The Birth of the Great Pun Detective! (Part 9)

Lily stood at attention, spick, span, prim, and proper in her monochrome maid outfit.

I was shocked — shocked that Greg ever doubted me for a second. See that? I totally got her name. No sweat.

Still, I had about a million more questions now. What was she doing here? Why was this happening? What did it all mean? What did fate have in store? Most importantly, how in the heck had she gotten those chili stains off her apron!?

Discover the answers to all these questions and more you didn’t even ask, plus exclusive cleaning tips and stain removal techniques for those particularly pesky spots that you just can’t seem to get out, in the next exciting chapter of Pun Detectives!

The end of The Birth of the Great Pun Detective! (Part 9)!
To be continued in Part 10!

Nah, just kidding. We can’t just end the chapter that quickly, now can we?

“Wallace,” said grandpa, “meet your personal assistant, Lily Lilac. Lily, meet my socially inept grandson, Wallace Wade. His will may be weak—”

“Hey!”

“—but his punning power is as strong as anyone’s. Stronger in fact. And that’s why he’s about to become our new resident Radioactive Equivoque Detective. Well, that and the nuclear waste I’ve been keeping in his basement for months.”

“Charmed,” said Lily. She didn’t look all that charmed. Or sound it for that matter. Just like before, her tone was as flat as years-old soda. Still, with her long apron and skirt pinched between her fingers, she curtsied.

“Listen closely, Wallace," grandpa continued. "Every Sherlock needs his Watson. Every Batman his Robin and every Dave his Hal. Every L his Watari. Every Quixote his Sancho Panza. Every—”

“Ok, ok, just get to the point.”

“Point is: REDs are no different. They tend to operate with assistants, and as long as you are in our employ, Lily here will be yours. She’s my latest creation, an android helper indistinguishable from a flesh-and-blood person. Go ahead, Lily. Show Wallace here how realistic you are. Give us a nice big human laugh.”

Lily inhaled, a sharp rush of air that I could hear even from where I was sitting, feet away.

And then, she “laughed”:

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Whoa. Staccato.

“Well, mostly indistinguishable. We’re still working on her emotional range.”

Yeah. I gathered.

Still, it was hard to believe. Nearly impossible, actually. This maid girl Lily was a robot all along. I didn’t even know robots this realistic existed. And maybe they didn’t, maybe not yet. Maybe not on a wide scale at least. I hated to admit it, but grandpa really was a genius inventor. Even if her emotions still needed a bit of work (couldn’t she just practice till she got ‘em down?), Lily looked completely human, and it was totally possible she was the first robot of her kind.

“Now if you don’t mind, Lily, could you please show our guest why he’s really here, and why he will accept our offer? I have a feeling he’ll stop acting like an unpleasant spoiled child once you do.”

“Yes, of course.” Lily nodded, and out from the billows of her apron pockets procured what looked like a smallish remote controller. The beep of one of its buttons preempted the whirring of machinery from below, and all of a sudden, a trap door in the floor groaned open. From out of it grew a huge, clear cylinder.

A display case of some kind, I realized.

Inside, identical shelves were layered into pancake stacks, plated one above the other inside the cylinder at regular intervals. Each was a perfect fit inside the large container’s tubular circumference.

Most of these shelves were empty, but one wasn’t. When I saw what was on it, I again wished I were drinking milk. Or soda. Or water. Or anything so long as it’d suffice for a spit take.

On that shelf stood a treasure trove of epic proportions.

And not just any treasure trove of epic proportions.

My treasure trove of epic proportions.

A treasure trove of epic proportions that hurt so much to look at it made me want to gouge my eyes out with a plastic spork just so I wouldn’t have to anymore.

It was my prized (by me) anime figure collection. In someone else’s display case. And not just any someone else’s display case. The worst possible someone else I knew. How had grandpa gotten his grubby hands on my figures? I was sure that all three of them had been on my shelf where they belonged before I left for school in the morning.

