A/N: Another chapter in the ongoing saga. I'm really quite sure this is going to be a beast of a story when it's all said and done. Those of you who have stayed on for the long haul, thank you! We'll have a chapter or two before we can get back to Helga and Arnold in the present. Thanks for your patience and continued support!
Keeping Arnold, Chapter 13: Waiting on the Feathers and Tar
"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata
Phoebe sat with her lunch bento untouched on the bench she and Gerald usually ate at, mind working too fast to pay any heed to her boyfriend rattling off a story about the varsity basketball team's latest victory. He was chewing a slice of cold pizza in between animatedly and enthusiastically detailing offensive drives and streaks, and the drama of a personal foul shot at the last few seconds of the game. It probably would have been interesting from a perspective of appreciating a good drama, like Phoebe did, if she wasn't so utterly consumed with the greater puzzle and threat facing their high school in Fuzzy Slippers.
The smartest girl in their junior year found herself stymied to no end by the ever elusive, especially dangerous and cruel figure. Phoebe had been struggling to piece together the seemingly random clues and bits of information that she and Gerald had scrounged up together for years now. Ever since their class entered high school, the figure of Fuzzy Slippers had been running roughshod over the romantic and social lives of everyone at the school. Even the teachers and faculty had felt the barbed sting of the rumor-mongering entity, and yet nobody had any clue at all who Fuzzy Slippers could possibly be.
That's not to say that Phoebe didn't have a list of potential suspects.
Things had gotten intense with the rumor mill and the unceasing hunger for drama their friends seemed to have. She had been up late nights working on this puzzle like a woman possessed, on top of college prep courses and her own rigorous study habits. In the end, Phoebe Heyerdahl was exhausted. Gerald's voice was a distant sound she knew was happening around her, but she was simply too tired to pay him any heed.
"And then Sid takes the jump shot," Gerald spread his arms wide for effect, pantomiming the arc of the ball through the air.
"Mhm," Phoebe responded automatically, staring at the pickled plum in her rice.
"...And then Bigfoot just SLAPS the ball outta the air!" Gerald slapped his hand down on the bench loudly, startling Phoebe into awareness. "Two yetis and a wendigo carried Sid screaming off into the sky."
Phoebe blinked and scrunched her nose up, confused. "Sorry, what?" Bigfoot and yetis?"
"Baby girl I have been spinning one hell of a yarn for about five minutes. You missed it when 300 Spartans held off our three pointers at the Hot Gates, and then six or seven Draculas swooped in to personal foul our whole team."
"I, what? Gerald are you feeling well?"
"I should be asking YOU that question. I basically started making ridiculous stuff up to see if you would notice. All you did was agree with me, 'Mhm,' and 'Of course.' You okay?"
Phoebe rubbed her eyes underneath her stylish cat-eye glasses. "No, Gerald, I am probably suffering the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation, layered generously on a variety of stress factors that contribute to an overall malaise and inattentiveness. I'm sorry."
Gerald shrugged his shoulders, taking another bite of pizza and talking around the mouthful he chewed. Phoebe always found Gerald's table manners to be less than pristine, and normally the annoyance would be easily shrugged off. Today, it just bugged her.
"Ain't a big deal, Pheebs, it was just a game. I'm more worried you are gonna burn out, all used up. Candles burning at both ends snuff out faster, you know."
"Your concern is sweet. Finish chewing before you tell me sweet things, Gerald, or they lose impact." She smiled as gently as her impatience and fatigue would allow.
"Oh my bad," he apologized with a mouthful again, then struggled the large amount of food down in a hasty chew. He sipped from his coke greedily to wash it down, then continued their conversation. "But really, don't you think you should take a break from all this Fuzzy Slippers nonsense?"
"I can't in good conscience take a break when our mysterious opponent is unchecked to wreak as much damage as he or she has the inclination."
"Well they ain't exactly unchecked, we've been dogging them for months. Years, even."
"With very little to show for our efforts, I'm afraid. And it feels like all our gains, however significant they might be in unraveling this mystery, come at too great a cost. Or worse, actually set us back in the end. I've never experienced someone so adept at strategy. I would very much like to get them in front of a Go board, I imagine they have terrifying strength with their level of intelligence."
"I mean, there's nobody at this school smarter than Phoebe Heyerdahl. That's a fact." Gerald pointed at his girlfriend for emphasis.
"Intelligence is subjective and can be measured in a startling variety of methods, Gerald, and I am afraid that in the specific arena of strategic subterfuge and misdirection, our opponent is much more intelligent. Whoever it is has been dancing circles around us with impunity."
