AZURE BLUE WAVES broke on the white beach where Lisa lay on her back with her eyes closed. Every once in a while she would glance up, and when she did she saw a palm tree silhouetted against a cloudless sky. The palm tree was growing at an angle, leaning out toward the ocean as if it wished it were out there swimming along with Juliette, Doctor Proctor, and Joan, who were splashing around in the waves a ways out and laughing happily as if nothing had happened. Lisa wished she could join them. But when she thought about Raspa, she just couldn’t.
Something blocked out the sun and she opened her eyes. A concerned face with enormous freckles was peering down at her.
“You look concerned,” Lisa said.
“Because you seem so preoccupied,” Nilly said. “This is supposed to be a vacation. No thinking allowed!”
He was balancing on the sloping trunk of the palm tree, lying on his stomach right over her.
“Do you know why Raspa tied herself to the stake?” Lisa asked.
“Because only death can change history,” Nilly said, squinting one eye shut and bending one arm behind his back in a vain attempt to scratch himself between his shoulder blades.
“Yeah, but do you know why she didn’t let Doctor Proctor sacrifice his life? Why she took his place?”
“Elementary,” Nilly said, trying to scratch himself with his other arm in case maybe it was a little longer. “She loved him.”
“You knew?” Lisa asked, amazed.
“Of course. You can always spot love a long way off,” Nilly said, wiggling around sort of like he was trying to roll over onto his back without falling off the tree trunk. “In the end even Raspa managed to see that Doctor Proctor was head-over-heels in love with Juliette. And when she saw Juliette on the bonfire, Raspa knew that the only way she could make the man she loved happy, was to let him have the woman he loved. So she made sure that those two could be together. She sacrificed herself for love, you could say. Just not her own love.”
Lisa was touched. “Why, Nilly! And here I was thinking that you boys didn’t understand things like this.”
“Of course we do,” said Nilly, finally successfully lying on his back. He now started pushing himself up and down, scratching his back against the tree trunk.
“Oh, Nilly …,” Lisa whispered, with a tear in the corner of her eye. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes, it really is,” Nilly said, a look of pleasure spreading over his face as he finally succeeded in scratching his itch. “Although things would be nicer here if they served breakfast. A restaurant with a little eggs and bacon would be just the thing. And I didn’t think girls could fart!”
“Nilly!” Lisa scolded. “I meant it was wonderful what Raspa did! She didn’t have any friends…. I feel so … so …” Her eyes filled with tears. “… sorry for her.”
“I agree,” Nilly said, sticking his finger in his ear and scratching a little in there, too, now that he’d gotten started scratching itches. “But you agree that it would be nice to have a little something to eat besides bananas and coconuts that we have to pick ourselves, don’t you?”
Lisa didn’t respond. She just rolled over onto her stomach and stared at the ocean. They’d been here for three days, and it had been great, but Nilly was right. Out on the horizon a layer of blue-gray clouds had rolled in. Doctor Proctor’s skinny, and still just as pale, body came wading back in as he emptied the water out of his motorcycle goggles.
He flopped down on the sand next to them.
“Well, my two best friends,” he said. “Everything okay over here?”
They nodded quietly.
“A little homesick, huh?”
They nodded quietly.
“Me too,” Doctor Proctor said. “So, did you find any restaurants, Nilly?”
“Nope,” Nilly said. “I walked around this whole island, but all I found was a couple of guys who’d just pulled ashore in a rowboat and asked where they were.”
“Oh? Who were they?”
“I don’t know. Their English was even worse than mine, but I got that one of their names was Christopher Co … Co … What’s the name of that detective on TV again?”
“Columbo?” Lisa suggested.
“That’s it!” Nilly said. “Or something like that. Anyway, I was kidding around with him and I told him this was India. And actually, come to think of it, it seemed like he believed me. At any rate, they jumped back into their rowboat and rowed super-fast back to a sailboat that’s anchored off shore.”
“Hm.” Doctor Proctor stood up and glanced over at the three bathtubs that were half-buried in the sand under some palm trees. “I think it’s about time to get you guys back home to Cannon Avenue before it gets crowded here.”
“What do you mean, you guys?” Nilly said. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“Juliette and I have to go to Paris and settle things with Claude Cliché.”
“Without us?” Lisa and Nilly chimed in unison.
“Yes,” Doctor Proctor said decisively. “I’ve exposed you kids to enough danger as it is. I’m a completely irresponsible adult. Didn’t you know that?”
“We’re quite aware of that,” Lisa said. “But you forgot one thing.”
“Right,” Nilly said.
“We’re a team,” Lisa said.
“There you have it,” Nilly said. “We’re a team. And we don’t care if everyone else thinks we’re a team of pathetic losers. Because we know something they don’t know. We know … we know … uh …”
“We know,” Lisa took over, “that when friends promise to never stop helping each other, one plus one plus one is much more than three.”
Proctor looked at them for a long time. “That was very well put, almost the way I would have said it myself. But—”
“No buts about it!” Nilly said. “It was you who said it, and you know, that we know, that you know, that there isn’t anything you can do, to get us not to help you with Claude Cliché.”
The professor had to repeat Nilly’s sentence silently to himself a couple of times before he understood what Nilly meant. Then he stared at first one of them and then the other, looking defeated. Finally he sighed with resignation. “You guys sure are a couple of stubborn friends.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Nilly asked. “I’m packed and ready. Lisa?”
Lisa nodded.
“Professor?”
Doctor Proctor nodded.
Nilly sat up on the trunk of the palm tree, balancing carefully and straddling it with his legs. Then he thumped his chest and shouted, “Claude Cliché, here comes the Nillinator!”