From the files of Haint Hawkins: The Case of the Missing Ingredients

I.

Haint Hawkins would have been bored to death if he hadn't been dead already.

Business was lousy, even for the best private eye in town. The only private eye, to be sure, but definitely the best.

There just wasn't anybody making any trouble for anybody else at the moment.

No sneaky characters to follow around.

No missing money to track down.

And no mysterious deaths. That was the worst of it.

The only cases Haint had worked on lately were a dead car battery (loose wiring was all) and a deadbolt that wouldn't turn (just needed a little grease).

But no cases of real-life deaths. The kind of case Haint preferred because he could go talk to the dead person directly to find out what had really happened.

It had been that way for Haint ever since the Case of the Curious Condiment, when he had fallen -- or was pushed, he would never say which -- into a huge vat of pepper over at the old spice mill.

Everyone in town thought he was gone for good, but a couple of days later there he was again, the same old Haint. But sneezing a lot.

No one could figure out how he had survived.

He hadn't. Not really.

Haint was dead all right, but a different kind of dead. The kind who could go back and forth between the living and the spirit worlds when he needed to.

But since lately he hadn't been needing to, he spent his days doing what he always did when he wasn't working on a case: coffee in the morning at the Excalibur Cafe, then a walk around town, then back to his office to wait for any cases that might come his way.

II. 

It was a morning like that when he picked up the paper and saw it was time again for the annual festival where people would come out to celebrate the town's history and especially to see and taste all the entries in the best-pie contest.

Days Gone Pie, it was called.

Haint headed over to the town square. He walked from table to table, almost dizzy from the smell of all those delicious pies. He could hardly wait for the judging to end and the tasting to begin.

He was standing there trying to decide which one he should try first -- the blueberry or the banana cream -- when he turned and at the end of his nose saw a plate piled high with slices of just-baked cornbread.

And glaring over the other end of the plate were the narrow eyes of Fussy May Cavanaugh.

Fussy May Cavanaugh was the kind of person who would make cornbread no matter what the occasion, even for Days Gone Pie, and then go around saying that she'd win the pie contest every year if she really wanted to.

She hadn't been born Fussy May -- her real name was Roselle -- but she had done all she could do to earn it over her long and contrary life. When she was just 6 or 7, people had started calling her Fussy because she always wanted her hair a certain way. And as the years went by, she was happy to have people think that she knew more about food than they did, so that when any kind of question about cooking came up, they could always say, "I don't know ... but Fussy may."

Not that she ever shared her recipes. Especially not the recipe to the cornbread she was holding at this very moment.

"Why, thank you, Miss Cavanaugh, don't mind if I do," Haint said as he reached for a slice.

"No!" Fussy May snapped as she yanked the plate away. "My recipe!"

"And a fine recipe it must be," Haint said. "Everyone speaks highly of it."

"That's not what I mean," Fussy May spat. "My recipe ... something's missing from it, and I can't figure out what." 

"Don't you have it written down somewhere?" asked Haint, by now a little bit curious.

"Written down? And have somebody steal it and call it their own? Never! That was my grandmother's recipe, Grandma Cavanaugh's, and I was the only person she ever shared it with. But I'm sure something's missing, and if I can't make it the right way, I won't make it at all."

Haint could see now that she was speaking more out of fear than of anger.

"I can try to help you," he said, "but I'll have to take a slice with me."

"And why is that?" Fussy May asked. "I've already told you the recipe's not right."

"I should need a taste to see if I can determine exactly what's missing," Haint said. "And then I can determine how best to find it."

"Well ... if you have to," said Fussy May, nodding her head at the plate.

Haint took a slice. Two slices. "This is a delicate matter indeed, Miss Cavanaugh. I will make some inquiries. But I assure you, that recipe will be yours again in no time."

Fussy May walked away, and Haint gobbled down one of the slices. Delicious as always. It would be such a shame, he thought, to never taste it again.

III.

The next morning, after coffee at the cafe, Haint got to work. He started by talking to some of the people who knew Fussy May best, especially the ladies who sat with her at church bingo. (Haint figured that if Fussy May had forgotten what was in the recipe, she might have forgotten that she had slipped up and TOLD somebody what was in the recipe.)

