Frank and Julie

Monday, Day 1

Eight-thirty in the morning, across the street from Frank’s house, Julie started her first day in her new home. Like Frank, she paid a visit to the Lifetime Ambition Box.

Unlike Frank, she declined to stand on top of the box; and after glancing at the Official Lifetime Ambition Incantation she had been handed, she crumpled up the paper it was printed on, and threw it away.

“I’m a Knowledge sim. I’m in the Law Enforcement career. There’s only one lifetime ambition that makes any sense for me. So just give me my ‘Max Out 7 Skills’ and let me get on with skilling.”

All righty then.

Her lifetime ambition all sorted, Julie settled in for some studying before the Welcome Wagon arrived.

Yes, that book should look familiar: it is Crime-Scene Cleanup and You. Julie, however, decided to make do with the standard, non-deluxe edition. Black-and-white illustrations only, and no scratch-and-sniff panels.

Actually, it sounds not only cheaper, but less disturbing that way. No wonder the standard edition sells rather better than the deluxe. Though it is, apparently, slightly less absorbing. Julie was starting to feel a bit bored by the time she heard, in the distance, the voice of the Town Crier.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Welcome Wagon is now approaching Ranch Lane!” It was the exact same Welcome Wagon that had visited Frank.

Though not all of them behaved exactly the same. J.M. Pescado’s first act, upon arriving at Julie’s house, was to ring the doorbell. His second act resulted either from a general desire to cause trouble, from an inability to express his attraction to Julie by means other than annoying her, or from temporarily forgetting that he is not, in fact, the Invisible Man.

“I may not have achieved invisibility,” conceded Pescado, “but at least I still have the ability to bilocate.” He pointed across the street, to where he was, at that very same moment, playing red hands with Ivy as Joe watched.

Julie looked over at Frank’s house and jumped; but quickly recovered enough to demand the return of her gnome. Pescado paid no attention, however, as he retreated to Julie’s spare bedroom to examine her mortgage notes. (“Stupid Franks and Julies! Neither a borrower nor a lender be! It gives your enemies too much of an opening! Use your superior firepower to seize the resources you need instead!”)

As Pescado disappeared into the house, Julie looked back across the street and shook her head. “How is he doing that? How are all of you doing that?”

Ivy shrugged. “I dunno.” She headed inside to join Pescado.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! I have no idea either!” Joe remained outside with Julie. “But I do have a joke for you!” He sidled over closer.

“Okay, then, let’s hear it.” Julie eyed him warily. She clearly wasn’t yet used to the idea of a Town Crier.

Joe told his best Town Crier joke. Julie seemed to enjoy it; and so Joe decided it was time to make his move. He took a deep breath.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Town Crier thinks you’re really cute!”

Sorry, Joe.

Julie took this as her cue to head back inside, and find something she truly was interested in.

“Ahh, Adam Dalgliesh. We have been apart too long, you and I.”

Our Julie is clearly not the life of the party either. But at least she has good taste in mystery writers.

And she and Frank might turn out to be a nicely-matched pair. While Julie chose a novel rather than the newspaper for her Welcome Wagon-avoiding pleasure, her day was still going amazingly like Frank’s. The two of them really ought to get together after work tomorrow. All that sitting around, quietly reading and ignoring each other, should make for absolutely riveting storytelling.

At any rate, Julie’s guests didn’t need any help entertaining themselves. As Julie got started on The Lighthouse, Pescado and Ivy were sharing some gossip in the spare bedroom.

(Apparently, somebody’s reputation has preceded her in this neighborhood…even though no one has officially met her yet.)

Joe wandered in shortly thereafter. He had decided, it seems, that the best way to get over the little episode with Julie was to start up a pranking war with Ivy. A pleased-as-punch Pescado cheered them on from the corner of the room.

The party broke up a little after two o’clock, when Julie put down her novel and headed off to work. This time it was Ivy who lingered behind, sitting in the recliner in Julie’s living room and staring at the wall opposite for no apparent reason. After finally coming to a definitive conclusion that there was no television in the living room, and that no amount of staring at the wall would conjure one into existence, Ivy wandered off around three.

After returning home from work, Julie eagerly headed back to the bookshelf to read some more of Crime-Scene Cleanup and You. This time, the book held her attention better—or perhaps it was just the study breaks she kept taking, to “keep an eye on Frank’s house” (as she described it to her friends later…just what she was expecting to happen to Frank’s house, with Frank still in it, went unexplained). She finally put the book down for good at 2:30 in the morning, having just finished Part II (“The Fascinating and Ever-Varied World of Blood Splatters”).

Julie ended her day with a quick shower, the purchase of an alarm clock from Flying Fish Systems (thanks to her first paycheck), and then bed. She slept soundly, and dreamlessly.

(Or so she told people the next day.)

Next installment: Excitement abounds at Frank’s house!

Monday, Day 1

Eight-thirty in the morning, and Frank awoke for the first time to a finished, fully-furnished Shorikiki of his very own. A beautiful morning, and the perfect time to visit the Lifetime Ambition Box.

Frank climbed onto the box and began reciting the prescribed lines.

“O magic box, in Batman black,
Tell me what I really lack.
What is my heart’s deepest desire?
Romance, grandkids…to not catch fire?

“Send me a Want, pure and true,
And then I will know what to do.”

Frank rolled a want of “Reach Golden Anniversary”. The first step towards that goal would be to get himself a girlfriend. Hmm…just who will be chosen to visit in the Welcome Wagon?

