The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 4)

At lunch, I met up with Greg and Evan in the second-floor boys’ bathroom in the Old Building. All three of us were crammed into a stall, the same one I’d been cornered in the day before.

I cleared my throat and spoke. “You’re probably wondering why I gathered you here today. Well—”

“Hell yeah we’re wondering,” Greg interrupted. Rude. “We’re eating lunch in a bathroom stall for god’s sake.” Flecks of peanut butter whizzed through stale, musty air like little hydrogenated BBs. Greg never did like switching things up. He was the type to eat the same thing every day. “What gives?”

“I was getting to what gives. If you hadn’t interrupted, you’d know by now.”

“Whatever, just spill the beans so we can get out of here.”

“I dunno,” Evan said from behind his phone screen. Could he have held that thing any closer to his eyes? The world may never know. “I think it’s kinda cozy in here.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was standing in a puddle. A glassy pool that I was willing to bet wasn’t water given its, err, distinct aroma. I guessed he was so engrossed in his game that he didn’t notice. I couldn’t really blame him though. The circle of wet was nowhere near the toilet. First on the seat and now on the floor. Whoever was using this stall at lunch had the worst aim I’d ever seen in my life.

I cleared my throat once again. From the top: “You’re probably wondering—”

“Yes, yes, why you gathered us here, we know.” Geez! Impatient much, Greg?

“Ok. You’re probably also wondering where I was yesterday. At least if these messages are any indication.”

I showed them my phone screen. They weren’t surprised to see it, but I had been when I had checked earlier today. I had dozens of messages across a handful of apps from Greg and Evan, all unchecked.

Messages like: “Where are you?”

“Are you ok?”

“You good dude?”

“You in the bathroom man? Its been hours. Hope theres enough tp in there for whatever it is youre doing”

Well, those were the gist of Evan’s messages anyway. The ones from Greg’s were more along the lines of: “So did you get that maid’s name?”

“Ever figure out who that maid girl is”

“Can I have your computer if you never come back???”

Etc, etc.

But hey, details.

They’d sent me texts like these because, I realized this morning, I had never gone back to lunch yesterday, let alone class. Which meant I’d been totally absent from fifth and sixth period while I was passed out in the principal’s office. And after I was done signing my freedom away, I went straight home. From Greg and Evan’s perspective, it probably seemed like I had ditched. Or maybe that I had even been so humiliated that I’d run away, fled the country and changed my name, never to return.

So I wanted to clear up what actually went down.

After I’d explained things, a silence filled the bathroom. Evan had even muted the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming from his phone. To add to the dramatic effect, no doubt.

Either that, or to hide the fact that all three of us were anchovied into a single stall from the guy who had just walked into the bathroom. We listened, not breathing, not moving, as he did his business, hoping and praying he wouldn’t notice the three pairs of feet poking out in the space between the stall door and the floor.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” he said. “That hits the spot.”

I was surprised I could even hear his voice over the sound of, uh… well, you know. It sounded like Niagara Falls out there.

Then, an hour-long minute later, the gush calmed to a trickle, and then to silence. “Phew! That was a close one!” ZZZZZIIIIIIIIPPPPPP. “Almost thought I wasn’t gonna make it for a second.” FFFFFFFWWWWWWWSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH.

Finally, he left. Without even washing his hands. As soon as he was gone, I breathed again. Sweet, sweet oxygen. Be still, my throbbing lungs.

“And that’s the story,” I said.

“Great,” said Greg. “Why’d you have to tell it to us in here?” Finishing up his food, he licked his fingers and ripped off a few sheets of toilet paper to dry them.

“Cause I’m never showing my face in the cafeteria again? It’s embarrassing. People were even talking about my little escapade — which you sent me on, don’t forget — in class. People who weren’t even there yesterday. Just think what would happen if I just waltzed in there today. I’d be a total laughing stock.”

“Still,” Evan said. He turned the volume back up on his phone and the SFX of his game began once again to punctuate our conversation with constant sounds of death and the occasional ring of a robotic voice cheerily announcing GET BONUS! “That is a pretty wild story.”

“Yeah, dude,” Greg agreed. “I feel for you, Wallace. So when do you start doing this RED thing?”

“Today. Or I was supposed to at least. That’s the other reason I don’t want go back to the cafeteria.”

“Oh, I see. Gotcha,” Evan said. I silently thanked him. At least someone understood me.

“Got what?” said Greg. “ I don’t get it.”

“Come on, dude. Think,” I said.

“He doesn’t want to run into that maid,” Evan answered for me. “She’ll force him to assume his duties. As long as he can steer clear of her, he can steer clear of having to become a super sleuth for this FPI outfit.”

