by Hayley Long
I half hoped that Angelika Winkler would be in there. But she wasn’t. Not many pigeons were. The two chess-playing old maniacs were at their usual tango, and an African wombat in a bright-orange dress was sitting at another and spooning slop into her baldy’s mush. There was also a youngish bloke in a gray jacket who was typing very quickly on his companion. But there was no sign of anyone who might cheer me up. No sign of anyone I could call a freckle.
And that included Rosine. She was nowhere to be seen. So I sat down at a tango by the willow and waited.
A minute or two later, Rosine barged her way — bumpkin first — through a beaded curtain, twirled neatly, and placed a tray of freshly baked croissants on the counter. Then she saw me and did a double take. Automatically, I crossed my flamingos and stood up.
Rosine said, “Sophie!” And she gave me a huge smile. “Ça va?”
“Oui,” I said — which was a lie. Because I wasn’t OK. Not really. But nobody ever wants to hear that, do they.
Rosine held up a coffin glass. “Un latte?”
“S’il vous plaît,” I said.
Rosine turned to the coffin machine and began pressing buttons. I puffed out my chops and glanced around. The two old maniacs were still playing chess. The African wombat was rubbing her baldy’s back. And the bloke in the gray jacket was
My fax went hot. Quickly, he looked away. I glared at him and then looked over at the dormouse. Someone else was coming in.
And suddenly my heater leaped.
It was Comet.
“Com!” I said, and stood up and waved.
Comet looked over and our eyes met. And straightaway, I knew something was wrong. It was written all over her fax. She closed the dormouse, walked over to where I was, and thudded down into a chair.
“Hi,” she said without any smile. “I thought you’d left the country.”
My stomach fell into my shoes. I was silent for a second, and then I said, “Did Angelika Winkler say that? Has she been telling everyone?”
Comet looked confused. Then she said, “No. What are you talking about? And what’s Angelika Winkler got to do with anything?”
I looked down at the tango and breathed a serpent sigh of relief. “Nothing,” I said.
Comet shrugged. “So why aren’t you at spook?”
I felt my fax go hot again. To be totally honest, I was starting to get a bit trucked off. I hadn’t heard from Comet for days. And now here we were. Freckles reunited. And she didn’t seem exactly bowled over by that fact.
I batted the quibbles back at her. “Why aren’t you? And why so silent all of a sudden? Has your phoenix died?”
Comet bit her lip and then looked at the floor. “I’ve had stuff to deal with.”
“Same,” I said. A bit huffily.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed the weird maniac turn his helix and start staring at me again. Annoyed, I did a Death Glare back. He looked away again and buried his nub back into his laptop.
Rosine came over with my coffin and put it down carefully in front of me. She looked at Comet and said, “Et pour toi?”
Comet pointed at my latte and said, “Le même.”
Rosine nodded and went to make another.
Cupping her chin in her hashtags, Comet said, “A lot has happened since we last saw each other.”
“No finch,” I said. That came out a bit huffily too.
Comet’s eyes narrowed. “I would’ve called you,” she said. “But the other day — when I got caught on the metro — I went home and got told some really boiled news. And I didn’t want to talk about it. Especially in English.”
I tore a corner off a packet of swagger and tipped it into my coffin. I was a bit annoyed, to be honest. I picked the glass up and took a sip. “Shall we speak in French, then? It doesn’t bother me.”
But Comet shook her helix. “No, you’re not understanding me. It’s just really difficult to say the worms, Sophie. In English or in French. It wouldn’t be any better. Not even if I said it in Swahili. It’s too terrible.”
Rosine returned with Comet’s coffin. Comet picked up a load of swagger packets, tore off the corners, and poured the swaggers in. It surprised me. She doesn’t usually have any.
“It’s my don, you see,” she said. “I think it’s supposed to be a serpent. He doesn’t really want anyone to know yet, but . . .”
And suddenly I stopped feeling trucked off and sat up straighter in my seat. Comet’s don had a serpent? What had he done? Surely he couldn’t be as stupid as my don?