He didn't learn much, only that one time Fussy May had once fought off a wild boar with her bare hands after it had wandered too close to her garden.

That was a bit of a surprise. Haint would have thought that Fussy May and the boar would have been the best of friends, given how similar their moods usually were.

But that didn't get Haint any closer to the missing ingredients.

This was, he decided, a question for the dead.

IV.

Later that evening, Haint made his way up to the high ground that rimmed the town.

Spirit Ridge, the townspeople called it. There was a local legend that the ghosts of the dead lived there, and that some nights, when the winds were still and the smell and smoke of logs crackling in a fireplace lay heavy on the air, you could hear them whispering.

Nonsense.

In the first place, they were always making a racket, all times of the day and night, with their blaring music and barking dogs.

In the second place, they called their home Croaking Oaks.

Haint walked through the neighborhood, stopping every so often to catch up on the latest -- how the dead loved to gossip! --  before heading over to talk to Grandma Cavanugh, apparently the one person dead or alive who knew for certain what went into that cornbread.

Haint found her where she most always was, sitting on her porch humming softly to herself.

Grandma Cavanaugh laughed and laughed when she heard about Fussy May's predicament.

"That girl," she said, "I must have told her a thousand times to write down that recipe. I knew she never would, so I wrote it out and slipped it inside the cookbook I gave her before I passed. And do you know she's never once opened that cookbook, always thinking she knows everything about everything. I bet she's in a state now!"

Then Grandma Cavanaugh told Haint the recipe, every step and every ingredient.

V.

Though it was the middle of the night, Haint hurried down from Spirit Ridge and went straight to Fussy May's house. He banged and banged on the door until she opened it just a crack, with an angry look on her face and a cast-iron skillet in her hand.

Haint smiled. "Now is that any way to greet the person who found your ingredients?"

Fussy May's eyes grew wide. "Let's have it," she said.

"Not until you put down that skillet," Haint said. "There may be a better use for it."

They sat at the kitchen table, where Haint told her the recipe, every step and every ingredient. (But not where it was written down.)

"Of course ..." Fussy May said. "But how on earth did you ever figure it out?"

Haint smiled. "Now Miss Cavanaugh, you're not the only person who can keep a secret."

THE END



Grandma Cavanaugh's
Cornbread To Die For

1 tablespoon bacon drippings
4 cups cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs, beaten
4 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons molasses

Preheat oven to 450. In a very large bowl, combine cornmeal and baking soda. Separately, combine eggs, buttermilk and molasses. Add to cornmeal mixture and beat until smooth. Grease large (12-inch) skillet with bacon drippings; place in oven until very hot. (Can also divide into two smaller skillets.) Pour batter into skillet. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, and the top is golden brown. Remove from oven, let cool for 5 minutes. IMPORTANT: SPRINKLE WITH A PINCH OF HOPE AND A DASH OF LUCK. Serve.

Where tears come from and where they go

It all begins -- it always begins, really -- with a flock of fluffy ducks. More of a piddly flock, really.

Most days they're to be found in their Perfectly Happy Pond, never too cold and never too deep, where the water laps easily against the sloping banks.

The flock is small, but the Perfectly Happy Pond is almost smaller, so that from a distance it looks thick with ducks. There they frolic and bob and sometimes squawk, just being ducks, without so much as a care in the world.

Until the Cross Winds blow in. The Cross Winds are as cross as cross can be. They've been pushed a long, long way -- up the mountains, down the canyons, over the desert dunes -- and have been looking for something they can push around instead. And this Perfectly Happy Pond seems like just the place. And just look at all those ducks there, floating and dozing and happy as a duck can be.

Sneaking up on the ducks, the Cross Winds gently guide them to the farthest end of the Perfectly Happy Pond, careful not to jostle them too much. Near the edge ... to the edge ... and then with a sudden, low whistle, pushing them all of the way out of the pond and into the beginnings of the slow-moving Fitful Stream.

Awake but not alarmed, the ducks don't pay it much mind at first. The water is only a little bit wavy-er. They figure they'll just float along for a while and then fly back to their home.

