Chapter Seven: The Welcome Party
Mr. Bisby returned home that evening wearing a new work uniform and a big smile. “Hello, loved ones!” he sang cheerfully, looking as if he must have had a very good first day at work. He brandished the shiny silver badge that was pinned to his chest so Mrs. Bisby and Elliot would be sure to see. It was in the shape of a peace sign and had the words “Paxton of Giggleswick” inscribed around the edge, followed by Mr. Bisby’s name.
Elliot ran to give his father a hug and take a closer look at his badge. “What’s a paxton?” he asked. He’d never heard the word before.
“It means ‘town of peace’,” said Mr. Bisby grandly, puffing out his chest and wandering over to his wife to plant a kiss on her cheek, no longer having much difficulty with his bum leg.
Mrs. Bisby had a warm dinner waiting on their new kitchen table, which had been delivered along with the rest of their furniture by all seven burly Finster brothers just as promptly as Algernon Finster had promised. “Hello, darling. Did you have a nice day?” she asked sweetly, and she sprinkled a bit of salt and pepper over the roasted potatoes she’d just pulled from the oven.
“Wonderful,” Mr. Bisby answered, leaning over her shoulder to bask in the aroma of the dinner she’d prepared.
They were each very hungry as they sat down to eat the honey ham and roasted potatoes on the table before them, and Mr. Bisby was able to maintain a steady flow of words in-between mouthfuls as he recounted the details of his exciting day, which included learning the classic examples of peace disturbance and the procedure for peaceful apprehension. The latter apparently involved a spray that would instantly calm the belligerent so they could be handcuffed, but this was only for extreme circumstances he told them.
“The constable, Shiloh Humphrey, is a pleasant fellow –– he’s very anxious to meet you and Elliot,” said Mr. Bisby, poking several pieces of potato with his fork. Mrs. Bisby looked quite flattered that the leader of Giggleswick even knew who she was, much less wanted to meet her.
“And wait till you meet George, he’s a riot!” Mr. Bisby went on, laughing seemingly to himself as if the mention of George’s name had recalled several amusing incidents from the day. “He’s the other peace patrol officer,” he said, and eventually stopped laughing when he saw that Mrs. Bisby and Elliot were looking at him quite strangely. “Ahem, yes, well ... how was your day, dear?”
Mrs. Bisby and Elliot bantered back and forth about their activities just as eagerly as Mr. Bisby had done. They mentioned the new furniture, which Mr. Bisby was embarrassed not to have noticed, and after he’d outdone himself articulating how very much he liked it, they told him about the fudge, fogg-fizz, and the insane lady named Trixie they’d seen trolling her roof in high-heels.
“Oh, that must have been Trixie Trollop! She’s the secretary for the Offices of Tranquility,” he said, seeming happy at first to have a common acquaintance, but his face soon fell into a stumped expression once the bizarreness of his colleague’s behavior had registered. “That is strange,” he said, pondering. “She did strike me as a bit scatterbrained when we met this morning, but ...”
Elliot and his mother had hoped Mr. Bisby might have had some illuminating inside information to add to the subject, but the vacant look upon his face as he chewed on a piece of ham made it quite clear that he was not in-the-know.
The rest of the evening came and went during which time Elliot and his parents tried out all the new pieces of furniture. His mother became quickly fond of her new chintz armchair, where she sat reading a paperback novel Mrs. Noodle had lent her entitled Gone With the Mist, written by the local romance-novelist Aorta Chambers. Mr. Bisby took to polishing the patrol helmet he’d been given, which was blue and white –– Giggleswick’s colors, he explained when Elliot asked. Elliot meanwhile emptied the clothes from his suitcase into his new chest of drawers and then flopped onto his bed where thoughts of Knicklebeans, dentures, and chimney stacks floated through his head till his eyes drooped shut. When Mrs. Bisby came to tuck him in an hour later, he was fast asleep.
* * *
Elliot awoke the next morning half-expecting to find a painted giraffe staring him in the face, as it had so many mornings before, but for the second day in a row, he was pleased to see that Giggleswick had not been a dream, and there were no zoo animals painted on his bedroom walls.