Gerald hummed and took another long sip of his soda. Phoebe watched with curious fascination while her boyfriend casually lifted his cell phone above his head to take a selfie mid sip. Gerald had asked her out officially last summer, and she had said yes with gusto. Their relationship blossomed and they became especially close while they worked together to chase down Fuzzy Slippers. Everyone at school was a little envious of either of them. Gerald was one of the most popular guys at school, captain of the basketball team and a star player on their baseball team as well as the shortstop and cleanup batter. He was handsome, funny, charming, and generally had nothing but the best waiting for him. Phoebe, on her part, was certain to be their class' valedictorian, and thanks to her association with Gerald, also very popular. She had a predilection for following Korean fashion trends, and it kept her style unique and fresh, and so she was one of the more well liked "Geeks" at the school. Not that she cared, but, the two of them cut an interesting couple. Phoebe reflected on Gerald's carefree, extremely improvised lifestyle while she watched him take a few more selfies to perfect the shot.
"More social media, Gerald?" She found his habit of plastering his life all over the internet to be a little strange, but, on the internet, too, he found popularity.
"You know it. Ain't nothin' wrong with showing the world how good I look." He flashed her a white smile.
"Your handsomeness is only multiplied when you drink soda, I assure you," she playfully teased him.
"Haha, pretty funny for a geek. You should write comedy. Or better yet-tweet it!"
Phoebe laughed a little and shook her head. She had no use for microblogging, at least nothing she could think of. Why anyone would be interested in what she had to say or where she was at all times of the day-the ghost of an idea suddenly struck her.
"Wait, Gerald, you said before you were 'checking in' to a location on one of our dates. Does that service have some sort of Global Positioning System imbedded?"
"Say what now?"
"GPS. Are you able to track your position using GPS when you post selfies."
"Yeah girl, they got that. Lets all my adoring fans know where they can spot me, candidly enjoying the fine company of my foxy geek."
Phoebe enjoyed his flattery thoroughly. He was just sappy and goofy enough that the sincerity in his compliments touched her. But more importantly, this solidified her idea into a very real plot.
"Gerald, you're wonderful." Her smile was genuine.
"Thanks babe, I know. Why though?"
"We can use your social media presence to our advantage. You're one of the most popular people in our school, and you said most of the student body follows you, yes?"
"You know it, a few of the teachers too. Kinda creepy, though."
"Well, we can probably assume that Fuzzy Slippers, as cunning and well-informed as they are, probably have access to any information you post to social media. Probably to everyone at our school that uses it, in fact!"
"Hey that makes a lotta sense. Damn you're smart as hell." Gerald started to type something on his cell phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Tweeting how smart you are." He smiled at his phone's screen.
"Just as long as your flattery stops short of revealing my idea, thank you. We can feed false information. We can establish a falsified routine, even a pattern of movement. We can feed bad intel to Fuzzy Slippers, counterintelligence meant to put them where we want them, when we want them there!" Phoebe's smile surged on her face. The idea was just clever enough to work.
"Won't that lie to everybody though?"
"Yes, it has to. The idea is no good if even one person other than me or you knows the truth. Nearly anyone can be F.S. Anyone."
Gerald nodded slowly, slipping his phone into his pocket.
"You narrow the suspects down at all?"
Phoebe felt the tension in her face and jaw return, and a headache begin to angrily storm around on her brain.
"Unfortunately, the list is still fairly long...we can probably eliminate Helga, however."
"Pataki? You gotta be kidding me. Nobody has a bigger axe to grind with this whole school than her."
Phoebe wished Gerald had more patience for her beleaguered best friend. Helga had simply not been the same since Arnold left and her parents finally went through with the divorce. Now, she was fairly certain that Helga planned to move in with Brainy soon. Her life was distant from Phoebe's own, and it felt impossible to reach her at times.
"Helga is not Fuzzy Slippers." Phoebe was absolutely certain of this as a fact, though the evidence that Helga was the mysterious trouble maker was difficult to ignore. For one thing, Helga had never, not once, been the target of any of Fuzzy Slipper's brutal rumor campaigns. And Phoebe knew for a fact that there was plenty of dirt of the troubled Pataki girl. On top of that, there was a suspicious element of Arnold to the general theme of the various attacks on the students. Even Phoebe had to admit, it was deeply suspicious, and if she didn't know Helga better than anyone else in the world, she would be her primary suspect. Her faith in her friend, however, was stronger than any circumstantial evidence. She would have to see definitive proof, with her own eyes, before she would consider the possibility that Helga was Fuzzy Slippers.
Gerald held eye contact with her for a time, before shrugging and nodding. "Well if you're so certain, it's got to be true. But then who is it? Rhonda?"
