by Nic Saint
“Thanks, Sam,” she said a little throatily. “You’re the best.”
“You’re welcome,” he grunted, looking away. He just hoped he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Chapter 5
Skip Brown was working on his tan in the tanning salon a few blocks down from where the Flummox sisters lived. In spite of his name he wasn’t brown at all, quite the contrary. He was as pale as a ghost and didn’t like it. He’d always wanted to be tan and lean and built like a sportsman, but genetics had turned him into a spindly teenager with acne-ravaged face and hair that looked like a dishrag haphazardly slapped on top of his head.
That still didn’t mean he had to like it. So three times a week he went to Nico’s Tanning Solution and tried to obscure the more hideous parts of his anatomy by covering them up with a layer of brown. Some extra crust.
He was, after all, a professional baker, working as his uncle’s understudy in the family bakery, Brown’s Better Bread Bakery on Second Street. The store was one of the more popular ones in the area, and now even attracted customers from beyond Brooklyn’s city limits, catering to a clientele that prided itself in recognizing and appreciating the finer flavors of better bread.
In fact the appeal of Brown’s was thus that even Manhattan’s finest flocked to and picked up a loaf here and a donut there. The mayor himself was a fan, as were several high-profile players of the New York Mets, New York Yankees, New York Knicks and even the New York Giants. They all had to satisfy that sweet tooth between scoring touchdowns or home runs.
Today, as Skip made his way from the tanning salon, where he liked to pretend he was a loaf of bread himself, sufficiently baked front and back, he saw a large limo idling at the curb of Second Street and Fifth Avenue, and wondered what celebrity had decided to climb down from Mount Olympus to grace Brown’s with their presence today. Though Skip was rarely allowed in the store itself, mostly confined to the behind-the-scenes operation in the back, he managed to catch a glimpse of the odd celebrity from time to time.
He was especially fond of any football heroes who drove up in their fancy sports cars. He’d even seen Derek Jeter pick up a bag of bagels once. It only served to make Skip proud of his heritage: the store he’d inherit one day, when his dad finally laid down the pastry brush and called it a career.
As he approached the black limo, he craned his neck to get a view of its occupant, but to his annoyance the windows were tinted. And then a big and burly man strode from the store and he thought he recognized him as John Cena of WWE fame.
“Hey!” he shouted, in spite of his lack of good looks not a shy person. “Aren’t you John Cena? Man, I’m your biggest fan!”
And he was already taking out his phone for a selfie when the big guy halted in his tracks and he said with a wide smile, “Thanks for the compliment, buddy. Do you really think I look like the great John Cena?”
“Oh,” he said, his face falling. “So who are you, then?” he asked, feeling that the other had deceived him simply by looking like John Cena.
“Johnny Carew,” said the guy, extending a meaty paw and grabbing Skip’s for a vigorous shake. “I’m Chazz Falcone’s dog handler.”
Skip reluctantly shook the man’s hand, even though he felt cheated. He tucked his phone away again. “Huh? Who?”
“Chazz Falcone,” said the man, still smiling like a moron. “The next president of the USA? The man who built Falcone Tower?”
“Never heard of the guy,” he said, quickly losing interest. “I’m not into politics.” These days any fool wanted to become the president, and often did. Then he thought of something. “Just tell your boss to think of Brown’s when he pitches up a tent in the White House.” One of Skip’s grandfather’s fondest wishes was one day to become the White House official baker, much like a royal warrant bestowed by Elizabeth II in England. A royal seal of approval.
“Will do,” said Johnny, holding up a Brown’s bag. “Mr. Falcone is a huge fan,” he added. “He particularly likes your sugar bread. What’s in it?”
He shrugged. “Um… sugar?”
Johnny’s smile was warm and infectious. “Mr. Falcone will be so glad you decided to share your secret recipe, buddy. That’s very nice of you.”
“Well, it’s not really a secret when the ingredient is part of the product’s name,” he pointed out. Or when you could find the recipe all over the internet.
