-Here is chapter 3 "Answer and Question" and also a bit of my style of humor. Hope you´ll like it :D-
Kitty paced anxiously up and down in the little bathroom of her apartment with her head full of thoughts. What if it´s positive? There was a chance that it was possible.
She felt so sick this morning and all mornings this week. She also had to throw up. She grabbed nervously the information leaflet from the edge of her basin and read through it. For the felt thousandth time.
'Pregnancy test. Certainty after one minute.' Was written in big black letters on top of the leaflet. She threw it away and took out her smartphone on which a countdown ran down. 10… 9… "Okay." 8… "Come on faster!" 7.. 7.. 7..
"Are you kidding me stupid phone?!" … Battery low… "Damn!" screamed Kitty and threw the phone into the same corner like the leaflet.
She closed her eyes and counted down the last five seconds in her mind. "5..4..3..2..1.." she didn´t want to open her eyes again. That would cause a lot of troubles. What if she is pregnant?
That would set her career back for one year or more. After that time she would be out of training and of course she would want to raise her child. So will there be a career for her anymore?
But more important for her was the question if Dudley would stay by her side or leave her when she would tell him. Dudley was a good guy but in this respect she had no idea how he would react.
And to have no answer to this question made her nervous. But now it was time to open her eyes and looked at an answer that lay directly in front of her. "Let´s see…"
Dudley in the meantime sat on the couch in Kitty´s living room and waited that she returns from the bathroom. "I think the Mexican food this afternoon was no good idea… But why has she to take the spicy stuff all the time even if she knows that she can´t take it?" He was, like Kitty, also nervous like someone sitting on a powder keg with burning fuse.
And like Kitty he also had a question but his didn´t arise spontaneously. He thought about this question for at least one year now. Not if he should ask this question, he loved her and there was nothing he liked to do more, it was more how he should ask this question.
After weeks of thinking he finally decided to begin with some small-talk and then he had to wait for something with that he could lead over the conversation.
Or maybe he had to make a cut and ask her right away. But at least he prepared everything. He bought some champagne and candles, he put a CD with relaxing music into stereo system and of course he bought the ring.
A simple gold ring with an emerald on its top. Dudley chose this stone because it had the absolute same color like Kitty´s eyes.
Getting that ring was actually very complicated. He didn´t find anything good in the jewelry stores so he searched on the internet for something. On one of these exchange sites he finally found the ring but the seller didn´t want money, he wanted something else.
The guy searched for a special kind of computer old-timer. And with that an odyssey began for Dudley. He went to Keswick for the computer because he thought that Keswick would at least know something about such an old computer.
Keswick even had one but he wanted a curl of Miss Petropolis for it, what was kind of creepy and what Keswick never explained to him. But in the end that didn´t matter for Dudley, he just wanted that ring. The most embarrassing part was asking Miss Petropolis for one of her curls.
After she gave him a disgusted look she finally willing to give him the curl if he could bring him a unique comb made out of bones…
This went on and on for almost 30 more exchanges and ended with someone who wanted Dudley to get him a Donut. So Dudley paid for a probably 12,000 Dollar worth ring just with a box of Donuts. A bargain if you leave aside that the whole trade needed almost three months.
"She really needs long." Right on that cue Kitty left the bathroom with a bit worried expression on her face.
"Hey Kitty, are you all right?"
"Yes, everything is fine." She said with a higher voice than usual.
"Okay. That´s good." Replied Dudley tensely. "Well Kitty, have you heard about what happened to these boy scouts in the woods?"
"Of course. What brutal monster does something like that? All limbs cut of and thrown on different piles. Sick!"
Dudley now realized that this maybe wasn´t the best subject to start with.
"Terrible, I know. But I think they will get the culprit soon."
"Well, I heard that it was not a normal culprit. The description of the policeman who saw it was weird…"
"What do you mean with weird?" Dudley enquired again more interested.
"The officer described it as a tall creature that looked like a monkey with…"
"…Shorter arms and almost no fur. Just on his head…"
"So you know the report."
"No…" said Dudley baldly.
"From where do you know it then?"
"I heard it on the news after one of these reports about our tensed relationship with the Chinese gov…" Dudley got interrupted by the stereo system which suddenly changed the track.
The voice out of it began to sing 'I know that when I stare into your eyes, I can see all the years of lies…' Dudley pressed almost in panic buttons on the remote to switch it off.
The stereo system always hated Dudley. There was this one time when Dudley and Kitty danced close together and this asshole of a stereo system changed to hard Finnish death metal.
