Okay, here's the second chapter. Again, I do not own Fillmore but I do own this fanfic and its plot. Also, I apologize to Just a Hint for getting Principal FOLSOM's name wrong—I'm a very new Fillmore fan, so I'm not exactly an expert on the names of the secondary characters yet.
Chapter Two: "Temporary Loss of a Special Ability"
*****
Fillmore had just proper his feet up again as he watched Vallejo lecture Joseph about leaving his coffee cup on his desk. "It's leaves rings on the tabletops!" Vallejo snapped. "You've been making a mess of the place all week, Anza! One more false move and I'm having you demoted! And Fillmore, WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THE SHOES?!?!"
The two boys muttered to themselves as Joseph tossed his coffee cup and Fillmore let his feet drop back to the floor. Just then the door swung open wide and bounced lightly off the wall as Ingrid entered and made a beeline for Fillmore's desk. Unfortunately, Vallejo had seen it all and came marching angrily toward her.
"Third!" he shouted. "If you just go around THROWING OPEN all of the doors they will hit and scratch up the walls! We aren't going to risk ruining school property anymore! We're already in enough trouble as it is." While he said this he seemed to be looking directly at Fillmore, who immediately averted his gaze.
"Uhh…what's his problem?" Ingrid asked her partner as Vallejo stormed into his office and shut the door behind him.
"I dunno," Fillmore replied. "He's probably either under a lot of stress, or he's going through a sudden territorial phase over all of his tabletops. Take your pick."
Ingrid rolled her eyes. "I've just talked to this girl named Linda Wincoff," she informed Fillmore. "Apparently someone has stolen all of the bumper stickers that were supposed to be given out with the rest of the awards today. Now all of the honor roll students are afraid that their parents won't be proud of them anymore…"
"Snap, those kids need to get out more often."
"…but I told Linda that I would take the case up to the Safety Patrol so that we can find out who took them and get them back. She showed me this bumper sticker that had been ripped in half and told me that it was a threat to all of the honor roll students at X Middle School."
"Huh?"
"It's supposed to be the highest offense against an honor roll student," Ingrid explained. "Quite surprisingly, I'm not worried at all about it. Anyway, what I've made out of this was that it could've been someone from another school in the district who was upset that X was going to get the five thousand dollars from the superintendent."
"Now, let's not jump to conclusions," Fillmore said strictly. "We need some more evidence in order to find the real person behind the theft. Without evidence we can't go around making crazy assumptions."
"Well, at least it's reasonable," Ingrid argued. "And I can't even tell you how many times you've made crazy assumptions while trying to solve a case."
"Oh really? Name one time," Fillmore challenged her.
"There was that time when all of the library books were stolen, and then there was the time when—"
"Okay, that's enough," Fillmore interrupted, sounding quite eager to change the subject. "Let's get to business."
The two officers exited the HQ, Ingrid with her backpack slung over her shoulder and Fillmore with the walkie-talkies in hand.
*****
The huge crowd of honor roll students remained surrounding the office, the constant chatter of the worried students filling the hallways. Only one of them didn't seem as horror-struck as the others. It was a young teenage boy, short with white-blonde hair, and he slowly made his way out of the wall of students. He jogged down the main hall, completely unnoticed by anyone. At the first left he turned and headed down a long row of lockers, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone. The boy ducked into the utility closet, closed the door, and removed a small, compact walkie-talkie from his pocket. "The plan has been running smoothly, master."
"Good work, Smith," came the voice of Sticky Fingers. "Have you gotten the safe combination?"
"Yessir. I wrote it down on the back of the social studies test I got back today."
"What grade did you get on it?"
"D plus."
"You never were honor roll material, Smith. Anyway, meet me back behind the school in ten and we'll take it up to the clubhouse. Someday within the next two weeks X Middle School will be awarded the money and it will be put in the safe. We're going to be ready this time. I'll be waiting for you at the clubhouse, Smith."
"Roger that. Over and out."
