The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon (4 page)

1.
CITY HALL:
Watch the people who work there and about. Check voting lists; licenses (drivers’ and dog).

2.
ST. PAUL’S:
Six churches in New York City with that name, including Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic. Try one each Sunday.

3.
WON TON
SOUP: Eat in Chinese restaurants only. (List of 78 names and addresses attached.)

4.
HORSES:
Read
Racing Form and The Morning Telegraph
every day. Make special note of horse buyers. Also, see all new cowboy movies.

5.
STORY OF MY LIFE:
Ask librarian for autobiographies of writers using pen names.

6.
ALSO:
Send missing person bulletin to all hotels, opticians, optometrists, ophthalmologists, and riding stables in New York City.

7.
JUST IN CASE:
Wear purple-flowered clothes.

Another Letter to Mr. Banks

Dear Mr. Banks:

Sorry about those doctors’ bills. I had to go through all sorts of tests, but you will be happy to hear it was nothing serious—just an allergic reaction
^*
to too much soy sauce.

You’re right, it’s nearly a year since I began my search; but I can’t agree with you, Mr. Banks, when you say that Noel must be dead or he’d have asked for money by now. I still think my idea of amnesia is closer to the truth. And the reason I haven’t found him is this: Noel is
not
in New York City. He just isn’t the type of person to live here (even if he doesn’t know who he is)—it’s much too big and lonely.

So, you see, I am not about to come home. I am going to New Brockton, Alabama, instead.

May I wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving,

Mrs. Carillon

Possible Solutions of “New. . . .”
¹³

Noel. City Hall (or St. Paul’s) in:

New Brockton, Alabama

Nutrioso, Arizona

Newport, Arkansas

Newport Beach, California

New Raymer, Colorado

New Britain, Connecticut

New Haven, Connecticut

New London, Connecticut

Newark, Delaware

Newberry, Florida

Newington, Georgia

New Meadows, Idaho

New Lenox, Illinois

New Albany, Indiana

New Hampton, Iowa

New Cambria, Kansas

Newport, Kentucky

New Iberia, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Vineyard, Maine

New London, Maryland

New Market, Maryland

Newton, Massachusetts

New Buffalo, Michigan

New Ulm, Minnesota

Newhebron, Mississippi

New Franklin, Missouri

Newman Grove, Nebraska

New Year Lake, Nevada

Newport, New Hampshire

Newark, New Jersey

New Brunswick, New Jersey

Newkirk, New Mexico

Newburgh, New York

New Rochelle, New York

Newton, North Carolina

New Leipzig, North Dakota

Newark, Ohio

Newkirk, Oklahoma

New Bridge, Oregon

New Castle, Pennsylvania

Newport, Rhode Island

Newry, South Carolina

New Underwood, South Dakota

New Tazewell, Tennessee

Newgulf, Texas

New Harmony, Utah

Newfane, Vermont

Newport News, Virginia

Newport, Washington

Newburg, West Virginia

New Glarus, Wisconsin

New Holstein, Wisconsin

New Haven, Wyoming
¹⁴

4
_*
Missing: One Husband. Found: Two Twins

Twenty Years Later

“
,” Mrs. Carillon said as she left the restaurant, fortune cookie in hand. She had learned to speak some Chinese over the past twenty years, had become an expert on city halls, St. Pauls’, race horses, autobiographies, cowboy movies, and the geography of the United States; but she still had not found Noel.
¹⁵

The people of Newport News stared as she strolled down the street, an image out of an old movie. No one but Mrs. Carillon wore curls piled high on top of the head, or long, flowered dresses, or teetering high heels. Even purple was out of style.

Mrs. Carillon sat down on a bench opposite City Hall, carefully broke open the cookie, and extracted the narrow strip of paper.

Many search, but few know what they seek.

She was so intent on reading her fortune that she didn’t notice the dark-haired twins standing before her.

“Weren’t you bitten by a werewolf on the early show yesterday?” the boy asked. Mrs. Carillon was so startled she almost fell off the bench.

“I’m Tony and this is my sister Tina. You are a movie star, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m just Mrs. Carillon.”

“Like the soup?” Tina asked.

Mrs. Carillon nodded.

“That’s about all we ever have to eat at that miserable orphanage, Mrs. Carillon’s miserable Pomato Soup.”

“It makes me sneeze,” Tony added.

“If you have a soup named after you, you must be rich and famous,” Tina guessed.

“I’d rather have an ice cream named after me,” said Tony.

“I had no choice,” replied Mrs. Carillon, delighted to be talking to someone other than waiters and hotel clerks. “Besides, I’m not at all famous, just rich. And I’m an orphan, too.”

