Gail's Point of View;

"The perfume salesman? Goodness Presley, I find their methods creepy also but stalking is a really extreme description." Even though I responded like that what he said kind of freaked me out. How could he jump to that conclusion so fast?

"I doubt he's a salesman of anything. If he was, we would have left him behind with the pace we're walking at cause he would have stopped the other people passing by to talk to them. If you think I'm wrong turn around casually and see if he has."

I did as he said and he was right because the salesman was still there walking some distance behind us. He really wasn't talking to any other person passing by about the perfume that he was so very desperate for me to try. It really was very suspicious but still, jumping to the worst possible conclusion just because of that doesn't seem reasonable.

"Maybe he could just be going our way also, 'cause why would he follow me?" I asked.

"Well let's just go into this store anyway and see if he passes by."

I agreed to go into the closest store that was still open because it would be better to be safe than sorry. It turned out to be a book and stationery store we entered. I'm surprised that one was still open this late. But looking at it closely and further down the entryway I could tell that it wasn't exactly a store. It had a bakery further down and passing there apparently a corner blindspot in which you walk through to the other side and come out to another street. I couldn't see the other side but I saw people coming from that direction and would stop by the bakery and pass out through where we came in.

This was an interesting place as it resembled a walk-through mall back in my home city town. I looked around for a while in the book section and got separated from Presley since he stuck to the English section. They had such a wide variety to choose from. I even ended up buying a new book in Portuguese. Here is definitely going to be high on my favorite book stores list. After paying for the book I looked over to Presley and found him in the comics section eating something creamy. So I guess he did pay a visit to the bakery down at the corner. The thought crossed my mind of how this could be a crisis that he thought of and he seemed to be so nonchalant about it enough to look at comics.

That is just the type of person he is, to always downplay everything. I went closer to where he was and looked at the comics also. That was when I realized that they weren't comics but mangas which I guess is more like a Japanese comic. The genre was a mixture of sports and others were science fiction but written in English.

"You know they create animes from these things and it gets more famous than the actual book. I've seen all of these already but asked me if I read any of them. The answer, no."

"So you're an anime fan?" I raised my brow and asked.

"Only by association, Mitchum is though, so if he watches it and I'm there yeah."

When he trailed into a brief silence I was sure that he wasn't going to say anymore so I decided to use the opportunity to lead into a different conversation. The fact that he hadn't said anything about supporting Homer with the tours of the closed-off part of the school still interested me. "So on another note, you must be busy with planning something else."

He didn't try to hide his surprise when his head swung from looking at the mangas straight at me. "How'd you know that I would be busy? Did someone say something to you?"

"Well, no one had to say anything to me. The fact that you didn't say anything that you could do to help support Homer means to me that you're busy. Are you helping out someone else? If you are and you need any technical support I'm here."

His shoulders relaxed immediately after telling him that. Was he really that tense from me assuming he was busy helping someone else?

"Um thanks for volunteering, I guess with that being your field it would be better to delegate some of the work. Can you get some background research on two students? I'll text you the names later but the man's name is Bertie Taksheel and the woman is Sandra."

So I was right, he was concerned with another matter with other students at school. I wonder what I will help him uncover with those two. The best way to draw him out is with questions that don't go directly to the point or he will just give a flat answer and no more. "Does Sandra have a last name?"

"I'm sure she does, I just don't know it for sure yet; but she's of Indian descent and I don't expect you to find out much about her."

"Then why research her at all?" He turned back to face the mangas as I asked him.

"Well let's just in this instance less is more. So you should look for mainly up high school records if there are any for her. But I want everything you can find on the guy. It may be a challenge as I expect things to be well-covered up. Even if you find it insignificant I want to know about it."

His tone got very serious and it was clear he was rather annoyed just by talking about whoever this Bertie guy was. When he realized that the pastry in his hand was crushed because of how he squeezed it, he let it go and began to look for a place to throw it away. I guess it sounds like a regular Presley mystery but why had it gotten him so physically worked up?

I think we spent at least twenty minutes in this mall-like bookstore by now. So after he came back from disposing of the pastry we decided to go out. That was when we saw Homer and Amelia walking by at the same time we exited.

"Wait, you guys are still here? How come?" Homer spoke first at seeing us with a slight surprise in his tone.