Robbie Remembered

1:4

"I was wondering," Sportacus said, "Whose house is that on the hill?"

Sportacus stood staring up at the large sign with his arms crossed and his head tilted to one side. He contemplated the scene depicted on the oversized canvas. The two pieces of plywood nailed across the front partially obstructed the winding brown trail that snaked up the center. The trail climbed a looming green hill where a mansion sat far in the distance. A dusky mountain range encircled it in the background and matched up almost perfectly with the mountain range that bordered the far reaches in real life.

"Whoever would live in a place like that must be important," Sportacus noted. "But there's no house or hill here. Your lair is the only place around, and it's deep underground. I don't suppose a house and a hill can both sink underground..."

In the billboard's foreground a large purple cow gazed back at Sportacus. He tilted his head to the other side.

"And what's with the cows? Is it an advertisement for milk? Milk is good for making strong bones. Although I'm not sure what kind of milk you'd get from a purple cow. It's strange to have all of this for a billboard." His eyes slid away from the cow to the edge of the billboard where he knew the metal staircase was hidden. "Did you paint all of this yourself?"

He only just caught sight of a blurry shape darting behind the metal framework. Sportacus stood still a second longer, staring at the empty space, before he lurched forward and strode towards the back to follow.

By the time he swung around the corner whatever he had seen was gone. Sportacus scanned the area, his gaze flicking between the shut silo and the shadowy space behind the billboard. There was nothing different about the silo, nobody lurking around the support struts or running across the grating.

His expression clouding with confusion Sportacus began to turn back towards the front. In the corner of his eye something small poked out from the opposite end of the platform. Something slender and made of metal, and bug-eyed at the top, staring after him.

A grin edged the corners of Sportacus' mouth. He ambled back to the front of the billboard, making a point not to look over his shoulder.

"It is a nice looking house in the picture. But it's awfully far away, all the way up on that hill. It would be a lot harder for me to come by if you lived somewhere like that. Even so..."

His meandering brought him to the center of the billboard. He wrapped his knuckles against the boards.

"If the point of it all is to keep people out, why is there a door here?"