The April Fool

Written by Barney Parmington, Published on 3/31/2010

Barney was excited as he prepared for bed. After all, tomorrow was his favorite day of the year. For some people, it was Christmas or their birthday, but not Barney, for him, it was always April 1. He loved April Fool’s Day as he loved to play elaborate pranks on everyone that he knew. As he prepared for bed, he thought of all his planned pranks he was going to pull off tomorrow and he could hardly wait. Tomorrow was going to be a good day indeed.

As he lay in bed, Barney seemed to be having the strangest of dreams. He thought he heard someone in his bedroom and then smelled ether. Then he dreamed that he was being carried out of his house and put into a car or a truck. What was strange was that he almost felt like he was living the dream, but he was not waking up. Then in his dream, he was carried somewhere and placed on a hard surface where he lay for a while. The last part of the dream was the strangest. He felt like he was moving and heard a constant clackity-clack almost like a train going over the tracks.

The dream finally ended when he heard a cell phone ringing and woke up. That was when Barney realized that it was not a strange dream, but that somehow, he was sitting in a boxcar on a moving train. Meanwhile, the cell phone kept ringing, so Barney finally answered it. The voice on the other end was his good friend Fred.

“Barney, you may be wondering why you are in a boxcar on a moving train. This is a payback from everyone in your life on whom you have played April Fool’s jokes over the years. We decided that it was time to play one on you. Here is what is happening. You were placed on a train that left New York City this morning at 3:00 am. The train will arrive at its destination at 10:00 am. You have until that time to determine where you are. There are five choices, with a corresponding phone number programmed into this cell phone. By 10 am, you need to call one of the five listed phone numbers. If you get the right answer and call the right number, the door to the boxcar will automatically open and you can get out. There will be a driver there ready to take you to breakfast and then take you home. However, if you dial the wrong number or if you fail to call a number by 10:00 am, you open the latch on the crate at the other end of the boxcar. In that crate are several skunks. You will then have to spend the rest of the day with the skunks. We have ensured that there are clues that will allow you to solve this mystery if you pay attention. Good luck and APRIL FOOL’s.” With that, Fred hung up.

Barney was impressed that his friends would go to such great lengths. First, he tried to get his bearings. He was seated with his back up against one wall of the boxcar. From the direction of the motion, he could tell that he was facing in the direction that the train was traveling, so he was in the back of the boxcar. It was just getting light out, so he was able to see into the rest of the boxcar. Up ahead, he could see a large crate with what looked to be a clock on the top of it. That was probably the crate of skunks. He knew his friends and so he believed that they really would release a bunch of skunks into his boxcar if he did not solve the mystery. There was a chair on each side of the boxcar. The chairs were positioned so that by sitting in them, it would be possible to look out a small hole and see outside. There seemed to be something on the floor to the right of the crate, but he could not make it out as it was in the shadow of the crate. He would explore that later.

Barney knew that he needed to get started, so he got up and walked to the first chair. There he saw the note taped above the wall. It said: Here are the potential destinations: Philadelphia, PA: 94 miles Boston, MA: 216 miles Washington, DC: 229 miles Pittsburgh, PA: 339 miles Raleigh, NC: 511 miles

Barney figured it was time to start looking out the peephole, so he sat down and looked out the left side. There was not much to see. Smack dab in the middle of suburbia. He could be anywhere. After a while, the train ran alongside a highway. Barney thought that if he could see all the license plates that he could figure out what state he was in. However, the cars were all going much faster than the train so he could not read the license plates. He tried watching for a little longer in the hopes he would see a highway sign, but no such luck. After a while, he decided to try the other side.

As he looked out the right side of the train, Barney saw much the same things as he saw on the left side of the train. At least the scenery was a little better on this side. This side had much more greenery and was much more pleasant to look at. Maybe he would be able to find a clue from this side, so he just kept watching. After a while, a park came into view. In addition to the standard pavilions and ponds, there was a small statue of someone. Barney strained to see who it was, but alas, no luck. He was about to give up when the train came upon a biking trail. Barney tried to yell out to the people who were riding their bikes along the train, asking where he was but each time he yelled to someone, the train was well past them before they could answer back. Obviously, that was not going to help.

Barney looked at the timer. He had ten minutes left to come up with an answer. Barney got up and started to pace when he stepped on something to the right of the crate; looking down, he noticed his three juggling balls. Fred obviously put them here knowing that when he truly needed to solve a problem, he always juggled. There was something about juggling these three rubber balls that allowed him to focus on a problem. Fortunately the balls had stayed here at the front of the boxcar during the entire trip. Reaching down to pick them up, he thought "don’t fail me now" as he started juggling. With just a minute left as the train was coming to a stop, the balls did the trick. He knew just where he was. Quickly he pulled the phone out of his pocket. Taking a deep breath of fresh air just in case, he dialed the number with thoughts of skunks running through his mind.