FT’s Tartan Diaries Episode 8 #TeamTartan Go AWOL

If you’ve never read any of Episodes 1-6 or even episode 7, none of this will make any sense to you……. 😳

As the summer rain battered off the apartment window, I reflected on how we’d come to the decision to come to Scotland in the first place. Madrid had been my first choice, followed by Barcelona, just ahead of Asturias, plus every other major and minor town in mainland Espana. After that, I’d have gone for the Balearics, the Canary Islands, Malta, Cyprus, most of the Greek Islands, maybe even Cuba.
Instead, we’d opted for Alba and #TeamTartan. So far, it had been the most exciting trip ever. Police interrogations, Gigi, Stoker of the Dean (@DeanStoker) and I, rescuing @YoorWullie from Edinbro Castle, and, with the help of @FewArePict’s alter ego SuperHero, Bendy Girl, stopping a bank robbery in Bruntsfield. This was SCOTLAND, a land of beauty, heroes and deep fried things. It was amazing!

I thought things might calm down a bit. I mean, even we Americans have an off button. I should have known better……..

The damp day had started off quietly enough. Dad, apart from waking the entire household again whilst he made coffee, was experimenting with dry rubs for haggis. I couldn’t understand how he couldn’t make some coffee, without it sounding as if a herd of drought stricken elephants had found a watering hole. 😏

‘There must be a dry rub that makes this stuff edible, there MUST be!’

‘DAD! Don’t let #TeamTartan hear you say that. They still think we love it.’

While Masterchef Dad persevered with his dry rub mixes, I checked Twitter. Mom had gone with Gigi as my little sister had decided to set up a ‘pop-up’ hairdressing salon on Princess St. Gigi had arranged for five One Direction lookalikies to have their hair done by Gigi, while charging £5 for autographs and, no doubt signing as many people as possible to her Webcomic subscription.

Twitter was remarkably quiet. None of #TeamTartan were online. In fact none of them seemed to have tweeted since 10pm the previous day. Now, @Mark_Leggatt could disappear for days. If he wasn’t trying to get some oily interface project sorted, he’d be hermitted away writing his second novel with his Blackwing Pearl pencils. The rest of them though, were never far away from a keyboard or touchscreen. If YoorWullie wasn’t politely pointing out some Tory MP’s expenses error, Debra (@FewArePict) was on an anti-fracking theme, Dave was droning on about windfarms and Dean was playing catch up on what everyone had been tweeting. So, their current tweetless tweetlessness was very strange. I jolted as Dad sneezed…..

‘GODAMMMIT……I don’t believe it….’

‘what’s wrong now Dad?’

‘I finally found a spiced dry rub which was perfect for that offal stuff, it made me sneeze, and, now……it’s all over the floor…….’

‘but you wrote down what you put in right…..?’

The silence told it all. ☺️

I switched the tv on…….

‘…….extra police have been called to Princess Street after a pop-up hairdresser stall attracted thousands of One Direction fans. All trams and buses have been affected as well as roads in and out of the city……….and, in other news, it’s been reported that five members of a Twitter group known as #TeamTartan have vanished. Relatives reported, despite those involved living as far apart as Milngavie and Dumfries, they disappeared at 10pm last night, and have not been seen since’

Oh great. my 8 yr old sister had brought the City Of Edinbro to a standstill and my raisin d’être had vamooshed off the face of the earth. Where could the silly sods be? A noise from the corridor revealed Gigi and Mom carrying several large bags.

‘Don’t tell me that’s all the hair from the pop up Hairdressers?’ I quipped

‘Nope. It’s the money Gigi made from autographs, Webcomic subscriptions, and selling ‘One Directions’ hair to screaming girls. £50,000 I reckon’

‘…….and what happens when they find out it wasn’t the real One Direction?’

‘We’ll be back in Maryland by then ☺️’

It was great to see, once she’d had it confirmed by DNA testing that Gigi and I were indeed Mom and Dads real children, that Mom was joining in the rest of the families mad schemes.

I took Gigi to the side and explained the news about #TeamTartan.

‘I might be able to help. After @YoorWullie ended up, firstly in jail, then being kidnapped by the Royal Family, I decided to put a bug on him. If he hasn’t changed his socks we should be able to find his location. Follow me’

Gigi entered the 128 digit encrypted code on her bedroom door. Something hummed, lights went green and the door opened. I’d never been inside her room before. Not because I hadn’t tried, it was mainly due to the 128 digit encryption code with 948 trillion possible combinations.
Once inside, my pupils widened. Not just because what was in front of my eyes surprised me, but because everything was a darkish glowing green.

‘the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. I can track every one of #TeamTartan’s position to within one square metre, rotate my satellites to view their position, and watch their every move, except when they are in the restroom’

I gawped at the rack of servers, flashing lights, cables, the wall of flat screens and the one particularly large mouse.

‘ok, let’s have a look to see where they are’

Gigi pressed buttons, clicked the giant mouse a few times and waited.

‘hmmm, that’s strange’

‘what’s strange Gigi?’

‘at exactly midnight last night their locators stopped…..all at the same time’

‘stopped……all at the same time?’

‘I just said that’

‘where were they when you lost them?’

‘give me a minute….I’ll run the tri-locater on all of them and triangulate their last known position’

As things hummed, and the green glow enveloped us for a few more seconds, the curious group disappearance of #TeamTartan, started to make me feel nervous. How could four adult males and one grown woman disappear just like that.

‘there it is. They were all here…..’

Gigi pointed at the screen.

‘zoom in I can’t make it out…..’

The satellite image cleared. Gigi zoomed in further and further. We looked at the screen, we looked at each other, we looked back at the screen. We found ourselves staring at a picture of the Kelpies.

‘The Kelpies……. A tourist attraction….why would the five of them go there at midnight…..maybe they’re weirder than we thought’ 😀

‘give me a second………’

Gigi pressed more buttons.

‘both the sensors on YoorWullie and Leggatt have video cameras on them. I should be able to play back the last things they recorded before the signal disappeared’

Suddenly we were watching someone being pulled from the back of a car. Ahead, We could clearly make out Debra, Dave, Dean and Leggatt being taken towards the Kelpies by men in suits.

‘what on earth is happening. Why would they take them to a tourist attraction in Falkirk?’

‘I don’t know. Look, they’re taking them inside…….’

‘ok that’s it, let’s go’

we grabbed some stuff, a cold pizza and headed for the exit.

‘where are you two going…….’ yelped Dad, who was forlornly trying to recreate his crashed dry rub masterpiece.

‘we’re going to the Kelpies Dad, ditch the haggis, grab Mom and let’s go #TeamTartan have screwed up again……’ 😳

Episode 8 of FT’s Team Tartan Diaries was brought to you by Me @qosfc1919 © Dodo Productions 2015

Don’t forget to visit FT’s blog at thehistorytwins.wordpress.com