Chapter 5

When they arrived home the older half of the Green Family was eager to just forget about the wasted trip and just move on. The younger two, however, were less resigned. Tilly was completely unconvinced that Gloria had simply abandoned her found family, and Cricket was beginning to doubt as well.

When thy got home, it seemed everything was as it should be, except for one small detail that they'd never noticed before; a light blinking on Alice's ancient answering machine. Of course, neither child had any actual idea what the machine was since almost no one ever called (and Alice preferred it that way), but the light where none had ever been seen before attracted their attention. "Ooooh… blinky," Cricket remarked. "Hey Gramma, how come this thing's blinky all of a sudden?"

"Wha? Huh? That's weird. That light's never on. Ain't no one got this number who don't live here." She hmphed.

"I don't get it, what does callin' have to do with anything?"

"That's just the answering machine, Cricket," Bill explained.

"Oh. I've heard of those from ancient TV from the 80s." Tilly commented. "It's what they used instead of voice mail in the before times."

"Oooh. Maybe it's a secret message that'll activate my super-secret secret agent programming secretly."

"Stop sayin' secret! It's startin' to lose all meaning!" Alice complained.

"Now, now, I seriously doubt it's anything that exciting. Probably one o' those ding-dang telemarketers. Pardon my language, but… they're just so annoying."

"Yep, what's on there ain't anythin' worth hearin' Now if you'll excuse me, I got Gramma Time to attend to."

The two adults left, leaving the children alone.

"So we're totally playing it, right?" asked Cricket.

"Oh, most definitely. Boop!" Tilly pressed the playback button.

"*beep*Hey, everyone, this is Gloria. I'm sorry I didn't call earlier, but they are working me to the bone. So, anyway, it's been kinda lonely without you guys so I was wondering, maybe one of these days you guys could come up to Bigger City and visit? The restaurant in this hotel is amazing and of course everything would be on me, and then we could just, y'know, hang out like old times. Anyway, call me back, I'm at 555-555-5555-7. Hope to hear from you soon, bye!"

"Huh," Cricket remarked. "It kinda sounds like she really does want to see us. But that fancy guy told us… she didn't wanna see us. There's somethin' not quite right here…"

"Can't hear ya, brother," Tilly responded, shaking her hips. "I've over here doin' the 'Tilly was right' dance. And you shake to the left. And you shake to the right. You do the mashed potatah, 'cause Tilly was right."

"You just rhymed 'right' with 'right'. Also… hnnngh… brain… forming… ideas… *gasp* If Gloria left us a message that she wants to see us… and the fancy guy told us she didn't… bingo bango! One of them… is lyin'!"

"There he goes," Tilly commented with a smile, continuing her "Tilly was right" dance.

"This ain't no time for dancin'! Someone is tryin' to keep us away from Gloria. This will not stand!"

"A nefarious crime indeed, but what do you propose?"

"Well, obviously, what's called for here is a zany scheme. As you know, Cricket Green is all about the zany schemes."

"And Tilly Green is all about helping zany schemes, when it's for a good cause."

"Now, let's see… we're probably gonna need to break into a hotel at night, so we need someone who's good at having actual plans an' stuff. Let's go get Remy! An' maybe Andromeda. We kinda barely see her lately."

"You were right to come to me," Remy stated dramatically, fingers tented. "Many have tried to break into L'hotel des Riches Snobs over the past , but only I have done it successfully."

"Really?" asked Cricket.

"Nah. I just wanted to play up the drama is all. I figured we'd just ask Vasquez for help." He turned. "Whattaya say, Vasquez? You up for a caper?"

"As you wish, Master Remy," the bodyguard/valet pledged.

"Great! It'll be another great Cricket/Tilly/Remy adventure!"

"Ahem," fake-coughed Andromeda.

"Oh." Remy suddenly noticed. "There's someone else here. It's usually just us three kids. Um… heeeyy" he continued awkwardly, "Do I know you?"

"That depends," Andromeda replied suspiciously. "What are your opinions regarding the secret Reptiloid infiltration of the Earth's government?"

"Um… a…gainst?" Remy answered, confused.

"I'm Andromeda."

"Nice to meet you, Andromeda" Remy replied offering his hand.

"I don't shake hands. That's how they get your fingerprints." She made an "I'm watching you" gesture with her eyes and fingers, and backed off.

"Cricket, I have a question for you."

"Lay it on me, buddy."

His voice took on a dreamy tone. "How do you talk to an angel?"

[A.N. I'm pretty sure these two have never interacted. I can't remember if she was on the softball team in "Bat Girl", but if she did I don't recall any interaction between her and Remy, and regardless, this is set before that episode.]