Hm? Yeah, that’s right. “All three of them” — I only had three figures in my collection so far. So what? Every collection’s gotta start somewhere. And besides, I preferred having a smaller collection of characters I really liked over spending willy nilly on any character who so much as caught my eye like some people online did.

But now, none of that mattered. As the plexiglass cylinder sunk back into the floor, so too did my aching heart sink into my stomach. “Stolen” didn’t even begin to sum up the gravity of this situation. Kidnapped. There was no other word for it. My figures had somehow been kidnapped right out from under my nose, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Once the display case had fully retracted, and my collection along with it, the mechanical trap door in the floor, cold and heartless, shuttered shut, and I shuddered.

I glared at grandpa. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to save up for those?” I had busted my ass every day, and most nights too, for almost the whole summer at the grocery store to afford them. Come to think of it, I was pretty lucky that they were willing to hire a 15 year old. Viva lax labor laws or something.

“Of course I do. And that’s exactly why you’re going to help us and assume your full duties as a RED effective tomorrow.” He was unperturbed, and it just made me all the more angry. And what about this Lily Lilac character? She didn’t seem bothered by any of this either. Robot shmobot — have a heart!

A stinging, frozen silence followed, an utter quiet that was like a shrill ringing in my ears, the mosquito tone on blast. And then—

“You do want to see your precious figures again someday, don’t you?”

Slowly, I nodded. What other choice did I have?

“Good. Then it looks like we have ourselves a deal.”

Grandpa dropped a small clipboard in my lap. Clipped to it was a contract.

My contract. Complete with a dotted line at the bottom, staring me down.

“Hey now, chin up,” said grandpa. “You have the powers of a pun grandmaster now. Didn’t even have to lift a finger. You’re one of my most successful experiments yet, if I do say so myself. And once you take this job, you won’t be so bored anymore.”

“Chin up,” Lily repeated in monotone. “Boredom can be a truly debilitating state of mind. But your duties as a Radioactive Equivoque Detective will surely render you immune to any further bouts of such reverie.”

Wait a second. That was it. That was what wasn’t lining up. How had I not noticed it before?

“How did you guys know I said I was bored?”

I had only mentioned it to Evan and Greg. That was all the way back at lunch, a lifetime ago it felt like, and I was sure nobody else was listening as I said it. Pretty sure at least.

“Come now, Wallace,” said grandpa. “What good would a robot be without heightened physical capabilities? Lily here can hear far better than you, me, or anyone.”

Lily took over explaining from there. “Indeed,” she said. “If I may say so myself, my auditory capabilities are quite robust. They are similar, in fact, to a human’s, though superior in most respects. As well, I am simply a careful and astute listener. I must be if I am to learn the intricacies of the human heart and mind.”

“So that’s you guys’ game.” I finally got it. I got why grandpa was asking me of all people, a complete nobody, to do all of this. And it wasn’t just because I was his grandson.

“If I was so bored, then why not act as your guinea pig and deal with the school’s pun problem? Why put yourself in harm’s way when you can just get someone else to do it? Why not get your own grandson to do your dirty work for you while you kick your feet up and continue doing everything a good principal doesn’t. That about sum it up?”

Grandpa tugged at his mustache. “If that’s the way you want to look at it. Believe whatever you like. But if you want this old man’s advice, Wallace, you must stop being such a pessimist all the time. It’s not a… not a…”

“Good look, sir?” Lily offered.

“Exactly. Not a good look.”

Man, this guy got on my nerves. Who did he think drilled into my head as a kid that nothing good ever happened, ever, at any time, no matter what? You, you old coot! I could still hear it in my mind, clear as day, and in grandpa’s raspy, pack-a-day voice too. That old adage of his, his go-to response whenever I’d come crying about some new invention or experiment of his that had just blown up in my face, or spilled orange juice down my shirt, or used my head to crack eggs on, or pantsed me in front of the entire third grade (don’t ask):

“Life sucks and then you die.”

The end of The Birth of the Great Pun Detective! (Part 9)!
To be continued in Part 10!