Murder With Puffins(96)

And then there was Michael. He was astonishingly cheerful about leaving. Granted, this hadn't exactly been an ideal vacation. And looking back, I realized that I had rather neglected him, taken him for granted while we chased up and down the island looking for miscreants and lost relatives. But still, did he have to look so damned happy about escaping? Had last night made up for the several miserable days before it, or would this weekend manage to kill our grand romance before it really got off the ground?

"Hello!" came a soft voice from my elbow.

Rhapsody. With luggage.

"I didn't know you were leaving the island," I said. "I thought you stayed here year-round."

"Well, usually I do," she said. "But the puffins are gone for the winter, and who knows when they'll manage to arrest that horrible murderer? So when your mother invited me to visit all of you in Yorktown, I thought, Why not?"

"How nice," I said with as much sincerity as I could muster. Had Mother gone mad? For that matter, had she completely forgotten how many stray relatives we already had staying with us? And with Rhapsody underfoot, how could she continue to pull the wool over Dad's eyes about who had painted the nude?

"I'm so excited," she said. "I'm so looking forward to studying you."

"Studying us? Why?"

"Well, you mostly."

"Me?"

"Yes," she said, beaming. "You've inspired me!"

"Inspired you how?"

"I'm planning a whole new series of books based on you!"

"On me?" I squeaked.

"Yes!" she said, clasping her hands. "You'll be a friend of the Puffin Family, a brave and clever girl detective! Can't you just see it?"

Unfortunately, I could. Did she really mean a girl detective, or did she plan to puffinize me? Either way, I could see it all too clearly: a tiny, round Meg conversing stiffly, in profile, with little Petey and Patty and all the beady-eyed members of the Happy Puffin Family. Probably carrying a magnifying glass and wearing a deerstalker hat. I supposed I should have been happy that someone wasn't mad at me, but the idea of becoming a badly drawn cartoon character filled me with despair. The Puffin of the Baskervilles didn't sound so funny now that I thought it might become a reality.

Rhapsody must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm.

"Don't you like the idea?" she asked.

She looked so fragile that I couldn't bring myself to confess how much I hated it, so I settled for saying, "Well, I'm having a hard time seeing myself as a puffin."

"So was I," Rhapsody confessed. "So I've decided to branch out. I'm going to make you an owl! A wise, clever owl!"

Well, marginally better than a puffin, I thought.

"And Michael will be a falcon!" she added, eyes shining.

I managed to keep a straight face, but I suddenly felt very sorry for Rhapsody's editor--she had an editor somewhere, didn't she, seeing that she never went beyond a certain level of inanity? I had a feeling the editor would have quite an eye-opening experience when Rhapsody's first owl and falcon adventure landed on his desktop, no doubt seething with barely repressed eroticism.

"Don't you think murder's a little much for a kid's audience?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. "So I'm going to start with having them find Patty Puffin's little lost kitten."

Did she have any idea what a real owl or falcon would probably do to a little lost kitten if they found it? Oh, well. Editor's problem, not mine.

I glanced down. Rhapsody was making a few tentative sketches of her owl detective. They were, alas, enough like me to be identifiable. In fact, if I crossed my eyes and pasted feathers all over my face, the likeness would be uncanny.

I made a solemn vow to evict the sculptor squatting in my studio within the next two weeks, even if I had to break the doors down and hire a forklift to move his fifteen-foot work in progress.

"Well, I guess we'll see you back for the trial," Jeb said, coming up to shake my hand.

"Assuming they ever find Jim," I said.

"He'll turn up sooner or later," Michael said, rejoining me.

"That's so," Jeb said. "Hard to hide that long on an island this small. Course, they'll probably have the trial over on the mainland. Don't want to inconvenience all the summer folk."

"I'm sure we summer folk will all be properly grateful," I said.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat. "Some of you aren't so bad. Time comes that you want to get away from the laziness over there, you call one of us up. Someone'll have a room free.'

With that, he nodded and stumped away up the hill.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that counts as an extravagant compliment," I said.