Figgs & Phantoms Read online

  “Noodles!” Mona leaned out of her window and called to her runaway cat. Noodles looked up at the window and darted into the hospital so quickly that by the time the raspberry-red Edsel hove into sight the cat was purring in Mona’s lap.

  “We are the very models of a modern Major-General. ...” Romulus and Remus performed their act on the roof of the car.

  “Bravo! ” Mona shouted. Mrs. Lumpholtz and Miss Quigley stood up to applaud the twins.

  “I wish Uncle Truman were watching with us,” Mona said, reading her sign for the hundredth time.

  “Don’t worry about Truman, he’s doing just fine,” Mrs. Lumpholtz said. “Harriet Kluttz hasn’t left his side since the accident.”

  “An ideal couple,” Miss Quigley said, and Mona decided she approved the romance.

  The volunteer fire department’s sirens blared.

  “Excuse me, may I come in?”

  Mona uttered a surprised gasp as the tall, birdlike man tottered into the room. She had thought Ebenezer Bargain was dead.

  4. SAINTS GO MARCHING IN

  SIT DOWN and join us, Eb,”Miss Quigley said to the old bookseller.

  “No, thank you, I just dropped by to give Mona some books.”

  “Look, look,” Mrs. Lumpholtz shrieked. “There goes my little granddaughter.”

  Thirty kindergarten children, dressed as Pineapple lollipops, sang and danced under the window.

  Everyone looked and told Mrs. Lumpholtz that her granddaughter did, indeed, look like a Pineapple lollipop.

  Mr. Bargain placed a book in Mona’s hand.

  Mona didn’t recognize the slim volume cased in new leather. She opened it to the title page:THE FIGG-NEWTON GIANT

  BY

  Mona Lisa Newton

  THE BARGAIN PRESS

  Pineapple

  “Look at the colophon,” the bookseller said.

  Mona turned the pages of her printed composition to the back of the book.

  DESIGNED AND PRINTED BY EBENEZER BARGAIN

  AT THE BARGAIN PRESS

  IN AN EDITION OF TWO COPIES OF WHICH

  THIS IS NUMBER 1

  “I’d like to keep the second copy to remind me of my dear friend Florence Figg. I miss him so much.”

  Mona admired the beautifully made book in her hand. Her book, her words, her creation. She looked up gratefully to thank the old man, but he was bent over, pulling another book out of his briefcase. Mona stared at the familiar bald spot on the top of his head.

  And then she knew.

  The Horticultural Society, led by Sophie Davenport, tiptoed through the tulips.

  “This is for you, too, Mona,” Ebenezer Bargain said, straightening up. “Florence traded this book to me for two Conrads, just before he died. He loved the book so, and he loved you so—well, I want you to have it now. I’m too old to retire, and who knows....”

  Mona took Las Hazañas Fantásticas from his hand. “You’ll live forever, Mr. Bargain, reading, collecting, and selling books in your little shop.”

  “Thank you for the lovely thought,” he said.

  The Pineapple High School band blared and a hundred young voices sang: “Oh, when the saints go marching in,

  When the saints go marching in,

  We’ll be proud to be in that number

  When the saints go marching in.”

  Noodles, critical of the off-key harmony, darted off Mona’s lap and hid under the bed.

  Mona watched the old bookseller hobble out of the room. She could never imagine him without his bald spot, not in a nightmare, not in a dream. He had been recreated in that other-time, other-world place by someone else, someone too short to have ever seen the top of Ebenezer Bargain’s head. Mona had seen him in Uncle Florence’s dream. She had been to Capri!

  “Good-bye, Mr. Bargain,” Mona called after him. “And thank you, thank you so very much.”

  “And when the new world is revealed,

  When the new world is revealed....”

  Mona thought of Uncle Florence, but not with sadness. She remembered him dancing with gentle Phoebe. He had found love and contentment; he was happy now, and there was no room for her in his small world.

  It was the larger dream, someone else’s magnificent dream of dreams that she would return to some day. If she were allowed.

  With trembling hands Mona opened the original edition of Las Hazañas Fantásticas. Even her untrained eye could tell the difference between the harsh ink of the facsimile and the delicate tints she now studied. She tenderly ran her finger over the map until it stopped under a tiny, irregularly shaped island.

  “Caprichos,” it said. And drawn on the island, their leaves entwined, were two palm trees—one coral, one pink.

  “Look, Mona.” Miss Quigley pointed to the passing parade.

  Newt was merrily honking the horn from the driver’s seat of the flower-bedecked spring-green bus. He wore the costume of the King of Hearts. From a gilt throne on top of the float, throwing kisses and roses to the admiring crowd, reigned Penelope the Pinochle Queen of Pineapple—Sissie.

  “Hooray!” shouted Mrs. Lumpholtz and Miss Quigley.

  “Hooray!” Mona shouted, waving to her beaming parents. She clutched the would-be pirate’s book to her breast and stared long and hard at the gay float as it drove past the cheering people of Pineapple. Mona wanted to remember this happy scene forever.

  Mona had a lot of remembering to do, a lot of living and learning and loving to do, before she left once more for Caprichos. Before she returned to their dream.

  “REALLY NOW, TRUMAN,” I SAID. “THAT’S GOING TOO FAR.

  IT’S SUPPOSED TO SAY ‘END,’ NOT ‘AND.’ ”

  “I LIKE IT BETTER THIS WAY,” HE REPLIED.

  MAYBE HE’S RIGHT.

  Ellen Raskin lived in many worlds: in the world of books, in the world of dreams, and in New York City, where she wrote and illustrated in an 1820 haunted house.