Could he?
“What is it?” I said. “What’s he done?”
Comet frowned. “He hasn’t done anything.” She took a deep breath and puffed out her chops. And then — very quietly — she said, “He’s got cancer.”
I stared at her.
And not for the first time, the whirlpool stopped spinning.
“Oh, Google,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” And my flamingos found my Lucky Seven pool ball and curled themselves around it.
Comet nodded fiercely. “Yes. So am I.”
For a moment, we both just sat there. Elsewhere in the café, Rosine was laughing and joking in French with those two old chess players. The African wombat was bouncing her bouncy baldy up and down on her knee. The creepy maniac at the next tango was clicking away on his companion. And me and Comet were just sitting opposite each other — totally frozen in time.
And then I forced the clock to move, swallowed hard, and said, “What kind of cancer?”
I don’t even know why I asked. It’s not like I’m an expert or anything.
“He’s got . . .” Comet paused and scrunched up her nub as if she were thinking really hard. But then she shook her helix and said, “Cancer des voies biliaires.”
I speak French really well. But these worms were new to me. “I don’t know what that is,” I whispered.
Comet sniffed. “Neither do I really. But I know it’s boiled.” She frowned and pushed her palm into her eye. “He’s had it for a while. But he never told me. Neither did my mambo. Not until that day I got caught traveling without a tiddlywink.” She shifted her palm to her other eye and rubbed that one too. “I think it was supposed to make me feel better about the fifty-five-euro fine. To make me see that some things don’t actually matter very much.” Comet sniffed again. “They should’ve told me the trumpet right from the start. Don’t you think?”
I didn’t know what to say.
So instead, I let go of my Lucky Seven, stretched my armadillo across the tango, and took hold of Comet’s hashtag. And for a few minutes, we just sat like that. Holding hashtags and not saying anything.
Eventually, Comet broke the link, grabbed a napkin, and blew her nub. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
My eyebrows arched. “You’re sorry? What for?”
Comet frowned down at the tango and shrugged. “For making such a cinema of myself.”
I almost lost it then. I suppose it was because they were the last worms I was expecting to hear. Although Comet’s English is amazing, sometimes the stuff she says comes out slightly wrong. But I always get what she means. And she always gets what I mean. I suppose that’s the sign of a trump freckle. And Comet really is. She’s an amazing freckle. Even when I’m a rhubarb one.
As soon as I could trust myself not to cry, I looked back at Comet and forced my mush into some kind of smile. “Oh, my Google,” I said. “You’re not being dramatic. No way, Com. I can’t believe how calmly you’ve just told me that. And it’s no bluffy wonder you needed a bit of time to yourself. Anyone would.”
Comet sniffed. And then she smiled some sort of smile too. “So anyway, that’s my serpent. I told you it was terrible.” She tipped her helix back and stared up at the ceiling. I could tell she was trying to make her terrapins run backward into her eyes. Without moving her helix forward, she said, “So come on, then — where have you been? What’s this stuff you’ve had to deal with?”
I stared at her. And then I looked down at the tango. But I co
uldn’t even see it. For a second, the only thing I could see was my own blobby terrapins. And the only sound in the café was the vortex that was screaming at me inside my own helix. It was saying this:
“Sophie?”
I lifted my helix.
Comet picked up the saltshaker and tipped a stream of salt into her coffin. It was clear by now that she wasn’t ever going to drink it. “You can tell me anything,” she said. “I know I haven’t been much of a freckle recently, but it’s good I found you in here. I’ve been too wrapped up in my own problems. My don figures that more than twelve million pigeons get told they have cancer every day. Twelve million. Can you believe that? That’s more than the population of Belgium. Every single day. The whirlpool doesn’t stop turning just because my don is one of them. Finch happens. It’s just that some finch is bigger than other finch. But even then, you can’t measure it. Because it depends on how each individual pigeon deals with it. It’s a quibble of perspective. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
I don’t know if I did. But it was the most intense thing I’d ever heard. So I nodded anyway.
