4 Brownie and the Dame by C.L. Bevill

Author:C.L. Bevill [Bevill, C.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Brownie and the Sticky Situation

Tuesday, April 3rd

The girl’s name was Lissa Boomer, and she was the youngest of the Boomer’s children. She was also the victim of the crime. An item had been wretchedly stolen from her. Accordingly to Lissa, it was an especially valuable item.

“P-p-precious!” Lissa wailed forlornly. “P-p-priceless! Ain’t ‘tother one like it in the whole wide w-w-world!”

“A diamond?” Brownie demanded.

“A book?” Janie asked.

“An antique?” Brownie said.

“A weapon belonging to your granny?” Janie pushed. “Old gun maybe?”

“A p-p-penguin!” Lissa blubbered. A full frontal boo-hoo followed in close procession.

There was a clear what-shall-we-do-moment where Brownie looked awkwardly at Janie. Janie stared back and sighed heavily. She put her bike down and went to hold the younger girl in her arms. “There, there,” Janie said, patting the other girl’s back, and it was clear that the words were hard for her to say, “we’re on the job. We’ll try to find your p-p-penguin.”

“D-d-do you think you c-c-can?” Lissa asked mournfully.

Brownie took his notepad out again. The pencil was AWOL. Finally he located the pencil in a pant pocket where it had broken in half. He shrugged and used the part with the sharpened end to jot down some facts. “Can you describe Mortimer to us?”

Lissa wiped snot and tears away and then shamelessly used Janie’s “Support your local police” t-shirt as a convenient Kleenex. (See? If Janie hadn’t thrown herself on that grenade, it would be me, right there, with boogers and teardrops all over my good suit.)

“He’s about this high,” Lissa said and put her hands about a foot and a half apart. “He’s black and white. He’s got an orange beak. And he’s ever so s-s-soft!” She began to cry again.

“Black and white with an orange beak,” Brownie muttered as he manipulated the shortened pencil. We could get a sketch artist. Tape it on street posts. I could get Auntie D. to offer a reward.

“When did Mortimer go missing?” Janie asked gently. She continued to pat Lissa on the back, even while she tried to pull the soggy shirt away from her skin.

“Y-y-yesterday!” Lissa keened. “I was playing with him in the yard. Then the goats starting making a fuss, and I went to see what was going on. But all I saw were a bunch of billys who had fallen on their sides. Then I went to tell Daddy. When I got back to the yard, M-m-mortimer was g-g-gone!” She couldn’t talk for a while because she was busy bawling her baby blue eyes out.

Dames, Brownie thought derisively. Then he wondered how he would feel if someone took something important to him. Ifin someone stole my stun gun, I would feel like crying, too. He stifled his impatience and tried to find some compassion. Even Sam Spade has a heart, see?

“Mortimer isn’t a real penguin,” Brownie said as knowledge finally came into his head.

“Well, duh!” Lissa snapped. “He’s a plush p-p-penguin.”

“Stop being stupid,” Janie said to Brownie, patting Lissa’s back as Lissa rubbed her soaking face into Janie’s t-shirt.

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