Page Eighteen

"EEEEEEEEeeeee!!!!!1111," Chester shrieked. "Winn! Look, Winn!"

"What," Winn mumbled, having recently been thrown into a merchant's cart by his high-strung bro- sister?

He looked up and straightened his hat. Chester was holding up a sickeningly adorable plaid vest.

"Oh my gosh, Winn, look," she jumped up and down in her ridiculous boots. "This will go just perfectly with that skirt I saw on our way in."

"Oh wow really that's great I had no idea yay for you," Winn gave her a blank stare and threw up his arms in false excitement.

Wait.

Plaid?

"I know riiiight?!"

Winn jogged a bit to catch up with the quick-shopping Chester. Or Charles? He was getting confused.

"Hey Chester," he tried.

"Hmm?"

Chester it was. Or was it because he had called him that. This was his brother turned girl, wasn't it?

"Remember that time Mom gave you that sweater-vest for Christmas?"

"What?"

"That sweater vest."

But Charles wasn't blonde.

"What sweater vest? Does it look like I'd wear a sweater vest?"

Charles didn't wear sweater vests either, but it had been plaid. And this girl was blonde.

"Hey, Charles?"

"Who?"

Winn stopped.

Now, either his brother's sex changed had altered his perspective to the point where he couldn't remember his own name, or someone had just pulled a very odd bait and switch a few pages back.

There was a conspiracy about, Detective Winn concluded.

The matter had just gotten exponentially twisted, Winn deducted as he went through the variables present to him. First, Charles -that is, the Charles he knew -was gone. Gone where and how was still unknown.

Second, this girl in front of him was not Charles. Charles hated plaid.

Wait -scratch that! Charles hated lot's of things this girl here liked, and narcissism aside, this blondie here was nothing like his brother!

"Hurry up slowpoke, there's a clearance around the corner and I need a new purse!"

Detective Winn concluded he was a bad detective.

He continued to follow Chester around obediently and scratched his hat. This girl seemed to know who he was, but that didn't seem to help either. It seemed to him that "Chester" here could either be one, Charles gone bonkers, or two, a deadly impersonator who'd slit his throat the second he let his guard down.

Or three, Chester herself.

No, no, that wasn't possible. Chester was off in boarding school halfway across the world. Chester was-

Wait.

Charles hated Chester. Even if he had turned into a girl version of himself, wouldn't a more fitting name been Charlene, Charmaine, or even Sherry? Come to think of it, Chester wasn't even a girl's name. Wow, their parents were awfully creative!

"Hey, Charles," Winn tried again.

"Stop calling me that, Winn," Chester rolled her eyes, tossing another dress back onto the rack.

"Right. Sorry," Winn shook his head. "Chester?"

"Yes, what?"

"Like...Chester Winnchester Chester?"

"Yes, Winn, don't you remember your own sister?"

"But...if you're Chester...." Winn's eyes widened to the point where he was afraid they could catch baseballs.

"Of course I'm Chester," she stepped up to Winn and pulled his hat down over his eyes. "Who else would I b-"

The two turned around as they heard a scream preceded by a loud crash preceded by an angry battle-cry. A caravan had tumbled over.

"What was that?" Chester let go of Winn and covered her mouth in a girlish gasp.

"I don't-"

"Ugh," a disgruntled figure threw off a checkered tablecloth from his head.

"Ch-!"

"Making trouble as always, I see" Chester scowled, crossing her arms.

"Charles!" Winn flailed his arms as Chester held him back. "What're you doing here?"

"What? You dumbfucks were being slow so I decided to come lop off the head of the toothpaste-king or whoever," Charles struggled to get a sweater vest off his arm. "Just that I can't find him."

He looked up.

"And what's she doing here?"