Cameron entered Rooney's office, looking both confused and nervous. "You wanted to see me Mr. Rooney?" he asked the principal.

"Yes Frye, have a seat," Rooney told him. He looked as if he'd just won the Super Bowl. "About five minutes ago, Mr. Shalit, who as you may know is head of security here, was given an anonymous tip to search your locker. He did so, and found all this."

He dumped onto his desk what looked like various bomb paraphernalia: wires, clay, a timing mechanism, and the like. Cameron went pale. "I-I-I swear this is not mine, sir," he stammered. "S-Somebody must have p-planted this on me."

"Were you going to send this school out with a bang, Frye?" Rooney asked him, his smile growing mysteriously larger.

"NO!"

"Well, as you can tell, things don't look too good for you even if you are tell the truth," Rooney chuckled. "As bomb parts are a major violation of this school's weapons code, I'd say you're looking at expulsion, and probably a very stiff jail sentence if convicted. It's amazing how swift the criminal justice system works these days for juvenile offenders. Of course, there is one surefire way with which this can all be cleared up..."

"Name it and I'll do it," Cameron told him.

"Good," Rooney was on the verge of breaking into laughter. "Bring me Ferris, and I promise you all this will just go away, never to return."

Cameron frowned. "Wait a minute, let me get this straight Mr. Rooney. You're blackmailing me to turn Ferris over to you?"

"Oh, I guess you could see it that way, Frye, except that there's no way you or anyone else could possibly prove that I had anything to do with this...situation," Rooney couldn't stifle a small laugh this time. "Of course, if events play out a certain way, the truth could come out that it was Ferris who was planning to do the bombing and not you, so..."

"Oh, so now you're trying to pin this on him too!?"

"Perhaps," Rooney rose to his feet and began pacing around Cameron like a vulture circling its prey, "and perhaps not. The key all lies with you my friend. If you could get him to turn himself in, or to confess to this or any other crime he's perpetuated against myself and this school, it may only be he who gets burned by this. Or it could be the two of you. Or perhaps even the two of you and Miss Petersen. I always see the three of you together, so it would be natural to assume that you all..."

"Hey don't bring Sloane into this!" Cameron shouted. "She would never...!"

"You just might be proved wrong on that, Frye, you just never know!" Rooney shouted at him, making Cameron curl up in a ball like a frightened puppy.

"I'm giving you 24 hours to decide where your loyalties lie," the principal continued, "24 hours to come forward with proof of Ferris's wrongdoing. Otherwise, you're probably looking at at least the next forty years of your life in prison, perhaps right next door to that maniacal father of yours. I'm sure he'd like to finish the job he started with you back in April. Now do you really want to end up in that predicament?"

Cameron couldn't help but shake his head. "Very good," Rooney smiled. "You know, you do have a very bright future ahead of you, Frye. I'd hate to see you throw all away just because you're bound to the wrong sort of friend." He pointed toward the door. "You may go now, and think over everything I said very carefully." Cameron nodded and ran out the door as fast as he could. Once he was out of range, Rooney threw up his arms in triumph. "I've got him now!" he shouted in ecstasy, "Ferris can't get out of this one!"

"Are you finished yet, Edward?" called his mother from the outer office.

"Not quite yet, Mother," Rooney yelled out. He wanted some time to celebrate this little success of his in private. His phone rang before he could truly savor the moment, though. "Yes?" he growled into it.

"Ed?" It was Ms. Horgorth at the other end, "What are you doing this evening?"

"Trying to ditch my mother," Rooney said in a low voice. The fat cow could still hear well. "I can probably dupe her away from me, though."

"Good, because I've got the chains and leather straps ready for you."

"Very good," Rooney said, licking his lips. He always enjoyed the chains and leather straps when it came to love. "Expect me at about 8."

"Now are you finished, Edward?" called his mother.

