The sun rose over Sandals Bay. Seagulls ran across the sandy beach. Ocean waves lapped the shore. The tiny coastal town was still asleep.

At exactly 5:30, it awoke to the sound of Mr. Morlock striking the bell that hung on the side of his rundown van, indicating he was beginning the morning delivery of The Soggy Sandal, the town's single sheet newspaper.

His delivery method was straightforward. Newspapers were folded into paper airplanes and weighed with large paper clips on their noses. They were loaded into modified crossbows that protruded at a slight upward angle from hatches in the side of the van, three on each side, like cannons on a ship, and launched into the yards of the town's citizens.

Inside the van, behind the front bench and the rows of crossbows, was a large wooden box. Inside the box were gears and levers and trays. Every morning, after printing 453 copies of his newspaper, Mr. Morlock placed the stack of paper into a drawer, not unlike the kind found in printers and copiers. He poured several boxes of paper clips into a hopper on the side of the box, oiled and checked the crossbows, and a cranked a metal wheel that started the entire contraption (usually with a wheeze and a puff of dust). By the time the van was warmed up, so was the newspaper launcher, and he was ready to go.

With a jug of freshly brewed "pirate coffee" (one part coffee, two parts rum) under one arm, he gave the mermaid figurehead secured to the van's "prow" a kiss and climbed on top of the wood clad vehicle. The roof resembled the deck of a ship, including masts (shortened after an unfortunate incident with overhead power lines), railings, and a large wheel, which was connected to a rudder attached to the bumper and, more importantly, connected to the actual steering controls. Neighbors say that from a block away it always looked as though Mr. Morlock was sailing on a sea of rooftops.

From his house on Blackbeard Court (a name he had petitioned to have changed from Butterscotch), Rubert Morlock set sail on the Foxy Lady for his chief mate's house, two blocks away, on Second Street.

Alistair McMulligan lived there. He was a stout, elderly man in his late sixties with tufts of white hair surrounding his head, much like an army laying siege to a castle, which in this case was a stubborn stand of white hair at the very top of Mr. McMulligan's dome, protected by a vast moat of shiny skin. He was a pear-shaped man who never let a hearty meal go to waste. In fact, he never let any meal go to waste. Food on his plate was food in his stomach.

Officially, he was retired, but unofficially, he worked every morning for Mr. Morlock, the self-fancied media tycoon of Sandals Bay. He liked the discipline Captain Morlock maintained. It satisfied the small part of him that wished he had joined the navy instead of taking over the family business after his father had retired. Now, at least, he could enjoy three hours of uninterrupted land-based nautical bliss every day without having to worry about drowning.