Fievel, The Private Eye

Chapter 1: Lorena

Fievel Mouskewitz woke up one morning feeling refreshed and relaxed after a good night's sleep. He got out of bed, bathed himself, and ate breakfast. But Fievel had a problem. He felt he had his entire day planned out before he woke up in the morning. He knew exactly what he was going to do every day before he got out of his bed. He knew he would bathe himself, eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, work more, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed. He felt bored by his routine life. He knew he couldn't expect the life of a fifteen-year-old Russian immigrant mouse to be very exciting, but Fievel thought that his was an illegally boring life. He had nothing else to do, even if he had spare time. His best cat friend, Tiger, left a couple weeks ago to go live with his new wife, Ms. Kitty, and his best mouse friend, Tony, was too busy with his job and taking care of his newborn daughter to take any time for Fievel.

So Fievel set out to work. He had a nice job at a fruit stand at the local marketplace. He helped the owner, a man by the name of Mr. Hollows, by watching the stand and helping customers. Fievel arrived at the food stand to meet a very cheery looking Mr. Hollows.

"Fievel!" he said eagerly when Fievel arrived. "I need you to watch the stand while I go get some fruit. We're getting two whole oranges, a couple dozen grapes, and an apple."

"Okay, Mr. Hollows," said Fievel. "How long will you be gone?"

"Probably for about two hours or so," said Mr. Hollows. And with this, he walked off quickly down the street. Normally, no one would be getting so excited over a couple oranges and an apple, but mice couldn't eat whole fruit in one sitting. They had to chop the fruit up and sell it piece by piece.

Fievel sat down in the chair behind the stand and leaned back in it. He knew he wouldn't have to do much today. Today was a Monday. He knew that Mondays were always the quietest days for the fruit stand.

So Fievel spent the next hour sitting behind the counter and cleaning and stacking the fruit pieces. After that Fievel just sat in his chair, waiting for customers. After another half hour, or maybe it was ten minutes, Fievel was too bored to tell the difference, a girl about the same age as Fievel walked up to the stand.

"Hello," she said to Fievel, who was sitting in a leaned-back position in his chair with his hat over his eyes. He jerked up at this, but he lost his balance and fell backward in the chair. The girl gave a small chuckle at this. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, hi," said Fievel. "How can I help you?"

"I need two orange pieces, two grapes, and a pear piece," she said. Fievel started gathering the fruit pieces into a bag. "Won't your boss get mad at you if he finds you sleeping on the job?"

"Not today, and for two reasons," said Fievel slyly. "Firstly, he's not here right now. And secondly, today is always our quietest day. He'd probably tell me to wake up, but he wouldn't punish me or anything. It's too quiet today. You're the first customer."

"Oh, do I get some sort of special discount for that?" she asked as he turned to gather the fruit into a bag.

"I don't know," said Fievel as he turned back to her with a smug smile. "How does I pay half and you pay half sound?"

"It sounds too nice," she said with an equally smug smile. "How about I pay three-fourths and you cover the last quarter?"

"Sounds great," said Fievel. He gave her the bag of fruit and she gave him the money. She turned to leave and accidentally dropped her purse. She started to lean down to pick it up, but Fievel stopped her.

"No, no, I got it," said Fievel as he bent down and retrieved her purse. He was handing it over to her when he noticed how abnormally heavy it was.

"Hey, how much money you got in there?" he asked her.

"Enough," she replied.

"Okay then," said Fievel. "But be careful with it."

"What, you think I can't take care of myself?" she asked slyly.

"I don't know," said Fievel. "I haven't seen you around here, or anywhere for that matter. But this neighborhood can get rough sometimes. Watch out for muggers and robbers when you've got that much money on you."

"Haha," she laughed. "If someone tried to rob or mug me, they wouldn't know what hit them." Fievel smiled. Then he heard Mr. Hollows call him.

"Fievel, I'm not paying you to flirt with pretty girls," he said. "Get back to work." The girl gave a small chuckle and turned to leave again.

"Bye..." she started."Hey, I never caught your name."

"Oh, Fievel," said Fievel. "Fievel Mouskewitz."

"I'm Lorena," she replied. "Bye Fievel." She walked away and Mr. Hollows walked over to the counter.

"So, who is she?" he asked Fievel.

"She was a customer," said Fievel. "And I wasn't flirting with her."

"Sure," said Mr. Hollows sarcastically with a grin.

"I wasn't," said Fievel defensively.

"You know what I like about you, Fievel?" Mr. Hollows said. "You're the worst liar ever." Fievel took the opportunity to change the subject.

"So why are you back so early?" asked Fievel.

