A voice crackles from the walkie talkie in a room. Brian looks
up from his video game. "Man, my room is dirty. At least I know
where everything is." He picks up the walkie talkie and speaks into
it, "Sam, what is it?"
     "I've just finished another invention. Come to the clubhouse
and I'll show it to you."
     "Ok, I'll be right over." Brian runs downstairs calling,
"Mom?" I'm going to go to the club house now." He runs a comb
through his dirty red hair. He walks to the door grabbing his coat
off of the rack by the front door as if he knows his mother will
give him permission.
     "Only if you take your sister," she replies from the kitchen,
"and be back for dinner."
     This was not what he was expecting. "Don't make me take,
Margaret. She's always in the way," he whines.
     "I've had a long day. It's either with her or not at all."
     "Come on," he says to corner he knows she's waiting behind,
"We don't have long until dinner."
     She comes sliding around the corner at full speed, "Yes! Race
ya there." She races out the door that her brother has opened for
her and dashes toward the tree house. Brian closes the door and
slowly jogs after his sister.
     In the few moments of jogging between his door and the
neighbors gate, he thinks, "Life would be so much easier without
her. Peace and quiet. More money for the family. Maybe Dad would
still be around. Maybe ..." But by now Brian had reached the gate.
It is still open from when his sister had burst through. He slips
through the lit motion detector light that his sister must have
triggered.
     "Come on up, Brian." He sees his sister in the yard. He climbs
up the wooden steps into Sam's side of the tree house. As he does
he remembers the way the tree house used to be. Both yards had a
tree on either side of the fence. The tree house had spanned the
fence and could be reached from either yard or either tree, but
that was before. Now if you wanted to get to a side, you had to
climb the tree on that side.
     "Ok, Sam, what have you got?"
     "Well, I've devised a new two-way communication device. What
is better, is that they can be hidden in baseball caps, like the
one I am wearing." Brian looks at Sam and it looks like Sam is
wearing a cap with a small microphone extended in front of his
mouth. "Look out the window at your sister. I will give her a set
of instructions and we'll see if it works."
     Brian looks down through the tree house window at his sister
in the yard. She is also wearing a cap which he didn't notice
before. Sam whispers an instruction. Margaret starts hopping up and
down. Then on one foot, then the other. She runs around the yard.
"It seems to be working, Brian. Let's try a quick distance test."
Sam says, winking at Brian. Sam gives the instruction and Margaret
runs out of the yard. Sam touches the top of his cap. "Now we have
radio silence. Two things. One, Margaret is wearing your cap. Get
it from her when she gets home. And Two, you should leave now if
you want to get back in time for dinner."
     "Ah, that's what you were up to," Brian exclaims as he climbs
down out of the tree. Sam touches his cap again and begins
conversing with Margaret. He winks at Brian and they exchange
waves. Brian makes his way home just in time for dinner.
     "Where's your sister?" his mother interrogates as sit down at
the table.
     "What? She's not here?" he feigns innocence, "She left the
tree house and the yard before I did."
     "So, you don't know where she's at?"
     "No," he lies and then finishes in his head, "I don't know
specifically where she's at." The conversation dies into silence as
the begin their meal. Brian saw his mother getting concerned. That
always meant the punishment was more severe than usual. He feels
sorta sorry for his sister, but not really. She deserves it for
making his life miserable, for, for, just for living.
     When dinner ends and she's still not home, then Brian starts
to be concerned. "I'd better contact Sam and find out what's going
on." He goes up to his room and closes the door. "Sam? Sam, are you
there," Brian whispers into the walkie talkie.
     "Yeah, Brian, what is it?"
     "Where's my sister?
     "I don't know. Shortly after you left, she was helping me
gauge distance, when she screamed and then I lost contact. She's
not home yet?"
     "No. Where is she?"
     "Well, she was on Carpenter, past Twenty Sixth, but I figured
she would return home after she couldn't talk to me anymore. I
thought she was screaming because she just remembered dinner."
     "She's not home yet."
     "Don't worry about it. I'm working on a signal locator. It
should be ready by morning. If she's not home by then, we'll be
able to find her. I think she's trying to pull a trick on us like
we did to her tonight."
     "Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, that's just what she would
do, too. Thanks, Sam. I'll see you in the morning." Sleep comes
slowly for him.
     Meanwhile, Sam in the tree house had focused the his new
device to search only for the frequency put off by the caps. He
starts to make adjustments, when his mother calls out the back
door, "Sam, come to bed. I'm locking the doors in five minutes."
