Timmy Failure: The Cat Stole My Pants
Page 5
mother.
“A crime of fashion,” I add.
“Sir, whatever happened,” says my mother,
“it will never happen again. I assure you.”
“Well, thank you,” he says before pausing.
“And I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Patty,” says my mom.
“Well, thank you, Patty,” he says, shaking
my mom’s hand.
“And thank you, Steve,” she answers.
“Ron,” he says from behind clenched teeth.
“My name is Ron.”
“What is wrong with you lately?” asks my
mother. “First throwing cereal all over the
floor. Then being rude at dinner. Now tossing
water balloons.”
“I deny everything,” I answer.
“And what’s this about a book report that’s
due?” she adds. “I got an e-mail from Corrina
Corrina.”
“An e-mail?!” I exclaim. “Did you open it?”
“Yes, I opened it.”
“Oh, good gosh,” I exclaim, slapping my
forehead. “Mother, this is Corrina Corrina
we are talking about. Her e-mail was no
doubt infected by a computer virus. I’m sure
that by now your laptop has spontaneously
combusted.”
“Or is somehow hatching evil spiders,” I
add.
“My laptop is fine, Timmy. Now tell me
about this book report. Is there a book I need
to buy you?”
“No, Mother. It is all under control.”
“You promise?”
“Yes,” I answer. “Now I may go? I think
I heard a knock on the door.”
“Funny,” she answers. “I didn’t hear
anything.”
“Well, I did. Perhaps it’s your new best
friend, Speedo Steve, no doubt back to spread
malicious falsehoods.”
And so I open the front door.
And find a telegram lying on the doorstep.
It is a profound blow.
And one that immediately threatens my
academic future.
So I think fast.
And instantly hatch a Plan B.
An elaborate step-by-step scheme that
involves the following:
So I burst into the bedroom and find my
unpaid intern.
“You have done something unforgivable,”
I announce to Emilio Empanada.
“What’d I do?” he asks, looking up wide-
eyed from the cardboard box that now holds
Edward Higglebottom the Third.
“You have shown fear during a mission,”
I announce. “It is the one unforgivable sin of
detective life.”
“So what now?”
“I forgive you.”
“I thought it was unforgivable.”
“Don’t confuse yourself with the details,”
I explain. “The point is that your forgiveness
is conditional on whether or not you can do
something for me.”
“What is it?” he asks.
“It cannot be discussed here. For my
nemesis has shown the ability to penetrate
this very room. As such, he could hop out at
any moment and kill us both.”
Emilio gasps.
“Also, my mother is in the next room. And
if she hears me, I could be grounded.”
Emilio gasps again.
“Meet me at global headquarters in one
hour,” I whisper.
And leaping out of the window, I slide
down the balcony support and race toward the
sea.
I pace the dock of Failure, Inc.’s Temporary
Global Headquarters, waiting for the arrival of
my unpaid intern.
And as I pace, I stare out at the sea, hoping
for a glimpse of Cuba and the fat bear who has
betrayed me.
Fearful of the unprofessional behavior I
might see.
“I hope that you get no money!” I yell from
the end of the dock. “And no chicken!”
I shake my fist toward the sea.
“Ohh, the guilt you must feel! ” I add.
But all I hear in response is the gentle lap-
ping of the waves upon the pier.
And a voice.
“I don’t feel any guilt.”
I wheel around.
And there, in the Top-Secret, Heavily-
Guarded, No-One-Can-Ever-Know, Super-
Hidden, Hyper-Vigilant, All-But-Impenetrable
Temporary Global Headquarters of Failure,
Inc. . . .
Is my mother.
“What are you doing here?!” I cry.
“I came to talk to you,” she says.
“Oh, great. So Emilio Empanada told you
all about my plans for the book report and now
I’m dead.”
“What plans for the book report?”
I pause.
“You must have misheard me,” I answer.
“I said ‘beak report.’ I’m having Emilio count
all the bird beaks on this island. The boy loves
his chickens.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
says my mom. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Well, you obviously talked to him,”
I answer. “Who else would tell you where
the Super-Hidden Global Headquarters was
located?”
“I can see you from the house, Timmy. In
fact, every house on our block has a view of
this pier.”
I make a note in my detective log.
