As promised, I went with Basil's observation and the bar scene. On with the story.
Chapter 10: Discoveries and Forming Trust
Third Person POV
Basil and Dawson told Mrs. Judson what happened in the toy store such as Olivia being kidnapped and Kaitlin ran away to find her and her father. "Oh, my!" Mrs. Judson gasped, "I hope Kaitlin finds them."
"Either that or she ended up getting herself in trouble with Ratigan," Basil said because he was angry, confused, and rather ashamed. Angry because Fidget had gotten away with Miss Flaverpickle. Confused because Kaitlin just made no sense to him and he had no idea how to respond to her. Ashamed because he took his frustrations out on her. She was just there and he was itching to pick a fight with someone he knew would fight back.
"Don't say that," Dawson told him, "Who knows? She probably already found them."
Basil sighed. "You're probably right, Doctor. I shouldn't dwell on the bad." But now, Basil tried to shift his focus back onto the case and away from the girl-turned mouse. What was he going to do now? He had to find some sort of hint… a clue… ANYTHING.
"Kaitlin is such a sweet girl and she'll never do anything to hurt a sweet Olivia," Mrs. Judson said.
…
Basil turned on his kerosene lamp to get a better look at the list Fidget dropped with Dawson behind him to watch. "Offhand, I can deduce very little," said Basil, "Only that the words are written with a broad-pointed quill pen which has spattered, twice. That the paper is of…" He put away his magnifying glass in his pocket and closed his eyes, while feeling the texture of the paper and making it flutter gently in his right hand. "Native Mongolian manufacture, no watermark. And has…" He began tasting the paper a little. "Been gummed, if I'm not bit in much error…" He sniffed the paper to get its scent and held the paper by his pointer finger and thumb as he said to Dawson, "By a bat who has been drinking Rodent's Delight." Basil showed the paper to Dawson as Basil casually smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Dawson briefly took out his reading glasses to look at the paper as Basil concluded his thesis, "A cheap brandy sold only in the seediest pubs."
Basil stopped showing Dawson the paper and brought it over to his chemistry set that consisted of cups, bottles, glass beakers, and tubes with multi-colored chemicals. "Hmm, amazing," Dawson said, interested.
"Oh, not really, doctor. We still don't know where it came from," Basil corrected, as he pulled out a microscope and slid the paper underneath it. "Perhaps a closer inspection will tell us something." He brought the lens to focus to see black splattered spots, humming while doing so. "Coal dust. Clearly of the type used in sewer lamps."
Just as Basil walked away, it only took Dawson a second to examine the list through the microscope before Basil snatched away the paper, much to the doctor's surprise.
With his tongue out, Basil discreetly clutched the paper over the Bunsen burner and turned the knob, making the flame increase, burning a hole in the paper. Then, he turned the Bunsen burner down to let the paper slowly burn.
Seeing the list burn, Dawson protested, "B-But Basil I-"
"Shh! Don't speak!" Basil interrupted as he let the burning paper gradually turn to ash inside a wooden bowl. He seized a wooden grinder to stir up the ashes into a dusty material. After that, he poured it into a glass beaker with yellow liquid, making the liquid turn blue.
Dawson studied the blue liquid, but Basil returned with a beaker and a bottle of red liquid, while ordering, "Excuse me, Dawson." Cautiously, Basil lightly tipped the bottle over the beaker. "Steady hand." A small drip of red liquid fell, creating a gust as it turned into a darker shade of blue.
Dawson looked on curiously at his companion's unexplained experiment.
Basil, on the other hand, placed the beaker underneath the equipment with the Bunsen burner and the end with a boiling green liquid in a bottle container and attached to where the twisting that led all the way to the beaker. Turning the small gas burner, the green chemical started to bubble swiftly as it flowed through the tubes. "Yes. Yes. Good," Basil said as whizzed and wound through the tubes. "Come along, come along, come along, come along, come along. Yes, yes. Good, good. Mmm, no, bad. Good, good. Go yeah. Come along. Come along, come on. Don't go back up. Yes. Come along. Come on." When it finally hit its destination, it accumulated to a single drop on the beaker.
Basil's eyes broadened as he said excitedly, "Yes...Yes!" The drop plunged into the beaker, forming another puff as the liquid's color changed to red with fizzing and bubbles afterwards.
"We've done it, old fellow!" Basil crowed, wrapping his arm around an oblivious Dawson. "This reaction could only have been triggered by the paper's extreme saturation with distillation of sodium chloride." With that said, he headed over to a basket of rolled maps.
Dawson went over to the beaker with great interest while putting on his reading glasses, scrutinizing the liquid, which changed colors until it turned pale white. "Salt water? Great Scott."
"It proves, beyond a doubt," Basil said excitedly as he rummaged through the maps in his basket until he found the right one. "This list came from the riverfront area." He pinned the right map to the wall.
"Now, now, steady on there, Basil," Dawson warned sternly, so his partner could avoid being too overly confident.
"No, no. Elementary, my dear Dawson," Basil replied dismissively, waving a finger at him. "We merely look for a seedy pub at the only spot…" Basil placed the dart on the riverfront area in the map. "Where the sewer connects to the waterfront."
"But what about Kaitlin, Olivia, and Olivia's father?" Dawson asked, turning his focus to the Flavershams and the girl-turned mouse.
"Well, I'm glad you brought that up. As soon as we get ready, the better chance we'll get them back, I promise."
