Spoons and Forks

"Spoons," Detective Senior Sergeant Ian Carroway said, "are disappearing from Melbourne at an alarming rate."

"Spoons," Detective Inspector Ayers asked, "what the devil are you talking about?"

"Utensils," Detective Sergeant Hash, Carroway's partner, explained to the inspector, "hand–held, sort of elliptical and dug out on one end, used for consuming foodstuffs – in particular soups, sir."

"I know what a spoon is, you idiot," Ayers bellowed at Hash. "I want to know why they are bloody disappearing and why anyone should care."

"Sorry, inspector," Hash replied meekly.

"We don't know why they are disappearing, sir," Carroway said, "but over eighteen million spoons go missing every year here in the city."

"I suspect the communists," Hash suggested. "A plot."

"Hash," the inspector said, turning towards Carroway's diminutive and newest partner – his others having gone on to bigger and better things: one to waste removal, the other to hotel doorman. "Hash, do you realize that the cold war has been over for nearly twenty years. It's not a communist plot!"

"We have some theories," Carroway stepped in to protect Hash, "not involving communists."

"Space aliens?" Hash suggested rashly. "Beings from another dimension."

The inspector turned a fierce eye on the little detective sergeant.

"Anyone else feel like coffee?" Hash asked sheepishly.

"Let's hear your theories, Carroway," the inspector said, shaking his head as he watched Hash hustle away for coffee, "and they better not sound like an episode of Dr. Who."

"No, sir," Carroway replied evenly. "Sir, I believe it's a ring, a gang if you will, of women stealing the spoons."

"Women!" the inspector snorted incredulously. "What sort of blather is that?"

"Reasonable blather, sir," Carroway said, trying to finish with the inspector before Hash returned with the coffee. "We received an anonymous tip to that effect just before you arrived."

"You didn't tell your mini–partner?"

"Would you, sir?"

"Point taken."

"We're tracking down the caller as we speak, sir. I expect to have a suspect in custody within the day."

"See that you do," the inspector said authoritatively. "And keep your munchkin away from me from now on."

"Yes, sir, will do."

Casey Bryn was a tough nut to crack. Or so she seemed to Hash, who felt that with her purply–pinkish spiked hair, nose ring, dirty jeans and dirtier T–shirt, Casey was in fact the space alien perpetrator that he had suggested to Carroway and the inspector.

"Why did you do it?" Hash grilled the young punk girl, who only snarled a smile back at the junior detective and seemed on the verge of hocking a gob in his face at all times. "Why just spoons, why not knives and forks."

"It ought to be bleedin' obvious," Casey growled, "even to a couple of right dills like you two."

"Now, Miss Bryn," Carroway tried the nicer cop approach, "we're just trying to get to the bottom of this, uh, situation."

"Sity'ation, you call it," Casey laughed. "You're a pair of brown–eyed mullets if I ever seen ‘em."

"Enlighten us, then, please," Carroway said, mulling over what he and a mullet had in common. Whatever it was, he was none too pleased with the comparison.

"It's simple really," the girl explained to the two cops as if they were new arrivals on planet Melbourne, "us Shielas have a thing about spoons. Knives are sharp and nasty and irrelevant. Forks are for ratbags like yourselves."

Casey's words went over Hash's head like little laser bolts fired from an inaccurate laser death ray. The junior detective looked up pleadingly to his more–worldly partner.

"Okay," Carroway played the straight man, "we give you the irrelevance of knives and whatever it is about men and forks, but why all these spoons and why just women taking them?"

"Because it's gender–genetic and –specific," Casey sniffed, giving Carroway a new look that mixed mild interest along with some level of sexuality.

The senior detective felt his stomach muscles involuntarily tighten as if the girl might drive a hard right hand into his solar plexus rather than give him the vaguely sweet smile that played around the edges of her curled lips. As for Hash, Casey's words caused him to tilt his head towards her as if he were a dog attempting to understand a garbled command from his master.

"That's all there is to it," Carroway finally managed to ask, "women just like spoons?"

"You shonky blokes must've just come in on the first boat," Casey told the detectives, barely suppressing a laugh.

"Humor us," Carroway said. "Give us the last word."

"The word," Casey said, leaning towards the detectives – causing Hash to lean away from her and Carroway to lock his knees tight to keep from falling forward – is really quite basic, you know."

The detectives waited for Casey to speak as if they were penitents waiting for redemption from the Inquisition.

"We women," Casey pronounced grandly and finally, "just want to spoon, but you men, all you want to do is fork."

Find more by J. B. Hogan in the Author Index.

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