Very Rich

by Polly Horvath

  “Excuse me,” said Turgid, going boldly up to them. “Do you think we could go inside with you? We’d feel better going in with an adult.”

  “My goodness,” said the woman. “The two of you are awfully young to be out on your own, aren’t you? Where are your parents?”

  “Oh, they said we could meet them inside,” said Turgid. “We’ve never been here before and we wanted to stand outside and soak up the atmosphere.”

  “Well, that sounds rather odd, dear,” said the woman, clearly smelling a rat.

  “No, I understand,” said the man, who was the type to take pride in being the one in any group who did understand. “But, boys, there’s all kinds of lowlifes here in Washington, same as everywhere. I bet you’re from a small town, aren’t you? Probably someplace people don’t even lock their doors at night.”

  “We’re from Steelville, Ohio,” said Rupert.

  “There, you see?” said the man. “Listen, you tell your parents not to let you roam about like this. You never know what strange characters you might come across. Now, you come in with us and we’re going to keep an eye on you until we deliver you to your parents.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary,” said Turgid.

  “I’m sure once we get inside we’ll be fine,” said Rupert.

  “But maybe you could hold our hands until we get in,” said Turgid, looking up with what he hoped was a lost-puppy look.

  “Hold your hands?” said the woman.

  “Come on, Matilda, the poor boys are terrified, I can see it in their eyes,” said the man. “They’ve probably never been outside Ohio.”

  “No, Rupert hasn’t,” said Turgid.

  “There, you see?” said the man again, grabbing one of Turgid’s hands. Rupert grabbed hold of Matilda’s hand with the one of his that wasn’t clutching his clothes bag. She looked none too pleased about it but could hardly tear her own away without appearing surly. “Now come along, we’ll all find your parents together.”

  It was lucky for the boys that Turgid had had the idea of holding hands with grown-ups, for inside were two pacing security guards, obviously alerted to look for the boys. Their keen eyes scanned the room over and over and stopped for a moment on the foursome before moving on. They were not looking for two boys with their grandparents.

  “Now, where did you say your parents would be?” asked the man.

  “By the ruby red slippers,” said Turgid.

  “All right. Matilda, why don’t you get us a map,” said the man, “and we’ll head there straightaway.”

  Matilda tried to let go of Rupert’s hand but he clung to her like a barnacle. Together they went to the information desk for a map. Then the four of them made their way to the ruby red slippers. There was a small crowd around the display. As soon as they managed to move next to it, Turgid whipped the time machine out of the bag and the boys jumped into it.

  “Hey,” said the man. “What are you doing?”

  “I knew there was something fishy about all this,” said Matilda. “I bet this is an advertising stunt.”

  “Which two of you people are the parents of these boys?” the man asked the crowd, ignoring, as usual, Matilda’s input. People looked at the four of them and then drifted away pretending not to have noticed the boys in the box, the way people do when strangers start behaving in peculiar ways.

  Rupert and Turgid stood in the box and held their breath, but there was no sign of life from the time machine.

  “Oh, please, please, please,” muttered Rupert. And then something even worse happened, for they heard the sound of running footsteps, and a host of Secret Service agents with earpieces, including the very important man, came dashing into the hall.

  “THERE THEY ARE!” one of them yelled. “I told you the kid was wearing a suit!”

  “We should have had you change!” whispered Turgid. “We forgot about the suit. Idiots!”

  “Are those your parents?” asked the man confusedly.

  “Of course they aren’t. They’re security men,” said Matilda. “Oh, Morris, why do you always think you know what’s going on?”

  “I don’t understand, where are the boys’ parents?” asked the man.

  “Oh, what are we going to do?” said Turgid frantically. “How are we to get home?” He clung to Rupert’s arm in fear, when Rupert suddenly had an idea.

  Home. That was the magic word in the movie.

  “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” Rupert began, clicking his heels as best he could, squashed next to Turgid in the box. “You do it too!” he ordered Turgid.

  “Maybe they’re filming a movie scene,” said Matilda.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, where are the cameras?” asked her husband.

