The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 5)

Something else Lily had said was weighing on my mind though. New office? That was a surprise. Come to think of it, I did remember reading a bit about being given my own office in the contract I’d signed yesterday. At the time, I didn’t think much of it — there were more important balls in the air. But hey, at least I was being given a swanky pad in exchange for my troubles. I could picture it now. A high-rise penthouse, decked to the gills with every amenity there was and maybe even a few there wasn’t, overlooking the tops of skyscrapers by a mile.

The truth, I found out shortly after, was not nearly as simple, and, much like the bathroom stall that had been my undoing twice now, was not at all clean. Of course, I really should’ve known better. And in the back of my mind I did. I knew that being able to spend my days in a swanked-out penthouse suite was nothing more than a faroff dream. Maybe after a 24-hour long stretch of disappointment (mostly in myself) whose end seemed nowhere in sight, I was ready to believe anything just so long as it sounded good enough.

Lily pinched my sleeve in a two-fingered vice grip and tugged, meaning that it was time for us to get going.

“G-good luck out there, old friend.” Greg faked a sniffle.

“It was nice knowing you.” Evan didn’t even bother with the theatrics. He just kept playing his game.

“Nice try. You guys are coming too,” I said. And I meant it. My final few minutes of freedom were circling the proverbial toilet bowl. I’d sooner let them float till they turned green than let them go down alone, even if it meant spooling Greg and Evan’s freedom down with them like I was flushing a sheet of TP still attached to the roll.

“Your friends are more than welcome to join us, Boss,” Lily said.

“Good,” I said.

Greg groaned.

“C’mon, dude,” I whispered, leaning in close. “Gimme a hand here and help me get a feel for this situation.”

“Alright.” Greg nodded. It seemed like he really wasn’t opposed to tagging along after all.

And Evan would be fine so long as he got to play his game.

I sniffled for real, and I could feel my tear ducts starting to pool up. Friends to the bitter end. That was us. The three muskrateers. We were going together. And I didn’t even have to spill my real reasoning for wanting them with me, which was that I was too embarrassed to be around Lily alone. Somehow though, I got the feeling that they knew that.

Lily was really yanking my sleeve now. Better than pulling my leg, I guessed. Just how strong was that arm of hers? Given the force she was mustering with what seemed to be the slightest of tugs, I really didn’t want to find out, so I made to leave the stall.

But then, something stopped me. Something that had been kicking around the back of my mind for a minute now, like an old can in an alleyway.

“Hey, um… Lily?”

“Yes, Boss?” Again with this “Boss” thing. I figured it was because she was a robot and was programmed to call me that. Or maybe it was because she was a maid? Regardless, if she was planning on keeping it up, I’d have to tell her to cut it out sooner or later.

“Just one question.”

“A query? Proceed,” she said.

“How did you find me in here?” I had to know, even if it meant intimating that I’d come in here specifically to make sure I wouldn’t run into her. I didn’t want to believe that her finding me was sheer dumb luck, or that she and grandpa were really keeping tabs on my whereabouts that closely. Plus, I knew we hadn’t been followed as we walked from class to the Old Building at the start of lunch. I had an unusually strong sense for that sort of thing, or so I’d been told.

“Oh?” She cocked her head to the side. “Such a simple question.”

Well excuse me, princess.

“Our RED office, which is where I was waiting on standby until just a moment ago, is right next door. When I saw you and your friends stop by to use the facilities together, I counted it a stroke of luck and decided that now would be a good time to introduce you to our base of operations, Boss.”

It was a simple explanation. I’d understood every word she’d said. And yet, I didn’t think I really wanted to. If my new office was right next door, then that meant… I eyed the partition between this stall and the next, a beige sheet the grainy color of cold oatmeal. Dull in every sense of the word, but in the fluorescent light of the bathroom, enough to pierce my eyes. Now that I knew what lay beyond, it was enough to pierce my heart too. My dreams of a sunset-drenched penthouse suite with white leather couches and a fountain and 600-foot-tall palms brushing sensual fronds against the windows, which were also the walls, evaporated in less than a second.

“Wow, dude,” said Greg. “Your office is a bathroom stall? Now that sucks.” Looked like he was thinking the same thing I was.

“A real oval office, that’s for sure,” said Evan. “Talk about crappy location.”

Yeah, alright. Go ahead. Rub it in. What did I care at this point? Abuse from every direction. I was beyond being fazed by any of this, or so I told myself. I was practically beginning to enjoy it.

Lily laughed.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Just like everyone else seemed inclined to do, she was laughing at me and not with me, but I didn’t even care. She really was something else.

“No, Boss,” she said. By then, the muscles in her face  — if robots even had muscles — had relaxed back to normal. Resting bot face. “Our office is not the stall next door to this one, but the room next door to this bathroom.”

Thank. GOD.

“Now, shall we go?”

So we went. I made sure not to step in the puddle Evan had, or in the drip off of his shoes as I filed after him. As we left the bathroom, I happened to glance over at the urinals. What had that guy who had come in earlier said? “Almost thought I wasn’t gonna make it for a second” I think it was? Well, guess what, buddy? You didn’t “make it” at all. Underneath one of the urinals, yellow sheen slicked the ground, turned a putrid green by the color of the tile floor. He must have been the same guy who had misfired all over the seat yesterday, and the stall floor today. I wondered how anyone could have such terrible aim. More importantly, how much water did this guy drink? Seemed like he was in here a heck of a lot if the still-wet floor in the stall was any indication.

Huh, I thought, realizing I was putting two and two together. Maybe I am cut out for this sleuthing thing after all. Still, I wasn’t so sure it quite came out to four. At best, my hypothesis was just a good guess. But I was no pretzel; I wasn’t about to get into a salty twist over it or anything. Mostly cause ruminating over a guy’s piss poor accuracy in the bathroom was one of the very few things I wanted to do less right now than assume my responsibilities as the school’s premier and only pun detective.

The end of The Pun Detective Heads to His Headquarters! (Part 5)!
To be continued in Part 6!