"Please!" the older girl insisted, dropping to her knees before her younger counterpart, and nervously glancing around the room though no-one was there. She looked back at her sister, her pink-red eyes pleading with the urge for the seven-year-old to stop crying. With her grip on her sisters' wrists now getting to a point that could actually be dangerous, the wailing stopped and the young one gave an enormous sniff. "Just calm down."
"But…" she said with a wobbly voice. "The two men ran away with Ka!" her eyes, same colour as her sisters' and indeed their fathers' began to tear up and the fifteen-year old sighed. Her little sister had been so attached to her Chao ever since the little green thing had bounded up to her in the street last year and never let go, and for it to be snatched now was something that must have ripped the little girl's heart out as well.
"I know, Lacier," the older girl said, her hands resting on the Chao-less girl's shoulders now. "I will get someone to find it for you," she insisted, lifting her head to look her sister's watery eyes directly. This hadn't been something she'd wanted to happen in the middle of a trip her parents had to take that left her in charge of her sister and her Chao, and not least because she was hopeless at trying to find things. Her sister seemed to have momentarily forgotten that, though, and began to cry again, wailing her next words at her sister.
"But I don't want anyone else to find Ka!" she cried. "I want you to find him Guyenne! You know how to look after him and hold him properly!" The bigger girl released her hold on her sister's shoulders and held her head in her hands. Finding a Chao in this area of the city was a simply Herculean task that a fourteen year old girl simply wasn't up to doing. But how could she explain that to a crying seven-year old who had lost one of her best friends in the 'whole wild world' as she would always say?
"Lacier, go and have a lie down. I'll try and sort something out, and I'll have dinner ready for when you wake up," the bigger girl said, her head hanging low and tears of her own beginning to form. She wasn't up to this sort of responsibility, and she needed some time to think. The younger insect nodded obediently, though continued sniffling as she waddled dejectedly to the sisters' shared room and closed the door behind her.
There was silence in the apartment for a few long minutes, broken only by noises through the numerous walls, but apart from that the teenager was alone and in a quiet place. Just as she really liked it. After experiencing the near silence for a few minutes, ruined only by the Kumara family at #42 below bellowing at each other about the food for tonight, she got to her feet and wiped her face with a green-tinted hand to wipe away her tears. Guyenne took in a few deep breaths of the air and nodded to herself.
"I'm going to get a detective to help me,"
she decided. That way, she'd get protection, a guide and not hurt her sister's feelings. The only problem was, as she realised, looking around the tiny apartment, was that she'd need to get a very cheap detective in to help. She'd saved up a lot of money that she had been hoping to spend on herself, but it needed to go somewhere else now. A lot, of course, being respective to the neighbourhood they lived in. Like most insects, Guyenne's family had been shunned by most of the 'normal' population and lived instead in the outskirts of the city with limited waste collection and electricity that seemed to be turned off at random.Guyenne herself had never minded about the conditions too much, having learnt from long ago that this was a way of life for many people, and she may as well get used to it. She had scrounged her jeans from a bin in the main city, and after taking it home and washing it, she found it was perfectly wearable even if it did have most of the knee area ripped off. Her little sister was forever begging her to find her a pair, but it seemed younger city kids took better care of their stuff.
The only problem with this area was that if anyone came here from the city, it'd probably be one heck of a job trying to avoid looking shocked at the surroundings. Guyenne knew all this, and knew the idea of trying to hire a detective would be a difficult task. She was going to do it, though, she decided as she looked at the shut door of the room she shared with her sister. She put on her aged, worn baseball cap, threading her antennae through the two holes just above the rim, and stepped outside her family's flat.
