“NEVER FEAR, MY dears, Leslie is here!”
Two enormous duffel bags came flying through the air and hit John square in the chest.
“Cousin Maria, you’re looking positively peachy. If I were ten years older and unrelated, I’d carry you off to church.” Leslie slobbered a kiss on Maria’s hand.
“That’s very kind of you to say.” Maria wiped her fingers on her apron. “Leslie, this is Harry and Nora, Patsy’s kids. Harry and Nora, this is Leslie.”
Leslie smiled a syrupy smile.
“Pleased to meetcha.”
It was incredible, John thought, but Leslie really did look like a tall, sixteen-year-old version of Frank.
It wasn’t just the flaring nostrils and the wires that dangled from the interior of his nose that did it. Nor was it the coarse hair on his head or the straggly fringe that fluttered on his upper lip. It was the whole of him, from his sharp, pointed ears to his thick, stocky body to his thin, stubbly legs. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Leslie looked like a pig.
Still, John reminded himself, even pigs have their good points.
“Harry, do you mind helping Leslie to his room?” Maria said. “I want to get Nora to bed.”
John nodded and picked up a bag. It appeared to be weighted with rocks. Large ones. “You’ve got clean sheets,” he managed to gasp out as he dragged Leslie’s bag up the stairs.
“Good-o,” Leslie said, pausing a moment when they reached the landing. “I’d give you a hand, but I’ve strained my back.” He brought out an embroidered handkerchief and delicately wiped it across his forehead. “So you won’t object to bringing up the other one? There’s a good chap.”
“Actually—owwww!”
In dropping the bag on the floor of the spare room, John had dropped it right on his toe.
“Whoops! Clumsy wumsy.” Leslie giggled as he removed his jacket. “I see I’ll have to be careful with you in the kitchen. Wouldn’t want you to set yourself on fire.”
John’s toe was throbbing too intensely for him to be able to answer.
“But you should know, Harry Hornblower, that I run a tight ship.” Leslie sucked in his stomach so he could admire his profile in the full-length mirror. His man breasts stuck out proudly from his chest. “I know what little boys are like. Remember—there’ll be no stealing of sweets when I’m in charge.”
He wagged a teasing finger at John in the mirror.
“Understand?”
Oh, I understand, John thought. I understand you completely.
Unfortunately for John, Maria did not. For the very next morning, Leslie was in front of the counter greeting customers.
“Mrs. Potts, how does your husband resist you in that sinfully becoming dress?”
This to a woman wearing a potato sack.
“Miss Templeton, I do declare you are getting younger by the moment. A girl of fourteen could not hope to compete with such dewiness.” This to a woman who was pushing sixty well past its limits.
“Madame Lacoste, I did not expect to be touched by an angel from heaven today!”
This to a woman who had about as much warmth as a hunk of frozen quartz.
“He’s terrible!” John whispered to Page during the morning rush.
“And he’s a liar,” she whispered back. “He told Gappy Preese that he could weave a curtain for the gods from her hair.” Gabby Preese was practically bald. “We should tell Maria!” Page insisted.
After Leslie had retreated to his morning bath, the Coggins took their observations to their benefactress. But Maria would hear nothing against her cousin.
“It’s nice to give someone a compliment.”
“But what if the compliment isn’t true?” John demanded. “Doesn’t that mean that he’s being a suck-up?”
Maria sighed and hung the pot she was drying on a hook above her head.
“Life is not all black and white, I’m afraid, chickadees. Sometimes people don’t say what they mean or mean what they say. But that doesn’t always make them bad.
“Please,” she said, “please try to get to know him.”
So John marshaled his patience and did his best at lunch to make friends. “Maria said you were traveling. Did you have a good trip?”
Leslie patted his mustache with his napkin and winked at Maria. “Most excellent.”
“Where did you go?” asked Page.
“Ooooh, all over! I was doing a tour of real estate possibilities in the south of the country.” He leaned back. “In fact, I was telling Maria about the oodles of opportunities along the Pludgett to Riverton railway line.”
