A DELICATE MATTER

"I know it's Halloween," Charlotte was exasperated. She'd reckoned that once the twins were in school she would have some peace and quiet. She reckoned wrong.

"Everyone is gone for the day. They're at the carnival. Why aren't you at the carnival?"

"We would be but your Mr. Edison has detained us. He is in our parlor lecturing the twins as we speak," Charlotte complained.

"I don't know Mr. Edison. He must be new. I'm just a student assistant. I'm here picking up the carnival game tickets that Principal Cameron forgot."

"I don't know what my children have done in school today but I have a delicate matter that I need to discuss with Mr. Cameron immediately. It can't wait." Charlotte insisted.

The student was breathless when he finally found Mr.Cameron and the chief of police throwing darts at balloons at one of the carnival booths.

"The widow Charlotte Hansen is beside herself because the guidance counselor Mr. Edison has gouged deep scratches in her maple kitchen chair with his artificial leg. He's in the parlor now with the twins no doubt rippin' up the upholstery beyond repair. Mrs. Hansen said she don't know how to speak to Mr. Edison about his leg because it is a delicate matter and she wants you to do it".

Before Principal Cameron could finish explaining to the student that there was no Mr. Edison employed by the school in any capacity, the police chief vanished. The Halloween carnival had been his idea. The killer with the artificial leg who tended to strike in towns where the residents engaged in unorganized, traditional trick or treating had obviously adapted and found a way to isolate his next victims.

MARCELA

(MARCELA is loosely based on characters in DON QUIXOTE by Cervantes.)


Marcela studied the statue. The saint was carrying the Christ Child but it was wrong. Then she noticed the prayer to Saint Anthony on the plaque and nearly fainted. Her cane tapped loudly and echoed as she rushed out of the cathedral.

"It's my fault," she cried.

She found the statue of Saint Christopher in the grotto by the koi pond. An elderly gentleman was sitting on the bench.

"Ambrosio?"

He patted the bench.

"You're not angry?"

"It's beauty's privilege to keep a man waiting," Ambrosio smiled at his wife.

The dementia occasionally convinced her that they had not eloped in their youth and that it was all her fault because she had waited for him in front of the wrong statue on the most exciting night of her life.

PASAMONTE

(PASAMONTE is loosely based on characters in DON QUIXOTE by Cervantes.)


"Pass this to the lovely lady!" Professor Pasamonte jogged beside the street car.

Renaldo gave the note to the woman Pasamonte indicated. She laughed so hard that Renaldo could
not resist asking the beautiful stranger what was so funny.

"Imagine telling your children this is how you met!" Renaldo and Leda fell in love laughing.


They kept it as a memento of their courtship. Eighty years later their heirs learned it was priceless.


Billy Toboso always claimed he hid it in a stack of invitations. Toboso was the greatest artist of his time in spite of being expelled for the sketch.  On the back of the sketch of Pasamonte burning in hell, Pasamonte had written: "Meet me here at 8".


"The professor must have believed he wrote this on an opera flyer," the appraiser laughed.