     "Be right down, Mom. I've got just a few more adjustments and
then I'll go to bed." he promises. He makes another adjustment and
throws his hat out the window. The machine tracks the hat all the
way to the ground. He turns off the new device and climbs down into
the yard to pick up his hat. The back door locks and the lights in
the house turn off.
     "No problem," he thinks, "I'll just use the other way in." He
climbs back up into the tree house. This time, however, he slides
around the outside of the place to the side nearest the house.
There he finds the wire that crosses the yard. He grabs the handle
bars turned wire rider. His weight releases the handles and he
glides over the yard and through his open window. His window, which
automatically opened right before went into his room, closes
quickly behind him as well. "Early to bed, Early to rise, makes a
young man, healthy, wealthy and wise." he thinks to himself as he
drifts off to sleep, "Oh, and God, help us find Margaret."
     Brian is woken up to the sounds and smells of breakfast.
"Mmmm, bacon. Mom must be making a full breakfast," he thinks to
himself, "That's funny, she doesn't usually have time for that. We
always have to make it ourselves." He stretches, throws off the
covers, and gets out of bed.
     Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Brian makes his way to the
bathroom. "Margaret is probably already in the bathroom with the
door locked." To his surprise, the bathroom is empty. "Something's
wrong here." He freshens up and heads toward the kitchen.
     On his way, he notices that his sister's door is ajar. He
pushes it open, sees that her room is spotless, and the bed hasn't
been slept in. "She never came home."
     "Morning, Mom," he says as he enters the kitchen.
     "Oh, good morning, dear," she says turning toward him, "I was
just about to wake you as I leave for work." Brian notices the dark
circles under her eyes that she did her best to cover with makeup.
"Stay out of trouble, and if you see your sister, have her call
me."
     "Mom must be worried sick. I don't think I've ever seen her
like this. I'd better find my sister soon." He eats breakfast
quickly, and soon he's back at the clubhouse with Sam.
     "O.k, I'm not going to turn this on until we get near where
she disappeared." They ride their bikes in silence while they head
toward the edge of town. Sam fills the silence with some talk, "You
know, Brian, I've got this idea for a new invention ..." he trails
off as Brian interrupts.
     "You have a lot of those, don't you?"
     "Yeah, so?"
     "Well, we are running out of room for them. First, the tree
house breaks because of them and your basement is filling up with
them. Half of them don't work, half of them have no use, and half
of them blew up and need repair. And soon, we won't have room to
store them."
     Sam considers mentioning that Brian went a few halves too
many, but holds his tongue and asks, "So, what do you propose we do
about it?"
     "Well, either you need to stop inventing, or we need a new
place to store them."
     "Sounds reasonable, where?"
     "I'm not sure, and we need a place that's Margaret-proof too."
     "Yeah." And after a pause, "Well, here we are."
     "Here? You two were talking ALL the way over here? This is the
other side of the city."
     Sam turns on the device and looks down with concern. "It says
that she is right here."
     "I don't get it. There's no one around and no place to hide.
The nearest anything is that warehouse over there. Your device must
not be working properly, like usual."
     "It was working last night. I guess I'll take it back to work
on it again." Sam sighs discouraged, "I was sure this would lead us
straight to her. See ya, Brian. I'm going to wander for a little
before I get to work on it."
     "Yeah, see ya. I'll talk to you later." Sam rides off. Brian,
however, still concerned for his sister and mother continues to
check things out.
     Brian thinks logically to himself, "Well, this about where she
was when she disappeared. So, by herself she couldn't get far.
Maybe she's in that warehouse." He rides his bike over there and
finds the doors locked. "Hmm, that's funny, I thought this place
was abandoned." He walks his bike around to the back of the
building and spots an open window. He leans his bike against the
wall and stands on the seat so that he can look in the window.
     There are mummies in the room! Fresh ones, because the cloth
is new! Each one has some hair sticking out from the cloth. One of
them has Margaret's hair! "I must get in there! I gotta save her!"
He checks the window where he's standing. "The opening is too small
and it won't budge. I'll have to find another way in."
     Suddenly he hears a truck pull up. It stops nearby. The locks
and doors open. Through the window, Brian sees some men unloading
more mummies. "Maybe I can get in before they close the doors." He
sneaks around the side of the warehouse. "Dang, they are too close.
I won't be able to get in unless I have a distraction." He looks
around. "No distractions here. I'll have to get one of Sam's
devices. I'll look for one that will explode on cue." He hops on
his bike and rides back to the tree house.