But this being a Fitful Stream, the ducks find themselves caught in the grip of the ripples. And they hadn't counted on the Pouting Rain -- a plip here, a plop there. Pitter patter, sad and sadder, then pelting them all over and hurting too much to try and fly away.

The Fitful Stream deepens down, widens out and picks up speed, turning itself into a river. The ducks struggle to turn around and paddle back the way they came, but this river is, as it happens, The River of Some Regret. The flow is too fast, too strong. All they can manage to do is turn their heads around and look back to where the water was calmer, moving farther and farther away with every passing moment. But each time they do, they are almost pulled under by the past. So they give in to the currents and keep coursing forward.

Not just forward, but forward and ever faster, directly into the Unrequited Rapids, sending the flock into the dark, sharp Knockabout Rocks that clot the waters from one side to the other. Even the rapids have to go around them, but the ducks go crashing, bashing, dashing -- gnashing! -- slashing, thrashing and smashing right into the worst of them. And there is no safe passage through the pain.

Presently the Knockabout Rocks grow smaller and fewer, but the ducks scarcely have time to tend to their bruises -- the rapids have brought them to the very edge of All-But-Forsaken Falls, cascading so far down that the waters disappear in the bottomless mist below. A roaring sound fills the air. The ducks close their eyes rather than look down, but down they go just the same, flailing and falling into The Deep Deep Gorge of Deep Deep Grief. Tossed about, sloshed about, duck over duck, plunging through the mist and into the fierce waters, the foam churning up fears, unable to tell their up from their down or their bad from the worse.

All the ducks go under.

For the longest time.

Until finally one sore and soggy head pops to the surface. Then another, then all the others, much the weaker, being steered away from the bottom of the falls into Quivering Cove, where the water is calm but every bit as cold.

Heaving for air, the ducks take all the moments of rest that they can, then carefully toddle out of Quivering Cove and onto dry land.

Though their wings are still aching, they finally manage to start shaking off the cold, cold water. So awfully tired, with more than a few feathers lost along the way.

All their wing-shaking flings a sheen of tiny droplets into the air. The droplets don't fall to the ground -- they dangle there for a moment, then slowly begin to rise. One droplet touching another, forming a fuller drop, all the drops now attaching, drifting ever higher until they push through the top of the sky.

And that is when you start to feel the tears.

Trickling down a small, soft cheek, tear upon tear, more bringing more.

It never seems like it, but soon enough the tears will go away, for they are meant to have another home -- a puddle of a place called There, There that moms and dads and very best friends know all about. A gentle hand or a great big hug gathers up all the tears and puts them away, and There, There is where they will stay.

Now all the ducks are gone -- gone to find another Perfectly Happy Pond.

And all the tears are gone -- gone to be with the many tears that have come before.

And now you can start to smile -- still sniffling, but almost smiling just the same.

And your troubles are all behind you now.

Until the next time.

Because there are always more ducks.

tessa to the very end

Tessa and her mom and dad were just walking back from having a proper picnic on the hillside near their home when they found a message in a bottle.

Two of them, actually.

The smaller bottle had Tessa’s name on it. She pulled out the cork and some papers that were inside.

The first one, no bigger than a notecard, was written in a careful hand. Tessa read it out loud.

“A little birdie told us to give this to you.”

The second piece of paper, a longer, wider, thicker one, had long words in big golden letters. Too long for Tessa to read, even though she was a good reader for her age. She would be 6 and a half in another year and a half. 

Her mom read it out loud for her.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

it said.

In the bigger bottle, the bottle with the names of Tessa’s parents on it, was a sheet of paper with a lot more words.

“Congratulations,” it began. “We are delighted to present this award to Tessa. We are not allowed to say what the award is for, nor who will give it to her, only that she will be well worthy of it. Sadly, she will not be honored until after the two of you are long gone. But we wanted you to be proud of her just the same.”