“Fine. So you’re a spy,” I tell my mother.
“No,” she says. “But that is sort of related
to why I’m here.”
“Aha!” I cry. “You used to be a spy and
now you’re swimming to Cuba and fleeing.”
“No,” she says.
“It’s farther than it looks,” I warn her.
“But best of luck. And thank you for raising
me.”
She shakes her head.
“Timmy, Emilio is the person who’s been
writing you those notes.”
I stare at her.
“That can’t be.”
“It is,” she says. “But don’t blame him.
Blame me. I was telling Dave how bored you
were down here without your detective work
and Dave was saying that it would be fun to
give you a detective case that could be sort of
a game that you could play and—”
“It’s not a game, Mother,” I interrupt her.
“My profession is not a game.”
“I know, I know,” she says, brushing the
hair from my eyes. “But the point is, I think
Emilio overheard us and just decided to do it
himself.”
“But that can’t be. There was a note that
just fell out of a random book.”
“His book,” she says. “He put it there.”
“But there was the graffiti in the men’s
room,” I continue. “He didn’t even use the
men’s room.”
“Yes, he did,” says my mother. “Right
before you got there. Then he walked out of
the women’s room to throw you off.”
“Balderdash!” I cry. “I am a trained detec-
tive. I am aware of my surroundings at all
times.”
“Well, if you recall, that was a rather tense
moment at the table. Maybe you let your guard
slip for a second.”
“My guard never slips,” I remind her.
“Emilio’s obviously lying. How do you even
know all this?”
“Emilio talked to me. Right after you left
for the pier. I think he just felt guilty for let-
ting it get this far and he didn’t know what to
do, so he came to me.”
I quietly pace the dock.
“I promise that nobody meant you any
harm,” she says as I watch the waves. “Not
me. Not Dave. And especially not Emilio.”
I watch as a pair of dark-black cormorants
dive from the sky and into the shallow green
waters.
“Do you understand?” she asks.
I pause before answering.
“I do,” I answer.
“I’m glad,” she says.
And I wheel around to face her.
“Emilio Empanada is a double agent.”
U.S. Route 1 begins in the remote town of Fort
Kent, Maine, and meanders 2,369 long miles
through fourteen different states until it finally
finds its way to the balmy coral island that is
Key West, Florida.
There, the longest north-south highway in
the United States comes to a dead stop.
The literal end of the road.
And so, if you are villainous or treacher-
ous and escaping the law via the nation’s high-
ways, Key West is the farthest south your tired
car can go.
And as such, like a pool filter catching
fallen leaves, Key West snares more than its
fair share of international criminals and spies.
None more prominent than the one I have
tied up in my bedroom.
“Who are you working for?” I ask the
suspect.
“Nobody,” says Emilio.
“Who put you up to this?” I ask.
“Nobody,” says Emilio.
“Who told you to write those notes?” I ask.
“Nobody,” says Emilio. “Timmy, I did it
all myself. I’m not working for anybody.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Emilio Empanada.
Because if you’re not going to answer my ques-
tions, you leave me no choice but to get rough.”
I turn on the television in front of him.
“What are you doing?” asks Emilio.
“Putting on daytime soap operas,” I
answer. “It is the worst torture a human being
can endure.”
I look to see if he flinches. Remarkably, he
does not.
“The first show will be Days of Our
Miserable Lives. When it concludes, you will
watch The Misguided Light, and then another
and another and another, until you decide to
get smart and talk.”
“Okay,” he says.
“This could get ugly,” I warn him.
“It’s fine,” he answers. “I’ll just sit here
and watch soaps.”
So I pause to make a note in my detective
log.
I use Emilio’s soap opera time to write a reply
to my wayward polar bear.
I return to the interrogation room, bracing
myself for the tortured squalor that the sub-
ject will be living in after three uninterrupted
hours of watching soap operas.
“Ready to talk?” I say in a steely-cold voice
as I kick open the door.
“I sure am!” he answers.
“Jennifer is going to have John’s baby!”
he beams. “And John’s not even her husband!”
I am stunned into silence.
“And Kelly and Dave—they’re getting
divorced. I thought they could make it, but not
now. She shot him with a harpoon!”
He swivels his head back toward the
television.
“That woman on the screen now is Anna.
