MoonWolf_16               April Challenge 2018 in "Develop Your Writing Competition" .. Prompt: Write in a genre you've never written in before and include a shadow and a bird. (2000 max.)

*I chose "Mystery". I've never written one before and, now, I may ever write one again! LOL .. My story takes place on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada. The picture above is of the famous Head Harbour Lightstation at the northern tip of the island. I didn't take the pic. I just found it on the web .. =)

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Nana called. Mr. González's pelican had gone missing.

I wanted to laugh and say good riddance to the ugly thing but I knew better. Nana and Mr. González had been neighbours for many years and they were the best of friends. She would be mortified if I didn't take this seriously. After all, the pelican had been a gift from his dead wife, Winnie, who was an islander and my Nana's best friend since grade school.

"I can catch an early ferry tomorrow and be there about mid-morning," I told Nana. "I'm sure I can find it," I said with confidence.

Of course, this was the last thing I wanted to do on my one day off this week, but it was my nana calling and I never said no to Nana.

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Finding Mr. González's pelican, which was a four foot tall wood carving that usually stood in the middle of his front lawn, turned out to be much more difficult then I initially thought it would be.

The first place I searched was Mr. González's own yard, including his baby barn, garage and the woods behind his house. It was hard to know whether Mr. P, that was the nickname the pelican was given by all the locals, had gone missing or had just been misplaced by a forgetful old gentleman. But all I found was mosquitoes - swarms of them.

Hot and itchy, I retreated from the woods to the neighbourhood. Nana had told her neighbours, mostly aging retirees, that I was coming. They came out, one by one, to greet me as I walked into their yards asking for permission to search around for Mr. P.

If teens or vandals had drug Mr. P off under the cover of darkness, they probably didn't get very far because he weighed a hefty sixty pounds or more. Carting him any distance would have been a two-person job for sure. So, it was possible that the monstrosity might have been discarded in the woods close by.

I didn't have too much ground to cover. There were only eight houses on the street and I was able to search the back yard of seven homes. The eighth house belonged to a new neighbour. A young man who had bought the place two summers ago, I was told.

No one knew much about him. Well, nothing much more than his life history, of course. Before I reached his driveway I knew it too - his name, age, marital status, place of birth, where he went to university, the last job he worked on the mainland, what brought him to the island, and more. Ya, they didn't know much about him at all, I thought with a laugh. He was at work though. So, I'd have to wait until he got home to ask him if he'd seen Mr. P anywhere.

Until then, I had the beach by the ferry landing to check out, the point by the Inn, and the beach just south of Wharf Rd. These were all local hangouts for teens and young adults.  I'd spent most of my summers as a teen hanging out at these very spots. Revisiting them would be fun.

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Sadly, I didn't find any evidence of Mr. P. anywhere. And, by mid-afternoon, I was sweaty, sun-burnt, covered in blackfly and mosquito bites, and not one step closer to finding the horrid lawn ornament. I highly doubted he was worth all the effort and stopped in at the local air-conditioned convenience store to get myself a much needed bottle of water and an ice cream. I was dying out there.

After making my order, a voice behind me in the busy shop asked, "Are you the one looking for Mr. P?"

I turned from the ice cream counter and looked up into the face of a very attractive male in his early thirties. I was guessing he couldn't be more than a few years older than myself but I didn't recognize him. He couldn't be a local. If he had been, I would have known him from my summers here when I was a teen.

I furrowed my brows but politely replied, "Yes, I'm the one."

I watched him give me a little nod and then he looked anxiously to the clerk. Curious, I turned back her way but was embarrassed to see that she had my ice cream ready and was patiently waiting for me to pay. I handed her two toonies, with a sheepish grin, and told her to keep the change.

When I turned back around the stranger, with the tanned face, long black lashes and coffee coloured eyes grimaced at me saying, "I think I might be able to help you out."

I was curious and he was handsome. So, I followed him out into the brilliant afternoon sun. What did I have to lose?

It turned out that the handsome stranger was none other than Mr. Reggie Broker, the new neighbour on my nana's street. He introduced himself and then proceeded to tell me that he had some suspicions about his tenant, who lived in the basement apartment of his bungalow. He couldn't say for sure, but, he wouldn't be surprised if the man had something to do with the missing pelican. It was all very mysterious and my interest was piqued to say the least.

"I'm heading home now," he told me. "Do you want to follow me? We can talk to him together," he offered.

I licked my ice cream thoughtfully and looked up the road. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Was it safe? Was I safe? The man did seem alright but he also appeared a little edgy or nervous. Was that just because he was a bit of a social recluse, like Nana's neighbours suggested. I looked back up at him. He was watching me intently but waiting patiently.

