I stare at Corrina Corrina.
“How do you know all that?” I ask.
“She’s really, really splendiferously
smart,” says Molly. “It’s impressive.”
There is an awkward silence, followed by
the sliding of a bear’s rear end down the roof
and into a rhododendron bush.
“He’s having a tough month,” I offer.
I turn back toward Corrina Corrina.
“Tell me one thing,” I say, staring into
her coal-black eyes. “Why in the name of
Rudolph’s red nose would you help me? You
want to destroy me.”
“Destroy you?” answers Corrina Corrina.
“I mean, you annoy me, and, no, we can’t
afford flying elephants, but destroy you? Who
has time for that? I just want to get a good
grade.”
“Fine,” I say, pondering the twists and
turns of her purported logic. “So why not
just make Tom John John’s film?”
“Because Tom John is more annoy-
ing than you. And more important, his
climactic scene involves a five-minute kiss
between you and me.”
“How repugnant!” I cry.
“Yes,” she says. “No offense.”
“You should know that Rollo says we
once kissed,” I add.
“Rollo is wrong.”
“Rollo is always wrong,” I say.
“And excuse me,” interjects Molly
Moskins, “but Tom John’s script now has a
five-minute kiss between you and me also.
And that’s very offensive. Because I’m the
real love interest in the film, and my kiss with
you should be significantly longer than her
kiss with you. No offense, Corrina Corrina.”
“None taken,” she answers.
“But no matter how many times I asked,”
Molly continues, “Tom John refused to
change his precious script. The pompous little
runt.”
“I see,” I answer as I stare at the two
headless snowwomen. “But there is one
thing that still troubles me.”
“What is it?” asks Corrina Corrina.
“If we are really going to join forces and
find this script, it would mean I’d have to
come out of retirement.”
“So?”
“So the gods told me to retire. They
gave me a sign.”
“Can’t the gods give you a new sign?”
asks Molly. “One that tells you to not retire?”
“I suppose,” I answer. “But what?”
I search my mind. And immediately
think of one.
“Tomorrow. After school. Don’t be late,”
I tell the headless snowwomen.
“What does that mean?” asks Corrina
Corrina. “Are we meeting you somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Well, an address would be helpful.
Because right now it could be anywhere in
the world.”
“Right,” I answer, impressed by her
attention to detail. “I’ll give it to you at
school.”
When we meet at the appointed place the
following day, my fellow detectives are
stunned.
“What is this place?” asks Molly Moskins.
“My secret office,” I answer. “Well, one
of many.”
“Looks like a storage unit,” says Corrina
Corrina.
“Yes.” I nod. “Intentionally.”
I lift the large metallic door and invite
them inside. “Sit on any box. They’re all just
props.”
“Okay, Timmy,” says Corrina Corrina.
“The first thing I want to know is why you
didn’t save a copy of your script on the
computer.”
“I never save anything on a computer.”
“Why not?”
“Russian hackers,” I answer.
“Wait,” she says. “So you had just one
physical copy of the script and now it’s gone.”
“Stolen,” I correct her. “By any one
of three suspects. Four if you count Santa
Claus.”
“We probably shouldn’t count Santa
Claus,” says Molly.
“Wrong,” I tell her. “Think about it.
How does he get all those gifts?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bingo.”
“Whoa,” says Molly. “That’s why you’re a
detective and I’m not.”
“So who do you see as the other
suspects?” asks Corrina Corrina.
“Crocus, Dundledorf, and my father.
Oh, and the elf. He may be in a criminal
conspiracy with Santa Claus.”
“So five, total,” says Molly.
Corrina Corrina rubs her chin. “You
really think your dad is a suspect? Because
that seems kind of odd.”
“It is. But my father is a fathomless
mystery to me. So I can’t count him out.”
“A fathomless father,” repeats Molly. “I
don’t even know what that means, but it
sounds wonderful.”
“You need to focus,” I tell her.
“I’m trying,” Molly says. “But it’s hard
with all that beeping.”
I listen and hear a faint beep.
“It might be a smoke alarm,” I answer.
“Are either of you smoking pipes?”