“How do we know all this? Let us introduce ourselves and explain. We are the Secret Order of Seers, Oracles and Soothsayers. We know the future, to a point. We do not presume to speak for the stars, nor can we claim to know where the planets may go in their courses. What we can divine are the deeds of mankind, from all the many choices we make here on this earth. We have seen the sign -- the tealed eagle soaring at sunset, alone. It tells us that Tessa’s journey will be a remarkable one. And it is with this knowledge that we honor her.”

Tessa’s mom and dad looked at each other, and then at their daughter.

“What was in your bottle, daddy?” she asked.

“The same thing, Tessa.”

“About a little birdie?”

“Yes.”

“But what does it mean, mommy?”

“It means you are very, very special.”

“Do you think so, too?”

“Always.”

And not at that very moment, but soon enough, in a most distant part of space, a comet slipped its orbit ‘round a dying star and began a steady, pointed path.

Tessa taped the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD to her bedroom door, hoping her parents would notice it every day and treat her a little more special.

It worked, for a while.

After a while, it did not.

She still had to clean up her room and put away her clothes and do her homework and go to sleep on time and sit up straight and all the other things little girls named Tessa were always being told to do.

And as the years passed -- five of them altogether -- Tessa grew to like the daisy shade of yellow, the sound of many violins together, and turtles.

Just months away from retirement, but still an official Searcher of Skies, Dr. Marco Darkly would not have been expected to be the one to find what he found.

He didn’t see quite as well as he once did. He had been squinting all his life.

And he seemed most interested in a part of space that wasn’t very special -- no good galaxies, no strange swirling clusters to speak of, just specks of light dotting the deep vastness.

Late one night he was having his cup of tea and making one last check of the skies when he saw it -- or rather, didn’t see it.

He didn’t see one of the stars he had always seen before.

He blinked and looked again.

The star was there. But a nearby one was not.

He blinked again and looked again.

Now another star was not there.

Six hours and just as many cups of tea later, he knew.

It was a comet, burning black, blocking out starlights as it passed in front of them, heading for earth.

And hitting in five days.

He told the world, and the comet was named for him.

Comet Darkly.

Everyone looked to the skies, but they couldn’t see it coming, in the night or in the day. That didn’t stop them from looking.

Some people cried and some people prayed. And some just laughed about it all.

Nobody paid for anything, and nobody wanted to go to sleep.

And then it was upon them.

As Comet Darkly bore down, it nudged the moon, knocking it from its place, making all the world’s oceans quickly rise up where they had not risen before.

So quickly that Tessa’s parents, who were saying goodbye to some friends just a few miles away, could not get to the hillside near their home in time.

Tessa did, all by herself.

The sky glowed red.

The water lapped at her feet.

She thought of the piece of paper on her door. 

The LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. 

She wondered what she might have done to deserve it.

one game at a time

The park was empty except for the two old robots playing checkers.

They played all day every day. Robot Ben and Robot Bill.

Except not at night.

They were powered by the sun, from their mechanical minds to their creaky fingers. So not at night.

Robot Ben was once the fastest grocery bagger in all the world. And Robot Bill had helped build the rocket ships that now circled the stars.

But newer robots had come along, faster baggers and better builders, replacing Robot Ben and Robot Bill.

Now they spent their days playing checkers.

Neither of them ever won a game, and neither of them ever lost. Being robots, they knew every move there was to make in checkers. They always tied.

"Score," said Robot Ben just before they began to play one sunny morning.

"Zero Ben, zero Bill, eighty-three million, six hundred forty-two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one ties," said Robot Bill.

As they played, the sun crept across the sky, and neither of them noticed that it was catching up to the faint full moon that was up there too.

And just as Robot Ben was taking a turn, the sun slid completely behind the moon.

The sky went dark.

Robot Ben's eyes flickered and turned a dull gray. His head drooped, and he slumped over just enough to push his shoulder, arm, hand and fingers forward. Just enough to push the checker to the wrong square.

Both robots sat still for quite some time.

Then the sun and the moon began sliding apart, the light of the day returned, and the robots flickered back to life.

Robot Bill quickly won the game.

"One Bill, zero Ben," he said.

"How did that happen?" asked Robot Ben.

"A solar eclipse," said Robot Bill, now looking up at the sky. "The next one is three hundred seventy years, four months, twelve days and two hours from now."

