The Lost Days (5 page)

What can I say? The kid has a talent. Still, he’s useless to me.

Later

Fracketing bogcarts! Just when I was feeling better about my basic knowledge of the world, I suddenly discovered I do not remember the word for a baby cat. Am afraid to ask anyone. Am afraid to discover what other common words may have been lost in the amnesia. Am hoping I don’t have any casual conversations that reveal I do not know the word for a baby cat. Probably safer to avoid all casual conversations, just in case.

Later

I found out that Raven has a little back room with a door that blends right into the awful wood paneling behind the counter. I spent the evening sitting as far away from her as possible, pretending to read the paper, while secretly spying. Also, keeping notes on the regulars and how long they stayed. I include a sample of my data for posterity. All names have been changed, or I guess made up, since I don’t know anyone’s actual name.

Back to Raven. While pretending to be extremely busy taking notes, or studying my shoe or something for clues to my identity, I was actually keeping a sharp half-eye on the counter region. All of a sudden she vanished. I mean, maybe I blinked for a microsecond longer than normal, but really, I was looking right at her, and she just vanished.

I glanced around really fast. Not a single customer was looking at the counter. She’d totally disappeared! With complete stealth I snuck to the counter, just in time to catch Raven slipping out through her homemade, wood-panel-camouflaged, no-doorknob-having, no-one-knows-I-went-to-the-breakroom secret little door. Pretty amazing, until I busted her using it. She didn’t let on much, just made me a metric grip of sandwiches and much espresso.

Much! Espresso!! Later!!!

I’ve come up with a few possible scenarios of how I got here and lost my memory:

1. Something involving space travel and being from a planet other than Earth. Yes, I do SEEM human…Could I just be humanoid?
   
2. I was on a family trip when I…fell out of the car…and bumped my head…and my family is so large, or so absentminded, they still haven’t noticed I’m missing.
   
3. I am a highly trained spy operating under cover so deep, my memories had to be erased.
   
4. I used to work with Rachel, previous employee of the El Dungeon, until Raven knocked us on the heads and took our jobs.
   
5. I used to work in Ümlaut’s traveling medicine show until…yeah, see above.
   
6. I was living in a typical suburb of Anytown, USA, until I decided to escape my incredibly meaningless life by giving myself amnesia and hopping a bus to nowhere.
   
7. I was actually a cat named Earwig until being magically transformed into a human girl. By someone. For some reason.
   
8. I came here from 100 years in the future. The trip destroyed my memory.
   
9. I am a creature from another dimension.
   
10. I am a supernatural being recently risen from death.
    
11. I summoned myself out of the void.
    
12. I am a hologram.
    
13. I am the victim of a terrible practical joke.
    

All of these theories are flawed. Must find more clues.

Later

Took in some night air with the cats, and then later, walking back to my alley, who should I run into but (Very) Regular Customer Curls, on one of his short trips outside the El Dungeon. It better
be said up front that Curls, first of all, thinks he is much more important and popular than he actually is. Also, even though he is probably only a couple years older than I am, he doesn’t seem to spend much time at school, or at home for that matter, since he’s putting in around twenty-seven hours a day at the El Dungeon. And he pesters Ümlaut’s pack as much as they’ll let him. Clear case of social climbing. You can tell by the complicated shirts, and how he’s trying out conversational gambits on you all the time.

the extremely…hip Curls! (Ugh)

Day 5

Slept late and nearly missed the daylight completely. Huh, no big loss if you ask me. Unfortunately I did not sleep late enough to miss the chief of police, who came by to see if the Ümlaut posse had any heavy stacks of cash they needed taken off their hands. And like a good, efficient defender of the public peace, he took the opportunity to threaten me with a $123 ticket for unlicensed slingshot use.

I held out my innocent, empty hands. Raven gaped at us with her mouth open. Even Ümlaut and his crew halted their game of Calamity Poker to stare. “Slingshot?” I said. “I don’t have a slingshot.”

The chief looked at Ümlaut, who just looked confused. “Errrrm…I don’t see a slingshot, Chief,” he finally managed to say. Then the two of them got into a long discussion of the town ordinances being violated today by the medicine show and how much it was going to cost.

I left them to it, and hid in the fridge box.

Later

A baby dog is a puppy. A baby kangaroo is a joey. A baby eel is an elver. A baby cat is a…lemon. A baby cat is a…pimple. A baby cat is a…mitten.

An adorable baby…pickle??

Am very frustrated.

Later

Questions:

1. How come the police are letting me camp out in a refrigerator box in the alley instead of offering me a place to stay indoors, or something?
   
2. Why is RAVEN just letting me camp out in a refrigerator box in the alley? And by the way, where and when does SHE sleep?
   
3. Does she look familiar or do I just want to think that?
   
4. Is she actually dull in the brain or do I just want to think that?
   
5. What DID happen to Rachel, former employee of the El Dungeon? Did she quit, was she fired, did she move away, did she just disappear? Or something…worse?
   
6. How’d I get those suspicious bruises on my arm?
   
7. How long does a medicine, gun, and doll show stick around a small town, usually?
   
8. Is their medicine as poisonous as it tastes?
   
9. How did Miles lose his collar, and where’s his owner?
   
10. What if I still have amnesia a year from now? Or…20 years from now?
    
11. Will I ever forgive my family for not coming to my rescue?
    
12. [Insert 1300 other questions I could ask about my family, myself, and my former life.]
    
13. Is it silly of me to think I’ll figure this out by following “clues” when I haven’t figured out a single thing in 5 days?
    

Later

Still no leads on my identity. Instead I am using my brainpower trying to figure out how Calamity Poker is played. After watching the Ümlaut crew play forty-odd games, I think I know the basic rules of gameplay. The person with the highest social rank (i.e., Ümlaut) is always the Dealer. The Dealer chooses everyone else’s position at the table. The more the Dealer likes you, the closer you get to sit to him. The two players sitting the farthest from the Dealer (called the Beast and the Maiden) put money in the pot before the cards are dealt. Every player gets two cards face down. These are called the Ballroom Cards. Players who have recently offended the Dealer usually get their Ballroom Cards “accidentally” face up. In between rounds of betting, the Dealer puts three community cards (called the Knife, the Rope, and the
Candlestick) face up on the table.

Instead of being ranked, all hands have a point value, which usually has to be argued about for a long time at high volume before anything is decided. Cards can have different point values according to the day of the week, combination with other cards in the same hand, or phase of the moon. The Dealer makes the final decision on the value of each player’s hand. If two (or more) players have hands of the same value, those players go into a Challenge Round—usually a choice between Games of Chance; Embarrassing Truth; or Feats of Strength, Skill, and Endurance. And all Challenge Rounds are overseen and judged by the Dealer.