Lockwood & Co. The Secret Of Penelope Fittes

Old friends and wild parties/ Chapter Nine

Lockwood stayed at the hospital for two days. The doctors sutured his wounds and said that he had incredible luck, which, I won't deny it,  forced myself to the edge of an anxiety attack again.
Holly was still in shock and had to stay in bed and Kipps had a broken arm. Lockwood was also supposed to stay in bed at home, which, of course, he didn't.
After this case we all needed a break for the first time, so George postponed all cases for a week and after a few days everything went back to normal, well, almost everything.
Since I kissed Lockwood in front of George, he hasn't let us out of his sight. It's a bit pathetic. Like he thinks that if he left us alone for five minutes, we'd make out right away. Which we would never do.
So it happened that after three days the three of us were sitting in the living room again, Lockwood read one of his magazines and I polished my rapier:
"I got it!"
Lockwood and I both raised our heads and said in sync:
"Huh?"
"Your names!", George sounded excited.
"I'm Anthony Lockwood and this is Lucy Carlyle," Lockwood lowered his magazine, "You should know that after almost three years!"
"Not that!" George shook his head, "Every couple gets a ship name from one of his friends!"
Lockwood straightened up."What?!"
"Yeah, okay. Maybe that's just what we do at the Cubbins household, but whatever."
He looked at us questioningly. Lockwood turned to me, I shrugged my shoulders and he sighed:
"All right, go ahead!"
George beamed.
"Great! So, your two first names together don't make sense...", Lockwood and I looked at each other,"... and your two last names don't sound that bad but I found something better. I took Lucy's first name and your last name, Lockwood!" My mouth opened as I wanted to say something and Lockwood stared at George expectantly.
"Well, and as a result we have...", he took a break.
"LUCEWOOD!!!"
Lockwood eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened and his chin fell down. All in all, it would have been a nice photo.
"Lucewood? Are you serious?"
George nodded and seemed very happy with himself. I sighed and shook my head:
"All right. As long as you don't shout the name around in public, I don't care."
Lockwood leaned back and stroked his forehead with one hand. I continued with polishing when a thought shot into my mind.
"Wait a minute! So you're okay with Lockwood and me being together?"
"Why shouldn't I? It's about time anyway!"
Lockwood straightened up again. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you know..." When George noticed that we looked at him at a loss, he dropped his comic. "You're not serious now, are you? You guys haven't noticed that all these years?"
"What?!" Lockwood was getting more and more impatient now.
"Oh, man! I mean, even Kipps noticed! And he doesn't even recognize such things when it jumps around on his nose playing the bagpipes and also..."
"GEORGE!"
"Okay, okay. So, Lockwood, everybody knows you've been crushing on Lucy for a long time! Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. And, Lucy, it hasn't been any better with you either: You have...", but at that very moment the doorbell rang.
"I'll go!", like an oiled lightning, George jumped up from his seat and, I'm not lying, ran to our front door. I looked at Lockwood, but he just shrugged his shoulders.
We heard him opening the door and expected voices that never came. Suddenly a pale George stepped into the room and slowly sat back in his place.
"George, who..." I wanted to ask, but he just shook his head and pointed at the door. Lockwood and I turned around and looked right into Penelope Fittes' face. Standing close behind her with a small, malicious smile on her face, Sir Rupert Gale.
I just stared at our visit with my mouth slightly open. Lockwood, because of his wounds, slowly hoisted himself out of his chair, went to Penelope and shook her hand.
"Penelope, how nice to see you. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Hello, Anthony. Actually I wanted to come on Monday, but it seemed too important to me."
"Okay...", Lockwood sounded suspicious.
"Well, I'd say we go to your office. If I'm not mistaken, is it in the cellar? Where were the stairs again?"
It was more a fact than a question. Penelope, closely followed by Sir Rupert, staggered towards the kitchen, but...
"STOP! What you want to tell me, you'll have to tell my colleagues too!"
Lockwood had not moved and it seemed as if he had upset Penelope for a tiny moment.
"Well...", she turned around again,"... then we'll start here: I see that you are still recovering from your accident...", at the word "accident" her voice deviated slightly from her forced cheerful tone, "... And you happened to have this accident near my mausoleum. And this mausoleum was broken into at the very same night. And if you want to deny everything now, look at this!" She pulled out a terribly familiar rapier with a handle filled with gemstones.
"Oh, and the grave floor is covered with drops of blood!"
She got dangerously close to Lockwood. Behind her I could now clearly see that Sir Rupert smiled triumphantly.
"I'm warning you, Lockwood! I can't prove anything yet, but if it turns out that you broke into my mausoleum with your so called agency...", she came even closer and Lockwood stepped back without showing anything on his face,"... then I'll make sure that this already redundant little agency is closed down. Mind your own business and don't interfere in things that don't concern you! I hope we have understood each other! If I stumble upon your name on my businesses again, it'll be the last time, you can count on it!"
She hissed the last sentence into Lockwood's face, took a condescending look on the room, turned around and rushed out of the room.
Sir Rupert looked at us briefly: "I wouldn't mess with her if I were you."
And all that was left was his constant smell of aftershave in the room.
Lockwood raised his eyebrows in surprise and turned to us."What the hell just happened?"