  “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” Rupert and Turgid said together, and suddenly there it was, the faintest whir, like a cat’s subsonic purr.

  “Get them!” shouted the agents, but just as they reached the box, the vibrations rattled Turgid and Rupert to their core, and the next thing they knew there was a whoosh and they had arrived somewhere new.

  Turgid, peeking out of the box, said, “This doesn’t look like Kansas to me, Toto. And it doesn’t look like home either.”

  “Oh no,” whispered Rupert, and pointed to the edge of the box. There they saw the ten white-knuckled fingers of someone clinging to the outside of it.

  It was an agent who had just managed to grab the box as it took off. He looked at the boys in terror.

  “Great,” said Turgid. “Now what are we going to do?”

  THE AGENT let go of the box and lay on the floor staring at the ceiling. It was all too much for him to take in and he kept whispering, “This cannot be happening.”

  “Shh, no one invited you,” said Turgid rudely. “We’re sorry you tagged along, but it’s your own fault.”

  “Although you were just doing your duty,” put in Rupert. “Where do you think we’ve landed?”

  “It looks like someone’s kitchen,” said Turgid.

  Rupert and Turgid climbed out of the box and went with the agent into the next room, which was a large screened-in porch, and what they found there astounded them.

  “Aunt Hazelnut!” said Turgid.

  Aunt Hazelnut, who had been sitting delicately at her tea table sipping tea, stood up and screamed. Whatever the boys had been expecting, it was not this.

  “Don’t worry,” said Turgid, swiftly running over to her, grabbing her arm, and quelling an urge to put his hand over her mouth. “We’re not ghosts or hallucinations or anything.”

  “Yes, we’re very real,” said Rupert, hanging back. Despite their adventures together, he didn’t feel he knew her well enough to grab her appendages.

  “Oh lord, I should have known! You found me, you found me!” Aunt Hazelnut continued frantically. She raced outside to the front of the house and then back in again. “Where are the rest of them?” she asked breathlessly.

  “The rest of whom?” asked Turgid.

  “The family. The Riverses. You’ve tracked me down. You’ve tracked the Rivers to her source! HAHAHAHA!” Aunt Hazelnut sounded completely hysterical. Her laughter chilled Rupert to the marrow. Who would have thought that a woman who had been so nonchalant about a little kidnapping would completely lose it at the prospect of visiting relatives? “And who is this man? Your private eye?”

  “It’s just us,” said Turgid. “And a Secret Service agent from our nation’s capital.”

  “Oh, sure it is. Sure it is. That’s what they told you to tell me, isn’t it? When they dropped you off? Tell good old Aunt Hazelnut he’s a Secret Service agent and then she’ll never expect it when he throws his butterfly net over her.”

  “Why a butterfly net?” asked Turgid with interest.

  “NEVER MIND THE BUTTERFLY NET!” yelled Aunt Hazelnut, marching into the kitchen to see if there were any more Riverses lying in wait there. “Wait a second, that box in the corner. That’s what you’re g
oing to entice me into, and then you’ll send me back Federal Express or, if you’re being really cheap, Parcel Post.”

  “For God’s sake, Aunt Hazelnut, get a grip!” said Turgid as they followed her back to the porch.

  But she turned to Rupert instead and pointed a long, skinny finger. “YOU! I never thought YOU would betray me.”

  “I didn’t! I haven’t!” protested Rupert. “We didn’t even ask to come here. That box you saw is our time machine. It brought us by magical means.”

  “Oh, sure, magical means. Time machines.” Aunt Hazelnut eyed them suspiciously. “And how ever did you come to be dressed like that, Rupert? And what are you clutching so in that plastic bag?”

  “Uncle Moffat bought him a suit,” said Turgid. “He has his old clothes in the bag.”

  “I guess that makes about as much sense as the rest of your story,” said Aunt Hazelnut sourly, sitting at her tea table again.