"Rhonda's our biggest suspect, but…" Phoebe chewed her thumbnail, unsure if she should tell Gerald the latest piece of intel she had.
"But what? If it's probably Rhonda, we should go after her with your Twitter idea."
Phoebe wondered privately if Rhonda could manage the type of strategic acrobatics necessary to keep her struggling for so long. Pride, a nasty awful wounded pride, refused to believe that Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd could be the deadly foe she had danced with in the shadows of their high school for years. That she had been bested so often, and so thoroughly by someone she considered to be a fairly shallow person.
Plus, it was doubtful Rhonda would attack herself and her best friend Nadine.
"Recent developments point to the strong possibility that Rhonda never was Fuzzy Slippers, and was merely an exceptionally effective smoke screen."
"You're kidding me again. Nobody is a bigger gossip than Rhonda, not even Fuzzy Slippers. Damn you know what though I am tired as hell of calling this evil super spy asshole that name. I wish I never came up with that stupid code word in preschool."
Phoebe nodded, familiar with the history of the moniker. Gerald had famously used the term for the top secret identity of his playground informant. Back then, it was all harmless neighborhood legends and old wives tales, told boldly and dramatically by Gerald. Everyone assumed it was just a made up person, but Gerald eventually revealed the truth of the original, first Fuzzy Slippers. Someone left notes for him to find, usually in his backpack or locker, with interesting stories. He liked interesting stories. He even volunteered every note he kept to Phoebe when she had to clear Gerald's name. Naturally, when the rumor mill started to turn in High School, with that loaded name attached, everyone assumed it was Gerald at first. Only after he publicly revealed the notes and what he knew did he escape suspicion.
Whoever it was that continued to harass the class of PS118, it was not the original. Handwriting comparisons showed that there was a shift somewhere around when everyone was in middle school. That's when the attacks got a lot nastier, and revealing.
Gerald clearly felt at least partially culpable for the entire affair. Phoebe was sure she would feel the same in his shoes. That just motivated her to end this with even more urgency, to clear Gerald's name and conscience once and for all.
"It's not your fault the perpetrator adopted the childhood codeword you used. If anything, it makes them even more sinister. It was a brilliant feint, and it kept people guessing."
"I wish Arnold was here to help us." Gerald sighed and flopped over onto the bench, face down and arms stretched dramatically in front of him.
Phoebe concurred. Arnold would be at the front of this search, bringing Fuzzy Slippers down and saving the day. It was how everyone remembered him.
"I miss Arnold as well. But we have to focus on the resources we have rather than wish we had better ones."
"Although, if my man Arnold came back it would probably just make things a huge mess by now. Mhm. Just imagine all that...conflict." Gerald shuddered, illustrating his imagined scenario to be quite nightmarish.
Phoebe had to admit, after so much time away, and especially after his letters to Helga had all but stopped, a sudden return would present a whole new set of challenges. However, the more time he spent in the Southern Hemisphere, the more pronounced that troubling effect would be. All of this was hypothetical, however. The odds of Arnold just showing up suddenly were slim to none.
She had to focus on their present scenario, not daydream about possible heroism from their lost friend.
"Gerald, thank you for helping so much." Time to improve the morale of the troops. It helped that Phoebe meant what she said when she praised her boyfriend's assistance. "I know that you also have a personal interest in finding the culprit, but the help you've given has been instrumental. Without you, I don't even know where I would be. Still trying to figure out how to do damage control, given the likelihood that I would be unable to predict Fuzzy Slipper's next steps based on my own limited access to rumors and classroom hearsay."
Gerald looked a little surprised to get praised so suddenly, but smiled wide and easy at her. Phoebe liked when he did that. "Aw, babe, it ain't no thing. I'm just doing the right thing, I guess. I always tried to convince Arnold to just...leave things alone. Let bad things happen to bad people, you know, why stick your neck out for that mess? But, after he left, I just figured somebody got to step in. Might as well be me."
"Yes, and that decision was what made me start to admire you so much," she confessed, a little flush on her almond skin. He reached over and put her small hand in his much bigger one, and smiled.
"Well, babe, let's get started. What's the next step?"
Phoebe took a second to enjoy the feeling of her hand vanishing inside of his, a private flutter in her chest like a small bird attempting to escape its cage. If he kept being so sweet, figuring this out would be easy.