“Oh,” said Johnny, his lips forming a perfect Oh. He didn’t strike Skip as the brightest bulb in God’s better bulb shop, but then if you were the next president’s dog handler you probably didn’t need to have gone to Stanford. “You mean it’s not like Coca Cola? With the secret recipe and stuff?”
“Nope,” said Skip.
“But then why does Brown’s bread taste so good?”
He shrugged again. “Beats me, buddy. It’s just your regular bread.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Johnny, pointing at the bag. “It says ‘better bread,’ so it has to be better bread, right, otherwise why would they say it’s better?”
“It’s called advertising,” he said, and watched as Johnny’s mug fell, like a kid who’s just been told Santa doesn’t exist.
“So it’s not really better at all?”
“Just your regular old bread.”
“So you’ve been lying all this time?”
“It’s not lying. It’s called advertising.”
“But basically it’s lying.”
He sighed. “Basically I guess you could say it’s lying.”
“Like when you sign up for something and they tell you to hurry because they will only take on so many people and you only have a couple of days?”
“Yup.”
Johnny stared at him, and now he really did look like John Cena, in that movie where the bad guy kidnapped his wife and threatened to kill her if John didn’t do as he said. “I don’t think I like Brown’s Better Bread Bakery anymore,” he said.
“Tough luck,” he said, ignoring all the marketing lessons his dad had tried to teach him. But then he felt the other had also cheated him by looking like someone he wasn’t. “Don’t take it personally, buddy. Everybody does it.”
Suddenly the tinted window that had frustrated him so much before rolled down to reveal the face of a rather hideous man in his sixties. He looked like a bulldog, a cigar clamped between gritted teeth, bushy brows arching down in a furious frown. “Quit chit-chatting, you moron, and get in the car already!” the man grumbled.
“Sure, boss,” the big guy said, and hurried to the driver’s side, yanked open the door and got in. Johnny Carew, apart from being a dog handler and bread dispenser, was apparently also this ugly guy’s driver.
Chazz Falcone, if that was who this was, was scowling at him, and he scowled back in equal measure. Though he might not be Brooklyn’s most handsome young man, or maybe because of it, he could scowl with the best of them, and the fact that he was now engaged in a scowling match with the future president of this great nation of theirs didn’t bother him in the least.
“What are you looking at, you dumb mutt?” the guy now growled.
He shrugged, not wanting to get into a shouting match as well. His grandfather had always taught him to be kind to strangers and animals, for you never knew they might become customers one day. And since this guy looked like a cross between a human being and a dog he deserved his kindness.
But then the car jerked into motion and was soon screeching away from the curb, carrying the future occupant of the White House along with it.
Skip stared after the disappearing black Rolls and then quickly put the entire scene from his mind with the nimbleness of youth. He didn’t care for politicians, and certainly not for nasty ones like this Chazz Falcone guy.
So he entered the bakery and quickly walked through the shop to the kitchen, where he grabbed an apron from the rack, tied it in front of him and was soon dumping ingredients into the big batter mixer, singing along with Blake Shelton, whose late
st tune belted from the radio. Little did he know that this chance meeting with the future leader of the free world would change his life in more ways than one…
Chapter 6
“I don’t think I want to do it,” said Ernestine cautiously. But since caution was Stien’s middle name, that was to be expected. I stared at my sister and wanted to slap her. It’s a tendency I have: this strong urge I get sometimes to slap one or more of my sisters for behaving like idiots. At least in my opinion.
“Why not?” I asked. “If we’re serious about this we need to put in the requisite training, and these guys are supposed to be the best in the business.”
But Ernestine shook her head. “I told you, I’m still not fully on board with this new concept of yours, Edie. A bodyguard? Really? It’s just not who I am as a person. It’s not what I envisioned my life to be like, you know?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look at it this way,” I said. “If you want to steal from the bad people first you have to get close to them, right?”
