Frederik’s head was a blur now. He couldn’t think what to do. He couldn’t stop her. Not without making a scene. And while he was failing to think of a way, Gretchen Grondal was digging into the sugar with silver tongs.
“Oops,” Pernille said.
A young couple sat at the next table along. Good looking, nicely dressed. They were holding hands across the tablecloth, gazing into each other’s eyes, giggling. Miss Grondal murmured a quiet “excuse me,” and transferred a pile of sugar cubes into the bowl on the couple’s table. They didn’t even look up.
Frederik’s throat became alarmingly dry. He took a large gulp of water and it didn’t help.
Two middle-aged couples at the next table along. Four cappuccinos. Miss Grondal placed two sugar cubes on each saucer. Plink plink. Plink plink.
The table after that was a chaos of dirty plates and scraps of food and plastic bricks. Two toddlers throwing crusts. Two parents trying to control them and argue with one another simultaneously. A selection of sugar cubes dropped into their bowl. Plink, plink, plink.
Pernille was watching, wide-eyed. The beginnings of a smile. Frederik was in a cold sweat. This wasn’t the plan. The sugar was meant for Miss Grondal. No one else.
“What’s unfolding?” the upholsterer inquired. “You’re like a couple of clocks, wound up and ready to cuckoo.”
“No, we’re not.”
He smiled slightly. “You don’t fool me. Something mischievous, I’ll bet. Don’t get caught, will you?”
“I don’t think we will,” Pernille said. “I have a feeling priorities are about to change.”
Two elderly women in their Sunday best were tackling enormous slices of gâteau. “Thank you!” they told Miss Grondal as their sugar arrived.
“Our finest crystal organic,” Miss Grondal assured them.
The elderly ladies’ eyes twinkled. “Goodness!” said one. She picked up a cube and popped it into her mouth with a wicked smile. “Come along, Mildred. If you don’t grab that next one, I’ll eat it myself.”
Her companion placed a cube on the tip of her tongue, murmuring approval. Frederik held his breath. Waited for the retching.
Nothing happened.
All along the row of tables, customers were picking up sugar cubes and dropping them into their drinks. Some absentmindedly, midconversation. Others deliberately, savoring the moment. None were grimacing. None vomiting. Miss Grondal carried on, almost all the tables resupplied.
“It’s the wrong sugar,” Frederik said, realizing. “I must have picked the wrong bag. It’s sugar. Straight sugar. Harmless sugar!” He didn’t know whether to be exasperated or relieved.
And then, at the very far end of the long café window, a man leapt to his feet. A belligerent man with a balding head. He was staring right at Frederik and Pernille. “Hey!” he called out.
“Oh no,” said Frederik.
The man made directly for them. He reached out a hand. How had he known?
But at the very last moment, the man came to a halt at the table next to Frederik’s and completely ignored him, ignored Pernille, ignored Pernille’s papa. “Someone call a doctor,” he was saying.
“Oh,” said Frederik. “Uh-oh.”
The nicely dressed young couple were sprawled across their tabletop, eyes closed, mouths open, still holding hands. And unconscious.
The middle-aged cappuccino couples were hurrying to help. One of the women wobbled, as though an imperceptible earthquake had passed underneath. She grabbed the edge of the table, wobbled again, and sat down rather abruptly on the sidewalk, looking confused.
“What is it, darling?” her husband asked. And then his eyes glazed, his head lolled, and over he went, on top of her, out cold.
Gretchen Grondal dropped the rest of the sugar cubes on the final table, gasping, a hand to her chest. The people at that table, blazers and dresses, snooty and solemn, picked them up, put them in their mouths, and sucked while they watched.
One of the toddlers mashed a slice of buttered bread on the other’s head. He did not get in trouble for this. The bread was not whipped away by an irate parent. Because both parents were taking an afternoon snooze, their chins skyward, drool dribbling down their chins.
“It’s not the regular sugar,” Pernille said. “It’s the sedative.”
“What is happening?” Miss Grondal yelped. She bustled down the sidewalk, veins sticking out of her neck like elastic.
A bus trundled by, passengers gawking from the window at the well-to-do of Frederik’s Hill, who were wandering dazed and slumped unconscious outside the official café of Her Ladyship’s International Midsummer Festival.
Miss Grondal had turned an interesting shade of purple, fully aware that something was very wrong. Something likely to interfere with her chances of catering to the queen. She stared at her snoozing clientele, rubbing her forehead and frowning, as though trying to remember something vital.
Frederik grabbed Pernille’s arm and got to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Pernille stood slowly. “Yes,” she said. “Come on, Papa. We mustn’t get in the way.” And she smiled. She sauntered. Frederik could tell she was greatly enjoying sauntering. She sauntered by a table or two, sauntered close to Miss Grondal. “Sweet dreams,” she said, and she peeled away to cross the street.
Miss Grondal’s eyebrows rocketed to the very top of her forehead. “Did you have something to do with this?”