Or when they were sleeping it suddenly switched on and played the sound of shattering glass. So Dudley and Kitty jumped startled out of their bed because they thought somebody broke into their apartment.
He still had no explanation how or even why it did it. But it worked and Kitty didn´t thought about buying a new one so Dudley had to tolerate that.
"Why is this thing hatting me? I mean I done everything to look after it!"
"You still believe that the stereo hates you?" Laughed Kitty.
"Just remember the thing with the glass. We didn´t even have a CD with such sounds on it!"
"Okay, I admit, that was strange!"
"You see!"
"Dudley that is a stereo! It´s an electrical device! It doesn't want to annoy you. When I think about it it´s somehow like you! I mean you also doesn´t want to annoy the people around you, but you do?" she giggled nastily.
"Do I annoy you?" Dudley sensed the chance for leading the conversation to the thing he wanted to.
"At first yes! But I got used to it."
"Kitty, I have to talk about something with you that maybe let me annoy you in the future much more."
"Oh god what have you done?" she asked shocked. "Please don´t tell me that you bought yourself a drums-set."
"No, no… But that is a good idea! Maybe not the drums but I once played guitar! I think I´ll start that again." Suggested Dudley.
"If that´s all. I have to tell you something too."
"Okay but let me finish first. I have to tell you something else." Dudley stood up from the couch and built up in front of Kitty. "Kitty Katswell" he began with a now cracking and nervous voice while she looked askance at him.
He realized now that he never been so nervous. Not when he was defusing the warhead and not even when he had to fight against Jeffrey. As he got down on his knee it felt for him more like falling down.
"Will you…" Dudley fished in his pockets for the little box with the ring in it. "… marry me?" he opened the box and presented her the ring.
Kitty´s eyes widened and she stared on the ring. "Dudley I…" she stammered.
"Yes?"
"I´m pregnant." Dudley never expected that answer.
He expected a 'yes', he expected a 'no' and he even expected that Kitty would laugh about him and walk away and post something mean on facebeak, not that she would have done that but Dudley was ready for the best and the worst, but that answer.
"Pardon?" asked Dudley who looked like his brain couldn´t take what Kitty said.
"I´m pregnant Dudley!" repeated Kitty still staring unbelieving at the ring. You could think that the whole situation couldn´t get any more confusing but it could.
That happened when a bunch of policeman burst through the door with their guns pulled out and screamed. "Freeze! Hands up!"
Dudley turned on his knee towards the police officers and repeated with the little box in his hands.
"Do you want to marry me?" The officers exchanged confused looks and then one of them said.
"I´m afraid that I have to refuse your friendly offer but we barley know each other… But…" the policeman stopped for a moment and thought. "To the hell with that! I do. Let´s run away together, Mr. Puppy! I know that we will never have children but we can adopt one!"
The other two officers gazed dumbfounded at their coworker and one of them said.
"Mike, dude, what´s wrong with you?!"
"I don´t know I´m just so lonely…"
"WHAT´S GOING ON HERE?!" shouted Kitty and walked to the three officers who ignored her completely.
"Mr. Puppy, I arrest you for the murder of Samuel Thomson!"
Mike handcuffed Dudley who still stood there on one knee frozen. Maybe he was already passed out. The box with the little ring fell to the ground.
"Dudley haven´t killed this guy, whoever he is!" protested Kitty angry. "Dudley! Say something!"
"What?" Dudley woke up from his unconsciousness. "Kitty why are these three policeman here?" he tried to move his hands. "And why am I handcuffed?!"
"As I already said, Mr. Puppy, we arrest you for the murder of Samuel Thomson. We found a fingerprint on Mr. Thomson´s wallet. You don´t have to deny that."
Now that Dudley heard that name with a lively mind a cold shiver ran down his spine. And he saw all these pictures in his mind. The clothes, the buried corpse, the wound… everything.
"I never thought that you would find me." Sighed Dudley.
"Is that a confession, Mr Puppy?"
"No. I haven´t killed Thomson."
"Well, you will confess, Puppy." Said one of the policemen grinning. "We´ll put you into jail, to all your villain friends."
The group took Dudley away and left Kitty back standing there confused and watched how the father of her child was arrested.
"Of course something like that had to happen…" Kitty wasn´t really surprised.
Dudley was somehow always in trouble but she didn´t believe that he killed that guy. So she reacted more annoyed than afraid. "I better get him a good lawyer." Kitty grabbed her coat from coatrack and walked towards the door.
"Wait." She turned around and picked up the ring from the ground. She put the ring on her finger, smiled and thought. "Mine!"