Frederik was too distracted to answer, heart racing. He’d spent sixty-something days under the radar. And while he was under the radar, staying out of conversations, feigning everything as normal, he had missed an epidemic of zombie rumors—a contagious epidemic that could be traced directly to him!
“You’re not a fan of this Dahl Dalby kid?” Father asked.
“He’s a bully. He’s mean.”
“Like father, like son. His dad’s always pointing the finger at someone for something they didn’t do. The mayor takes him seriously too. You feeling all right? You look a bit off.”
“Not feeling great, no.”
“Have a lie-down.”
“I think I should.”
“I think you should.”
Frederik wandered, listless and queasy, out of the office and up the stairs.
Father called after him, “Who will the evil Dahl Dalbys blame for this zombie malarkey, I wonder?”
“I wonder,” Frederik echoed, chilled to the stomach and heading to his room to hide.
Chapter 3
Pa-pah
Early next morning, Frederik slipped along the front of the upholsterer’s shop and pressed his nose to the dew on the glass. Should he knock?
Over his shoulder, across the street, café proprietor Gretchen Grondal was outside her café with a notebook and pencil, watching anything and anyone that moved. That was bad. Very bad. He’d stayed out of her sight for weeks, ever since the chaos at the zoo. Miss Grondal had been a principal casualty, knocked out cold for more than a day. That hadn’t been their fault either, but Miss Grondal was unlikely to care. She could identify Frederik and Pernille. Name them. Blame them.
Nevertheless, he had to risk being seen. Had to reach Pernille. If the Dahl Dalbys talked, they’d be named and blamed for sure. He knocked on the glass. Knocked loud.
The shop was a ramshackle building in salmon-pink plaster, a tile roof folded over the upstairs like an enormous, sat-upon hat. He had never been inside. The ground floor was split by a passageway leading to a courtyard behind. To its left was a showroom, tidy and refined. A sofa in pink-and-white stripes sat proudly in the window, books of fabrics on a table, everything in its place. To the right of the passageway, anarchy. Three chaotic workshops opened onto one another. Furniture and tools and pieces of wood and fabric everywhere.
A shadow appeared at the back of the workshop. A tall figure at the foot of narrow stairs. But not Pernille: a long, lean, fully grown man. The man flapped a hand in irritation, waving Frederik away.
Frederik knocked again, mouthing a plea.
The man shook his head and motioned him away again.
Frederik dared a third time. The man strode across the unlit workshop, angrily rattled the bolts, and tugged the door open. He was bearded and blond. He seemed a hundred feet tall.
“Shut!” he shouted, despite being very nearby indeed.
Frederik was forced to step back and look up.
“Sunday!” the man insisted. “We are shut!”
“Yes,” said Frederik, collecting himself. “The thing is—”
“Shut! Tell your mother we are shut!”
“My mother?”
“Closed!”
“Why my mother?”
“Whoever sent you. Who sent you?”
“Nobody sent me.”
“Nobody sent you?” The giant man seemed all the more outraged. “Nobody?”
“I came of my own accord,” said Frederik, his courage collapsing.
“On a Sunday? A boy?” The man stepped clean out of the door and forced Frederik toward the bicycle lane. A boy could be killed in the bicycle lane. Those cyclists stopped for no one. Straying into a bicycle lane was suicide. Forcing a boy into one was attempted murder! The attempted murderer looked clear over Frederik’s head and gave a little wave. Frederik turned to see Miss Grondal staring, as severe as ever.
“What,” the attempted murderer demanded, “could a boy of… What are you, anyway? Eleven or something? What could a boy of eleven or something possibly need of his own accord on a Sunday? Rip your mother’s sofa, did you? Need an urgent repair before she gets home? Hmm?”
“No. I’m here to see Pernille.”
“Pernille?” said the man.
“Pernille. A girl. Tall. White hair. She lives here, I believe. Somewhere. Upstairs. I’m not really sure.”