Bigger City

"Okay," Remy said, "I've hacked the hotel's mainframe and located the suite Gloria's staying in. I also downloaded a schematic of the building's layout." He displayed the image on his laptop screen to the children gathered in the back of the limo. "Gloria is here, in suite 3403, halfway up the building."

"Dang, she really is movin' up in the world!" Cricket remarked. "Get it? Up, 'cause she's on a really high floor…"

"Mmm-hmm," ignored Remy.

"Tough crowd. So, how do we get up there? I bet we're gonna climb the abandoned building on the opposite side of the hotel, then use a grappling hook to shimmy across the street, then work our way down from the roof…"

"That sounds really dangerous," Tilly replied. "Why not just take the elevator up? It's just a hotel."

"Actually, yeah, that sounds pretty sensible. Let's do that," agreed Remy.

"Remy, you mad, handsome FOOL!" Andromeda scolded. "Do you think they won't have security to keep out the riff-raff? No, what we need to do is sneak in through the sewers. Now, the chuds might give us trouble, but luckily I learned their language. Just let me do the negotiating."

"She's so worldly," gushed Remy. "Isn't she? *sigh* Cricket… do you think romance can bloom on the battlefield?"

"Gonna ignore that. Anyway, sounds like a good plan t'me," Cricket replied. "Let's do it!"

Far above Houghton Street, hanging from a grappling hook

"Remy will be guiding us through the building from the limo as soon as we land," noted Vasquez. "Leave the rest to me."

"I thought we were doing the sewer thing?" Cricket asked.

"Already had the grappling hook," replied Vasquez, clinging tightly to the wire, the two children harnessed tightly to his back.

"Whatever, as long as I get to do something crazy," Cricket responded dismissively. "Tilly and Remy know how I do – wait, where is Tilly?"

"She said she was going through the lobby. Frankly, it made a lot more sense than what we're doing, so I let her," Vasquez explained.

"Wait, then why are we doing this?!" asked Andromeda.

"Like I said, I already had the grappling hook. Besides, I need to stay in practice."

Hotel Lobby

"All right, Tilly. This is it. Your greatest performance. Time to get into character," Tilly exhorted herself. She took a deep breath, approached the front desk, and burst into tears. Now, even the snootiest of snooty front desk clerks wasn't immune to the tears of a small child. "Oh, my," he said, "what seems to be the problem?"

"I… *sob* have become separated from my beloved mother! Won't you take pity on a poor, lost child and help her?"

"Oh, of course, you darling little girl," the desk clerk replied reassuringly. "What's your name?"

"My name… *sniffle* is Tilly Sato."

"Sato? Like the model? I was unaware she had a child."

"Oh, she's very secretive about her private life," Tilly explained. "But she definitely does have a child who is me."

"Hmm… well, you do have a model's cheekbones," the clerk reasoned. "Very well, come with me. We'll get you to your mother."

"Oh, thank you, sir! I'll try to reign in my sobbing." Nailed it, she thought.

Gloria's Suite

She still couldn't believe it. She'd heard Bill's tirade with her own ears, but it just didn't jibe with anything she knew about him. Sure, money could change people… but that person?

The notion had bothered her all through the winterwear shoot. She'd repeatedly missed her cues and the shoot had taken a lot longer than it needed to. By the time it was over, she was even more exhausted than usual and just wanted to not be bothered. Between the exhaustion, the general dissatisfaction with modeling, and the confusion over the Greens' possible betrayal, she was wondering if it was time to just give up and go back home to Suburbville. Just… be done with big cities, bigger cities, city life in general, and embrace the boring life of a townie.

This reverie was interrupted by a page from the front desk. She groaned. "What do they want from me?" she whined, picking up. "Hello?" she asked, feigning a much patience as she could.

"Ms. Sato, we found your daughter lost in the lobby. Would you like to come down and get her, or shall we bring her up?"

"My… daughter?" Gloria asked, confused.

"Yes, your daughter Tilly?"

Tilly? What in the world was she doing here in Big City, all by herself? "Oh, yes, of course, my daughter, Tilly! Sorry, it's been a very long day. Please, by all means, bring her up." Something was going on here, and hopefully this was the first step towards getting to the bottom of it.

The front desk clerk looked back and forth between the child and the adult, noting very little resemblance between the two, not to mention that Gloria didn't look nearly old enough to have a daughter as old as Tilly. "I have brought up your… daughter?"

"Yes," Gloria said. "This is my daughter. Tilly Sato. Can't you tell?" She gave him a pointed "I am a guest and that makes me right and you have no choice but to agree" look.

"…yes, of course," the clerk replied. "Will that be all?"

"Yes, unless you're hungry, dear."

"I could eat."

