“Greetings and salutations,” said Aunt True as the snowball splatted harmlessly on the glass door behind us. She glanced outside. “A skirmish, I take it?”
We nodded.
She locked the door. “It’s your lucky day, then. Due to inventory, the store is officially closed. You have now entered a snowball-free zone, and on top of that, it’s snack time!” She smiled as she crossed the room toward us, then drew back abruptly. The smile vanished. “Good heavens, what is that smell?”
“Um,” I said. “Us, probably. We dissected frogs today in science class.”
She gave me a tentative sniff. “I’m not exactly detecting Eau de Kermit.”
“Cha Cha sprayed our frogs with perfume.”
Aunt True laughed. “And you would be Cha Cha, I presume?” she asked, turning to my new friend.
Cha Cha held out her hand. “Charlotte Abramowitz,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Cha Cha’s parents own the Starlite Dance Studio across the street,” I told my aunt, as the two of them shook hands. “And this is Lucas Winthrop. His mom works at Lou’s.”
“Happy to meet you both,” said Aunt True. “I’m True Lovejoy, Truly’s aunt.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my classmates giving her a discreet once-over. Aunt True was dressed parrot-style as usual, in a bright orange hand-knit sweater over jeans. Down at her ankles, purple-and-green striped socks disappeared into a pair of leopard print clogs. “I hope you kids are hungry for a snack, because I’ve been baking all afternoon.”
My father emerged from the back office just then. “Truly? You’re right on time.”
“Hi, Dad.” My family, the freak show, I thought, as Cha Cha and Lucas politely looked everywhere but the hook that protruded from the end of my father’s right shirtsleeve. “This is Cha Cha Abramowitz and Lucas Winthrop. They’re in my class at school.”
“Nice to meet you both,” he said politely. “Now say good-bye to your friends, Truly. Time’s a-wasting and math’s a-waiting.”
I sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“Not so fast,” Aunt True told my father, pulling a tray out from under the counter. “I promised them a snack. I’ve decided that as part of the bookstore’s new marketing campaign, we’re going to offer tea and treats every afternoon for our customers.”
Miss Marple, hearing the word “treats,” trotted over to join us.
“Hey, Miss Marple,” said Cha Cha, giving her a pat on the head.
My father looked over at Cha Cha, clearly startled to hear such a deep voice come out of such a petite person. “What marketing campaign?” he asked my aunt. His eyebrows dove for each other as he frowned. “We don’t have money in the budget for tea and treats.”
“Word will soon spread,” Aunt True continued, ignoring him. “Hordes of visitors will descend to sample our goodies, and stay to buy our books.”
“A bunch of freeloaders will show up, you mean,” muttered my father, but I noticed he reached for a cookie.
My aunt passed the tray to my friends and me. I selected a cookie too, and took a bite, which I immediately ejected back into my hand. “Um, Aunt True, what’s in these?”
Beside me, Lucas started to cough. Cha Cha, who hadn’t taken a bite of her cookie yet, eyed it suspiciously.
“Looks like your culinary skills haven’t improved much over the years, sis,” my father remarked, grimacing.
Aunt True put her hands on her hips. “I’ll have you know I’ve cooked to great acclaim on every continent!” she retorted. “This is a recipe inspired by my time in Tibet. I had to make a few substitutions, of course, since the General Store doesn’t carry yak milk. Did I add too many hot chilies?”
“Maybe just a few,” I told her, slipping the rest of my cookie to Miss Marple. She promptly spat it onto the floor, and my father gave a hoot of laughter.
“And the reviews are in!” he crowed, sounding almost like his old self. “Bad sign when the dog won’t eat it, True.”
“Maybe a more traditional recipe would be a better idea, Ms. Lovejoy,” Cha Cha suggested, discreetly returning her cookie to the tray. “What if you did something in honor of our town, like pumpkin bread or pumpkin muffins?”
Aunt True nodded. “Pumpkin muffins. I like it. No—wait! How about pumpkin whoopie pies? Quintessentially New England, but with a twist.” She nodded. “That’s perfect! They’ll be our signature treat.” She gave my father a sidelong glance. “I’ll make mini ones, which will be more budget-friendly,” she added. “People will come from far and wide to sample the treats at Lovejoy’s Books.”
My father threw his cookie in the trash. “Good, because they won’t come from anywhere to sample these things.” His brief flash of a good mood had evaporated. He looked over at me. “I’ll be in the office. Don’t be long.”
“No, sir.”
Aunt True looked ruefully down at the tray. “I hate to waste these, but he’s right. They’re pretty awful.”
“You could give them to Danny and Hatcher,” I suggested. “They’ll eat anything,”
My aunt’s eyes lit up. “Excellent strategy! Thank goodness for teenage boys.”
“We should get going,” Cha Cha told me. “I’m due over at the Starlite, and Lucas’s mother will worry if he doesn’t turn up at Lou’s soon.”
Hearing this, Lucas blushed.
I peered out the window. “The coast looks clear,” I told them. “You should be okay.”
“If you’re worried about an ambush, that’s a problem easily solved,” said my aunt. “I have an errand to run, so why don’t I just go along and make sure you both arrive at your destinations safely? I need to check on Memphis first, though—he and Miss Marple weren’t getting along this afternoon, so I had to separate them.”
Cha Cha turned to me as my aunt disappeared out the side door toward the stairs to her apartment. “Real quick, can you show me where you found the envelope?”
“The one with the B on it?” asked Lucas.
