...that Rivame and Jess would be store detectives for the day, ( might
as well put all this secret agent stuff to good use).

Rivame immediately agreed, grabbing Jess by the shirt tail, dragged her
to the fitting rooms, which doubled as an office for the Dress Troll.

Waving to the rollerskating, disco dancing Troll, the puzzed
LonelyWalker, and the somewhat relieved, but rumpled Artgurl, they
pushed the button for the elevator door, and headed out into the
Compartment store to see...

...a flock of pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments wildly discussing the
things that pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments discuss. Knowing that
pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments were inherently honest and would
never steal a thing from the store (not having any pockest to stash
anything in anyway) Riva and Jess attempted to go incognito on their new
job. But incognito was having nothing to do with it. He was up to his
fake eyelashes in...

in the gardening section where the garden dwarves had gone on a
rampage after finding out that they were actually to be sold.
They didn't like the idea because it meant that they had to stand
outside in wind and weather. So incognito went there to bring the
dwarves to a halt but he knew he couldn't do it on his own.
He asked Jess and Rivame for help, but the two of them had just
discovered....

...icecream!!!! Fifteen thousand varieties of icecream!!!! All contained
in one floor of the Ungeneral Compartment Store...oh my, talk about
licking of lips, and drooling, Jess and Rivame were finding this day was
getting better and better.

They detected a need to sample all the different varieties, being store
detectives and all, and with scoop in hand were dipping and diving into
all sorts of interesting flavours.

Before they got too engrossed in what they were doing, however, a sharp
noise from incognito alerted both Rivame and Jess to...

the other end, where the garden dwarves, which had left the gardening
section, started to overturn all the containers with the icecreams they
had not yet sampled. The two of them were disgusted, nobody but
incognito was to be seen around, and even three strong people weren't
enough to stop the dwarves.
They just headed in the general direction of the dwarves and had to stop
midway in aw, one dwarf after the other fell to the floor, unconscious.
Invisible, after trying to sample the icecream for herself, unseen, had
gone quite mad.......

...at the lack of Shamrock Irish Whiskey in the Gaelic icecream, and
could be seen, if one really looked, over near the Leiderhosen icecream
shaking her head.

As the brain frozen, errant dwarves, in their unconscious state were
easier to manage, incognito, Rivame, Jess, with the help of Invisible,
piled all the dwarves in a heap, and dragged them back to the loading
dock shute, and unceremoniously deposited them for the back dock staff
to deal with.

Surveying the mess in the icecream section, Rivame took it upon herself
to call morning tea, and requested, Invisible and incognito join herself
and Jess, in a spot of well earnt tea and biscuits in the newly opened
geisha girl teahouse on the rooftop.

With a sideways glance at incognito, Invisible turned to Rivame and
said...

"Do we really have to take him with us? God knows who is hiding behind
him, it could easily be nusalor, trying to spoil the
donuts when we are there"
Jess and Rivame looked at each other and explained to invisible that
they had seen nusalor earlier on in the toy section where he was trying
to catch the cuddly toycats.
Invisible, still suspicious, relented and they all went to the elevator
in the corner, when all of a sudden.....

....an errant, plastic pink flamingo ran squawking past, on it's spindly
legs, something about a kangaroo taking photos of a garden dwarf smoking
a cigar near the labotomy room, in the dungeon....(phew!! that was a
mouthful!).

All four looked at each other, shrugged their collective shoulders, and
entered the elevator to the rooftop Geisha tea house, (as it was a
teabreak, and not really Rivames nor Jess's concern).

Standing facing the doors, a silence came over all four, as they tried
to discern the name of the elevator musak, and to not hum along, when
the elevator stopped, the doors opened and...

a bunch of screaming Geishas tried to push into the elevator while the
four exited it. Incognito being the last got stuck in the
door with an extremely heavy Geisha. The sight was so amazing that
Jess, Rivame and Invisible were rolling on the floor with laughter.
Finally Incognito made his way out and the screaming Geishas, having
entered the elevator were on the way down.
After pulling themselves together, curiousity overtook and the four
looked around to find out what had caused the commotion.
All they could see at a first glimpse.....

