When I pass the dangerous bush, the man pops out, totally naked. I ask him where his trench coat went and he tells me he’s a bear and bears don’t wear trench coats. He grabs me with his huge paws and pulls me into the bush. There he has tea set up on an old mahogany table. Proper china cups and all. Gold-leafed rims. Doilies adorn the saucers, the table, under the tiny plates where there are madeleine cookies for us both.
The tea is the perfect temperature.
We toast our good luck. I tell him about my trip to New York City. He tells me his mother lives inside the house and she yells at him all the time even though he’s trying to help her be old and die. He tells me he shares letters because he can’t stop making them. “I’m an artist,” he says.
“They’re nice letters,” I say. “Very sturdy.”
“No one wants them,” he says. “No one walks by anymore.”
“Most people are scared of you,” I explain.
“So why are you here?” he asks.
“It’s on the way to Gustav’s house and the Mexican restaurant. And I’m not scared of you,” I say. “I like your letters.”
He gives me a huge wooden D. It is painted with tiny dots of every color. I thank him and ask him to keep it for me because it’s too big to carry. He asks, “Do you want to go there now?”
“Where?”
“The restaurant?”
I’m hungry. The last thing I ate was the kale/kiwi drink in the juice bar by Central Park. “You have to put some clothes on,” I say.
“I know. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
I don’t wait.
I walk to Gustav’s house. I ask him if he’d like to come with me to Las Hermanas. I know he can’t resist the tamales.
“I’m starving,” Gustav says. “But I don’t have any money.”
I tell him I’ll pay for dinner. I tell him the dangerous bush man is coming with us.
“He’s naked,” Gustav says. “He’s always naked.”
“I told him to put clothes on,” I say. “He’ll be fine. He’s a nice man, really. Just bored, I think. Like we’re bored, yes? He makes nice letters.”
Gustav looks uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to come,” I say. “Why are you so uncomfortable about the dangerous bush man? Isn’t he helping you with the helicopter? I thought you were friends.”
“He makes letters and he gives them to people,” Gustav says.
“I know. I have many of his letters,” I say.
“You kissed him!” Gustav seems shocked. Or possessive. I can’t tell.
“Yes,” I say. “A few times. But there are other ways one acquires such quality letters.”
He changes the subject.
“There were two bomb threats today,” he tells me as he climbs down from the cockpit and puts his tool belt on the bench. “One of them came from New York City,” he says. “Nobody knows this but me, but I know you’re trying to solve the mystery, so I’m telling you.”
I nod but don’t ask him about the other bomb threat. It was nice to escape them for a day. I ask him to hurry. “I’m hungry,” I say.
When we get outside, the dangerous bush man is there, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that says WHAT WOULD YOUR TV DO? The three of us walk to the restaurant and instead of going in and sitting down, Gustav leads us to the takeout window and we order, and though I can see the dangerous bush man is disappointed by this, he knows he is the dangerous bush man as much as I know I’m Stanzi, a character in your book, a nobody and a somebody and really two people inside one body, and as much as Gustav knows he is the boy who is building the invisible helicopter. We are not the three most welcome people in the neighborhood.