Total lies down in the center of the lobby.
“What are you doing
now
?” I ask.
Total begins hitting the floor with his
arms and legs.
“A
temper tantrum
?!” I shout.
“Now? Just
because you didn’t get to use the tub?”
But Total doesn’t listen.
He just keeps flailing at the ground.
And looks like a mutant moose in full car-
diac arrest.
“What is it, Timmy?” asks Molly. “What’s
going on?”
“Somehow we have to get back upstairs.”
“But we’ve been kicked out of the hotel.”
“I realize that, Molly,” I say between grit-
ted teeth.
“But we have an emergency situation
on our hands.”
“Timmy, they’ll arrest us!” cries Molly.
“I have a plan,” I answer.
“We are going to spend a lot of money,” I tell
Molly Moskins as we walk through the streets
of downtown Chicago.
“Oh, how fantastical!” she says. “But
how?”
“Your debit card,” I tell her. “The one you
told me about at the E-Z Daze Motel.”
“My debit card?” she answers. “But my
parents said it’s only for emergencies.”
“Molly, we’re on a cross-country trek
to catch a felon! I think that qualifies as an
emergency!”
“I guess you’re right,” she replies.
We walk past a bookstore that takes up an
entire city block.
“Wopell’s,” says Molly, reading the sign.
“Look at this place. It’s huge. Let’s buy books!
Tons of books! Books on fighting crime!”
“We’re not buying books, Molly Moskins!
And besides, I know everything there is to
know about fighting crime.”
“Then we should go to a restaurant and
buy the fanciest, most romantic dinner in
Chicago!” she replies.
“We’re not buying any of those things,
Molly Moskins!”
“Then what are we buying?” she asks.
“First we’re buying bonbons so that
we don’t have any more meltdowns from
You-Know-Who.”
“Then what?” she asks.
“Then we’re buying other stuff.”
“Why’d we have to buy costumes?” asks Molly.
“Because this is how we’re getting back
into the Drakonian.”
“So you’re Meriwether Lewis?” she asks.
“Right. The guy with the funny name.”
“And I’m the woman who guided them?”
“Correct,” I answer. “Sacaga-something.”
“But why do we have to be dressed up as
them
?” asks Molly. “Why couldn’t I just be a
kitty cat?”
“Because it would look rather strange for
a four-foot-tall cat to stroll into a hotel lobby,
Molly.”
“But won’t this look strange, too?”
“No, it won’t look strange! This is where
Lewis and Clark came.”
“I don’t think they came to Chicago,
Timmy. I think they went to Oregon.”
“But surely they stopped in Chicago.”
“Why would they stop in Chicago?” asks
Molly.
“Probably for the pizza,” I answer.
“I didn’t think of that,” says Molly.
“You don’t think of a lot of things. The
point is that people in Chicago are
used
to see-
ing people like this.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Of course,” I reply. “We’ll fit right in.
And when we try to get into the Drakonian,
the employees there won’t think twice.”
“Oh, God, leave me alone,” says Emilio, the
doorman.
“I knoweth not what you speaketh of,” I
answer. “I am Meriwether Lewis.”
“Seriously,” says the doorman. “I’m gonna
have a nervous breakdown.”
“We. No. Here. Before,” says Molly, trying
to sound like the Native Americans she’s seen
on TV.
“Please go away,” says the doorman. “I
swear to God. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Assuredly not, ye fair gentleman,” I
answer. “We good souls just needeth rest from
our long journey acrost this grand continent.
Haveth ye any idea how far that is?”
“Is. Far,” interjects Sacaga-something.
“Oh, God,” says the doorman. “Why are
you doing this? If I have one more incident
like the last one, I’m done.”
“Give. Room. Us,” says Molly, turning
decidedly stern. “Or. Me. Shoot. Arrow.”
Molly pokes him in the side with her
finger.
The doorman jumps.
“Sacaga-something!”
I shout. “We come in
peace! We do not threaten doormen!”
“Well, you didn’t say anything about that,”
Molly answers, her feelings suddenly hurt.
“How am I supposed to know if this Sacaga-
something was nice or mean?”
“Stay in character,” I whisper to Molly.
“Stay in character.”
“No!” says Molly, throwing off her wig.
“You’ve hurt my feelings.”
“Oh, God, no,” mutters the doorman. “No,
no, no, God, no,
please
.”
