Bliss

  “What do you two want to eat?” Lily asked.

  Sage was about to answer when Leigh cut in. “Snails!” she shouted.

  “Ugh!” Sage dropped to the floor and squirmed around, gagging. Rose knew that his fear and hatred of snails and slugs was not an exaggeration, and that the very mention of them really did make him gag.

  Lily herself looked a little disgusted. “She wants snails from the garden?” she ventured.

  “No,” answered Rose. “She wants escargots. We have to go to Pierre Guillaume’s French bistro.” Rose was used to this weekly ritual. It was strange that a three-year-old should love eating escargots so much, but ever since the first time Leigh popped one of the rubbery, garlicky, buttery snails into her mouth, there was no stopping her. “Leigh has to have escargots once a week, or she gets very grumpy.”

  Lily’s face lit up. “A French bistro?” she cried, pronouncing the r in bistro the way the French would—that is, almost coughing. “Say no more!”

  Then Aunt Lily noticed Sage, who was still writhing in disgust on the floor. “What about Sage?”

  “Sage,” Rose answered, smoothing his curly red mop, “will sit on the other end of the table and avert his eyes.”

  In her bedroom, Rose put on her favorite dress, a simple blue one with a skirt that started practically at the collar. She wasn’t sure that she felt pretty—her eyebrows were too dark, her nose was too stubby—but when she was wearing the dress she at least felt prettier. Prettyish.

  Then she helped Leigh change out of the filthy red-and-white-striped shirt she wore every day and put on her freshly washed backup red-and-white-striped shirt, which Albert and Purdy kept on hand for whenever Leigh had to look presentable. She insisted on bringing her Polaroid camera.

  Meanwhile, Aunt Lily went downstairs to consult the wardrobe in her seemingly bottomless suitcase and emerged looking extra Parisian, wearing a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt and a black beret that dangled to one side of her head. Chip kept on the shirt that he’d been wearing, and Sage saw fit to wear the baggy blue T-shirt that he’d been sweating in all morning. All in all, they looked optimistic, if not fabulous.

  Except for Aunt Lily, who would look fabulous even in a burlap sack.

  Aunt Lily popped on a pair of fancy sunglasses and spread both her arms wide into the air. “Off we go! The bakery is closed for the day, and we are taking a holiday!” It seemed she could make a holiday out of anything.

  Rose and Lily held on to Leigh’s hands and swung her back and forth like an orangutan toward the town square while Chip and Sage trailed behind.

  Rose looked over at her aunt, who had her face turned to the sun and seemed to be savoring every second of daylight like it was vanilla pudding.

  “Do you know how I feel right now, Rose?” Lily said, smiling.

  Rose shook her head no.

  “I feel insouciant.” Lily stretched out the foreign-sounding word like it was a piece of toffee: innnnn … soooooo … seeeeee … annnnnntttt. “See, in French, souci means worry. So insouciant means without worry, without care. I am without a care! Isn’t that just delicious?”

  Chip chimed in from where he was marching five feet behind them. “In that case, I am also insouciant.”

  Rose relaxed her shoulders, which she had been keeping scrunched up near her ears for the past few hours. The soft cotton of her flowing skirt brushed up against her legs in the breeze like a cat looking to get fed, and she felt, for a moment, like all would be well. A few overly frank librarians were not the worst things in the world. The cookies would wear off sooner or later, and everything would go back to normal, including Rose, who would once again resume her position as the girl who quietly did everything right.

  A moment later they swung into the town square, an open plaza made of terra-cotta bricks that practically glowed in the sun. In the center of the plaza was a marble statue of the town’s founder, Reginald Calamity, milking a cow. In summertime, the statue served as a fountain, and streams of water poured out of the cow’s udder. Rose thought that was tasteless, and that the Calamity Falls Civic Association should get a new statue, one with less … milking.

  Lily stood near the statue for a minute and stared up at it. “Interesting.”

  As they swung past the statue toward the café tables of Pierre Guillaume’s, Rose saw a line of about fifty people waiting outside the restaurant.

  “What the heck?” Rose said. “Since when do you need a reservation at Pierre Guillaume’s?”

