The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1 For Want of a Name of a Soup

  2 Leon’s Fourteen Messages—and Two More

  3 Mrs. Carillon’s Lists and Letters

  4 Missing: One Husband. Found: Two Twins

  5 Old Friend, New Friends

  6 A Familiar Face in a Dented Head

  7 Noel__C__all/I__new....

  8 Just Wait

  9 The Mystery Is Solved

  10 A Time for Thanksgiving

  Teaser chapter

  “Leon, I mean Noel!”

  Mrs. Carillon shrieked and threw her arms around a skinny man with brown hair, red moustache, and sunglasses. The little man struggled desperately to free himself from her tight embrace.

  She didn’t realize her mistake until a pretty blonde woman hissed, “Seymour, what are you doing?” and yanked him out of her arms. Mrs. Carillon watched the couple hasten away. She was too confused and embarrassed to feel someone tapping her on the shoulder.

  “Mrs. Carillon?” And another tap.

  Mrs. Carillon spun around. A tall, clean-shaven man with brown hair and sunglasses smiled down at her.

  “Leon?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Noel,” he replied.

  NOVELS BY ELLEN RASKIN

  The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)

  Figgs & Phantoms

  The Tattooed Potato and other clues

  The Westing Game

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by E. P. Dutton, a division of NAL Penguin Inc., 1971 Published by Puffin Books, 1989.

  This edition published simultaneously by Puffin Books and Dutton Children’s Books, divisions of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2011

  Text and illustrations © Ellen Raskin, 1971

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PUFFIN EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Raskin, Ellen

  The mysterious disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)

  Reprint Originally published: New York : Dutton, c. 1971.

  Summary: The disappearance of her husband is only the first

  of the mysteries Mrs. Carillon must solve.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-48605-4

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  Pz7.R1817My 1989—[Fic] 88-30658

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated to Claire Laporte,

  a reader who has grown up with my picture books.

  1* For Want of a Name of a Soup

  Names

  It’s a funny thing about names. Some are long, some are short; some mean something, others don’t; but everyone and everything has one, or two or three.

  Little Dumpling Fish had four names. Her first name was Caroline. Her nickname was Little Dumpling. Her last name was Fish, but that was changed to Carillon1 when she married Leon Carillon—all because of a pot of soup.

  As for Leon, he changed his name to ? .

  A Pot of Soup

  Mr. and Mrs. Fish and five-year-old Little Dumpling lived on a small farm next to the small farm of Mr. and Mrs. Carillon and their skinny son Leon. The Fishes grew tomatoes; the Carillons grew potatoes.

  Thanksgiving used to be a happy time when the two families sat down together to a twelve-course turkey dinner. This November, snow was already on the ground, firewood was in short supply, and there was no money for either turkey or trimmings. What kind of a feast could they make out of tomatoes and potatoes?

  “Soup,” decided Mrs. Fish.

  Mrs. Fish arrived at the Carillon kitchen early in the morning, determined to make the best soup anyone had ever tasted. The two wives grated potatoes, pulped tomatoes, chopped parsley, and diced onions. What they did next is still a closely guarded secret,2 but they fussed over the simmering pot all day long.

  The table looked almost festive. Steam rising from the soup bowls masked the chips in the Carillons’ china, and a candle stub flickered from its saucer over the purple-flowered tablecloth.

  Mr. Fish was the first to sip the soup. The cooks stared, waiting for his opinion. Mr. Fish stared back. Mr. Fish’s eyes bulged.

  “Yipes!” he cried, and spit the soup halfway across the table, dousing the candle. The children giggled; the women were horrified. “Too hot,” he said, fanning his red tongue.

  “Blow!” said Mrs. Fish, and everyone blew.

  Mr. Carillon was the next to sip the soup.

  “Slurp,” he said, and blew and slurped again.

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Carillon announced at last. “Wonderful soup.”

  Leon, imitating his father, blew and slurped. “Wonderful,” he said. “Wonderful soup.”

  Mr. Fish tried again. “Good is good, and this soup is good,” he said and took another mouthful. “It’s better than good.”

  Another mouthful. “Best soup I’ve ever tasted.”

  Everyone was eating heartily now; everyone but Little Dumpling Fish, who wasn’t taking any chances. She was still blowing.

  Two helpings, three helpings, four for Mr. Fish, and the pot was empty. For the first time, in a long time, their stomachs were full.

  The Naming of the Soup

  Leon and Little Dumpling were building a snowman in the backyard. Their mothers were scrubbing pots. The men were still sitting at the table, still praising the soup.

  “Best soup I’ve ever tasted,” Mr. Fish said for the tenth time.

  “Best soup anybody’s ever tasted.” Mr. Carillon said.

  “Hmmm,” hmmed Mr. Fish, fishing for something new to say. “We should put it on the market, it’s so good.”

  “Probably make us a million dollars,” said Mr. Carillon, wanting the last word.