“You’re here to see Pernille? Of your own accord?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a boy.” The man doubled forward and thrust his face uncomfortably close. “A boy!”
“That is correct, yes. Would you happen to know where I could find her?”
“Depends,” said the man. He put his hands in his pockets. He gazed toward the café and attempted to smooth his tufty hair with a giant hand.
“What might it depend on, please?” Frederik asked.
The man rubbed his beard. “Screening.”
“Screening?”
“The girl in question,” the man said, “is my adopted daughter. I am her adoptive papa.” He pronounced it as she would: Pa-pah. “Her lawful guardian. It is my job to guard her.” He regarded Frederik closely. He had long, fair eyelashes and deep blue eyes. “Are you selling something?”
“No,” said Frederik.
“Are you buying something?”
“No.”
“Are you hoping to ask her out on a date?”
“No! No, no.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with her?”
There were a great many things wrong with her, but it didn’t seem the moment to say so. Frederik considered going home. But nonexistent zombies had raised their undead heads, and he needed to warn Pernille.
“I just want to tell her something. Is she home?”
“Come with me.” And Frederik was grabbed by the collar and hauled rather roughly up the step into the gloom of the workshop.
There was a workbench with a settee on it. Enormous pins in rows in the fabric. Drills and staple guns hanging from nails in the wall. Cans piled on racks, scissors and hammers and chisels and pliers, glues in pots, yarns in knots. An army of bobbins pinned to a board, threads of every color. Scraps of fabric everywhere, in piles, all over the floor. Sewing machines and rulers and tape measures, things on hooks, things on chairs, chairs on top of other chairs, and barely room to move.
Pernille’s papa strode to the foot of the narrow staircase. “Pernille?” he yelled.
There was no reply.
“Pernille?”
Nothing happened.
“Perhaps,” said Frederik, edging toward the door, “I chose a bad moment.”
“Oh yes,” said her papa. “Without a doubt.”
“Oh. Perhaps I should come back at a more convenient time?”
“She’s thirteen,” her papa explained. “You would need to wait approximately seven years for a convenient time. Pernille?” he yelled again. “A young man is here. He wishes to tell you something.”
Somewhere overhead, a floorboard creaked. Somewhere up the stairs, a light turned on.
“A young man with flowers,” her papa called out. “Roses. Red.”
Roses? Frederik had not brought roses. Should he have brought roses? He wasn’t sure. He had never called on her before. Or anyone else, come to that.
“Go away!” Shrill defiance from somewhere up those stairs. “Leave me alone!”
“Better put them in water. They’ll wilt.”
This was going entirely wrong. Frederik turned to leave, but not in time. With a huff and a flounce, Pernille appeared in the stairwell.
“Which young man?” she demanded to know. “What roses?”
“This young man.”
She stepped into the workshop. “Little muffin!” she said. “What a lovely surprise. Where are
my flowers?”
Frederik looked at Pernille’s papa. Pernille’s papa looked at Frederik, frowned, and said, “Yes, young man. Where are my daughter’s flowers?”
Frederik’s mouth opened and closed, somewhat like a haddock.
Pernille scowled and swiped at her papa’s arm, extremely hard. He barely seemed to notice. “There are no flowers,” she exclaimed. “You horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible man.” And she punctuated each horrible with a punch to her lawful guardian’s bicep.
“No,” Frederik said. “I just came to see you about, you know, the zombies.”
“The what?” said her papa.
Frederik tried to signal to Pernille with his eyes. “Could we just speak in private for a moment?”
“Certainly not,” said her papa. “Not without a guardian guarding.”
Pernille sighed.
Her papa scratched his head and peered out the huge front window. “Let’s head across the street to Café Grondal and chat over brunch among the borough’s elite. What do you think? Are we too shabby?”
“Without doubt,” said Pernille.
“Perfect. That’ll get right up their snooty noses, I expect.”
“We can’t go over there,” said Frederik, panicking. “Miss Grondal was at the zoo! With the mayor!”
Pernille’s papa gave a hearty laugh. “I heard that story.”
