How did this happen?

The deadline for the answer is Thursday.

Good luck!

-Mr.B"

After all of them thought about this for a while, they all came to the same conclusion: that they all had no idea what the answer was.