The Toilet Paper Caper: Chapter 19
By: Elle Fredine
Tags: Humor, Mystery, Fiction, Short Story, Toilet Paper Caper

We were getting close to the end. I could feel it. We were on a roll, speaking of which, our last roll of TP was getting thinner by the second. Not many sheets left.

But, relief was finally in sight. With the whole gang back together again, it was only a matter of time, before we solved this caper. Unfortunately, time was one commodity in very short supply just now, along with those little, white tear-off-squares.

Thanks to Sally, my one-time Prom date, or soon-to-be Prom date in her time-line, I now held the missing piece to the puzzle. Well, maybe not the whole puzzle, but the part we needed to get back to 2032 and our final solution. Or the next best thing, whatever that might be.

With Sally’s exhortation ringing in my ears, “Every second counts. Don’t f$%k this up!” I marched out of Radio Shack.

Not much of a pep talk, but Sally’s conversation tended more to ‘pithy’ and definitely to the point. In fact, she could be very pointed when she chose, which, in all fairness, was most of the time.

But, she was right about one thing. Well, two, if you count the Prom, which she still probably did, or would, once it happened. We needed to get a moving.

Things between the Traveling Whipples and dear old dad still weren’t great — definitely a “handle with care” situation — but at long last, we were nearing the end of the line. Heading for the light.

As I strode into the street, the missing part stowed in my jacket pocket, I heard Dad and one of the Whipples having another go at settling old scores, but my attention was snagged by the magazine racks beside the door. The latest edition of my favorite pulp mag. I have a subscription back in my time, so seeing it here, years before it would ever see a news-stand was a puzzler.

I grabbed a copy and showed it to Rebecca. “Is this another one of those damned time ripples? A…whaddya call it…a displacement effect?”

She paled. No mean feat under the layers of heavily-applied makeup so popular in this era. “How can they have found us so quickly?”

“They? They, who?”

Rebecca grabbed one of the Whipples and shoved the magazine in his face. “They’ve found us. We have to leave right now.”

The magazine passed from one Whipple to another, to another, and on down the line ’til it reached Dad. He glanced at the cover and started yelling again. “You dumb-asses, you see what happens when you talk too much?”

Most of the Whipples took offence. Or they just didn’t appreciate being shouted at, I wasn’t sure which. One actually pouted and muttered under his breath.

“What? What’d you say?”

The Whipple scowled. “I only told one person.”

Dad slapped the cover of the magazine. “Yeah. Then he told two friends, and his friend told two friends, and they told two friends, and before ya know it, we got a front page toilet paper ad in a time where it’s got no business being.”

I grabbed the magazine and flipped to the back. “Hold on a minute — the address. Every one of these give-aways has an address where you send the entry form.”

Dad stared at me. “Just how many entry forms did you send away, son.”

His tone was warm, friendly. Warning bells rang in my head. Red lights flashed. Dad being all warm and fuzzy screamed for caution. Danger, Will Robinson.

“A few…”

“On my credit card?” Still so warm and friendly — a boy’s best friend, my old Dad. Not.

“Yes…”

Rebecca stared. Her stink-eye was a notch above Dad’s, and his was pretty fearsome. “Don’t tell me you used your poor, unsuspecting father’s credit card to buy brine shrimp from the back of a Superman comic?”

“Alright, I won’t, because he always suspected me of everything. And anyway, they were Sea Monkeys.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. She had a nice line in eye-rolling, too. She caught Dad’s scowl. He shrugged, but looked insufferably pleased, while still managing to glower as if he was ready to bite the heads off nails and spit thumbtacks. I wondered why Rebecca was suddenly taking his side. Or any side but her own.

I turned my back on the disapproving pair with as much dignity as I could muster and pored through the ads in the back of the magazine. Sure enough, there it was in tiny print on the inside back cover: Please reply in confidence to 1927 Shoscombe Old Place, Berkshire Drive, Apt 221-B.

“Shoscombe Old Place.” Funny name for an apartment complex, but there’s always been a pile of Anglophiles here-abouts. Or there-abouts. Whichever.

Though, there was a familiar ring to the address. Something about it reminded me of Hamlet’s riddle: “What’s the difference between a hawk and a hand saw?” Or was that “Hawkshaw?” “Band-saw?” Band Aid? Live Aid wouldn’t happen ’til July of ’85. Wait — when were we?

But this line of thinking, much like the plot-line, was going nowhere fast. “C’mon, there’s no time to lose.”

Rebecca planted herself in front of our little troupe. “Wait. It could be a trap. We already know they’re after us.”

The Whipples nodded in unison — a terrifying, Stepford-like unison. At this rate our Travelling Whipples wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon.

“Okay, it could be a trap.” I conceded the obvious. That’s me — good at detecting the obvious. “But, maybe they have information we need. Information that’ll help us get home. We’ll never know if we don’t go… besides, we really are running low on TP. We could use the 48 sheets.”

I’ll probably never know if it was my eloquent plea, or their hygienic necessities that won the day, but in less time than it takes to devise another plot-twist, we were standing outside a block of red-brick apartments.

Music wafted from an open, upstairs window. Something classical, I thought. Nothing I recognized, but it sure as little green apples wasn’t “Turkey in the Straw,” and not even close to “Harlem Nocturne.”

I caught a whiff of strong tobacco, and a feeling of déjà vu swept over me, along with the desire for four fingers of a good single malt. Who, in this day and age, played the violin and smoked a pipe? And what was he doing poking his Deerstalker into a noir-esque time-travel caper?

To be continued…

See also: Chapter 18, Chapter 17 and… well, you know… all the way back.