"One fried shrimp and chips platter, one Caesar salad, and send up a hot fudge sundaw about half an hour later."

"Right away, Ms. Sato," the clerk said obsequiously, backing out."

"Okay, Tilly, what the heck are you doing here by yourself?"

"Oh, I'm not by myself. Cricket, Remy and Andromeda are also here. Vasquez brought us. "

"Then what the heck are you all doing here? And who's Vasquez?"

"Well, when you didn't want to see us yesterday, something felt wrong…"

"Wait… you were here yesterday?"

"Yes, my whole family came to visit."

"That's strange, why didn't the front desk call me? I would've loved to see you guys."

"That's not what the front desk told us. They said that you didn't want to see anyone."

Gloria's eyes narrowed. "I didn't tell them anything like that."

"I kind of figured that when we heard your message on the answering machine."

"Something fishy is going on here, and I'm not talking about the fried shrimp," Gloria realized. Maybe Bill's call wasn't real either, she realized with a sense of relief. "Someone is trying to isolate me. And I don't like it."

"A nefarious plot indeed," Tilly agreed. "But why?"

"I don't know. The only person wo would have the power and the opportunity to do it is Avant Garth, but what's his motivation? Is this just a power thing, or does he have something personal against us?"

"I couldn't imagine what," Tilly questioned.

Meanwhile, in "Avant Garth's" suite

Constructing an entire persona with an entire history out of whole cloth was a difficult task. Assuming an existing identity, less so.

Avant Garth was indeed a real person, and had been a major figure in the fashion industry, but had not appeared in public in a number of years. In reality, he had burned out and retired to his private chalet in the mountains of Switzerland, in search of "inspiration", which had basically amounted to watching a lot of trash TV and complaining about it under a false name on the Internet. His disappearance, however, had allowed disgraced Wholesome Foods CEO Chip Whistler to take over his identity as part of yet another convoluted scheme to seek revenge on the Greens.

When his previous scheme to drive the Greens out of Big City had failed, it had failed so spectacularly that he'd been banned entirely from Big City. On top of that, when his father had found out, he'd had the Wholesome Foods board remove him from the CEO position, replacing him with his ex-lackeys Wholesome Greg and Wholesome Rose. Luckily for him, he'd managed to embezzle quite a bit of money from the Wholesome coffers without anyone's notice, thanks to some creative bookkeeping, so he'd had the fundage to mount this scheme. And when Gloria had achieved social media virality, he knew he had the perfect vector to get at the Greens, since the girl was practically an honorary Green at this point herself. He knew very well of the part she'd played in his last foiling, so she was definitely on the revenge list too, but first, he took great pleasure in driving a wedge between the her and the family. As the days would progress, he planned to continue having Job Boles and other actors playing the Greens leave fake threats on Gloria's voicemal until Gloria was provoked to take legal action against the family, driving them out of the city. After that, he'd rig some kind of fake scandal to destroy her life once he no longer had need of her. All in all, a perfect scheme.

Time now for his check-in with the front desk to make sure his plan was being followed. "Front Desk, Percy Snickety speaking, how may I help you?" answered the clerk.

"This is Avant Garth. I'm just checking in to make sure Ms. Sato's iso- privacy is being taken into consideration."

"Oh, yes, she hasn't been bothered by anyone at all. Oh, except for her daughter, of course."

"Her… daughter?"

"Oh yes. It seemed she had gotten lost in the hotel, but I managed to get her back to her mother, who seemed very relieved to see her."

"I see. And…could you describe this daughter?" Chip asked.

"What, you've never met her?" the clerk asked.

"No, I'm not quite up on Ms. Sato's… family life," Chip answered.

"Oh, she's an adorable girl… I'd say about 10, 11, yellow skin, black hair, freckles…"

"...buck teeth?" asked Chip, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Why yes… how did you know?"

"Lucky guess." So the weird little Green girl had found her way up. And if she was here, it was likely her obnoxious little brother was there too, somehow.

"…sir?" the clerk asked, confused.

"Nothing. Good work," Chip assured him. "In fact… I think I'd like to meet Ms. Sato's daughter…"

CRICKET: Wow, things are gettin' pretty intense! I wonder what happens next!

BILL: Did you just say you CROSSED HUNDREDS OF FEET OVER A BUSY STREET ON A FLIMSY LITTLE GRAPPLE WIRE?

CRICKET: …in this story! Yep, I ain't never done nothin' like that. Heh. That's be crazy.

BILL: Oh. Well, that's all right then.

CRICKET: *phew*

A.N.: We're close to the end now! Just a chapter or two left.

Jose: Well, the ones who heard it. Looks like Chip's scheme is starting to unravel…

See ya next time!