Now that I had successfully placed a tracking device on the mysterious window replacement salesman, I could find out where he was going to meet with Cuthbert Selys, my new rival. When they met up to exchange the snapper rack, I would pounce and take it for myself.
I installed a special maps app on my phone and began following the travelling salesman, watching him closely. It seemed he had a great intuition for which houses needed window repairs, as nobody ever rejected his offer. While he did his repairs, I tried to stay hidden, moving behind garbage cans or cars, and even a fire hydrant. At one point, while the repairman was carrying out a sash window replacement, I even hid in a tree.
When the afternoon arrived, it seemed the merchant decided to get lunch. I was feeling quite hungry myself, so I followed him into a shopping centre and bought a hotdog. With a cap on my head, I hoped it would be a good enough disguise to avoid being recognised. The strange thing was, the repairman didn’t order any food. He sat in the food court, looking around casually. If he wasn’t going to eat, shouldn’t he have been giving someone aluminium window replacement near Melbourne instead?
It was then that I realised it: this was where the exchange was going to happen. Any moment now, I’d see Cuthbert Selys enter, carrying the snapper rack I needed to put together the lost pieces of the Atlantis and appease my patron, the Heart of the Deep.
And there he was. Cuthbert. Eating a burger, snapper rack slung over his back. Somehow, I had to get that from him.
I crept closer to their table, as Cuthbert sat down across from the repairman.
“You’re late,” said the repairman.
“Didn’t mean to rustle your jimmies, Jimmy. You can’t have been here long.”
“Long enough for your friend to have stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.”
Cuthbert shook his head and began to turn around. I hid behind a plant, breath racing.
“You can come out, Mr Neptune,” Cuthbert said. “If you’re not going to give this up, I guess I have some explaining to do.”
It seemed the ruse was up. I stood and walked over to their table. Time to work out what was really going on.
– Gillan Neptune