Since the editorials have been a bit late lately, we decided that it would be best to not write an article and, instead, go see the annual parade honoring our town's beloved mascot, Ned the Groundhog. You see, every year there is a parade on Groundhog Day to honor the bringer of the news of how long winter will last. Every year, a car drives down Main Street, so the crowds can see the wonderful, fuzzy little animal that seems to know how long the winter will last. Usually we are really busy writing an article, so we never get to see this momentous event, but this year we decided to go and see it.
When we arrived at the street, we were greeted with the sight of people lined up down the street to see Ned the Groundhog. It was a sunny day, and the crowd's mood was generally good. Across the street, the school division book depository stood, people looking out of the windows on their lunch break. Suddenly, in the distance, the black car carrying Ned came into view. The crowd started cheering wildly as they waited for Ned's car to pass. Soon, the car slowly drove up, Ned in an open top in the back, waving his fuzzy little paw to the crowd. On a sunny hill, a man in a black suit opened an umbrella to shade his face from the sun. As the car drew closer, three shots rang out from somewhere in the area, hitting Ned in the head. The Groundhog slumped forward. "My God! The Groundhog's been shot!", people yelled. Paramedics raced from the crowd toward Ned, but it was too late. Police officers, led by Government officials, stormed the book depository. Being the keen journalistic minds that we are, we followed the officers up to the 6th floor, where they discovered a high-powered sniper rifle laying behind a crate of books. The officers and secret serivce men spread out through the building to search for the culprit. After a few minutes, they returned to the room with the suspect: Mr. Jenkins. They immediately hauled him off for questioning and told us to go back to what we were doing. We stuck around, as we were investigating the murder. We were then thrown out of the building.Soon, the announcement was let out. Ned the Groundhog was dead. All over the country, businesses closed their doors for the rest of the day in mourning. The mayor said that a new groundhog would be chosen, but the damage was done. People all over the country stayed home and talked in hushed voices. At The SPU, we were formulating a plan to break into that book depository to see what actually happened. Soon, our plan was complete and we headed for the book depository, only to find it unguarded and unlocked. We just opened the door and walked in. The first stop was the room where they found the sniper rifle. What we discovered could only be described as odd. There was no rifle to be found. We searched high and low for it, until we realized what happened. There was no rifle! It was all a figment of our imaginations! Then we thought a bit more about it and realized that the police probably just took it to the police station for evidence. We then checked out the window and saw something odd. From the window, we could clearly see the street, if it wasn't for the huge maple tree blocking the view. We decided that we should examine the street to see if we could find anything suspicious. We didn't even have to walk very far from the building before we saw something so suspicious we couldn't help but investigate. There was a hot-dog vendor sitting by his cart, selling hot dogs with mayonnaise. If selling hot dogs with mayonnaise isn't suspicious, then we were probably wrong about letting Agent 000 attack the guy and make him go buy some real stuff to put on hot dogs. Soon, though, we were back on the subject of Ned's murder. When we reached the street, we searched for any telltale signs of a murder, but we couldn't find anything. We decided to check out the place where the car was stored to see if we could see anything suspicious about the blood stains that were probably in the car.
When we arrived at the building, we first noticed a pile of secret service agents clustered around the car, cleaning it with an assortment of carpet cleaners, sponges, and wire brushes. When we got a bit closer and called out to them, they immediately turned off all the carpet cleaners and hid all the cleaning tools behind the car. When we asked hat they were doing, they suddenly got all defensive and demanded what we were doing there. We ansered them by telling them we were from Auto Planet magazine and we wanted to do a story on the car. They asked us why we were there and why we hadn't heard of the murder. In the words of the head guy there, "Have you been in a cave for the last few days?". Thinking quickly, Agent 001 replied that we had, as we were doing a story about prehistoric cave paintings of cars. We got thrown out, but it was worth it. Not only did we get a bit of conspiracy information on the murder, we also got the guys from Auto Planet magazine banned from anything government-related. That'll show them to insult Agent 000's car. I can personally see nothing wrong with the AMC Gremlin, and I think that it is very pracical and fuel-efficient. we have never really got along with them ever since they beat us in that tug-of-war at the news-media barbecue. If it wasn't for them, we would have got first place. We beat out the guys from "60 minutes" and "CNN Morning News", but lost to "Auto Planet" in the semi-finals. They won first place because of that, and the grand prize toaster that went along with it. We had to settle for this ugly yellow couch that we're still trying to get rid of and eat burnt toast for another year, as our toaster is broken.
Anyway, we decided that there was just about no way of proving that Mr. Jenkins actually shot Ned the Groundhog, so we hurried to the courthouse to explain the lack of evidence to the judge before Mr. Jenkins got the chair. We arrived just a little too late, and he was already walking down the hallway towards the room where the chair was. We yelled for them to stop, but as we did, a man jumped out from the crowd, screamed something about Ned, and shot Mr. Jenkins. As soon as he did, about 20 police officers opened fire on him and turned him into a little puddle, but it was already too late. Mr. Jenkins was dead and the truth of who killed Ned would never be found, although there would be numerous movies made about the lats moments of the life of the fuzzy little guy.
Since we had nothing left to do, we decided to write about this event as an article, and that's what you just finished reading.