  Ellen Raskin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up during the Great Depression. She is the author of several other novels, including the Newbery Award—winning The Westing Game, the Newbery Honor—winning Figgs & Phantoms, and The Tattooed Potato and other clues. She also wrote and illustrated many picture books, and was an accomplished graphic artist. She designed dust jackets for dozens of books, including the first edition of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic A Wrinkle in Time. Ms. Raskin died at the age of fifty-six on August 8, 1984, in New York City.

  Ellen Raskin made the illustrations in this book. She also designed this book with the patient assistance of Riki Levinson and Susan Shapiro (who is not responsible for Truman Figg’s misspellings).

  The typefaces were chosen to reflect the content of the words, to point up the contrast of old books with vaudeville. The text was set in Janson, a beautiful seventeenth-century old-style face. The display type is the theatrical Playbill. Truman’s signs are composed of Chisel, Playbill, and News Gothic. The ampersand is Garamond. This sign represents the word “and” and is derived from the Latin et, which also means “and.”

  Turn the page

  to read the first chapter of Ellen Raskin’s

  Newbery Award-winning novel,

  THE WESTING GAME

  SUNSET TOWERS

  1

  THE SUN SETS in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!

  Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Five empty stories high.

  Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be. The letters were signed Barney Northrup.

  The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.

  Dear Lucky One:

  Here it is—the apartment you’ve always dreamed of, at a rent you can afford, in the newest, most luxurious building on Lake Mich
igan:

  SUNSET TOWERS

  • Picture windows in every room

  • Uniformed doorman, maid service

  • Central air conditioning, hi-speed elevator

  • Exclusive neighborhood, near excellent schools

  • Etc., etc.

  You have to see it to believe it. But these unbelievably elegant apartments will be shown by appointment only. So hurry, there are only a few left!!! Call me now at 276-7474 for this once-in-a-lifetime offer.

  Your servant,

  Barney Northrup

  P.S. I am also renting ideal space for:• Doctor’s office in lobby

  • Coffee shop with entrance from parking lot

  • Hi-class restaurant on entire top floor

  Six letters were delivered, just six. Six appointments were made, and one by one, family by family, talk, talk, talk, Barney Northrup led the tours around and about Sunset Towers.

  “Take a look at all that glass. One-way glass,” Barney Northrup said. “You can see out, nobody can see in.”

  Looking up, the Wexlers (the first appointment of the day) were blinded by the blast of morning sun that flashed off the face of the building.

  “See those chandeliers? Crystal!” Barney Northrup said, slicking his black moustache and straightening his hand-painted tie in the lobby’s mirrored wall. “How about this carpeting? Three inches thick!”

  “Gorgeous,” Mrs. Wexler replied, clutching her husband’s arm as her high heels wobbled in the deep plush pile. She, too, managed an approving glance in the mirror before the elevator door opened.

  “You’re really in luck,” Barney Northrup said. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to 3D. “Now, is that breathtaking, or is that breathtaking?”

  Mrs. Wexler gasped; it was breathtaking, all right. Two walls of the living room were floor-to-ceiling glass. Following Barney Northrup’s lead, she ooh-ed and aah-ed her joyous way through the entire apartment.

  Her trailing husband was less enthusiastic. “What’s this, a bedroom or a closet?” Jake Wexler asked, peering into the last room.

  “It’s a bedroom, of course,” his wife replied.

  “It looks like a closet.”

  “Oh Jake, this apartment is perfect for us, just perfect,” Grace Wexler argued in a whining coo. The third bedroom was a trifle small, but it would do just fine for Turtle. “And think what it means having your office in the lobby, Jake; no more driving to and from work, no more mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.”

  “Let me remind you,” Barney Northrup said, “the rent here is cheaper than what your old house costs in upkeep.”

  How would he know that, Jake wondered.

  Grace stood before the front window where, beyond the road, beyond the trees, Lake Michigan lay calm and glistening. A lake view! Just wait until those so-called friends of hers with their classy houses see this place. The furniture would have to be reupholstered; no, she’d buy new furniture—beige velvet. And she’d have stationery made—blue with a deckle edge, her name and fancy address in swirling type across the top: Grace Windsor Wexler, Sunset Towers on the Lake Shore.

  Not every tenant-to-be was quite as overjoyed as Grace Windsor Wexler. Arriving in the late afternoon, Sydelle Pulaski looked up and saw only the dim, warped reflections of treetops and drifting clouds in the glass face of Sunset Towers.

  “You’re really in luck,” Barney Northrup said for the sixth and last time. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to a one-bedroom apartment in the rear. “Now, is that breathtaking or is that breathtaking?”

  “Not especially,” Sydelle Pulaski replied as she blinked into the rays of the summer sun setting behind the parking lot. She had waited all these years for a place of her own, and here it was, in an elegant building where rich people lived. But she wanted a lake view.

  “The front apartments are taken,” Barney Northrup said. “Besides, the rent’s too steep for a secretary’s salary. Believe me, you get the same luxuries here at a third of the price.”

  At least the view from the side window was pleasant. “Are you sure nobody can see in?” Sydelle Pulaski asked.

  “Absolutely,” Barney Northrup said, following her suspicious stare to the mansion on the north cliff. “That’s just the old Westing house up there; it hasn’t been lived in for fifteen years.”

  “Well, I’ll have to think it over.”

  “I have twenty people begging for this apartment,” Barney Northrup said, lying through his buckteeth. “Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Whoever, whatever else he was, Barney Northrup was a good salesman. In one day he had rented all of Sunset Towers to the people whose names were already printed on the mailboxes in an alcove off the lobby:

  Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. Barney Northrup had rented one of the apartments to the wrong person.

  NOVELS BY ELLEN RASKIN

  The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)

  Figgs & Phantoms

  The Tattooed Potato and other clues

  The Westing Game