The Boy Detective Fails (19 page)
The boy detective waits beside the Mumford children, watching as the sky turns from a blanket of blue into a cloud of sparkling light. It is so very late, but still they watch and wait and watch and wait, Billy telling them about his strange adventures, the mysteries and clues leading up to him solving his favorite cases—the Haunted Candy Factory, the Phantom Lighthouse, the Singing Diamond, the Unbreakable Safe. When he is finished with his stories, they all look up and suddenly the night sky is a fading blue and black canvas of twinkling silver stars. Very soon, Mrs. Mumford brings them hot cocoa and asks if they would like some blankets and everyone shouts
Yes!
She takes a seat beside them on the porch and tells Billy she is glad he is out there watching over the children. Immediately he blushes, but in the dark no one sees it. Mrs. Mumford sits beside her children and Billy under the blanket and all four of them stare up at the sky, waiting for some kind of reply.
That evening, after the Mumford children and their mother have fallen asleep near Billy’s feet, a single burst of blue-white fire explodes in the sky. With a powdery burst of sparkles, comes a single response:
Y-E-S.
Billy hurries off the porch and, searching through his pockets, finds Professor Von Golum’s immobility raygun and fires erratically into the sky. Just as the outlines of the single letters begin to fade, the strange ray surrounds them with a momentous glow, and they stay: fixed, frozen, temporarily unbroken in the air. Billy nods and, making sure the Mumford children and Mrs. Mumford are safe, rushes across the street to Shady Glens.
The boy detective walks down the short hallway of Shady Glens, past Professor Von Golum and Mr. Pluto, who are both wearing Billy’s clothes. There is the Professor in the blue cardigan and there is Mr. Pluto wearing one of Billy’s orange owl ties. They are both grinning, their teeth gray and crooked.
Professor Von Golum whistles, winking at him. “See that, Mr. Pluto, old boy. There, in front of you, is a genuine specimen: a true-life, yellow-bellied coward in the flesh. Look, look what he did to my arm!” the Professor howls, his bandaged left wrist hanging fractured by his side.
Billy walks by silently.
“Go on, boy detective, give us your wittiest response. I am daring you. Go on, Billy, please surprise me. Go on, say
anything
.”
Billy ignores him, walks into his room, which is unlocked. His room has been ransacked. He sighs, staring into his closet. It is evident that all of his other clothes are now missing. All he has now is what he is wearing. In this moment, he considers suicide, then decides it would only be worse if he tried but failed again.
What the boy detective does is this: He crosses his small, dusty room and holds the lady’s pink purse in his hands, staring down at it. With it next to him, he does not feel so bad about everything. He smiles, thinking of the look on her face as the lady in pink danced. He decides that tomorrow he will find her, without fail. Without fail, he will find her and return the purse to her and ask if perhaps they might talk about something very nice. He will ask if she is maybe not doing anything else that evening, and, well, maybe if she would … He does not know the words he will use, but decides he will ask her something and hope that she will then smile in return.
The boy detective says his prayers and whispers goodnight to his owl alarm clock. He does—honestly, every night. He says it like this: “Goodnight father, goodnight mother, goodnight bedroom, goodnight Mr. Owl Alarm Clock,” like it is a first, middle, and last name. He switches on the light and immediately it begins snowing. A soft white haze fills the room, as Billy, thinking about the lady in pink, soon falls asleep.
It is not long before he is awakened, as the boy detective is every night, by Mr. Lunt’s screams.
This time, however, he jumps out of bed and follows the sound down the hall to Mr. Lunt’s room before Nurse Eloise can arrive. He throws open the door, switches on the light, and catches Professor Von Golum and Mr. Pluto, both dressed up as ghosts in sheets, standing over Mr. Lunt’s bed, moaning quietly. Professor Von Golum howls and tries to run past Billy. Billy grabs the sheet as the Professor heads into his room. Mr. Pluto only stands there, grinning. Mr. Lunt, an old frightened fellow with a droopy white mustache and wrinkled white pajamas, looks up, shaking.