"Yes mother, I am done now," Rooney called out. "I'd better get going, the uh, doctor said yesterday that, uh, I need to lay down, otherwise the, um, leprosy will, uh, reform and maybe kill me."

"Well then let me give you goodbye hug," Mrs. Rooney bounded back into her son's office.

"No, mother, it's not...!" Rooney's pleas were in vain as he was crunched half to death again...for a full minute and a half. By the time he was released, he was blue in the face. "Thank you very much, mother," he muttered between gasps for breath.

"I'll see you later, Edward," his mother gushed as she walked (thankfully) away.

Rooney crouched down under his desk, waiting to see if she'd be coming back for any reason, but fortunately for him she didn't.

"You know, it's so nice whenever your mother stops by, Ed," Grace commented from the front desk, "she really loosens you up from your usual self."

Rooney rolled his eyes. "Thank you Grace, thank you very much," he muttered. "Hold the fort, I've got to take a break."

"Sure thing Ed," Grace turned back to the paperwork she'd been doing. Once Rooney was out of the office, he bent half backwards and let out an uncharacteristic shriek of delight. "I'VE GOT HIM NOW!!" he yelled in ecstasy, "FERRIS CAN'T ESCAPE THIS TIME!!!!"

"Are you okay, Ed?" asked a teacher who was walking nearby.

"Oh I'm perfect, Albert, never better," Rooney said, shaking the man's hand. "In fact, I'd like to buy you lunch."

"But it's after three by now, Ed."

"Well then I'll buy you lunch tomorrow," Rooney told him as he skipped off down the hall. "I'll..." he was cut off by the sound of fire sirens outside.

"What the hell gives here?" he asked himself. "Hey Bert, what's with the fire trucks?" he yelled to a custodian down the hall.

"Buck's stuck in his office window," the custodian called back.

"Great!" Rooney growled out loud. "This is coming out of his paycheck!"

"No need, Ed, Richard already did that."

"Come on Kate, where are you?" Peter muttered under his breath as he watched passengers disembark from the Des Moines flight in the Canton airport. Just about everybody had gotten off the plane now, but there was still no sign of his wife and family.

The last thing he wanted now was to have things go even further wrong with this vacation. But as the pilots walked off the ramp and the gate attendant swung the door shut, he had a sinking feeling that that was exactly what was about to happen. But he had to be sure.

"Excuse me," he said, approaching one of the stewardesses, "did you see my family, the McCallisters?"

"Not that I'm aware of, sir," she told him.

"Are you sure?" he asked, now gravely concerned. "There were about fifteen of them."

"Yes, I'm pretty sure, sir. There were no groups of more than eight people on this flight."

"Perfect, just perfect," Peter muttered under his breath. He took off running for the Delta desk. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for his family's absence.

Fortunately, he didn't have to ask, as the loudspeaker began blaring, "Peter McCallister, phone call please." He turned and sprinted for the nearest phone bank.

"Phone call McCallister?" he said into it.

"One moment, please," said the operator. There was a clicking sound, followed by his wife coming on the line: "Hello Peter?"

"Kate, where are you?" he asked her.

"We're in Los Angeles right now."

"Los Angeles? What are you doing out there?"

"Well, right now, we're being held by the local California air marshals," Kate admitted. "I'm sorry Peter; I signed up for the wrong flight, we were..."

"Wait a minute," Peter interrupted, "what do you mean you're being held by the air marshals?"

"Well," Kate said uncomfortably, "when I found out we were on the wrong plane, I kind of snapped, and, uh, I kind of stormed the cockpit and told them to turn around or I'd blow the plane up."

"You did WHAT!!??" Peter gasped. This was not like his wife at all.

"Yes, and I'm not proud of it. I don't know what happened, it, it was just...all the frustration of everything that's happened over the last day and a half, I kind of just lost it and told them I had a bomb. It was the only thing I could think of that would get them to land, otherwise we'd be going to China."

"Honey, you should know not to do something like that with what the airline industry's been through," Peter protested. "Are they going to let you out?"

