Pun Detectives and the Case of the Kidnapped Kitten! (Part 12)

With impending failure on the brain, we began the stakeout. A whole lot of nothing filled the first few hours, before sunrise. At the very least, Lily had had the common sense that I hadn’t and had brought some folding chairs for us to sit down in. At around 6:00, she said it was time for breakfast, and just like that, she was halfway to downing a technicolor tube that was already sweating in the morning sun.

Popsicles for breakfast huh? She sure did like those things. What had she said before? Oh, right. They kept her from overheating.

“Would you like one, Boss?” she asked when she noticed me staring, and then she procured yet another stick from out of nowhere. The magical mystery maid pocket strikes back. Strikes back against what? Beats me. Against general incredulity at its existence, I guess.

“I’m good,” I said. “You have it.”

“In that case,” came a familiar voice, “don’t mind if I do.” A fat hand shot toward the popsicle and nearly grabbed it from Lily’s grip, but she slid it out of the way at the last moment.

Lily gave the newcomer a look like he’d just committed the hidden eighth sin, and then dug into popsicle number two herself.

I turned to face our new companion. “Greg. You made it.”

“Yeah, dude. Just in the nick of time too,” Greg said. He tugged at his collar. “Gonna be a real scorcher.”

He was right. The sun’s pounding rays were already basically microwaving this morning. It was times like these when you wished that modern televisions still had dead channels so that the sky could match the color of one. It was going to be a hot one for sure. Thanks, global warming.

“Here you go, dude,” said Greg. He handed me an umbrella, silky and black, which I gave to Lily right away. I’d called Greg over to borrow his umbrella after Lily told me she’d forgotten to bring one. She’d spent the better part of half an hour rummaging around in her big bag and couldn’t find the one she thought she’d packed. She’d packed everything you could possibly think of, including a kitchen sink for some reason. But apparently she was missing her umbrella. Go figure.

“So,” I said. “What’s the plan with this umbrella? Fly in like Mary Poppins on a bombing mission and demand answers? Or wait, don’t tell me… is this a secret laser umbrella that can shoot deadly beams from its tip? Sheldon won’t know what hit him.”

“Dude,” Greg answered. “It’s a normal umbrella from my closet.”

“It is for shade,” Lily said nonchalantly. Now that Greg’s umbrella was safely in her mechanical hands, she didn’t hesitate to prop it open on her chair. Relief washed the worry from her face as she relaxed in welcome shadow. Extra caution against overheating, I guessed.

But really? That was all it was for? I mean, yeah, being comfortable is important, especially if you’re going to sit out in the sun all day, but now we were more conspicuous than ever, and it had me worried. This was a pretty upscale neighborhood after all, and we were loitering. Once more people were awake and outside, it was probably only a matter of time until we’d be told to leave.

Time wore one. Greg peaced out to go play video games with Evan. As morning melted to midday, I wished I could join him. Or that there was more room under the umbrella. Or that I wasn't such a numbskull around girls, because that way I may at least have been comfortable enough around Lily to stretch out into her shade and get out of the stupid sun. I was too nervous to sit next to her though. I even tried a couple times to will myself to do it, but you know how the old saying went: where there’s a will, there’s sure to be a won’t, right there alongside it. There was no way I could slide up right next to her on the same chair. As used to working with Lily as I already somehow was, I was still awful with girls. Especially when they were completely my type and wearing a revealing swimsuit. Kind of like Lily was right at that moment. Yeah…

Wait, what!?

My jaw plummeted. I didn't just double take. I triple took.

There, lapped in the pool of cool shade underneath Greg’s umbrella, was the one and only Lily Lilac. Reclined. Relaxed. Sipping what I assumed was a non-alcoholic drink that glowed like liquid neon through a bendy straw so twisted its turns would’ve worked better on a rollercoaster. Having the time of her life. But most importantly, and let me emphasize this: bikini clad.

Yes. Let me repeat it for good measure: bikini clad.

Jesus H. Christ with a side of fries.

I wasn’t sure whether I should look away or try to burn this image into my retinas forever, and so ended up trying — and failing spectacularly — to do both at the same time. So much for Wallace “always gets a word in” Wade. Not a single word came to mind or slipped from my mouth. Good thing too, or else I probably would have made an even bigger fool of myself than I usually did.

But somewhere deep within the cloudy soup that was my mind, I still had enough clarity to realize that I finally had an answer to my question from way back. Lily did wear more than just the maid costume.

Or in this case, less.

Far less.

Be still, my beating everything.

