The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus (12 page)

Just about every week one of my aunts writes to me. Sometimes it’s Aunt Veronica, who tells me where her circus is and what’s been happening there. These letters are very exciting. A few weeks ago, she wrote that one of the trapeze artists had fallen off the trapeze while swinging to and fro at the very top of the tent. Fortunately for him, he landed right in the middle of a trampoline that had been set up for the next act, and he bounced right back up to the trapeze again, the right way up. So it all had a happy ending.

Sometimes I get a letter from Aunt Harmonica, who gives me all the news from the
opera house, where she is the official voice-thrower. Her last letter was very funny.

“We’ve just had a terrible emergency,” she said. “Halfway through a piece of music, the man who plays the tuba in the orchestra got a terrible attack of hiccups. You can imagine what it sounds like if you hiccup while you’re trying to play a great big instrument like the tuba. He couldn’t go on. So I had to crawl down into the orchestra pit in front of the stage and make a sound like a tuba for the rest of the piece. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, and I don’t think anybody in the audience realized what was going on!”

But the letters I most like getting are from my Aunt Thessalonika and Aunt Japonica. They write their letters together, and you never know which words have been written by which aunt! The only time you can tell is when they use different colored pens. It’s very easy then.

Their letters are full of the details of their latest case and can make quite scary reading. They often get into all kinds of trouble, but
they always seem to get out of it at the end. Last week they had to hide under the bed of a very dangerous criminal when he suddenly returned home while they were searching his house for jewels he had stolen.

“When we heard him at the door,” wrote Aunt Thessalonika, “we had to find somewhere to hide. And the only place was right under his bed! So we slid under it and lay there, hoping that he’d go out again soon.

“Unfortunately, he did not go out. Instead, he came straight into the bedroom, changed into his pajamas, and went to bed! You can imagine how we felt. He was quite heavy, and the bed sagged, squashing us. At one point, your Aunt Japonica wanted to sneeze, and was only prevented from doing this by your Aunt Thessalonika holding firmly onto her nose.

“At last we heard snoring from above, and we started to crawl out. I’m sorry to say, though, that we found ourselves stuck, and the only way we could get out of the house was to make our way out with the bed still on
top of us. So we did that, on our hands and knees, with the bed on our backs. And that is how we were when we met the policeman in the street outside.

“At first he accused us of stealing the bed, but when he saw who was tucked up inside it, still fast asleep, he changed his mind.

“ ‘We’ve been looking for him for a long time!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank you very much!’

“So we carried the bed all the way down to the police station—with a little bit of help from the policeman, of course—and set it down there.

“You can imagine the surprise the jewel thief had when he woke up and saw where he was. He was not pleased!”

There had been many other letters like that, and I could hardly wait to see my two detective aunts again. We had had so much fun solving the mystery of the League of Cheats together, and I hoped they would soon invite me to help them out with another one of their cases.

I had a long wait, but at last it came. It
arrived one Saturday morning, a letter from Aunt Thessalonika and Aunt Japonica, inviting me to come with them on what they called a “little trip.”

“We are going to America,” they wrote. “Would you like to come? That is, of course, if you are free and have nothing better to do.”

I could hardly contain my excitement, and I showed the letter to my father. As usual, he hardly paid it any attention, as his mind was on one of his ridiculous inventions. He was trying to invent a portable bath for people who go camping. It was a very strange invention. You got into something that looked like a large waterproof sack. Then you zipped it all the way up to your neck, connected it to a tap with a hose, and turned the water on. After that, you jumped up and down and the water went all over you. There was a plug down at the bottom.

When I showed him the letter, he was testing the plug, which did not seem to be working very well.

“A letter from those aunts of yours?” he
said absentmindedly. “Asking you to go on a little trip? How nice. Well, of course you must go.”

“It’s all the way to America,” I explained, worried that he would object to my going so far.