“No,” answers Molly.
“Then I don’t know,” I tell her. “And
who cares, anyway? You’re supposed to be
focusing on the suspects, Molly.”
“Right,” she answers. “Santa bad.”
Corrina Corrina stands and begins
pacing.
“We need to canvass the bar,” she
says. “Look for clues. Question witnesses.
Because somebody there knows something.”
“Yes,” I answer. “And the two of you
need to do it immediately. Before any
witnesses get knocked off or the place gets
burned to the ground.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” asks Corrina
Corrina.
“Can’t. My father and I aren’t on
speaking terms. He knows I suspect him.
And he’s not happy about it.”
“So we have to do this on our own?” asks
Molly.
“Yes. And you’ll want to blend in. So
when you get there, sit at the bar and order a
whiskey neat.”
“Neat. What’s that mean?”
“I think it’s when the bartender is extra
tidy.”
“Okay,” answers Molly. “But where is
this bar?”
“Other side of town from here.”
“That’s far,” says Molly. “Too far to
walk.”
“You won’t be walking,” I answer.
“I’ve never ridden one of these before!” cries
Molly as I run behind her and Corrina Corrina.
“It’s fast!”
“Yes!” I answer between labored breaths.
“The Segway is notoriously fast!”
Which I know because it used to be my
Failuremobile.
Before my mother sold it.
Or so she said.
But the truth was that she hid it under
some blankets.
In a storage unit.
looking for a fax machine.
“And we have permission to use it?” asks
Molly.
“Perhaps,” I answer, trying to keep up
with the lightning-quick vehicle.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“Listen, Molly, when you’re a detective,
information like that is on a need-to-know
basis.”
“Well, I need to know what to say if we
see your mother.”
“If you see my mother, make yourself
large, wave your arms around, and bang on
pots and pans if you have them.”
“That’s what you do if you see a bear,”
interjects Corrina Corrina.
“There are a lot of similarities,” I answer.
I watch as the two of them turn the
corner toward my father’s bar. And I walk
the rest of the way home by myself.
Where I find Marco the Mailman.
“Hello there, Timmy,” says Marco. “You
want to take the mail in for your mother?”
“Yes, Marco. I always like to see if there
are any checks from clients. I have many
that still owe me vast reams of cash.”
“I see,” he says, handing me the mail.
“No one likes a deadbeat,” I add.
“No,” says Marco.
I scan through the mail and see bills for
my mother and catalogs for Dave.
And a letter addressed to me.
“Well, this is suspicious,” I announce.
“There’s no name on the return address.”
“So?” asks the mailman.
“So as a detective, I can tell you this is
most likely a bomb.”
“It would be a very thin bomb,” says the
mailman. “Because that envelope’s no thicker
than a slice of bologna.”
“Yes,” I answer. “It could be explosive
bologna.”
I make Marco stand back as I open the
envelope.
And it doesn’t explode.
“Do you have a pen I can use?” I ask the
mailman.
“Yeah,” he says, handing me the marker
clipped to his front pocket.
So I use his pen and hand him back the
letter.
I head back to headquarters, which we have
recently rechristened.
Or WHEN for short.
And inside I find Total.
Total sits in here every day hoping for a
miracle fax to spill out of the fax machine.
One from his brother saying that he
didn’t really mean it or that he’s changed his
mind or that he loves his little brother.
But it doesn’t come.
And the days are long.
“Listen, Total, I’ve been thinking. Rather
than give up, let’s write back to your brother
to see if we can change his mind.”
He shakes his head.
“It’s better than moping,” I tell him.
“What good does that do?”
But he just groans.
“Okay,” I tell him. “You can at least help
me find the stolen script. Maybe send some
faxes for me?”
I turn on the fax machine and the error
light flashes.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” I ask.
So I open the top of it.
“There’s a jammed piece of paper in
here,” I tell him. “No wonder it’s not
working.”
So I pull out the piece of paper and go to
throw it in the trash can, but the text catches
my eye.
And I know immediately what it is.
“Hey, Total, stand up for a second.”
But he is too pouty to move.