“My Lord! I thought for sure it was that no-good ne’er-do-well partner of mine cursing me from beyond the grave, trying to find out where I had hidden our last bit of treasure from a vault robbery back in ninteen-ought-nine!”
Billy shakes his head, angry, turning off the light, dropping the sheet, heading back to his room.
It is at that moment that the owl alarm clock begins ringing.
The boy detective, at work, is having a hard time concentrating. “Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah, blah, a, blah.”
“Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah, blah, a, blah.”
“Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah, blah, a, blah.”
“Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah, blah, a, blah.”
The only thing he can think of is the lady in pink: her face, her eyeglasses, her small hands. He says her name to himself again and again: Penny, Penny, Penny.
In the bathroom, he winks to himself and says, “Hello, Penny. Penny, my name is Billy. It is a pleasure meeting you, Penny,” before Larry enters and asks him exactly what he thinks he is doing.
A surprise: The boy detective is on the bus again. Like always, it is raining, but let’s pay no mind. He is looking for the lady in pink. She is not on the bus. He gets off at the next stop and waits and hops onto the next bus that comes. He searches and searches and she’s not on this one either. Billy gets off the second bus and stands again, waiting in the rain.
The boy detective gets on and off buses all night: climbing aboard a bus, looking for Penny, then hopping off. He looks more and more sad and disheveled as the hours pass. His owl tie is wrinkled and hanging lopsided around his neck. The owl tie has all but given up.
Finally, Billy gets on a bus and Penny is there, sitting by herself, a lovely blur of pink staring out the window sadly. Billy takes out her purse and hands it to her. She slowly takes it, very, very nervously. She gets up to run off, but Billy stops her.
“Please, wait … I won’t tell anyone. I won’t tell. You can trust me.”
Penny nods. Billy sits beside her, silently, for a long time. Then after many, many quiet moments, Penny speaks in a whisper. It is clear she is trying to shout, but the sound of her voice remains only a quiet peep: “You … you scared me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You scared me very badly. You shouldn’t go about grabbing at people. They might have a good reason for what they’re doing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, I could call the authorities on
you
! Grabbing people like that. I could. I really could. But it’s none of my business what you do. I mind my own business. I mind it. I think you should apologize to me. You really ought to.”
“I’m very sorry.”
The lady nods. Billy sits beside her silently for a long time again, and then the lady speaks, whispering, looking at the pink purse.
“Thank you for returning this to me. I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
“Shouted?”
“I’m sorry I raised my voice. It’s just that this purse means a lot to me.”
“It’s very … pretty.”
“I … I don’t own any other color clothing. A pink purse is hard to find.”
“Pardon me?”
“I … I don’t own any other color clothing.”
“Besides pink?”
“Pink and brown. They’re my favorite colors.”
“They’re very … pretty.”
“Why did you follow me?”
“I … I don’t know. I saw you and … you look … My name’s Billy.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Penny.”
“Hello.”
The two of them sit in silence for a few moments. Penny itches her nose and then whispers:
“I … I went four days without speaking to anyone this week. My longest record is thirty-one. Thirty-one days without talking to anybody.”
“Thirty-one days? That’s an awful long time.”
“I don’t like talking with people. You never know what they’re thinking.”
“You’re like me,” Billy says.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Do you like jigsaw puzzles?”
“I love jigsaw puzzles.”
“So do I. Ha.”
When the lady laughs:
enchantment
.
Billy nods and smiles. “Maybe, maybe you’d like to go somewhere with me, to sit maybe. We don’t have to talk, specifically. We can just sit somewhere, a diner, a café, anyplace. Would you like to go somewhere with me?”
“My sister goes with men to nightclubs. She wears black lipstick some nights.”
“We could go to a nightclub if you like. It might be too late now though, maybe.”
“I think … I think I’d like to go somewhere with windows.”
“Windows? OK, I think I know a place.”