“Of course not,” said Pernille. “How could we? We’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Wait.” Miss Grondal stared long and hard at the collapsed and unconscious outside the café. “This is familiar,” she muttered. “This rings a bell.”
“I assure you it doesn’t,” Pernille replied. “I’m simply relieved that we are thus far unaffected by whatever sickness has befallen these poor folk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to call the health inspectors at Municipal Hall.”
“No!” Miss Grondal yelped. “This wasn’t my fault.”
“Tell that to the mayor.” Pernille smiled. “Make it a priority.” And they hurried across the street, got honked at by a car and abused by high-speed cyclists, Pernille’s white hair bouncing in the sunshine.
Chapter 11
Mission Accomplished
People in fluorescent-yellow jackets were hurrying back and forth outside the café. A number of ambulances were parked at impressive diagonals, blue lights spinning. Frederik, Pernille, and her papa watched from the shadows at the back of the workshop.
“So did you?” the upholsterer asked.
“Did we what?” Pernille said.
“Have something to do with all this?”
“No,” she said.
“No,” said Frederik.
“Not entirely,” she added. “I can confidently say this wasn’t our plan.”
Her papa looked down on them both from his considerable height. “I would hope not. It appears to be rather serious.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she replied. “Not serious. Not really.”
“Should be fine,” said Frederik. “All being well. In a few hours.”
“And how would you two know that?”
They shifted uneasily, nothing to say.
One of the café customers was sleeping on his side on a stretcher, sucking his thumb. A paramedic rolled him to the back of an ambulance. Pried his eyelids apart and shined a flashlight into the gap.
Three identical green vans slunk along the street in a convoy and came to a halt on the corner. A small crest on the side of each. Borough of Frederik’s Hill. Doors opened.
“Spacemen!” said Pernille.
Sci-fi figures encased from face to foot in protective biohazard suits were trying to get out of the vans. It was most ungainly. One of them tripped. It appeared they had not had very much practice. The
rear doors of the vans opened too, and now there were nine of them, loping slowly across the street as though in reduced gravity. Stout, white briefcases were gripped in their white-gloved hands.
The ambulance crews moved the sleeping customers out of their way. Plastic bags were produced from giant pockets. Cups and plates and silverware were plucked from Gretchen Grondal’s tables with surgical tongs.
They inspected and photographed and swabbed and sprayed each table in turn. One of them fell over and had to be helped back up. Pernille’s papa roared with delighted laughter. When the surfaces were clear, they picked up the tables themselves and manhandled them awkwardly into the vans.
There was the brief whoop of a siren. A police car slid by the window. It was followed by a long, black car. The long, black car stopped in the street, between the upholstery workshop and the café. The driver got out. He was wearing a cap. He went to the far side, opened the rear door, and stood back, heads lowered and hands folded like an undertaker at a funeral.
The people in biohazard suits stopped swabbing the chairs. The paramedics paused their paramedicing. The back of a head with long, white hair emerged from the long, black car. Long, white hair tied behind in a knot. Narrow shoulders followed, in a serious coat. Her Ladyship the Mayor of Frederik’s Hill.
Pernille tensed at Frederik’s side.
Across the street, everyone watched the mayor. She raised a hand in the air and made a rolling gesture, as though to say, get on with it. The paramedics, police, and biohazard people hurried back to their activities. The mayor stepped imperiously onto the sidewalk.
In the darkened doorway to the café, Gretchen Grondal appeared. Shaken. Sheepish. She could barely look Her Ladyship in the eye.
“This is it,” Frederik whispered.
Bang, bang, bang.
The three of them jumped like startled antelope.
There was a tall silhouette at the workshop door. Hands cupped to the glass, peering in.
“Get down,” hissed Frederik, pulling Pernille behind a disassembled sofa. “It’s Martensen. Or Mortensen. I don’t know which.”
Pernille’s papa stared down at them. “I trust,” he said, “you’re going to explain all this to me later?”
“Later, yes,” Pernille promised. “But get rid of him, would you? Don’t let him see us.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s one of the mayor’s detectives.”
Her papa raised his eyebrows and kept on staring down.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “But nothing bad.”
“Not bad in any way,” Frederik assured him. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Just get rid of him. We’re not here. Never have been. Pretend we’ve never met.”
They crouched and listened in all kinds of terror as the upholsterer’s footsteps echoed across the shop, and the door was unlocked and opened.
“Good afternoon,” they heard the upholsterer say.
“Mr. Jensen, is it, sir?”
“It is. You’re well informed. Can I help?”
“There’s been an incident, sir. Across the street.”
“Oh!” the upholsterer said. “Has there? Then that explains the small fleet of ambulances, the array of unconscious citizens, the nine people in biohazard suits, and the mayor. I’d assumed they just stopped by for tea.”
“Erm,” said the detective, somewhat thrown, “no. Well, yes. Exactly. Anyway. We’re conducting premises-by-premises inquiries to identify material witnesses.”
“Are you?” said the upholsterer with tremendous enthusiasm. “How fantastic.”
“Are you a witness, sir?”
“A witness to what?”
“To the incident, obviously.”
