Remarkable (9 page)

“Ma’am,” said Detective Burton Sly, “if you look up, you will find that there is a small girl attached to your dog by a makeshift leash. I believe she may be responsible for your dog’s safe return.”

Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain, suitably impressed with the detective’s power of observation, looked up and saw Jane for the first time.

“My dear child,” she said, “I don’t believe we’ve met. But I will be forever grateful to you for rescuing my poor, dear Asta Magnifica from those wicked dognappers.”

Jane tried to explain that they had met many times before, and that she hadn’t done anything nearly as interesting as rescuing Asta Magnifica from dognappers, but Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain was too excited to listen. She insisted on giving Jane a large reward for bringing her dog home, and had just gone off to the kitchen to get her checkbook when the phone rang.

It was Mrs. Jeeter, and she was not very happy. That afternoon, she’d discovered a strange man digging through her trash. She’d immediately set her fleet of Afghan hounds on him, and they’d chased him up a tree in a frenzy of barking, yelping, and slobbering. She’d refused to call off her dogs until the man
explained that he was one of Detective Burton Sly’s junior detectives and that Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain suspected that Mrs. Jeeter might be involved in the disappearance of her dog.

“Why you think I’d want to dognap your stumpy basset hound is completely beyond me!” Mrs. Jeeter shouted at Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain.

“My basset hound is not the least bit stumpy!” Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain shouted back. “You’d know that if your Afghan hounds weren’t flea-bitten, bowlegged mongrels.”

The two women were soon engaged in a fierce exchange of insults about the conformation, breeding, and dispositions of champion show dogs. Jane could tell that the conversation was not going to end any time soon, and she doubted that Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain would remember that she was planning to give her a reward by the time it was over. Jane nodded good-bye to Detective Burton Sly and slipped outside.

It was a shame that Jane did not get a reward for bringing Asta Magnifica back to Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain. If she had, she might have used the money to give herself a treat instead of heading straight home.
She might even have tried to get a scoop of ice cream from Mrs. Peabody’s Colossal Ice Cream Palace. And if Jane had stopped there that day, she would have discovered three more pirates.

These pirates had arrived in Lake Remarkable that morning on a valiant little yawl called
The
Mozart Kugeln
, which they’d sailed up from the ocean via various distributary channels. They were named Jeb, Ebb, and Flotsam—and Mrs. Peabody wasn’t at all pleased to have them in her restaurant. Unlike Captain Rojo Herring, these new pirates were not meticulously dressed, and their table manners were terrible. They cursed at the prices on the menu, ate their banana splits with rusty fishing knives, and made rude faces at the other customers. When they were done eating, Flotsam beat his fist on the table to get Mrs. Peabody’s attention.

“Har!” he growled. Flotsam was the shortest and meanest of the three. “I’ll be wanting a word with you.”

“Argghh!” the other pirates growled in agreement, and they beat their fists on the table, too.

“Well, what is it?” Mrs. Peabody asked, wrinkling up her nose as she walked over to them. The three pirates smelled very strongly of pickled squid and mildew.

“We be looking for a pirate friends of ours. He has two peg legs and a big green parrot. Have you seen the likes of him around here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Mrs. Peabody said huffily. This wasn’t strictly true, of course. Mrs. Peabody had seen Captain Rojo Herring that very morning. He came to her ice cream parlor almost every day, so he could sit by the window and watch Taftly Wocheywhoski and his crew work on the post office addition. She’d never seen anyone so fascinated by a construction project before. But Mrs. Peabody wasn’t about to mention that Captain Rojo Herring was a regular customer, because she didn’t want Ebb, Jeb, and Flotsam to think she ran the kind of ice cream parlor that was frequented by pirates.

Ebb scowled like he suspected she was lying. He was the tallest of the three and had a patch over one eye.

“Well, if you should see such a man, don’t be telling him that we be asking about him,” Ebb said. “He’s caused us a bit o’ trouble, you see. And if he finds out we’re after him, he’ll run again befores we can return the favor.”