The day passed in great anticipation for the welcome party they would be attending that evening. The Noodles had assured them that it was tradition to hold an end of summer picnic to welcome the new Giggleswick arrivals, but the Bisbys still felt a bit uneasy being the center of attention. However, their excitement at meeting new friends and neighbors far outweighed their apprehension, and when the Noodles rang their doorbell at quarter-till five, the Bisbys were dressed in their best outfits and ready to go.
The two families walked down the street together toward the center of town, each of them appearing to have the same idea as they passed Trixie’s house, for they all instinctively gazed up to the rooftop to see if the woman were still stuffed down her chimney. Eliza suggested they look for Trixie’s body around the side of the house in case she’d fallen off, but Mrs. Noodle scolded her. “Falling from rooftops is not something to joke about, young lady,” she said sternly, although it looked as if she wouldn’t have minded a gander around Trixie’s begonias herself, just to be sure.
As they passed the house next to Trixie’s, which was shorter and painted in a color reminiscent of Olive Juice’s hull, Elliot saw a face peering through a crack in the downstairs curtains. What looked to be an elderly woman with thick black glasses and straggly gray hair, which was pulled away from her face by a handkerchief, was spying at them as they walked by. Elliot tried to draw the others’ attention toward the woman, but before they could look, she had disappeared from the window.
“Ah, it’s just Boots,” said Wally Noodle a bit dismissively.
“She’s quite the busybody,” added Mrs. Noodle. “But if you ever need to know whether it was a squirrel or a blue jay eating all the food from your bird feeder, she can come in very handy.”
“Won’t she be at the party?” asked Elliot.
“I hardly think so,” replied Mrs. Noodle. “She prefers all her human interactions to take place through a pair of curtains.”
Elliot took one last look at the empty window, but his only remaining curiosity was in how someone came to be called “Boots”. Soon, they were walking through town along the shops they’d been past yesterday, though most of them now looked to be closed for the evening’s festivities. Elliot again heard a faint trickling of water and knew they were nearing Godfrey Gallagher-Garrington de Gadsberry Giggleswick’s fountain, the entire name of which Elliot had quickly forgotten but reminded himself of as they strolled up alongside the monument toward the cluster of people already talking and munching on various nibbly things by the surrounding grassy and tree-lined area.
They were instantly greeted by Jasper Stubbs, who was manning a charcoal grill lined with burgers. “Hello Noodles! Hello Bisbys!” he roared, and he leaned over to introduce himself to Mr. Bisby with a handshake, nearly catching his rotund belly on fire, as it was several inches closer to the burning coals than the rest of him.
Elliot noticed several people had turned in their direction upon hearing the name “Bisby”, and after he and his parents had each been handed a hamburger and plate, they were bombarded by people introducing themselves and welcoming them to Giggleswick ...
“So pleased to have you.”
“What a delight!”
“If you ever need a good shoe shine, call on me!”
“Pop round our store sometime for a free jar of our famous peach preserves.”
“Linda Limerick, Elliot, I’m so looking forward to having you in my class.”
This sing-song voice had come from a lady with shiny brown hair that flowed to her waist, but before Elliot could ask what subject she taught, a man bounded up to him and his parents looking like he was dressed as Robin Hood for Halloween.
“Pleeease allow me to bestow my great tidings among ye, o’ noble Bisbys of America,” said the man very cordially, removing his feather-clad hat and bowing deeply. “Sir Duncan of Celliwig, at thy most humble service.”
The Bisbys tried to conceal their wide-eyed astonishment as Sir Duncan gave Elliot and Mr. Bisby a hearty handshake, then kissed Mrs. Bisby’s hand, addressing her as “fair maiden” in the process.
“Pray tell, how art thou finding thy keep?” he asked, or at least the Bisbys thought it sounded like a question, but they had no idea what Sir Duncan meant. After they stared blankly at one another for several seconds, the man tried again. “Do tell, how are you finding your new home?” he said, this time looking a tad disgruntled, but retaining his magisterial voice.
Before the Bisbys could answer, they heard a high-pitched scream nearby and saw the two little girls who’d been playing with Bert the day before sniggering as their mother jumped several feet in the air at the sight of what looked to be a toad jumping from between the bun of her hamburger.
“Hark! A maiden in distress!” cried Sir Duncan, and with that he was off, flinging into the distance and reaching at his side for the sword that wasn’t there.