“Is it obvious though?”
“Isn’t it?”
“You tell me.”
“Erm…”
“Or call back later. Take some time to think about it, if you like.”
The detective fell briefly silent. Frederik so wanted to look but didn’t dare. Pernille had lowered her head to the floorboards and was trying to peer out from underneath the sofa.
“The thing is,” the detective braved again, “the proprietor of the Café Grondal, whose name is Miss Grondal—”
“Well, I never. What a coincidence.”
“She tells me you were at the café, sir. This afternoon, shortly before the aforementioned incident.”
“Did she?”
“She did, sir.”
“And?”
“And…were you a witness, sir? To the aforementioned…”
“Incident?” said the upholsterer.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Yes.”
“Yes no, or yes yes?” the detective stumbled.
“Which?”
“I’m a little confused, sir.”
“I see that.” Pernille’s papa allowed himself a chuckle.
Pernille too was giggling silently to herself. She glanced up at Frederik, her eyes glistening. I love him so much, she mouthed.
“Let me explain,” her papa went on. “I was, as you say, at the café, partaking of coffee with mountains of cream, when wouldn’t you know it, people started hollering and passing out all around me. It was mayhem.”
“Mayhem, sir?”
Frederik thought he could hear the scratch of a pen on paper.
“Utter. Absolute. So I grasped the hand of my daughter and the even younger lad she goes about with—can’t remember his name—and I hurried them to safety, as any responsible parent would. They don’t need to see that sort of thing at their age, do they?”
“No, sir. No. I understand. But did you notice any suspicious activity immediately prior to the, as you put it, hollering and passing out?”
“Not at all.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“On my honor as a member of the National Institution of Furniture Repairers.”
“Is there such an institution, sir?”
“Probably.”
“I see. It’s just, well, the mayor, sir.”
“The mayor?”
“She’s very worried. Concerned. Alarmed, even.”
“Is she?”
“She is. So let’s keep this under our hats, sir, shall we?”
“Hats?”
“Keep it quiet. Don’t say anything, sir. Should anyone ask. Forget it happened.”
“If you say so,” the upholsterer said.
“No conversations. No idle chitchat. No phone calls. No emails. No press. In particular, no press.”
“And why is that exactly?”
“There’s an international festival coming soon to Frederik’s Hill, sir. Hadn’t you heard?”
“I’d noticed the banner,” said Pernille’s papa. “That one over there.”
Frederik dared to raise his eyes an inch above the back of the sofa. Pernille’s papa was pointing across the street to the bold letters, four feet high, stretched across the front of the café: Official Caterer to Her Ladyship’s International Midsummer Festival.
“Shoot,” said the detective, whipping his cell phone from his pocket and jamming it to his ear. “Mortensen? It’s Martensen. Get that banner off the front of the café right away.”
Across the street, there were hurried conversations. A pair of biohazard people removed themselves from the evidence gathering and ripped the banner hastily from the wall. A small crowd had gathered to watch since Frederik and Pernille ducked out of sight. Some were snapping pictures with their phones. A man produced a camera with an enormous lens. Martensen peeled away from the workshop door and went running. “Thomas!” he shouted. “Thomas Dahl Dalby! Put that camera away.”
Pernille raised her head, and they watched as the mayor stamped up and down out there, barking orders and wringing her hands. This was far from the calm composure she typically displayed. Two stern officials led Miss Grondal to a waiting car. One of them placed a hand on her head and pushed her into the back seat.
“Mission accomplished?” said Pernille.
“Mission accomplished,” Frederik said.
The upholsterer closed and locked the door. He turned to look at them. He scratched his beard. “As amusing as you seem to find this,” he said, “I do not.”
“No,” said Pernille.
“Sorry,” said Frederik.
“Was this an accident?”
“Yes,” said Pernille.
“Almost entirely,” Frederik added.
“Almost entirely?”
“Yes.”
“But not entirely entirely?”
“Sort of.”
“I see. Well, we shall talk. At length. There will be explanations. Thorough ones.” He was walking steadily toward them, between the benches and half-built chairs. “Yes?”
“Very much so,” Frederik said.
“Of course,” said Pernille.
“Jolly good. I hope very much I shall find this funny later. Once you’ve reassured me there was no deliberate ill intent.”
“Not very much,” Pernille assured him.
“And certainly not this much,” said Frederik.
“Not exactly reassuring,” Pernille’s papa said. “But I suppose that’s a start.”
“Thank you, Papa,” Pernille said. She grabbed his arm and gave him her most dazzling of smiles.
Frederik watched the upholsterer melt in less than an instant. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her tight. “Don’t scare me like that again, do you hear me?”
“We hear you,” she said. “We hear you.”
Chapter 12
The Department of Unwanted Offspring
King Frederik’s Garden Park was awash with color: deep greens, light greens, the purple and red and yellow of flowers, the black and white of the strutting herons. A glorious morning on wonderful Frederik’s Hill.
Frederik Sandwich and the Mayor Who Lost Her Marbles Page 8
