00:00And now, stand by for adventure.
00:18Three, two, one.
00:21In the exciting story of Shadows of Suspicion, Bleep, Squeak, and Scratch spent many happy
00:39days at their home base on Earth, Zero Zero Island.
00:44The colonel kept busy with new experiments in his lab.
00:47Scratch spent many happy hours digging away in the garden, and Squeak played with his
00:52favorite toy, a little wooden puppet.
00:54Squeak loved this toy, perhaps because he himself was made of choice lumber, a block
00:59of delicate white pine for his head, and a board of sturdy oak for his body.
01:05Yes, little Squeak was really a wooden puppet, but few could have guessed that he was anything
01:12other than a real and very natural little boy, for he certainly was full of mischief
01:17like most real little boys, as his friends knew too well.
01:22Bleep still recalls the shock of dashing about for almost an hour, dodging what he believed
01:27to be flashing meteorites, only to discover later that little Squeak had slipped a handful
01:34of fireflies into the colonel's helmet, just for fun.
01:39Another time, Bleep awoke from a sound sleep to find himself covered with green and yellow
01:44spots, a sure sign of Futurian frog pops.
01:49But little Squeak knew that the colorful dots on the spaceman's helmet were just dabs of
01:53paint, for the puppet had put them there himself, just for fun.
01:59But it was poor Scratch, the good-natured caveman who suffered most from this puppet
02:06trickery.
02:07More than once, his trusty wooden club had been nailed to the floor, and who can recall
02:16how many times a scrumptious coconut pie had a hidden balloon inside, just waiting for
02:27poor Scratch's knife or fork.
02:30Squeak's favorite prank, however, was making shadow pictures on the wall by holding his
02:35fingers in front of a bright candle.
02:38He would create the shadow of a wolf, then signal for help, and Scratch would dash to
02:43the rescue, only to find the puppet rocking with laughter at his joke.
02:48The caveman had been fooled by Squeak's shadow pictures of a giant crab, a monstrous crocodile,
02:57and a ferocious ostrich.
03:00At last, Scratch had vowed never to be tricked again.
03:06One day, it happened.
03:08Bleep had blasted off for a closer look at a storm cloud approaching the island.
03:12Scratch was inside his cave carving a new wooden club, and Squeak was fishing in the
03:18brook by the waterfall.
03:20At the first raindrop, Squeak dashed for the nearby shelter of Scratch's cave.
03:25Now no one had noticed that a giant tropical spider had just spun its huge web across the
03:31cave entrance, and poor Squeak ran smack into this deadly trap.
03:37Scratch looked towards the doorway to see the puppet snared in the giant web, but as
03:41he watched, the stormy sky outside made his poor struggling friend look like just another
03:47of Squeak's own shadow tricks, and Scratch returned to his club carving, determined not
03:54to be fooled again, and never dreaming that his little friend was really in trouble this
04:00time.
04:02Poor Squeak shook with terror as the giant spider appeared, ready to devour him.
04:08It would be all over in a flash, and it was, but the flash was from a powerful bolt of
04:16Bleep's futomic energy.
04:18Yes, the colonel had returned just in time to save the puppet, and so a very frightened
04:24Squeak, now safe in the arms of his friends, promised faithfully never to call for help
04:30unless he was in honest-to-goodness real trouble, for now he knows that a foolish trick
04:38can sometimes cost a life.
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