The Bisbys could hear the soft reprimands of Dawn and Dora’s mother, and then her fervid assurance to Sir Duncan that she indeed did not need to be carried off to safety. The Noodles had rejoined the Bisbys after Sir Duncan’s departure, and they explained that the lady with the toad infested hamburger was Patricia Gabby, who in addition to the precocious Dawn and Dora, was the mother of Tom Gabby, who was Elliot and Eliza’s age. Standing beside the sandy-haired boy named Tom was their father Lowell Gabby, who was busy dabbing at some sauce that had dribbled down his front.
“And what about Sir Duncan?” said Mrs. Bisby, likely thinking he was a much more curious fellow compared to the perfectly lovely but ordinary Gabby family.
“Oh him,” said Mrs. Noodle flatly, as if the subject were much less interesting than it seemed. “He has Don Quixote Syndrome.” She acted like the Bisbys would know exactly what this was, but their faces showed no signs of recognition. “Surely you must have known someone in America with it,” she said with an air of certainty.
The Bisbys all shook their heads.
Mrs. Noodle looked perplexed. “Well ... he thinks he’s a knight, you see. We all just play along with him because he gets very testy if you don’t. His real name’s Dave, but Wally made the mistake of calling him that once, and Sir Duncan starting shouting medieval obscenities at him like ‘churl’ and ‘scallywag’. He tries to speak Old English, but he doesn’t actually know how ... he just feels he ought, the doctors say.”
The Bisbys found this all very interesting, but their attention was quickly turned in the direction of a wooden podium with blue and white streamers hanging from the trees above it.
“Constable Humphrey’s about to give his welcoming remarks,” Wally whispered to them as the crowd grew quiet, and the Bisbys forgot all thoughts of Sir Duncan and his eccentric disease.
There were a few electronic squeals and noises, and then a man tapped the podium microphone twice and cleared his throat. Elliot stood on the tip of his toes in order to get a better look. A short and pleasantly plump older man wearing a fedora and gray overcoat was peering over the podium at the crowd. He had a round, jovial face and a bright smile that tugged at the bountiful wrinkles lining his cheeks and forehead.
“My dear Giggleswickians,” he said with an inflated, whooping sort of voice, his teeth whistling softly on each of the s’s, creating static over the antiquated sound system. “Let me first begin with a word of thanks to the Willy B. Foogerton Institute for the Culinary Arts for catering this evening’s events. A man of my age must watch his cholesterol, but come this time every year I make an exception for the turtle brisket,” he said, giving his belly a light tap.
Elliot lifted the bun of his hamburger to make sure everything looked as it should. When he was sufficiently certain that he was indeed holding a hamburger and not something from a turtle, he glanced back up at the podium.
“And let us not forget a hearty thanks to Caractacus Knicklebean and family for supplying the desserts, which I shall also be making an exception for this evening.” There was a polite scattering of applause, and then Constable Humphrey continued.
“Now, if you will all humor me, I would like to tell you a story about two young men with a big dream ... Over fifty years ago, these two young men had set their sights on careers of rock-and-roll singing. They envisioned scores of girls screaming their names and radio programs playing their songs. After years of hard practice, they’d begun to make a name for themselves, and they were soon offered a record deal.
“However, one of these young men was offered another deal of a completely different nature that he found ever so enticing. But should he give up all his dreams of a rock-and-roll career? It was a decision that did not come easily to the young man. In the end, he decided to take the other offer, leaving his friend to pursue a rock-and-roll career on his own, subsequently severing their friendship forever. The one young man went on to become the leader of a small nation, and the other young man choked on a cheeseburger and died. One of those young men, my dear friends, was me. And the other young man ... was Elvis Presley.”
The crowd around Elliot came to life, mostly with laughter and whispers of disbelief. But no matter how unlikely his story, apparently Shiloh Humphrey had been fond enough of Elvis’s music to make sure it was brought over to Giggleswick, for everyone seemed to know exactly who Elvis was.
“You might all be pondering the moral of this story,” Constable Humphrey continued, “or perhaps you’re wondering if it ever happened, which is a valid question seeing as I took a nasty bump on the head in nineteen-seventy-eight and my memory has never been quite the same since ... but the moral of the story is this: Welcome all new citizens of Giggleswick with open arms, for they will prosper as I have done, and above all, chew your food carefully. Thank you.”