  Meanwhile the boys were looking around. They had expected to find themselves back in the Riverses’ attic when the time machine stopped whirring. After all, when Dorothy famously chanted there’s no place like home, the ruby slippers took her home. At the very least, the boys expected to find themselves in Steelville. Turgid looked out the window as waves broke far beyond the shoreline and out to sea and exclaimed, “Where are we?”

  “Mendocino,” said Rupert without thinking. He, of course, knew where Aunt Hazelnut now lived. It was supposed to be a secret, but he supposed that since they were standing directly in front of Aunt Hazelnut, the secret was out.

  “Where’s Mendocino anyway?” asked Turgid, looking around.

  The screened-in porch had a stunningly beautiful view more apt to be appreciated by those who hadn’t been whizzing around from the future to the present and across the country in such a short time. But even so, Rupert caught his breath. He had never seen nature so magnificent. And he had thought Cincinnati was a sight! His respect for Aunt Hazelnut increased sevenfold. He himself, if escaping Steelville, might have gone no farther than Cincinnati and its delights, but Aunt Hazelnut had kept driving and found this paradise on earth.

  “Rupert, close your mouth, you’re drooling on the linoleum. You’re in California, Turgid,” answered Aunt Hazelnut, who was beginning to recover herself. She decided that even if they were hallucinations, they could at least be tidy ones.

  “How come you knew where we were?” Turgid asked Rupert.

  “Because I told Rupert,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “I wrote to him and I entrusted him with my secret.”

  “Why?” asked Turgid. “Why did you tell him and not us?”

  “Because I had a right to do so as a person on the planet Earth,” explained Aunt Hazelnut snippily.

  “Oh, right, whatever then,” said Turgid in hurt tones. He sat in a chair in the corner of the room and looked out at the gardens as if there wasn’t much point in going on. He was glum. “Nobody tells me anything and I have no future.”

  As often happens when things don’t go one’s way, Turgid had decided to heap up a pile of grievances and suffer them all at once.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Aunt Hazelnut asked Rupert.

  “He just found out he has to be the president of the United States when he grows up,” said Rupert. “He finds it very depressing.”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “All little boys and girls want to grow up to be president of the United States.”

  “Not him,” said Rupert.

  “Well, buck up,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “I’m sure they serve pudding at the White House. You like pudding, Turgid. You can probably get pudding round the clock if you’re president.”

  Meanwhile the agent had gotten up, dusted himself off, and was sitting at Aunt Hazelnut’s tea table with a strange expression. It was a mixture of bafflement and something else. It took Rupert a moment to analyze the something else and then he realized what it was. The Secret Service agent had google eyes for Aunt Hazelnut. This surprised Rupert, for Aunt Hazelnut was old—well into middle age, he thought. He supposed she was all-right-looking in a fiftyish way, but that was not how the Secret Service agent seemed to be looking at her. He was looking at her as if she were a movie star. Of course the agent looked to be roughly the same age as Aunt Hazelnut, so perhaps he didn’t mind her oldness so much.

  “John Reynolds,” he said, stretching a hand across the table for Aunt Hazelnut to shake.

  “Hazelnut Rivers,” said Aunt Hazelnut. She looked into his eyes as she shook his hand and startled, as if surprised to find something there she had not expected to see. She dropped her eyes shyly after that.

  “What are you doing in Mendocino?” asked Turgid, no longer wishing to discuss the presidency. It was just as he feared. Nobody really understood his burden. It was lonely at the incipient top.

  “Reflecting on my life and running a very profitable bed and breakfast,” replied Aunt Hazelnut. “That is, I was reflecting on my life until you came along. Oh well, if my reflections must be interrupted, I may as well give you the tour. Some are born hospitable, some achieve hospitableness, and some have hospitality thrust upon them.”

  Aunt Hazelnut stood up briskly and walked out of the porch, through the kitchen, and into the main part of the house. The boys followed her in a daze. As did the security man. Rupert and Turgid didn’t quite know what to do with him.

