As Mrs. Poore, sipping a cup of tea, awaited travelers in need of lodging, her two children were not at home to wait with her. Winston and Winifred had decided to go next door, to the Melanoff mansion, to apply for jobs.
They were a little nervous. Though they talked to Richie through the fence, and occasionally ventured into his yard to play, they had never been inside his magnificent home before.
“Should we knock or ring?” Winston asked his sister. They were standing together at the mansion’s entrance. The huge carved door had a polished brass door knocker. But there was also a doorbell.
“Knock,” said Winifred, after considering it.
“No, you,” Winston told her.
Winifred gulped, then reached up and gave the door knocker a very light tap.
“Harder,” Winston instructed. So his sister took a deep breath and knocked very loudly, twice, on the door.
Eventually, as they were about to turn away and go home, the heavy door swung open. They looked up at a tall man who had a pleasant but curious look. Behind him, a wide hallway was dimly lit except for spotlights illuminating a large gold-framed portrait. They could see Richie standing in the shadows.
“Hi, Richie,” Winston called.
Richie wiggled his fingers in a kind of shy wave.
“Hi, Richie,” Winifred echoed, and Richie waved a second time.
“You seem to know my son,” the man said. “Richie? Come up here and introduce your friends.”
Richie stepped forward and stood beside his father but looked at the floor. “I don’t know their names,” he confessed.
“Well. Shall we remedy that?” The man looked at the pair standing on his porch and said, “Can you introduce yourselves?”
Winifred cringed, because in school they had had a lesson about how to make introductions. But now she couldn’t remember if you were supposed to say “I’d like you to meet . . .” or maybe it was “It’s my pleasure to introduce . . .” and in any case, she wouldn’t be able to say either of those, because her cheeks had turned pink and her voice had completely disappeared. She nudged her brother.
“We’re the Poore children from next door,” Winston said politely.
“The poor children? Next door?” Richie’s father glanced across the lawn toward the fence that separated his mansion from their little house.
“Well, yes, we are poor, but that word’s a lowercase adjective. Our name has a capital P. Poore. Sometimes that happens, you know, that you have a name but it turns out also to be what you are, like how your son’s name is Rich—”
Winifred poked him with her elbow, and he fell silent.
The man gave a somewhat bitter laugh. “Well,” he said, “as it turns out, everything can change in an instant.”
“Dad,” Richie said nervously, “they’re my friends.”
The tall man sighed. “I’m delighted to meet you, Poores. I once knew a woman whose last name was Weaver,” he said. “And guess what? She was—”
“A weaver!” Winifred said in excitement, forgetting how shy and blushy she had been.
“Actually, no,” the man said. “She was a potter. But she could have been a weaver, couldn’t she?”
His son stepped forward eagerly. “Or what if your name was Rider? And you actually were a rider? Like a champion with a bicycle? I have a bike! I have a Shimano Ultegra 6800 twenty-two-speed fully outfitted with Vuelta XRP pro wheel set!”
His father put his arm around the boy and said, “Shhhh.” Then he turned to the Poore children and explained, “Richie gets overly excited.”
“And sad!” Richie interrupted, his shoulders slumping. “I get overly sad sometimes, Dad! Because I don’t have anyone to ride my bike with.” He sighed, then added in a low voice, “It has wind-cutting aero-bladed spokes and precision bearings.”
Winston took a deep breath. “Actually, sir,” he said, “that’s the reason my sister and I stopped by. We’re poor, as I explained, and—”
Winifred took over. “And our father is in Alaska, selling encyclopedias—at least we hope he’s selling them because we need the money—and also he might be looking for gold in his spare time. But we don’t know when he’ll be back, because he has problems with melancholy and—what is the other thing, Winston?”
“Occasional inebriation,” Winston whispered.
“Oh, yes. He’s very kind, though. We miss him very much.” She paused. “Sorry. I was almost Marming,” she mumbled.
Richie’s father looked puzzled. “Are you trying to sell something? I think we’ve already bought some Girl Scout cookies, and money is increasingly tight, but I suppose we could always use another box or two.”
“No sir,” Winston said. “We’re looking for a job.”