“Probably,” she said dubiously.
“So how do you suppose we do that?”
“By working for them?” she said tentatively.
“Exactly!” I cried, happy that she was finally beginning to see the light.
“But I could work for them as an attorney,” Ernestine pointed out. “All rich people need attorneys. And often they’re even friends with their clients.”
She had a point, of course, except… “You’re not an attorney, Ernestine, and you never will be one. You’re not even a legal secretary, remember?”
“But I could be one again,” she argued feebly.
“No, you won’t,” I promised her, perhaps a little harshly. After being fired from the firm of Boodle, Jag, Lack & Noodle, my sister had no chance in hell to ever work in that field again. She’d dropped out of college, where she’d gone to try and fulfill her pipe dream of becoming the next female Perry Mason or Ben Matlock, and had failed as a legal secretary. It was pretty obvious to me she was never going to work in her chosen field again.
Ernestine shrugged. “We could be anything. We could be cooks to the rich, or housemaids, or nannies, or, or…” She waved her arms expressively. “Anything but bodyguards, Edie! Girls don’t become bodyguards! Only big, burly men do. Men like Sam Barkley and… and Dwayne Johnson.”
“I liked Kevin Costner as a bodyguard,” Estrella said, deciding to join the conversation. She was busy sorting through Fallon Safflower’s ring collection and had followed the back-and-forth. “Remember that movie? What was it called?”
“The Bodyguard?” I asked, rolling my eyes again.
“That’s it,” she said. “And he wasn’t big and burly.”
“He was a guy,” insisted Ernestine stubbornly.
“I’m sure there are female bodyguards,” I said, trying to think of one.
“Gaddafi had female bodyguards,” said Estrella without looking up.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “That’s not the point, you guys.”
We were ensconced in Fallon Safflower’s room on the third floor, where it was rumored that our ancestor had held forth once upon a time. The room was littered with magic potions in neat racks along the walls, spellbooks collected in a big bookcase that was a centerpiece of the room, and a couple of brooms that may or may not have been used by Fallon to fly around New York City.
There was even a stuffed black cat that had once belonged to our famous foremother. It was the only semblance of a cat in the house, as Gran didn’t like the feline breed. She said they destroyed her precious flowers by digging in the earth and leaving small souvenirs in the form of noxious pee or poo.
Or it could simply be that she didn’t like cats period, which was entirely possible, though highly unlikely. But then Gran was no ordinary witch. She liked to do things her own way, not bothered by convention or tradition.
“Look, do you really want to become a cook for the rich and famous?” I asked, exasperated. “Or a maid or a nanny? Of course you don’t!”
“Well, if it brings us closer to where we need to be…” tried Ernestine.
“It won’t! Nannies and cooks and maids are confined to a specific section of the house, their exposure to the family limited by their position in the household. I’ll bet they don’t even know where all the valuables are kept.”
“So we could be… something else,” said Ernestine lamely. “Anything but a bodyguard, Edie.” She flexed her non-existent biceps. “Look. I don’t even have muscles. How am I going to protect my client from an attacker?” She shivered. “I don’t want to throw myself in the line of fire, Edie.”
“Another movie I liked,” muttered Estrella. “Though Clint was too old.”
“You forget one thing,” I said, ignoring Strel’s comment.
“What’s that?”
“We’re witches, you guys! We don’t have to throw ourselves in the line of fire! When a bullet is fired we can simply deflect its trajectory with a spell!”
“Are you sure we can do that?” asked Estrella, looking up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, jewelry spread out all around her.
“Sure we can,” I said, trying to sound more convinced than I actually was. “We can do anything we put our mind to. No attacker will have a chance against us if we simply use a little bit of magic.”
My two sisters, even though still skeptical, had to agree I had a point.
“But why do you think bodyguards will have the best access to the kind of people we want to target?” insisted Strel without looking up from a particularly large purple-stoned ring she was holding up to the light.