     Meanwhile, Sam winds his bike into a church parking lot on the
other side of town. He enters a back door and finds a way to the
janitors closet. A note there states, "I am not in a room that has
an 'A' in it."
     "He's being easy on me today. Let's see, foyer, outside,
pulpit, nursery, steeple, outside. The pulpit and foyer shouldn't
be too hard to check. I'll start there." After a few minutes of
checking, "Ok, let's try the nursery and view the steeple." 
Another few minutes pass, "Not there either. Maybe he's outside
somewhere."
     Sam checks the janitor's closet about 45 minutes later to
check if the message has changed. It hasn't. "Where is he?" Sam
asks in exasperation.
     "Ask and it will be given unto you. Seek and you will find,"
The words surround Sam so that he can't tell where they are coming
from, "Knock and the door will be opened unto you." But he does
know who's saying it.
     "Grandpa, where are you?"
     "Why right here,"
     "Where?"
     The Janitor's closet opens. "In the Supply Closet." The
elderly man that exits the closet isn't Sam's real grandpa, but an
artificially adopted one.  "Grandpa" is the one that Sam goes to
when he has problems in his life.
     "That's the janitor's closet."
     "Ah, but that's what you call it. It's where I keep my
supplies." Seeing the concern on Sam's face, he asks, "So, what's
on your mind?"
     "Well, two things. The first is that I can't find Margaret."
     "Tell me about it while I clean this place up." Sam and
Grandpa move into the sanctuary and start picking up trash on the
floor while Sam starts the story from the time Brian and Margaret
came over.
     "And then -- this is the other thing -- my device to find
Margaret didn't work."
     "Well, tell me about the device."
     "Which one?"
     "The one to find Margaret. What's it actually looking for?"
     "The frequency the cap ..."
     "Like the one that you're wearing?"
     "Yes, the cap broadcasts at."
     "Is there a way to turn that frequency off?"
     "Not unless the cap was taken apart. It has a mute function,
but I built it to maintain the frequency."
     "So, have you tried the Margaret finder since it didn't work?"
     "No."
     "Try it now."
     Sam turns on the machine with the exact same result. "No
change."
     "What does it say?"
     "That's she's right here."
     "Right here?"
     "Well, within several yards."
     "So, she could be here."
     "Just outside the walls, maybe. But we already thought this
out, if it was a joke, wouldn't it be over by now?"
     "That makes sense. Say, your hat would have to use the same
frequency to communicate, right?"
     "Sure, but what ... ?"
     "Have you considered that you are wearing your cap?"
     "What?"
     "Your Margaret finder is actually a Sam finder."
     "So, how do I find Margaret?"
     "Well, a certain shepherd lost one of his sheep in Luke 15,
and he searched all over the place to find the lost lamb."
     "But I did Look for her."
     "Yes, but you did it out of order. The Bible says to 'Ask,'
then 'Seek,' then 'Knock.' Have you asked yet?"
     "No."
     "Then let's ask and I'm sure you'll find her."
     "Ok," they stop the cleaning and bow their heads, "Father God,
I'm asking you to help me be like the shepherd in Luke 15. I need
your help to find Margaret. You say in Your Word, 'If any man lacks
wisdom let him ask and it will be given to him generously.' Well
Father, I'm asking you for Your Wisdom. I pray all these things in
Your Name. Amen."
     "Amen."
     "Well, I'm off to find Margaret."
     "What? You aren't going to stay and help me finish here?"
     "Grandpa, you're never finished cleaning here."
     "I know. That's the way I've planned it. Godspeed with finding
Margaret."
     "Thanks," Sam turns to leave.
     "Oh, and how are things between you and Brian?"
     "A little strained. He was mean again, and I'm a little
upset."
     "I'm sure you know what to do about it, right?"
     "Yeah, Forgive him, just as Jesus forgave me, and love him.
It's really hard Grandpa. I don't see any changes in him."
     "You may never see a change, but that doesn't mean you should
stop trying." 
**********************************************
   Insert Sam's exit from Grandpa here!  
**********************************************
     Sam rides his bike back to the tree house thinking. "How can
I find Margaret?" He pauses for a moment as he waits for an opening
in traffic. Upon finding it, he continues, "The answer should be a
simple one, but for the life of me I can't think of it." He rides
on trying ideas and promptly refusing them. After a while, he pulls
into his driveway and puts his bike away in the back yard unaware
that he is being watched. He climbs up into the tree house and sets
his cap to one side to cool off.