“Like babysitting,” Winifred explained. “Of course, Richie isn’t a baby. But we could be, like, companions to Richie, maybe?”
“Because he’s lonely,” Winston added.
Richie’s father seemed startled. He looked down at his son. “Is that true, Richie?” he asked. “Are you lonely? I know that on your last birthday we gave you a— What is it called?”
“International research robot,” Richie replied. “It has a lightweight, precision-machined aluminum composite frame and injection-molded plastic covering that provides a strong exoskeleton.”
“And doesn’t it provide companionship?” his father asked.
“Well,” Richie said, “its surface-mounted tactile sensors respond to touches like a pat on the head. And the points of articulation in its limbs are so precise that it can pick up and hold objects with its hands.” He sighed, then added, “But no, Dad, it isn’t a very good companion.”
He stood beside his father with his head down. Then he whispered, “Yes, I am lonely.”
The tall man stroked the top of his son’s head briefly. Then he looked at the Poore children. “Why don’t you come inside?” he suggested. “I think we might be able to work something out, though if you’re hoping for a high salary, I’m afraid—”
His voice trailed away as he glanced outside. Then he held the door while they entered the high-ceilinged elaborate hallway, ushering them in graciously, but his attention was still on something outside. The Poore children waited with Richie beside the long, carpeted staircase that curved upward on the right. They heard Richie’s father call from the front door to someone, “May I help you with something? Are you lost?” Apparently, though, the answer was no. He shrugged, closed the door, and turned his attention to the children.
He led them past the staircase and down the wide hall. Briefly he paused in front of the illuminated portrait. “My adoptive mother,” he murmured, indicating the portrait of a stern-faced woman wearing oven mitts. “Nanny,” he said reverently.
“I was adopted by Nanny and Commander Melanoff,” he explained to the Poore children, “after I lost my biological parents when I was twelve.”
“Lost?” asked Winifred. “You mean you forgot where you put them?”
“No, no,” he said. “It was a tragic accident in the Alps.”
He nodded reverently again to the oil-painted face, then turned away from the portrait and began to lead the children toward the drawing room.
Richie whispered an explanation to the Poores. “They wouldn’t listen to any instructions,” he explained, “and they wore shorts and sandals and they bought climbing equipment but they used it wrong, they put the crampons on their heads, and then they got frozen solid. My dad took me to see them once, though a telescope. We had to wait in line. And afterward we had hot chocolate.”
He turned toward his father. “Didn’t we, Dad? Remember, we had hot chocolate?”
“What?” Richie’s father had opened the door to the drawing room. “Sorry, son,” he said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention. I was distracted because before I closed the front door I noticed a bizarre-looking couple approaching the front of the little house next door.” He turned to Winifred and Winston. “I believe you said that’s your house?”
“Yes,” Winifred replied. “It’s very small, but my brother just repainted the shutters.”
“I could see that. Bright blue! Well, they were approaching your house. The woman was limping, and they were both wearing unattractive brown clothing. The man seemed angry about something. Any idea who they could be? Were you expecting visitors?”
Winston and Winifred both shook their heads.
“They seemed oddly familiar, as if I might have known them once.”
Again, Winston and Winifred shook their heads.
“Well, I’ll put it out of my mind. Nothing to do with me!” He and his son entered the elegant room and gestured that Winston and Winifred should follow. They looked around in awe at the large paintings on the walls, the thick velvet draperies, the gleaming grand piano, and the Persian rug with its muted colors.
Richie’s father gestured toward a painting. “Early Holbein,”1 he explained. “I’m going to have to sell it.” He looked troubled for a moment. Then he said, “Oh! I’m so sorry!” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about that strange couple. I never actually introduced myself! I’m Richie’s father. I guess you already know that. My name is Tim Willoughby. My siblings and I decided to keep our original last name after we were adopted, because it was all we had left of our parents. And also it was the name on the bank accounts.” He held out his hand and the Poores shook it solemnly, one after the other.
“Win-Win,” the Poore children murmured as a further introduction to themselves, but also because they felt as if perhaps, in an odd way, it might describe their current situation.