Operation W.iG. C.H.eeS.e

Book 4 in the Willy and Tommy Series

THE PRICE TO PAY

Wilhelmina Snodgrass’ best friend was Tomasina Andretti. They were in the seventh grade at “Watusi Junior High” in Watusi, Texas. Willy had just gotten back from the Sadie Hawkins Dance with her good friend and seventh grade heartthrob, Jamie Armstrong. She figured if having a great best friend and a gorgeous, almost boyfriend weren’t enough she also had one of the coolest jobs in town. She and Tommy worked in the coffee bar at the very glam “Watusi Wig Factory,” owned and operated by Willy’s Great Aunt Georgie. Life had been incredibly kind to Willy since her move to Texas only a few short months ago. Of course, there was a small price to pay. As her Mom’s Great Aunt Jezebel used to say, “Nothing is free.” That sure was the truth. But at the moment, it seemed worth it.

Since the Snodgrass’ move to Texas, Willy and Tommy’s lives had been a storm of bizarre, other worldly, phenomenon. In fact, it started just before the move, when Willy’s family was very happily living in Mason, Illinois. Three of her ancestors, who just happened to be ghosts, arranged for her Dad to get a promotion, in order to get her family to Watusi. It seems that the ghosts or guardian angels, as they preferred to be called, needed Willy’s help.

The ghosts were Georgianna Carbunkle’s (otherwise known as Aunt Georgie’s) Great Grandmother, Grandmother, and Mother. There names were Bella, Aurelia, and Athena. Their mission was to get Aunt Georgie to reopen the family business that Bella had founded in 1889.

At first, the spirits would show up out of nowhere, and only in the factory. It was quite alarming to walk around a corner and run smack into apparitions, even if you knew them. Once their mission was complete and the business was up and running, Bella, Aurelia, and Athena stopped coming to the factory and met with Willy and Tommy in their dreams. But they didn’t leave without installing their representative, Harvey Stingle.

Harvey led the girls through a strange and often terrifying journey back into time where they unearthed a hidden treasure. They were instructed to bring the treasure to Aunt Georgie, where it was to be used for the good of the town. What they didn’t know was that when the gold coins or “The Great Equalizers,” came into the factory, they opened up a tear in the fabric of time, as the coins tried to get back to their own world. The opening was located behind the basement door. In the history of the business, five employees had been lost through it. The most recent man to vanish was their friend and co-worker, Lawrence Fenworthy.

If events weren’t weird enough, they learned that the tear led to an island called Atlantis that existed thirteen thousand years in the past. Willy and Tommy were visited one night by the high priestess of Atlantis’ neighboring island, Lemuria. Her name was Marianus and she instructed them how to return the treasure so that the missing men would go back to their own eras and the tear would be permanently repaired.

Marianus gave them copper wigs to wear that helped them in their journey. They wore the wigs when they were transported back to 1887 in order to dig the treasure up. They were told that they had to unearth the treasure before Willy’s ancestors did, in order to keep their own world from altering. Neither one of them really understood everything that was happening with the time/space continuum, but they experienced enough bizarre things that they were willing to do what they were told. Some things in life, you just had to take on faith.

While the girls were in 1887, however, they stumbled across an old drunk man who thought they were copper haired ghosts. Willy and Tommy decided to have some fun with him and told him that if he didn’t quit drinking, they would take him with them to the after life. The man not only quit drinking, but he erected a statue of the copper haired ghosts in the Watusi Public Park, in honor of them. When the girls got back to their own time, they learned that they, as the copper hair ghosts, had become a Watusi legend.

The friends successfully returned the treasure to thirteen thousand years in the past. Just before the tear in time was sewn shut, they heard Marianus yell something to them. She called out, “I forgot to tell you, but don’t forget to…” and then the rip closed. Neither, girl heard the rest of the sentence, which worried them. Were they supposed to do something else in order to keep their time safe? They simply didn’t know.

Willy lay on her bed staring at the copper wig on her dresser. She kept running through the events of their last adventure. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of what else Marianus wanted them to do. She closed her eyes and put all the crazy events behind her. All she wanted to do was relive the night she just had, dancing with Jamie Armstrong.

After all, adventures seemed to follow her and Tommy. No matter what they did, they were always in the center of a new mystery.