She took a long look at the closed door as she locked it, remembering how disappointed she'd been when they'd first moved to the city from the countryside, That was when she was just five, though, and now she'd grown out of that mindset. #141 was her home now, and she was probably going to live there until she was eighteen, and married. That was always a little fantasy she loved to think of, and as she began the descent down the winding and rickety wooden staircase, gone mould with age, she began to imagine what it would be like to have an apartment that didn't have mould creeping down the wallpaper. She loved her family, there was no doubt about that, but she didn't love her home – the only way out of it though was through a lot of money to get a flat, the sort that was out of her league, being an insect and a girl together. In this primarily mammal-driven society, insect anthromorphs were often shunned and seen as 'disgusting' by most of society. They rarely got jobs, the children were often picked on in the streets, and violence and crimes against them rarely were solved. If they were accepted at all.
"I'll find someone,"
Guyenne told herself. "I'll get someone for my sister, and to show Mum and Dad I can take care of business myself." But even with those brave words, she knew it would be hard to find a willing detective, who would work for a small fee, for an insect. She pushed that out of her head as she exited the stairwell, and entered instead the main floor of her apartment block. Better condition than the corridors upstairs, any mould had been whitewashed over, and the carpets didn't show any signs of mould. There were a few tables dotted around the hall, some with chess sets or piles of books on them for entertainment, but the one Guyenne wanted was over in a far corner, with a huge set of telephone directories stacked up on them."Miss Aphid…" The teenager froze as she picked up the first of the telephone books, marvelling at its weight even in both of her hands. She turned round apprehensively, and sure enough it was who she thought it would be. It was one of the landlord's favourite rent collectors, who always did his best to collect the rent from the households where lived young, teenage girls. The landlord himself, an immense snail that weighed more than Guyenne's entire family put together, was simply too obese to carry himself round the apartment block, and resorted instead to hiring a selection of runners to get the money for him, and he picked very well. For him, at least.
The man staring at her from within the telephone cubicle against the wall was a mosquito, who had the unnerving habit of placing his proboscis against the person whom had answered the door as a threat for someone else inside to get the money, quickly. The young aphid had felt this first experience when she was nine, and hadn't been able to sleep properly for many days, even with the fact that her sister was in pupae form and as such was silent. After her twelfth birthday, whenever she was the one to open it, the sharp drinking implement was always placed somewhere that, for want of a less politically correct word, invaded her privacy. Her parents couldn't do anything about him, otherwise they could get evicted, and she knew that if she made a wrong move now, she could put her family in very, very big trouble.
"Ms Aphid, you seem to be looking for a certain someone on the phone, don't you?" he asked again, not moving his gaze one inch from her. Guyenne took in a deep breath to steady herself, and shook her head, replying breathlessly with a nervous glance back up at his black, beady little eyes, and his long, sharp proboscis.
"I know who I'm looking for, Mr Lariat," she said insistently the first time, a little bit of panic overtaking her as that sharp point moved slightly closer to her arm. The mosquito grinned beneath his natural drinking appliance, but kept most of him hidden inside the box. Guyenne flinched a little bit, and tried to move further away, but then her wrist was gripped by a hand belonging to the man, and she was drawn a little bit closer to him and his smile.
"Oh, that's good. I also know who I am looking for. A good thing to know, isn't it?" he asked, as his other hand made it up her second arm to hold her shoulder. The fourteen-year-old was putting all her willpower into not responding in any way, just hoping he would let go.
"May I make my call?" she asked in a tiny voice, bereft of any positive emotion or moisture in her mouth. The mosquito seemed to enjoy this response he was getting from her, and smiled even wider, so his grin widened almost to the edges of his face and around the sides. Mercifully though, he let go of her wrist and shoulder; though in Guyenne's mind, the deed was as good as done. "Thank you," she whispered, and holding the directory close to her chest, the bit that she had held it by now crumpled despite the sheer size of it from her gripping, she ran into the furthest from the mosquito's booth there was and shut the door hurriedly behind her.
