CHAPTER 15
he next night, Tuesday, was very special for Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse and his mother. It was their OFFICIAL SUPER-DOOPER TREASURE HUNT NIGHT. The two of them, chortling away, stayed up after dark in the furnace room, burning electricity, going through the twenty bags of garbage collected from the ten apartments in their building, searching for used tea bags that could be redeemed, coffee grounds that could be recycled, refundable tin cans, and other treasures.
“Oh, lookee here, my sunshine,” exclaimed Perfectly Loathsome Leo’s mother, “I just found a toothpaste tube with a few more squeezes left in it. And, yippety-do-da, three razor blades that can be sharpened good as new, I’ll betcha. And how are you doing, my angel?”
An unhappy Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse moaned, “All I’ve got so far are some carrot peelings and onion skins, which will do nicely for tomorrow’s soup.”
“And how about this, my sweetie?” squealed his triumphant mother, waving a leg-of-lamb bone at him.
Perfectly Loathsome Leo didn’t respond.
“And, ring-a-ding, talk of winning the lottery,” she said, “here’s a mayonnaise jar that hasn’t been licked clean. Some people must think money grows on trees.”
“Uh-huh,” said an obviously glum Perfectly Loathsome Leo, his head hanging low.
“I’ve been looking forward to tonight for days,” said his mother, “and now you’re ruining it for me.” Then, leaping out of her rocking chair, hoisting her skirts, she danced around her son, chanting, “Leo’s a party-pooper! Leo’s a party-pooper!”
“I am not!”
“Your heart of gold isn’t in it tonight. And I hate to say this, honeychild, but you were not concentrating on your work this morning.”
“I spied with my little eye somebody loading a bucket of sizzling, golden-brown French fries onto the truck …”
“Oh, no!”
“Somebody whose namesy-wamesy begins with the letter ‘L’ forgot to have them soaked in ice-water first, to make them nice and soggy.”
“It won’t happen again. I swear it won’t.”
“Come sit on Mumsy’s lap, honeybunch, and tell me why you’re feeling so blue.”
Perfectly Loathsome Leo snuggled into her lap. “It’s that Jacob Two-Two,” he wailed. “Because of him I’ve lost money at the poker table for two weeks in a row. I’ve got to figure out a way to fix him.”
“Does his family love him?”
“Love that little card cheat? They spoil him rotten.”
“Then you’ve got to trick him into doing something that will make his daddy punish him.”
“Yes. But what?”
“You’ll think of something, my only port in a storm, my bundle of joy, but now we had better turn down the thermostat on the furnace, to save some money, and hit the hay.”
Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse retreated to his room and was soon fast asleep in spite of the cold. But at one a.m. he wakened with a start and, popping his thumb out of his mouth, shouted, “Eureka! I’ve got it! Jacob Two-Two’s goose is cooked!”
He rolled out of bed, got into his overcoat, and tiptoed to the phone. He dialed the police station’s emergency number, put on a little boy’s voice, and said twice, “This is Jacob Two-Two speaking. I wish to report an armed robbery in progress …”