It was Tuesday morning in Eazzville town. People were getting ready for the tomorrow’s campaign as they had collected their plastic bottle in the crates. They put the crates in front of their home door waiting for Terry and Eddie to come and collect it.

Every house in Eazzville did this since they want to help Terry out in order to make him able to manufacture the blankets and clothing in time before the winter. The winter in Eazzvill is sub-zero freeze because the temperature can drop down to around -10 Celsius. That’s why every people in Eazzville is so ambitious about this campaign.

Lily was helping Terry to collect the bottles as well. She could collect a large number of plastic bottles because she had gone out scavenging the plastic bottles in the town while she off her duty as a teacher.

Due to the fact that Lily was a science teacher at Eazzville primary school, she needed to wake up early in the morning to prepare the teaching materials and get ready to go to school for the teaching. She got off her bed abruptly after she woke up and headed to shower immediately like she always did every morning. It was still 6 o’clock in the morning so she still had time to cook herself a breakfast.

Her heart always falls for bacon and fried egg so she cooked those stuff for the breakfast. Also, she made a mushroom soup for the side dish and a cup of latte coffee as the way she likes. After the cooking, she sat on the kitchen table and enjoyed her meal. In the meantime, she grabbed some notebook and science textbook to read for preparing today’s teaching.

It was a very lovely morning, Lily sat on the table for a while listening to the bird tweets, the mailman’s moped voice passed by, and her neighbours do the morning exercise. Lily’s day couldn’t have been better until a heavy knocking sound hit her front door.

KNOCK, KNOCK!!

“Yes? I am coming.” Lily answered to the sound. She left her meal and walked to the front door.

When she reached the front door, whoever in the outside knocked the door again. This time he or she knocked on the door harder and knocked repeatedly.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!!

“Who is that?” asked Lily. She peeped through the door’s peephole to see who’s outside. It was two grown men in a suit. Their faces were described as emotionless as Lily can’t tell whether what kinds of mood or emotion they are having right now. Each of them carried a black suitcase.

The silence caught in the air for a while until one of the men started to utter out a word. “Good morning, ma’am. We come from the trading company in the nearby town, I’ve heard you can collect a large number of plastic bottles. Can we have a talk?”

Lily stood still with hesitation whether she’s gonna let both guys come in or not. For some reasons, she thought that they might just be a company employee who wanted to do some business here in Eazzville so she decided to open the door and let the guys in.

“Please come in and make yourselves at home,” Lily said as she gestured both men to come in.

“Thank you!” both guys said simultaneously.

Lily leaded both guys to the living room. She told them to sit on the couch. “Would you like some coffee or tea?” asked Lily.

“No, thanks actually. That’s very generous of you,” said one guy.

“May I have a coke please,” said the other guy.

“Have some manner!” said the first guy.

“I am thirsty. Coke is the only thing that can help!” argued the second guy.

“Alright, stop arguing. I’ll grab a bottle of coke for you,” said Lily. “You are really making yourself at home huh,” Lily said sarcastically.

Lily grabbed a bottle of coke from the refrigerator in the kitchen. While she was grabbing a coke, she heard both guys talking to each other softly. She didn’t quite catch the whole context. The best she know about the conversation was something about buying up things and stuff.

She headed back to the living room where both guys are sitting. When both guys saw Lily approaching, they stop the conversation immediately. Lily then handed a bottle of coke to one guy.

“Cheers,” the guy said.

“No problem,” Lily said.

“Now let’s discuss the business,” said the other guy who didn’t drink coke. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ivan. And the guy next to me is Igor. We come from the company called Big Bear.”

“And…can I help you with anything?” asked Lily.

“Well, our company a big buyer in the used plastic bottles at a very good price. And we are currently sourcing for a plastic bottle in Eazzville since there’s a shortage of the plastic bottle in our town.” said Ivan. “We saw that you have plenty of plastic bottles collected in your home that is why we were at your doorstep.”

“What are you need the plastic bottles for?” asked Lily.

“To be used as the air container,” answered Ivan.

“Used as what?” doubted Lily.

“You heard me, an air container. The air in our town is so polluted that our people need to have the extra oxygen cylinder at their home,” said Ivan. He sounded insecure like he didn’t tell the truth. It was like he is hiding something. “We need the plastic bottle to fill up the clean air inside and sell to our people. This will help them in another way.”

Lily thought that the thing Ivan sounds impossible.

“Let’s cut the conversation process short,” Igor cut right into the conversation. His sound was intense and his face looked serious. “We want to buy all of your plastic bottles, here’s the money?” Igor opened his suitcase and placed it on the table. The suitcase contains a substantial amount of money. Igor then intensely stared right into Lily’s eyes.

