Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music! (Part 20)

I care about her.

It was literally that simple: I cared about Lily. Why hadn’t I realized it till now?

And if she’ll forgive me, I still want her by my side.

But sorting that out would have to wait. For now, I had a bigger mistake to correct: someone else’s. Namely…

“Vance, it’s over,” I continued. “Snarl and snap all you want — you’re just a cornered dog now. Once I open up those lockers, the evidence will be plain as day.”

It was a bluff of course. The only way I was getting those lockers open was if I pried them door from hinge. Fat chance with my noodle arms.

But Vance didn’t need to know that. So for now, my course of action was clear: bluff, bluff, bluff like my life depended on it.

Considering how much bigger and stronger Vance was than me, it actually might have.

Whatever. No backing down now. This was actually the perfect job for Wallace “Never knows when to shut his mouth” Wade, truth be told.

“Give it up, Vance,” I said. My voice was shaking. My legs were spaghetti. Couldn’t let him see that though. If I did, I was done for. “Those lockers are as good as mine. And so are the violins inside. The violins you stole!!”

Suddenly, he was calm. What he said next spelled out why. “Yeah. Sure. If you can beat me there.”

Excuse me? “If I can beat you what now?”

“Beat me there. To the lockers. I get there first and the violins aren’t yours. They’re mine. For good.”

Oh shit. How had I not thought of that? Vance was on the track team. I stopped to catch my breath after going up the stairs. We were practically two different animals, separate species, apex predator and prey. Do I even need to say which one I was?

Meaning it was time to bluff like there was no tomorrow. The second I let him realize he fully had the upper hand was the second I failed. So I had to do everything I could to keep him here, and keep him talking while I thought of some way to weasel out of this and get those violins.

“So, ok, you’re faster than me,” I said. “So what? All I have to do is tell everyone about your underhanded tricks and—”

“And what? They’re my bandmates, idiot. My friends. And that means they’re mine to manipulate and deceive and mold however I want. Who do you think they’re going to believe: the Vance Valiance, or some chump who showed up one day and couldn’t even find a box of violins for them?”

Damn. He was right. There was no one else here. No witnesses. No one to back up any of the ammunition I had against Vance. If I showed up with empty accusations instead of actual evidence, I’d be the one in the hot seat. Even Striking Eyes would probably believe Vance over me, and she’d literally seen him lugging the stolen instruments firsthand. Letting this chance slip through my fingers would mean letting Vance get away with everything.

“Well, Wallace Wade? What do you say? You versus me. A race to the finish, to finish this. Last one to the lockers is a rotten egg.” He hunched into a perfect crouch and began counting down. “On your mark…”

I gulped.

“Get set…”

Well, that was me, done for. I could almost hear it now: the spinning record of my RED career scratching to a halt. You’re probably wondering how I got myself into this mess.

So was I.

Where had I gone wrong?

Oh, right. The very beginning.

Haha. Well, it was nice knowing you, world. All that grandstanding about state sports… All this time, I’d been the one in most damning state of all: denial. I scrunched my eyes shut. I couldn’t watch him take off, leave me in the dust where I belonged. I just couldn’t. It was too pathetic a sight, even for me. I’d been so in over my head it wasn’t even funny. I was screwed before I even started. Finished before I began. Dead meat from the get—

“...Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

And there it was. The single long syllable whose two letters spelled my complete defeat.

“...Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

There it was again. No need to rub it in. Go on. Get. Sprint on out of here, Vance. Get those violins and get away with everything.

“...Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

Oh come one! Put me out of my misery already.

Just as I was thinking that, the single repeated syllable morphed, grew into more, into muffled shouts from above, a racket of weird sound that I could just barely make out, and a voice cutting through it all.

A voice that I recognized. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

“… Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, Boss! Get out of there! Duck for cover, Boss!”

“What’s going on up there?” Vance said. His loud voice echoed a dozen times over, slingshots of sound in this echo chamber of a pool.

Then, all at once, the echo broke.

Because all at once, the ceiling — the skylight — shattered.

Daggers of glass collided with the ground and exploded into razor-sharp shrapnel. Awful, screeching, penetrating sound engulfed everything. I dove for cover. There practically was none. I managed to army crawl under one of the pool chairs they had set up to the side for some reason. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. All around me glass fell in knife-like spikes and thin, sparkling slivers sharp enough to cut you clean open.

