Chapter 4: Surprise Sweep
At the foot of the ramshackle house, the little lonely ghost had just finished putting on a costume. Moving out the door, it had assumed the appearance of a costume not unlike what Momo wore, only the hat on its head and robe around its body were a dark brown instead of a bright yellow. Additionally, in its hands was a scraggly broom, one that happened to be property of the school across from the house on the other side of the grass. That broom hadn't been used for a long time – it was so old and worn out from past years of use. But the little ghost felt for sure that it could still be used. After taking a moment to look over everything else, the ghost hopped onto the broom and activated it, making it lift itself and its rider into the air and speed off, flying into town.
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In the town areas, the streets were alit with light emanating from lanterns hung on ropes strung over the streets, each end tied on the second-floor window ledges of every building. On the ground level, the Sweetypies were all having fun, legally of course, which was mainly limited to shopping and helping themselves at the various snack tents.
At one snack tent managed by Penny and Benny, Badgerclops and Adorabat were already munching on a whole basket of candies like piranhas, having bought one of Penny's and Benny's entire stocks; normally, only a few candies were sold out of a whole basket that's otherwise put on display, but Badgerclops had other ideas that involved shoving a double-handful of cash in the two dogs' faces, going "TAKE ALL MA'MONEY".
Mao Mao, on the other hand, just settled for a simple caramel-flavored candy apple, enjoying it as he would a popsicle. "Well, I do hope your hunger-craze for candy's been sated," he said warily after tuning his attention to the two deputies, "because we'll be back on patrol soon."
Badgerclops rolled his eye. "Oh, come one now, Mao," he replied to his shorter black cat friend with a mouthful of candies, "it's not like some monster's gonna drop in and ruin everything as soon as we're done talking."
"It's timesies!" Adorabat interjected with her own mouthful of candy.
"Hah!" Mao Mao laughed, his mouth briefly flapping open like a sock puppet to expose all his pointed teeth. "There are no timesies in the game of life, let alone heroes and monster-fighting." He took another lick of his candy apple. "Besides, there's more to being a hero besides the monsters. There are the little things. Trivial matters, like…" He stopped for a moment, trying to come up with some sort of little problem in society that he's solved before, even if they were hardly worth his attention, according to him…
"Like?" Badgerclops and Adorabat continued for him, pressuring him to finish.
That made Mao Mao blow up his head at them this time. "Give a guy time to think, okay?" he exclaimed in rapid-fire. Sure enough, it seemed like the universe heard Mao Mao's loud voice as all three members of the Sheriff's Department were interrupted by the sound of a petit voice calling to them.
"Help! Somebody! Anybody! Please help!"
"Ah-ha! Distress!" Mao Mao yelled triumphantly. He turned to notice the source of the cry for help being the little fox dressed like a robot, running down the street looking for someone who would listen. Mao Mao wasted no time in asserting himself as the first responder, running towards the child with Adorabat and Badgerclops following him closely. "What seems to be the matter?" he asked the fox kid once they both met up close enough.
The little fox tried to catch his breath. "I think there was an accident! We were just going along some of the quieter streets and there was someone who went by us flying on a broom and they hit a tree and –" there was another brief moment of breath-catching, "Can you check it out?"
Mao Mao turned to face his deputies. "Well, you heard what the kid said. We got trouble to solve." He took off while allowing the fox kid to lead the way, Badgerclops and Adorabat following closely behind him.
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It didn't take long for the Sheriff's Department to reach the scene where the little fox described the recent event. In front of a tree, a bunch of clothes lying in a pile at the base of the trunk, a hat lying atop a clock which was draped over an old broken broom. The little fox, along with Momo and her frog friend, were with Mao Mao as Badgerclops and Adorabat looked the sight over and over, scanning for any possible clues.
"So you saw this robed costumer fly by you on a broom and crash into that tree?" Mao Mao clarified with the kids, jotting down the details on a notepad.
"Yeah, that's right," answered Momo, "but the strangest thing was that there was no big crash when the rider hit the tree. It was like the rider suddenly vanished at the last moment."
Mao Mao fiddled with his pen for a bit after finishing his notes. "Hmm, that is quite a mystery. It almost sounds like someone just launched that broom at you kids after attaching those clothes to it. We're probably dealing with an elaborate prankster who's out to get screams out of the commonfolk."
"Or maybe we're dealing with a ghost?" Badgerclops added his two cents to the sheriff's theorizing.
"Oh, Badgerclops, such a kidder," Mao Mao laughed, though not as intensely as he usually was. "No way it's a ghost. Momo here got rid of them back at her school with her powerful magic. No one's seen a ghost for months." He turned to address Momo herself. "You don't think what happened was a ghost's work, do you?"
Momo paused, a little deep in thought. "Well, we all did scream," she muttered about herself and her friends. But she refocused her attention on Mao Mao again. "But maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We –" she pointed at herself and the sheriff, "– dealt with all the ghosts in the school, and Madame Camille did say it was a yearly thing."
Hearing that made Mao Mao narrow his eyes in curiosity. "Yearly how? One day a year? One month a year? A few times a year?"
"I don't know," Momo shrugged her shoulders. "I was only a first-year." She turned to her frog friend. "Hey, do you know how often ghosts came in the year?"
The frog hesitated to answer. "Uh, I don't know. One day, maybe?"
"What? How do you not know?" Momo responded in slight dismay.
"Come on, I was a first-year too! You're the one who's always reading more than anyone!" the frog shot back. "Where's your wand anyway?"
Mao Mao quickly picked up that the two were starting to bicker, so he did his job as any enforcer of the peace would. "Now, now, I'm sure we can solve this mystery peacefully. Just –" he was interrupted by the sight of a familiar candy inside Momo's basket. "Um, Momo, is that cobbler flavor you have there?"
Momo and her friend stopped arguing. Momo looked into her basket which Mao Mao had peered into seconds before. "Yeah," she answered, "yeah, it is. Why?"
"Oh nothing," the sheriff replied, wiping a drop of drool from his face. "Just wanted to see if there were any treats worth hunting for." He turned away from the kids to regroup with Adorabat and Badgerclops who were already playing a bit of dress up with the fallen costume, though Badgerclops expressed disappointment when he tried to fly on the old broom but found it easily broken. "Guys, can you not play with the evidence?" he pinched the bridge of his nose. The two seemed to take his exasperated request in stride. Before leaving with them, he turned back to face Momo one more time. "If you like, maybe I could join you and the Candy Cup Witches while you're still candy-hunting. I do have a favorite sweet, as it turns out."
Momo smiled. "Sure, sheriff Mao Mao. I'll wait for you at…" she thought for a moment, then finished, "…the school."
Mao Mao smiled back, turning away to leave. Though the investigation didn't continue first without Badgerclops joking to him about having a change of heart about candy-hunting with the kids, which Mao Mao aggressively tried to downplay.