Bingo.

“Hmmm.” Greg put a hand to his chin. “I don’t get it. Weren’t you just complaining about how bored you were and all that? I would have thought you’d welcome something like this with open arms. I mean, it’s at least kind of exciting, right? Something out of the norm?”

He was right. Absolutely. And I told him as much. “But,” I said, “that doesn’t mean I want to get involved in any more of my grandpa’s insane schemes. Plus, being a RED sounds like such a hassle, and going around solving other people’s pun problems seems like such a drag too.”

I knew how childish I sounded, and that beggars couldn’t be choosers. If I wanted excitement, this was the perfect ticket to it. Still, lukewarm and skeptical was how I really felt, and I couldn’t change that.

“Oh yeah,” Greg said, eyes widening like he’d just remembered something important. “You never told us.”

“Told you what?”

“You found it out, right? That maid’s name?”

“Oh. Yeah, I did. Told ya I’d get her name at least. And you doubted me.”

“Yes. Yes, I did doubt you. And no. No, you didn’t tell me. Anyway, what is it? This is a huge scoop. Nobody else seems to know.”

“Lily,” I said.

“Yes?”

“No, no. Not ‘Yes.’ Lily.”

“Yes?”

“Wh-what? What are you… look, would you stop doing that?”

“I’m not doing anything,” said Greg.

“Yes you are. You keep saying ‘Yes?’ And what’s up with that weird high-pitched voice? You’re the one who wanted to know her name so badly, right? Well, it’s not ‘Yes.’ I already told you what it is. Lily.”

“Yes?”

“There! You’re doing it again. Bro, stop.”

“I’m literally not even saying anything,” said Greg.

“Then who keeps saying ‘Yes?’ with the same exact inflection every time, like a robot?”

Suddenly, Evan spoke up: “You guys might want to look behind you.”

Wondering why, I twisted around. When I spied what Evan meant, I nearly jumped out of my skin. There, standing behind us, as silent and still — and heck, probably as deadly — as a poised mantis, was the maid robot. My official assistant. Lily Lilac. She was decked out in her usual regalia, meaning she looked totally out of place and time, especially considering we were in a filthy school bathroom.

“L-l-l-l-lily? What are you doing here?” I could hardly even stammer out the words, thanks both to the sheer shock of having been crept up on and to the embarrassment of meeting her for a third time after having so thoroughly embarrassed myself during our first two encounters. How had she even gotten in here? And even ignoring the fact that she’d somehow infiltrated a three-by-five-foot bathroom stall without making a single scene or sound, this was the boys’ bathroom. Sure, she was a robot. But she was a girl robot. She shouldn’t have been in here to begin with.

“I’ve come to collect you, Boss.”

“Collect me?” I said, shocked.

“Boss?” Greg said, awed.

“I’ve?” Evan said, probably just wanting not to be left out.

Lily just nodded, as if I would have any idea what she meant by it.

“Ok, everyone just calm down,” I said, even though the only one who was anything but calm was me. “Lily, we were, uh, just talking about you.”

“Is that so?” she said emotionlessly, creepily looking me dead in the eyes. “I’m glad. This is my first time being gossipped about.”

She was glad? Could have fooled me. Besides, people weren’t usually happy to be talked about behind their backs, so if she thought this made her more human or whatever, then her sentiments were more than a little misplaced. But whatever; that wasn’t the point here.

“What are you doing here? Do you mind explaining? Cause” — I looked around to indicate our location — “I really didn’t expect to run into you here of all places.”

The world felt like it was going nuts all around me, and I was the one getting squirreled by it all. A hit and run. That’s what all this craziness was. Sooner or later, it’d leave me roadkill, I was sure of it. And I wanted no part in it. Lily could take her puns and whatever else and shove it. It was as if, in the last day, I had somehow slipped into an alternate dimension where nothing made any sense. And the worst part about that was everything was pretty much the same as it always was.

“As I mentioned, I’ve come to collect you,” she said again, “on orders from Kingcipal Wade. I am to show you to your new office before the lunch period is out so that you may begin your RED duties immediately. Now, if you’ll excuse us” — she dipped her head ever so slightly in the general direction of Greg and Evan — “we must be going.”

Great. That meant that Lily and grandpa had likely been keeping tabs on me the entire day, just waiting for the chance to step in, psych me out, and initiate me formally into the FPI hierarchy.

In short, I’d been thoroughly found out. Again. And in the same exact place no less. This might’ve been the least private bathroom stall in existence.

The end of The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 4)!
To be continued in Part 5!