Note: General Audience Rating, Found Family Bonding. A sequel fic to It Must Be Thursday and It Must Be Friday, but it can be read as a stand alone.
"They're onto me, Fiona! They're all onto me!" Quigley step down the basement stairs and begins running a hand through his hair. "Hector, your brother...even your stepfather is starting to realize it! They're all surprisingly sharp as nails! You can't put anything past them! Oh my—I am freaking out! I am so stressed out. I think I'm almost getting a panic attack."
"Oh? You want to talk about stress? You want to talk about stress!?" Fiona follows after Quigley and runs to the washing and drying machine, where she starts to pull out something hiding behind them. "Did you know I accidentally stumbled upon a major conspiracy about my family years ago and didn't realize it properly until recently? Quigley, how about that for stress?"
Quigley stops running his hand through his hair. "You found out about a what in your family?"
Fiona pulls out a large size corkboard. Pin onto it is old newspapers rip articles of the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire, a photograph of five people—two men who look like brothers, one man with a paratheses shape mustache that is clearly Fiona's stepfather, a woman holding a pocket grammar book, and a man in the middle whose face is creased away so many times it's now gone— and pieces of papers torn from her commonplace book. All are connected by blue yarn, and in the center of the board is a hand-drawn sketch of a tree. One branch is label "CALIBAN", one branch is label "FERNALD", and one branch is label "ANWHISTLE".
"Even though my stepfather is truly trying his best to stop being a trashcan for the last year since our escape from that creature out at sea," begins Fiona, as she props the corkboard to stand against both machines, "it doesn’t change the fact I have enough evidence to prove he —and possibly Fernald— are deliberately postponing a discussion about my biological father!"
Quigley whistles, and rubs the temples of his forehead. "Talk about a conspiracy theory board."
"Why thank you! It took me days to get the layout nice and organized so it's easy on the eyes. As you can see, that right there is the Caliban Family. Now let's talk about the Caliban Family. I really want to talk about the Caliban Family!" Fiona pulls out a telescopic pointing stick from out of nowhere, and points to the "CALIBAN" branch of the family tree.
"Back when Stepfather and I were living on the Queequeg, we would get a few dispatches for a T. Caliban that were always sent to us by mistake. Stepfather never read them, but I did. I always wonder who is T, for I know no one in the Caliban Family has a name starting with T."
Fiona moves the pointing stick to the ripped pieces of paper from her commonplace book. Quigley leans closer to see one written as "T.F." while the other has "Office Room 108."
"What the hell is a T.F., Fiona?" asks Quigley, as he awkwardly raises his hand in the air for bit. "Taco Friday? Wait. You know what? That sounds pretty appealing right now actually."
"No. Please put your hand down. I'm not teaching a lesson. Now, one dispatch for T was supposed to go to Q–––– in the Kingdom of Arizona, but it ended up getting sent to us. I didn't throw it away because Stepfather and I had to go to City's Headquarters the next day."
Fiona soon smacks the pointing stick onto "FERNALD". "Stepfather got dragged into a sudden meeting and give out his report, so he told me to wait in the lobby and read magazines and eat the free candy to pass the time. I decided to take my chance and ask the secretary if T. Caliban is at headquarter. He told me T doesn't go by his married name of Caliban anymore. He went back to his original last name, Fernald. Fernald, as in my brother’s first and last name."
Quigley whistles again, widening his eyes in amazement. "That's a rather fast possible reveal."
"How bold of you to think it’s this simple. I go to his office and knock on his door. I knock and call out, "Mr. Fernald? Mr. Fernald?" for several minutes. And what do I find out? There is no Mr. Fernald!" Fiona smacks the pointer stick onto the same spot. "His office is empty! There’s an open filing cabinet, a folder holding a report about the different tree species, a cup of black coffee, but the man is absent! As I leave his room, I see that right across it is G.A.’s office."
"Quick interruption!" Quigley raises his hand again. "Is G.A. the deceased volunteer who is interested in taxidermy? I think Jacques mention a G.A. once, but he didn't go further than that."
