The Return of Sherlock James

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 11:

As Sheen was concluding his cross examination and Libby was standing down from the witness stand, Jimmy Neutron was fidgeting impatiently as his father took his own fiendishly unhurried time driving back home. "Dad, could we please go a little faster?" he pleaded.

"Now, Jimmy," his father said, "how often are we lucky enough to take nice leisurely family drive through the country on a Saturday morning?"

"At least once too often," Jimmy muttered.

"Exactly," his father continued. "And trust me, when you grow up you'll savor every memory of this. Now, when I was a boy –"

"Squirrel!" Jimmy's mother cried, pointing to the road ahead.

Hugh Neutron looked puzzled. "No, Sugar Booger. I'm pretty sure that I was a boy."

Jimmy's mother reached over and jerked the steering wheel hard over, causing the car to slew past the small animal darting across the road, and then corrected to put the vehicle back on course once they were safely past. As she slumped back into her seat Jimmy's father stuck he head out the window.

"Road hog!" he yelled back at the offending rodent. Satisfied that he had fulfilled his part of the requisite proprieties he resumed his normal driving duties. "Now, where was I?"

"You were saying something about when you were a boy," Judy Neutron prompted him.

Jimmy's father nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes," he said. "When I was a boy…" He stopped and thought about it. "Or was it a squirrel? You know," he went on, after a pause, "it's been so long I can't really remember a lot about when I was young. Well, all the more reason to make sure Jimmy remembers this part of his life."

"Don't worry," Jimmy unhappily assured him. "I will. Every excruciatingly drawn out second of it."

"Well, that's great, son. Because it seems that this road we're driving on has quite a role in history. It seems that during the Civil War, when Colonel Beauregard Retro was ordered to reinforce the garrison at Fort Unnecessary, he unfortunately lost his map and…"

Jimmy groaned inwardly. One of these days, he told himself as his father droned on, I'm going to have to learn to drive.

Back in Miss Fowl's classroom Nick was waiting to call his next witness when Miss Fowl called out, "Sheen!"

"Yes, Miss Fowl?" Sheen answered. "And that's Counselor Sheen, if you please."

"Very well, Counselor Sheen," Miss Fowl answered in turn. "Before we call the next witness, I want to remind you that there is no chewing gum in class."

"Haven't we gone over that already?" Sheen countered. "This is a courtroom, not a –"

"It's still my ro-o-om!" Miss Fowl squawked. "No gum!"

Sheen looked doubtful. "But -"

Miss Fowl pointed to her wastebasket, cutting Sheen short. "Now!" she insisted. "Or I'll hold you in contempt of this court!"

As Sheen wavered Cindy gave him an impatient look. "For crying out loud," she hissed at him. "Just do it before you get into trouble. Or worse, get me into more trouble."

Defeated, Sheen walked reluctantly over to the wastebasket, discarded the offending wad, and returned to his seat by Cindy. "Now you've done it," he whispered.

"Done what?" Carl asked from behind him.

"Yeah, what?" Cindy echoed.

Sheen shook his head. "That was some of Jimmy's book gum. He told me to chew it while I was defending you. Now I can't remember anything courtrooms or law or testimony or anything!"

Cindy stared in disbelief. I knew it was too good to be true, she thought numbly. "Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Just some stuff about objections and habeus corpuses and other words that don't make sense anymore," Sheen told her dismally. "And Ultra Lord of course. But I'm as useless to you as Carl is now."

"That's not good," Carl observed dismally before realizing a few seconds later what Sheen had said. "Hey, wait a minute…"

"Check your egos, people," Cindy snapped. Although Sheen's legal abilities had been artificially enhanced she realized that he had already exposed some weaknesses in the case against her. Possibly there was something else that could be uncovered. "What do they really have against us?"

"What do you mean 'us'?" Sheen objected. Cindy gave him a venomous look and he subsided. "Okay, fine," he said. "Let's see…there's that stuff that was in your bag…the pen, the 400 grams of queasy gold, Libby's bracelet…"

Carl nearly jumped up in excitement. "Hey, wait! That's it! I've solved the case!"

"You?" Cindy asked in disbelief.

Sheen also appeared skeptical. "Are you talking about that Omnipedia Beige story?"

"No," Carl answered in impatience. He stood up and raised his hand. "Miss Fowl! I have important new evidence that will solve this case once and for all!"

Miss Fowl sighed and rested her head in her hands, fairly certain that whatever Carl had to say would not help either Cindy or her own sanity. However, experience had also taught her that the simplest way of dealing with it was to indulge Carl until he finally understood the situation himself. "What is it, Carl?"

"Miss Fowl, I object!" Nick called out. "This guy isn't a lawyer."

"Neither are you," Carl pointed out. "This is all make-believe anyway."

"Well, at least I'm a make-believe lawyer," retorted Nick.

Sheen scoffed. "Not a very good one."

Before Nick could respond any further Miss Fowl hammered her desk with her stapler. "Order in the court!" she snorted. "Carl, get on with it."