     The figure now hiding around the side of the house carefully
moves along a path that keeps him out of side of Sam. When he
reaches the other side of the house and the gate to freedom, Brian
sighs in relief. "Wow, Sam almost saw me. I'd better go save my
sister now." He hops on his bike carefully balancing the device on
his handle bars and rides as fast as he can to the warehouse. Ten
minutes later, he's there.
     "Dang, the doors are locked again. I'd better go out back and
wait for it to get here." he tells himself as he starts to walk his
bike.
     "Brian, wait up!" Brian turns to find Sam walking his bike up
behind him.
     "How long have you been following me?"
     "Following you? I haven't been following you. I just figured
out how to get my device to work and so I came here to test it."
     "No need. Margaret is in there," Brian says pointing to the
warehouse, "I think she might be in some sort of trouble because
she's wrapped like a mummy. I came to save her. Come on, I'll show
you."
     The two slip behind the warehouse to the window. This time
however there is a man there. He walks in front of the window,
grabs a mummy near Margaret, and walks back out of sight all
without seeing Sam and Brian. Brian points out his sister. The step
away and speak in whispers, "Sam, that guy wasn't there before."
     "Well, how were you going to save her?"
     "I was going to use this device to draw away the drivers of
the truck so I could slip in."
     "Truck? What truck?"
     "The truck that drops off the mummies."
     "Well then, let me distract them and you get inside."
     "Ok." The deep rumble of a truck comes to a stop in front of
the warehouse.
     "Show time." They separate. Minutes later, they are both into
position as the guys moving the mummies are working. Sam pushes
some buttons on a remote control. Brian's device makes some noises,
vibrates around a little and then blows up.
     At first nothing happens. Sam got ready for his act if the
device didn't work by itself. Then it explodes again. The men run
past Sam. He watches Brian slip in, and follows suit. He had just
finds a spot, when one of the guys rush in, grabs a fire
extinguisher, and rushes out.
     After a moments, the extinguisher is replaced and things go
back to normal. Then the last of the mummies are unloaded, the
doors are locked and the truck drives away.
     Brian slips out of his hiding spot. Quickly he makes his way
to his sister. His arm brushes up against something. He turns and
sees one of the mummies falling forward. He grabs it, rights it,
and continues his journey. "That person was awfully light." he
thinks.
     In moments, he is at his sister's side. He reaches to remove
the cloths covering her face when he sees movement. He slips back
into the shadows. "Oh, it's only Sam," he thinks to himself and
returns to his sister's side.
     He is only able to pull the cloth just below the eyes when Sam
taps him on the shoulder and points, "Shoot, here comes that man.
I'd better not get spotted." With that he disappears into the
shadows again.
     Unfortunately the man grabs her and takes her into the room he
just came from. Brian follows in the dark. The door closes
separating him from his sister. He spots Sam on the other side of
the door. They step away to the partially open window to talk in
whispers again.
     "Sam, what are we going to do?"
     "Well, he seems to come out here for another one every 15
minutes or so. I say we wait and sneak in while he grabs the next.
Meanwhile let's enjoy the sunset."
     The descending sun dissolves into the horizon as the sky runs
through the colors of the spectrum. Then the door knob turns.
Silently they creep up to the door as it opens. The man walks out.
Brian and Sam slip in and look for a place to hide.
     The room is pretty bare. There is a table on one side of the
room. On it is a lamp and an assortment of brushes, colors and
cosmetics. The room has two doors one of them open at the moment.
Standing in a corner there is a crate which is closed. There are
also plenty of vents for ventilation. But no Margaret. "She must be
in the crate."
     Brian and Sam, running out of time, check the other door to
find a closet with a single sweater. They step in and keep the door
open a crack. "This won't work," Brian thinks to himself, "I can't
see the table or anything else."
     Sam checks the angle of the door compared to the room and
searches for a way to see more than the entrance and exit of the
mummy man. He notices a vent in the ceiling.
     "Brian, give me a boost," he whispers.
     "Huh?" Sam points up to the vent, "Oh."
     Sam reaches for and grasps the vent. It fights him for a
moment and then the rusted bolts give. Brian lifts higher and Sam
scrambles to try to get in. Unable to, Brian motions for Sam to
lift him. Quickly, easily an quietly he climbs in and through the
ventilation system.
     "Uh oh," Brian thinks to himself, "which way am I supposed to
go? I think I'll try a right." He crawls a little further and comes
to another intersection. "Left or Up? Well, going 'up' is out of
the question. Left it is." A few lefts and rights later. "Man, this
has got to be the twistiest ventilation system ever and still no
down. It's at that moment that his hand slips down a hole. Having
placed all his weight on that hand, he lurches forward, having lost
his balance, and falls forward down the hole. 
