Chapter 6: Plans
"Thief!"
"Excuse me?"
"Vandal!"
"We did not vandalize anything!"
"Breaker-and-entererer!"
"WOULD YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN?"
It was later, and the Innocent was beginning to get a really bad headache.
First of all, there had been the car ride back to Kooza, which was bad enough all by itself. Then, he and Christian had been chased across the parking lot by two completely random policemen and had had to run around the tent quite a few times to throw them off; the tent itself hadn't seemed to want to let them back in and Christian had practically had to threaten to cut a hole through it before the tent flap had loosened enough to let them through; then the policemen had turned up again inside the tent and they'd only escaped because the bird creatures had also reappeared and the two of them managed to hide behind the tower while the birds were terrifying the policemen; when they'd finally come out of hiding they'd almost been blown up by the court clowns, who had somehow regained their remote and were messing around with it again; Christian had attempted to tell them what he and Innocent had been doing, and now there was... this...
"If you keep insulting me, my friend, or you are going to regret it!"
"I am the KING! And also I have a remote control, you... criminal! It is against the law to break into people's apartments!"
"Since when do you know what the law is? Will you SHUT UP for a second and LISTEN?"
"Arsonist!"
"SHUT! UP!" Christian clamped his hand over the King's mouth hard. "Arson isn't even related, my friend. Brush up on your crime dictionary. Listen. These are your ears, you listen with them. Okay?" The King rolled his eyes, not being able to say much, and Christian took a deep breath. "Okay. First of all, we did not break in, we walked in. Nothing was broken. I do not... break things. Second, there were suspicious circumstances. Third, we found more suspicious things in the apartment, and fourth, if you even think of biting my hand, you are standing on a trapdoor right now."
"Mmf mrf," the King grumbled, and Christian released him. "There was no trapdoor here last time I checked, I don't think... They're over there and there and there. Did you put in a new one? Hey you, did he cut any holes in the floor recently? What kind of suspicious things in the apartment?"
This, Innocent thought, was what you got when you tried to put together a plan to save the world with three crazy men and a thief. They were probably going to reach some kind of conclusion at some point, but whether it was going to be anywhere like in time was the question.
He glanced over at Sergei and possibly-Pete, who were playing tic-tac-toe on the dog using chunks of ham and pretzels (the difficulty of the game was increased by the fact that their playing board kept trying to eat the pieces), and then back to Christian and the King, whose discussion seemed to have calmed down a bit. "No, the boy and I are going to go and talk to her," Christian was saying. "And I'd rather have it happen today, so if you have nothing more to say, my friend?"
"Go talk to her? Go talk to her? I demand-" Innocent braced himself.
"-that you take me with you!"
Innocent winced.
"You two aren't going to have all the fun, you know! I want some too!"
Christian, oddly enough, seemed unsurprised. "You know, my friend, I thought you might," he said, clapping the King on the shoulder. "All right, then, this is going to require some... disguise..."
...
It turned out to be only disguise of a sort. All in all, there was only a change of clothes, mysteriously provided out of Christian's briefcase, which seemed to be bigger on the inside than the outside, and some minor hair-tweaking, mostly to stop the King's from looking quite so much as if it had been done by a windstorm with hairspray. There was an argument about the crown, which the King wanted to take and Christian insisted would defeat the whole point, which was that they were dressed in clothes that would stop people from staring at them in the street; and then they were somehow in Christian's car, Innocent feeling rather odd in pants and a sweatshirt and trying not to stare too much at the King's outfit, which had started out fairly normal-street-clothes but seemed to be trying to mutate into something very odd since he had put it on. Christian hadn't changed at all - apparently it was true that people didn't notice him. And they were off, with obligatory suspicious comments from the King, to Tia Rapez's place once more.
Innocent sat uncomfortably on the passenger side, gripping the front edge of the seat with both hands, while the King grouched from the back about how he and not Innocent should get the front seat, Innocent probably wasn't even old enough to be sitting up there, etcetera etcetera. Innocent felt uncomfortable, to say the least. He knew Christian had something planned (or at least he hoped so, though so far he hadn't really seen any proof of his, Christian's, long-term planning abilities), but the man hadn't shared with him what it was exactly, and all Innocent knew was that he was getting dragged around back and forth for unrevealed purposes, when he a. Really wanted to stay with Trickster, who he was worried was not going to last much longer, given how fast he seemed to be fading - literally; and b. Couldn't see for the life of him what all this running around after this Miss Rapez person was going to do for Kooza or for Trickster. Okay, she'd been wandering around Kooza before... whatever had happened had happened, and she had done something to the clowns, and she had what Christian thought was a trapeze in her closet, but what did all that add up to, and why were they chasing her around and not helping Trickster stay alive? He felt shaky, and not just from Christian's insane method of driving.*
Christian glanced over at him, and took his right hand off the steering wheel to rest it on the Innocent's shoulder. "My friend, I promise you I know what I am doing, Please do not worry. I have a plan."
Innocent nodded noncommittally - I know, you keep saying that - and nodded toward the front as the King screamed "Look at the road, you idiot!"
When they pulled up at Miss Rapez's apartment building, the King whistled, resting his chin on the car door. "This is where the Rapee lady lives?"
Christian didn't correct him on the name. "Yes, you don't get out much, do you, my friend?"
"Well, no! This is the first time in... um... a long time! It was impressive how you got us out of the tent, I didn't know you could do that." He got out of the car, fiddling with his tie. "How do I look?"
"Very odd," Christian sighed.
"Says the guy with eyebrows that go up and down like a pair of... squiggly things. I think I look fine."
"All right, if you say so." Christian leaned toward Innocent and the King. "So you remember what we are supposed to be here for? You let me do the talking - that's for you,my royal friend, not our mute friend here - and keep an eye on the lady. Okay?"
The three of them stepped into the building, climbed the few steps to the second floor, and assembled themselves in front of Miss Rapez's door. Christian cleared his throat and knocked.
There were noises from inside the apartment, and after a moment the door was opened. Tia Rapez stood in the doorway, looking slightly puzzled. She was in her late thirties maybe, still pretty, with a couple of dyed streaks in her blond hair and a determined face, and looked as if she was not going to be very receptive to door-to-door salesmen.
Christian smiled at her. "Hello, good afternoon, we are from the National Census-Taking Society and we'd like to just come in and ask you a few questions. You are Miss Rapez, correct? My name is Christian Taschendieb,** and I... er..."
He trailed off. it was clear that Tia was not listening to him anymore. She was staring at him with her mouth slightly open in shock.
"Pickpocket?" she said.
A/N:
*Oh god angsty Innocent. I'm getting so tired of him being so angsty all the time. Toughen up, Innocent, seriously. -_- *sigh*
**...Honestly, Christian, do you have to scream it? XD (If you don't speak German, stick Taschendieb into Google Translator.)