The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 1)

It was a beautiful morning.

Silken sunbeams untwined from on high, lending the world their gossamer glow, transient, always too quick to depart to make room for the different light of day, and precious all the more for it.

The birds sang songs to match, mellifluous, cheery. Though I didn’t appreciate the one practicing its screamo vocals so early in the morning. Please, sparrow me— err, spare me the agony.

The breeze nipped at my neck, pricked my fingertips, cool and comfortable, crisp as a juicy autumn apple, perfect for this time of year.

The lark was on the wing.

The snail was on the thorn.

God was in his heaven.

And I sort of wished it would all just go jump in a lake.

The world at large could take a hike for all I cared. Grandpa was right. Life sucks and then you die. And for me, life was sure sucking a whole lot at the moment. I was headed straight for disaster. And by disaster, I meant school. My morning trek to school had never felt so torturous. I was all nerves. Even my nerves were all nerves — that’s how on edge I was. Each step I took was one step closer to a scholastic warzone. Not only was I sure to be the talk of everyone who had a mouth, what with how I’d embarrassed myself in front of the entire cafeteria yesterday, but I was also supposed to assume my official duties as a RED today.

No thanks. I’ll pass. Maybe I should have been preparing mentally for the worst, which, I knew, was yet to come. Instead I had spent all morning and most of the night before trying to come up with ways to get out of my RED duties. I thought up all sorts of plans, none of which were very good. I had even considered faking the measles and staying home sick, if only to postpone my misery by another measly week or two.

But all of that was nothing more than a daydream. In reality, I had a contractual obligation to fulfill. And, more importantly, I had, or rather would have, a mad scientist and wacko robot breathing down my neck if I didn’t.

Plus, I still needed to get my figures back.

Because yes, I still hadn’t even gotten my figures back. Grandpa said he’d be holding on to them for “safe keeping.”

“Just think of this as collateral,” he’d said, avoiding the word “hostage” like he avoided common sense, “until your Radioactive Equivoque Detective duties are complete.” Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t all that clear on just when they’d be complete, or even how I’d go about completing them. My contract had explained what I was meant to be doing: solving the puns behind the problems that were going on at school. Sure would’ve helped if it had explained just how I was supposed to do that.

I guessed I’d just have to figure it out as I went.

That was what I thought as I slid into first period just as the final bell was ringing. My plan — the one decent one I’d come up with — to get to school right on time today had worked. Granted, all it entailed was me walking to school about twice as slow as usual, but still, I’d pulled it off and I was proud. It meant I had my get-out-of-RED-responsibilities free card for another couple of hours at least. Even if I was the resident RED around here now, I was still a student, and I doubted I’d be pulled out of class to solve whatever pun-based perplexities arose today.

If I could get through the entire day without running into grandpa or Lily, I was good. Keep that up for another… add the four, carry the two… 150 school days or so and then I’d really be golden. Golden as the sweet, sweet summer break that waited on the other end, a summer without puns or robots or radiation or anything to worry about at all. Come to think of it though, I still had to make sure I got rid of the nuclear waste hanging out below my house.

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There he was, right in front of me. That big bushy mustache. That lab coat. That face that looked like someone had taken a pair of safety scissors to an original Picasso. Those sunglasses that couldn’t hide wild, dangerous eyes. He never took those things off, at least as far as I could tell. I bet he even slept with them on, crazy old coot.

Most knew him as principal. A few who played by his ridiculous rules knew him as “king-cipal.”

But I… I and I alone knew him as…

“Grandpa.”

“Wallace.”

I’d failed. Completely and utterly. Miserably, even.

Because there he was. And there Lily was too, right behind him, his shadow.

I’d made it until fourth period before running into them.

And now, I was toast, buttered and served.

Or was I?

What they didn’t know was that I had a trump card. A card up my sleeve so powerful and so particularly suited to this exact situation alone that it could make even the King of Games himself weep. In sorrow or joy, I didn’t know. Didn’t matter. Point was: I was making it out of this stupid pun sleuthing game before it even started, and I was doing it with what little remained of my dignity intact.

Slowly, making a show of it so as to humiliate my foes to the greatest degree possible, I slid a folded slip of paper from my shirt sleeve. I unfurled it and showed it to them.

Grandpa gasped. Lily’s hand shot to her mouth to stifle a scream of terror.

“I-impossible,” grandpa stammered. “It can’t be!”

Oh, but it was.

It was.

It was!

It was my RED contract.

Literally — was my RED contract. Because right at that moment, it became my former RED contract, became only so much scrap floating on the wind, torn clean in two by yours truly with a single satisfying shred down the middle.

“You won’t get my help with your weird plans,” I said, dusting my hands off to show, not tell, that I was finished with the matter, that they could control me no longer. The torn contract had already blown away, wending whichever way the wind went.

Then, unable to stifle my excitement at freedom, I full-on punched the air like a lunatic. There was nothing there to punch. I was just so overjoyed I could hardly contain myself. A simple fist pump or the like would have been insufficient to convey the thrill of knowing I’d never again be subjected to the whims of a madman.

I expected to see grandpa crying, bawling those wild eyes of his out at the failure of his latest grand scheme, while Lily short circuited in the background or something. But to my surprise, he was smirking, and she was laughing in her creepy staccato again: “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Wh-what?” I was shocked. “Why aren’t you breaking down crying? And why aren’t you short circuiting? I just tore my contract clean in two. It’s gone. Done. Void.”

Grandpa just joined Lily with laughter of his own, a laugh you could grate a stone on.

“No. Stop! Stop!” I couldn’t take this. “I don’t want any part in this. Puns aren’t my thing. Your crazy plots and inventions really aren’t my thing. You can even keep the figures. Who cares? Not me. I just want out of this. You won’t get my help! You won’t get it!”

But they didn’t stop. Grandpa, confident as ever, rasped, “By hook or by crook, we will.” Then, from inside his own sleeve, he unfurled a sheet of paper that looked just like the one I’d just made a show of tearing in two. It was the real contract, still intact and still in effect. The one I’d been keeping up my sleeve, I realized all of a sudden, was nothing more than the carbon copy.

“Oh, come on! This is my daydream. I should be the one in control, not you guys!”

Well, this seriously blows, I thought. Even in my delusions, I just couldn’t catch a break.

As I slowly refocused on the depressing reality of where I actually was — stuck in fourth period, my last language arts class as a free man — the version of Lily in my head rang out the end of my reverie with more stifling robotic laughter.

The end of The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 1)!
To be continued in Part 2!