The Crystal Snowflake Case, Part II: A Pony Detective story

The crew at M&T Pony Detective Agency is back. This time they have a special client to guard. Here’s part two!

By N.A. Souer

Continued from Part I.

M, Tweak, and Mousy cautiously approached and slowly pushed the door open. The humming noise became louder. Inside the arena, a strange object darted up and down in mid-air, shooting out intermittent streams of fiery sparks.

“Oscar!” M yelled at the tabby kitten running the control box below.

“Oscar Kitty Junior!”  Mama Kitty called out from behind M, “You stop this minute!”

The kitten pawed the joystick down on the control box, and the object above fell to the ground.

“What on Earth do you think you’re doing?”  Mama Kitty pressed, her voice taking on the tone every mischievous youngster knew.

“Aunt Kitty,” Oscar protested “I was just trying out my new drone toy!”

“Well you can’t play with that inside,” she said. “That is an outside only toy.”

“But you said I was grounded and couldn’t go outside.”

M let out a sigh of relief and shook his head. He did not understand this younger generation and all their hi-tech toys!

“I’m sorry,” Mama Kitty apologized to M. “When I said I’d look after my sister’s boy I had no idea what I was in for.”

“That’s ok,” M said, “No harm done.”

Just then M felt his cell phone vibrated inside his halter pocket. He reached down and nudged the call button on his knee and was greeted by the voice of his old NPSS friend, Red Kringle Bells.

“We got some good news and bad news,” Red’s voice said through the tiny earpiece. “We have confirmed the location of Miss Snowflake using the secret microchip signal, but we have limited assets to help you further. Everyone here has been assigned to the December 24th operation.”

“What about local agents?” M asked.

“Everyone there has been assigned to the detail escort for Santa once he crosses the Canadian border into your state.”

“So what’s the situation?”  M asked. “Is Crystal okay?”

“As far as we can tell,” Red said. “It’s hard to see cuz we’re working with footage from a small drone camera. We didn’t want to risk alarming her captors until we had visual confirmation. But you’re going to have to take it from here, and fast.”

“Where exactly is this place?”  M asked, sensing a new urgency in Red’s voice.

“It’s a stockyard where they ship cattle for processing,” Red said. “I checked online and there’s a truck scheduled to leave at midnight.” Red paused, then added, “It’s headed for Canada, and I’d bet they plan to put Crystal on that truck.”

M shuttered.

“You said you used a drone?”  M asked, watching as Mama Kitty supervised Oscar storing his new drone away in the tack room toy box.  “What kind?”

“Nothing fancy,” Red said. “Just a cheap model from a local toy store. We have better ones here at the North Pole, but there wasn’t time to get one down there.”

“Okay,” M said getting an idea. “We’ll take it from here, and call you back if we run into any trouble.”

After M clicked off his cell phone, he approached Mama Kitty and Oscar.

“How fast is your new toy?” M asked Oscar.

“Really fast,” Oscar replied with excitement, “and it shoots out really cool colored sparks, too.”

Mama Kitty gave M a warning look,  then said, “Please don’t encourage him!”

“I’m sorry,” M said, rebuffed by the elderly feline. ”But I need to ask Oscar if he’d be willing to use his new toy to help us rescue Crystal.”

“What do you mean?”  Mama Kitty asked.

“Can I shoot at bad guys?” Oscar chimed with excitement.

“Sort of,” M said, as Mousy, Tweak, and Sasha gathered around.

M filled in the team.

“We can’t let Crystal get on that truck,” M concluded. “So, Oscar’s drone just might be the distraction we need.”

By 10:00 p.m. M and his team were parked in Santa’s van across from the stockyard warehouse.

“I don’t see her,” Sasha said, as everyone stared at the small screen on the vehicle’s dashboard.

Mousy had attached a small camera with a transmitter to Oscar’s drone, then rewired the van’s backup camera to receive the signal.

“Try the other side of the building,” M said.

Oscar, perched in the front seat with the control box, moved the joystick to the left.

“Nothing!” Tweak said with frustration.