The crowd erupted in applause and laughter, which Constable Humphrey eventually quieted with a wave of his hand. “Please join me in welcoming Todd Bisby, our new peace patrol officer from America, and his wife, Nora, and son, Elliot.” He motioned toward the Bisbys in the crowd, and the applause began again, most heartily from the Noodles, who were cheering loudly.
Amid the handshakes, hugs, and thumps on the back, Elliot caught sight of a distinguished sort of man in an expensive looking suit who seemed to be glaring at the Bisbys and making a point of clapping slower than everyone else. Before Elliot could get a better look, however, the man slipped out of sight, and Constable Humphrey was at their side shaking each of their hands and asking if they’d brought any honky-tonk albums over with them from America.
“What a shame,” he bellowed when Mr. Bisby said that they hadn’t brought any albums of that sort. “Quite a fan, you know! If you should ever want to browse my collection ... eh, what, oh –– yes,” sputtered Constable Humphrey as a stumpy man standing beside him gave him a nudge. “Do allow me to introduce the vice constable, Dr. Parker Primrose.”
Elliot thought the man was rather quiet despite having wanted to be introduced. He was older and balding on top, and he had wiry glasses that wrapped around his protruding ears. A moth-eaten bow-tie pressed up against his chin where a neck should have been, and he was wearing a brown suit that smelled like a cedar closet.
“Dr. Primrose is a bit of a British history scholar,” said Constable Humphrey since it seemed obvious the vice constable was not going to be doing any speaking of his own.
The man in question perked up. “Is he?” said Dr. Primrose interestingly. “Fascinating subject,” he added and nodded several times. Constable Humphrey looked at him severely. “Oh, you meant ME, well –– yes, of course,” Primrose bumbled, “quite interesting subject, quite interesting ...”
Constable Humphrey rolled his eyes. “Hadn’t you better be going, Parker? Imogen will be wanting his supper.”
Dr. Primrose raised his eyebrows in agreement, again nodding his head many more times than was necessary. He then trailed off looking deep in thought.
“Imogen?” Elliot whispered to Eliza, feeling certain this was a name he’d only ever heard attached to very old ladies.
“It’s his cat ... no one knows where it got the name,” Eliza whispered back. “He often walks him around town on a little leash.”
“Don’t mind the vice constable,” said Humphrey, “it’s his chicken-pox medication, you see. Contracted it a bit late in life, and the anti-inflammatory pills have him a bit subdued, I’m afraid.” He seemed to catch sight of someone in the distance. “Oh, Kreville!” he hollered, motioning for the person to join them.
It was the distinguished looking man Elliot had seen just a few minutes before.
“Have you met our chief justice, Kennedy Kreville?” Constable Humphrey asked the Bisbys politely, and when the man wandered over to them, still looking rather surly, the constable said, “I’ll leave you all to get acquainted –– I’m just going to fetch a few of those foogies before they’re all snatched up!”
Constable Humphrey escaped to the dessert table, and the Noodles were called away to chat with some of the Finster brothers, which left the Bisbys alone with Kennedy Kreville.
“A pleasure,” the man said, extending his hand to Mr. Bisby, but the expression upon his face was one of intense scrutiny. He had dark hair that was combed so perfectly it almost looked plastic, and he was wearing a navy blue suit and an ascot, which Elliot thought made him look quite ridiculous. He had never met Nate Rutledge’s father, but if he had, Elliot imagined he would look much like Kennedy Kreville.
“I take it you’re finding yourselves all settled in?” said Mr. Kreville, his tone lacking the hospitality of his words.
The Bisbys smiled and nodded, but they were finding themselves increasingly uncomfortable around the chief justice, and their discomfort was unlikely to subside, seeing as the rest of Kennedy Kreville’s family appeared to be joining them. A gorgeous blonde-haired woman who looked to be several years younger than Mr. Kreville came up from behind and slipped her arm around his waist. Trailing alongside her were two young boys, both with their father’s haircut, looking equally ridiculous in the same navy blue suits. The older of the two boys waved to Elliot, seeming a little less haughty than his father and perhaps a little less happy about the suit, which he’d undoubtedly been made to wear.
