Figgs & Phantoms (11 page)

Mona tenderly removed the books one by one. Just handling them made her feel closer to Uncle Florence and his Capri.

500
Self-Portraits.
Page after page of people in centuries of costumes; face after face looking out in a strangely similar three-quarter pose, as if she were their mirror. One of these faces could have been taken by Uncle Florence. One of these faces could be Uncle Florence as he now looked in Capri.

Claude Lorrain: Drawings
. A large, thick book containing thousands of tiny reproductions of tree-strewn landscapes. One of them now existed in Capri.

Wonderful Characters
. The frontispiece showed a woman with the head of a pig. Mona quickly decided that this book had found its way into the trunk by accident.

Songs of Innocence and Experience
, by William Blake. Trianon edition. Mona flipped through the exquisitely colored pages; the words, hand-engraved in the plates, were difficult to read:

“Mona .... Lunchtime.” Mona jumped on hearing Newt's call. “Come, I'll take you to Flabby's for a hamburger.”

Mona picked up a small pamphlet from the trunk and dashed up the aisle, meeting Newt at the bus door. She didn't want her father treading on sacred ground.

Mona ignored Flabby Benckendorf's greeting and darted into a booth.

“Hi, Flabby, same as usual, for two, and heavy on the French fries,” Newt called out as he followed his daughter to the rear of the store. He sat down opposite her and read aloud from the torn pamphlet that was hiding Mona's face.

“
‘Yeoman of the Guard
. Vocal Score.' Where in heaven's name did you find that? Your mother's been looking all over the place for it.”

Mona couldn't believe, didn't want to believe, that Sissie knew about the secret books.

“It's Gilbert and Sullivan,” Newt explained. “Your mother sang one of those songs at the funeral.” He paused, hoping he hadn't said the wrong thing, but Mona was impatient to hear more.

“She sang beautifully,” he continued, “slow and sad-like, but I think she must have got some of the words mixed up.”

Mona wanted to hear the song.

Newt waited until Flabby finished serving and returned to the counter; then, his mouth full of hamburger and his tie in the ketchup, he leaned over the table and sang softly and out of tune:

Mona groaned.

 

★
“That Sister Newton,” the people of Pineapple said. “Imagine singing about pickles at a funeral. Her poor brother's funeral, at that. And Newton (“Newt”) Newton's too dumb to even be embarrassed. Figgs!”

 

“Hey, Newt, I didn't know you could sing. Ha, ha!” Bump Popham slapped Newt on the back with such good-natured force that a smaller man would have been dumped on Mona's lap. “Mind if I join you?”

Not waiting for an invitation, the coach eased into the booth next to Mona, who grudgingly moved closer to the wall. Newt was done with singing for a while, so the talk turned to Fido.

“Nothing wrong with his arm,” Bump complained. “It's his head that worries me. In his last game before quitting the team, he struck a kid out on three pitches. Then he throws another pitch and catches the home-plate umpire smack in the head. Maybe you know what's the matter with him, huh, Mona?” The coach jabbed Mona with his elbow, knocking the pamphlet out of her hands. It landed open before her on the table.

Phoebe! If Phoebe really existed, how could she be in Capri? On the other hand, if Uncle Florence had invented her.... Mona closed the pamphlet angrily. “Here, Newt, give this to Mom.”

“Hey, Mona, you're looking pretty good,” Bump Popham said. “Looks like you lost some weight.”

“We'd better be getting back,” Newt said, rising. This was not the time to discuss Mona's new figure.

Mona, back in the bus, dug deeper into the trunk. She opened each book cautiously now, stung by her discovery of Phoebe's Song.

Colorplate books: violets, hummingbirds, peach trees and plum trees, cottages and country furniture.

Another songbook: Schubert for voice and piano.

Literature: Chaucer, Dickens, Hawthorne, Dostoevski, Conrad....

Mona stared in disbelief at the familiar book in her hand. Joseph Conrad.
Typhoon.
Dark green binding, decorated cloth with a slight tear at the top of the spine.

Frantically she dug through the remainder of books in the trunk and found the other first edition.

Typhoon. Lord Jim
. She had thought these two books were still on old man Bargain's top shelf, yet here they were in her hands. Uncle Florence could not reach the top shelf by himself, and they had not worn the giant disguise since the day she first saw these Conrads, since the day she took down the Spanish map....

“Las Hazanas Fantasticas!” Mona exclaimed aloud. She furiously searched through the books.
Las Hazañas Fantásticas
was not in the trunk. It was not in the bus.

Sissie was pounding the piano and the sanitation department was practicing a Highland fling when Mona hurtled into the book room.

Again she scanned every title on the shelves. Again she rummaged through the books on the table.
Las Hazañas Fantásticas
was not in the house. Stopping her ears with her fingers, Mona tried to think. She was utterly confused, and Scottish garbage men didn't help.

There was only one more place to look. Mona grabbed
Sex Histories of American College Men
off a shelf and ran back to the used-car lot.

Fido was staring at the green bus, as Mona had expected.

“Here,” she said, handing him the book. “You can keep it.”

Fido leafed through its pages with such lack of interest that Mona thought she had taken the wrong book in her haste.

“Fido, will you do me a huge favor?” Mona asked sweetly. “Please.”

T
HE GROTESQUE GIANT in tattered black cloak, blue jeans, and sneakers staggered down Hemlock Street. Mrs. Lumpholtz, thinking she had seen a ghost, ran shrieking into Harriet Kluttz, Hair Sets and Cuts. The giant, taller than ever, ducked into Bargain Books.

Old man Bargain was perched on his high stool under the hanging light bulb, engrossed in a book. Mona kept her eyes glued to his shining bald spot as the giant lurched toward the back shelves.

Fido remembered his instructions well. The giant inched along the stacks on the back wall as Mona matched the titles against her memory.
The Romance of Sandwich
Glass was still on the top shelf with the rest of the “retirement investment,” but the two Conrads were gone. Another book was in their place.

Trembling with excitement, Mona lunged for
Las
Hazañas Fantásticas,
thrusting Fido off-balance. He crashed to the floor as Mona, with a desperate effort, caught the edge of the high shelf and hung, feet dangling in space. Fido picked himself up and dashed out of the shop.

Her fingers slipping, her feet groping for a foothold on a lower shelf, Mona peered over her shoulder at the grumpy shopkeeper. The bald spot was gone. Old man Bargain had raised his head and was waving a notebook at her threateningly. It was her Figg-Newton composition. Uttering a cry of surprise, Mona dropped to the floor and, clutching the long cloak around her waist, ran out of the store, down the street, around the corner, and through the used-car lot into Newt's office.

“Hi, princess, look what I discovered.” Smiling triumphantly, Newt held up the open pamphlet of
Yeoman of the Guard.
“It wasn't ‘pickles sister keeps' at all. Look, it says:

Mona slid to the floor, pulled her knees up to her chest, and buried her face in her arms. Pickle, mickle, Conrad, Supuesto, Phoebe, Fido. She raised her head and shouted, “That rotten Fido. That dog of a rotten Fido. That rotten dumb-headed dog of a Fido!”

“I wonder what ‘mickle' means,” Newt replied.