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It was a dark night- moonless, foggy. The kind of night where you could barely see your flipper two inches from your face, even if you were wearing one of those radioactive Hawaiian shirts. The kind of night for whispered secrets and mysterious packages handed off by tall men in overcoats.

My name is Frobisher. The sign on my office door says ‘Prvt nvstgtr’. It would say Private Investigator, but my last case didn’t go so well and I had to hock a few vowels.

Private investigator’s the dressed-up job description. What I am is a spy, a snoop, a bloodhound of the underworld, a penguin with pizzazz. When Little Bo Beep lost her sheep, I’m the guy she went to. When Little Red Riding Hood needed someone to look into the untimely death of her dear old grandmother, she came to me. And when you need someone to ferret through your trash cans, I’m the PI who’ll ferret for clues- for the right price.

That’s what I was doing that night. Ferreting through a trash can. It’s not what you’d call a glamourous job, but someone’s gotta do it.

“Are you certain you’re going to be able to get out of that thing, Frobisher?”

“Look, Doc, I know what I’m doing. Could you pipe down and, you know, look out a little?”

That was the Doctor, a truly stimulating beauty and woman of mystery. She hired me to look into a universal tour with her. I was a little leery of taking the case at first- if you ask me, the Doc’s always had a thing for me, and prolonging our relationship like this could only lead to heartbreak- but for twelve mazumas a day plus expenses, who could say no to a face like hers?

Eight receptionists and ten phone calls got us into the back alley of the Universal Tours Headquarters, Inc., looking through their truly impressive trash for a set of vital communications. At any moment, we could be caught and forced to answer some very awkward questions in very uncomfortable positions.

No sooner than I finished explaining our position to the Doc did she alert me to a set of heavy footsteps echoing in our little alley. I knew it couldn’t be good; footsteps in alleyways at the dead of night never are. I had to get us out of there, preferably in our original two pieces. “Hide in here, Doc.”

“In there? Absolutely not.” With a resounding bang, the Doc closed the lid on me. All I could do was lie in the dark and wait: two of my least favourite things. Our lives were in the Doc’s hands now.

“Hi, excuse me. Do you know the way to.. ‘Ping’s Pizza Palace’?”

“To the right, and three blocks down.”

As I heard the echoing footfalls of our new friend leaving, I heaved a sigh of relief. The Doc’s hands weren’t a bad place to put your life, if it came down to it. I banged on the lid to be let out; it had one of those automatic locks to prevent guys like me from going through trash like theirs.

“Are you all right in there, Frobisher?”

“Fine, Doc, but did you have to close the lid? I was getting a little claustrophobic in here.”

“I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.”

“You would be too, if the last thing you saw was the disembodied head of Freddy the Clown Fish.”

The lid inched open slowly, and I only had time to see the Doc’s beautiful gray eyes widen with surprise at something- or someone- outside before the lid crashed down on me again.

“Doc? Doc!”

Frantically, I beat at the trash can lid. I knew something bad was about to happen, and not just because I heard the sound of a gun cocking- a noise I’d heard many times before, usually pointed at me with a two-ton ‘associate’ behind it explaining how much it would behoove me to put my flippers in the air. But this time, I wasn’t the one on the business end of the deadly barrel.

“You’re coming with me, honey.” Our Ping’s Pizza Palace pal was back, and from the sound of things, he’d brought friends. And they weren’t here to ask about the pepperoni special.

“If you insist. Would you mind if I threw away my gum first? Terribly annoying, being kidnapped with gum still in your mouth. All the flavour gets chewed out between the threats and the interrogation.”

The lid opened once more, and the Doc dropped her sonic screwdriver into my flipper. I had two seconds before she disappeared for good, two seconds to instill courage in her to face whatever the thugs out there had in store for her. “Look, Doc-“

“Move,” the Ping’s Pizza Palace thug ordered. She winked at me and disappeared from my sight. It was all I could do not to jump out of the bin and follow her.

It wasn’t until after they’d gone I realised there was no way I could unlock that garbage can from the inside, even with the help of the sonic screwdriver. I had to face the facts: the Doc was gone, and I didn’t have a prayer of reaching her.

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