She’s a LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! But she
may have drowned when she fell off Scott’s
boat. And if so, good riddance!”
“You were not supposed to enjoy the soap
operas, Emilio Empanada!”
“Sorry,” he says. “But they’re so scandal-
ous! Now untie me so I can feed my chicken.”
“Fine,” I say, untying him. “But if you’re
not gonna talk, then it’s no more soap operas
for you!”
“Timmy,” he says as he feeds Edward
Higglebottom the Third, “there’s nothing more
to say. I wrote the notes. Me. Nobody else.
There is no criminal. No nemesis. No enemy
to find.”
I sit on his bed and watch as he feeds his
baby chicken.
“And I’m sorry,” he continues. “Really
sorry. I just did it because you didn’t seem
happy here and I thought having a mys-
tery to solve would be fun. But that’s it.
Whether you let me watch soap operas or not,
there’s nothing else to say. No secrets to tell.
Nothing.”
He holds out his baby chicken.
“Want to hold him?”
“No,” I answer. “They attack.”
And as I say it, there is a loud CRACK
against the bedroom window, followed by a
heavy THUD upon the verandah.
So we rush to the window and look down.
And see a conch shell.
The kind you use to hear the soothing
sound of the ocean.
But there is nothing soothing coming from
this shell.
There is only a note.
We rush to the only captain I know—the sea-
man who trusted me with his boat.
“Maybe we should tell your mom or Uncle
Dave about the conch note,” says Emilio
Empanada as we run along the beach to the
wharf. “Because I didn’t write this one, Timmy!
And this could be dangerous.”
“You’re with a trained detective,” I tell
Emilio. “So there’s nothing to worry about.
Plus, if anything goes wrong, I have the Fists
of Fury.”
“Do you even know where this captain
friend of yours keeps his boat?” asks Emilio.
“Well, we took off from the big harbor on
the north side of the island.”
Emilio stops running. “That’s miles
from here, Timmy. We need to take a taxi or
something.”
“Are you kidding? We don’t have money
for a taxi.”
“Don’t we still have forty dollars left from
selling the table?”
“From selling the books, you mean. But no.
It went to my former business partner. He’s
currently blackmailing me to get free chicken.
It’s an ugly international affair, and I’d rather
not get you involved.”
“Well, fine, but we can’t walk to the port.
It’s hot. And humid. And I don’t want my shirt
to get perspiration stains.”
“Oh, fine,” I say, giving up. “We have one
other option.”
“What is it?” asks Emilio.
“This is wonderful!” says Emilio. “I can’t
believe our ticket stubs let us ride for the full
week.”
“It’s not wonderful. It’s humiliating. Plus
/> we have to listen to the train engineer say the
same stupid things all over again.”
“And to our left,” says the engineer, “we
have a museum dedicated to all the many ship-
wreck treasures found off the coast of Key West
through the years, the most famous being in
1985, when the wreck of a Spanish galleon was
found, yielding an estimated four hundred mil-
lion dollars in gold and—”
“Did he say treasure?” I ask Emilio.
“Yes,” answers Emilio. “I tried to tell you
how incredible it was when we heard it the
last time. But you said it was boring.”
“Yes, because last time he didn’t say any-
thing about treasure.”
“Yes, he did,” says Emilio.
“No, he didn’t,” I reply.
“Yes, he did.”
“No, he didn’t.”
1
“Fine. I don’t want to argue,” says Emilio.
“It’s interesting either way.”
“It’s more than interesting,” I answer,
cool as a sea cucumber. “It’s the answer to our
mystery.”
1. He did not. You can go back to that chapter and check.
And if he did, that is only because someone has altered
your book to make me look bad. Shame on whoever
doctored your book.
“Captain Largo Spargo is a grizzled, salty
sailor of the sea,” I tell Emilio Empanada as
the bright-pink Tooty Toot Train lets us off
at the harbor. “He’s been shipwrecked, shot,
capsized, and captured. And he’s given as
good as he’s got, once stabbing over six dozen
mutineers. And don’t stare, but I think he has
a wooden leg.”
“Whoa,” says Emilio, no doubt imagining
the heavily scarred captain.
“I should add that he drinks rum by the
barrel, smokes tobacco by the bale, and has a