Free The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon by Ellen Raskin Page A

am married, Mrs. Baker.”
    “It’s time you forgot about that Noel. As Mr. Banks says, he’s legally good as dead. You’re lonely, and the twins are lonely, and I know.”
    The twins looked at each other in surprise. They didn’t think they were lonely. Mrs. Carillon didn’t think she was lonely, either. It must be Mrs. Baker who was lonely.
    “You must miss your husband very much since he died,” Mrs. Carillon said.
    “Miss that good-for-nothing? Not him. Spend money, that’s all he knew how to do. I’d make money and he’d spend it.” Mrs. Baker sighed and sat down, dish towel in hand. “But I sure do miss my sister Minnie.” 31
    “What happened to Minnie?” Tina asked, hoping for a detailed medical case history.
    “Don’t rightly know. I sent her bus fare to come to New York over six months ago, and I haven’t heard from her since. And nobody back home in Davenport knows anything, either.”
    “How dreadful,” said Mrs. Carillon.
    “Do we have to have Camembert cheese every night?” complained Tony.
    Letters from Iowa and Idaho
    Tony spent the opening day of school writing Noel’s first phrase over and over. When class was dismissed early, he went home and wrote it some more. He had one more day of waiting for Mr. Kunkel’s return.
    This was Tina’s big day. Jordan Pinckney had grown three inches over the summer and was the tallest boy in the class. And the handsomest, she thought. Tina cornered him after school and made her confession. Jordan Pinckney said he knew it all along; and, even worse, still insisted his father was a television star. “If you don’t believe me watch Channel 2 at 7:30 tonight.”
    “Don’t worry, I will,” she said, and walked part of the way home with Rosemary Neuberger.
    “You know, Rosemary, since you got pimples you’ve become a much nicer person.”
    Rosemary Neuberger had become such a nice person, she didn’t even object to Tina’s free medical advice.
    “Remember, now, lots of soap and no chocolate.”

    Ten letters addressed to Tina Carillon were stacked on the hall table.
    “Pen pals,” she explained to her nosy brother.
    Tina neatly arranged the envelopes on her bedspread and studied them appreciatively. She wanted to savor every precious moment leading to the final discovery. Slowly, carefully, she opened the first letter; then stopped. What if she and Mr. Banks were wrong? What if one of the letters said that Noel Carillon was alive and well and living in Idaho? For several minutes she considered tossing them down the incinerator, but curiosity won out and she unfolded the letter.
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    The next letter promised popularity through weight reduction : Enroll in SYLPH; the Suddenly-You-Lose-Pounds-Happily club of northern Iowa.
    Two letters touted the services of private detectives: one from Idaho at $50 a day, one from Iowa at $75. 32
    For $5 she could have her personal astrological horoscope cast by experts; for $7.50 she could buy a tonic to cure her “tired” blood.
    She was invited to join a lonely hearts’ club, offered a combination accident-health-life insurance policy “for the single woman,” and guaranteed satisfaction for one year with the purchase of a reconditioned vacuum cleaner.
    The last envelope, written in an almost illegible scrawl, contained five pages of mad ravings and obscene proposals. Tina had read enough medical case histories not to be too upset by it; she figured the miserable writer was either suffering from brain damage or a fatal kidney disease. She tore up the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket, along with the others.
    “Maybe Jordan Pinckney’s father really is a television star,” she thought, trying to rouse herself from a gnawing sense of despair.
    Who’s Minnie Baker?
    Tina and Tony were edgy enough without having Mr. Banks show up for dinner; but there he