Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music! (Part 8)

“What?” asked 🔴. "What're those stares for?”

Just what was this thing? It was kind of… gross. My skin crawled and tingled like it was trying to shimmy off my body into a crumpled mass of shed.

Greg and Evan were more scared than creeped out though, considering what happened next.

“Wh-wh-wh-what is that?” For once in his life, Evan had peeled his eyes away from his phone. They were stuck wide open, glued to the red orb.

“I dunno, man, but I’m not gonna stick around to find out. If this is some kinda ghost, we’re toast.” Right as Greg said it, lightning finally cracked the rainy sky, followed by a drum of thunder.

A shriek shrill enough to sting your ears punctured the air like a dart. I take back what I said before. Greg’s voice was that high.

“Oh, god! Forget being backup!” he said. “It’s time to back the #$%& out!” Greg bolted. He was out the door and halfway down the hall before he even finished his sentence. He always did have a ridiculous fear of the supernatural. Ghosts and stuff. Ever since that one sleepover when we were kids when I used a flashlight and a sheet with two holes cut out of it to prank him in the middle of the night.

Ok, yes, his phobia was my fault. In my defense, I didn’t think he was going to jump up onto the bed and then wet it. If I did, I wouldn’t have tried scaring him to begin with. Mostly cause it was my bed.

In a second, Evan was gone too, half a step behind Greg.

The Three Muskrateers were down to one. I wanted to follow. Tried to follow. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move my body. I was frozen stiff. A deer in headlights. I wasn’t scared. Just weirdly mesmerized by the big bubbly bulb.

And then, 🔴 popped.

A rubber-smooth splat of red shriveled and shrunk till it turned to a tiny ball, wrinkled like a walnut, an imploding mass of polymers and sweeteners and food coloring.

And then it disappeared into a mouth.

A girl’s mouth.

A girl’s mouth that just so happened to be inlaid into a girl’s face. Which balanced atop a girl’s neck. Which stretched down and connected to the rest of a girl’s body. Which included hands judgmentally gripping hips, arms angled into boomerangs of impatience.

She stood there, chomping and smacking her gum — what the 🔴 had been made of — like it was nobody’s business.

Then, she blew another 🔴 and popped it. This time, she didn’t let it get nearly as gargantuan.

“Want some?” Still smacking, she forked a fist in my direction and unfurled it to show me just what she was chewing.

Xtra Hot Triple Bubble Gum. Ghost Pepper Flavor.

“Made with real FIRE! Burns tastebuds off to freshen breath FAST,” the pack read.

“No thanks. I kind of like my tastebuds the way they are.”

“Ok,” said the girl. She dropped the gum pack into the pocket of her jacket, a pink and white varsity As she did, her nine-inch (probably) nails, plastered pastel-bright with polish and stickers, clicked together loudly. The rest of her looked just as dramatic, a weird mix of sporty and gaudy. Her hair fell past her shoulders, flecked here and there with little motes of damp from the rain.

Then she took the brain-wrinkly gum blob out of her mouth and pressed it onto the tabletop. Just gummed it right onto the cardboard. She out pulled a pack of cigarettes, plucked one out, then whipped a lighter out of her other pocket and started smoking.

“H-hey, are you serious?” I said. I knew people tended to use the Old Building to smoke, but did she really have to do it in here?

“About what?” she asked, like it wasn’t obvious.

“You squished gum onto my desk for one. And for another, you just lit up.” Forget what I said about not being able to talk to girls. I was too angry to care at this point.

“Uh, yeah? Who’s gonna stop me? You?”

“...”

“Thought so. So, what do you want? Let’s be fast here. Places to be and all.” She was twirling a few strands of hair around a finger lazily. The smoke smelled awful, reminded me of being stuck around grandpa as a kid, test subject to all his absurd experiments. Outside, cascades of water beat the window panes. The downpour was constant, like a metronome.

It was the only sound for a while.

“...”

“Gross.”

“Gross?”

“Your stare.”

I wasn’t trying to stare at her. I just didn’t have half a clue what was going on. I was dumbstruck, and my brain was moving about as fast as frozen pudding. Even more so because I actually knew this girl. Or rather, I knew of her. Everyone did, practically. She was either a junior or a senior — I didn’t know which — but she was one of the most popular girls at school.

But what was she doing here? I almost couldn’t believe it, but there was only one explanation.

“Are you… Contraire?”

“Ew. Yes. But don’t say that name. No one calls me that.”

“Then what do they… err, what should I call you?”

“Eyes.”

“Eyes? Just Eyes?”

She nodded and hummed something, either an “Mhm,” or just a “Hmph.”

But wait… hang on. Eyes? Eyes as in…? No way. Could she possibly mean…?

“Are you slow? Hellooo?” When I didn’t say anything in response, she waved her hand back and forth in front of my face, and snapped a few times for good measure. How she managed it with those nails was anyone’s guess. And besides, she didn’t have to be so rude. Not like I could help my confusion. My mental bandwidth was still stuck processing what she had just said. Because if my hunch was right, by “Eyes,” she actually meant…

She blew smoke, sighed. That was my line. Took it right out of my mouth, practically. I could already tell that this was going to be the most exhausting round of questioning yet.

“What do you not understand?” She folded her arms into a pink and white varsity pretzel. “God, you’re dumb. For someone who’s supposed to be a sleuth, you’re not too sharp, are you?

Not as sharp as her tongue, that was for sure. Or those nails. I imagined her playing violin with those things, a set of pastel spikes crisscrossing the row of strings and slicing into the taut hairs of her bow. How she managed to play well at all was beyond me.

If what Mr. Treble said was any hint, maybe she didn’t.

“And ” She pinched her nose. “Do you guys really work here? The room’s a…” She didn’t even finish — didn’t even have to say “dump” or whatever she was trying to get at. Cardboard table. Unshaded ceiling lamp, practically busted. The other decorations Lily and I had tried to spruce the place up with weren’t much to write home about either. I knew HQ wasn’t in the best shape.

But we were doing the best with what we were given. And anyway, isn’t it at least kinda comfy?

She scrunched her nose up and frowned.

Apparently not.

“Look,” Contraire said. Her eyes turned to slices and her gaze to pure judgment. Suddenly, I found myself looking every which way but hers. “You seem confused, so once more: everyone calls me Eyes. Not… not…”

“Contraire?” I offered.

“Yes. That. Never say that name. Ever. Understood?”

I nearly flinched when she said it. She was getting angry, and I couldn’t tell why. The best guess I could hazard was that she hated her name.

“Understood?” she repeated.

I nodded. Hard.

Well, I thought, this is going fantastic. I’ve already been reduced to a stupid yes man. Right about now would be a nice time to show up, Lily!

I instantly hated myself for thinking that. For having to 👉depend👈 on her so consistently.

Well, no more. No, I had to do this myself, get whatever info I could out of Contraire on my own, come hell or high water.

One teensy little problem though. Plan A (questioning her straight up) was tantamount to pitting my fragile psyche in a cage match with her severity. Guess who the favorite was.

The backup (Greg and Evan) had hightailed it cause they couldn’t tell a bubble of gum from a ghost.

And plan B (getting the lowdown on Striking Eyes from Contraire) was also a bust because if my hunch was right, Contraire and Striking Eyes were probably the same person.

Oh wait. That was three problems. Even worse.

This sucked.

Like, really sucked.

Like, actually, really…

Hey. Wait a second.

This didn’t suck.

Contraire and Striking Eyes were the same person. (Probably.)

This was amazing.

This meant I had Striking Eyes right where I wanted her.

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music (Part 8)!
To be continued in Part 9!