“You heard?”
“Not from me,” Pernille assured him hurriedly.
“I heard it from Miss Grondal herself. From the horse’s mouth. Would we describe her as a horse? Graceful and equine? Maybe not. More like a funny, fussy bird.”
“Or a vulture,” Frederik said.
“That’s unkind.” The upholsterer frowned. “Miss Grondal can seem stern, but I don’t buy it. Underneath, there’s a fluffy little chickadee yearning to fly free.”
Pernille glared at him. “Have you been flirting with her? I told you not to flirt with her. She’s mean and spiteful.”
“Fluffy,” he told her. “Chickadee. Underneath. She and I have an understanding. I buy coffee, lend an ear. She tells me things—who’s in the market for furniture, who needs a repair. She refers her customers to me, and I send mine to her. That’s business, how the world goes around. And sometimes there are, you know, little confidences.”
Pernille gasped, appalled. “Such as?”
“Well, her zoo story, for starters. Miss Grondal, it seems, one evening not long ago, went to the zoo. Some society event. Bigwigs, hobnobbing. She remembers arriving, taking a seat, and having a glass of wine.”
“And then?” Frederik was cold all over. Was their secret out?
“And then she woke up at home in an armchair, still in her fancy clothes, at dawn. But it wasn’t the next morning. It was the day after that! And she has no memory of anything in between. Absolute blank. Must have been a big glass of wine.”
Frederik blinked. Twice. “She has no memory at all?”
“On my honor as a member of the Royal Order of Upholsterers.”
“Are you a member?” Pernille checked.
“More or less.” He gazed out across the street. “Come on,” he said. “Coffee. Can’t function without it. Miss Grondal’s fault. She’s got me hooked.”
“No, no,” said Frederik. “Let’s stay here. I only need a minute.”
“I think we can risk it,” Pernille said. “Sounds like Miss Grondal has a case of amnesia.”
“No. Wait.”
But no one was waiting. Pernille’s papa was out the door and heading briskly away. Pernille followed.
“Wait!” he called after her. “We can’t go there! We’ll be recognized.”
“Don’t worry,” her papa called back. “There’s no one at Café Grondal who’d have any interest in you.”
Chapter 4
A Vulture
“Come back,” he attempted, but was drowned out by traffic. Pernille and her papa were already across the street, almost at the café. And in the doorway, watching them come, stood Gretchen Grondal. Face pinched. Hair swept back in the strictest knot. Apron, notepad, pencil. Ready to record the slightest infraction. She had seen Frederik. She looked directly at him. Had she recognized him? Did she remember? Surely she couldn’t possibly have forgotten the night at the zoo?
There was a row of tables outside the café’s front window. Well-dressed adults sipped coffee piled high with cream. Pernille and her papa helped themselves to a table. Frederik came puffing up to them. “Pernille! We shouldn’t be here.”
“Nonsense,” said her papa. “We are as entitled to be here as any of these hoity-toity townsfolk.” He said it loud enough for all of them to hear and flashed a winning smile at a lady in a shawl at a nearby table. “Now,” he announced, fixing his attention on Frederik. “What is this fabulous secret you need to tell us?”
Frederik could hardly breathe. This was such a bad idea. Gretchen Grondal was heading their way, sizing them up with mean little eyes, extending her talons.
“Miss Grondal!” Pernille’s papa exclaimed. “You are more radiant than the morning sun this Sunday. Did you get your hair done?”
“No,” she said, startled.
“Excellent!” And he smiled with roughly one hundred gleaming teeth. “Such striking eyes you have. Aquamarine. I have a ream of fabric exactly that shade. I’m saving it for the right someone.”
Miss Grondal’s eyes opened wider. They were watery gray, not aquamarine at all. They narrowed again with suspicion. “Would you care to order?”
“Coffee!” Pernille’s papa demanded. “Enormous! Frothy and fantastic.” He leaned toward her. “You know how I like it.”