“Hah-lo, I am Khatia Kreville,” said the woman huskily, rolling the ‘R’ in her name severely with the clear undertones of a Russian accent. She had a sharp jaw line and dark eyes, and though she was dressed elegantly, she would have looked more at home on a yacht. “Zees are my sons, Kory and Kelly,” she added from deep within her throat.
“My wife was a famous figure-skater in Ukraine before she immigrated to Giggleswick many years ago,” said Mr. Kreville, seeming to emphasize the word “many” as if it were somehow better than if she’d only recently immigrated.
“Yah, long before Basil Donovan,” she added darkly. “He vos ‘orrible. Eef he ever came beck ... now, ve dunt know who to trust.”
“Khatia!” said Mr. Kreville sharply.
She sighed thickly, “I should not haff said dat. Why vould you haff sompthink to do wiz heem?” she sneered, her words dripping with accusation.
The Bisbys had never even heard the name Basil Donovan before, and they had no idea why the Krevilles should suspect they would. Although the unfriendly aura remained, Kennedy Kreville thankfully tried to steer the conversation away from the awkwardness his wife’s comments had just ensued. He seemed particularly interested in where the Bisbys had lived in America and whether they had ever heard of Giggleswick before. As Mr. Kreville continued to drill them with many leading questions, his eldest son Kory instigated a conversation of his own with Elliot.
“How old are you?” Kory asked.
Elliot thought this was a strange first question. “Twelve,” he said shyly.
“We’ll be in the same year then. If you ask me, it’s a pretty dull lot –– a bunch of theater kids. Do you play sports?”
“Not really, no,” said Elliot.
“Hmm,” said Kory disapprovingly. “My friends and I fence. Of course we can’t use real swords, but if you ask me, they should start allowing weapons in Giggleswick. How else are we supposed to protect ourselves from unwanted visitors?” He squinted his eyes at these last words, and Elliot felt sure Kory was referring to him.
“I thought nobody could find Giggleswick without Lefty Scrum’s parrot?” said Elliot a bit defensively.
“Ha,” Kory scoffed. “Some people think there’s a map.”
“So,” said Elliot, trying not to appear overly inquisitive.
“So, with a map, anyone would be able to find Giggleswick and expose us. That’s why my father thinks it’s too dangerous to let new people in. New people can’t be trusted to care about Giggleswick the way the old families do. They could be working for––”
But Elliot wouldn’t find out who these “new people” could be working for, because just then the Noodles had returned to save the Bisbys from what they must have known was unpleasant company. Elliot knew one thing for sure, however –– he was beginning to dislike Kory Kreville quite a lot, and he resented the fact that he was suddenly feeling terribly curious and had very little idea why.
“Vell, enjoy zeh party,” Khatia said with a trite little wave, only acknowledging the Noodles with a nod of her head. The Krevilles then disappeared into the crowd once again, leaving each of the Bisbys with the same puzzled expression upon their faces.
“Aren’t they charming?” chirped Mrs. Noodle, sounding blithely unconcerned.
The Bisbys remained polite as ever and chose not to respond.
“Trusts no one but himself, that one,” Wally contributed.
Elliot scanned the faces in the crowd, hoping the Krevilles were at a safe distance. He soon caught sight of them conversing with a group of people nearby who were now casting the same dubious glances in the Bisbys’ direction.
“That’s Henri La Russo, his wife, Pauline, and their two children,” said Mrs. Noodle, nodding to the people chatting with the Krevilles with a disapproving look upon her face. “Moved here from France before their children were born.”
“Ah yes,” said Mr. Bisby. “Henri works for the Offices of Tranquility –– met him just yesterday.”
Mrs. Noodle smirked and was about to speak, but after a hard glance from Wally, she pursed her lips back together and sighed.
Elliot thought Pauline La Russo looked especially gaudy with her enormous honey-colored hair which was teased high around her heavily painted face like a lion’s mane. She greatly overshadowed an older drab woman and a pinched looking boy who had just joined them.
“Genevieve Ratslinger and her son, Günter,” Mrs. Noodle answered when Elliot asked who they were.
“From Germany –– they’re close friends of the La Russos, though no one quite understands their attachment to one another ... I once wore tennis-shoes to Pauline’s hair salon for an appointment, and ever since then she’s described me as ‘plain’,” said Mrs. Noodle bitterly. “Yet, there she is –– conversing with someone dressed like a brigadier general.” She inclined her head toward Genevieve Ratslinger, who was indeed looking rather brawny in an ankle length frock, blazer and necktie, and a bowler brimmed hat which was flattened against her silver curls.