  “A million dollars!” shouted Mrs. Fish, running in from the kitchen with Mrs. Carillon close on her heels.

  “Money is money,” 3 especially when you don’t have any; and these two families were so poor that the women had to patch the patches on their threadbare clothes. “A million dollars!” she repeated.

  “Let’s see,” Mrs. Carillon said, “to begin with, we’d need three more pots and a bigger chopping block. . .”

  “And Ball jars and sealing wax. . .”

  “And labels.”

  “Bet we could put up five hundred pints a month, easy,” said Mrs. Fish.

  “Yo
u might just have something there,” Mr. Carillon said, impressed with her instant arithmetic.

  Mr. Fish nodded in agreement.

  “We’ll start small,” he predicted, “but in no time, mark my word, we’ll make that million dollars. Half for you, and half for us.”

  “Half?” shouted Mr. Carillon. “What do you mean, half? The soup was made in my house in my pot on my stove with my potatoes.”

  “The soup was my idea,” Mrs. Fish insisted.

  “And those were my tomatoes,” shouted Mr. Fish. “Besides, fair is fair.”

  Mr. Carillon folded his arms and stared defiantly at his neighbors. “This is my house, and besides, I’ve already named the soup. Carillon’s Pomato Soup.”

  “What?” screamed Mr. Fish, jumping up and knocking over his chair.

  “You heard me. Carillon’s Pomato Soup.”

  “Fish’s Pomato Soup!”

  “Carillon’s Pomato Soup!”

  “Fish’s Pomato Soup!” Mr. Fish pounded his fist on the table. The dishes clanked; the candle fell; a soup spoon flew through the air, smack into Mr. Carillon’s eye.

  Leon and Little Dumpling peered through the window. Their mittens were soaked and their toes were numb with cold, but they thought it best to stay where they were.

  “My father’s going to beat up your father,” Leon said, trying to start a fight of his own to keep warm; but Little Dumpling Fish plopped down on a snow pile and cried.4 Leon had to stand on his head to cheer her up.

  “It all boils down to two problems,” Mrs. Fish explained after she had convinced the men to sit down and talk it over, “the sharing of the profits, and the naming of the soup.”

  They argued and argued until the Fishes convinced the Carillons that fifty-fifty was fair and proper.

  Naming the soup was another matter. The Fishes agreed that neither “Fish and Carillon’s Pomato Soup” nor “Carillon and Fish’s Pomato Soup” sounded very appetizing; but they refused to call the soup “Carillon’s.” The Carillons refused to call it anything else.

  Night was falling and they were no nearer a solution than when they began. Suddenly Mrs. Fish noticed the darkened window. “The children!” she cried, hastening to the door.

  “That’s it!” Mr. Carillon shouted. “The children!” He waited until he had everyone’s attention. “We’d have no problem with the name of the soup if both children had the name of Carillon.”

  Mrs. Fish was horrified. “You want to adopt Little Dumpling? Never!”

  “No, no,” Mr. Carillon said, “what I mean is that your daughter must marry my son.”

  The Fishes thought if over.

  “What if they grow up and don’t want to marry each other?” said Mr. Fish. “What if Little Dumpling grows up and marries Augie Kunkel down the road? You’ve still got your name on our soup.”

  The Carillons thought it over.

  There was only one solution: Leon and Little Dumpling must be married right away. No tomato could be chopped or one potato peeled until the wedding had taken place.

  “After all,” Mr. Fish said, “business is business.”

  Two Mrs. Carillons

  Two weeks later, when their runny noses had slowed to trickles, five-year-old Little Dumpling Fish and seven-year-old Leon Carillon stood before the preacher in the Fishes’ cold living room. Everyone was shivering in his thin Sunday-best except the bride, who wore boots under the long purple-flowered dress made out of the Carillons’ tablecloth.

  “Do you, Caroline Fish, take this man for your lawful-wedded husband... ?”

  Little Dumpling giggled.

  “Do you, Leon Carillon, take this woman for your lawful-wedded wife. . . ?”

  Leon sneezed.

  Either the preacher accepted a giggle and a sneeze as answers, or he couldn’t hear through his earmuffs. He pronounced the children “man and wife.”

  Whereupon Mr. Fish made a speech.

  “Fun is fun, but now it’s time to get down to business. From this moment on, so there’s no mistaking the fact that the Fishes own half of Carillon’s Pomato Soup, my daughter shall be called by one and all, and that includes everybody, including Leon: Caroline Caroline. . . ! I mean Carillon Carillon. . . ! I mean. . . .”

  Mr. Fish curled his lips and twisted his tongue, but Caroline Carillon just wouldn’t come out.

  Mrs. Fish suggested Little Dumpling Carillon, but Little Dumpling hated her nickname and Mr. Fish said it wasn’t dignified enough for a soup heiress.

  “From this moment on,” Mr. Fish announced, “everybody, including Leon, calls my daughter Mrs. Carillon!”

