CHAPTER TWO
The Mysterious Letter
A girl was at the door. She was about twelve or thirteen years old, and looked frightened. She hurried into the Flitz house as soon as Dada opened the door.
"Mr. Flitz?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"Yes, that's me," said Dada, looking at the girl curiously. "Are you lost, or something?"
"No, I've come to the right place." She held out an envelope toward Dada. "This is for you."
Dada took the envelope and laughed. "Is the postal service hiring little girls now to deliver the mail?" he asked.
"No," said the girl in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "My grandmother told me to come here and give that letter to you if she ever ... if she ever ..."
Suddenly the girl started to cry. She quickly covered her eyes with her hands, and started to sob her heart out. At first Dada stood by helplessly, not knowing what to do. Then he led her into his office, where she sank down into one of his chairs.
After a moment of sobbing, she had recovered enough to talk again. "Grandmother went to the store this morning, and never came back! I've called her cell phone hundreds of times, but she doesn't answer! She's never done this before! She's disappeared!" She started to sob again. The girl's sobs sounded so heart-rending that Flo and Mo had to try very hard to overcome their natural baby instinct to join in and cry too.
"Your grandmother?" said Dada, clearly confused. "Do I know her? I don't think I know you either." The girl didn't answer, so he opened the letter. He frowned as he started to read. "This is very curious ..." he muttered to himself.
Flo and Mo were beside themselves in frustration at being too short to read the letter too.
"Sometimes it is SO FRUSTRATING being only a foot and a half tall!" cried Mo to his sister.
She did not reply, but was rocking back and forth in anxiety, clearly trying to keep from involuntarily going to the bathroom. This is something that sometimes happened with their tiny baby bodies when they got too excited.
"Oh, what darling babies!" cried the girl suddenly, spotting Mo and Flo for the first time. Her tears temporarily forgotten, the girl reached down and picked up Flo from the floor (possibly this choice of who to pick up was because of the smell coming from Mo).
"Are they twins?" she asked, her lips quivering slightly as she smiled through her tears.
"Yes," said Dada proudly. "That's Flo, our little girl, and over there is Mo, her brother. She's older than him by twenty-five seconds."
"Twenty-five lousy seconds!" muttered Mo grumpily. "Why do they always have to rub it in?"
"They're so cute!" said the girl, giving Flo a hug that made her giggle. In spite of her tremendous intellectual powers, Flo couldn't resist the natural feeling all babies have at the joy of being hugged.
"Hey, what about me down here?" grumbled Mo. "I don't smell THAT bad!"
As if she had heard him, the girl put Flo down (not with a 'plop' like Mama did, thankfully) and scooped Mo up in her arms. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she did so, but she didn't say anything.
"How old are they?"
"Fourteen months!" said Dada, clearly having forgotten all about the letter and the fact that the girl was an unknown stranger. "They just learned to crawl a few months ago!"
"But it only took us that long because our bodies haven't developed as fast as our minds," said Flo. Of course, since she spoke only to Mo in telepathy, no one heard her.
The girl's smile faded as she noticed the letter in Dada's hand. "What does it say?" she asked, her voice trembling again. "Grandmother never told me what was in the envelope. She just said that I should come to you and give you that letter if she ever ... if she ever ..."
Dada spoke up quickly to try and prevent a new flood of tears. "It's rather mysterious, really," he said. "The letter says you are in great danger, and you are not to go back to your grandmother's mansion. You are to stay here until your Uncle Elroy comes to get you, which should be in the next day or two."
"Uncle Elroy!" cried the girl. "I never knew I had an Uncle Elroy! And why would it say I'm in danger? Grandmother and I never had any enemies! Who would want to hurt us?"
"I don't know," said Dada, his face clouding over. "Like I said, it's very mysterious. But I'm sure we'll figure it out. And don't worry. You'll be perfectly safe here."
Flo and Mo gave each other meaningful glances. This was a mystery, all right! But unlike their father, their able minds were already able to see a few things that most people would not have noticed.