At this point, Lily started to shake out of fear. She started to realise that these guys are not just an ordinary guy. They must contain some secrets behind. Lily was stunned for a while before she could gain her courage and uttered out words.

“I am sorry, you need to leave. I cannot sell the plastic bottles to you. And it is getting late for my teaching class,” Lily tried to end the conversation as she didn’t want to talk to these guys anymore.

Ivan and Igor didn’t seem to threaten Lily at all, they just stood up and headed to the front door. Before they left, they said to Lily “Well, we hope to see you again.”

Lily called Pol right away to tell him what she had been through.

*        *        *

Terry was driving to the police station to see Lieutenant Keta. He was carrying a notebook with the name Blankar on it. When he arrived at the police station, it looked unusually peaceful; there was no one at the police station, just Lieutenant Keta himself.

Lieutenant Keta was sitting on a couch in the main waiting room watching the television. It seems like he has no work to do, which is weird. Normally, unless Lieutenant Keta patrolling around the town, he would be at the police stations doing on-desk investigation, meeting and stuff. But right now he is just sitting and watching TV.

“What are you up to, Lieutenant?” Terry asked as he was approaching Lieutenant Keta.

“Nothing, just watching TV,” Lieutenant Keta answered.

“And where is everybody?” Terry continued asking.

“They took a day off today, they decided at the last minute,” answered Lieutenant Keta.

“Can they even do that? Even your boss?” Terry wondered.

“Yup, even my boss. This is why the station is so quiet,” Lieutenant Keta told Terry. “When people come to the station to report something, they found only me working. So that I have to do everything today. I just finished my last case and began to rest for a bit. Hoping there are no more cases for me to solve, ugh!”

“Well, I have got one for you,” Terry said.

“Oh my…,” Lieutenant Keta murmured. “Anyway, that’s my duty! Is there anything I can help you with?”

“I want you to help me finding someone. She is a cat and her name is Blankar. She forgot her notebook, and I want to return it to her,” Terry said.

“Alright, let me look into the citizen database,” Lieutenant Keta said to Terry as he is heading to his computer.

Lieutenant Keta logged into his computer and open up the database. “It’s Blankar the cat right?” Lieutenant Keta asked.

“Precisely,” Terry answered.

Lieutenant Keta typed into the database and hit enter. It took time for the computer to process the name and the description a bit despite the small population in the town. The beep sound came up. That’s the sound of the computer finished its process. The screen showed the result that was founded.

“I have found 2 Blankars that matched your description,” Lieutenant Keta said. “The first one is working as a fashion model and living in the outskirt. The other one is the accountant living in downtown.”

“It gotta be the first one, the fashion model,” Terry said confidently. “The lady whom I found at the hospital is quite tall and gorgeous.”

“Let’s go check out!” Lieutenant Keta said. “I got a feeling that this could be right since the database has been updated by an intern a couple days ago.”

Lieutenant Keta and Terry hopped into the police cruiser heading out of town to find Blankar. Her house is not really far from downtown, just fifteen minutes drive. Eventually, both arrived at the house correspond to the address given in the database. It was a farmhouse.

“Are you sure that this is the place?” Terry doubted.

“According to the address given in the database, yes!” Lieutenant Keta affirmed.

“This doesn’t seem right, I feel,” Terry said.

“Come on, let’s go and check out,” Lieutenant Keta said.

Both walked to the farmhouse front door and rang a bell. An old guy walked out to greet them. He looked like he is in his mid-70s in age.

“Good day, officer. How may I help you?” the old guy greeted.

“Good day, sir. I am looking for Blankar the cat. Is she here?” Lieutenant Keta asked.

“Blankar? My wife?” the old guy questioned.

“Wait, what? Your wife?” Terry cut right in.

“Yes, she was my wife,” the old guy said.

“Was?” Terry confused.

“You heard me.” the old guy said.

“So, where is she now?” Terry asked.

“Please come and see it for yourselves at my backyard.” the old guy said.

Lieutenant Keta and Terry stared at each other while walking to the old guy’s backyard. Both could communicate through their eyes, not even uttering a word, that everything seems weird here. Suddenly, they reached the old guy’s backyard.

“Here is my wife, Blankar” the old guy said as he pointing to the gravestone that has the name Blankar on it.

“What!?” Lieutenant Keta and Terry shouted at the same time.

“But it said here that she is the fashion model and still alive!” Lieutenant Keta said.

“A fashion model in 1960s!” the old man said. “She passed away last year. You might get the wrong people.”

Lieutenant Keta realises that everything makes sense now, the intern cop updated the database wrongly!!

To be continued…