......what looked like eggs running riot. On closer inspection the eggs
actually turned out to be EGOs. There was ego agogo dancing with big
ego. Fragile ego was in the corner crying because overinflated ego was
flirting with Danny de ego. With all these egos running amok there was
nothing but total chaos. After a quick glance at the agents manual the
four heros decided to gather all the egos, put them into a box and send
them of to No Egos swanky rehab centre for wayward egos.Ater much
chasing,boxing and cussing they nearly had all the egos nicely boxed
when.......

...the largest of egos climbed on top of the cute little peaked roof of
the Giesha teahouse, threatening to jump if anyone tried to get too
close.

Jess who had specialist training in ego deflation, took one look at the
over-inflated ego, and burst out laughing. Giving the ego plenty of time
to gather itself, she then mentioned how she had seen many ego's in her
time, and that hers was of such calibre and class, that the ego on the
roof may as well jump.

As the ego slowly deflated, incognito grabbed the tablecloth, and
flicked the ego off the roof. With mop and bucket, and brush and broom,
the ego cleanup crew arrived to wash away all the damaged, fractured and
cracked egos, finding in amonst the debris...

a crushed, crumbled ego, crying helplessly. As an answer to the question
why it was crying it just stated that it had lost it's steam fighting
off all the new egos that had joined the party.
While some of them were just sitting quietly in the corner, others had
taken over the music and were dancing to a new rythm.
After that explanation it sighed heavily and admitted that in
the end it wasn't too bad at all. All egos packed finally up, our four
heros decided to have their tea, but the place looked....

....not the least like a disshevelled party room should . Upon further
questioning of ego's , they also discovered that the music they were
listen too, was actually designed to re-program their abiltities to
maintain a constant state of alert, and therefore forcing a crushing
weight upon their sense of right and wrong .

Unable to continue in their search for the perfect party they ....

....shrugged their collective shoulders once again, and as always made
do with what they had to work with.

Once some sort of order returned to the Geisha tearooms, and relative
calm returned to the potted cherry blossoms, all four removed their
shoes and shuffled single file inside, to be seated, and enjoy a nice
pot of green tea.

Still having a purpose to their day, Rivame and Jess, got out their
store map, trying to decide where the perfect black slinky number for
Rivame's party invitation may be within the store. They decided that
after their tea they would head for....

The second floor that was marked with a strange sign. they said their
farewells to invisible and incognito and once again headed for the
elevator. Because the elevators had been overloaded with the fleeing
Geishas they had to be repaired. Rivame and Jess headed then for the
stairs and moved downwards. Somehow they forgot to count and when they
opened the door to what they thought was the second floor...........

…they were standing before the world’s largest ball of twine. Confused,
agitated, and completely underdressed for twine viewing, Riva grabbed
the map from Jess to try and make sense of their surroundings. Unfolding
the map on a nearby table, that doubled as an imaginary plant stand in
the off season, Riva pointed and said, “See? The map says-You Are Here.”
“I know,” Jess groaned “That always bugged me. I walk into a mall and
look at the map and it already knows I’m there. “You Are Here” it
says-big arrows and colored lines all pointing at me. How the hell do
they do that?”
“It’s easy.,” said the world’s largest ball of twine.
Startled, Riva and Jess jumped atop the table that doubled as an
imaginary plant stand in the off season and screamed in unison…

when all of a sudden the table that doubled as an imaginary plant stand
in off season shouted: "Get down, get off of me, I'm sensitive" Still
screaming Riva and Jess headed for the door, but in the last moment they
remembered the map. Jess headed back to grab it when the door opened and
incognito entered. He had heard the screams and was getting a bit
worried about the two. Riva and Jess were still under shock and ran out
of the door, turning to the stairs, where......