Carl bowed. "Thank you, Your Honor. As you know," he addressed the other students, "the strongest person in class is Butch."

"Got that right!" Butch called out while Nick frowned.

"And also, as you know, the first item taken was Jimmy's sample of fake gold," Carl continued. "But something that has been overlooked is that the sample weighed 400 grams, a weight so large that only once person in this class could possibly hide and carry it without attracting attention. Someone so strong that 400 grams would be like the weight of a feather to them." Carl whirled and pointed. "And that person is Butch!"

Butch stood stock still for a full five seconds before slowly clenching a massive fist and driving it into his other palm. "Call the butcher shop," he told Carl in an ominously quiet voice, "because you are dead meat, Meat."

Six years of the metric system in grade school completely down the drain, Miss Fowl thought sadly. "Carl," she said. "You do realize that 400 grams is the same weight as two rolls of nickels?"

Carl looked uncertain. "Maybe," he finally ventured. "But nickels are heavy too. For some people," he added.

"And do you remember that that half the students in class passed it around in class without any trouble at all?" added Libby.

Carl's uncertainty turned into discomfort. "Well…"

"And that I had it in my backpack without even knowing it?" Cindy concluded.

Carl squirmed, not really sure how to proceed, until Miss Fowl put him out of his misery by telling him gently, "You may sit down, Carl."

"Thank you Miss Fowl…Your Honor," Carl said in relief. He slipped into his seat and hunkered down, trying to make himself as small as possible. Despite Carl's obliviousness Cindy recognized that he had been trying to help and at this point knew that she couldn't be too particular from where help came.

"Thanks anyway, Carl," she told him quietly. "It was a nice try for…it was a nice try."

"Thanks," Carl answered in a considerably subdued tone of voice. "Want a fruit chewy? I think this one is kumquat."

Cindy shook her head, turning her attention back to the proceedings as Miss Fowl called, "Please call your next witness, Nick."

"Thank you, Your Honor," Nick said. "I call Cynthia Vortex to the stand."

Cindy stiffened and Sheen laid his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry," he told her. "I'm sure that Jimmy knew something like this might happen. He wouldn't have left if he wasn't sure we could handle it."

"I hope you're right," Cindy whispered back as she rose to her feet, "because I think we're running out of time." She strode towards the front of the room, received her instructions from Miss Fowl, and took her seat on the witness stand. Nick gazed at her without speaking, apparently assessing the situation.

"Now, Cindy…" Nick began and stopped. He leaned forward and smiled, resting his elbow on the edge of Cindy's chair. "May I call you Cindy?"

"That's my name," Cindy replied, somewhat flustered. Despite everything there was something about Nick that still put butterflies in her stomach and turned her knees to water.

"Objection!" Sheen called out. "It has been entered into the record that her name is 'Cynthia', and not 'Cindy'!"

"Overruled," Miss Fowl responded. "Prosecution may continue."

"Thank you, Your Honor." Nick smiled again at Cindy. "Would you say that I'm a pretty cool guy?"

Cindy puzzled over this. "Yes," she answered slowly, not sure where Nick was heading with this.

"And you wouldn't want to see me lose respect with everyone, would you?"

"No."

"So, if my job was to prove that the stuff you had in your backpack were the stolen items, you wouldn't hold it against me, would you?"

Cindy shook her head. "I suppose not. I mean, it's not your fault they were there."

"Exactly. And they were there, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"And that was your bag, right? And you had the bag with you all the time, right?"

Cindy felt a trap tightening. "Well, it was my bag and I didn't give it to anyone, but -"

Nick smiled again, but it was a self-satisfied sort of smile. "So if a cool guy like me were to conclude that you must have put them there, wouldn't it make sense that he was right and not some kind of a total loser?"

"Objection!" Sheen yelled, waving his arm furiously. "It has not been clearly established to the satisfaction of this court that Nick is 'cool'! I mean, he doesn't even have the Ultra Lord Starter Kit, for Pete's sake!"

Miss Fowl responded by hammering the stapler. "Objection overruled," she stated flatly. "I think that it has been clearly established that Nick is 'cool'." The class all murmured in agreement and Miss Fowl nodded towards Cindy. "You will please answer the question."

Cindy bit her lip, unwilling to reply. Finally she said weakly, "Well, I suppose it would make sense. But that doesn't mean -"

Sheen waved off the rest of her answer and turned away. "Thank you, that will be all. No further questions."

"Thank you, Nick," said Miss Fowl. "Does the defense wish to cross-examine?"

"I guess we do, your honor," Sheen answered. He walked towards Cindy as Sheen was returning to his seat.

"Beat that, loser," Nick muttered under his breath as he passed Sheen.

Although Nick's comment was missed by most of the rest of the class, Cindy was close enough to catch it and she wondered what Sheen could possibly do. She wasn't the only one wondering that. Sheen had no idea how to proceed and his face clearly showed it, dampening Cindy's already flagging spirits. Somehow she was convinced that the next few minutes would clearly establish her innocence or guilt.

End of Chapter 11