  Then Rose noticed that the people weren’t so much in a line as they were bunched together in a noisy crowd, and that everyone in the crowd was staring upward to the top of the restaurant, where Pierre Guillaume had, a few months ago, installed a four-story steel replica of the Eiffel Tower.

  Then Rose saw what everyone was looking at.

  Mr. Bastable was scaling Pierre Guillaume’s fake Eiffel Tower.

  He had somehow managed to get to the roof of the restaurant—probably by use of the ladder that was leaning against the building—and was now climbing, rung by rung, up the tower. Around them, the townspeople were calling out, “Mr. Bastable! Don’t do it!” and “Come back down!” but he ignored them.

  Pierre Guillaume came out of his restaurant in his white chef’s coat and hat to greet the crowd. “Ooh la la!” he squealed. “I have never had so many customers! Some of you may have to wait, but worry not! I shall serve one and all…” He trailed off when he realized that the crowd gathered outside his restaurant had nothing to do with his food. He turned and looked up and quietly repeated himself: “Ooh la la.”

  Rose’s pulse quickened. Did this daring stunt have anything to do with the cookie that Chip had served Mr. Bastable? Was it because of yesterday’s muffin? Was this the natural result of two magical recipes churning in the stomach of a shy frog enthusiast?

  Pierre Guillaume was near tears. “Monsieur! Monsieur! Excusez-moi! You cannot climb up there! My fake Tour Eiffel will not hold your weight! Monsieur! You are climbing to your death!”

  But Mr. Bastable continued, undaunted.

  Pierre Guillaume, in a panic, ran toward the firehouse two blocks down. “Help! Help! The frog man is on my tower!”

  Mr. Bastable finally reached the top. He wrapped his skinny arms and legs around the fake steel beams and clung with all his might as a gust of wind blew past him, whipping his puffy white hair against his cheeks.

  He gazed down at the crowd, clearly terrified, and then up at the sky. Rose hoped that he had just gone crazy on his own, and it had nothing to do with cookies or muffins or Miss Thistle.

  But then he began to shout.

  “I, Bernard Bastable, am in love with Miss Felidia Thistle!”

  Rose cringed. It was worse than she’d feared. The Love Muffins and the Cookies of Truth had combined into a powerful spell all its own.

  “I want to nibble on her lady fingers!” he shouted, a broad smile on his face. “Oh, I want to kiss her nose and bake her a pie! I want to put some pie on her nose and lick it off!” Everyone in the crowd groaned and looked away, embarrassed.

  “Felidia Thistle is the most sensational creature in this town—or in any town, for that matter! I want to watch her stomp grapes! She will be my queen!” As he said this, Mr. Bastable threw both his arms wide, and the tower creaked and leaned a bit to the right. He winced and hugged the tower again.

  But no one was watching him anymore. Everyone had turned their attention to the marble statue of Reginald Calamity, where Miss Thistle was staring at the roof of Pierre Guillaume’s like someone had crashed a bus on it.

  Mr. Bastable spied Miss Thistle standing there in front of the fountain. “Felidia!” he shouted. “You are my darling, my peach pie, my sweet crumpet! My only, my one true! Say you love me too!”

  It seemed as though Miss Thistle was about to say something, but she clapped her hands over her mouth so that whatever she yelled got trapped in her teeth.

  Clinging to the tower with only his legs, Mr. Bas
table pulled off his frog sweatshirt to reveal a skimpy white undershirt. The words MARRY ME! were printed across the front in red paint.

  “Felidia! Let me be your frog prince!” he yelled again.

  Miss Thistle started to shout, “I—,” but again muffled herself, this time by pulling the neck of her gray turtleneck over her head.

  Then Mr. Bastable did something truly embarrassing: While holding tight to the tower with one hand, he unbuttoned his slacks with the other, then dropped his pants into a rumpled pile atop the roof of Pierre Guillaume’s.

  In his red polka-dotted boxer shorts, Mr. Bastable scooted around so that his bottom was facing the crowd. There was a phrase painted on the back of the boxers: “NO IFS, ANDS, OR BUTTS!”

  “It’s disgusting,” Chip muttered.

  Leigh was cackling like she’d never cackled before.

  Sage looked like he might vomit.

  Aunt Lily turned to Rose. “You’ve got to applaud his enthusiasm,” she said.