Robot Ben stared at the board. For a long time.

"Set them up," he said.

my time in aretown

My name is Lucas.

Lucas.

Sometimes Luke or Lukie.

But mostly just Lucas.

No last name.

I left it behind when I left my little speck of a town to make my way in the world.

.....

So I went.

And I went some more.

Stopping only when I needed to rest my bones.

(I have a lot of bones.)

.....

The first town I found went by the name of Gillsville.

The people there liked nothing better than to catch fish, and to eat fish, and to talk about the fish they had caught and eaten.

Everyone smelled faintly of fish.

As I was never that fond of fish, I moved on.

.....

In a few days' time, I happened upon a string of towns, laid out so neatly together that it looked like someone had drawn them with a pencil and a ruler, side by side by side by side by side.

The first town was called Side.

The next town was called By.

The one after that, Side By.

And then Side by Side.

And, finally, By Side.

I could never figure out which town I was in, they were all so much the same, so finally I left the last of them. (By Side, or was it Side By?)

.....

I worked my way through woods, crossed many a deepening stream, climbed foothills and headhills, until early one morning I came to a place that looked like it had been left alone a long, long time. I was ready to rest my bones, and to rest the rest of me while I was at it.

ARETOWN, it was called.

.....

I hadn't been there all that long when I met a man named Cook. Mr. Benjamin Cook. He said he worked as a cook.

Then I met a woman named Painter. Miss Mary Lou Painter. She said she worked as a painter. Only painter in town, she said.

A man named Cook who was a cook, and a woman named Painter who was a painter. It was starting to make some sort of sense in a sense-of-sorts sort of way.

.....

The next person I met was named Miner. Mr. Kenneth Miner. I asked him if he worked in a mine.

Indeed, he said. And what do you do? he asked.

I walk a lot, I said.

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Walker, he said.

No, not Mr. Walker, I said. My name is Lucas. Just Lucas. No last name.

He looked at me a long time.

Well, he said, now that you're in Aretown, let's see what you can do, and then you can take the name to go with it.

Is it like that for everybody? I asked.

Indeed, he said. In Aretown, what you do is who you are. But you'll have to be a Newman for a while. Mr. Lucas Newman.

.....

So, being a Newman, I tried my hand at different things.

First I tried being a Shoemaker. The name didn't quite fit. Neither did the shoes.

And a Gardener. I thought the name might grow on me. It did not.

A Draper maybe. I never got the hang of it.

Or a Cartwright. For a Cartwright, all my carts sure turned out wrong.

.....

And all the while, while I was trying to make a name for myself, I wrote about some of the people I met. Poems and such.

Like this:

Meet Mr. Livingston Barber.
With a few little snips
he lightens the ships
that have sat for too long at harbor.

And this:

The Mr. and Mrs. known as the Bakers

can never agree on the better bread maker.

If you order one loaf of bread

and then decide you want two instead

he will make his and she will make hers.

Turns out I was better with words than with wood (which my fingers figured out when I was trying to be a Carpenter).

.....

One day I was sitting in the village square -- just writing, not working -- when a man sat down next to me. His name was Tiller. Mr. Cumberland Tiller. (His name was Tiller, but he was a farmer all the same.)

Mr. Tiller said there was a lady he fancied, but he didn't know how to win her heart. He thought I might be able to write a love poem for him.

So I did. It went like this:

When I think of my true love,

I see, in the sky, a beautiful dove.

One so splendid, one so rare,

that every flight does gild the air.

It must have worked pretty good, because not long after that Mr. Tiller told me that he and the lady were to be married. Married in a week. On Naming Night.

Naming Night -- what's that? I asked.

Naming Night, he said, was the one time of year when the whole town gathered and new names were given out -- to people who were starting work, or getting married, things like that.

But I'm still a Newman, I said.

Doesn't matter, he said, come see the wedding.

.....

A week later came the day of Naming Night.

Around sunset everyone went inside the one church in town.

Candles were lit. Everyone grew quiet. The naming began.

The keeper of names for Aretown stepped up and began to speak. His name was Caller. Mr. Alphonse Caller.