Giggleswick seemed to consist of the most odd assortment of people, Elliot thought, but just when it seemed as though Sir Duncan’s eccentricity could not be surpassed, the musical squeal of bagpipes preceded the arrival of a bizarre fellow who was blowing mightily upon the instrument and parading around Godfrey Gallagher’s fountain in a kilt. Even more bizarre was the turban wrapped tightly round his head, which came to rest just above his thick black eyebrows. The tune bursting from his pipes through the center of town sounded strangely to Elliot like one played to tame a snake. It certainly didn’t sound like any of the Irish tunes he’d heard before.
Wally noticed that Elliot and everyone else was now fixated on this musical spectacle. “There goes one of my most interesting finds,” he said proudly, nodding his head in the bagpiper’s direction. “Spotted him on the streets of Dublin selling hand-made oriental carpets off the sidewalk, poor thing.”
“Who is he?” asked Mrs. Bisby, looking quite amused.
“Abu Habib-O’Brien,” said Wally. “He’s Irish-Arabian.”
“Owns Giggleswick’s only Oriental carpet and Celtic kilt shop,” Mrs. Noodle chimed in.
Elliot thought it was very likely that Mr. Habib-O’Brien owned the world’s only Oriental carpet and Celtic kilt shop, but he kept this thought to himself, and the man soon marched right past them toward the grill where he finally gave his bagpipes a rest to spark a conversation with Jasper Stubbs.
“Look! There’s George,” Mr. Bisby shouted, wrenching their attention away from Abu Habib-O’Brien over toward the dessert table where a man stood wearing a uniform similar to the one Mr. Bisby had come home wearing the day before. He was chatting with the younger Mr. Knicklebean, though truth be told, George was doing all the talking.
Mr. Bisby parted from the Noodles, dragging Elliot and Mrs. Bisby over to greet his fellow peace patrol officer, who was now brushing cookie crumbs out of his neatly trimmed mustache.
“Hey there! Good to see you, Todd,” the man said, sounding exactly like the police officers Elliot had seen on TV programs. “And this must be Nora and Elliot,” he said, extending a firm hand for each of them to shake.
“Nora, Elliot, I’d like you to meet George Detweiler,” said Mr. Bisby, patting his colleague on the back. He was laughing again as he’d done the last time he’d mentioned George’s name.
“That’s right,” George said, “and have you met my wife?”
All three Bisbys shook their heads.
“Too bad,” he said with a grin, “neither have I.”
Mr. Bisby cackled obnoxiously, leaving Mrs. Bisby and Elliot to wonder if they’d missed something or if Mr. Bisby was just so pleased to have someone like George to work with on a job that didn’t involve hotdogs.
“You’ll soon meet my mother, Elliot,” George said to him. “She’s the drama teacher at your school. She’d have been here tonight, but she’s preparing for a role.” He gave Mr. and Mrs. Bisby a wink of amusement. “Said she couldn’t possibly face the distraction of a party.”
George tucked back into his dessert plate and began munching on what looked like sugar cookies with a greenish hue. After spotting the Bisbys’ intrigued glances, he brushed a fresh batch of crumbs from his mustache and said, “Have you had any yet? They’re foogies! Better grab some before they’re all gone –– Constable Humphrey will be loading his pockets full before long.”
The Bisbys eyed the nearby dessert table where a plate of the cookies sat amidst many pies, tarts and cakes, not to mention several bowls of Knicklebeans and chocolates. The elder Mr. Knicklebean was behind the table slicing what looked to be apple pie, which appeared to have the same greenish magical ingredient present in all of Giggleswick’s best foodstuffs. Standing beside the candymaker was a blonde-haired girl stirring a bowl of mint-colored pudding. Upon spotting Elliot, her bright blue eyes grew very wide and she no longer seemed able to blink.
“Bisbys!” Mr. Knicklebean exclaimed in delight when they stepped up to the table. He grabbed several dessert plates, handing one to each of them. “Have yourselves some foogies!”
“Thank you, Mr. Knicklebean,” said Elliot, accepting the plate and reaching for a few of the cookies which he was now very anxious to try.