Phoebe grunted, pulling the bookcase up from the floor with Brainy's help and pushing it flush against their wall. A handful of records that hadn't yet fallen free of the lower shelves shifted and slid paper-like onto the floor with small slaps against one another. She wiped her forehead free of matted bangs that clung with sticky sweat to her eyebrows and cheeks, flushed from the hours of exertion in the cleanup. In almost complete silence the two of them had managed to get most of the damage sorted, and to a layperson examining the living room of Helga and Brainy's shared apartment space, it would likely seem as if a very messy person had lived here. Barely any evidence of a catastrophe lingered at all.
Brainy lowered himself to the floor a pace or two away from the shelves, sitting near the bulk of the records that fanned out haphazardly along the floor, scattered in disaster by Helga's fury. He pulled an empty milk crate from the wreckage and started to carefully stack album after album, meticulously gathering the last vestiges of chaos, applying order to the remains.
Phoebe took his cue, noting that he wasn't taking the time to organize anything quite yet. She wondered if that was a special activity he did with Helga, who she knew took enormous pride in their collection. It must have been extremely traumatic for Brian to watch her nearly destroy it all.
Brian pulled a broken vinyl out of a sleeve, frowning at the snapped black disc and tossing it to the side along with the cover to be disposed of.
"It doesn't appear that too many of your records suffered irreparable damage, which is fortunate considering the violence of their dispersal," Phoebe cracked the pregnant silence with her observation. Brian nodded noncommittally. The stack of broken and badly damaged records was relatively small, but still growing. Phoebe internally winced every time Brian threw another to join the casualties.
"Brian you know, it may seem impertinent of me, but," she began, wishing to reach out to her friend who was so obviously suffering through these events alone. "If you ever wanted to talk to me, about Helga I mean, I am here and willing to listen."
Brian's shoulders bobbed once with a little laugh, his face showing a tired half-smile. There was no humor in his eyes while he looked at a first printing of a Swans album, in enough pieces that it was pointless to lament its destruction. Phoebe felt awfully for him, and the urge to try to bandage his wound was so strong within her. She'd always known that Brian had been in love with Helga, ever since they were little kids. Only a blind idiot, or Arnold, wouldn't notice that Brian was literally always around Helga. When they moved in together, Phoebe was partially horrified, and partially relieved. She was sure that the almost hedonistic Helga wouldn't be able to resist Brian's constant supportive, extremely available, and rather quite uniquely handsome presence entirely. Maybe she hadn't, Phoebe wasn't sure, and wouldn't pry.
But she was always worried that something like this would inevitably happen. Helga was singularly focused, to put it politely, on Arnold, and it was extremely unlikely that anything besides the complete victory in winning his heart would satisfy her. Even that might not be enough, she mused, now that Lila was still definitely a part of Arnold's life. She knew Helga, she would require absolute victory to be satisfied, which meant Lila totally divorced from Arnold's interests forever. But this also meant that Brian never really stood a chance.
Even Phoebe's intellectual appreciation for the macabre beauty of a doomed tragic unreciprocated love did nothing to soothe the rankle of bitterness she felt on Brian's behalf. Sympathy, no, empathy filled her guts with acid when she thought about him, loving Helga, alone.
Brian merely nodded to her in response and kept cleaning.
"I know I talk an awfully lot, but perspicacity is one of the things I value the most about myself, and expressing this trait often requires...communication." Phoebe sighed, walking to the fridge. She needed to unwind a little bit. All this tension, all the time, built and escalated to dizzying heights by the whirlwind of Arnold and Helga was frankly fraying her nerves threadbare. She turned away from the fridge with a freshly opened beer to see Brian looking at her with a little bit of surprise.
"What? I drink. I enjoy sake with my father quite often, and the Japanese have a notorious appreciation for an ice cold, face-clenchingly bitter lager." She smirked and nodded Brian's way. "Would you care to join me? We could use a break."
Brian stood up, finally speaking. "God yes."
She tossed him a very cold brown bottle, and they clinked them together on the balcony a short time later.
"Cheers," Brian said, and took a long gulp. He leaned over the railing and looked down into the alley below. The mid-day sun was baking the shadows out of the sidewalk, and the late summer heat was relentlessly encroaching into the living room, making the two of them sweat even with the AC on full blast. Out in the open, though, it seemed kind of refreshing to Phoebe, making her skin aware.
"Cheers indeed," she added, taking a small sip of the bitter drink. She remembered his mouth wound, inflicted by Helga, and regretted offering him the beer. "Are you sure you should be drinking a beer with a mouth wound, though? Alcohol thins the blood."
Brian stuck his tongue out at her. The muscle was red, slightly swollen, and ran through with thick black stitches along the tip. It looked like a nasty wound, and painful.
He shrugged and took another sip, visibly grimacing at the sensation of alcohol on the wound, but, drinking it just the same.