Miss Grondal’s eyes swept Frederik’s way. Locked on his. He held his breath and tried to shrink into his collar. Her forehead creased. “Do I know you?” she said.
“No,” he croaked.
There was a long silence. Miss Grondal seemed to wrestle with a thought, and then to shake it off. Frederik’s heartbeat thundered in his throat.
“Something to eat or drink?”
“Me?” he said. “No, thank you. No, I ought to be going, in fact.”
“Sit down!” Pernille’s papa pressed Frederik into the seat. “Have something now that you’re here. Milk? Pop? Cake?”
“Ooh, cake,” Pernille said, and Miss Grondal pivoted to her. Again, there was a spark of recognition that faded into confusion.
“Milk!” said Frederik, anxious to distract her. “No! Changed my mind. Cake.” And all eyes were on him again.
“Cake.” Miss Grondal scratched a note. Her every gesture was spiteful.
“Make it three,” said Pernille’s papa, oblivious. “Walnut. On one of those plates. With the lacy doily.” And he winked at Miss Grondal.
“Stop it!” Pernille hissed as Miss Grondal stalked away. “You’re flirting. With the enemy!”
“Flirting? Me?”
“Flirting!”
He stretched back in his chair, and his long legs rocked the table. “What makes poor Gretchen anyone’s enemy? She makes me coffee. Extremely good coffee. Foamy. Great big piles of creamy foam on it. Wonderful.”
“She’s in cahoots with the mayor,” Frederik told him. “She’s the official caterer for the mayor’s Midsummer Festival!” And he opened his eyes wide to signal just how serious that was.
Pernille’s papa, unaware of the mayor’s misdeeds like almost everyone, didn’t get it. “Well, that’s nice, then.” He settled his hands behind his head and basked in what little sunshine filtered through the clouds. He glanced sideways at Pernille. “She’d make a fine mama, don’t you think?”
Pernille nearly popped. “What? No! Gretchen Grondal? Are you out of your mind?”
Her papa shrugged. “You keep saying you want me to find you a mama.”
“Not just any mama,” she
wailed. “My mama. My real mama!”
“We don’t know who she was. I’ve told you that.”
The upholsterer had adopted Pernille long ago. She remembered nothing about it. No details of her birth parents were known, but she had a burning urge to find them—her mother in particular. For years, she had believed her to be Her Ladyship the Mayor—a sad mistake the mayor had cruelly crushed when they finally met.
“Miss Grondal!” the upholsterer declared. “You’re back already. Is that my coffee? I do declare it’s frothier than ever. It is your personal best. A world record. It is a monument in froth. An artwork. And you, mademoiselle, are a world champion foamy froth artiste.”
Pernille clutched her head in her hands and groaned out loud.
The cup was placed before the upholsterer, with its mound of trembling foam. He caught Miss Grondal’s cuff and said, “I hear you’re to be the caterer for the mayor’s Midsummer Festival. How prestigious! Tell me how you landed such a commission. Did you dazzle? Were you magnificent?”
Frederik’s throat constricted completely. She’d won the commission that night at the zoo, and that was the very last thing they wanted her to think about.
“Well,” Miss Grondal said, and her face clouded. “To tell you the truth, I can’t entirely remember.”
“You can’t?” Frederik said.
She reddened. “It is official! I received a letter of confirmation. I signed a contract.”
“Quite right,” said Pernille’s papa.
“But I don’t recall exactly how I won it.” She bent her head closer to the upholsterer and lowered her voice. “I think it was that evening. The one I told you about.”
“Was it? The evening that slipped away? I see. Well, the deal is done, it seems, and you will be the toast of the town, no matter how it happened.”
“Indeed I will.”
A slice of walnut cake slid in front of Frederik, but he had no appetite at all, with Gretchen Grondal so close he could smell her sour lavender scent and with the night they dare not mention under discussion.
“I shall have to dress better when I call in the future,” the upholsterer said.
Frederik Sandwich and the Mayor Who Lost Her Marbles Page 3
