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“Detective Kingsley, sir,” she said while bystanders laughed at the drunk cop. “Let’s get you out of here.” And she started leading the inebriated cop away from the scene.

He was leaning heavily on her, which was a little inconvenient as he was almost twice her size, but she still managed to put some distance between themselves and the onlookers.“What happened, sir?” she asked once they were on their way to the parking lot.

“Who are you?” asked Chase, a distinct slur to his speech.

“What do you mean?” Oh, God, he was completely off his face, wasn’t he?

“What do you mean what do I mean? Who are you and who am I?”

“I’m Sarah, sir. Sarah Flunk? And you’re Chase Kingsley. Detective Chase Kingsley with the Hampton Cove Police Department.”

“Who?”

“How much did you have to drink, sir?” she said, shocked at his behavior. Chase usually was so well-behaved, and a stickler for protocol and correct procedure, too.

“Where am I?” the cop asked now.

“At the fair,” said Sarah in clipped tones. She really liked Chase, both as a colleague and a human being, but there were limits to what she could tolerate from anyone, and she drew the line at public drunkenness, and certainly drinking on duty. “We’re looking for Chief Alec, remember?”

“Who’s Chief Alec?” slurred Chase, his eyes swiveling in every direction.

Just then, Sarah saw Odelia Poole.“Odelia!” she called out. “Can you please help me put Chase in a car? He’s completely wasted.”

Odelia gave her a strange look, then said,“Who are you and what are you talking about?”

“Your boyfriend is drunk!” said Sarah emphatically. She didn’t like to be put in this situation.

Odelia looked at her, then looked at Chase, then said,“I’ve never seen this man before in my life. Now leave me alone!”

Chapter 44

To say that we were feeling a little under the weather was an understatement. First one of our humans had lost her mind, and now the second one! If this kept up, Dooley’s fear that all three of the humans who could talk to us would soon be lost to us was going to become a reality!

“It’s this Madame Solange, Max!” said Dooley. “She must have done something to Odelia—she simply must have!”

“I think you’re right, Dooley,” I said. “But how do we prove it?”

We’d taken up position not far from Solange’s trailer, trying to figure out how to proceed. So far we hadn’t come up with a single plan, the emotion of seeing our favorite human in the world looking at us like a dead fish having completely discombobulated us.

Just then, Norm came buzzing over.“Have I got news for you guys!” said the spy fly.

“And we’ve got some news for you,” I said. “Odelia has suddenly developed an acute case of memory loss and now she doesn’t even know who we are!”

“Or is able to understand a word we say!” Dooley added, looking distinctly down in the dumps, as did I, for that matter.

“I think I know what’s going on here, fellas!” said Norm. “I was in there just now, when Odelia was being hypnotized!”

“Hypnotized?” I asked, staring at the fearless fly.

“Hypnotized!” he repeated. “Apparently Solange didn’t like the questions Odelia was asking, so she called her sister, who came over immediately, and proceeded to put some kind of spell on her. Odelia blacked out, and when she came to, they kicked her out!”

“But… how is that even possible!”

“Oh, it’s possible,” said Norm. “I saw them do it, and while Odelia was under, they were saying how she wouldn’t remember a thing—not who Solange was, or why she was there—or even her own name!”

“So that’s how they do it,” I said. “Hypnosis!”

“I’ve seen a documentary on hypnosis,” said Dooley, “on the Discovery Channel. It’s not very nice. They can make people do almost anything. In the documentary they made a man eat worms, after convincing him it wasn’t worms but potato chips. He thought it was delicious but it looked really, really gross!”

Norm stared at Dooley for a moment, then shook his head.“No, they didn’t feed Odelia worms. But they did convince her to forget anything to do with the fair, or Solange or the investigation.”

“Oh, this is so not good,” I said. “Now she’ll never be the same again.”

“They can be cured, though,” said Dooley. “There is some kind of code word they use and when they say it, the person snaps out of it.” He smiled. “You should have seen the look on the man’s face when he realized he’d eaten a whole plate full of worms!”

“Nice, Dooley,” I said, though I was relieved to hear that Odelia could be cured, and so could Marge, who probably had been the victim of the same tactic.

“Oh, and they just did the same thing to Chase,” said Norm. “A couple of really big guys brought him in, completely unconscious, and this sister of Madame Solange, whose name is Selena, by the way, revived him, and then, while they held him down, did the same thing to him she did to Odelia. So I’m afraid now you have two humans who won’t even remember their own names, you guys.”