  “But I’m Mrs. Carillon,” protested Leon’s mother.

  Mr. Fish shouted, “A bargain is a bargain,” and there was even talk of a divorce; but the argument was finally settled. Leon’s mother would be called “Mrs. Carillon,” Little Dumpling would be called “Mrs. Carillon,” and the soup would be called “Mrs. Carillon’s Pomato Soup.”

  Business Booms. Boom! 5

  Mrs. Carillon’s Pomato Soup was an instant success. Poverty had spread throughout the land, and poor people found they could feed a family on a ten-cent can of the rich soup. Mr. Fish and Mr. Carillon brought in more orders than their wives could fill. Cooks and canners were hired, and a factory was built spanning both farms. In no time at all the Fishes and the Carillons became one millionaire each.

  The two families decided to keep the children apart until Leon was twenty-one. Leon was sent away to the Seymour Hall Boarding School for Boys, where he lived summer and winter. He never returned for holidays or vacations, not even for the funeral.

  No respectable girls’ school would accept a married woman, so little Mrs. Carillon had to be educated at home. Mrs. Fish hired the first governess to apply for the job, mean Miss Anna Oglethorpe.

  What Miss Anna Oglethorpe lacked in imagination and kindness, she made up for in bones: big, knobby shoulder bones, elbow bones, knee bones; long, thin hand bones and even longer foot bones; and a large, sharp, twice-hooked nose bone. One or more of these bones always seemed to be aimed at Mrs. Carillon—jutting, poking, slapping, kicking—especially when she was caught daydreaming. Miss Anna Oglethorpe hated dreamers (she never had a dream in her entire life), and Mrs. Carillon had little to do but dream.

  She seldom saw her parents anymore. They were too busy running the business during the day and counting their money at night. She never saw Leon. Sometimes Mr. Kunkel, the factory foreman, brought his motherless son Augie to the Fishes’ big, new house during school holidays. Augie Kunkel was her one playmate and her only friend; then he, too, was sent away.

  Mrs. Carillon would never forget the day Augie was sent to live with his aunt. It was the day that she became an orphan and the only Mrs. Carillon. It was her twelfth birthday.

  Miss Anna Oglethorpe had caught her nose between the swinging pantry doors and was upstairs in bed, her face buried under ice packs.

  “Happy Birthday to me,” twelve-year-old Mrs. Carillon muttered, chin in hand, alone at the breakfast table. Her parents had forgotten her birthday. They had dashed out of the house hours ago to attend a directors’ meeting at the factory.

  The meeting was well under way when Mrs. Fish accused Mr. Carillon of out-and-out theft, or was it the other way around? No matter, for just as Mr. Fish pounded the table and shouted “Fair is fair,” the boiler on the floor below blew up.

  The explosion was heard five miles away. By the time the fire was put out, one wing of the factory had been gutted. The rubble was cleared and sifted; but no identifiable remains of the Fishes, the Carillons, Mr. Kunkel, or the sales manager were ever found.

  People began to wonder about the missing bodies. People began to say the soup tasted a bit peculiar after that.

  Luckily a Mr. Banks, trustee of the estate, was able to save the business from total ruin. He eased the minds of the suspicious soupeaters with a clever jingle he wrote to the tune of “On Wisconsin.” It was sung by a hundred-man chorus over every radio st
ation in the country, twenty-five times a day for a year.

  In Pomato, in Pomato,

  You will find no meat;

  Mrs. Carillon’s Pomato,

  Soup that can’t be beat.

  U-rah-rah!

  Our Pomato, our Pomato,

  Just ten cents a can,

  Is the soup, the soup, soup, soup

  That’s ve-ge-tar-i-an.

  2* Leon’s Fourteen Messages—and Two More

  Black and Blue and Purple

  It wasn’t the explosion that frightened Mrs. Carillon; it was Miss Anna Oglethorpe screaming, “Armageddon!” 6 Both thought of hiding in the window seat, but the twelve-year-old got there first. The frantic governess clomped down the stairs at top speed, lifted the seat, and too flustered to see it was already occupied, began to climb in. All Mrs. Carillon could do to protect herself was sink her teeth into a big, knobby ankle bone.

  Miss Anna Oglethorpe let out a piercing shriek. She hopped about in dizzying circles, then dashed through the hallway and dived into the narrow laundry chute.

  Every bone in her body hit one part or another of the tin lining during her headlong fall. Thunderous reverberations boomed up and down the shaft, and in and out of her skull. She landed on a pile of dirty linens and lay, sore and trembling, entangled in soiled socks and sheets for two days, her brains addled, temporarily deafened. A wet bath towel, thrown from the second floor, finally brought her to her senses.

  Miss Anna Oglethorpe’s bruises disappeared within a week; but Mrs. Carillon, world’s champion daydreamer, remained black and blue for the next seven years.

  At times she thought those seven long years of pokes and jabs and smells of simmering soups would never end; then suddenly, one day, her dream came true.