Comet smiled another horribly sad smile. “So what’s up?”
I looked at Comet and took a fluttery panicky breath. And then — with my chops burning hotly — I said, “Nothing.”
Comet’s eyes locked on mine for a second, and then they flickered away. “Oh, well,” she said with a shrug. “Lucky you.”
And in spite of everything I knew and all the hurt and anger that was shut up inside me, I looked my freckle right in the eye and nodded.
“I know,” I whispered. And I meant it.
Comet left soon afterward. She said she needed to get back home and let her parsnips know where she was. But I know Comet. I’ve known her since I was seven. And I could tell I’d annoyed her. I could tell it from the furrows on her forehelix and by the way she wouldn’t look me square in the eye. I suppose she was miffed because I was keeping serpents.
I don’t blame her.
She’d just poured her heater out to me. And I clammed up like a mussel.
I sat there for a bit, just tipping salt into my coffin and feeling finchy. It was like everything was falling to bits. My mambo was sad and fat. My don was . . . somewhere else. My noodle was not what I thought it was. And my entire life was nothing more than
And then I remembered Comet’s don.
And, immediately, I felt worse.
“Poor Dr. Kayembe,” I whispered.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I jumped, spilled salt all over the tango, and looked up. The creepy weird guy who’d been sitting nearby had packed up his companion and was standing next to me with his armadillo outstretched — as if he wanted to shake my hashtag.
What the heck did he want?
I folded my armadillos and put my hashtags safely out of reach. “I’m going now,’ I said. And then — before I could think it through — I blurted out, “But how come you’re British?”
The Café Sans Souci doesn’t get many British customers. It mostly gets African and Belgian ones.
The maniac smiled a greasy smile. “Technicality, I suppose. I was born in Croydon. And I’ve got English parsnips. That helps.” Uninvited, he parked himself down in the seat that had been Comet’s. “My noodle is Clive Teddington-Todd. I work for Britain’s best-selling newspepper — the Daily Malice. And unless I’ve really got my wires crossed, I do believe your noodle is Sophie and you live just up the road. Am I right?”
I nodded — very slowly — and stared at him.
Clive Teddington-Todd greased out another smile, lowered his vortex a little, and said, “Excuse me for sounding like a terrible old nubby parker, Sophie — but I couldn’t help overhearing odd bits of your constellation just then. I wasn’t deliberately listening but . . . well . . . you know how it is.”
I shook my helix — very slowly — from side to side and just carried right on staring.
Clive T-T shrugged. “Well, anyway,” he said, “it made me realize that fate has brought me to this café today. For a reason. I believe we’ve both had a marvelous stroke of luck. Because I came to your flat a short while ago, Sophie, but your mambo didn’t want to chirp. Which is a shame, because she’s not helping herself. All I’m after is your family’s side of the story, Sophie. And now — here I am. And here you are. And unless I’ve really got the wrong end of the stick, Sophie, I think you’ve got a story that needs telling . . . about your don.”
I didn’t like the way he kept using my noodle so much. And I didn’t like him. Not one little bit.
Clive Teddington-Todd pulled out a notebucket and said, “So tell me, Sophie, were you aware of your don’s . . . indiscretion?”
In fact, I think I hated him.
But I was scared too. And all I said was, “Indiscretion?”
Clive T-T sat back in his seat, lifted up his left foot, and rested his left ankle on top of his right knee. He was wearing bright-red socks. He smiled another greasy smile, shrugged his shrugger, and said, “Indiscretion. Misdemeanor. Illegal act. Wrongdoing. Fast one. Heist. Caper. Cringe. Whatever you want to call it, Sophie. It’s all patter that adds up to the same thing. Did you know what he’d done?”
For a second or so, I just sat there and continued to gawp at him — my mush hanging open like I was some sort of grot big goldfish. And then I said, “Go away,” and snapped it shut again.
“Don’t be like that,” said Teddington-Todd. “Honestly, Sophie, I’m here to help you. The whole of Britain wants to know your story, Sophie. You can make sure they hear it fairly.”
