Busy Bee

'Oh, she didn't get "snatched up" by anyone, Viola. They wanted to get her, they thought they did but instead they caught a very shocked and now angry, black kid. An angry, black kid who happens to be her son.'

'Murph, listen ta me; I had no choice!'

'No choice?' He laughed scornfully. 'Viola, you're not a kid. You're old enough to have choices. And I was beginning to think that we were becoming friends or something.'

She pulled her chair in closer towards him, 'But Murph, we is friends! Its just that the inspector put my aunty in a predicament.'

'What sort of predicament?'

'The inspector found out from several patients that your moms was helping the nurses with some of their treatments and in some occasions, she helped the doctors diagnose them. The inspector threatened ta put the hospital under investigations and would make sure that three-quarters of the nurses and all the doctors there would be suspended. He offered an alternative though. He promised ta make all of that go away if my aunty was prepared ta help expose the whereabouts of your moms.'

'And..?'

'She doesn't know where your moms is,' said Bubblegum girl, 'but she did know that you and I, we is in the same school. So, you know…she approached me…'

'To ask you to do the dirty work for her,' he finished her statement smiling in the opposite direction, shaking his head in disbelief. He was furious.

By some miracle, Bubblegum girl's eyes were swelling up with tears. She said, 'You gotta understand, Murph; I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have ta.'

'That's where you lie to yourself, Viola. That is where you lie to yourself and assume that you can lie to me too. The only reason you did it was because you wanted to. Here's something you overlooked, both you and your aunt. Who else knows that my mother had been aiding the nurses in the care of the patients?'

She shrugged, her eyes still red. 'Just the patients…I think.'

'And so you think that any court of law or any sane person for that matter would take the word of a mentally unstable person over that of a person with all of his or her five senses working impeccably?'

'Well…I…'

'And secondly, Viola, your aunt could have confessed that my mother did help with the patients but she could have added a little lie like, "Yes, we got help from Patricia Murphy but with things like helping some patients stay calm and not with the diagnosis and symptoms". The same goes for the doctors.'

Bubblegum girl shook her head in amazement. 'Damn, Murph…you're really sharp.'

'It's not about whether I'm smart or not, Viola. Charles and his deputy are desperate. Very desperate. Two murders happened within their jurisdiction and one of those murders was in a school. It's already bad enough that one of the murders, Justin's murder, was committed in WindleDrive but since the two were also called in to handle that case as well, they're obviously losing their heads. And with this much tension going on in the city, the people are asking questions…they're scared and when the people panic, they turn to the mayor. Now, the mayor obviously wants answers…he wants the murderer and Charles' desperate and careless move to try to attach that kind of evidence on your aunt will just be seen in a court of law for what it is: desperation from two police officers to arrest an innocent woman so they can keep their jobs.'

Bubblegum girl shook her head again and she rubbed her left eye. She said, 'Wow…that's some heavy stuff right there.'

Sineas stood up. He looked down at her with his irate gaze. 'I think we're done here.' He began walking back to his seat.

'Murph.'

He glanced over his shoulder.

'For what it's worth; I just wanna say my bad…I'm sorry,' she said.

He paused. Then, 'Me too, Viola. Me too.'

Time had passed by in the blink of an eye. It was now a-quarter-past six in the evening. Sineas had put on a maroon coloured sleeveless t-shirt, a pair of blue denims, his black leather jacket and his black Chuck Taylors. After viewing himself in the mirror of the bathroom for five minutes, he was fully satisfied that he was ready. He walked back into his room to retrieve his cellphone. He grabbed it from underneath the pillow.

The time was now 6:29 P.M. He began to feel a pain in his stomach. He sat down on the floor, at the foot of the bed.

'This feels like a bad idea,' he said turning his eyes into the darkness above him.

'I thought this was what you wanted? Isn't it? Isn't this what you wanted, Sineas? Clarissa is what you have thought about more than anything else ever since you started going to that school. And now here she is, handing herself over to you on a silver platter and yet here you are, sitting here moping about it.'

'I don't deserve her,' Sineas said.

'Sin; I know in the movies they say that the black guy doesn't get the girl, but…'

'Black guy? Isn't it, "the bad guy"?'

'That's not the point. The point is, you've got her. And now that you've got her, you might as well make the most of it.'

Sineas stood up. 'I'm going to go, but for the record…that was definitely the worst advice you've ever given me.'