She didn't touch the receiver for a few minutes, she just sat on the provided stool, shivering. Mr Lariat was only one of many, she'd heard one of her friends' parents say once, and she didn't doubt it for a second whenever her father and her had gone to the arcade machines as a treat and seen the eyes of many a drunkard follow her down the dark alleys. She gently bit her lip as she rocked back and forth, again remembering the idea that she had been asked by her sister to find her pet Chao on her own, in this place…
The memory of the mosquito outside though, was a driving force enough to convince her to uncurl herself from the stool, and opened the directory to the beginning of the job sections marked 'detective agencies'. Her eyes skimmed over some of the larger adverts as she was sure she couldn't afford any services of a company that could provide an entry in the directory that big. Instead, she paused at some of the smaller ones, crammed in between the large ads, almost as if they were there to just fill up space. Some of them were even written sideways, and Guyenne did her best to peer at them.
'Dan's Detectives. We'll find it.'
The insect girl shook her head eventually, ruffling her wings in slight irritation. A name like that just didn't bode well for a fourteen year old girl, especially not after the confrontation with Mr Lariat out there in the next booth… She shivered again, and proceeded to the next one.'Aardman's Angling Agency: call the AAA for the things you can't find, and we'll do our best!"
That sounded a bit better to her as she traced the invisible line underneath the advert. Eventually, she reached for the receiver and lifted it, slipping a small demi-mobium piece into the slot and dialling the number written on the page. She traced a ring in the air with her foot as she waited for it to connect. Eventually, it went through, and a voice on the other end replied."Aardman's Angling Agency," called out a feminine voice on the other end. "How can I help you?" Guyenne was overjoyed at getting through, and hearing what sounded like a comforting voice on the other end. She eagerly held the receiver in one hand and wound a strand of her green hair through a finger.
"Do you… do you do chao-napping cases?" she asked, forgetting how pathetic a thing it was to ask. She only wanted a little bit of help, and the voice on the other end seemed to be one to offer it.
"We do…" replied the voice on the other end, and Guyenne almost leapt with joy. "Yes, we can and we will. May I take your name?" The aphid girl spent no time in answering the question, though she was in for a shock.
"Guyenne Aphid," was all she got out, for as soon as her surname was finished, she was met with a slam of a phone ringing down the earpiece. She blinked for a moment, staring at the graffiti on the wall opposite, her mind not quite registering what had happened. When she finally realised she had been hung up on due to her surname, the phone piece fell from her hand and dangled on the end of its cord. She had forgotten about how insects were treated in the city, and bowed her head. This was why she was such a failure – she had a hopeless memory.
"Don't give up!" a little voice inside her spoke up, and she took a breath, wiping the smidgeon of new tears that had begun to form. Surely, some detective must have a hint of kindness about them, and with that thought, she replaced the receiver, and began to riffle through the pages again.
---
Replacing the phone for the fifth time on the hook, Guyenne didn't feel so much upset but simply frustrated. Five different agencies, and only one of them had got past the opening question. She considered giving up then and now, but she knew she hadn't spent long in here. She probably had one last shot before she went up to cook dinner for her and Lacier, and with that, she let the heavy book flop open once again, and she turned the page. Again ignoring the biggest and showiest adverts, she suddenly turned the book on its side to read one advert that seemed completely crammed in at the last minute.
"Chaotix Detective Agency!" proclaimed the slogan in the most ordinary font Guyenne had ever seen in a book. "We never turn down paying work!" The aphid paused, tracing her finger around the box. If they didn't turn down paying work, they might work for free, she considered.
"One way to try…" she muttered, picking up the receiver and quickly dialling the number, crossing her fingers in hope that she would get through, and not get slammed down. Funnily enough, the phone rang for quite some time before it was answered - where was the receptionist, Guyenne wondered.
"Good afternoon, Chaotix Detective Agency," said a very breezy and energetic voice down the phone. "You're speaking to Detective Bee, how may I help you?" The ghost of the smile that had traced Guyenne's face suddenly broke into a gasp at the last name. Many families in the city went by their race as their last name - she herself was an example of this, though technically she was a half-breed - so she guessed instantly that she was talking to another insect. She wetted her lips with her tongue, trying to drum up the courage to speak.
