Thursday, December 21, 2006

   Cream Filling & Nougat: Half-Julkalender (Chapter VIII)
[Translation note #1: "Julkalender" is, as one might expect, the Swedish way to say "Yule/Christmas Calender". The reasoning being it was a more generic, secular way to call the story "Advent Calender" which is Christmasy and involves cardboard calenders with chocolates behind each day. The "half" comes from the fact that I have no intention of writing 24 chapters to this thing . . . I probably won't break 12 either, but meh.
And yes, Cream totally broke his leg in that first story.]


Nougat pulled the car into the small parking area next to the train station; again, Cream was out the door before Nougat could fully stop the car. Once he did shut off the engine and exit the car, Nougat noticed and quickly dismissed a sign stating a ten-minute maximum before jogging up to the other detective already in the station.

"Have you caught 'er scent yet, boy?" Nougat asked Cream in a slightly mocking manner. Cream responded by sniffing the air twice before suddenly twisting around and pretending to bite at Nougat's face. Nevertheless, grins spread over both detectives' faces.
"There's gotta be a security or transit police guy around here somewhere," Cream said, looking back and forth at the different ticket-purchase machines. "Alright, we need to head to the platform . . ."

Sure enough, there were a pair of transit personnel standing at the top of the escalator, checking for fares. Both Cream and Nougat drew their wallets as they neared the top.
"Tickets," the closest man requested. At once, the two detectives opened their wallets and flashed their badges.
"We don't actually wanna ride," Cream said. "Not yet, anyway . . ."

After an extremely brief introduction, Cream and Nougat moved aside so as to not block anyone else coming up the escalator to the train platform before they began questioning the two slightly surprised transit officials.
"We wanna know if you saw a little girl here maybe an hour, hour and a half ago," Nougat said. "Seven years old, purple coat, red hair . . . would have been by herself . . ." As Nougat spoke the words, Cream was already having doubts. They had no idea if she had boarded a train or not, and the transit officials would have mostly been standing on the platform or riding trains back and forth from different stations the whole time.

"Sorry," the official said regrettably, "I only started watching this station about twenty minutes ago." The other official nodded along in a similar manner. Cream and Nougat, hiding their understanding disappointment, thanked the two and hurried back down off the platform.

"Alright," Nougat said, stepping off the last bit of stairs, "they didn't see the girl . . . who could have?" Again, Nougat scanned back and forth across the train station; Cream scanned upwards this time.
"Question," he proposed.
"Huh?"
"How feasible would it be for us to get a viewing of security tape?" Nougat looked upwards at the camera Cream was pointing at.
"It'd take a buttload of time," Nougat figured, "but if we can contact someone from transit, maybe . . ." Cream snickered.
"Oh yeah, they love my compellingness now."

With little else to go by, Cream dialed up the transit office again. Nougat, meanwhile, exited the station, looking around for any possible clues or any people who may have possibly seen anything.


". . . Hello, this is Detective Cream Filling of . . . yes, hi again . . . I wanted to know if you could check some video footage from Hiopat Station from about six o'clock onwards . . ."


Nougat tried to pay attention to the footprints left in whatever bits of snow were still lingering on the sidewalk and grass around the train station. Ultimately he knew it would prove useless, though, being that many people would have tread over the ground in or out of a train station, both young and old. He looked out towards all the possible directions by which someone could feasibly leave in hopes for an idea . . .


". . . Yes, she would be a seven year old girl, purple coat, red . . . it's all black and white anyways, never mind . . . . . look, she'll be coming off the one-fifty-four bus that would have arrived at about . . . yeah, maybe around six, maybe some time before six . . . whichever bus would be running at Five-thirty . . ."


Nougat eyed the street lights that headed off in either direction; one set went east, the other west. He imagined Vezel would be smart enough to not head into unlit areas, though he did concede to himself that that did not account for what other potential people could have taken her . . . deciding to check the two directions later, Nougat made his way towards the bus loop around to the side of the station. In his mind, if she got lost coming on a bus, she'd consider taking a bus to get back home . . .


"Yes, I understand that you don't have a camera watching where the buses drop people off . . . but please, this girl could be in trouble. Can you . . . yes, I would appreciate that . . ."


Nougat did not see anyone matching his description near the bus loop. Going by their last clue, he checked all the stops for where they were going . . .


". . . is she alone walking around? Okay . . . so how often does she come back and forth? The sooner . . . . well, I'll have to wait, I don't have much choice . . ."


With little else to do, he simply started asking people waiting for the buses.
"Excuse me," he said to the six people sitting at the covered bench, "did any of you see a little girl, purple coat, red hair . . ."


". . . so that seems like the last time she comes on tape . . . no, that's fine . . . actually, that's really good, thank you . . . . ."


"You did?!" Nougat exclaimed.
"Yeah," an elderly woman confirmed. "I had just missed the first bus, and I saw her walking towards the park, that way." Nougat tracked her finger eastwards. "I remember I just thought it so strange to see such a small girl by herself . . ."
"And how long ago was that?" Nougat asked.
"Oh, that I couldn't say," the woman answered, "I didn't bring a watch today . . . but my bus runs every half hour, and with the delays because of snow . . ."
"Well thank you . . ."

Nougat charged back into the station just as Cream hung up his phone.
"I know where she headed," the older detective said emphatically.
"And I know when she probably left," the other returned.
"Eastbound."
"Forty-five minutes ago."
"Damn, that's a pretty big berth . . . how far can seven year olds walk in forty-five minutes?"
"Let's find out . . ."

The two of them dashed back to the car and blasted out to the open street. Cream kept his eyes against the window, scanning for any hint of Vezel.
"I know a normal person can walk the entire width of downtown in 45 minutes," Nougat muttered after a minute of speeding. "This could be a real pain, especially if she . . ."

"Stop!" Cream shouted, causing Nougat to brake hard, causing their seatbelts to dig hard into their chests.
"What?" Nougat said.
"Snowmen . . ." Cream answered, pointing further into the park.

Inside the park, just off a brick walkway lined with old-fashioned street lamps, stood two relatively short snowmen just inside a crude, low wall also made of snow.

Sitting on the snow-covered ground, nested between the two snowmen, was a small girl in a purple coat with red hair.


[I hope I didn't cheat this too much . . . yeah, I'll be honest, I just wanted them to hurry up and get to the park. Sorry.
Cream Filling & Nougat Trivia: harder question . . . what was Cream's major in college?]
Comments (4)