The first person to be called forward was named Tinker. Mr. Clarence Tinker. He had just taken on a new job.

Mr. Caller spoke.

Comes now before us

Mr. Clarence Tinker

as known hitherto and heretofore.

Yet as leaves fall away, so does the life we've known.

And thus we give, now and until we are met once more,

the name

Mr. Clarence Tailor.

Go now among us.

Mr. Tinker was now Mr. Tailor. The crowd rose and clapped.

Next up was Mr. Rufus Rainmaker, who was taking the name Mr. Rufus X. Rainmaker. He had finally retired after 53 years of promising rain, for a small fee. (Business had always been better on cloudy days.)

Next was Mr. Jack Brewer-Tender-Rider-Skinner-Bellman. (He was good at so many things.) Much to his relief, he was renamed Mr. Jack Oats -- Oats being an easier way to say Of All Trades.

Then came the wedding. Mr. Tiller married the lady he fancied, a lady who worked at the bank, and they became Mr. and Mrs. Tiller-Teller.

With that it seemed like Naming Night was pretty much over. I started to leave.

And then they called my name.

.....

My name is Lucas.

Mr. Lucas Penman.

the little boy who was traded for a tulip

It was just a flower.

Just a little flower.

Just a little red flower that Epke saw there.

Epke frowned. He was tired after walking out so far beyond the village in the dark of the early morning with his papa, just to stand there and look at a little red flower.

Other people stood there, too, tall men with low voices. They huddled around the little red flower, talking in such a way – murmur, mutter, mumble – as to sound to Epke like humming almost.

Epke’s papa spoke. Quietly. “Behold, Epke, behold the Eye of the Night Tulip. The only one in all the land. A dream made real. He who owns it is a rich man indeed.”

Epke looked at his papa, but his papa just stared at the flower.

“Come, Epke, let us go.”

His papa said not a word more on their way back to the village.

Epke’s papa worked in a shop repairing the sails of the great ships of the sea. They walked there.

Then Epke walked home, sneaking past his mama and back into bed, where he fell fast asleep, with no dreams of flowers. With dreams of the sea.

The morning passed. Epke’s mama went to the market. Epke didn’t hear her leave, but later awoke to the sound of voices outside.

He looked out his window and saw his papa talking with another man – a tall man with a small hat.

He saw the man hand his papa a flowerpot … holding the very flower that Epke had seen that morning. Then he saw his papa hand the man a key.

And then Epke saw his father see him.

His papa’s eyes grew wide, and he turned away, walking away very slowly, hunched over in a way. The flowerpot must be very heavy, Epke thought.

Epke heard the key turn in the front door, and then steps, and then before him stood the tall man with the small hat.

“You … you should not be here,” the man said.

“But this is my house,” said Epke.

“Not quite,” the man said. “It is mine now. Your father, fool that he is, said he would give me his house if only I would give him the Eye of the Night Tulip. He begged. I agreed. So now this house and everything inside it – including you, it seems – belongs to me.”

“But … but … no … you … my …”

“Quiet, boy. Now fetch my food. And you will call me Lord Boorish.”

For three days and three nights it went on like that, Epke cleaning and cooking and fetching for Lord Boorish. On the fourth morning, Epke snuck away while Lord Boorish slept.

Epke walked the village streets, looking for his mama and his papa. Finally, he was told that his papa had gone away, carrying the flowerpot in his arms and shame in his heart. His mama had gone, too.

At the end of that long, long day, Epke walked along the docks where the village meets the sea. He came upon the dock market, where every morning the merchants sold fruit and shoes and the like from their small swaying boats.

Epke was so tired he climbed onto one of the boats and fell fast asleep. Again he did not dream of flowers. He dreamed of rain.

The next morning’s sun awoke Epke. That and the squawking birds and the “well, well, well” he heard from the man standing over him.

“Look what the morning has brought. Are you here to sleep or to buy?” asked the man, a tall man with bright eyes.

Epke began to cry. He told the man of his papa, the flower, his house and Lord Boorish.

“Well, well, well,” the man said again. “That a little flower could do all that. Have you eaten?”

