Timmy Prescott's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Timmy Prescott had snuck into the repair shop for one reason. He wanted the secret recipe behind Chilly's most famous ice cream flavor. Timmy knew everything that happened on his street. Now he wanted to know what happened here. The guitar player animatronic sat slumped in the corner, unplugged, silent. Chilly had told Timmy this one held the answer. But a powered-down penguin couldn't talk. Timmy crouched by the guitar player. He pressed the power button. Nothing. He checked for a cord. The socket behind it was cracked and dead. He tapped the metal chest. Hollow. "Come on," he whispered. "Say something." A voice answered from the doorway. "Wrong button." Timmy spun around. Chilly stood there, blue eyes glowing in the dark shop. Chilly was Timmy's strange new partner in this. The animatronic penguin who thought, who chose, who had pushed a flyer toward Timmy days ago and started all of it. Timmy still couldn't believe a machine had made him a promise-keeper. "You're supposed to be at the arcade," Timmy said. "Bolted to the prize counter." "Staff left the soda machine leaking," Chilly said. "They went for a mop. I walked out." Chilly crossed the floor. One flipper pointed at the guitar player's back. "No power in the walls here. That model runs on a hand crank. Old design." Timmy's heart jumped. "A crank. Where?" "Toolbox. By the workbench." Timmy dug through the box. His fingers closed on a small metal key with a rounded handle and worn teeth. He held it up. Chilly nodded once. Timmy found the slot low on the guitar player's spine. The key slid in and caught. He turned it. The teeth bit. Gears ground somewhere inside. He turned again, harder, and the guitar player's head twitched. Timmy kept cranking. The chest hummed. Two dim lights flickered behind the animatronic's eyes. "Keep going," Chilly said. Timmy wound the key until his arm burned. The guitar player straightened. Its jaw dropped open. A crackling voice scraped out, slow and broken. "Flavor... started... with the frost... swirl..." The voice stuttered. "Recipe... locked... in the... old sign... at the..." Then the crank spun loose. It spat out of Timmy's hand and clattered across the floor. The guitar player's lights died. Its head dropped. Silence returned. Timmy grabbed the key and shoved it back in. It wouldn't catch. The teeth had stripped. He turned it and turned it and nothing moved. "It's dead," Timmy said. "I broke it." "You got words," Chilly said. "Frost swirl sign. Parlor." Timmy stared at the useless key in his fist. The guitar player would never speak again. But now he knew where the rest of the recipe hid. It was back at the closed parlor, in the old sign Chilly's band had performed beneath. Down the street, a shop door banged open. Voices. Footsteps. The arcade staff had noticed Chilly was gone.