"We're working on that right now," Kate told him. "It'll probably be another six hours are so, though. What are you going to do?"

"Well, I guess than I'll wait here, and you can call me when you're out," Peter sighed. "In the meantime, I'll have to call the airline and see if they can still find Kevin, although at this point I'm starting to get a little worried."

"So am I," Kate confided. "Well, I give a buzz when everything's worked out."

"Right," Peter hung up. He slumped into a nearby chair. "This just keeps getting better and better!" he sighed to himself.

"Rough holiday, huh?" remarked the elderly man sitting next to him.

"Well, it's not so much the holiday itself, as what is now a holiday tradition with my family," Peter told him. "This is the third straight year we've forgotten my youngest son, and this time I got forgotten as well, and my family's stuck on the West Coast."

The man broke into laughter. "It's not funny!" Peter snapped.

"Well, in sense it is, depending on how you look at it," the man chuckled. "One day in the future, it'll all seem hysterical. Time has a way of making things look funny."

"I guess."

"Well, when you've been on the road as long as I have, you've heard pretty much everything, but I have to admit your crisis is a first for me," the man said. He extended his hand. "Al Campion, Vice President, Jewelry Division, American Light and Fixture. I've been with the company for the last thirty years, and I'm on the road filling in as head of the shower curtain ring division until..."

"Shower curtain rings? Would you have happened to have worked with Del Griffith?"

"Yeah, he was one of the best guys that ever worked for me. How do you know him?"

"He moved to my town; he sold me some rings last Labor Day when my curtain fell down," Peter explained. He shook Campion's hand. "Peter McCallister, Chicago."

"Pleasure to meet you," Campion said. "You know, AL&F hasn't been the same since Del left. He had a special knack for making sales for even the most bizarre rings we sold."

"I'll admit that," Peter commented. "I got a set made of Burundian feldspar."

"That's one of the rarest varieties in our collection," Campion told him. "We got that set from a tribal shaman in Africa. That particular group of rings had been hand-crafted over a period of sixty-two years. They took seven months each to finish, including the twenty-seven hours spent firing them into a ring shape. Now to be sure, a few of them were overheated and fell apart, but those that managed to stay together..."

"I get the point," Peter interrupted him. He could see why Del had been comfortable working at American Light and Fixture; everybody there rambled on and on.

"So where'd you forget your kid?" Campion now asked him.

"Denver. We led him on the wrong plane, and it took off with him," Peter explained very reluctantly. "Then I got separated from the rest of the family, and they're all held up in Los Angeles under arrest right now because my wife threatened the plane with a bomb she didn't have, and we still have no clue where our son is."

"Where was his plane going? From Denver I mean?" Campion asked.

"Des Moines, but it got shunted to Wichita. I guess that's where he still is, but..."

"What a coincidence, I'm going to Wichita myself!" Campion exclaimed. "If you're not set here, I'd be happy to get a spare ticket for you on my flight."

"Is Wichita's airport open now? I thought the blizzard had shut it down."

"Oh, it's open and running again now."

"Uh, well then,..." Peter thought this proposition over. Kate had said she was looking at at least six hours in lockdown in L.A., and if Kevin was still in Wichita, he likely was close to if not in the airport, as the storm had completely shut down Wichita as a whole. But with everything that had gone wrong so far, he couldn't help wondering if further disaster awaited him by accepting this proposition. But after carefully weighing the pros and cons he was faced with, he could only say, "Sure, I'll take a ticket to Wichita."

"All right, follow me and we'll make the arrangements," Campion gestured toward the Continental counter across the way. "You know, I always like having company on these trips, since nowadays I do this alone, but back when I started, I was teamed up with this guy named Isidore Niekamp, and he had OCD like that guy on TV nowadays. It was a living hell rooming with him, and due to his mannerisms I only got about three hours of sleep a night. There was this one instance when we were shacked up in Sioux Falls, and he..."