Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Brought Down the House

“Qwill and I used to use it for invisible ink in secret correspondence... Remember that, Qwill?”

“Was it fourth grade?”

“I think it was fifth. Miss Getz was the teacher.”

Polly said to Mildred, “Here we go again!” The two couples could never get together without another anecdote about rascally boyhood pranks. “Tell us about Miss Getz and the secret correspondence,” she said coyly.

“Arch and I passed slips of blank paper back and forth in class, and she knew we were up to no good, but she never discovered the secret writing.”

“The way it works,” Arch explained, “you dip a cotton swab-stick in lemon juice and write on plain white paper. The writing isn’t visible until you hold it up to a hot lamp bulb. But not too close.”

Polly inquired, “Dare I ask what kind of messages you exchanged in the fourth grade?”

“Fifth,” Arch corrected her. “There’s a big difference.”

Qwilleran smoothed his moustache, as he did when trying to recollect. “Well... there was a girl in our class called Pauline Pringle who had a bad case of acne. One day Arch slipped me a bit of paper. When I got it home and over a hot lightbulb, I laughed so hard—my mother thought I was having convulsions. It said: Pauline Pimple likes you a lot.”

Arch chuckled at the memory. The two women remained cool.

“The next day,” Qwilleran went on, “I sent him a message about the teacher. Her face would get very red once in a while, and she’d mop her brow with a handkerchief. The message was: Miss Getz sweats.”

The women groaned. Polly was not attuned to schoolboy humor; and Mildred, having taught school for thirty years, empathized with the long-suffering Miss Getz. She said, “All you two miscreants deserve for dessert is lemon sorbet.”

All four ordered Chef Wingo’s famous blueberry cobbler, however. Arch wanted a dollop of ice cream on his; Polly asked for a smidgen of yogurt; Mildred thought she would like ‘just a tad’ of whipped cream. The host took his neat.

But he asked, “Should I know what a tad is?”

“Halfway between a smidgen and a wee bit,” Mildred informed him.

As they lingered over coffee, they discussed the Pickax Sesquicentennial celebration scheduled for the following year. Arch had attended the first meeting of the planning committee.

“I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but they elected Hixie Rice as general chairman.”

“Oh, no!” Mildred said.

“Oh, dear!” Polly muttered.

The promotion director of the Moose County Something was a clever idea-person with boundless energy and enthusiasm—and a record of disasters, through no fault of her own. There had been the Ice Festival that thawed out, the Mark Twain Festival canceled because of a murder, the cat contest that ended in a riot (of cat owners, not contestants), and more. The city was still wondering what to do with fifteen thousand polar-bear lapel buttons ordered for the Ice Festival.

Yet, Hixie always bounced back, entranced people with her optimism and creativity, and found herself elected to chair another fiasco.

The next day was a workday, so the party broke up early. For Qwilleran the evening was not over, however. At home he put a sheet of blank white paper in an envelope and addressed it to Arch, chuckling as he visualized his old friend’s reaction. Though suspicious, his old friend would be unable to resist heating it over a lightbulb, and when he found it blank, Arch would lie awake all night plotting revenge.

The next day Qwilleran walked downtown to buy a New York Times and stopped at the design studio, a good place to get a cup of coffee and the latest news. Fran was back in town, he learned, but was taking a day off.

Her assistant was trying hard to be her boss’s clone –in dress, manner, and hairstyle. But she was more talkative. Her name was Lucinda Holmes. She had a boyfriend named Dr Watson, she said with a giggle. He was a vet at the Whinny Hills Animal Clinic. They took care of her thoroughbred gelding and two English foxhounds. She loved riding to hounds. The clinic used to be the Thackeray clinic. It had changed a lot. It was very sad. Dr Thackeray was killed in an accident. There were rumors that it was suicide, or even murder.

Qwilleran asked, “Was he related to Fran’s client?”

“He was her twin brother. She’s a very interesting person. Fran took me out there on her first trip. We had to here, and floor plans have to be established before the moving men get here.”

“So you’re from Lockmaster! What brought you to Pickax?”

“I studied design at the Harrington School in Chicago and worked in Lockmaster for a while, but I wasn’t learning anything. With Fran I learn how to present ideas to clients, how to listen to their own ideas, how to change their minds without offending them—”

A bell tinkled on the front door. Qwilleran drained his coffee cup and left Lucinda to practice her new skills on a client.

Back at the barn a red light was flashing on the answering machine, although Koko paid no attention to it. He had a way of screening calls and making a catty fuss when he deemed one important.

This one was from Fran Brodie, speaking in a throatily teasing way: “If you’ll invite me over for a drink, I'll tell you all about Thelma Thackeray, but don’t invite me to dinner; I'm dining with Dutch at the Palomino Paddock. I hope you know how to mix a margarita. Just phone and leave a message: yes or no.”

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. Of course he could mix a margarita — or anything else in the book. He had earned his way through college by tending bar.

He said to Yum Yum: “Guess who’s coming over for a drink!” The fur on her neck was standing on end; she had recognized the voice on the machine.

Chapter 4

The Qwilleran System of Weights and Measures was the topic of his next ‘Qwill Pen’ column. He wrote:

How far is it to the nearest gas station? ‘Just a hop, skip, and a jump.”

Where is the motel? ‘Down the road a piece’. Would you like more coffee? ‘Just a splash’. How about a drink of Scotch? ‘A wee dram’. How much hot sauce did you put in this soup?

‘Not much. Just a kachug’.

How much longer do I have to wait to see the doctor? ‘He’ll be with you in a jiffy’.

How fast can you sew a button on? ‘In two shakes of a lamb’s tail’.

How much do you love me? ‘A whole bunch!’

When Qwilleran filed his copy with the managing editor, he said, “I owe you one, Junior; there really is a Thelma Thackeray. I'll take you to lunch at Rennie’s.”

“Super! I'm hungry!... Sit down. Be with you in a sec.” The editor rushed from the office with proof sheets.

While pondering the difference between a sec and a jiffy, Qwilleran noticed a proof of the editorial page, with a letter from a reader who aired her views, forcefully and entertainingly.

TO THE EDITOR—My family attended the last open meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, so that my daughters could see how government works. The issue being addressed was the important one of zoning. May I respectfully inquire what language our esteemed board members were speaking? It sounded like Jabberwocky in Through the Looking-Glass— "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” We were not alone. Others in the audience, equally bewildered, gathered on the courthouse steps after the meeting and proposed a message to our elected officials: “All mimsy were the borogoves.”

Mavis Adams

HBB&A

Junior returned, ready for a free lunch at his friend’s expense, and they went to Rennie’s coffee shop at the Mackintosh Inn. It was named for Charles Rennie Mackintosh and inspired by one of his tearooms in Glasgow: tables lacquered in bright blue and bright green, chairs with unusually high backs, napkins striped in black and white.