Vance wasn’t so lucky. Trying to dive clear of danger, he slid onto the wet tile, only to be struck smack on the skull by a giant glass sheet that had remained shockingly intact.

He stumbled around for a second, and then, the last thing he did before he collapsed into an unconscious heap was yelp “Owwwwwweeeeeeeeee!!”

With two whole exclamation marks.

Luckily, he’d gotten hit by the broad, flat side of the sheet — not one of its sharp edges, thank god.

Still, he was a sitting duck out there, lying in a rain of glass…

“Ah, dammit!” Against my better judgment, I dove out of cover, into the stinging rain. With all the might I could muster, I dragged his limp body under one of the other chairs, then dove back under my own. I wasn’t unscathed. My whole body stung. I knew I had gotten hit. There was no way not too — the shards were too fine, the deadly rain too thick.

I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes.

Seconds that felt like minutes passed until finally the noise flattened all at once to silence. As if to fill it, something hit water like a slap and started flailing.

“AaAAHAhHahgaghahHGAGHAhHAhJKKrakkakfj;skjjlkzdbfkjdsjkfdsb!!!!!!!!!! Help!!!! I can’t swim!!!!!!!!!! Booooooooosss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was Lily.

I bolted out of my chair shelter. In one second, I understood what had happened. For some reason, some unfathomable reason, Lily had fallen from above, breaking through the skylight in the roof — hence the glass cascade just now.

Now she was in the pool.

Flailing.

Drowning.

Before I could even think, I was moving, shoes crunching the litter of broken remains, yelling for her to hang on.

Luckily, I knew what to do.

Because I had been in this exact same position just a few days ago. Back when I first questioned Vance. I had fallen into the pool just like this.

“Lily! Reach out your hand!”

“This way?”

“No, the other way! Away from me. You should be able to touch the bottom on that side.”

“Oh. Yes, indeed. Right.”

The splashing stopped as Lily stood up.

“Phew.” I wiped something off my brow — sweat or water, I couldn’t tell. “That was close.”

Lily nodded. “Thank you, Boss. And I apologize. My intention was to keep watch over you from above and assist in subduing the perpetrator with a swift and decisive aerial drop kick should the need arise.”

“Ready to drop in at a moment’s notice, huh?” Honestly, it came as a shock. I never thought she’d be back on the case, or that she'd be keeping watch from the roof of all places. And I sure as hell never imagined she’d make an entrance like this.

“Yes. Thanks to you, Boss, I have come to understand that I often conduct myself with an air that elides my presence, rendering certain situations uncomfortable. This time, I hope sincerely that I was able to make my presence satisfactorily felt.”

Jesus. That’s what this was about? From zero presence to the most shocking entrance you could come up with. That was the one and only Lily Lilac for you. Swinging the pendulum so far in the opposite direction that she made a bigger splash than anyone else — literally.

I didn’t even mind though. It was good to have her back.

Apparently, she felt the same. “Oh, Boss, how I have missed you,” she said. Go figure. “Did I… hit the mark, so to speak?”

I looked at Vance, still knocked out, but seemingly safe for now, under the chair. Then I turned back to Lily. “I would say so.”

“Thank goodness. Then my aim has improved.”

I pictured her as she was when we first met, big dollops of chili trailing down her stained apron. I nodded. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t totally true. She’d probably wanted to dropkick Vance himself but instead landed in the pool. So she still had a ways to go if she really wanted to improve that aim of hers. Still, no two ways about it: she had saved my skin yet again.

One thing was still bothering me though. “I’m surprised, Lily.”

“Why, Boss?”

“Well… you know. You just hadn’t been at HQ for so long I thought you might not come back. Cause of how much I criticized you.”

Her head angled a few degrees to the side. “Nonsense, Boss. You and I are partners, now and always. I would never abandon you for such a flippant reason. I realize I have not made my presence apparent these past few days, but I have been nearby, watching over you all the while. The truth is that I just couldn’t stand to face you while conducting myself in a manner as poor as you described that day, a manner so cold and inhuman, so unsatisfactory to all.”

Seriously? She was kicking herself over all this? It was almost sad. I was the one to blame. Any irritation I still felt toward her melted away in an instant then.

“Consequently,” she continued, “I aimed to change myself before returning to your side. I feel now that I have succeeded, even if to merely a small degree. That is why you may rest assured of my assistance, Boss. No matter what happens, even if you hate me, I will always be by your side.”

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music (Part 20)!
To be continued in Part 21!