main | index CHAPTER 5 (section 3) copyright © 2001, S. Y. Affolee “Aunt Simone!” She looked down towards the voice and found Caroline running over to her, her young tiny face smiling in delight. Jennifer was trailing behind. Or rather she was riding on Adrian’s shoulders. Jennifer was giggling. “I can see the whole yard from here!” she exclaimed. “That’s great. Hi Caroline.” Simone ruffled her niece’s hair and crouched so she was at eye level to her. “How are you? It looks like your Mom and Dad pulled out the whole shebang for you.” She giggled. “There’s so many people! So many aunts and uncles, I can’t remember them all. But Aunt Chung smells a little funny.” “Is that so.” She managed to lift Caroline and walk over to one of the picnic table benches. “Let’s sit down. Old Aunt Simone is not as strong as she used to be.” “So now you’re old?” Adrian grinned as he ambled over and deposited Jennifer beside her sister. Caroline whispered into Jennifer’s ear. The older sister nodded. “Will you tell us a story, Aunt Simone?” Jennifer asked. “What sort of story? Cinderella? Puss in Boots?” “No fairy tales. We want to hear one with a bad guy.” “A bad guy?” “Yeah. One where both of you catch the bad guy and throw him in jail.” Simone sighed. “Well. All right. So one day, this old lady who’s had too much plastic surgery came to us for help.” “What’s plastic surgery?” Caroline asked. Adrian gave a cheeky grin. “It’s where somebody asks a doctor to make them look like Barbie,” Jennifer answered. “Ohh,” her younger sister replied wide-eyed. Simone coughed. “Well, this old lady was a widow, you see. Her husband was dead. But she had a friend who claimed that she saw her husband’s ghost running around her house.” “A ghost?” Caroline looked disappointed. “I thought there was a bad guy.” “I’m getting to that point.” At that moment, the three strangers wandered over to curiously listen to Simone’s simplified accounts of the past two days. “Well, it just turned out that the old lady’s friend was crazy. Everybody knows there’s no such thing as a ghost. So it must have been some bad guy who was breaking into her house trying to steal stuff.” “A burglar!” Jennifer declared. Simone nodded, all the while shooting annoyed looks at Adrian for muffling his laughter. “Yeah. A burglar. So Adrian and I set up cameras all over the house to see if we could catch him on tape. And the next day, we did see him!” “Did you catch him?” Caroline asked. “Yeah. So we stayed up on a stake out the next night. And we caught the burglar red handed. After that we turned him over to the police.” “Did he put up a fight?” Caroline asked again. “Of course he did,” Jennifer told her. “But Adrian beat him up. See? He’s so much bigger than everybody.” “Ohh.” “Adrian did not beat anybody up,” Simone muttered. “He’s too much of a wimp.” “Hey, who’re you calling a wimp?” he challenged. “I take it that this was all based on fact?” Simone looked up, noticing that it was the taller of the male strangers who spoke. “Our latest case, in fact.” “How interesting. Henry did tell me that his sister-in-law did some investigative work.” “Adrian and I are private investigators.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Terrance Huang. This is my sister, Candace Huang-O’Brian and Xiaoping Wan. We’re associates of Henry.” “My brother-in-law did say as much,” she replied. “I’m Simone Sung, as you’ve probably heard. And this is my business partner, Adrian Dubois.” “Ah. Then you must be the famous Dubois and Sung. Paranormal experts.” “It does seem our reputation does get around,” Adrian said. Simone glared at her partner. Terrance Huang waved his hand in dismissal. A bright signet ring on his finger caught Simone’s eye. It’s design was intriguing. The setting stone was a deep onyx black, but the ring itself looked like tiny interlocking rings that had been meticulously crafted. They style of his gold cufflinks upon closer inspection were also of similar design. “Yes. Your credits are quite impressive. It’s a wonder both of you are still small time businessmen. With the backing of a willing venture capitalist, I’m sure you’ll have your business flourishing.” She grinned deceptively. “Exactly what are you saying?” “Well, you know that our whole firm, why we’re all venture capitalists in a way. We could help you.” “We’ll think about it.” “And you Mr. Dubois?” Huang turned his oily charm towards the other partner. “We’ll think about it,” Adrian echoed. At that moment, they were interrupted by a call from Henry that lunch was ready. Everyone immediately lined up to get their serving. Evelyne also appeared, waving to Simone to signal that she was okay. Everything seemed to go smoothly as Simone chatted with relatives she hadn’t seen in months and with her brother Will who seemed content to go off on a tangent on his latest physics research which involved traveling to Switzerland to look at the particle accelerator for some measurements. He also waxed enthusiastic about experimenting the unique European culture even though he knew no French and could only speak German passably. But all the while, Simone was secretly amused as the strangers vainly tried to blend in. However, the combination of hot dogs and startched suits did not go well with the comfortable casualness and familiarity that went with the majority of Simone’s family. She did not even try to socialize with them. If that had been her mother’s goal, she had failed miserably. But as Simone reflected, even if her mother was here, she would have failed miserably anyway and would have only succeeded in being a suitable hostess for guests she had helped to crash her granddaughter’s birthday party. The arrival of the birthday cake went even better than planned. The girls squealed in delight when they discovered it was an ice cream cake, not just a plain cake. Four white candles graced the four corners and a pretty doll clad in pink stood in the middle. The design uncanningly seemed familiar to Simone, but she only shook it away when she abruptly noticed the woman in the group of strangers pull something from her purse. It was just a camera, she realized as a flash went off. The woman placed it back into her purse, but not before she noticed that the camera strap was gold and linked like her brother’s ring. “And now the presents!” Henry exclaimed as he hulled an armful of gift wrapped boxes to the picnic tables. “Now, Caroline. Say thank you to everyone.” “Thank you,” she dutifully replied as she dug into the first present, letting the ribbons fall to the grass. In the end, Simone had groaned. Adrian had given a large brown teddy bear. She had picked out a similar bear for her neice although it was slightly smaller and pink. But Caroline didn’t seem to care. “They match perfectly,” the little girl declared. “See?” She made the brown bear give the pink bear a kiss. “They should get married.” “I can help you plan!” her sister said excitedly. Both girls grabbed the rest of the toys and plopped themselves in the middle of the yard, busy rearranging the dolls and stuffed toys into a ragtag congregation. “If I didn’t know better,” Evelyne told Simone and Adrian, “I’d have thought both of you did it on purpose.”