“Pludgett?” asked Page. John grabbed at her elbow under the table. She made a squeak like a rusty hinge.
“Yes,” said Leslie, peering quizzically at Page. “Do you know it?”
John held his breath.
“All right, everybody, back to work!” Maria stood up and whipped a tea towel across the crumbs. “Leslie, could you help me change the sign for specials to anadama bread?”
“Of course,” Leslie cooed. “Anything for my pretty cousin.”
With a bow and a flourish, he plucked up the last roll and shepherded Maria into the shop.
“Sorry, Johnny,” muttered Page.
“It’s okay,” John muttered back. “I don’t think he noticed. Still, let’s try to act as normal as possible.”
But, alas for John, normal was not to be. For the arrival of Leslie spelled doom to everyday life. Leslie disrupted everything—from the first moment the Coggins woke up, when he gargled his mouthwash, to the last moment before they went to sleep, when he could be heard warbling off-key arias through the floor.
He interrupted their baking lessons and curtailed their playtime. He wore pants two sizes too small and curled his hair with Vaseline. He insisted on cooking dinner, serving up meatloaf so hard and dry that Maria broke a steak knife trying to saw through it.
Even worse, after three days he decided that John and Page needed a tutor.
“You’re a busy lady, Miss Maria. You shouldn’t have to worry your pretty head over algebra and acronyms. Leave it to me, I’ll fill these young minds with the wisdom of the ages.”
The wisdom of the ages, John was to learn, consisted of Leslie’s stories about his achievements. How he scored the winning goal in a decisive hockey match. How he shamed his teacher by telling her how the Battle of Killimanjay was really won. How he astounded the citizens of Howst by purchasing their castle.
“It was built by the owner of the Riverton railway to look like the fortifications of the conquistadors. Naturally, I’m thinking of resurrecting it as a time-share rental for golfers. There’s a silver mine operator in Barramesh who’s simply gagging at the prospect.”
John was gagging too. At the smell of Leslie’s cologne.
The situation became so dire that Page took to barricading herself in their attic room in the afternoons and talking nonstop to her bear. John’s solution was to hang out with the chickens in the chicken coop. They might smell funny, but at least their conversation didn’t make him want to pull his fingernails off and jab them into his ears.
The only thing stopping John from going completely around the bend was Maria. He knew she was putting up with Leslie for reasons other than family, but for the life of him, he couldn’t fathom her motives. Though he didn’t understand why, he realized it was important for him and his sister to keep their tempers.
One bitterly cold night at the beginning of February, John woke to hear familiar footsteps trotting down the stairs. Being careful not to wake Page, he pulled on his sweater and followed.
When he reached the kitchen, he peeked in the door. A large leather tome was spread out on the table. With a pencil in her left hand, Maria was making forlorn stabs at the page.
“Are you okay, Maria?” John whispered.
Maria looked up from her book. Poppy seeds freckled her cheeks.
“Harry! You gave me a fright. What are you doing up so late?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Your eyes are red.”
“Are they?” Maria laughed ruefully. “I guess all this fun is keeping me up too late.”
John sat down opposite her.
“What is it?”
Maria smiled.
“Never lose your persistence, Harry, no matter what. I love that about you.”
He waited. She sighed and turned the accounting book toward him.
“I’m worried about the spring. Coal keeps getting more expensive, and that old oven is going to bake its last cookie any day now.”
“And we’re costing you money,” John said.
Maria wrinkled her forehead.
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. I love having you and Nora here. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since sourdough starter. I can’t imagine what this winter would have been like without you.”
“But we’re still costing you money.”
Maria sighed and closed the tome.
“Money, schmoney. Let’s not think about it anymore. Something wonderful and unexpected will happen. It always does, if you wait long enough.”
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
They both sprang to their feet.
“Who could that be?” Maria was clutching her accounting book to her chest.
“Someone who doesn’t know how to use the bell,” John replied. But he didn’t fancy seeing who that might be. Especially if their visitor happened to be sporting a taxidermied bluebird in her hat.