“Please call me Caractacus, my dear boy,” the man said with a grandfatherly glint in his eye.
Elliot wasn’t so sure he could, as it was quite an unusual name, and he hadn’t yet heard it enough times to remember how it was said, but he nodded all the same, and hoped he wouldn’t have to address Mr. Knicklebean again anytime soon.
“Elliot, you must meet my granddaughter, Candy. She’ll be in your year in school,” Mr. Knicklebean said, placing an arm around the bashful girl’s shoulder.
“Hi,” Elliot said kindly.
For an uncomfortable moment, the girl’s bug-eyed face stood still, but at last she gulped and choked out a girlish “hello” before looking horrified at the sound of her own voice and running away, her blonde hair catching in the wind behind her and the bowl of pudding she’d left behind tottering dangerously on the edge of the table.
“Heh, silly girl,” chortled Mr. Knicklebean, watching his granddaughter’s head bob through the crowd. “She’s at that age, I suppose. Never the same personality two days in a row.” He beamed at the Bisbys and waved one of his knobbly hands over the array of desserts beneath him. “Do eat up!”
Elliot held a foogie out in front of him to inspect before biting off a corner. It was very gooey and stuck to his teeth in all kinds of places as he chewed, but it had a sweet, honey-like taste that settled warmly in his stomach. As he bit into a second cookie, he heard the faint cries of a bird echoing somewhere overhead. He gazed up into the darkening night sky and saw the blue body and yellow tail feathers of Lefty’s bird Evol circling above. It plummeted through the leafy depths of a nearby oak and reappeared near the stump where a man sat leaning against the base of the tree.
Taking a closer look, Elliot recognized the army-green rain hat and slicker of Lefty Scrum, who was sitting by himself and stroking Evol’s feathers as the bird stood guard on his shoulder. It was perhaps due to all the lonely lunch periods Elliot had once endured that he felt a pang in the pit of his stomach at the sight of Lefty sitting all alone. He found himself wandering over toward the man to say “hello”, closely followed by his parents who decided to follow him as they tried to unstick bits of cookie from their teeth.
“Hiyah there, Elliot,” said Lefty gruffly, sniffing greatly as if he’d been caught deep in thought. He waved to Mr. and Mrs. Bisby with a weak smile as they approached.
“How are you, Lefty?” said Mr. Bisby cheerfully.
Lefty pulled in a stiff breath. “Not me best,” he sighed, and Elliot thought he saw Lefty’s bottom lip quiver. “Me dad isn’t well.”
“Poppy?” Elliot said before he could catch himself, remembering Eliza having mentioned Lefty’s father the day before when they’d been sitting by Godfrey Gallagher’s fountain. Elliot had assumed Poppy Scrum died years ago.
“Tha’s right,” Lefty grunted. “Not sure ‘e’s got much time left.”
Evol nipped affectionately at Lefty’s ear as the man shook in his attempt to hold back the tears glistening upon his eyes. For a moment, Elliot thought he even saw a tear slide down the bird’s beak as well.
“Lefty, we’re so very sorry,” said Mrs. Bisby soothingly.
“Wish we’d had the chance to meet him,” Mr. Bisby added.
A great big teardrop fell from Lefty’s face and landed atop the hamburger on the plate in his lap. “Right nice of yeh,” he sniffed. “Me dad ‘ave been proud to bring folks like yerselves to Giggleswick.”
Elliot and his parents kept Lefty company for as long as they could possibly bear the awkwardness of his weeping and then waved goodbye to him and several other new friends before departing with the Noodles at their side once again.
They arrived home from the party shortly after, and Elliot soon slipped under the warm covers of his bed where he fell fast asleep. Dark and foreboding images pervaded his dreams ... a faceless figure cloaked in black and clutching a map was perched on a rock along the Giggleswick coastline, and hundreds of human-sized playing cards wielding spears were trying to hold him at bay. Bagpipes were playing in the distance, and the cloaked figure was transforming into a snake to slip past the poker-faced guards. Meanwhile, Kory Kreville’s words kept playing through Elliot’s head like a soundtrack to his dream ... “It’s too dangerous to let new people in” ... “They could be working for––” ... “Some people think there’s a map” ...
Elliot awoke with a start the next morning, but the dream had evaporated, leaving no recollection of it behind.