So I hop up on the ottoman and stare down
at his protuberant belly.
“You don’t have an outie! You have an
innie!” I yell.
Total lifts his head.
“This is the second page of the fax you
got. It just got stuck in the machine. And the
guy is describing a brother who has an outie
belly button. But you have an innie!”
He grabs the paper with both paws.
“Total, he’s not your brother.”
The news that Total’s brother is still out
there to be found taxes the already strained
resources of WHEN.
“We are simultaneously in search of a
stolen script and working on a missing-
person case,” I tell Rollo Tookus on our walk
home from school the next day.
“But we have two film rehearsals this
week,” argues Rollo. “One this afternoon and
one on Thursday.”
“Yes, that’s why Molly is going to report
back to me on the Thursday one and you’re
going to report back on today’s.”
“But what about you?” he says. “They’re
gonna notice you’re not there.”
“Tell them I’m sick.”
“But I hate lying.”
“You’re not lying. You’re just buying me
time to find my stolen script. I mean, really,
what’s the point of rehearsing Tom John
John’s script anyway? It’s all gonna be for
nothing when we find mine.”
“It’s still lying,” he says.
“You’ll do great,” I reassure him.
But he doesn’t do great.
As his report later shows:
Molly’s account was at least more
thorough, though not without flaws.
But then she tacked on this addendum:
And
she
could
not
keep
from
editorializing.
With the bar investigation safely in the
hands of Corrina Corrina and Molly, I
decide to head to the city library to do more
research on Total’s missing brother.
But with both investigations heating up,
assassins lurk. So instead of exiting out the
front door of our townhouse, I jump from the
roof into the rhododendron bush in the front
yard.
And encounter a questionable character.
“You okay?” asks my dad.
“I’m fine,” I answer from within the bush.
“Can I help you?”
“I don’t need any help.”
I crawl out of the bush and brush off
some rhododendron leaves.
“Listen, Tim—Timmy—I just came over
to talk because—”
“I can’t,” I say as I get up and walk past
him. “I have important things to do. Much
more important than this.”
“Just
two
minutes.
One
minute.
Anything.”
“You should probably go to your bar,”
I call back to him. “You don’t want to get
fired.”
“Too late,” he says.
I stop. And turn around.
“You got fired?”
“Yeah. And it wasn’t because of you or
the dumb light.”
“What was it?”
“These two little girls came by looking
for the script. One with a bow in her hair
and one who smelled like a tangerine.
Figured they were friend
s of yours.”
“Associates.”
“Associates. So I let them in to look
around, and the tangerine-scented one walks
right up to the bar and orders something
called a . . .”
“She was never good at following
directions,” I mumble.
“Anyway, Dundledorf sees the whole
thing and cans me. Boom. Just like that.”
I nod.
“But it’ll be all right,” he says. “My
friend got me a part-time gig at that Kooky
Kringle’s tree lot down the street. Selling
Christmas trees.”
“And how are you doing?” he asks.
I pause before answering.
“I should probably tell you that our
investigation has uncovered a past history
that I supposedly had with this Dundledorf.
It’s confidential, but I can tell you she had it
in for us.”
My dad smiles. “So she knew we were
crime-fighting partners?”
I stare at him.
“No,” I respond. “Nobody thinks that
anymore.”
I turn to walk off.
“Listen, Timmy, wait. Let me just say one
thing and I’ll leave you be.”
“I have to go.”
“Just one more minute. Really. Just
one.”
He sits on the front lawn beside me.
“This whole dad thing, you have to
understand, I have no idea what I’m doing.
None. I wasn’t there when you were young.
I should have been. But I wasn’t. And I can’t
just go back and start over. You’re not a baby.
You’re—”
“Nine.”
“Nine. Nine years old. How do I make
up nine years?”
I watch as he picks a few blades of grass
and tosses them into the wind.
“All I can do is try,” he continues. “But,
Timmy, please, give me a chance to screw up.
I’m new to this. And when it comes to being
a father, I have a lot to learn.”
I watch as the grass flutters away.
Timmy Failure It’s the End When I Say It’s the End Page 7