"You know she'll probably move out if Arnold stays." Phoebe remarked, flicking her eyes towards Brian while she tried to gauge his reaction. There was no probably about it. If Arnold moved back to Hillwood, wherever he hung his boots was where Helga would be.
"Yeah, I know," he laughed, and reached into his pocket for a his rolling tobacco. He rolled a cigarette while Phoebe watched, noting the little stains on his fingers where he habitually held his cigarettes. After he licked it closed, lit the end, and took his first drag, he sighed smoke out between his reply. "I hope she does, though."
Phoebe watched him with surprise. Brian wasn't a very talkative person. He definitely never spoke about his feelings to Phoebe before. Maybe he was taking her up on the friendly offer to discuss them?
"I just kind of want this all to be over," he blithely admitted, shrugging his shoulders and taking another drag.
"I can certainly understand that. I imagine this scenario has been one you had dreaded personally for quite some time. Years, perhaps."
"Yep."
"Arnold's return must have been the worst news you could have received that day. I'm very sorry, Brian."
"So you keep saying," he sighed, and rest his head between his arms against the railing, his long, tall frame stooped in the gesture.
"I certainly am sincere. You are my friend too, as I continually assert. I have no desire to see you hurt. I was actually against the idea of you two moving in together," she admitted, hesitating for just a moment before she explained why. "I anticipated that you two getting as close as you have would someday lead to a lot of extremely avoidable heartache."
"Wasn't ever avoidable." Flat. No emotion.
"Why chase her then, continually? For years you got the business end of her fists for your efforts." Phoebe genuinely didn't understand why Brian had been so persistent when for years as kids she must have broken hundreds of pairs of his glassed with her retributive fury.
"We're the same." Brian didn't seem to know how to express what he was feeling. Phoebe could see a sort of agitated anxiety flirting with the corners of his mouth as he considered saying more, but stayed silent.
"You have a lot of similarities, yes, but, that doesn't explain your...your almost obsessive infatuation. I just want to understand, Brian, I'm not criticizing you."
"She and you are friends," he started, slowly. Phoebe nodded at him to continue his point. "She and I are family."
Phoebe at last understood. Brian wasn't just reaching out to Helga out of affection or lust or even the desire for a friend. Brian chased after Helga like a twin follows their other half.
That was all he needed to say. She put her beer down and slid over to hug him, her small arms squeezing around the midsection of his chest. He folded one bony arm around her in reply, and she slipped free.
"If that's the case, and your bond is that strong, then perhaps she won't be your lover or your roommate, but she'll always still be your friend. Don't you think?"
Brian nodded, sadness and acceptance in the weight of his gaze.
Phoebe went back to quietly thinking with her beer at her lips, standing there with Brian, the tension dispelled. Now, they could get back to cleaning as friends. This no longer felt like an imposition, but like cooperation.
It's surprising how much faster work goes when you are no longer anxious in the company you keep. Brian and Phoebe gained more ground in the next hour than they had all morning. Before long, the bookshelves were righted, records sorted, and the carpet vacuumed and looking almost new. Brian's mouth started to swell and hurt worse so they took a break in the kitchen while the afternoon began to burn orange and the day got older.
Brian held an ice pack to his face and swigged a cold beer - the futility of icing himself when he kept exacerbating the problem with alcohol was something Phoebe had already pointed out to him - quiet as always. Phoebe sat in appreciative silence with him, taking her phone out to check up on things.
Phoebe's blood suddenly ran glacial. She felt color drain from her face. Her hand started trembling right away, and her phone clattered to the table, sharply splitting the silence with percussive distress.
Brian looked up at Phoebe and noticed her expression. She was sure it looked fearful.
She pointed at her phone's screen. Her texting app was on display. A massive thread with hundreds of people, replies ranging from outrage and confusion and mockery, some of them recorded as contacts she had in her phone already, the vast majority as anonymous ten digit numbers. Scrolled up to the source of this sudden text-based mass imbroglio, the screen displayed an image that terrified Phoebe.
It wasn't anything too dramatic. Nothing especially disturbing. Sent from a number that registered in Phoebe's phone as "UNKNOWN01" was a high resolution picture of Rhonda and, to Phoebe's shock, Nadine in mid embrace on the balcony of a hotel, faces nearly touching, the distinct curl of a smile across Nadine's visible face. The text plastered over it in huge macro font, however, cause Brainy to stand up in fear and was what provoked such a reaction from Phoebe herself:
"LOOKS LIKE THE LOVEBIRDS RECONCILED
TOO BAD THEIR SECRET'S OUT
SHOULDNT HAVE TRIED TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, LLOYD
F.S."