Molly’s lower lip starts to tremble.
The doorman fumbles frantically through
a large key chain.
“Do not cry. Do not cry. Do
not cry,”
he chants.
“Forgive us,” I interject, trying to calm the
situation. “The gentlelady hath been stressed.”
“I don’t even HAVE any arrows, Timmy!”
shouts Molly, now in full meltdown.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happen-
ing,”
repeats the doorman.
“Surely, the fair lady meant to call me
Meriwether
!” I assure the doorman.
“There!” he cries, yanking a long silver
key off the chain.
“Side alley. Blue door. I didn’t
see you. You never spoke to me.”
I grab Molly by the hand and race for the
alley.
“Godspeed, ye fine gentleman,
”
I yell back
toward the doorman.
Who slumps forward onto his doorman’s
station. Head down. Eyes tightly shut.
Which is good.
Because he could not have taken what flew
by him next.
We get to our old floor via the back staircase
and, once there, have no trouble spotting a
hotel room with an open door.
“The housekeeper left it open!” I whisper
to Molly. “Just like she did with that room she
was cleaning before. See, there’s her cart, and
now she’s in the room across the hall!”
Molly pouts as we peek out of the stairwell
entrance down the long hotel hallway.
“But I can’t be sure that’s Kumquat in
there,” I add. “It could be one of the Drakonian’s
other housekeepers. So we can’t risk being
seen.”
“You were mean to me,” replies Molly.
“Not now, Molly Moskins. If we hurry, we
can sneak into the open door before the house-
keeper closes it again.”
“You humiliated me in front of the door-
man,” she says. “And now I want an apology.”
“This is a very delicate moment in the mis-
sion, Molly. We just need to get into that room
and we’ll have our base. Our headquarters.
The nerve center for our operation to catch
Corrina Corrina, whether she is hiding in this
hotel or some other.”
I think for a moment.
“We also need a tub for the fat bear.”
“I don’t care,” she responds, much too
loudly. “I want an apology.”
I think about appealing to her concern for
Yergi Plimkin, but I fear another meltdown.
So I swallow hard, aware that a detective
must sometimes sacrifice personal pride for
the sake of a professional operation.
“Mistakes were made,”
I whisper to Molly.
“Is that an apology?” she asks.
“It’s a detective apology,” I answer. “It’s
all we’re allowed to give, by state law.”
“Then that’s good enough for me!” she
says. “I don’t want to violate any laws.”
“Good for you,” I tell her. “That means
you’ve been criminally rehabilitated.”
“I know,” she answers. “Now let’s break
into that room!”
We sneak into the open hotel room without
incident, and already someone is complaining.
“No, it’s not as big as the one we had in
the suite,” I explain to my polar bear. “But
it’s the best I can do under these trying
circumstances.”
Total moans and rolls his eyes.
And the eye roll is the one thing I can’t
take.
“Why, you ungrateful oaf
! We just risked
life and limb getting you back into this hotel!
All so you can have your stupid little bath and
your stupid little bonbons!
And you have the
audacity
to roll your eyes at me?
That does it!
Go sit in the closet! You’re getting a polar-bear
time-out.”
Total stomps into the closet and slams the
door.
I look over at Molly. She is using her shoe
to pound a thumbtack into the wall.
“And what are
you
doing?” I ask Molly.
“I’m putting up a picture of Yergi,” she
answers.
“What for?” I ask.
“To inspire us during our investigation.
Won’t this be our headquarters?”
“Yes, Molly,” I answer. “But inspiration’s
for amateurs. We’re professionals. Now, I have
to make a phone call. So be quiet.”
But there is no quiet.
There is a scream.
It is Kumquat.
And she had been happily listening to her
headphones while cleaning the room across
the hall.
Until someone went in search of a better tub.
Scared, Total fled back into our hotel
room.
And suddenly we have an angry Kumquat
on our hands.
“Who told you two you could sneak into
this room?” barks Killer Katy.
“We’re crime-fighting,” I answer. “Like
you.”
“
I’m
cleaning a hotel room.”
“You’re
pretending
to clean a hotel room,”
says Molly Moskins.
“No. I’m really cleaning a hotel room.”
“You don’t have to keep saying that, Killer
Katy,” says Molly. “We won’t give away your
secret.”