Holding John’s hand tight in hers, Maria crept into the shop and up to the window. With the moonlight bouncing off the cobblestones, they could glimpse a figure shrouded in a high-collared cloak. A figure no taller than John himself. With blazing red hair.
“It’s Boz!” John shouted, throwing open the door.
Boz—for that was who it was—did a graceful somersault into the shop and emerged, only slightly flustered, from the interior of his cloak.
“Ave Caesar. We who were about to die salute you.” Boz rose and bowed to John and Maria in turn.
“Hello.” Maria laughed. “You must be nearly frozen. Here, come and be welcome.”
As Boz entered the kitchen, and the light of the table lamp fell upon his face, John realized his erstwhile friend must have been through the wars. He was sporting a torn coat, a pair of pukey-green long johns tied with a rope, and two enormous black eyes. He looked exactly like a ginger raccoon.
“What happened to you?”
Boz twisted his feral face toward John. “Life, my dear boy. The vicissitudes of vicarious living.”
There was a mute appeal in those odd blue eyes that John was forced to acknowledge. Yes, he was still furious at Boz for ditching them in Hayseed. Yes, there were things that Boz did that drove him six ways to insanity. But beneath the bravado, John could see, his friend was very, very hungry. And maybe, just maybe, a little afraid.
A makeshift truce, it seemed, was called for.
“Maria, this is my friend, Boz. Boz, this is Maria. My sister Nora and I are staying with her,” he added, giving Boz a meaningful look that said, “Work with me.”
Boz nodded and swept his hair to the floor.
“Charmed, milady.”
“Where have you been? Since we met in Hayseed?” John added hastily.
“I have been where angels fear to tread. Though I rush to reassure you”—he winked at John—“far, far from the madding crowd.” He turned to Maria. “Would you, by any propitious happenstance, have a more suitable wardrobe available for a vertically challenged visitor? I appear to have left my trousers somewhere in last week.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wear an old pair of Harry’s trousers for the present. Until we can find a way to fix you up properly,” Maria said, choking back her laugh. “Harry, why don’t I give Boz something to eat while you go upstairs to fetch him some clothes?”
So off John went, treading softly on the stairs. He was almost at the top when he heard “Huff, puff, huff, puff, huff,” coming from behind Leslie’s door. Quietly, oh so quietly, John pushed it open.
Leslie was standing in the middle of the floor with his hands stretched to the ceiling. John saw his right eye slide to one side to examine the intruder.
“You’re up late,” Leslie puffed.
“What are you doing?”
“Evening calisthenics,” Leslie huffed, leaning over and wriggling his fat bottom in the air. “Mustn’t neglect my figure.”
John began to retreat.
“And what are you doing?” puffed Leslie, attempting a push-up and failing miserably.
John stopped.
“My friend Boz arrived. He needs some clothes.”
Leslie huffed. He was having trouble returning himself to an upright position.
“Is he planning to be here long?”
“I don’t know,” John retorted.
“Does he eat much?”
“Not really.”
“Well, then, I suppose he can stay.” Leslie wobbled into a stand. “Only for a few days, though. I don’t want my future assets being eaten away by every tomcat that starts scratching at the door.”
The seed of uneasiness that had been growing inside John now swelled to something the size of a watermelon. “What do you mean, your future assets?”
Leslie flexed his right arm and poked the nonexistent muscle beneath the flesh.
“Didn’t Maria tell you?”
“What?”
“If she can’t pay back the money my mother loaned her, the business reverts to my ownership.” Leslie crouched into a squat and bounced his elbows up and down. “Judging by her account books, I’d give it till sometime in the spring.”
He stood and began touching his toes.
“One, two, one, two. Selling a working bakery like this should give me exactly the capital I need to convert my castle at Howst into a showpiece for investors.” He threw back his shoulders and pounded his chest for emphasis. “Harry, you may not know it yet, but you are looking at the next real estate king of this country.”
Then, as a fitting finale, Leslie farted.