WILLY NIMBLEWICK

“I agree with you,” as he rose to his feet, Willy acknowledged Zephyr’s words on their purpose of heading to Cleavenger’s Dark and Milk chocolate factory. “We’re going there for investors not to be extravagant. Twenty bars are enough.”

“Ah!” The little blonde haired pixie seemed excited. “You know, you should do that more often,” he joked with a short laugh, but Willy’s face had no significant change to it. He was already used to the little man on his shoulder.

“You’re lucky I’m not tasking you with cleaning up the TISCLM.”

Zephyr shuddered, and his lips twitched in response. “That would be the equivalent of sending me to my death.”

“Exactly. So go on and check the time for me while I clean it up.”

No arguments came from the little pixie as he instantly soared through the air toward the simple, rectangular table to the end of the room, a single bed on top of a wooden frame located beside it. There, he stressed for about ten seconds before he was finally able to click open the silver full-hunter pocket watch that was in the center of the table, announcing, “Twelve minutes past eleven.”

“Thank you,” Willy said as he took a cleaning towel and a bucket half filled with water from beside the small cast iron range cooker that was situated near the room’s window.

He knelt down beside the TISCLM, scooped a cup of water from the bucket, and poured it into the exhaust pipe sprouting out from the center top of the chocolate maker. A hissing sound emanated as a result of his action, and out of the exhaust pipe escaped a straight line of steam.

Dropping the cup in his hand back into the steel bucket of water, he was about to open the door of the TISCLM when a soft meow resounded through the unadorned walls of his room. At that moment, a brown tabby cat with quite a build crawled out from beneath the frame of his bed, the back of its paws rubbing its dark golden eyes.

“You know what to do, Zeph,” Willy quickly spoke. “Keep Dolores company and away from my ingredients.”

A loud grunt escaped from Zephyr at those words.

“She’ll eat me one day, you know?”

“Till that day comes.”

With a twisted smile, Willy pulled open the chocolate maker’s metallic door, and it instantly huffed out dense clouds of smoke congested together. But Willy was adept, and had quickly swerved to the side, preventing his face from being stained by the blackness which poured into his room.

He’d taken his bath already, he could not afford to get stained now.

“I’ll use the pixie dust, she’ll fall asleep with that,” Zephyr proposed, trying his best to avoid Willy’s request and the cat that was Dolores.

Willy used the towel he held to blow away the clouds of smoke surrounding the TISCLM before bringing his face back into closer proximity with it.

“Have you forgotten about your own powers? It takes ten minutes to kick into effect, my milk will be gone by then. Use it but keep her company until she sleeps.”

“Tch…” Zephyr grumbled as Dolores gave forth another meow, this one announcing to the other two in the room that she could both smell and see the milk.

The little pixie couldn’t delay any longer. He dipped his tiny hand into the pouch hanging from his waist—the only thing on his body made from leather—and took a handful of a golden and bright dust. He sprinkled the dust over Dolores’ nose, bringing about a couple of sneezes from her, and then engaged the tabby cat in a play, making sure to keep her away from the half bag of powder milk he was to protect.

Filled with trust for his pixie friend, Willy took not a single glance at his back despite the commotion that went on there, and instead focused on the gear-like structure with intricate details before him.

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His father, Billy, had been both an engineer as he was a chocolate maker, and skills of those professions Willy had learned and acquired from his late old man. He did not believe himself to be yet as good, but he hoped that one day he would. And that day was when he’d made something which surpassed the TISCLM in every single area possible.

The interior of the chocolate maker consisted of four box-like compartments connected in the form of an arc by steel spring tubes. In their center was a small furnace, and from it extended a straight pipe into the ceiling of the TISCLM, along with other pipes which connected to the box-like compartments.

Willy pulled open the last of the four compartments first—the molding compartment, where the produce was finalized—and brought out a piece of chocolate darkened so much that it almost seemed like a burnt piece of wood.

He flung that into the waste bin beside his room’s door, and set himself to cleaning each of the compartments, as well as emptying the fire woods in the furnace.

By the time he was done, purrs had taken the place of meows from Dolores, and heaves of relieved breaths had taken the place of fakened giggles from Zephyr.

Willy let his pixie friend rest and did the rest of the job himself. He cleaned up the bowls and stirrers they’d used for mixing, and picked up each shell of cocoa beans lying on the floor.

After that, he packed up the twenty bars of exquisite milk chocolate they’d made, bearing a soft smile on his face, and completed his dressing with a purple overcoat, brown top hat, multicolored lace cravat, and a cheap ball headed cane made from bamboo. His brown boots were also involved in garbing him up for the occasion.

“It’s time, Zeph,” Willy announced as he picked up the Gladstone bag where he’d put his chocolate bars. “Let’s go.”

Zephyr let out an exhale immediately and flew into the inner pocket of Willy’s coat in order to keep himself hidden from the eyes of others. After all, both Willy and he felt that he was an anomaly in the world of humans. His kind were not here—at least they had not seen any.

Knowing that Zephyr’s dust made Dolores sleep for an hour, and her own sleepy tendencies threw that up to a bit over five hours, Willy was rest assured of the safety of his half bag of milk.

With that in mind, he picked up his room keys, locked the window, and approached the door. But just as he was about to turn the knob and take his leave, hefty bangs raged on his door, causing him to shudder backward in sudden shock.

“Mr. Salamander!” Zephyr knew at once, and Willy’s furrowed eyebrows loosened as he too came to the same conclusion.

“Rats!” He tsked and swore with tightened lips. “It’s the smoke!”

“Obviously.”

Willy took in a deep breath and tightened his grip on his cane as he relaxed himself. He hated dealing with his landlord.

Forcing a smile, he pulled open his door just enough that he was able to squeeze himself out of his room. He was letting no one, not even his landlord, have a peek into his personal space.

“Oh. A lovely morning, don’t you think, Mr. Salam?” Willy greeted with a cheery tone and a gentlemanly tip of his hat.

Mr. Salamander was a man seemingly in his late forties with a somewhat burly build, hard gaze, and a face lined by soft wrinkles. On his head was a combed back hair with a widow’s peak, and it seemed that deep hairline was what always made him angry.

But Willy knew the current situation was not caused by that. Only one person could have brought this upon him.

He took a glance through the side of his eye and glimpsed the door of the room beside his opened to a slit. A pair of eyes was watching him and the landlord of the two storey building he was a tenant of.

Of course… Mrs. Karen…

“Smokes don’t make for a good morning now, do they?” Mr. Salamander shot back at Willy, his hands folded over his chest. He was befitting of the job of a bouncer. At least then he would be in a suit of some sort and not in an overly wrinkled shirt.

Willy laughed weirdly. “Don’t they?”

“They don’t! And I was in the middle of my breakfast when the complaint came.” Mr. Salamander’s nose wrung up. “How many times is it now, Mr. Nimblewick?”

Willy took a glance at the pocket watch fixed to his vest and sighed.

“I’ll be more careful next time, Sir. This is a promise.”

“Your twentieth promise,” Mr. Salamander was not having it. “I get complaints in the middle of my breakfast next time, I’ll file a complaint to the police. You’ll pay fines. Do you understand?!”

Willy smiled and tipped his hat again. “Perfectly, good sir.”

A stiff grunt, and Mr. Salamander left Willy’s view and the building at once. It was then that the sound of his neighbor’s stealthily shutting door entered his ears.

“She’s a nosy one, Nimblewick,” Zephyr voiced with a lowered tone from inside the pocket he was in, and Willy agreed with a nod.

“She definitely is.”