Free Remarkable by Elizabeth Foley Page B

doorbell, and once he pressed it, he completely lost his nerve.
    “I don’t think I can do it!” he squeaked dramatically.
    “What do you mean?” Jane asked. But Anderson Brigby Bright wasn’t there to answer her. He’d already run back down the front walk and hidden himself behind a large hydrangea bush next to the mailbox.
    Jane turned to run after him, but it was too late. Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa had already opened the front door. She was humming one of JohannHummel’s trumpet concertos and didn’t stop when she saw Jane on the doorstep.
    “Hi,” Jane said awkwardly. “I…uh…I…”
    “Mmm-hmmm?” hummed Lucinda. “Are you here to join the search for Ysquibel?”
    Jane was so surprised by the question she almost didn’t know how to respond. “No…I, uh…”
    “I always have my eye out for new members. I am the regional copresident of the Save Ysquibel Now! Club—or S.Y.N!C., as it is sometimes called.”
    “Oh. I didn’t know that. What are you saving him from, exactly?”
    “From being lost, of course. He is the greatest living musician in the world today. But please don’t tell Ludwig von Savage I said that. He is our vice president and is sometimes rather touchy about being only the second greatest living musician.”
    “Hmmm,” answered Jane, as if she were pondering what Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa had just said. Humming was contagious. “But I’m not here about that. I’m here because my brother wanted me to give you this.” She leaned the painting against a porch railing so that Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa could see it.
    Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa looked at the masterpiece curiously, humming all the while.
    “Hmmm,” she said finally. “Is that supposed to be me?”
    Jane was caught off guard. The painting might be overly flattering, but it was unmistakably a picture of Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa.
    “Don’t you think it looks like you?” Jane asked.
    “Hmmm. I don’t know. I don’t usually think about how I look. I usually just think about how I sound. Do I know your brother?”
    “I think so,” Jane said. “You go to school with him.”
    “Hmm,” Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa hummed in a perfect C-sharp. She always hummed in C-sharp when she was trying to remember if she knew someone. “Well, tell him thank you, I guess.” And then she closed the door, leaving her enormous portrait on the porch.
    Anderson Brigby Bright was beside himself with anxiety by the time Jane reached his hiding place in the hydrangea bush.
    “Did she like it?” he demanded.
    “Hmmm,” Jane answered. “I don’t know.”
    “Did she ask me to the dance? Did she? Did she?”
    “Well, hmmm, no, not exactly,” Jane said. “It never really came up.”
    Anderson Brigby Bright’s face fell. Jane couldn’t remember a time he had ever looked so disappointed. She couldn’t help but think that if he’d been willing to listen to her before they left the house, then he would have known that this was exactly what she thought was going to happen. But of course, he hadn’t listened to her, and now he was just terribly, terribly disappointed.
    “You could draw a picture of someone else and see if they’ll ask you to the dance instead,” Jane suggested.
    Anderson Brigby Bright shook his head stubbornly. “I want to go with Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa. If I can’t go with her then I don’t want to go to the dance at all.”
    “Maybe she didn’t understand what the painting was for,” Jane said reasonably. “Why don’t you just go ask her?”
    “I’ve never asked anyone to a dance before. I wouldn’t know how to begin.” He looked up at his sister with tears in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d ask Lucinda for me, would you, Jane? Please?”
    “Why should I have to?”
    “It wouldn’t be nearly as hard for you to get turned down by her as it would for me. You’re used to that kind of thing.”
    “Oh, all right,” Jane said, and she walked back up the porch steps and