The man’s name, Epke learned, was Captain Simmerink. He owned many boats at the dock market.

After they ate, Captain Simmerink showed his boats to Epke. One sold fish, another sold pearls, and still another sold shark’s teeth and octopus ink.

“And here,” said Captain Simmerink, “is the one from which I sell nothing.” He stepped onto a rickety little boat that seemed barely afloat. He reached in and held up a flowerpot.

With a flower in it. A little red flower.

Epke stared. “But how …”

“Oh, it’s not so rare. I’ve many more just like it,” said Captain Simmerink. “Come, we’ve work to do.”

That afternoon Epke knocked on the door of a house in the village. A woman answered. Epke held up a small flowerpot. “Would you have this flower for your house?” he asked.

The woman stared. “The Eye of the Night! Oh, I could never …”
Epke handed it to her. “It’s yours to keep.”

Epke pulled the small wagon, heavy with tulips, to the next house, where he knocked on the door and said again, “A flower for your house?” He did that all afternoon, until every house but one had tulips.

Captain Simmerink knocked on the door of that house. Lord Boorish shouted from the window, “Who is it? What is it you want?”

“My dear Lord Boorish,” said Captain Simmerink. “This house of yours, at one time it was worth a single tulip. Do you think it might now be worth 10 such tulips?”

Lord Boorish came running out. “10? 10, you say? Take the house. Too drafty anyway.”

His arms full of flowerpots, Lord Boorish started toward the village square. He wondered what they might bring in trade. A ship or six? A block of shops?

As he hurried along, he paid no mind to the red flowers in every windowsill.

At the square he called out, “Attention! Good people, I bring you a bounty of tulips the likes of which you’ve never seen! As much as it would pain me to do so, I would be willing to part with them, for the right price. Now, who has their heart set on these fine tulips?”

The crowd who had gathered around said nothing. Then someone giggled. Then everyone began laughing loudly, pointing to the red flowers in every windowsill. Tulips, all tulips, too many tulips, and in that moment Lord Boorish did not think himself so rich.

Epke’s mama and papa returned to the village three days later, after the story had reached the countryside.

They settled back into their house. Epke spent his days helping Captain Simmerink with his boats. Epke’s papa went back to work, but every night for a week he slept outside – it rained that week – with his only shelter being one of the sails he repaired for the great ships of the sea.

That was mama’s idea.

Some days later, Epke and his papa were walking through the village square past a crowd – tall men with low voices – when papa stopped. And stared. And said quietly, “And I thought it was but a dream. Look, Epke, look upon the Noonday Daffodil. A stunning wonder of yellow. He who owns it …”

“Come, papa, let us go.”

Epke took his father’s arm.

And they left the square, Epke staring straight ahead and his father looking back at the little yellow flower.

the bony-fied express

Everybody inside the post office turned and stared as Harry clattered his way across the well-scuffed wooden floor.

Honestly, they thought, can't a skeleton just for once do a simple thing like walk into a place quietly?

"Help you?" said the postmaster.

"Hear you're looking for Pony Express riders," said Harry.

The postmaster looked Harry up and down. Good teeth, he thought, but a bit on the lean side. "Think you can find your way to Painless Point?"

Harry tapped his head. "Got it all right up here. See?" He bent over and showed the postmaster the dotted map that stretched from one side of his head clear across to the other.

"Looks about right," said the postmaster. "But still ... idn't it ... how do you ... what I mean to say is, ain't your sorta missing something?"

Harry stepped back and looked himself over. "Like what?"

"Like BOOTS! Ain't you got none?"

"Oh, sure," said Harry. "Left them outside. Time to time my feet get a little stiff from riding,"

"Well ... OK, then." The postmaster handed Harry a saddlebag full of letters. "Get these out to Painless Point as fast as you can. They've been waiting like there's no tomorrow."

Harry clattered back outside. "Let's get, Marmalade," he said to his snorting stallion, all burly and black.

And off they galloped, headed for the high hills.

They rode and they rode, all that day and all that night. The next morning they rode straight into a howling blizzard. Snow so fierce that Harry couldn't even see his hand in front of his face.