     "Where is he?" Sam asks himself for the umpteenth time, and
then, "Patience is a virtue." "So?" He argues with himself, "He
should be there by now. And if he did, he should have the sense to
signal me." Sam thinks for a moment. "He must not have gotten there
yet. That would mean he got lost." He pauses for another moment,
"That's not surprising. I'd better try to find him." He looks up.
"But how am I going to get up there?"
     Meanwhile Kevin has problems of his own. "Why haven't I hit
the ground yet," he asks himself. He pulls his arms out from their
crash positions around his head. Then he opens his eyes. He finds
himself several feet over the ground, but that's all he can tell
because his glasses slid off his face. He looks up. He finds that
he is hanging by the shoelace of his right foot. "Oh great." He
tries to climb back up himself into the hole, but he finds that
each time he tries he gets closer to falling again. Finally he
reaches up to untie his shoelace. "This is going to hurt," he says
as he gives the knot one last tug.
     "Ask and then seek," the words of the recent conversation with
'grandpa' echo in his head. Sam offers a quick prayer, "Father help
me find a way up there." Suddenly an glimmer of an idea appears. He
looks around the closet. "Of course, why didn't I see it before?"
He removes the wooden bar that holds the sweater and pulls a
previously unseen metal wastebasket out and flips it over.
     "Where are my glasses?" Brian crawls around the floor feeling
with his hands. His blurry vision discerns many small colorful
boxes scattered across the floor. He notices a dark square on the
floor. He crawls toward it, as fast as he can with one socked foot,
hoping that his glasses slid there. He feels around on top of it.
Suddenly, he hears a creaking sound. He looks up hoping to see what
might be falling on him. Instead the floor grate brakes sending
Brian falling. "Not again!"
     "Ok, I've learned my lesson. Now that I'm in the vents, I'm
sure he'll give me directions." He pauses and then prays, "Father,
please help me find Brian and Margaret." Nothing. "We'll, I should
probably start where he should be. He might be there." He starts
crawling. "I think I'll go right." He crawls a little further and
comes to another intersection. "I have a choice of going Up or
Left. Which should I go? Well, I'm not above the room yet. So, I
should go Up." After some more crawling, he is above the room. He
looks and sees the man painting. "If only this vent was angled or
a little wider, I could see what he is painting. The man walks out
of sight, comes back without the painting materials, grabs whatever
he was painting and walks out sight again.
     "Up or down?" Kevin comes to another junction and another
decision. "I've gone down far enough. I should go up." It takes a
little work, but soon he is upwardly mobile. Bang. Brian looks up
to see what he hit his head on. The lights and shadows tell him he
is at a vent opening. The only one he's seen except the one he fell
out of and the two he got into. "This'll lead me out of these
vents. Sam will find me from there." Brian gets some leverage and
pushes up with all his might. A shadow covers him for a moment.
"That must be Sam, and he's leaving me!" A moment later the vent
cover gives. Brian scrambles out of the vent. "That wasn't Sam.
Good thing they didn't see me."
     "Brian." Brian looks for the voice. "Brian," the voice
repeats.
     "Sam? Where are you?"
     "No time. Get back into the hole and I'll find you."
     "Why?"
     "Just do it," Sam demands and then adds as an afterthought,
"And replace the cover too."
     Sam looks down on the vent below him and watches Brian go back
in replacing the cover as asked. The mummy man comes in with
another mummy and back out of sight. "Good. He didn't see him. Now
to go find him myself."
     Brian adjusts his position and slides down a little. He looks
up at the vent, "I don't think I got that right."
     Another shadow covers the vent. "I don't think that's Sam."
Something hits the vent and it rattles. A cry is heard. "That
didn't sound like Sam." Brian climbs down away from the vent. His
foot slips and then his other foot slips. Brian proceeds down at a
rapid rate. Above him, he hears someone lifting the vent. It seems
so far away an small. The vent comes off and a momentary rectangle
of light is covered by a shadow Brian deduces is someone's head.
     Suddenly Brian hits bottom. A metal clang echoes around him.
"Who's there?" the head asks. A small piece of metal snaps off and
lands. Moments later a huge blower turns on. Dirty air swirls
around Brian and into all the ventilation shafts.
     A metal clang and then the sound of a motor turning are all
the warning that Sam gets. "Uh oh," he thinks to himself, "time to
duck and cover."