Smith pocketed his walkie-talkie, then opened the door of the closet and glanced cautiously out into the hallway. Once confident that the coast was clear, he slipped out of the closet and jogged past the rest of the lockers, then out the swinging doors and across to the blacktop behind the school. What he didn't notice was his social studies test falling out of his back pocket just before he entered the hallway. What he also didn't notice was officers Cornelius Fillmore and Ingrid Third walking across the tiled floor just before he left the school, examining everything within their range expertly and about three yards away from the utility closet.
*****
Fillmore turned to his partner. "We need to comb the entire area for clues," he informed her. "We'll need to spread out if we want to find something that can lead us to the bumper stickers. You go check the lockers, and I'll take a look in the utility closet. Believe me, you can hide anything in the utility closet," he added when Ingrid raised a critical eyebrow. Ingrid then nodded and the two of them went in their opposite ways.
When Fillmore approached the utility closet the first thing he noticed was that the door was open partway. Taking a quick mental note, the teen opened the door the rest of the way and turned on the overhead light inside. He reached for the nearest box and began to paw through it, but before he could reach the bottom he felt himself kneeling down on not a bare, cold floor, but on top of a piece of paper. Sliding back about a foot, Fillmore picked up the paper and turned it over. Scrawled onto the paper were the numbers 7, 13, 22, 9, and 16. Turning it over again, he saw that the paper was last week's seventh grade social studies test, covered in red marks and at the top a large red D+. Next to the D+ was the name Jared Smith.
"Disco," Fillmore muttered in satisfaction. Getting up to his feet, Fillmore stepped outside the closet and called for his partner. "Ingrid! I found something over here, and I need you to take a look at it!"
Ingrid rushed to his side in an instant and Fillmore handed her the paper, showing her the back of it first. "Hm," she mused. "They look like numbers that you might use on a combination lock. Do you think that it might unlock someone's locker?"
"Maybe," Fillmore replied, "but check this out." He flipped the paper over and jabbed a finger at the name. "What do you know about him?"
"Jared Smith," Ingrid murmured thoughtfully. "Seventh grader, B or C average…I think…blonde hair, and he takes social studies at period…" Ingrid began to squint her eyes in frustration and touched the tips of her fingers to her temples, obviously thinking hard. She thought to herself for a few more seconds, then dropped her arms back to her sides in dismay. "Crackers," she moaned. "It's really weird, but…I can't remember…" She immediately looked ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry Fillmore…I should be of more help, but…"
Fillmore patted her shoulder forgivingly. "It's okay, Ingrid. Everyone has an off day at one point. The only thing we need to do now is do a little bit of research and we can question him tomorrow. We'll head back to the HQ and check out the school records. Don't worry about it," Fillmore added as Ingrid continued to look ashamed and embarrassed. "We can figure this out with or without your photographic memory."
Ingrid looked up at her partner and grinned sheepishly. "Thanks, Fillmore."
"No problem. Now, let's go and crack this case! You with me?"
"You bet." The two of them both held out their fists, tapped their knuckles in a friendship salute, and were on their way back to the HQ.
*****
End of Chapter Two
A/N: I think that this chapter was better written than the first one, despite its shorter length. I'm beginning to like the relationship between Fillmore and Ingrid better—I like how they're always loyal to each other.
And yes, I KNOW that Ingrid doesn't really raise an eyebrow, cuz she doesn't have any. One eye just gets smaller and the other eye just gets…bigger. I wonder why I brought that up even though I knew that was the LAST thing on your mind anyway, cuz that was just a kind of out-of-the-blue subject, and…
Okay, I can tell that I'm boring you now even if you even BOTHER to read these author notes thingees, so I'll go now. Buh-bye.
~Teaz
P.S.: Yes, I am aware that the name of the chapter sucks. I'm not creative at all when it comes to naming my chapters, so just consider the names little experiments of mine in an attempt to boost my creative-ness. Ok, now I'm done.