"Hello?" the detective asked down the phone again, not irritated but inquisitive. "Is anyone there? I'm not offended if this is a wrong number," he added, and gave a laugh. It put Guyenne at ease, and she let out a little giggle herself, before drumming up the courage to reply.
"No, I did mean to phone you," she said, pushing herself into the wall of the phone booth. "I was just… well…" she paused, and Detective Bee was quick to fill in the gap.
"Nobody else in the business is an insect? 'Salright, I get it a lot. So, what's your name, and what needs solving?" he added, and Guyenne was almost tempted to interrupt him and ask him to slow down. But he got to the point, and that was good. Hoping to all heavens she wouldn't get the terminated silence of a phone slamming, she replied.
"My name is Guyenne Aphid. My sister Lacier has lost her Chao, and I need help tracking it down," she explained, eyes closed tight and fingers crossed. Hearing silence for a long time, her antennae began to droop as she expected he had hung up or maybe even left the phone altogether. Suddenly, they retained their usual form as she heard a cheerful and happy voice on the phone.
"No problem at all, Miss," he replied kindly. "I'm used to going after Chao gone missing, so it should be a piece of cake. I'm going to need to just interview you and your sister at some point soon, so I can get some of the details," he added. "Would you rather it were at your own home, or at my office?" Guyenne replied almost immediately, the prospect of going to the city to meet a detective in his own office sounded like a fantastic way to spend a day, and Lacier would enjoy it as well.
"Your office, please," she replied, sparing a quick glance out the front window of the booth, seeing nothing but the tattered books opposite. The voice on the other end of the line asked her to hold for a second while he went to get a pen and his diary, and inside the cubicle, Guyenne shivered with excitement. She had got a detective to help her! Her spirits had risen the highest they had been all day, and she was only just restraining from singing out in triumph.
"Allrighty," replied the voice of the bee as he returned to the phone, and Guyenne heard the rustle of paper. "When would be a good time for you?" he asked, and Guyenne shrugged on the inside of the phone booth. She didn't get a real education, and had no real requirements for the day. "Is around eleven-thirty good for you?" interjected the bee, sensing the silence growing somewhat.
"Yes please," the aphid replied, nodding eagerly, and she heard the scribble of a pen on paper, the scribbles becoming slightly angrier.
"Hang on, this pen doesn't work…" the detective muttered, and the girl recoiled slightly as she heard heavy banging against the phone. "That's got it!" the cheery voice then said, and the scribbling began again. "Is your name spelt with one or two 'n's?" The girl replied to the latter, and the scribbling continued. "That's done!" said the detective breezily. "We're all set for an appointment at eleven-thirty tomorrow?"
"That's perfect!" breathed Guyenne, leaning against the wall in relief. "Thank you very much, Detective Bee," she added, trying to sound as polite as possible, but the insect on the other end only laughed.
"Please, just call me Charmy, I don't take any offence at it - I suppose I'll see you and your sister tomorrow!" the now introduced bee said pleasantly. "Right, my dinner is about to burn, so I've got to run I'm afraid," he added hastily. "See you!" he called down the phone one last time, before Guyenne got the now familiar sound of a disconnected phone buzzing in the earpiece. However, unlike the last few times, when she had been left feeling disappointed, she wanted desperately to sing, to cry out her happiness to the world. This not really being an option, she hung up the phone and swung out of the door of the cubicle, smiling pleasantly at all she met on the way to the stairs save for Mr. Lariat, and burst through her room door with an excited spin.
"Lacier!" she called out. "I'm going to find Ka for you, we're going to the city tomorrow to meet a detective to help us!" she added excitedly, and exactly as she had anticipated, the smaller aphid came bolting out of her room, evidently not asleep at all, and skidded to a halt at her sisters' feet.
"Really?" asked the small insect, her pinkish-red eyes still glittering with old tears. As Guyenne nodded happily, a smile spread across her face, she felt her younger sibling attach herself limpet-like to her leg.
"C'mon, lets go have some food," Guyenne suggested, walking off to the kitchen with some difficulty, considering Lacier was still holding her leg tightly.