"What's your analysis, Flo?" asked Mo into her mind.
"Based on her facial features, I would say the girl has some Native American Indian blood in her, somewhere. From the mud on her shoes, she comes from the east side of town, where the red earth is more loamy and thick. Her clothes indicate wealth, which is consistent with the reference to living in a mansion. What do YOU see?"
"The envelope is faded and the address was typed on with an old-fashioned typewriter rather than a modern printer. Which means the letter was prepared and sealed in the envelope quite a long time ago--probably when the girl was a mere infant. This suggests that the grandmother has known for years of some potential danger to herself and her granddaughter. And the fact the letter was even prepared at all, with instructions to take it to a detective, indicate that the grandmother knew far more than she ever told the girl. Most likely she didn't want the girl to worry, but knew trouble could come at any time."
"Right!" agreed Flo. "As for the mysterious 'Uncle Elroy,' he must check in with the grandmother almost every day to make sure they're safe--otherwise, he would not know he needed to come for the girl in a day or two after the grandmother's disappearance. He also must not live far away, to be able to make it here that quickly. It must have been considered safer for some reason for the girl to not know anything about him."
Dada was talking again, which interrupted the babies' observations.
"Now there, dear, don't cry." He patted the girl's wrist rather awkwardly, not knowing how to stop the fresh bout of crying that the girl had just started. "My wife will get our guest room ready for you, and you'll be perfectly comfortable here." Then, as if his slow mind had suddenly remembered something helpful, he said, "and don't forget the babies! You can help take care of them while you're here!"
"Can I?" said the girl, giving a slight smile through her tears. "I'd like that. I've never been around babies much before. In fact, Grandmother and I pretty much kept to ourselves. She didn't like to go out much, and I didn't even go to school. I had a private tutor."
Mo and Flo exchanged more meaningful glances. This confirmed that the grandmother had been trying to hide from someone.
"I say, Cassie!" cried Dada, crossing to the door and calling for his wife. "We seem to have an unexpected visitor."
In a moment, Mama appeared at the door. Her eyes were wet from soap opera crying, but she smiled cheerfully. "How lovely!" she cried. "Are you a new mystery for my husband to solve, my dear?"
"Well, not exactly," said the girl, confused.
"What's your name, dearie?" said Mama, scooping Mo out of the girl's hands and 'plopping' him with a thump (and a bit of pain) on the rug.
"Elise," said the girl. "Elise Frampton."
"And where are your parents, Elise Frampton?" asked Mama, voicing a question that Dada should have thought to ask.
"I don't have any," answered the girl. "They died in a car accident when I was a baby. I don't have any family in the world except Grandmother ... and this mysterious Uncle Elroy mentioned in the letter, that I never heard of before."
"Oh, is there a mysterious Uncle Elroy in a letter?" said Mama curiously.
"There certainly is," said Dada, handing Mama the letter. Then he took Mama by the arm and steered her from the room. "Be right back, Elise," he called. "I just need to talk with my wife real quick about the guest room ..."
The babies knew
instantly the letter must contain something else that Dada had not revealed to the girl, but wanted to tell Mama. Flo crawled quickly out the door and followed them. Meanwhile, Mo started to coo and gurgle in typical baby fashion, to distract Elise so that Flo could go and eavesdrop on their parents without interruption.
"Dada's telling Mama the letter says she has to go back to the girl's mansion!" said Flo telepathically to her brother from the next room. "She has to get something there that's extremely important--and she has to do it today, before dark!"
"Not at all surprising," answered Mo. "The old lady must have known that if she was to disappear, the people who kidnapped her would come back immediately for the girl and this important item, whatever it is. So it has to be grabbed fast."
"I hope Mama takes us with her to the mansion!" cried Flo. "We might find some more clues!"
"Let's put on our best baby begging faces," replied Mo. "That usually convinces her to take us ANYWHERE!"