Chapter One

Chapter One

The Paintings Origin Story

Hi, my name is Blane. Blane Winkle Stick. I'm 21 years old, I live alone with 2 cats, named Winkle and stick, and I had just got some horrific news, which would explain the look of shock on my face. My uncle Gus (who was the only one of my family members I fully trusted at this point) just knocked on my door. I was sitting in my brown, dirty leather recliner watching a show called Mot and Yrrej, so I really didn't want to get up, but I did. I looked through the peephole in my beige colored door to see Gus right there. I opened the door slowly, only enough for me to poke my head out and say

"Whaddya' want?"

"I uh, have some bad news about your great grandfather, terromey"

"What about him?"

"He has passed away…"

"Wait really?"

I never knew my great grandfather well, simply because I barely ever saw him. He lived all the way in New York, when I lived in Florida when I was a kid, and now I live in Texas. Gus went on to explain that in his will, I was supposed to get one of his paintings. At first I was pretty confused, and a little disappointed. A painting? I thought What am I gonna do with a painting that probably isn't even that well drawn anyway? Then Gus told me that they had lost the painting just before he died. Oh goodie, now I get nothing. But, THEN he told me that my great grandfather was a famous artist. Now I was listening.

"The painting that he wanted to give you was worth Twenty Million Dollars"

"WHAT? TWENTY MILLION?"

"They want me, to help you find this painting"

"Who wants you to help me"

"Your Family."

"How did you all decide"

"We did Nose-Goes"

Of course they did Nose-Goes I thought. Nose-Goes is a game where one person says "Nose-Goes!" really fast and everyone then has to touch their nose as fast as possible, and whoever touches their nose last, has to go. In my family's situation, they had to help me.

"That's a pretty unthoughtful way to do that don't you think?"

"Yes, which is why I told them to stop… yet they didn't listen"

Me and Gus were similar in many aspects, which was why I liked him. We both were smarter than the rest of our family, but were always ignored.

"Though personally I don't think we should start looking immediately" Gus said.

"Why? Wouldn't it be better to start looking now, so we can find it sooner?"

"Yes, in that aspect, but I think we need time to think about where to look first." He had a point. Even if we did try to start looking now we wouldn't have any place to start.

"Though we have another problem." He said, in a very tired sounding tone.

"Oh, what is it now?"

"There is a group of people who want that painting. So they can have the money of course."

"Who are these people?"

"They're a group of people who only wear pink overalls, blue masks, white gloves, and red shoes. And funnily enough, they have a rainbow afro wig on at all times. They are called 'The Clowns'"

"So, the people we are competing with for twenty million dollars are a bunch of clowns?"

"Yup. I'm gonna be honest with you though, I've seen some of them, and they look like they could bench press cars as a workout warmup."

"So, what are we gonna do about that"

"This might sound like a lot to someone like you who sits on his recliner all day watching T.V and eating Nacho's, but we have to workout and get stronger otherwise these guys will make us look like guacamole."

"Uh, why can't we take a sneaky approach?" I asked worriedly. At the time I wasn't exactly out of shape, but I wasn't necessarily in shape either.

"Well, I guess we could… sure we could try that"

"YES! Thank you!''

"But, if anything were to go wrong I'm not helping you"

"Oh… what do you mean by that?"

"Oh uh, nothing…"

"Sure… so where do you think is the best place to start?"

"Probably at his house, don't you think?"

"If it was in his house don't you think they would have found it?"

"Yes but here's the thing… His house was so big, that even he never explored the whole thing!"

Uhhhhhhh, this is gonna take a while. I thought. I was correct.

"So uh when are we going?" I asked.

"Right now!" he said enthusiastically.

"You sound very excited about this…"

"Of course I am! I'm hoping that you'll give me some of that money for helping you, eh, eh?" he poked my elbow, in a 'I'm trying to convince you to give me money' manner.

"Fine… it depends on how much you help me though" I said trying to get him to be more helpful, so this wouldn't take as long as I thought. But it did. It took as long as I thought, if not longer.

"So, uh… why don't we get going?''

"Fine. How long is the car trip?" I asked. Hopefully nothing longer than three hours, otherwise I'm gonna lose my mind. I thought, really hoping that it wasn't longer than three hours.

"Way longer than three hours, but I don-"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH" I screamed.

" What's with you?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

"Nothing… I'm fine"