“America?” he said. “Would you be able to get something for me there? You see, I need a special kind of plug. It’s bigger than this one, and it has an odd, slidy bit right here. They make them only in America. Could you pick one up for me?”

I was delighted, and I promised to get the plug. I wrote back to my aunts immediately and said that I would love to go with them to America and that my father had agreed to take me to the airport the following Saturday, which just happened to be the beginning of school vacation.

My aunts wrote back the next day.

“We’ll see you at the airport,” they said. “But you may not see us. Don’t worry, though. We’ll send you your ticket and you
can just get on the plane. We’ll see you sooner or later.”

“Sounds very odd,” said my father when he read the letter. “But those two aunts of yours have always been a bit strange, if you ask me. I’m not so sure if going off to America is such a good idea after all.”

“But what about the plug?” I said quickly.

“Ah yes,” he said. “The plug. Well, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea after all, but please be careful. Those two aunts get into all kinds of trouble, so keep a close eye on them.”

“I will,” I promised. “Don’t you worry about that!”

I found myself counting the days until it was time to leave for America. Time dragged by slowly, but at last the day of departure came and there I was, my suitcase in my hand, standing in front of the airline desk. My father said good-bye and left me with one of the airline staff. She took my ticket and showed me where I could wait until it was time for the plane to leave.

I looked around the waiting room. There seemed to be hundreds of people milling around, all waiting to get on the plane. I expected to see my aunts, but there was no sign of them. Perhaps they would be the last to
arrive and would board the plane just before the doors were closed.

After an hour or so, I still had not seen my aunts, and by now it was time for everybody to get on board. I was starting to get nervous, but I remembered what they had said in the letter and decided that I should do as they told me.

We all got on the plane and found our seats. It was a very full flight, and every seat seemed to be taken. Yet still there was no sign of my aunts. By now I was beginning to think that they had missed the plane after all. Perhaps their bus had broken down on the way to the airport, or perhaps they had even gotten on the wrong plane. I had heard of that happening before. People got on the wrong plane and ended up in the wrong corner of the world. Then a terrible thought came to me: perhaps I was on the wrong plane myself! Perhaps I would find myself in Bombay or Buenos Aires, or even Bulawayo! What would I do then?

It was too late. The doors of the plane had been slammed shut and the big engines started. Slowly we taxied out onto the runway, and then with a throaty roar the plane set off on its journey. Within seconds, we were in the air and headed up into the clouds. We were on our way.

Once we were airborne, I decided that I should stop worrying and enjoy the trip. I sat back in my seat and looked out the window. I was admiring the view, thinking how nice it would be to bounce up and down on top of the clouds below us, when there was a tap on my shoulder.

I looked around to see one of the stewardesses smiling at me.

“Would you like some orange juice?” she asked. “Or perhaps something to eat?”

I asked for orange juice, and the stewardess smiled and went off to get it. As she did so, a very strange feeling came over me. I had seen that stewardess before somewhere;
I was sure of it. But I had never been on a plane before, and so I wondered how I could possibly know her.

I was thinking about this, feeling very puzzled, when the stewardess came back and handed me a large cup of orange juice.

“I hope you enjoy that, Harriet,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sure I will …”

I stopped. She had called me Harriet. Yet how could she possibly know who I was?

I was about to ask, but she had already turned her back to me and was busy taking care of another passenger. I would have to wait and ask her when she walked past me again. I could find out her name and ask her where we had met before.

A few minutes later she came by.

“Excuse me,” I said, reaching out to touch the sleeve of her jacket. “Could you tell me—”

I did not have time to finish my question. The stewardess had turned to me and bent down to whisper in my ear.

“Can’t you see?” she whispered. “I’m your aunt Thessalonika!”