Cha Cha and I exchanged a glance. Lucas had obviously been paying attention! Cha Cha raised an eyebrow, and her unspoken question hung in the air.
“Oh, fine,” I said. It wasn’t as if Lucas would blab our secret to anyone—he barely spoke as it was. I explained about the mystery as I led the two of them back to the Annex.
“It was here in the used-book section,” I told them, waving vaguely at the bottom shelf and handing the envelope to Lucas. He opened it and read the letter inside while I looked around for the basket of books without bar codes. There was no sign of it. “It was inside a copy of Charlotte’s Web.”
“Do you remember the pages it was stuck between?” asked Cha Cha. “That could be important.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“And nothing else was in there?”
“Not that I noticed.”
Just then, there was a sharp knock on the bookshop’s front door.
“We’re closed!” I heard my father yell from the office. “Can’t you see the sign?”
The knocking escalated frantically. Grabbing the letter and envelope from Lucas, I stuffed them back into the pocket of my jeans and hurried to the front of the store to see what was going on. My friends were right behind me.
“For heaven’s sake!” said Aunt True, crossing to the door and unlocking it. “What’s the matter?”
“Where’s that blasted January thaw when you need it?” fussed a small, plump, elderly person, barging past her into the store. She was bundled in more layers than Lucas Winthrop, but hers were considerably rattier. The two scarves wound around her neck clashed horribly with her threadbare jacket—red and blue stripes and purple plaid do not go well with green camouflage—and her boots, which looked about two sizes too big, were stuffed with crumpled newspaper. A face as wrinkled as a dried plum peeked out from beneath a bright orange hunter’s hat. The earflaps were tied securely under her chin. Emerging from beneath the flaps were a few wisps of snow-white hair and the telltale wires from a pair of earbuds.
An elf owl, if ever I’d seen one.
“We’re closed,” my father repeated.
“Good afternoon, Miss Marple,” she said, ignoring him.
Miss Marple got to her feet and trotted over expectantly.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget your treat.” There was a rustling noise as the woman plunged an orange mitten into one of the many plastic bags she was carrying. “Oops, that’s not it.”
The five of us stared at her mittened hand. There was a kitten in it. The tiny creature let out a squeak, and at the sound another furry little head popped out of the woman’s jacket pocket.
“How many kittens do you generally carry with you?” asked Aunt True, blinking in astonishment.
There was no response, so my aunt repeated her question, louder this time.
The elderly woman removed one of her earbuds. I heard the faint, tinny strains of the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love.” “Depends,” she replied.
Tucking both kittens back into their hiding places, she rummaged in the plastic bag once again, this time pulling out what looked like toast crusts. What I hoped were toast crusts, at least. Miss Marple had had enough food surprises today, what with Aunt True’s cookies.
“We’re closed,” my father repeated for the third time.
“It’s a book emergency,” said our visitor.
Seeing our blank looks, she wiped her nose on the end of one of her scarves and rooted around in another plastic bag, emerging with a battered paperback this time. “Mystery swap,” she added, waving it at us. “You know, bring a book, take a book?” When that got no response either, she heaved a sigh. “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.”
“Who’s that?” I whispered, as she trundled off toward the Annex.
“No idea,” Aunt True whispered back.
“It’s Belinda Winchester,” said Cha Cha.
Dad’s head snapped around. “That’s Belinda Winchester?” he said, watching her walk away. “She was at least a hundred when I was a kid! I can’t believe she’s still living here. Or still living, period.”
“She looks kind of homeless,” I said.
“She wasn’t when I was growing up,” my father replied. “She used to live in a big old house at the end of our street.”
“She still does,” said Cha Cha.
“I remember her now!” said Aunt True. “A little nutty, had about twenty-seven cats—or at least she did back then—house crammed with stuff?”
“That’s her,” said Cha Cha.
Belinda Winchester returned a moment later with a different paperback. My father stepped over to the cash register. “How would you like to pay for that this afternoon?”
“Pay for it?” the older woman screeched. The furry heads popped out again, their round kitten eyes wide in alarm. “What part of ‘swap’ don’t you understand?” She peered at my father more closely. “Say, aren’t you Walt and Lola’s boy?”
I’d never heard my father called a “boy” before. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“You’re the delinquent who broke my garage window with a slingshot!”
My father reddened. “That was a long time ago, Miss Winchester,” he replied stiffly. “And as I recall, I saved up my allowance to pay for the repair.”
Aunt True was smiling broadly by now. I could tell she was enjoying this.
Our visitor sniffed. “Don’t know as I remember it that way.” She stuffed the paperback into a plastic bag. “I’d say this makes us even.” And with that she and her kittens stalked out.
Aunt True laughed so hard her knees went weak. She collapsed on the bench by the door, gasping for breath.
My father shook his head in disgust. “Whose idea was it to have a mystery swap? What are we running here, a charity?”
“Calm down, J. T.” said Aunt True, wiping her eyes. “It’s just a used paperback. And it was a book emergency, remember? With a side of kittens.” She dissolved in laughter again.
“We’re the ones with a book emergency, especially if we just let our inventory walk out of here,” my father told her. “This is a business, not the public library.”
Beside me, I heard Lucas suck in his breath.
“No more stalling, Truly,” my father said curtly. “Say good-bye to your friends. I want you in the office on the double.” He spun on his heel and left.
As Aunt True started out the door, Lucas turned to Cha Cha and me, his pale face alight with excitement. “I know what the numbers on your mystery envelope mean.”