When Charles awakened the following morning, he glanced over instinctively to see if Murray was still asleep. But the other bed was empty—Murray was still in New York. Charles wondered what had made his brother so afraid of Drift House that he’d deliberately given himself chicken pox. Suddenly it occurred to him that a clue leading to the answer might be contained in Mario’s book. And Susan and Uncle Farley were in bed as well! This was his chance to look at it privately.
Jumping out of bed, he dashed toward his dresser. He stopped dead in his tracks after only two steps.
The backpack wasn’t there.
“Nooooooooooo!”
Charles’s cry of despair preceded him as he ran down the hall toward Susan’s room. “You can’t look at it without me! You can’t! You can’t!”
But instead of finding Susan curled up with the book, Charles found her still asleep. The most incriminating thing in her arms—Charles had to squint, because he’d forgotten his glasses—was her doll, Victor Win-Win.
Susan started upright. Then, seeing it was only Charles, she relaxed. As nonchalantly as she could, she slipped Victor Win-Win under the blanket.
“Whatever are you going on about, Charles?”
“The book! It’s not in my room. I thought you must have taken it, but…”
As Charles’s voice faded away, Susan’s attention sharpened. The children looked at each other with the same thought in their heads.
“Mr. Zenubian!”
Charles dashed toward the stairs, Susan running after him. As he ran past Uncle Farley’s bedroom, the door opened and the disheveled head of their uncle appeared.
“Here now. What’s all the commo—”
“The book, the book!” was all Charles had time to say as he trampled down the stairs.
“He’s taken the book!” Susan threw in, galloping after her brother.
“What book?” Uncle Farley said, knotting his robe and looking about for his left slipper (which, as it happened, was on his right foot). “Who’s taken it?”
The children were too preoccupied to answer. First Charles and then Susan bounded into the music room. Susan nearly knocked her brother down, because Charles had pulled up short at the sight of the tall, dirty (and slightly blurry) figure attempting to stuff the oilskin package into Charles’s backpack.
From somewhere down in his belly, a deep voice rumbled out of Charles: “Drop it!”
His right hand had gone to his left hip, as if reaching for a sword, and somewhat sheepishly, he pretended to scratch an itch.
“Mr. Zenubian!” Susan said behind him. “What were you doing with Charles’s bag?”
“Er, what?” Mr. Zenubian looked down at the backpack in his left hand, the package in his right, as if surprised to see them. “Why, I, uh, I was just unpacking it. Part of my duties.”
It was true that someone (or, in Drift House’s case, something) had unpacked the children’s things yesterday, just as it—er, he, or she—had done last September. But Susan had always assumed Miss Applethwaite attended to those kinds of tasks.
Taking advantage of the children’s momentary silence, Mr. Zenubian stood up straight. A note of wounded pride crept into his voice. Roughly shoving the oilskin package into the backpack, he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be taking this up to your room now.”
“No!” Charles said, and he leapt forward and took hold of the backpack. “I’ll do it!”
Just then Uncle Farley shuffled into the room. His left slipper was on the proper foot, but his right foot was bare, and his toes curled away from the chilly floorboards.
“All right now. What could possibly be worth making so much noise over at this—” His voice broke off when he saw Charles and Mr. Zenubian holding opposite sides of Charles’s backpack. Charles was blinking up at the caretaker with a frightened but determined look on his face, and Mr. Zenubian was looking down at Charles with something that was not quite a snarl curling up one side of his mouth.
Behind his glasses, Uncle Farley’s sleepy eyes suddenly came into sharp focus. “What is going on here?”
For the first time in his life, Charles wished Susan could be her usual blabbermouth self and come up with a good explanation for what they were doing. But Susan was beginning to suspect she’d followed Charles under an incorrect assumption, and held her tongue.
“Well, ah,” Charles said finally, “when I woke up my backpack wasn’t in my room. And when I came down here I found Mr. Zenubian going through it, and—”
“Going through it?” The caretaker cut Charles off. “Putting away things you spoiled children is too lazy to put away yourself is more like it.”
“Please, Mr. Zenubian,” Uncle Farley said. “There’s no need to add insult to injury. Now then, Charles. Are you sure you brought your bag up to your room last night? I seem to recall you setting it on that table when you came in yesterday evening.”
Charles racked his brain, but couldn’t remember. But he would never have left something as valuable as Mario’s book just lying around. Would he? Did he?
“Well, um, I think I, I mean, I’m not exactly sure—”
“I’m afraid it was here all night, Charles.”
Everyone started at this new voice, whose minuscule speaker now stepped out from behind a chair.
“President Wilson!” Susan said—a little guiltily, because she was realizing she’d never asked after his whereabouts the night before.
The century-old parrot scratched the side of his red cheek with one foot, but before he could say something, Mr. Zenubian exclaimed,
“See! ‘Twas here all night! And the boy’s accusing me of thievery when all I was doing was trying to put it away!”
“Charles’s bag was here all night,” President Wilson said, “but you were hardly trying to put it away. You looked at that book for a good half hour, and when you heard Charles coming, you hastened to cover your tracks. That’s not ‘thievery.’ But it is sneaky.”
“Sneaky! This from a bird what was spying on me?”
“I won’t apologize for it. Farley is a trusting man, but I find your sudden appearance perplexing, and your failure to offer a satisfactory explanation makes me suspicious.”
“Please,” Uncle Farley cut in. “It’s very early. No one’s even had breakfast yet. Why don’t we have a bite to eat and then we can discuss this civilly?”
“Pah! You and your ‘bites to eat.’ I’ll not be eating anything—or doing another stitch of work for that matter—until bird and boy both offer me apologies!”
“And I’ll not apologize,” President Wilson retorted, “until you can explain why you were poring over Charles’s book with such interest.”
Uncle Farley turned to Charles. “What book is this everyone keeps referring to?”
“Mar—” Charles began, but Susan cut him off.
“It’s just some old book Charles got,” she said, glowering at her brother.
Throughout this conversation Charles and Mr. Zenubian had been holding on to Charles’s backpack, which contained the book in question. But now the bigger man suddenly pushed it away. Charles stumbled backward and nearly fell.
“And what would I be wanting with Mario’s old book anyway?” Mr. Zenubian said. “I just noticed it had some pretty pictures in it is all.”
At this comment, even a man as diplomatic as Uncle Farley looked at Mr. Zenubian a little skeptically. The latter man looked as though he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and yesterday’s dirt besides. He didn’t give the impression of a man drawn to “pretty pictures” at all.
“I’ve offered you free rein of the library and my study, and you’ve never taken me up on it before. What was so interesting about this particular book?”
Mr. Zenubian looked at his audience like a cornered animal. He crouched down slightly, and began to back away. “I’ll not be accused by the likes of you!”
“No one wants to accuse you of anything, Mr. Zenubian,” Uncle Farley said. “But your actions are often mysterious. All we ask is that you tell us what’s going on.”
“I told you! It was just the pictures that caught my eye.”
“Inside the backpack? Wrapped up in… is that oilskin?”
“It seemed to me,” President Wilson added, “that you knew what you were looking for before you even opened Charles’s bag.”
“Enough! I tell you I won’t be treated this way. I quit!”
The caretaker’s words hung in the air for a moment. Then, pivoting on his heel, he marched heavily to the French windows and strode outside. He slammed the window so hard behind him that it bounced open again, rattling the glass. It was only after he was gone that Susan and Charles noticed the weather beyond the open door.
It was raining.