"Alright," I agreed. Just what was I getting myself into?

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I pulled into his driveway and took a moment to text Nana where I was, who I was with and why. As I closed the door to my little Hyundai I felt reassured that at least Nana knew what was going on. So, if I didn't show up at her house in 20 minutes, well, she'd know just where to start looking.

Mr. Broker, who told me to call him Reggie, beckoned me to follow him to the back of his well-kept yard. He stood in front of me as he rang the doorbell of the Walk-out basement apartment. The area was very charming. The wall was covered in a dark blue siding. There were three large white-framed windows along the wall, that I guessed must give the basement apartment plenty of light, and a quaint little patio in front of the windows. It was a great little space. 

I felt some relief as I looked around. Surely this was not the den of some lunatic tenant and I didn't have to worry about being drug inside and strangled to death.

When no one answered the door Reggie turned around and frowned at me. His eyes then nervously scanned the wooded backyard. It was enough to give me the willies. Why did he act so strangely? It was really off-putting to say the least.

"He could be out in the shed," he said hesitantly as his eyes found mine again.

I shivered with unease and swallowed my sudden nervousness as I too looked out over the backyard. There, in the far left corner was a shed with a door and a couple of windows. It looked quaint set back against the pine trees. But, if I thought heading to the basement apartment was anxiety-provoking, well, walking to the darkly stained shed at the edge of the woods was a 100 times worse.

But, I gave Reggie a quick smile to cover up my misgivings. "I don't want to keep you any longer than I have to," I told him cheerily. "So, lead the way," I half laughed. I was a terrible actress though and was sure he saw right through me.

Normally, I would be chomping at the bit to find any old excuse to keep hanging out with such a good-looking, employed and apparently single guy. But, something about his tenant and Reggie's own uneasy, shifting eyes, gave me the hibbie-jeebies. I just wanted out of there as soon as possible.  The stupid pelican wasn't worth dying over. Of that I was quite certain.

When we neared the garden shed, I was sure I saw a shadow in one of the little windows. My heart began to race. I felt my palms go clammy as they broke into a cold sweat. The closer we got to the shed the more and more I wanted to be anywhere else but there.

The tenant swung open the door unexpectedly before Reggie was near enough to knock.  My heart nearly lept right out of my chest when the door banged against the outside wall of the shed. I gasped a little in fright and then tried to hide the gasp with a little cough. Neither man seemed to notice.

The tenant was a man in his 60s and there was nothing at all intimidating or terrifying about him other than the scowl on his face. He was a thin man of less than average height with a plain face and a balding head. All in all, he was very unremarkable.

"What do you want?" he asked us with a sharp and curt tone. He sounded annoyed but I felt he was otherwise quite harmless. I could feel the tension leaving my neck, shoulders and chest right away. I had myself all worked up for nothing, I thought with an inward chuckle.

Reggie explained the problem about the missing pelican. I watched the tenant's face. He was indifferent. The tone of his voice said he didn't know anything about it and he didn't care to know.

Too bad I mused, while feeling a little disappointed. I wished he'd known something because, if he didn't, that meant I was right back at square one. He kept shaking his head. He knew nothing. I sighed. Meeting the tenant was a bit of a let down.

Regardless, I smiled at him and thanked him for his time. When he closed the shed door on our faces I just laughed softly and grinned at Reggie. Now I knew why he was so reluctant to  approach his tenant.

As we turned from the shed I asked "Reggie, do you mind if we have a look around the woods here in case some teens have dumped Mr. P in the area?" I thought we might as well since we were both there and I wasn't likely coming back.

"No, not at all," he said to me with the first real smile I'd seen on his face.

The two of us turned back and passed by the garden shed. I caught sight of another shadow in the window. The tenant had been watching us. It was a bit creepy but not surprising given the man's less than congenial behaviour.

The door banged open again and the man shouted, "Where are you going?" He sounded angrier than ever and I opted to keep on walking toward the woods while Reggie turned back to talk to him.

Just beyond the shed, about fifteen feet, there was an enormous fire pit. Walking over to it, I thought how marvelous it would be to have a bonfire here. That's when I saw it. In the middle of the pit, charred nearly beyond recognition, was Mr. P.

Nana was going to be crushed. How on earth was I ever going to explain this too her? I took out my cell and snapped a couple pics. Honestly, part of me felt like laughing even though I shouldn't. Gift or no gift, the wooden pelican was an eye-sore, and it turned out I wasn't the only one who didn't like the hideous Mr. P.

(1999)