“Huh?” Lily looked my way. Not good. I could feel myself turning redder than a bloodsoaked beet at a ketchup convention. “What’s wrong, Boss?”

“Huh? W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-wrong? You mean, like, the opposite of right, right? N-nothing! Nothing at all. Yeah. Nothing. Let’s go with that.”

Slide to the left!

Slide to the right!

My eyes were dancing to an all-time classic. Try as I might to avert it, my gaze kept falling on Lily’s boo—

Ah…

AH……

AHH…………

AHHHCHHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. Stupid autumn allergies. Where was I? Oh, right.

—k. Her book. What? What did you think I was going to say? Under the shade of the umbrella, Lily was flipping through a book, and she was totally engrossed in it. As she turned a page I caught a glimpse of the cover:

Facial Expressions for Nitwits: How to Master the Art of Human Interaction.

An exclamatory bubble in the corner read:

Bonus: 42 ½-page spread on the dos and don’ts of stakeouts!

Wow. This book seemed oddly specific and applicable to Lily’s immediate interests.

Still, was now really the time to stick your nose in a paperback? We were supposed to be staking out Sheldon’s place after all. But our attentions were elsewhere: mine on, uh… well, something that sure as heck wasn’t the house, and Lily’s on reading the day away in a beach chair and bikini like we were at some sunny seaside strip on the coast of who-knows-what island. Probably somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle with my luck. At this rate, the stakeout was sure to fail.

Lily snapped me back to reality with a question. “What is that look in your eye, boss?”

“Look in my eye?” I said. I had a look in my eye? I didn’t think I had a look in my eye.

“Yes. It is a look that seems to say ‘Still, is now really the time to have your nose stuck in a paperback? We are supposed to be staking out Sheldon’s place after all. But our attentions are elsewhere: mine on, uh… well, something that sure as heck isn’t the house, and Lily’s on on reading the day away in a beach chair and bikini like we are at some sunny seaside strip on the coast of who-knows-what island. Probably somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle with my luck. At this rate, the stakeout is sure to fail.’”

“I was just thinking we’d better start paying more attention is all.”

“Then I must apologize, Boss. You see, as a robot, I have not yet been able to widen the breadth of my experience to acceptable levels. There is still so much that I do not know about the world, so much I have yet to see, hear, do, so many places to which I have never been. Since I have never had the opportunity to visit the seaside, my intention was to make the most of this visit to the curbside, as these two '-sides' appear comparable. Once again, I must apologize for my failure to commit to our mission. I know my reasoning is far from sound and must be hard for you to understand. Furthermore, I have come to the belated realization that aside from their few qualities that do coincide, the curbside and the seaside have little in common. You must think that I am crazy.”

“What? Crazy? Nah.” I shook my head. “I totally get it. You’re making perfect sense, Lily.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, the scorching-hot sun, the lack of space, people circling your location like buzzards, willing you to leave. Not to mention how uncomfortable it is. This sidewalk is almost exactly like the beach.”

“It is good to hear you say that, Boss.” Lily’s face softened, and I noticed the ends of her mouth extend, curl upwards into something that wasn’t quite a smile, not exactly, but was getting there. I guessed that expression book was coming in handy after all.

“Speaking of circling buzzards though…”

“So you have noticed it too?”

I nodded. How could I not? All around us were gazes, glares, stares like bullets telling us we didn’t belong. Telling us to get going. No matter how much like the seaside it may have been, this curbside was no beach. We were loitering in a residential area with a decked out setup that was definitely sending the wrong signals. Beach chairs, umbrella, a big bag full of everything you could think of and a lot more you couldn’t. People probably had no idea what we were up to. And when people have no idea what you’re up to, “no good” typically tops their guess list.

We couldn’t stay here any longer. The stakeout was a bust.

“Shall we get going, Boss?”

A long, deep sigh escaped me. “Yeah… I mean, we pretty much have to, right? And we didn’t get a shred of evidence either. Man, this sucks.”

In the blink of an eye, Lily was all packed up and ready to go — literally. She had packed up her book, Greg’s umbrella, her glass and bendy straw, and all the other stuff she’d brought with her, and slipped back into her usual maid outfit, all in the span of a single blink. She’d even folded up the chairs and stuffed them back into that unfathomably big backpack of hers too.

Wait. Hang on. If the chairs were already packed away, then just what was I sitting on?

Before the thought had even fully formed in my head, I dropped to the ground in a heap.

Just my luck.

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Kidnapped Kitten! (Part 12)!
To be continued in Part 13!