Tina felt little sympathy for a rich, grown-up orphan. “We’re twin orphans, which is worse, because we’ve each lost a mother and father. And nobody wants to adopt two children at once, especially eleven-year-olds going on twelve.”

“You poor things!” Mrs. Carillon was deeply moved.

To Tina things were either miserable or getting worse, especially when she found a sympathetic ear.

“Even more miserable, next year they separate the boys from the girls and we won’t even have each other.”

This unhappy news was more than Mrs. Carillon could bear. She uttered a loud sob, and twenty years of tears flooded forth. The people of Newport News stared even harder.

“We’d better go find our class,” Tony said, taking his sister by the hand.

“Don’t go,” cried Mrs. Carillon. “Don’t ever go!”

The Traveling Carillons

“Next stop: Newport, Washington,” announced Mrs. Carillon, who was now not only looking for her husband, but the father of her children. She had had no trouble adopting the twins once she had persuaded Mr. Banks to give the orphanage a large donation.

Tina and Tony were delighted with their funny new mother and her promises of cowboy movies and eating in Chinese restaurants across the United States. They couldn’t wait to join in the search for Noel and solve the mystery of the missing husband.

They searched and searched. Tina’s assignment: black ties; Tony’s: red moustaches; Mrs. Carillon’s: glasses.

“Next stop: Newburg, West Virginia,” she announced two months later. And six weeks after that: “Next stop: New Glarus, Wisconsin.” Then: “Next stop: New Holstein, Wisconsin.”

“I’ve been thinking about ‘I
glub
new. . . ,’ ” Mrs. Carillon said in New Haven, Wyoming, the last stop on her list. “And what I’ve decided is that
‘glub’
must be a city and ‘new’ the state:

“City Hall (or St. Paul’s) in
glub
New Hampshire.”

Concord,
New Hampshire;
Manchester
,
Nashua,
¹⁶
Portsmouth ...
the routine was always the same. Mrs. Carillon rented a hotel suite, enrolled the twins in public school, and haunted the corridors of City Hall. Together they searched through seas of faces: on the street, on television, in buses and trains and cowboy films. Most towns didn’t have a St. Paul’s; several didn’t have a Chinese restaurant ; and none of them had a Noel Carillon.

Wrong!

It was Thursday, and Mrs. Carillon would be late. According to routine she would spend the afternoon in the beauty parlor having her graying hair dyed black, then stop off at the library before returning to the hotel.

“Routines are miserable, Chinese food is miserable, and hotel rooms are even worse,” Tina complained.

They were in Albuquerque, New Mexico; at least the twins thought it was Albuquerque. All cities were beginning to look alike to them, all the train stations, all the hotels, and all the people. Even their classmates looked alike, for Tina and Tony never stayed in one school long enough to make friends.

“You know, Tony, sometimes I wonder just who, and what, I am. So I look at you to see who, and what, you are. And you know what I see?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just a miserable orphan. We’re still orphans, Tony, except now we’re traveling orphans.”

“Don’t worry, once we find Noel. . . .”

“Sometimes I think we’ll never find Noel. Sometimes I think that when we’re in New Mexico, he’s in New Hampshire; and when we’re in New Hampshire, he’s in New Jersey. And sometimes I think Mrs. Carillon isn’t very smart.”

“She’s smarter than you,” Tony said. “Since when do you know anything about horses—or speak Chinese?”

“If her Chinese is so good how come she broke out in hives again?”

“Maybe it’s chicken pox.”
¹⁷

“Well, I still think we’re smarter, especially since we’re two and she’s only one. And you know what else?”

Tony was too busy examining his arm for red bumps to answer.

“I think she’s wrong about city hall and St. Paul’s. And she’s wrong about the ‘New’ states, too.”

“Wrong?” It had never occurred to Tony that Mrs. Carillon might be wrong.

“That’s right, wrong!” Tina repeated. “What’s more, I think we can find a better solution. All we have to do is decide what we want, then get the
glub-blubs
to fit.”

“What’s that got to do with finding Noel?”

“Nothing, but we’re not finding him this way, either,” Tina replied. “As Mrs. Carillon always says: ‘Many search, but few know what they seek.’ ”

“She also says: ‘He who seeketh findeth,’” Tony said.

“Well,
I
know what
I
seeketh!”

Glub-blubs

“All right, so maybe I don’t know what I seeketh,” Tina admitted. An hour had passed and her paper headed “What I Want to Do and Where” was still blank. The only thing she could think of was what she
didn’t
want to do: she didn’t want to travel any more.