“Because people trust their security personnel with every last detail of their itinerary and their lives. We’ll be in charge of security, and will know everything about them.” I checked the items off on my fingers. “The floor plan of their houses, their daily schedule, the people they meet, the secrets they keep… We’ll know everything! Does a housekeeper have that kind of access? No, she doesn’t!” I quickly answered my own question before they could. “They’re restricted to a small part of their employers’ lives while we’ll be almost like their best friends and will accompany them wherever they go.”
Ernestine slowly nodded, a thoughtful finger rubbing her temple. “You just might be right,” she said slowly. “And Sam has agreed to help us?”
“He has,” I said, thinking back to the conversation I had with Sam in the garden. “And not just that, but he’s setting up a meeting with a friend of his who’s in the business now. He will teach us the ins and outs of being a bodyguard and running a private security company. You guys,” I said, barely containing my enthusiasm. “I think this is it. This is us fulfilling our destiny!”
“You know?” asked Estrella, gathering up the jewelry and carefully replacing it in the jewelry box that had once belonged to our ancestor. “I’m still not convinced that Tavish meant we had to steal from the rich.”
“What else could he have meant? I mean, who else are we going to steal from?” I laughed. “You can’t steal from the poor and give to the rich.”
“Why not? They do it all the time,” muttered Ernestine.
Estrella shook her head. “What about bad people?”
“Well?” I asked. “Rich people are bad people, right?”
“No, they’re not,” said Ernestine, holding up her finger like a teacher. Uh-oh. When she does that she’s about to launch into a long harangue. “Rich people may be rich, but that doesn’t make them bad people in my estimation.”
“How else did they get rich if not by stealing?” I asked.
Ernestine was still holding up that finger. “They might just have earned their fortune, Edie. Look at the so-called robber barons. The Carnegies, the Rockefellers and the Morgans. They were loaded but they also built industrial empires and provided jobs for millions. Or look at the robber barons of this age. The founders of companies like Google, Apple or Facebook. They’re super-rich but are they crooks and thieves? I
don’t think so.”
I had to admit she had a point there. “If not from the rich, who do we steal from?” I asked, now totally at a loss and not afraid to admit it.
“Like Strel said, the bad people,” muttered Ernestine under her breath, her frown wrinkle firmly back in place. I reached over and smoothed the wrinkle with my finger.
“If you’re not careful that’s going to be etched there forever,” I said softly.
“I don’t care,” she said, slapping away my finger. “Look, I think we need to talk to Tavish. Ask him what he meant exactly with his bad people thing.”
“Crooks and gangsters,” suggested Estrella.
“Or warlocks?” I suggested, remembering the warlock who’d almost killed us not so long ago.
“Could be,” agreed Ernestine, nodding.
“But what could we possibly steal from a warlock?” I asked.
Ernestine shrugged. “Stuff they’ve stolen themselves?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, my God, you guys,” Estrella suddenly burst out. “You’re so overthinking this! We just pick anyone who’s done something bad and we try to right that wrong, all right? How hard can it be?”
“Like who?” I challenged. “Just give me a name.”
“Just open any newspaper,” she suggested, “on any random page, and you’ll find plenty of crooks who could use a visit from the Flummox sisters.” She grinned up at us, and I don’t know if I liked the expression on her face, or the message it contained. It spelled trouble with a capital T.
One thing I did know, and Ernestine was right about that: we needed to get in touch with our godfather again. And since Tavish would never come to Safflower House, Gran not allowing him, we needed to pay him a visit. If anyone could clarify the mystery of our mission in life, it was Tavish.
So in spite of Estrella’s protestations—she could have spent hours sorting through Fallon’s jewelry collection—we decided to pay a visit to Dipper Park, where Tavish had last been seen. He liked to hang out beneath the small bridge in the park, and since we basically had nothing else to do anyway, we decided to go over there and disobey our grandmother’s edict by summoning our godfather Tavish Mildew, that infamous warlock.