Pun Detectives and the Case of the Kidnapped Kitten! (Part 9)

There wasn’t much that I was good at in life. But when it came to getting suckered into things, I was practically a master. That was all I could think as my phone alarm jackhammered me from sleep at the ungodliest hour I’d seen in months.

It was 3:30 a.m.

Time to head out.

How and why did I get roped into waking up well before the ass crack of dawn, and on a Saturday no less?

Lily Lilac, that’s how and why

#

It all started a week ago. I was lying in bed, minding my own business, trying to think about anything other than the utter failure the search for Teabone had been so far when, out of the blue, I got a text from Tuesday of all people. She had something she wanted to talk to me about.

“Shoot,” I texted her back.

Her reply was instantaneous. “Not over the phone,” it read. “In person. Sorry but can you come to the club room now? I knwo it’s late but it’s important.”

She seemed serious.

I ran all the way back to school, thinking what awaited had to be some sort of important clue, some missing bit of information, a crucial hint that Monty and Tuesday and Wednesley had forgotten to explain that would help us catch our missing cat.

It was dark by the time I got to school and arrived at the karate club room, all by itself in the gray drear at the end of that hall in the Old Building. The darkness made the spot look even lonelier than usual. I reckoned that every school ever to exist looked different at night, but this was a different story. I felt like I’d stepped into a world all in black-and-white, an old photograph.

The door eked out an aching creak when I nudged it open. To my surprise, Monty and Wednesley were nowhere to be seen. I had expected to find all three of them, but only Tuesday was there. The lights were off.

“There you are,” she said. “Took your time. I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

She was right. I’d run the whole way, but I had still taken forever to get here — probably because of how out of shape I was. Or maybe it was because I was out of shape. My being out of shape may have also had something to do with it. So any number of reasons, really.

“My bad.” I realized I was out of breath. Just shy of panting, in fact. I was even less fit than I realized. My steadfast exercise mantra (“As long as I’m not fat, I’ll never do it!”) was seriously coming to collect.

Finally catching my breath, I said, “You had something to tell me?”

Tuesday nodded. Moonlight lapped us, framing her face. “Yep. You’re alone?”

“Yeah. Why? You want me to call Lily?” I had thought about texting Lily to see if she wanted to come to the club room with me, but had decided not to bug her. It was then that I realized, for the first time, that I had no idea where Lily went at night. Or where she slept. Or where she lived. Or really anything about her beyond our after-school escapades.

“No, it’s fine,” said Tuesday. “I just wanted to tell you guys something. Well, more like clear something up. Doesn’t have to be both of you.”

“What?”

“It’s about Monty.

“Ok.”

She nodded.

“Uh…”

“What?” she asked. Why was she the one looking surprised here?

“Well… go ahead. What was it you wanted to say?”

“It’s just that… you know.”

No. No, I don’t.

“I was just thinking that, you know, for this whole time, you guys… I mean you and Lily, that is… might’ve…”

Would you spit it out already?

Finally, after a long pause, she did: “I was just afraid of what you guys thought. About Monty, you know? He’s not a bad person, and he’s not a bad club president either.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Of course.” I didn’t think Monty was a bad person, and I doubted Lily did either. He was cool. Maybe a little high strung, but I couldn’t blame him given he’d been trying to get this club off the ground for almost three whole years. He definitely wasn’t a bad person. Had she seriously called me all the way out here just to tell me that? I sure hoped not.

Her eyes went wide then, and her mannerisms went fidgety. It was funny. I’d taken her for the composed type since we’d first met the other day. First impressions weren’t everything. She started talking, fast, like she was nervous about something. “Th-that’s a relief. I was just thinking you guys might have, uh, gotten the wrong impression about him, you know what I mean?”

Couldn’t say I did.

“Anyway, all I wanted to say is that he’s truly a good person, and he’s really important to this club. I don’t think we’d know what to do without him. He’s a great president. And he’s…”

She was going on and on and on, spilling words like a kettle too long on the boil, every one of them about Monty.

Come on, I thought. I was mostly ignoring the specifics of what she was saying and letting my mind meander. You call me all the way out here to hear this nonsense? The guy’s not even here.

Then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. Or a ton of feathers. Same weight, after all. If all she called me out here to tell me was this, and she was alone, then maybe that meant that all the effusive praise she was ladling over Monty was something she couldn’t say in front of anyone else. Something she would never, ever let her two clubmates hear in a million years.

And if that was the case…

I grinned, wide, a toothy slip of mouth bridging my ears practically. So that was the deal, huh? Should’ve known.

“Wh-what?” She stopped monologuing about Monty’s magnificence for a minute to look at me like I was a grass stain on her favorite shirt. So kind of like how most people looked at me. “What are you grinning like that for?”

What happened next wasn’t pretty. It was also entirely my fault. I just had to go and open my big mouth as usual, didn’t I?

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Wh-what?”

There you go. Answering a question with a question? And a “wh-what?” no less? That was all the proof I needed.

“Who? Me?” she said, trying to play the whole thing off. She was about as cool as a roaring jet engine. Obvious as one too.

“Yes, you.”

“Couldn’t be.”

“Then who?”

She didn’t have a comeback for that one. For some reason, I was enjoying this. Maybe it was because I was frustrated we hadn’t found Teabone yet. Maybe it was because I needed to blow off some steam after the nuisance Sheldon was being earlier on. Maybe it was because no matter what anyone tells you, guys always enjoy teasing girls, even me admittedly, and considering Tuesday was one of the few girls I could even talk to, now was my chance. Or maybe it was just because after the turns my life had taken recently, I was ready for someone else to suffer some public embarrassment for a change.

Whatever the reason, what I did next was something I should never have done. Especially not to someone trained in the art of asskicking. But of course, I just had to go and open my big mouth.

“You like him,” I repeated. Even in the pale moonlight, I could tell her face was turning red.

“S-stop.”

“You like him,” I said again. What was my plan in saying all of this, you ask? Good question.

“S-stop that, Wallace Wade. I’m warning you. Just stop talking right now.”

“You like Monty. It’s so obvious,” I said in what I reckoned was the most sickeningly annoying tone I could possibly muster. I couldn’t shake the feeling that taunting her like this was bringing me one step closer to truly being the human trash that most people thought I was. Oh well.

Suddenly, my head imploded. Trash, meet compactor. My nose was a throbbing knob, hot with a gunky sort of wet, not water wet, but a sticky wet you could pick up and feel. And boy, did I feel it. It was like my head was the tip of a match, and I’d just been struck.

Probably because I had just been struck. Literally. By Tuesday. Or rather, by her fist, which, coincidentally, was the second last thing I saw before I tumbled backwards, hit the back of my head on the hard floor, and blacked out.

The first last thing I saw made a match for the moonlight: stars. As the floor below collided with my cranium, my vision exploded into punches of light.

It was the first time I’d ever been hit by a girl. I didn’t know it at the time, but it wouldn’t be the last.

It hurt like hell.

Serves me right I guess, I thought.

And then I couldn’t think anything at all.

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Kidnapped Kitten! (Part 9)!
To be continued in Part 10!