“Kids,” she says, rubbing her eyes, “you
have to go back to your parents, whatever
room they’re in. You can’t stay here.”
“We don’t need it for very long,” I tell
Kumquat. “Just long enough to find and arrest
Corrina Corrina.”
“So Yergi can get his books,” adds Molly,
pointing to the picture of Yergi on the wall.
“Yes, well, this isn’t your room,” answers
Kumquat.
Molly stands beside the housekeeper. “It is
if you say it is, Killer Katy Kumquat. You can
do anything.”
“Little girl, I am not Killer Katy Kumquat.
My name is Talia. I’m just a housekeeper.”
“Oh, my,” says Molly. “I’ve heard of this.”
“Heard of what?” asks Kumquat.
“Of low points for superheroes. In the
movies, they call it the Dark Night of the Soul.
It’s the point in the film when the superheroes
start to doubt themselves.”
“But I’m not a superhero!
”
barks
Kumquat.
“I didn’t think so, either,” I reply, “until
I saw you perform the Toilet Seat Wrapper
Miracle.”
“That was not a miracle!” cries Kumquat,
rubbing her forehead.
“It’ll be okay, Killer Katy,” says Molly.
“Remember
Dark Night of the Soul.”
“Oh, my goodness,” says Kumquat, plop-
ping down upon one of the beds. “I give up.”
“There, there,” says Molly, patting her on
the shoulder. “You are noble and brave.”
Kumquat rests her head in her hands.
“Listen,” mutters Kumquat, “I’m going to
leave now and finish cleaning the room across
the hall. So for now, you can keep playing. But
when you’re done, I need you to go back to
your own room and back to your parents. And
please, don’t make a mess. I don’t want to have
to reclean this room.”
“Thank you, Killer Katy,” says Molly.
Kumquat lumbers out of the room.
“Killer Katy,” says Molly as Kumquat
reaches the door.
“What now?” answers Kumquat.
“Just one more thing.”
“What?”
“When you perform your feats of super-
hero magic, how do you do it?”
Kumquat sighs. “I wave my magic wand,
kid.”
Molly gasps.
“I knew you had a magic
wand!”
she says. “Can you show us? That is, if
it’s not a secret or anything.”
Kumquat walks out of the room and
returns with something in her hand.
“Ta-daaa,” she says, waving her magic
wand for Molly. “Are you happy now?”
Molly is so astonished, she can barely
speak.
But not me.
I am focused.
And as Killer Katy Kumquat departs our
headquarters, I know what I must do next.
“I need more information on Corrina Corrina,”
I tell Rollo Tookus over the phone.
“Timmy! Where are you?” ans
wers Rollo.
“Your mom called my mom! Everyone is
freak-
ing out
!”
“I have no time for hysterics, Rollo. I need
more information on Corrina Corrina.”
“Oh, my God!” he chants. “Is Molly with
you?”
“I cannot get into specifics, Rollo.”
“Hi, Rollo!” chirps Molly, who is listening
to the call on the bathroom phone.
“Molly! Hang up the phone!” I yell toward
the bathroom.
“She
is
with you!” says Rollo. “Oh, my
God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
“Okay, you listen to me, Rollo Tookus!” I
shout into the phone. “I’m on the verge of solv-
ing the biggest case of our generation! But I
don’t have much time! Now, I need informa-
tion! Where is Corrina Corrina staying?”
“Oh, my God,” he responds.
“
Where are
you?”
Before I can answer, Molly begins to
respond. “We’re at the
—”
Her voice abruptly cuts off.
I rush into the bathroom.
And find her stuck in the toilet.
“I was sitting on the toilet and I fell in,”
she says.
But of course she didn’t fall in.
She was pushed.
By an ex-partner who knew enough to
save the day.
“I owe you one,” I tell the big guy, and
grab Molly’s bathroom phone.
“Timmy! Timmy! Are you still there?”
asks Rollo.
“Yes, I’m still here,” I answer.
“But not for long!” says Molly, grabbing
the phone back from me.
“Wait!”
pleads Rollo.
“What are you doing?” I ask Molly.
“This,” she says, hanging up the phone.
“What? Why?” I ask.
“Because,” she answers, “I know where
Corrina Corrina is.”
Molly’s dramatic announcement that she
knows the whereabouts of Corrina Corrina is