Encyclopedia Brown

A cool summer breeze drifted through the peaceful seaside village of Idaville. This was all very nice, but also irrelevant, since Idaville is both on the other side of the country, and also completely made-up.

A smoggy summer breeze wafted through the peaceful ghettoside campus of USC. USC looked like many other mid-sized American universities. It had six libraries, eight fountains, one bar, and ten overpriced dining facilities.

It also had the lowest crime rate in the entire country. This was generally attributed to the Head of the Department of Public Safety, Chief Brown. There had been no DPS reports in the past eight years that did not end with "Suspect has been apprehended."

However, most USC students and faculty didn't know that Chief Brown was, in actuality, a really crummy detective. He was also a raging alcoholic who hated kittens and double-parked in handicap spaces. During his spare time he enjoyed asking babies simple questions about world history and then laughing hysterically when they responded incorrectly due to their inability to form coherent words. Basically he was a bad person in general.

Since the area surrounding USC was so safe, Chief Brown had nothing to do most nights. Occasionally he had real work, such as The Case of the Stupid Frat Boy Who Asked For A Ride From Strangers While Walking Home Alone at 3 A.M. When difficult cases such as this arose, Chief Brown knew what to do. He went home, hung up his hat on the hat rack, and asked his 10-year-old son Encyclopedia for help. Sometime later in the night, Chief Brown usually realized that he did not live in the 1940s and therefore owned neither hat nor hat rack.

Encyclopedia Brown was considerably brighter than his two younger siblings, CatInTheHat Brown and WarningLabelOnTheBackOfMedicinalProducts Brown. His head was filled with useful and incredibly boring facts, like an encyclopedia, only with less risk of paper cuts. Encyclopedia Brown had basically been responsible for solving every crime committed in South Central Los Angeles since he was two years old.

Once, in what legal analysts call "The Case of the Squeaky Sneakers", he was able to prove via DNA analysis of blood samples that local 12-year-old hooligan Bugs Meaney stole fourth-grader Millie McGruder's mouse, Sir Squeaksalot, and tried to smuggle it out of the house by stuffing it his shoe (see Supreme Court decision Meaney vs. Brown, which, due to heated testimony, later turned into all-out brawl Meaney vs. Brown vs. Board of Education vs. newly-reuinted tag team Plessy & Ferguson. Justice Sandra Day O'Conner ended up winning the match with a well-timed piledriver, thereby setting the precedent that Sandra Day O'Conner Kicks Serious Ass.) Other high-profile cases included "Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar" (see Supreme Court decision Cookie Monster vs. Public Broadcasting System and Viewers Like You.)

One day, Encyclopedia was at DPS headquarters watching his favorite show, Law and Order: Cases with Silly Alliterative Names Unit (a close second to Law and Order: Playground Monitors), when a gangly Computer Science major burst through the front door, screaming for help, followed by an unruly horde of students brandishing pitchforks. Encyclopedia Brown had long thought that it was an unfortunate decision of the Board of Trustees to allow pitchforks to be sold at Commons. The newly-introduced "Angry Mob Value Pack" product line, which also included torches and kerosene, did not help the current situation.

Chief Brown deftly stopped the commotion by pointing out that the annual DPS bike sale was not to be held until the following week. A tall boy with glasses and hair resembling Harpo Marx's spoke up in the back. "Every week for two semesters straight, we've been playing kickball out in the quad. Then all of sudden, summer rolls around and we stop. We've been asking Aaron every single damn day since school got out to organize a kickball game, and now it's three months later and THERE'S STILL NO KICKBALL!"

At this, the crowd huzzahed and began to march around, chanting "What do we want? -- KICKBALL! -- When do we want it? -- WEEKLY OR BI-WEEKLY, DURING A NIGHT, OR NIGHTS, THAT WILL CORRESPOND TO OUR BUSY CLASS SCHEDULES!"

Encyclopedia and his father began to grill the persecuted Computer Science major, Aaron.

"It's not my fault!" whined Aaron whiningly. "The kickball and all the bases were, uh... stolen!"

"Go on," said Chief Brown, taking out his overpriced USC-branded notepad.

"Well," moped Aaron mopily, "It was the day after finals ended. I had just gotten out of the shower when I was ambushed by a SUMO WRESTLER."

"What did this sumo wrestler look like?" asked Chief Brown.

"I don't know, it was nighttime and I'm legally blind when I have my eyes closed and I'm curled in a ball, begging for my life. I think he was kinda rectangular and tall, made of metal, and he had all these drawers full of files."

"Do you perhaps mean a... filing cabinet?" asked Encyclopedia. He had read about filing cabinets in the encyclopedia.

"Yeah, well maybe that was it. Anyway, when he pressed the 'Y' button a whole bunch he started ninja-chopping really fast until his hand caught fire and all I could see is this crazy blur and if he grabbed you he'd start headbutting you and stuff."

"That sounds suspiciously like the character E. Honda from popular 1990s videogame Street Fighter II," mused Encyclopedia.

"Oh, yeah, er... well, he said he wanted the kickball and all the bases for his Sumo Wrester Gaming Palace, but since I didn't speak Japanese I told him I'd go to the library to learn the language."

"Going to the library is always a good idea," nodded Encyclopedia. Leavey Library had long been Encyclopedia's best, and only, friend.

"Anyway, I wedged myself in between some books in the 9th-floor bookstacks and hid for hours, and I was just finishing book 7 in the Harry Potter series-- Harry Potter and the Sexy Lion Tamer, when..."

Even Chief Brown was wary of the story by this point. "Wait a minute," he interrupted, "lion tamers aren't sexy! Even magic ones!"

"Uh.... uh.... TERRORISTS!" screamed Aaron. "Terrorists stormed into the library and threatened to pile lawn furniture on my cat unless I gave them the kickball and all the bases!"

"Aha!" said Chief Brown. "Another case closed. I guess we have no choice but to round up a bunch of minorities and detain them without charges or access to a lawyer for an indefinite period of time."

"Hold that frighteningly-germane Orwellian sociopolitical rant," said Encyclopedia. "Something doesn't quite add up."