Staggering to stay upright, Marmalade stepped on a rock buried by the snow, sending the both of them tumbling to the ground.

Harry sat up and tried to clear his head. Nothing broken that he could see. He shook the snow out of one boot, then the other, then went to put them back on and realized he had shaken out all his toes. Every last one of them. He dug all around but couldn't find them anywhere in the drifting white mounds of snow.

He sighed -- those were good toes, too -- picked himself up and started out again. Slowly now, for Marmalade had lost a shoe in the fall.

That afternoon the snow cleared a bit and they came to a small town. Harry left Marmalade at the blacksmith for a new shoe, then limped over to the town doctor.

On the doctor's door were some small painted signs:

DOCTORING DONE HERE

MUSICAL REPAIRS AS WELL

and underneath that:

NO TOES TODAY

FINGERS WE GOT

Harry hobbled in. Two hours later he wobbled out and looked down at the piano keys that were where his toes used to be. Carefullly, ever so carefully, he stepped off the porch. BOM-DLEEN! He took another step. BOM-DLEEN! Not so bad, thought Harry, better than having ten fingers on my feet. (I'm going to miss those toes, though.)

Harry BOM-DLEENed back over to get Marmalade. They left town in a sprint. Between Marmalade's hooves and Harry's new toes, the sound RUH-DUH-THUNT-PALINK, RUH-DUH-THUNT-PALINK cut through the prairie air.

After a week of riding, Harry and Marmalade came to a rocky cliff high above the ocean. They stopped by a sign at the very edge of the cliff.

WELCOME TO PAINLESS POINT

OUR HOME TO STAY

Harry leaned over the looked down, waaaaay down, all the way down to the crashing ocean waves. Whoa. He got all dizzy and stepped back.

The wind whistled through his bones, his teeth chattered, his kneecaps knocked and his new toes shievered with a BAH-DAH-KAN-KA-KANG  BAH-DAH-KAN-KA-KANG kind of sound.

"Hey, keep it down over there!" a voice called out.

Harry looked around. He didn't see a soul, just Marmalade there and a bunch of rocks scattered about. He rattled even louder.

The voice called out again. "Didn't your hear? Quiet! Can't you see we're trying to sleep?"

Harry spun this way and that. "Who's there? Wherever you are, mister, I'm just here to deliver the mail."

That voice again. "Mail? Did you say mail? Hey everybody, mail's here!"

The ground quivered just below Harry's feet. Harry jumped out of the way as five bony white fingers wiggled up through the dirt. Then, nearby, another bony hand poked up. And another one over near that one. And then another and another until Harry was surrounding by flapping white hands and wiggling white fingers.

And voices, too.

"Here!"

"Over here!"

"Bet there's mail for me!"

"How's the weather up there?"

Harry sputtered. "G-g-got l-l-letters. For P-P-Painless P-P-Point."

"About time," said a burly voice nearby. "Can't tell you how long we've been waiting. Anything for me? The name's Grout Wheeler."

Harry dug through his saddlebag and much to his surprise found a letter with the name Grout Wheeler on it. "H-h-here you g-go." He handed it down. The fingers snatched the letter and slipped back into the ground.

Now Harry saw that all the rocks scattered about had names painted on them. He tromped back and forth -- BOM-DLEEN, BOM-DLEEN -- around the wiggling fingers.

There was mail for Lorelei Yodeloff, No-Luck Liplock, Junebug O'Boyle, Streudelneck Hackerman, Old Zither McDither and the rest. One by one the hands disappeared with the letters, and rising from the ground, sounds of laughing and crying, hooting and sighing.

A hand came back up. Grout Wheeler's. "Thank you kindly, mister. Can you carry this one back with you? It's to my nephew."

Harry took it and shook hands with the hand, then collected some more letters and headed for his horse.

"Sure you don't want to stay awhile?" called out Grout Wheeler. "You might like it here."

"Better not," said Harry. "Could never stay too still for too long. See you around."

Harry and Marmalade rode away, and the hands of Painless Point all waved as RUH-DUH-THUNT-PALINK, RUH-DUH-THUNT-PALINK grew fainter and fainter in the distance.