Phoebe cradled her face with her hands. This was disastrous. Fuzzy Slippers was officially back.
And there would be hell to pay.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Pheebs, look! Look!" Gerald hissed in a harsh whisper, pulling Phoebe's attention away from her phone to look up through the bushes she and Gerald were crouched within. She looked up in the direction Gerald was gawking at with a series of odd ululating squeaks of surprise and dismay, and felt the sudden impulse to join him in doing her best vocal impression of ambient jungle wildlife.
Lila Sawyer walked into view behind the high school's gym, precisely where they were had led Fuzzy Slippers through a series of extremely clever and convoluted clues through their friend's twitter accounts.
Phoebe was stunned into disbelief. Lila Sawyer? It couldn't be her, it was impossible! And yet, the winsome redhead was stalking surreptitiously in the small alleyway between the gym and the generator building, looking awfully suspicious and especially sneaky.
"I can't believe it!" Gerald whispered, the force of his surprise almost pushing his voice into actual speaking volume. Phoebe's small hand slipped over his mouth to urge quiet, but he spoke behind it again. "It's Sawyer! How is it possible?"
Phoebe's mind was racing through the facts, trying to piece Sawyer's presence in the alleyway into the overall puzzle of the Fuzzy Slippers problem. The high school junior had never been faced with a fact so incontrovertibly irreconcilable, and yet, the only way Lila could be in this spot at this time was because she was Fuzzy Slippers - or a one in a ten thousand coincidence of galactic proportions.
"Gerald, we don't know for sure. It could be a mistake-" Phoebe whispered back, watching with interest all of Lila's movements. She was surprised at how catlike the country girl was creeping, how light on her flats she seemed.
"Ain't no mistake, Pheebs. We set the bait, this is the trap, and it's sprung. We caught Fuzzy Slippers and it's Lila Sawyer. How the hell did we miss that?"
Phoebe wasn't so sure. Nothing made sense to her in this time; she needed to think.
"Gerald just be quiet for a second, let's watch if she takes the bait further. She could be here by accident."
"You gotta be kidding me she's right there, plain as day and-oh shit!" Gerald shushed up from his urgent whisper-beratement, noticing that Lila was looking right at them. Phoebe was frozen in place, unsure of what to do. Lila held eye contact with her. There was no way she didn't see her.
"Phoebe? Gerald?" Lila called out to them, sounding confused.
Phoebe felt like her heart was about to sever its earthly bonds and escape the cycle of Samsara, lift itself into the heavens and vanish into the blessed void. She was terrified, anxious, had no idea what to do. She felt surprise at the sensation of her legs shakily standing up.
"Th-that's right! It's us." Not one of my most brilliant Gotcha proclamations she mused in a panic, hands fidgeting at her skirt hem.
"The jig's up, Sawyer!" Gerald stood up too, pushing his chest out and seeming a lot braver than he surely must have felt. If they were facing down Fuzzy Slippers, the real Fuzzy Slippers, this was potentially a life ruining encounter.
"Jig? Phoebe? Is this some sort of prank?" She sounded genuinely confused, her voice sweetly lacking guile. "I'm ever so sure I'm lost right now, can you explain what is going on?"
Phoebe and Gerald exchanged glances, both looking as deeply confused as the other.
"Y-you tell us first, Sawyer," Gerald began, strength in his voice waning. "Why are you here?"
"Are you two...having a romantic rendezvous?" Lila's cheeks pinkened, an honest reaction to a legitimately embarrassing thought. It threw Phoebe for a loop.
"N-no! No, no we are most certainly not," Phoebe began hesitantly. She swallowed a bolt of anxiety and pushed on. "Why have you come to this precise point at this precise time? Retrace your steps. How you answer," Phoebe began, her voice lowering and becoming huskily commanding, "might determine your future in this city."
Lila's face screwed up in a half-smile. "Is that a joke? I'm ever so sure I don't follow."
"Just do as she says, Lila, and we can get this all over with."
Phoebe stared hard at Lila while she looked at the two of them. If she was playing a role, she was playing it extremely convincingly. Somehow, she had to catch her, if it was her. Finally, Lila shrugged and spoke.
"I got a note in my locker that told me to come here and I would see something funny. I'm ever so sure I normally don't follow random anonymous letters' instructions, but I asked Arnold what to do and he said that there was likely some kind of trick being played. Maybe by Fuzzy Slippers?" Lila's voice lilted a little with hesitation while she pronounced the name, and her volume dropped. Like she was loathe to say the name at all.
"But...you two can't be Fuzzy Slippers, right? That's not true...right? Arnold was wrong, please do tell me that he was mistaken."