“And we’ll be causing quite a bit of trouble ourselves
if we don’ts find ’im,” Jeb added between bites of ice cream. He was almost handsome, almost smart (which is a polite way of saying he was actually quite dumb) and always hungry.

Mrs. Peabody pursed her lips and put the bill for the three banana splits on the pirates’ table. “You can pay at the cash register whenever you’re ready,” she said pointedly, hoping that they would take the hint and go.

Flotsam slapped a grubby-looking gold doubloon on top of the bill, and the three pirates walked out, laughing their mean pirate laughs.

S
o, Jane, you aren’t busy, are you?” Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III asked as Jane came down the stairs on Saturday morning. He was giving her one of his most dazzling smiles. Jane looked back at him suspiciously without answering. If she answered, she’d have to say she wasn’t doing anything, and then he’d probably ask her for a favor.

“Because if you aren’t busy,” Anderson Brigby Bright continued, “I thought you might like to come look at my new masterpiece. I haven’t showed it to anyone else yet.”

“Really?” Jane asked, feeling suddenly flattered. Anderson Brigby Bright didn’t normally care if she ever saw his paintings or not.

Anderson Brigby Bright’s masterpiece was on an easel in the backyard and covered by a velvet sheet. As Jane stepped in front of it, he whipped the cover off with a flourish.

“Ta-da!” he shouted happily, and then he stepped back and waited for Jane’s praise.

The masterpiece was a photorealistic portrait of Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa. But Jane didn’t think it was the best photorealistic portrait that Anderson Brigby Bright had ever painted. In real life, Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa’s hair was black and shiny, but in Anderson Brigby Bright’s picture, her hair was ten times blacker and a hundred times shinier. Her well-shaped nose was much shapelier, and her chic little glasses were even smaller and even more chic. But the most unrealistic aspect of the portrait was Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa’s lips, which were stretched into a beauteous smile instead of being pressed together in a hum.

“Oh,” Jane said, “it’s, um, nice. Have you asked her to the Science Fair Dance yet?”

“No. Not yet. I have a plan though. I’m going to give Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa this picture, and then she’ll be so impressed with it that she’ll ask me
to the dance,” Anderson Brigby Bright said confidently.

Jane, who was now used to the precise and complex schemes of the Grimlet twins, could see that this wasn’t much of a plan. But there was no point in arguing with Anderson Brigby Bright about it. He’d never listen to her anyway.

“Oh,” she said instead. “Well, good luck with that.”

“It’s going to take more than luck, Jane. I’m going to need your help, too.”

“You are? Why?”

“I need someone to carry the painting over to her house for me.”

Jane groaned and wished she’d locked herself in her bedroom the moment her brother had looked in her direction.

Because Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III had expansive feelings for Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa, he’d painted her portrait on a very large canvas. The canvas was almost larger than Jane and was extremely difficult for her to carry—especially since Anderson Brigby Bright refused to help.

“I’m much too anxious,” he told Jane. “And it would be such a shame if my masterpiece got dropped.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just ask her to the dance?” she asked, grunting under the painting’s weight. Anderson Brigby Bright paled at the very idea.

“Of course not! What if she said no? I would be crushed! It’s much safer to get her to ask me. I’m sure I’ll say yes.”

It wasn’t far to Lucinda’s house, but the closer Jane and Anderson Brigby Bright got, the slower they both walked—Jane, because the painting seemed to get heavier and heavier with every step, and Anderson Brigby Bright, because he was getting more apprehensive. He stood on Lucinda’s porch for nearly three minutes before he had the courage to ring the doorbell, and once he pressed it, he completely lost his nerve.

“I don’t think I can do it!” he squeaked dramatically.

“What do you mean?” Jane asked. But Anderson Brigby Bright wasn’t there to answer her. He’d already run back down the front walk and hidden himself behind a large hydrangea bush next to the mailbox.