“Try the other side,” M directed

Oscar moved the joystick to the right.

“There!” Mama Kitty said.

The van screen showed a white pony jammed in with several dark, bovine bodies on an open stock trailer, pulling away from the loading dock.

“Thought it wasn’t supposed to leave until midnight?” Mousy asked with alarm..

“It wasn’t,” M said, quickly bumping the call button on his halter headset. “Someone changed the schedule.”

When Red answered, M said, “We’ve got a problem. The truck is already loaded and about to leave.”

“Have they passed through the security gate yet?” Red’s voice asked over the van speaker.

“Not yet,” M said, “but they’re in line.”

“Okay,” Red said. “Someone from your team is going to have to work fast.”

“What needs to be done?”  Mousy asked.

“Inside the van’s glove box is a magnetic tracker device. If someone can attach it to the truck, it will let you track the vehicle.”

Mousy jumped over Oscar, grabbed the device out of the glove box, then sprinted across the street. He returned minutes later, out of breath, just as the truck pulled up alongside the guard stand by the lot gate.

“I stuck it on the underside of the frame,” he said, “and talked to Crystal through the floorboards.”

“Is she okay?” Mama Kitty asked

“Yeah,” Mousy said, still panting, “but she’s really scared.”

“The tracking device is working,” Red’s voice said through the van speakers. “We just picked up the signal here on our computers. You should see the same thing in the van.”  Everyone looked down at the van’s screen, where a map grid was displayed with a flashing red dot. “And, it looks like the target is on the move,” Red added.

M looked up just as the truck pulled through the gate and turned north.

“Okay,” M said pushing the van into motion. “We’ll follow.”

“No,” Red said. “I’ve got an idea. Stop over at the U of M vet clinic and pick up a sling.”

“What for?” M asked. “Can’t you just have agents stop the truck at the border?”

“That would raise too many questions from customs and the border patrol. I’m going to check on something. Keep this line open.”

M glanced over at the van’s dash clock. It read 11:45 p.m. Crystal had to be back at the fairgrounds by 8:00 a.m. or she’d be eliminated from the Olympic team competition.

No one said anything inside the van, as they nervously watched the small screen, and listened to Red talk to someone in the background.

“North Pole Control Tower, this is NPSS One,” Red’s voice said, “Do you read?”

“NPSS One,” another voice answered, “this is North Pole Control, go ahead.”

“North Pole Control, do you have any reindeer training teams by the Minnesota and Canadian border tonight?”

“Negative, NPSS One,” the voice replied. “Radar shows the closest team is North of Michigan.”

“Any chance they could detour into the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airspace?” Red’s voice asked.

“NPSS One, please standby.”

Tense moments passed as the team watched the small, red dot on the van’s camera screen move north up I-35, and M tried to drive as fast as he could to catch up.

“NPSS One, this is North Pole Control,” the voice said once more in the background. “The driver is in route to Minneapolis-Saint Paul airspace.”

Red’s voice came back on the van speakers and explained his plan to drop a sling down from the sleigh and lift Crystal out.

“From a moving truck?” M asked in disbelief, as he pushed the van faster up the freeway.

“Do you have a better plan?” Red asked. “We’re running out of time.”

M glanced down at the van’s clock. It now read 12:45 a.m. Red was right.

“Let’s keep this phone line open,” Red went on. “As soon as the driver gets close we’ll find a place for you to pull off and transfer the sling and a few of your team members.”

Thirty minutes later the background voices could be heard once again over the phone line.

“NPSS One, this is North Pole Control. The driver, Elf Ralph, will be entering the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airspace shortly. Please confirm when you have visual sighting.”

“Copy, North Pole Control,” Red answered.

“Okay,” Red’s voice came through the van’s speaker, “there’s a reindeer team is on their way. Let me know when you can see them.”

Everyone watched the sky through the windshield.

“There!” Sasha said, as a team of four reindeer hitched to a training sleigh glided through the nighttime sky.

‘We can see them,” M said.

More voices could be heard in the background, as Red talked directly to the driver on a different frequency.

