MURDER, MY TWEET
A Chet Gecko Mystery
(A Sneak Preview of Book Ten)
Chapter One – Sneak and Ye Shall Find
Never take on a whacko as a client. It wastes your time, and it annoys the whacko.
Somehow I had forgotten this. And so, recess found me tailing a parakeet’s boyfriend to see if he’d been stepping out on her. (That’s detective talk for seeing another dame on the side. And a dame is a girl. And on the side is… on the side.)
I shadowed T-Bone LaLouche through the halls of Emerson Hicky Elementary. Like any good detective, I used kids, bushes, and the odd teacher as cover. (And believe me, we have plenty of odd teachers.)
T-Bone LaLouche was a lean and shifty ringtail. Ringtails have a cat’s body, a fox’s face, and a tail that a raccoon dipped in goo and slammed in a door.
Oh, and one other thing: If you startle them, they give an ear-piercing shriek and shoot this funky musk from their butts.
Don’t ask me how I know that.
I watched as T-Bone stopped near the library to chat with a simpering mole in a tutu. Heads together, they seemed awfully chummy. Could this be his extra-credit babycake?
When I leaned around a skreezitz bush for a better look, T-Bone suddenly glanced up. I dived for cover — kronch! — right into the bush.
Through the spiky leaves, I could see the ringtail frowning my way, but he went back to his confab. Soon, the mole waved toodle-oo and toddled into the library. T-Bone took to his heels.
I tagged along.
In the hall by the cafeteria, the ringtail approached a fluffy European rabbit. (I could tell she was European by her spiffy scarf and her world-weary ways.)
Miss Fluffy leaned against a pole and toyed with her whiskers. T-Bone cozied up. She passed him something — a love note? — and they giggled like a couple of teenage girls at a Brad Spitt movie.
Man, this guy wasn’t just two-timing my client; he was three-timing her.
Sensing something, T-Bone raised his head and started to turn.
Fa-zoop!
I scrambled up the wall, out of sight. In my racket, sometimes it pays to be a wall crawling lizard.
I crept along quietly. Then my foot slipped. Strange. We geckos can scale almost anything, including glass. I shook the foot and crawled closer… just across from the cuddly pair.