  But Rose was looking the other way, at Miss Thistle, who was shaking her head so violently that her glasses had fallen into the fountain.

  “Bernard Bastable!” Miss Thistle shouted, finally. “I love you too! I want to make you my frog prince! Never in all my years have I seen a man with such magnificent, froglike charisma! You are a treasure! Kiss me now!”

  As she finished, Miss Thistle crossed her eyes and covered her mouth again, horrified, as if it had betrayed her. She turned and ran away toward the schoolhouse, her face purple with embarrassment.

  “Come back, sweet Felidia!” Mr. Bastable cried.

  A siren pealed out as the Calamity Falls Fire Department engine careened through the town square. “There!” Pierre Guillaume shouted, pointing. “That man is going to break my Eiffel Tower!”

  The crowd made room for the truck as it eased to a halt in front of the restaurant.

  Fire Chief Conklin squinted up at Mr. Bastable and raised a megaphone. “Bernard Bastable! If you do not get down immediately, we will have to come up there and remove you!”

  Mr. Bastable shook his head. “Not until my Ladylove agrees to be my Lady Wife!”

  Two firemen unfolded a forty-foot metal ladder and set it against the top of the tower. “What’s that guy on?” the one fireman asked the other.

  Rose gulped. She knew exactly what he was on. And it was all her fault. What would her parents do if they were there? Surely they’d have a way to fix this. Although, really, they would never have gotten themselves into this mess to begin with.

  It was only after Mr. Bastable had safely been dragged down the ladder that the tower groaned and teetered in the wind.

  “Oh no,” Rose said.

  “Oh yes,” Sage said, his eyes wide with excitement. “That tower is coming down! Tim-berrrrrrrrrrr!”

  Leigh pointed her camera toward the roof and clicked.

  Another wind gusted hard, and with a mighty crack the tower wobbled and fell over in slow motion, coming down right toward the crowd.

  “Everybody move!” Chip yelled, scooping up Leigh in one arm and Sage in the other and running to the right. The townspeople scattered to either side as the tower crashed down against the square, folding up with a metallic clatter right in the front of the restaurant.

  “Nooooo!” cried Pierre Guillaume, burying his head in his hands and beginning to sob.

  Rose felt someone poking at her shoulder, and she turned around to see Ty, who was running a hand through his hair to make sure it looked just the right kind of messy.

  “What’s going on?” he muttered, unimpressed by all the mayhem. “I came downstairs from my nap and everyone had vamoosed.” Ty was dressed in a pair of jeans that was only slightly wrinkled and a long-sleeved navy blue shirt.

  “I need to speak with you,” Rose whispered, pulling Ty away toward the fountain. “Mr. Bastable and Miss Thistle both went bonkers. Mr. Bastable scaled the fake Eiffel Tower and declared his love for Miss Thistle, and Miss Thistle couldn’t help but shout it back. The combination of Love Muffins and Cookies of Truth is lethal! We need to figure out a way to fix this, immediately, before Aunt Lily catches on, and before word gets back to Mom and Dad that the town is going crazy!”

  Ty gulped. “Oh.”

  “What now?” Rose said, rolling her eyes.

  “It might be even worse than that,” Ty began slowly, looking a bit sheepish. “I may have taken those extra Love Muffins and given them”—he paused for another gulp—“to a couple of girls in my class.”

  CHAPTER 10

  You Scream, I Scream

  As far as everyone else was concerned, the excitement was over.

  The crowd that had gathered to watch Mr. Bastable had scattered. A few old ladies took a seat on the ledge of the Reginald Calamity fountain and talked about how it would be nice if some man had climbed a tower to proclaim his love for them. A few men sipped coffee and complained that in the old days towers weren’t built so flimsily. Lily and Chip stood next to the maitre d’s podium outside Pierre Guillaume’s chattering about the things on the menu they wanted to eat. And Pierre Guillaume was crying as a noisy yellow crawler crane lifted the cracked remains of the tower high into the air and dropped them into a rusty red Dumpster.

  Rose and Ty stood under the shadow of the awning of the law offices of Karen Publickson, Esq., trying to figure out what to do.

  Through the window, Rose could see Ms. Publickson sitting calmly at a desk, looking natty in a navy business suit with her black hair perfectly arranged in a twist on the back of her head. Maybe I should be a lawyer instead of a magical baker, Rose thought. Lawyers’ mistakes rarely result in old men climbing on top of towers and taking off their pants.