Dawson recalled Basil's words back in the toy store: There's always a chance, Doctor...As long as one can think.
Kaitlin's POV
I was the first to wake up from my nap and I checked to see if I still have Hiram and Olivia with me. Luckily, they were still safe in my arms because if anything happened to them, I wouldn't know what to do. I only made a deal with Ratigan because the Flavershams needed rescuing and thankfully, I was able to save them. The three of us disguised ourselves as soon as I made copies of ourselves before Ratigan knew we were gone. "I sure hope my necklace still works," I sighed to myself.
"What was that?" Hiram asked.
"Nothing," I said, "Are you guys hungry?"
"Yes," Olivia replied, feeling her tummy rumble.
"Alright, let's get something to eat."
Third Person POV
As Kaitlin, Hiram, and Olivia were about to stop someplace to eat, unaware that two familiar figures had been looking for them. Without looking, the Flavershams and Kaitlin minded their own business and took off.
"No, wait! I want to talk to you!" Basil called.
The Flavershams and Kaitlin stopped and the girl-turned mouse glared at the mouse who spoke to her. She never forgot what he said in the toy shop. "Oh, you want to talk?" Kaitlin growled, "Or are you going to yell at me and my friends again like you did earlier? You've got a nerve coming back for me."
Basil gasped. "Excuse me? Is that any way to speak to the one who wanted to talk to you?"
"Ratigan says you walked out on him. I know because I made a deal with him to get the Flavershams back."
Basil couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "You what? That was because I found out that he refused to let me comfort him when people bullied him for being a rat, so I became friends with someone else. That also explains why the Flavershams are out here."
Kaitlin gasped. "You mean you were friends with him before? Because you were both intelligent?"
"Yes."
"I never intended to work for him, just so you know."
"I know, but if you wouldn't have run away, none of this would've happened!" Basil retorted.
But Kaitlin wasn't going to let him get the best of her, even though she admitted that she had an attitude as much as he had. "If you wouldn't have lashed out at me and said awful things to me, Dawson, and Olivia, I wouldn't have run away!"
Basil opened his mouth to speak, but he had to stop to think of a good line. She was right, he did need to choose his words carefully. "Well, YOU should've stuck with me and Dawson!"
"Well, YOU should learn to control your temper and be aware of how you treat others!" Kaitlin raged.
Basil was stunned, but silent for a moment, finding that she'd won the argument. He admitted that he was bad-tempered and that was why she ran off to save her friends, even if it meant making a deal with his worst enemy. He knew that she had every right to be angry at him and point out her reason for making a deal with Ratigan had made him sorry.
Then she told Basil a time when one of her ex-friends became mean to her just because she needed a break from her. Basil gasped as he heard her story. Kaitlin opened her necklace, showing him her tragic friendship past.Basil watched and learned about poor Kaitlin's backstory. Now he knew why she couldn't trust too many people, including the likes of him and even if she made new friends, she could've gotten hurt again."After a while, I've had enough, so I informed her our friendship was over and told her not to come back running to me."
Kaitlin placed her hand in her hair. "A couple years later, I made friends with people online and they were the only friends I had until I moved someplace else to make new friends."
After a moment of silence, Basil sighed. "You're right, Kaitlin. I have no excuse. How could I be so blind? I should be aware of how I treat others. If not, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. I'm sorry for what happened to both Olivia and her father and that it's caused stress on you. I confess that I've been selfish about Ratigan as well as being as bad as him and for not being nice to you. Olivia was after someone she loves as you were. I only tried to save London for myself to stop Ratigan. At least you make good intentions. Dawson told me that there is something we don't know about you. What is it?"
Now it was Kaitlin's turn to sigh. "Okay, I'm a human from the future."
The Flavershams exchanged glances at one another.
"Why didn't you tell us before?"
"Because I didn't want to scare any of you and think badly of me. That's why I'm different from you guys and I'm not from around here."
"So is that also why you found me untrustworthy at first? Because I reminded you of one of your ex-friends?" Basil asked, returning back to the subject of one her bad friends.
Kaitlin nodded. "I had to take precautions. The only people I've trusted were my family members because they loved me, although I talked to some other people from my age group that I haven't spoken to in a while, the nice ones, anyway."
"Do you feel better about telling us what's bothering you?" Dawson asked her.
Kaitlin heaved a sigh of relief. "Yes, Doctor, thank you for asking."
"You're welcome."
"Wherever you're going, we'll catch up with you later," Kaitlin said, "But right now Hiram, Olivia, and I need to get something to eat because we're hungry."
"That's very wise. No sense going anywhere on an empty stomach," Dawson told her.
To Basil, Kaitlin added, "By the way, Basil, thank you for saving my life."
As she said this, he was about to leave when he stopped to gaze at her saying, "You're welcome."
When the Flavershams and Kaitlin were alone, they went to the closest restaurant they could find. It was a pizza place, where they had a large pizza to fill their empty stomachs. After they ate and exited the restaurant, Kaitlin announced, "I know just where they're going."
"Where?" Olivia and her father inquired.
Kaitlin opened her necklace and asked her necklace where Basil and Dawson were going in case she was mistaken. Her necklace said, "The Rat Trap."
"Hear that, guys?" said Kaitlin, "We're going to meet Basil and Dawson at The Rat Trap, so hold on tight to me." That being said, she pressed the necklace to reach their destination and poof, they vanished!
AN: The bar scene is coming up next.