Finally, Red’s voice came over the van speakers, “The driver is going to meet you at a truck stop parking lot,” Red said. “It should be at the next exit.”

“Then what?”  M asked, watching for exit signs.

“Transfer the sling and two of your team,” Red said. “The driver knows what we need him to do.”

When M pulled into the parking lot, he saw a small, wiry guy landing a sleigh in the back corner. Mousy and Tweak got out as soon as M pulled up alongside the driver.

“So you want me to hover over the truck while you drop a sling down to lift Miss Crystal out?”

The driver had a faint accent, and reminded M more of an Irish leprechaun than one of Santa’s elves.

“Is it possible?”  M asked.

“My girls can do it,” he said with a toothy grin.

As soon as Tweak and Mousy were in the sleigh, the driver signaled the team to move out.

Only then did M realize it was an all doe team.

“Girl power,” Sasha teased from the back of the van.

“At least it’s not a team of mares,” M said under his breath, as he turned back onto the freeway.

“I heard that!” Sasha said.

M smirked up at her in the rear view mirror.

Minutes later they were four car lengths behind the truck.

“Okay, Oscar,” M said, glancing over at the tabby kitten, perched up in the passenger seat. “Get your drone ready, and when we get close enough, I want you to fly it back and forth in front of the truck. “

“What’s that supposed to do?”  Sasha asked.

“Hopefully slow them down while Elf Ralph gets his team in position.”

“Be careful,” Mama Kitty cautioned Oscar.

“Yeah,” M added, “and keep it low so it doesn’t scare the reindeer.”

Oscar placed the drone on the dashboard, opened the side window, then pawed at the control box. The drone flew out the window and darted forward. Oscar concentrated hard, his little tongue peeking out the corner of his mouth, as he flew the drone back and forth in front of the speeding truck.

Overhead, M saw the galloping legs of the reindeer and the underside of the sleigh pass by.  Everyone held their breath as Tweak fed out line from the side of the sleigh to lower Mousy in the sling down into the moving trailer.

Minutes later, Sasha cried out, “Gun!”

Bullets flew from the passenger side of the vehicle in front of them.

Oscar’s toy exploded in mid-air.

Crystal floated up out of the trailer in the sling, with Mousy clinging to the nylon rope. The truck sped up the highway, unaware of the loss of one of their passengers.

Mousy and Crystal dangled in mid-air over the interstate, as Elf Ralph found a place to land in a nearby field. As soon as Crystal’s hooves touched down, her knees buckled and she crumbled to the ground.

“I’ve never been so scared in all my life!” she exclaimed in tears.

“You’re okay now, dear” Mama Kitty said, as she and Sasha comforted the young equine after the frightening ordeal.

M went over and checked on Mousy and Tweak, then thanked the driver and his team.

* * *

The next week, Mousy called out to M from his tack room office.

“Did you see this?” he asked, pointing at his computer screen.

The headline on one of the Internet sport sites read, “Olympic Hopeful Qualifies for National Team with Top Scores.”

“Crystal wowed everyone!”  Mousy said.

“Yeah,” M said. “I guess a late night adrenaline rush will do that.”

“But those bad guys broke my drone,” Oscar said sadly.

“Don’t worry,” M said, trying to cheer the little feline. “We’ll get you another one.”

Suddenly, there was a loud thump at the side door. Tweak opened the door just as a FedEx truck sped away.

“It’s a package from Christmas Town!” he announced.

Everyone gathered around as M opened the box. Inside was a note from Red Kringle Bells, thanking the team for their work protecting Crystal Snowflake. The note ended with a post script that read, “Please find the enclosed gift from Santa for your youngest associate on the team.”

Oscar excitedly pawed away the wrapping paper and squealed with delight at the new drone toy inside.

Minutes later Oscar was gleefully flying it through the arena, while his aunt pleaded with him to take it outside.

M went to his stall, laid down in the soft shavings, and listened to the two of them banter back and forth as he drifted off to sleep. At last things were back to normal around the barn, and it was time for a long, overdue nap.

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