With some time to kill until the expected visitors arrived, and a desire to gain skill points, Frank sat himself down to study. Crime-Scene Cleanup and You may not sound terribly exciting to the layman, but it is a solid basic text, as good a place as any for the rookie policeman to start. Plus Frank’s deluxe edition came with full-color illustrations and scratch-and-sniff panels. Riveting stuff—if not the most appetizing subject in the world—and it easily held Frank’s attention until the Welcome Wagon arrived at a quarter past twelve.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Welcome Wagon is now approaching Ranch Lane!” The voice of the Town Crier brought Frank out of his house, as he marveled to himself. (“This place has a Town Crier?”) Frank headed straight for Ivy Scrumpt, who told him a joke while the Town Crier watched, and while J.M. Pescado reflected on his own Awesomeness.

Frank then greeted Joe Salemi, who regaled him with his favorite Town Crier jokes. Meanwhile, Ivy got Pescado’s attention by offering to play red hands with him.

No, that’s not a gun in Pescado’s pocket; and while he was, in fact, happy to see Ivy, if he were happy to see her in that way, it probably would have shown up in his front pocket. And not been gray. Nor been quite so hard to spot. (Or so one hopes, for his sake.)

Ivy and Pes seemed so wrapped up in their games of red hands and marf apper nerk that Frank never got round to saying word one to Pescado. Instead, he picked up his newspaper, headed inside, and…

…read quietly by himself. (Starting with the comics page, of course.) A real social butterfly, our Frank.

For his part, Joe was content to watch Ivy and Pes, issuing Town Crier-type announcements as to the state of play.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Ivy’s quick hands barely caught the tips of Pescado’s!”

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Pescado’s marf has crushed Ivy’s nerk!”

This lasted for more than an hour before Ivy and Pescado resorted to pranking each other…which the Town Crier also dutifully reported on for the benefit of the neighborhood.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Pescado has just executed a ventrilofart! *cough* Residents should avoid breathing for the next ten minutes! *cough* *cough*”

Frank, engrossed in his paper, took no notice of any of this. He did, however, promptly spin into his police uniform when the cruiser showed up at two o’clock to take him to work. As he was driven away, Pescado and Ivy left together, intent on finding some other place to resume their game-playing and pranking. Joe went inside, sat on the couch, and hung around watching television for an hour or so (“Hear ye! Hear ye! Oprah’s guest today is Julia Roberts!”) before wandering off in search of more town news to cry out.

Frank returned home from work at eleven, and headed straight for the shower. He had just gotten the water running when the phone rang. It was Julie, who had ostensibly called to talk shop. But had she really? After all, her house was right across the street…and Frank’s house didn’t actually come with a proper front door…

After reviewing the day’s work with Julie, and wishing her good night, Frank resumed his shower, then watched some television (“Hey! Who left the TV on the American Eskimo Channel? Who knew there was an American Eskimo Channel?”) until it was time to go to sleep. At which point he finally put on some clothes again (his pyjama bottoms).

It was at that same moment, oddly enough, that Julie finally started getting ready for bed herself across the street.

Next installment: The Welcome Wagon visits Julie.

Day 0

“Frank! Julie! Welcome to Cardinal!”

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor.” Frank shook the Mayor’s hand.

Julie did likewise. “Pleased to meet you. But where’s the police chief? I thought we’d be meeting him today too.”

“You are. You’re looking right at him.” Two puzzled looks led the Mayor to elaborate. “This is a small town. Some of us have to wear several hats.”

“Okay.” Julie took another second to blink and then continued. “Will we be meeting the other officers today then?”

“You already have. You’ve met each other. In this room stands the entire police force of Cardinal, Georgia.” The Mayor was enjoying this.

“We’re it?” asked Frank.

“Yup. You’re it.”

“But who are we taking over from?” Julie tried to keep herself from sounding rattled. “Can’t we at least meet them? Shadow them around for awhile and learn the ropes?”

“You can spend as much time with your predecessor as you like,” the Mayor assured her. “Don’t know that he’ll be much help though. Ol’ Barney passed on last Christmas. In the middle of opening his presents and everything. It’d be kinda sad, if we weren’t all sure that he’d have found it hilarious himself.” The Mayor smiled warmly as he thought of ol’ Barney. “C’mon now. Let me show you to your offices.”

After getting settled in at the office, Frank and Julie returned to Ranch Lane, and their new homes.

The original developer of Ranch Lane had planned to fill the street with a nice tidy row of identical, affordable ranch houses. But he ran out of money after building just two. Julie purchased the one farther away from the main road, number 5 Ranch Lane. A mortgage of §12,000, plus her personal savings, was just enough to buy the house and furnish it with the very basics. (Which did not, at least at first, include a television or alarm clock.)

Frank purchased the vacant lot across the street from Julie. It sat next to a slightly different sort of simple, affordable house, which had been built by the second developer of Ranch Lane (who ran out of money after building just the one).

To his lot at 6 Ranch Lane, Frank had delivered a pre-fabricated, fully-furnished, some-assembly-required Shorikiki house, which he had purchased, somewhat on impulse, on his post-graduation trip to Japan. It seemed as though the whole town of Cardinal was in attendance to see the unloading of the cargo container; and with the help of some of the handier residents of the town—as well as a few who were less handy, but fancied themselves quick learners and were curious as all get out—Frank got the basic structure assembled in a day.

He spent the next day looking after the smaller structural details, carefully unpacking the decorations and accessories, and following the enclosed untranslated instructions as best he could with his three years of college Japanese. He was quite pleased with the final result. Though he was left with a bit larger mortgage than his partner (§15,000), he would be living humbly in real style.

Next installment: The Welcome Wagon arrives!