Figgs & Phantoms (10 page)
Authors: Ellen Raskin
It was neither gifts nor threats that roused Mona from her bed; it was Fido. Newt found him stalking the bus again and convinced him to speak to Mona.
“Maybe if she talks to someone close to her own age,” he suggested, noticing that Fido looked almost as gloomy as his gloomy daughter.
Fido no longer smiled; he no longer laughed. He didn't even leer. Even Mona noticed his hangdog expression. She sat up in bed and spoke to him.
“You're a fink, Fido Figg,” she said. “I know they made you come to talk to me, but it won't do any good, so you can just go back to your ball game.”
“I quit the team,” Fido said, blowing his nose hard and loud. “I wanted to talk to you about Uncle Florence. About how he died.”
“Uncle Florence didn't die,” Mona replied angrily. What right did Fido have to be sad, she thought bitterly. She was her uncle's favorite.
“He's dead,” Fido insisted. Unable to control a sob, he turned and ran down the stairs.
“He's not dead,” Mona shouted after him. “He's in Capri. Uncle Florence is in Capri, and I'm going to find him.”
“I'm going to find him,” Mona repeated, listening to her own words. She stepped out of bed.
2. THREE KEYS
T
HE SEARCH BEGAN. Mona was certain of one thing: Uncle Florence had sought Capri in books. She opened the door to the second bedroom, where Uncle Florence kept his books. The floor-to-ceiling shelves sagged with books, the long table was piled high with books: books to be mailed to customers, books to be unwrapped and catalogued.
HE SEARCH BEGAN. Mona was certain of one thing: Uncle Florence had sought Capri in books. She opened the door to the second bedroom, where Uncle Florence kept his books. The floor-to-ceiling shelves sagged with books, the long table was piled high with books: books to be mailed to customers, books to be unwrapped and catalogued.
Which book or books?
A book Uncle Florence had recently seen, Mona thought, or he wouldn't have left so suddenly for Capri.
Butterflies. Mona remembered the last book Florence had shown her at the auction. She quickly dismissed the possibility of finding Capri in a spot on a purple butterfly's wing. After all, it was a colorplate book, and colorplate books were his specialty.
Joseph Conrad. Two were still on Bargain's top shelf; two were sitting, still wrapped, before her on the table. Uncle Florence had not read any Conrad lately, but he might have recalled some scene that described Capri. Mona sighed. She would have to read those four books, and one more. He had wanted her to read
Nig
... , no,
Children of the Sea.
Nig
... , no,
Children of the Sea.
Resigned to a long, hard search, Mona unwrapped the auction purchases.
Youth
lay on top. She opened it and read the quotation Conrad had chosen for his title page:
Youth
lay on top. She opened it and read the quotation Conrad had chosen for his title page:
“... But the Dwarf answered: No; something human is dearer to me than the wealth of all the world.”âGRIMM'S TALES.
Mona blurted a loud sob. The dammed-up tears flooded out.
Mona studied each book on the table, scanned every title on the shelves. She had handled these books before, had helped catalogue them and price them. She couldn't believe they would help her find Uncle Florence's Capri.
Early the next morning she accompanied Newt to the used-car lot, and together they ransacked the Very Private Office.
“What am I looking for?” Newt asked when they were half done. Mona had not told anyone of her plan to join Uncle Florence.
“Just anything unusual,” she replied, closing the closet door on the long black cloak and her memories of the Figg-Newton giant.
“How about this?” Newt held up two yellow sleeve garters. “I wonder how they ended up in the waste basket?”
“I don't know,” Mona said, but she did know. Uncle Florence no longer needed elastic bands to shorten his sleeves. He could be whoever and whatever he dreamed of being in Capri. He would never again be “almost a midget.”
Except for the sleeve garters, nothing unusual was found in the shack. There was one more place to look.
“Can I have the keys to the bus, Newt?” Mona asked in a strained voice. That search had to be hers alone.
Reluctantly Newt handed her three keys on a ring.
Mona stumbled down the aisle of the bus, trying to ignore the cot where she had last seen her lifeless uncle. She sat down in the cold chair and focused her attention on the desk.
The top was bare. No paper was in the typewriter. One by one she emptied the drawers: business stationery, sales records, customer lists, and, lastly, a worn old book. It was the Caprification diary.
Reverently, as Uncle Florence had done so many times, Mona opened the diary and read the shaky handwriting of Jonathan Figg:
She turned the page and read the flowing handwriting of Noah Figg:
She turned the page and read the flamboyant handwriting of Toby Figg:
Her hands trembling, Mona turned the page and read the new entry, written in the neat, familiar hand of Uncle Florence:
Mona read the words again and again, then tore her eyes from the page and gazed out of the window, trying to fight off the gnawing emptiness rising from the pit of her stomach. Newt was staring at her from his office; Fido was watching her from the entrance to the lot.
“Which book, Uncle Florence?” she sobbed in anger and frustration. “Which tree? Which tree is the key?”
Key. Mona grabbed the key ring and stared at the three keys. One key for the bus, one key for the Very Private Office. What was the third key for?
Mona resisted the temptation to ask Newt about the third key. This had been Uncle Florence's search; now it was her search. No one else was welcome in Capri.
Holding the key in readiness, Mona inched her way up the aisle of the bus. She peered under each seat, between each seat. Nothing. She looked in the overhead luggage racks. Nothing. She repeated her search back down the aisle. She crawled under the desk. Nothing. There was only one place left to look.
Mona took a deep breath and knelt down before the small cot. She lifted the madras spread.
It was not a cot at all. A foam-rubber mattress lay on top of a trunk. A locked trunk.
And the key fit.
Flinging aside the mattress, she lifted the lid. Books! A trunkful of well-used books, none of which she had seen before.
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