  Rose’s lips were pursed so tight in anger that she could barely speak. “Ty,” she managed to squeeze out, “why did you give girls in your class Muffins of Love and Cookies of Truth?”

  Ty just shrugged. He was looking annoyingly pleased with himself.

  Rose wanted to smack him over the head—despite the fact that if she had been presented with the opportunity to give Devin Stetson both a Love Muffin and a Cookie of Truth, she probably would have shoved them down his throat faster than he could say thank you.

  Before Ty could answer, the calm hum of the sundrenched brick plaza was broken by a horrible shriek. It sounded like a girl was being mugged, but no one had ever been mugged in the entire history of Calamity Falls, much less in the blinding daylight of the town square.

  It was Lindsey Borzini. She was running toward the law offices of Karen Publickson—or rather, toward Ty. “There he is!” she howled. “It’s—It’s—TY!”

  Lindsey, the oldest daughter of Mr. Borzini, peanut-shaped proprietor of Borzini’s Nuttery, was known for having the worst tan in Calamity Falls. As she shrieked and careened across the brick plaza toward Ty, she looked like a roasted carrot with arms.

  She was waving a thin, glossy book in the air with one hand and a Sharpie marker with the other. Was it an issue of Tiger Beat? Had Ty recently put out a pop album that Rose didn’t know about?

  As she got closer, Rose saw that it was the Calamity Falls Middle School yearbook. Ty had graduated from there in June, and lumped in with the other eighth graders was a picture of him with his auburn hair looking especially spiky and gelled.

  Two things were clear to Rose:

  1. Lindsey Borzini wanted her brother’s autograph; and

  2. Lindsey Borzini was under the influence of magical baked goods.

  Just before Lindsey reached Ty, the lumbering form of Mr. Borzini appeared out of nowhere like a defensive lineman and tackled his own daughter to the ground. The two of them lay there in a heap, wrestling on the brick floor of the plaza: Lindsey screaming and reaching desperately toward Ty, and Mr. Borzini pinning her by her shoulders and trying to avoid the wild waving of her fists.

  “What has gotten into you, Lindzer Tart?” he cried.

  All Lindsey could say in response was, “TY! Tyyyyyyyyy!”

/>   Mr. Borzini look up at Ty while Lindsey whacked him in the side of the head. “She’s been like this all morning. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Maybe if you just say hi?”

  Ty walked over and knelt down on one knee. Lindsey clawed at his jean-covered knee. “Um … hi,” Ty whispered.

  Lindsey’s eyes went wide, a look of calm washed over her face, then her eyes closed and her head went limp in her father’s arms.

  “Fainted again,” Mr. Borzini said. “That’s the fifth time she fainted today—all because she heard your name or saw your picture.”

  Rose caught Ty in a proud smirk, and she smacked him lightly on the back of the head.

  “I don’t get it. I mean, you’re a good-looking kid and all,” said Mr. Borzini, “but you’re not that good looking.” Mr. Borzini picked Lindsey up in his arms and lumbered away.

  Rose and Ty had both heard the frightened confusion in Mr. Borzini’s voice. Rose didn’t need to admonish her brother any further.

  Ty turned to her and sighed. “I know, I know. We’ll find a recipe to fix it.”

  Lily and Chip walked over with Sage and Leigh. “What was that all about?” Sage asked.

  “It seems Ty has an ardent suitor!” Aunt Lily patted him on the shoulder and smiled. “It’s not so surprising, darling. You look like a model, only a little shorter and younger. A miniature model!”

  Ty’s cheeks blushed a deep crimson.

  “Hey!” Sage asked. “Does this have anything to do with what you guys were making yesterday when you tricked Lily and me into running after Leigh all day, and then the cookies you made last night after you told me to go to bed?” He put both hands on his hips like a stern mother.

  Rose looked at the freckles on Sage’s nose and thought that perhaps it was time to stop lying to her younger brother, who was clearly more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

  “Did you trick me into chasing after Leigh yesterday?” Aunt Lily asked, her mouth a large O.

  Ty gasped indignantly. “Of course not! Why would we do that to our favorite aunt?”