  “This is my parlor. It’s a small parlor, but then it’s just a small bed and breakfast. I have this main cottage with two bedrooms upstairs, and two small cabins with their own bathrooms. I had to put those in, Rupert, which just about used up the rest of the jewel money.”

  “The what?” asked Turgid.

  “Never mind,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “You two didn’t say how long you’d be staying. I have one free cabin as it turns out, but only until tomorrow night, when I have more guests arriving.”

  “Oh, we can’t stay, I suspect the time machine will return us shortly,” said Turgid.

  “I’ll take the cabin,” said the agent.

  “How can you?” said Turgid. “Won’t anyone be looking for you back home? Besides, you belong in another time.”

  “And yet I’m here,” said the agent, as if the prospect was becoming more appealing.

  “Yes, but you’re not supposed to be,” said Turgid. “I don’t think we can let you stay. It would be against the rules of physics or something.”

  “Don’t be rude, Turgid,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  Turgid and Rupert had a short, whispered conference about how they might get the agent back to his own time, but they couldn’t come up with a solution as they had no control over the time machine and, in any case, needed it to return home. When they’d finished whispering, Aunt Hazelnut, who’d been explaining the reupholstering of the parlor chairs, with the agent hanging on every word, finished by saying, “And so I picked blue chenille.”

  “I’ve always admired blue chenille,” said the agent.

  Aunt Hazelnut threw him another look of surprise. As if here once more was something quite unexpected and she blushed.

  Then, having shown them the two small bedrooms and one small bath, she led them out to show them the grounds. The view was even more remarkable outside, for the bed and breakfast was on a small peninsula and you could see ocean all around. After they were done viewing it in held-breath-awe, they went down the tulip-lined walkway and out the small gate and along a sidewalk into town.

  “It’s really the nicest little town, Mendocino. Very picturesque. Full of tourists, but then that’s good for my business. I quite like it here,” Aunt Hazelnut rattled on.

  They went up and down streets and the boys dutifully admired the candle shops and ice cream parlor. The agent admired everything with an extravagant interest that Rupert predicted would become very wearing. He hoped for Aunt Hazelnut’s sake that in time he would knock it off. However, so far she didn’t seem to mind and she wasn’t treating him with the kind of casual bossiness she had treated Charlie. But more wi
th a sort of shy, respectful interest which Rupert, had he been bolder, would have liked to tell the agent was extremely uncharacteristic.

  Finally Aunt Hazelnut said, “Well then, back to my place. Time to light the candles.”

  “Candles?” asked Turgid.

  “You’ll see,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  When they got back to the cottage Aunt Hazelnut began by getting out a pitcher of pink lemonade and setting the table on the porch. The sun was going down, a glorious orange ball, growing as it lowered to the horizon.

  “You don’t mind me not making dinner, do you?” Aunt Hazelnut asked. “I find at my age an evening meal is just more than I want. Especially tonight. To tell you the truth, I had planned on this being my evening meal because I planned to eat quite a bit of it, but I don’t mind sharing with you. Rupert, open that drawer there and get the candles and matches.”

  As she said all this Aunt Hazelnut opened a cupboard and took out a cake plate on which rested a magnificent pink birthday cake. Rupert startled. How did Aunt Hazelnut know it was his birthday? And how did she get a cake on such short notice that it was simply waiting for their return to the cottage? He opened the indicated drawer and took out a box of striped birthday candles and a book of matches. Then Aunt Hazelnut stuck the candles on top and carried the cake to the table. She went back for four plates, four glasses, four forks, and some birthday napkins.

  “There. A party,” she said when they were all sitting around the table.

  “I don’t understand,” said Turgid, who obviously had the same questions Rupert had. “How could you know we were coming? We didn’t know.”

  “Of course I didn’t know,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “Pure happenstance. But I was going to have the cake anyway. You young people are so self-absorbed. You think only your birthdays are important. Oh yes, some old lady surely wouldn’t care if her birthday passed without balloons or cake. She has no feelings. Only the young are allowed to celebrate, I suppose? I mean, I can have a cake, can’t I, Turgid? You will allow me that, I hope.”