Jane turned to run after him, but it was too late. Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa had already opened the front door. She was humming one of Johann
Hummel’s trumpet concertos and didn’t stop when she saw Jane on the doorstep.

“Hi,” Jane said awkwardly. “I…uh…I…”

“Mmm-hmmm?” hummed Lucinda. “Are you here to join the search for Ysquibel?”

Jane was so surprised by the question she almost didn’t know how to respond. “No…I, uh…”

“I always have my eye out for new members. I am the regional copresident of the Save Ysquibel Now! Club—or S.Y.N!C., as it is sometimes called.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. What are you saving him from, exactly?”

“From being lost, of course. He is the greatest living musician in the world today. But please don’t tell Ludwig von Savage I said that. He is our vice president and is sometimes rather touchy about being only the second greatest living musician.”

“Hmmm,” answered Jane, as if she were pondering what Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa had just said. Humming was contagious. “But I’m not here about that. I’m here because my brother wanted me to give you this.” She leaned the painting against a porch railing so that Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa could see it.

Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa looked at the masterpiece curiously, humming all the while.

“Hmmm,” she said finally. “Is that supposed to be me?”

Jane was caught off guard. The painting might be overly flattering, but it was unmistakably a picture of Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa.

“Don’t you think it looks like you?” Jane asked.

“Hmmm. I don’t know. I don’t usually think about how I look. I usually just think about how I sound. Do I know your brother?”

“I think so,” Jane said. “You go to school with him.”

“Hmm,” Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa hummed in a perfect C-sharp. She always hummed in C-sharp when she was trying to remember if she knew someone. “Well, tell him thank you, I guess.” And then she closed the door, leaving her enormous portrait on the porch.

Anderson Brigby Bright was beside himself with anxiety by the time Jane reached his hiding place in the hydrangea bush.

“Did she like it?” he demanded.

“Hmmm,” Jane answered. “I don’t know.”

“Did she ask me to the dance? Did she? Did she?”

“Well, hmmm, no, not exactly,” Jane said. “It never really came up.”

Anderson Brigby Bright’s face fell. Jane couldn’t remember a time he had ever looked so disappointed. She couldn’t help but think that if he’d been willing to listen to her before they left the house, then he would have known that this was exactly what she thought was going to happen. But of course, he hadn’t listened to her, and now he was just terribly, terribly disappointed.

“You could draw a picture of someone else and see if they’ll ask you to the dance instead,” Jane suggested.

Anderson Brigby Bright shook his head stubbornly. “I want to go with Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa. If I can’t go with her then I don’t want to go to the dance at all.”

“Maybe she didn’t understand what the painting was for,” Jane said reasonably. “Why don’t you just go ask her?”

“I’ve never asked anyone to a dance before. I wouldn’t know how to begin.” He looked up at his sister with tears in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d ask Lucinda for me, would you, Jane? Please?”

“Why should I have to?”

“It wouldn’t be nearly as hard for you to get turned down by her as it would for me. You’re used to that kind of thing.”

“Oh, all right,” Jane said, and she walked back up the porch steps and rang the doorbell again. When Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa answered this time, she was humming a Strauss waltz.

“Hmm,” she said. “You’re back.”

“Um…yes,” Jane said. “I was wondering…I was just wondering if you wanted to go to the Science Fair Dance with my brother. He’d really like to take you.”

“Hmmmm,” Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa hummed in a perfect B-flat. She always hummed in a perfect B-flat when she was considering something. “Will there be music?”

“Oh, I expect so,” Jane answered.

“Will it interfere with my search for Ysquibel?

“I doubt it.”

“Hmmmm,” she hummed, but this time she hummed in G, which was the note she always hummed when she’d come to a decision. “Well, okay then. Tell your brother I’d enjoy going to the dance very much.”

Anderson Brigby Bright was overcome with joy when he found out that Lucinda had said yes. He ran all the way back to the mirror in his bedroom so that he could practice parting his wonderfully wavy hair for the big night.