"Different G.A., Quigley," answers Fiona calmly, as she points to the photograph of the five people. "This G.A. is Gregor Anwhistle, the deceased volunteer who is interested in ichnology and the brother to Dr. Isaac 'Ike' Anwhistle, and brother-in-law to Josephine Anwhistle. Please stop putting your hand up. You're making me feel like I'm tutoring you."
Quigley sheepishly puts his hand down and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Sorry. It's just that the pointing stick is suddenly reminding me of my old tutor. The way you're speaking honestly feels like I was back in my geography lesson again."
"Ah." Fiona nods her head and smiles. "My old tutor used to do it too. She mainly did it when it came to foreign languages. It's weird that our V.F.D. tutors use a pointing stick to teach us, but our teachers at the public school don't. Maybe V.F.D believes we can’t focus on anything without—Hey! We’re going off topic! Um...Shoot. Where was I? Oh, that's right! G.A.'s office!"
Fiona moves the pointing stick to "ANWHISTLE", with her eyebrows narrow in deep thought. "Despite it being unused for years, I see that the door is now ajar. It's as if someone was in it and left after I entered Mr. Fernald's room. I got nosy and investigate to see if anyone’s there."
"Was there anyone there?" asks Quigley. "I feel this Mr. Fernald is a coward and hid in there."
"I suspected that too. Someone recently sat on Gregor's old armchair. If it was Mr. Fernald, he did a good job on evading me like the deserter that he is. I couldn't help but be nosy and dug around to find anything interesting. And I did! But I didn’t think it that interesting at the time!"
Fiona digs through her pockets and hums for bit, before pulling out a small white box. She throws it to Quigley, who barely catches it without tripping. Quigley opens it up to see a silver necklace chain with a circular pendant. On the pendant to see there's a small engraving of a small heart and two simple two words: "For Frigga."
"Aw! Thank you for the token of our newfound friendship," says Quigley in a cheerful tone. "I was wondering why it took so long! But I think you got someone's else pendent by mistake after visiting the jewelry store though. You could get a refund for this."
Fiona walks over to Quigley and gently swats him on the shoulder. "Yours is still at the shop getting made. This is what I found in Gregor's office. This pendent has my mother's name on it."
Quigley quickly put the top back on the box, and slowly turns to stare at Fiona. "Wait a minute. Since Mr. Fernald really is—why would Gregor have this in his office? Unless that man brought it with him for sentimental purposes of his first marriage, wouldn't it be the other way around?"
"I honestly don't know how to make sense of it. Despite taking the pendant for my own —it has my mother's name after all— I didn't put much thought into it until a few weeks ago. Remember I told you my stepfather dragged Hector into an argument that was about my biological father?"
"Oh yeah." Quigley nods his head. "I guess their argument brought up the memory. Did you research the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire alone, or did Duncan and Isadora agree you help you out?"
Fiona shakes her head, places a hand onto one of Quigley's shoulders, and pushes up her triangle glasses again. Her glasses weirdly shine bright underneath the dim basement light. Fiona and Quigley didn't speak for a few seconds, thought it feels like minutes to them both.
"Your brother and sister didn't help me. I did this all by myself. It took a while, but I found a few articles that go into more detail, especially about Gregor's almost nonexistent personal life. I did the research myself because I'm the only person who knows about your theory, after all. How much of research do you have for it in your commonplace book?"
Quigley scratches his cheek. "Not much. It's only two pages. Though I think it's enough to know who the missing man's identity in the photograph is. Where did you get that photo anyway?"
"Gregor’s office. I took it because I wanted to show my stepfather what I found, but I saw him talking to a woman in a white coat with blonde hair and cat eye glasses frames." Fiona closes her eyes and shudders. "She's the reason why I could never tell him. That spy kept her sight on Stepfather as long as possible when she was still part of the Crew of Two."
Fiona soon opens she eyes again and gives out a sigh at Quigley. "Regrettably, that's all I got regarding my biological father. Even though our theories aren't one and the same, it's obvious they're adjacent to each other. How do you feel about combining our theories together to make one super theory to bombard onto my stepfather, Fernald, and Hector?"
"Oh, I’m up for it!" Quigley once again raise his hand in the air. "Another quick question though: Do we need to upgrade the size of the conspiracy board to accommodate my research?"