I was speechless. I looked at her closely and realized that it was true. Aunt Thessalonika was very well disguised, but it was clearly her. No wonder I had thought we had seen each other before! Of course I was relieved that I was not alone on the plane after all, but at the same time I wondered what on earth she was doing disguised as a stewardess. And where was Aunt Japonica? Was she disguised as one of the other passengers? Was that fat man sitting in the row in front of me really an aunt with a pillow stuffed into her pants? Nothing would surprise me with these aunts.

My question was soon answered—or almost answered. Several minutes later, walking down the aisle of the plane in a smart blue uniform, his cap under his arm, greeting the passengers, came the captain of the plane. Or was it? As he walked past my row of seats, he paused and smiled in my direction.

I looked up, unsure what to do. There was something familiar about him, although I couldn’t decide what it was. Was it something
in his eyes? Or something in the way he walked? It was difficult to tell, but I had a very strong suspicion that the captain was none other than my aunt Japonica, heavily disguised of course, but nonetheless my aunt!

I must admit that I felt a little bit worried for the rest of the flight. I knew that my aunts were extraordinarily good at disguises, and I knew that there was nobody better at mind reading than they were. But flying a plane was a very special job, and even Aunt Japonica might find it a bit difficult.

I did not have the chance to ask. Aunt Thessalonika was far too busy looking after the passengers to talk to me, and I never saw the captain again. But we landed safely, I’m happy to say, and soon I found myself getting off the plane in New York and stepping for the first time onto American soil.

I collected my suitcase and waited at the exit. I did not have long to wait, as down the corridor came my two aunts, dressed as themselves and chatting excitedly.

“Were you…,” I began to ask Aunt
Japonica. “I mean, did you really fly the plane?”

Aunt Japonica looked surprised.

“Fly a plane? My goodness me, Harriet! I don’t think I could do that!”

“But where were you?” I asked.

My aunts looked at each other and smiled.

“Later on, Harriet,” they said. “We’ll discuss all that later on. The important thing is that we’ve arrived in America and there are lots and lots of exciting things for us to do!”

I was very excited by America. Everything around me seemed so big and bright, and everybody, everywhere, seemed to be in such a rush. We rushed too, driving in a long yellow taxi to a hotel that my aunts had chosen in advance. Then, in the hotel, we stepped into an elevator and went shooting up to the thirty-ninth floor.

There was a marvelous view from the window of our room. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, there stretched the great city. Tall buildings stuck up like giant pencils, and way down below us in the street, we could make out tiny cars and minute, antlike people.

I was very tired from the long flight and so I went to bed almost right away But just before I did, a waiter brought up a tray with a hamburger, a bowl of banana ice cream, and a large tub of popcorn.

“Junk food!” he called out cheerfully. “A whole delicious trayful!”

I eagerly ate my first meal in America and then, feeling perfectly contented, drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika took me down to breakfast on the fifteenth floor.

“We must move on today,” said Aunt Japonica. “We’ve got a lot to do in America.”

“You’re right,” agreed Aunt Thessalonika. “There’s no time to lose.”

I was not sure what it was that we were supposed to be doing. My aunts had told me nothing about why they had come to America. The reason was bound to be exciting, though. Nothing in their lives was the slightest bit dull.

“Where are we going?” I asked. I really liked New York—what I had seen of it—and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to move on.

“West,” Aunt Japonica said simply. “We’re going west.”

That sounded intriguing, but I still wasn’t sure what we were going to do.

“Why are we going west?” I asked. “Do you have a case out there?”

Both aunts looked at me in a very surprised way.

“But surely you know why we’re here, Harriet?” Aunt Japonica said. “Didn’t we tell you about your aunt Formica?”

For a moment I was too astonished to say anything at all. Aunt Formica? Did I have yet another aunt? I thought that I had found them all by now, but here we were going off to see somebody called Aunt Formica. It was all very puzzling.

Aunt Japonica stared at me a few seconds longer and then shook her head.

“It’s all your father’s fault,” she said with a sigh. “He never seems to tell you anything.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Thessalonika. “To think that poor Harriet never heard of Formica. It really is too bad!”