Free Sidekick Returns by Auralee Wallace Page A

talk it—’
    â€˜What!’ Queenie suddenly screamed.
    I startled. ‘What, what?’ I asked.
    â€˜What do you want!’
    â€˜Oh … you know what?’ I said, angling my face towards the safety of my apartment. ‘It doesn’t seem important now. I’ll just—’
    Her eyes widened to terrifying proportions.
    â€˜It’s just that I’m going to this fancy masquerade at the museum,’ I said, looking up at the ceiling briefly before daring to peek at her face, ‘and I was wondering if maybe you knew where I could get a lead on a dress?’
    This time I let the door slam in my face.
    â€˜Is that a no?’ I shouted.
    I struggled to hear over the blaring music. Finally I caught, ‘Bring me something to work with.’
    Hotdog! I slapped the letters pinned to my chest. She couldn’t admit it, but Queenie totally loved me. I bent to pick up the rest of my mail. Suddenly a crash sounded on the door, like Queenie had kicked it right at the height of my face.
    Loved me in her own unique way. Once inside, I flopped onto my bed by the toilet and sorted through the mail. This was so exciting. I had never received my very own mail before. It was also kind of disturbing seeing as I was supposed to be living on the DL—not the married man having sex with other men DL, but, focus, Bremy , nobody was supposed to know where I was. I still couldn’t help myself from happy squirming though. This pile of letters proved that I did in fact exist. I quickly shuffled through the envelopes. Huh. It wasn’t exactly the existential proof I was looking for. Not a single one of the missives seemed to be labelled with my name. Somebody named Occupant , however, was very popular. Oh well, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
    I really believed that until I found one with my name on it. Actually it was addressed to Brenda St. James, my secret identity. I tore into it. At first I couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking at. I turned the page sideways, gave it a good squint, then righted it again. Nope, that still couldn’t be right. I then tried turning my head from side to side. It still said the same thing, but that thing made absolutely no sense. It said I owed $230 to the cable company for two months of the all-inclusive package, but that couldn’t be right, because I didn’t have cable. I gave the paper my best inquisitor glare, but it gave up nothing, so I threw it on the bed, and moved on. I had more important mail to find.
    I quickly sifted through the stack, but not a single envelope had Choden as the return sender. There were, however, lots of flyers, especially for a Tex Mex slash Asian fusion restaurant.
    Well, didn’t that just beat all. I threw the paper in the air and flopped back on my bed.
    ***
    I woke up in the morning feeling exactly like one might expect someone to feel who had gotten into a fight with a best man and his twin, two gorilla duck hunters, and a couple of shots of vodka. Okay, I didn’t exactly fight with the vodka, but we were in the process of breaking up … and it hurt.
    I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand toilet. Hmm, it was later than I thought. Mr Pushkin hadn’t called to wake me. Mr Pushkin! I groaned and covered my face with my hands. How did I keep losing his money? I was kind of surprised he hadn’t called to set up my date with the Grim Reaper yet. Oh wait, that’s right. He said I could bring him the money later today. I flopped my hands back on the bed. Well, that gave me an entire day to figure that one out. Plenty of time. I swung my legs over the side of my cot that drooped in the middle and sat up. Blood pounded unpleasantly in my head, but it seemed to pump some fresh ideas into focus. Something had to be wrong with Ryder. I mean, fine. She had never really wanted to be my mentor. And sure, she had run away from me before when big things were a’happening, but I