The boy detective and Penny sit across each other in a small yellow diner, staring down at their coffee. Outside it is sunny. People walk past the windows, heading to work. Billy and Penny whisper very strange secrets to each other:
“My sister is a pianist and named her dog after me.”
“I had a sister,” Billy says. “She … she died a long time ago.”
“Was she pretty? I think she would be very pretty.”
“Yes, she was. And smart. She loved animals too. She’s been gone for more than ten years now.”
“Well, I like animals too, but I am allergic to most kinds. I had a cat but it left me.”
It is then that the boy detective notices that Penny is wearing a wedding ring.
“Are you—are you married?”
With this, Penny, upset, runs out of the diner. Billy stands, watching her go. She has left her purse and jacket and scarf. Billy only wavers there, staring at her things, perplexed. Penny slowly returns, creeping back to the table. She sits down, straightens her glasses, and begins speaking, staring at her coffee.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, my husband … my husband was in a horrible automobile accident. He’s … he’s … he’s been dead a long time, but … it’s still upsetting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“OK.”
“OK,” the boy detective repeats.
“Yes, well, yes.”
“Maybe I should …”
“Would you like to know why I took all those pens?”
“All right.”
“I don’t know why. I really don’t. There is something wrong with me.”
“It’s OK.”
“No, no. I’d like to ask you something.”
“OK.”
“Do you think there’s any way for people to stop themselves from doing bad things?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Because I don’t think so. I don’t see a way.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“I should go home now.”
“Would you like to meet sometime and talk again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, could we maybe meet here again, some night?”
“OK. Only please don’t scare me again. I didn’t like that.”
“OK.”
“Billy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to tell the police what I’ve done?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Billy.”
Penny and Billy sit across from one another, staring silently.
“May I walk you to the bus stop?” he asks. “We can walk past the park.”
“OK. If you like.” She laughs, nervous. “But do not try and kiss me.”
In our town, there is a secret spot where you can still see the stars at night, believe it or not. It is the only spot like that left, unclouded by the rumbling factories, uninhibited by the dwindling skyscrapers rising nearby. It is a good place to go to walk and talk in whispers. Following the little hill that rises from the park to a small clearing which overlooks the statue of the armless general on his bronze steed, most of us later remember this spot as the first place we knew we might be in love.
What is the boy detective’s greatest fear?
The bus driver: impolite passengers.
The mailman: attack dogs with hideous fangs.
The police chief: masked men in dark alleys.
The schoolteacher: children with weapons.
The banker: counterfeiters.
Definitely counterfeiters.
The rocket scientist: The deathly quiet of
outer space.
It is one month later and outside it is raining. It is perfect now, the rain, because it is a good reason for the boy detective and Penny to sit a little closer—but they do not touch. At the bus stop, on the street corner, beneath a faded red awning, Penny and Billy stand beside one another and smile at each other silently, happily, their hands almost, almost touching. They are barely speaking. Together they are trying hard to think of something funny and smart to say, but somehow they are so nervous they cannot, and yet their silence is perfect—it is the perfect silence of anticipation, the anticipation before the very best kiss ever.
It is a month of these moments: riding beside each other on the bus late at night, after Penny has finished her job cleaning the small white offices, after Billy, his owl tie loose around his neck, waits for her at the bus stop. He thinks of a knock-knock joke but then forgets it by the time Penny arrives and they sit beside each other, riding to the diner where they will drink many cups of coffee and stare down into their mugs, droplets of rain falling from their noses. Once—at the perfect, exact time—Billy catches a drop with the tip of his finger as it gently runs from the soft end of Penny’s eyelashes, and that touch is enough to make each nearly panic with love.
On the bus route home, it is still raining—because it is
always
raining—but these two hardly notice now. Inside, beside one another, Billy and Penny smile silently, listening to the sound of their slow breathing. Their knees are almost touching—they are so close to touching. Billy and Penny laugh nervously and when finally it happens—when their knees finally touch—losing their breath, they must laugh to keep from kissing each other madly.