Phoebe's jaw dropped. Gerald looked at her with shock. Lila thought they were Fuzzy Slippers? What's this about a note?
"The note-" Phoebe began, her voice halting. "Do you have it?"
"Maybe, but tell me you two aren't Fuzzy Slippers first," Lila's voice wavered with suspicion.
"Are you crazy! Of course we're not Fuzzy Slippers! We've been spending the last four years trying to catch the motherfucker! That's why we're here, this was a set up! Whoever came to this spot was supposed to be Fuzzy Slippers!" Gerald exploded with frustration, telling far too much before Phoebe could stop him. "So right now we're looking for proof that you ain't Fuzzy Slippers, Lila. So cough up the note."
Lila's face was blanched pale, eyes wide with shock at the accusation. "M-me? You think I could be...oh my dear, ooh goodness! What a nightmarish scenario, allow me to provide the note right away!" She whipped her bookbag around, fishing through it quickly and pulling out a small scrap of paper. Phoebe and Gerald recognized the stationary immediately.
"We've been played," Phoebe growled with frustration, storming over and snatching the note from her hands. It read precisely as Lila had said, in the clean script Phoebe instantly knew was Fuzzy Slipper's trademark.
"You gotta be kidding me? They knew it was a trap so they sent Sawyer?!" Gerald took the note from her, equally outraged. Lila stood, looking at the two of them with fear and interest.
"When did you get the note, Lila?" Phoebe felt her eyes hot with frustration.
"Around third block, is that significant?"
Phoebe and Gerald threw their hands up in the air and groaned at the same time.
"We didn't provide the clues to arrive here until fourth block. Fuzzy Slippers deciphered our ruse before we delivered the final clue and sent you here to throw us off, or mock us. Or both." Phoebe looked around with anger, simply devastated that their gambit had backfired. Was their adversary somewhere nearby, watching them? Ready to taunt them at their mistake?
"You mean we did all that work for nothing?" Gerald moaned, anger clear on his face. Lila seemed concerned and a little nervous.
"I'm afraid all we did was lose a potential tool, expose our own network of co-investigators, and ruin any chances we had at catching them once and for all," Phoebe slumped to her knees, bitter tears in her eyes. How had they tipped them off? Where was the mistake?
"H-hey, who's that…?" LIla's voice was small. Phoebe looked up, snapping her eyes onto the alleyway entrance. Lila was pointing at the shadow of a figure lingering at the end of the alley between the buildings, which stood frozen mid-stride.
"It's HIM!" Gerald roared, and broke off into the fastest sprint Phoebe had ever seen. Though she had no hope of catching up, Phoebe pushed herself into a run as well. To her surprise, Lila was right beside her, powerful legs trained by long hours in cross country pushing her in the space between Phoebe and Gerald, in hot pursuit of the distant figure that darted away instantly.
"Who-" Lila puffed between breaths, calling back to Phoebe, "Do you think it is?"
"It's a guy, whoever he is!" Gerald shouted, gaining ground quickly to the sprinting figure as they turned around the side of the gym. Phoebe prayed he would catch them, even as she felt her lungs burn from the sudden unprepared sprint.
"Catch him, Gerald!" Phoebe shrieked, her legs stumbling under her into a stuttering jog. She couldn't keep up with them. Her chest heaved, huge gasps sucking air in while she watched her two friends chasing down their quarry. Somehow, the impossible had happened, and the adversary that had remained one step ahead of them had made the mistake of showing up to see their victory first hand.
The figure - clad in a hoodie with the hood up, obscuring their face, Phoebe finally noticed - turned sharply around a building and disappeared from Phoebe's line of sight. Gerald and Lila were hot on their heels, turning out and disappearing as well. It was in their hands now. Somehow their gamble had paid off, though not in the way she intended.
She slowed and stopped, bending over to catch her breath.
I need to get back into shape, she mused. Too many long nights studying this silly problem had taken away her spare time she usually spent going for walks or jogging. Now that they were catching their foe in person, this would all end. Provided, of course, Gerald and Lila actually caught them.
Minutes passed without their return, and Phoebe got a little worried. She decided it was best to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and make sense of the situation while the others chased their quarry. She trotted back to the alley between the gym and the generator building, mind a quickened blurring blank as she tried to think of the implications of catching their adversary once and for all.
Phoebe froze in her stride, catching sight of something she had not seen beforehand.
A little black book.
A fluttering nervousness blossomed in her chest, and she felt light as the air she was sure she stopped breathing when her chest caught at sight of it. She practically fell over herself scrabbling to get it, clutching it to her chest protectively from an unseen Other that might snatch it away before she had a chance to open it.