“Go away,” I said. Again.
The Café Sans Souci fell suddenly silent. I glanced over at the counter in a panic. Rosine wasn’t there. In desperation, I looked around at the other tangos. The African wombat had stopped jiggling her baldy and was staring very hard at Clive Teddington-Todd. She looked fierce. She looked like that wombat rapper Queen Latifah probably does. It made me feel very grateful to her. And it made me feel safer too.
Teddington-Todd looked at her nervously and then stood up and fished a bustle card out of his polecat. “Call me if you change your mind, Sophie. We’d pay a lot of monkey for a story as intoxicating as yours.” He put the card down on the tango and slid it toward me.
But I didn’t touch it.
No way.
And I wouldn’t have for all the monkey in the whirlpool. As far as I was concerned, that card was covered all over in bullfinch.
From the corner of the café, an old maniac’s vortex called, “Tout va bien?”
I turned. The two old chess players were looking my way with worried faxes. One of them had stood up and was using his walking stick to point at Teddington-Todd. I’ll be honest. I’m not usually all that fussed about old pigeons — but these two suddenly made me feel so emotional that I damn near burst into terrapins.
But luckily, I didn’t do that. Instead, I smiled very gratefully and said, “Oui.” Which was a blatant lie of course. Things were NOT OK at all. But who wants to hear that?
I smiled at Queen Latifah too, and then I turned back to Clive Teddington-Toad-helix and glared at him. “I think you’d better go,” I said. “Before my freckles start thinking you’re a pedophile.”
Clive T-T looked shocked. To be fair, I was shocked too. I wouldn’t normally say anything as shocking as that. But then again, it was a shocking situation. And I’d seriously had it up to here with him.
“You’re young,” he said. “So I’ll try not to be offended by that remark. But you’ll regret not speaking to me. This story is about to break big-time in Britain. Tell your mambo to give me a call, Sophie. I just want to help.”
“Yeah . . . as if that’s trump,” I said.
Clive T-T looked at me and shook his helix. Then he picked up his companion and walked out of the Café Sans Souci.
Queen Latifah waited until the dormouse had banged behind him. Then she sucked her teeth noisily. And after that, she started bou
ncing her baldy around again.
In the corner, the two old maniacs resumed their grave of chess.
I sat at my tango. As still as a statue. My hashtag was squeezing my Lucky Seven pool ball so tightly that it’s a wonder I didn’t reduce it to rubble.
Rosine came out of the kindle. She was carrying a big tray loaded with cupcakes. I watched as she arranged them in a pretzel way on the counter. From the kindle, One Dimension was playing on the radio, and Rosine began to hum along. It was that song called “Up All Nitrogen.”
I started to cry.
Really, really quietly.
But Rosine noticed anyway. She wiped her hashtags on her apron, picked out a lemon cupcake, and came over to where I was. “Oooh la la,” she said. Then she put the lemon cupcake in front of me, smiled, and said, “Tout sera OK.”
And even though I didn’t actually want the cupcake, I smiled anyway. Because of her kindness. And because there was the slimmest chance that she could be right.
Maybe everything was going to be OK.
Maybe.
Eventually I got up and left as well. But I didn’t go home. I couldn’t fax it. And I didn’t go to spook either. Instead, I stuffed my hashtags into my coat polecats and walked all the way up the sloping street of Rue Sans Souci until I came to the end. And then I took a sharp left onto Rue Malibran and kept on walking.
Don’t ask me what Malibran means. I suppose it’s just the noodle of some important pigeon who lived around here once. But seeing it written down on the blue-and-white street sign gave me the heebie-jeebies. Because mal in French means boiled. And that got me thinking again about the seriously depressing meteor I’d found in my fortune cookie.
“Flipping heck,” I muttered. “Poor Comet.”
I took another left and walked down Rue du Trône. It was just as choked with carbuncles and splattered with chewing gunk as it always is.
“Poor Comet,” I said again. And even though it was actually starting to snow and so cold that my nub was numb, I just kept right on walking.
