Murder, My Tweet From To Tattered Casebook Of Chet Gecko, Private Eye

Sneak and Ye Shall Find Never take on a wacko as a client. It wastes your time, and it annoys the wacko. Somehow I had forgotten this. And so, recess found me tailing a parakeet's boyfriend to see if he'd been stepping out on her. (That's detective talk for seeing another dame on the side. And a dame is a girl. And on the side is...on the side.) I shadowed T-Bone LaLouche through the halls of Emerson Hicky Elementary. Like any good detective, I used kids, bushes, and the odd teacher as cover. (And believe me, we have plenty of odd teachers.) T-Bone LaLouche was a lean and shifty ringtail. Ringtails have a cat's body, a fox's face, and a raccoon's tail that's been dipped in goo and slammed in a door. Oh, and one other thing: If you startle them, they give an ear-piercing shriek and shoot this funky musk from their butts. Don't ask me how I know that. I watched as T-Bone stopped near the library to chat with a simpering mole in a tutu. Heads together, they seemed awfully chummy. Could this be his extra-credit baby-cake? When I leaned around a skreezitz bush for a better look, T-Bone suddenly glanced up. I dived for cover-kronch!-right into the bush. Through the spiky leaves, I could see the ringtail frowning my way, but he went back to his confab. Soon, the mole waved toodle-oo and toddled into the library. T-Bone took to his heels. I tagged along. In the hall by the cafeteria, the ringtail approached a fluffy European rabbit. (I could tell she was European by her spiffy scarf and her world-weary ways.) Miss Fluffy leaned against a pole and toyed with her whiskers. T-Bone cozied up. She passed him something-a love note?-and they giggled like a couple of teenage girls at a Brad Spitt movie. Man, this guy wasn't just two-timing my client; he was three-timing her. Sensing something, T-Bone raised his head and started to turn. Fa-zoop! I scrambled up the wall, out of sight. In my racket, sometimes it pays to be a wall-crawling lizard. I crept along quietly. Then my foot slipped. Strange. We geckos can scale almost anything, including glass. I shook the foot and crawled closer...just across from the cuddly pair. A strange sight distracted me: squatty machines being wheeled into the cafeteria. And they were wearing what looked like...aprons? Was head chef Mrs. Bagoong getting some new cooking gizmos? I shook my head. Better focus on the job at hand. Miss Fluffy was saying, "...after you do me this favor, you and I can..." Someone had taped a WET PAINT sign to the pole she was leaning on. Silly rabbit. Didn't she know- Fffffwwip! Suddenly, everything slipped. I scrabbled desperately, clawing a paper sign from the wall. It read, WET PAINT. Duh. The pole hadn't been painted; the wall had. "Whoooah!" I cried, plummeting like a duck after a pond-scum sandwich. SKREONCH! A shrub broke my fall. "AAIIEEE!" T-Bone shrieked, like an air-raid siren singing opera. Under his scream, something went ffrappp! The rabbit and I clapped our hands over our ears. A second later, we covered our noses instead. The ringtail had blasted a paint-peeling musky stench, fouler than a roadkill casserole. It spread down the hall, clearing kids and teachers with its potent funk. Miss Fluffy fled. Eyes watering, I coughed and hacked and staggered to my feet. With as much dignity as he could muster, T-Bone stood tall and glared at me. "It's your own fault," he said. "Maybe you shouldn't startle kids like that." "Maybe you shouldn't have had the cabbage-and-cheese breakfast burrito." The ringtail snorted. "Oh yeah? Maybe you shouldn't sass someone bigger than you." He loomed over me. "Oh, really? Maybe you shouldn't be two-timing your girlfriend," I said. "My girlfriend?" he asked. "Yeah, your bubby-cakes, youHale, Bruce is the author of 'Murder, My Tweet From To Tattered Casebook Of Chet Gecko, Private Eye', published 2005 under ISBN 9780152052195 and ISBN 0152052194.