"Getting the fruit chopped up didn't take as long as I planned," Mr. Hollows replied. "Now go on, get back to work. I'm waiting for a delivery boy to come by in a few minutes with the new fruit." Mr. Hollows walked into the building that the fruit stand sits in front of that was his house. Fievel did as he was told. He went back outside and waited for the fruit delivery. After it arrived, Fievel started stacking it. Then he heard a familiar voice.

"I never knew that you could be so smooth with girls," Fievel turned around and found his friend, Tony Toponi, waiting at the stand.

"I wasn't being smooth," said Fievel. "You saw that?"

"Yep," said Tony. "What's her name?"

"Lorena," said Fievel. "And she was just a customer."

"Sure," said Tony in a sarcastic voice, much like Mr. Hollows.

"So why aren't you at work?" asked Fievel.

"Whole office closed down for the day," said Tony. "Somethin' wrong with the printin' machine." Tony had had a job as a reporter at the local newspaper since Fievel was eight years old.

"Ah," said Fievel. "So what are you doing here?"

"Well, I thought I'd pop by and pay you a visit," said Tony. "But when I saw you talkin' to that girl, I thought I'd stand back and watch. In retrospect, I think I should have gone in and worked as your wingman."

"Yeah, but there's one problem with that," said Fievel.

"What?" asked Tony.

"I didn't need a wingman," said Fievel. "She was just a customer."

"Yeah," said Tony. "A customer to whom you gave a discount. And you picked her purse up for her and told her to be careful and watch out for muggers."

"She was the first customer of the day," said Fievel defensively.

"Since when has you or Hollows ever given a discount for that?" asked Tony.

"You gave her a discount?" said Mr. Hollows as he came back out from his house.

"Yeah," said Fievel sheepishly. "I'll pay for it."

"And you said you weren't flirting with her," said Mr. Hollows with a grin. "Like I said, Fievel. Worst liar ever." He walked off down the street leaving Fievel alone with Tony.

"Flirting?" asked Tony in an interested voice. "You were flirting with her?"

"He said 'wasn't'," said Fievel.

"Which is what you said," said Tony. "So were you flirting with her?"

"I plead the fifth," said Fievel.

"Okay, then," said Tony.

"Are you gonna be free tonight?" asked Fievel in an attempt to change the subject.

"Yeah, you can come over," said Tony. "Have dinner with me, Bridget, and Elizabeth. And if you want to, you can bring your new girlfriend with you. Bridget always makes more than enough food."

"Okay, I won't," said Fievel casually. "I'll see ya later, Tony."

"Okay, bye, Philly," said Tony, calling Fievel by his American nickname. Tony walked off into the street, leaving Fievel alone at the fruit stand. Fievel stayed for a few more hours, dealing with what little customers came, and took off when Mr. Hollows told him he could go. Fievel was heading for Tony's house when he saw Lorena again. She was going down a dark, empty street. Fievel decided to follow her. Maybe he did want to bring her around to Tony's for dinner.

He looked down the street she had gone down and saw her by Mr. Body's shop, the biggest sandwich shop in the city. He thought he saw her go into the shop, but Fievel knew it was closed by now. He ran down to the shop quietly and looked in the front door. Everything was dark and the door was still locked. Fievel was about to walk away when he heard whispering coming from the alley on the right side of the shop. Fievel looked down the alley. It was pitch dark and it had a dead end. But Fievel knew he had heard something down it.

"Hello?" whispered Fievel. "Lorena, is that you?" Fievel started advancing down the alley.

"Lorena?" whispered Fievel again. Then he was startled by the ignition of a lantern toward the end of the alley. He saw Lorena crouched down at the end with the lantern in her hands.

"Oh, Fievel, it's only you," she said, sounding relieved. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I saw you break into the sandwich shop," said Fievel. "I came to see what you were doing. And I sort of wanted to ask you to dinner."

"Two things," said Lorena quietly. "One, I didn't break into the sandwich shop, obviously. Two, I can't go to dinner with you. I'm a bit tied up with something else."

"Which is?" asked Fievel curiously.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," said Lorena.

"Try me," said Fievel.

"I'm conducting a murder investigation," said Lorena.

"What?" whispered Fievel. "Who's been murdered?"

"My brother," said Lorena. And before Fievel could reply back with either a question or a statement of disbelief, they both heard an angry Mr. Bodsy.

"Who's back there?" he shouted angrily. They saw a lantern light shining from around the corner. It was coming closer. Then Lorena had a less-than-ideal idea.

"Fievel, I'm really sorry about this and I need you to know that it means absolutely nothing and I want you to just play along as best as you can," she said quickly. Fievel had no idea what she meant and before he could think about it, Lorena grabbed him by the collar, pulled him down to the ground, braced her back against the alley wall, put his hand on the wall, pulled him towards herself, embraced him, and started kissing him.

TO BE CONTINUED...