Cracking the small black moleskine open, Phoebe cried out with triumph and joy quite unlike she had ever felt in her life. What does it mean to feel total victory over a challenge that previously you had felt so hopeless against? Phoebe was invincible then, her thousands of hours spent hard at work devising strategies to combat the rumormongering horror of Fuzzy Slippers all completely vindicated.
She stared down at the pages that had terrorized their friends so thoroughly, every page in that telltale neat script that she had come to associate with a force of such chaotic malignance that she had nightmares about reading words writ in this same handwriting. Of course, she couldn't read a single word, because to her lack of surprise the book was written in a cipher. The words on the page before her were almost totally gibberish, but it didn't matter. Without this book, Fuzzy Slippers might as well be neutered. If Gerald and Lila captured the escapee, they could force the code out of them. Phoebe squealed with joy a second time, falling onto her back with the book clutched to her chest tight.
The sounds of running footsteps, two pairs, filled the alley, and Phoebe heard Gerald and Lila panting for breath at the end of the small space. She looked over at them, both slick with sweat and faces flush from the effort, looking distraught and hopeless.
Gerald twisted his face incredulously at seeing Phoebe's perfect smile of pleasure. "W-what the hell? Pheebs, you lose your mind or something? We lost them."
"It doesn't matter, Gerald," Phoebe grinned, sitting up and holding the book up. "We got this."
Gerald's eyes flicked to the book, and he curled a lip in confusion. "So you got a book; we lost the piece of shit. He darted into the marching band's formation and got away under the bleachers while the drum major was jeering at us."
"Whoever it was, they surely have endurance," Lila added, her breathing slowing as she caught her air. "And oh so fast - you should consider everyone in an athletics club a potential suspect."
Phoebe shook her head, slapping the book again. "I will reiterate; it doesn't matter that you lost them. We won. We have their book. Look," she said, dramatically peeling it open with both hands, pages facing the two of them. Gerald and LIla pushed in close. Phoebe grinned, watching their faces. Gerald's eyes lit up with recognition, Lila's stayed passive but glanced at hers.
"This is Fuzzy Slipper's notebook of terrors. It's in code, but we can crack it. This has all their secrets, all their tactics, all their information and informants and WE got it!"
"Hot damn, baby!" Gerald grinned now, nodding with tentative excitement. "Did they drop it when they took off?"
"It seems so," Lila said, offering her hand to examine the book closer. Phoebe hesitated, something in her instincts telling her to not let Lila have the book. Lila's curious smile disarmed her, and she finally handed it over.
Lila poured over the pages, turning slowly while Gerald pumped his fists and hollered with victory. Phoebe took her glasses off, cleaning them with her pocketed cleaning cloth to get the sweat and fog off the lenses. In her blurry world without glasses, Lila looked like a reddish blob. She could have sworn she saw the blob scowl at her, but when she slipped the glasses back on, Lila was all curiosity, peering at the pages.
"I think this is a simple code meant to keep onlookers that happen to glance over the author's shoulder from seeing anything useful. It's jumbled, but not too poorly." She snapped the book shut, handing it back to Phoebe. "I do the daily jumble every morning, I would be ever so happy to help decipher it with you." Her smile was disarmingly sweet as always. Phoebe nodded, full of gratitude for the help.
Gerald grabbed them both in a sudden, unexpected hug. Phoebe's heart swelled for his jubilance. He lifted them both up in his strong grasp, twirling once before setting them down. Both girls squealed with surprise and delight as they were hoisted in this way, each landing gingerly on their feet with smiles.
"Congratulations, you two," Lila offered. "You're going to be heroes when everyone finds out you won."
Phoebe carefully put the book in her bag, intending to rush home right away and get started scanning the pages into her MacBook just in case the original was lost or stolen or destroyed somehow. She hoped Fuzzy Slippers didn't have any backups, but even if they did, with this book they would be able to out-maneuver their old foe with ease.
Somehow, they had won. It was as if some hidden angel had taken pity on their plight and reached down and gave them the exact weapon they needed. Phoebe went home that night so quickly she was sure her feet never touched the ground. She stayed up with Gerald all night discussing the book, figuring out the easier secrets and excitedly planning the announcement that they had won.
She was so excited at the seeming total victory that when she left the alley she never noticed Brian in a hoodie watching them from the other end of the alley, face flushed from an unexpected run, and slowly approach Lila when she and Gerald excitedly rushed away home.
She never saw Brainy expectantly ask to Lila, pulling from an inhaler deeply between each word, "Is it done?"
She never saw Lila smile a privately victorious smile, nod once for Brainy's benefit, and calmly answer, "For now."