The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

came back.

'Okay,' she said. 'I scraped it off into the trash-masher. Now, Caroline, listen. This is really bigger than both of us.'

'What do you mean? Come on, Stacy, tell me what you found out!'

'Your guy Frederick Fiske? He's not just your ordinary murderer. He's part of a ring. Probably international.'

'Stacy. How do you know? What did you find?'

'Well, like you said, it wasn't an office called Poison, Limited, or anything. It was just an apartment house, with a doorman.'

'Oh, rats. So you couldn't get in. Doormen are such snots.'

'That's not true, Caroline. You just think that because you've never had one. We have a doorman, so I know how to deal with them.'

'What did you do?' asked Caroline.

'First, after I saw that it was an apartment building with a doorman, I went back around the corner and wiped off all the Crimson Shadows lipstick. I didn't want him to think I was a hooker or anything.'

'Then what?'

'Then I put on my most innocent face. You know that face I can do, with my eyes all wide and everything?'

'Yeah.'

'I did that face. And I went right up to the doorman and in my innocent voice—you know the one?'

'Yeah. High and babyish.'

'Right. And in that voice, I said, 'Please, could I have the correct spelling of Mr. Broderick's name? I have to write him a letter for a school project, and if I don't spell it correctly I won't get a good grade.''

'Big deal, so he spelled it for you.'

'Caroline,' said Stacy patiently, 'doormen don't spell. He opened the door and he watched me while I went over to the mailboxes and copied it. I had my investigative notebook with me, of course.'

'Stacy, I could have spelled it for you. I have it right here on the letter.'

Stacy sighed an exasperated sigh. 'Caroline, you'll never be a great investigator. I didn't care about the spelling. I was looking for clues.'

'How on earth can you find clues on a mailbox?'

There was a dramatic pause. Then Stacy said, 'Right there on the mailbox, it said 'CARL BRODERICK, AGENT.' '

'Agent?'

'So you see.'

'See what? He could be a real estate agent!'

'Does a real estate agent tell his clients to kill children?'

Caroline thought. 'Maybe if an apartment listing says 'No pets or children.''

'Come on. Face the facts.'

'You're right,' said Caroline. 'You're absolutely right. It's a murder ring of some sort.'

'Is there anything else you want me to do?'

'No,' said Caroline thoughtfully. 'I really have to sort things out. I'll call you.'

'Okay,' said Stacy. 'I'll be here. I'm going to type up these notes.'

'Stacy, don't leave your notes lying around where anyone can find them.'

'Are you kidding?' asked Stacy. 'Caroline, I'm not a newcomer to this field. I type in code.'

5

'I'm going to the Museum of Natural History, Mom,' said Caroline after she had talked to Stacy.

Her mother was putting groceries away in the refrigerator. She looked startled when Caroline came into the kitchen, and then guilty. She stood awkwardly in front of the table, as if she were trying to hide something. Caroline looked at her suspiciously for a moment.

'Did you buy another eggplant?' she asked.

'No, of course not,' said her mother. She began to hum a little tune. A sure sign of some sort of guilt.

'What is it, then?' Caroline lunged forward suddenly and got past her mother, who tried a football blocking maneuver. But she moved to the right; Caroline moved to the left, past her, and took a good look at the kitchen table.

Eggs. It wasn't eggs. Caroline liked eggs. Bread. That was okay. Hamburger. Nothing wrong with hamburger.

Then she saw it. Them. Two lumpy, repulsive, no-color things lying on the table side by side. Like something you would look away from if you saw it lying in a gutter.

'All right, Mom,' said Caroline. 'What are they?'

'They're good,' said her mother. 'I have this recipe—'

'What are they?'

'Parsnips,' said her mother.

'Parsnips! Mom! Nobody makes their kids eat parsnips! Listen, before you do another thing, Mom, call the Hot Line for Child Abuse. Confess to them that you were planning to feed parsnips to your children. They're there to help you, Mom.'

'Look,' said her mother hastily, picking up a cookbook. 'This recipe says you cook them with orange juice and brown sugar. It's called Candied Parsnips.'

'Mom,' wailed Caroline.

'I know,' her mother said dejectedly, sitting down in a kitchen chair. 'But J.P. will like them. He eats anything.'

'So does any Coelophysis,' Caroline pointed out.

But her mother didn't pay any attention to that. 'Caroline,' she said, 'they only cost forty-nine cents.'

Caroline groaned. 'Mom, you have to find a million aire to marry very soon. Otherwise we're all going to die of starvation or malnutrition or dysentery or something.'

'Hey—' Her mother brightened. 'You said Stacy wanted you to eat at her house some time this week.'

'Right. What night are you planning Candied You-know?'

'Monday?'

'Okay. Monday night I'll eat at Baurichters'. You and J.P. can have a Parsnip Orgy without me.'

'Agreed. They may not taste too bad, actually.'

Caroline made a face. 'You know, Mom, if you'd just go to some of the lectures at the Museum of Natural History, I know you'd meet a terrific man. Probably one who can afford pork chops and steak—'

But her mother sighed. 'Caroline, I can't bear to hear about spiders and things. I get queasy.'

It was true. Caroline's mother couldn't even look at a National Geographic, for fear there might be snakes or lizards or insects inside.

She had tried some other methods for meeting Mr. Right, even though she absolutely refused to go to singles bars. She said she was too old for that; she was already thirty-four. Also, she was afraid she might meet stranglers at singles bars, and Caroline thought she might be right about that.

First, she had joined the Gourmet Eating Club. But after six weeks it was a disaster. She had gained fifteen pounds, none of her clothes fit, and all of the men she had met at the Gourmet Eating Club had ended up dating each other.

Then—after a diet to lose the fifteen pounds—she had joined the New York Scrabble Players Society. Actually, Joanna Tate was pretty good at Scrabble. She always beat Caroline. And she had enjoyed the weekly Scrabble tournaments. More important, she had met a man. He seemed to have an okay job—he was a stockbroker or something—and he wasn't bad-looking, although he wore glasses so thick that his eyes always looked huge, as if you were seeing them through a magnifying glass.

He knew eighty-two two-letter words. That was the problem. He took Scrabble very seriously. He took