woman with a mighty bosom turned up on the doorstep, saying she was from the Bird Protection Trust and that my neighbours across the street had reported me for cruelty to birds. They had, she said, counted one hundred and seven various birds being delivered to my flat-
After Mr. Wilkinson, she was the
NO, THE LAST STRAW was today. I did phone Mother last night and she did, after a lot of squirming, give me Dodeca’s private number. The trouble was that I didn’t know what to
Today started with those cowgirls coming round here whining and whingeing. There were beds but no sheets or blankets next door, they said, and it was not what they were used to. And where did they put the twenty gallons of milk? I said pour it away, why not? And they said it was a waste. Anyway, I got rid of them in the end, but only by ordering a stack of sheets and blankets online, which cost a bomb.
Then the bird deliveries began. By then we were almost out of bird feed, so I ushered this lot, swans included, into Stepdaddy Five’s garden and raced off to the corner shop. They only had canary food, so I bought all they had of that. I was staggering towards my flat with it when I saw an entirely new sort of van drawing up and Housebot, that traitor, blandly opening my front door to it. The men in it began unloading and putting together a large number of frameworks. I crossed the road and asked them what the hell they were doing.
They said, “Out of the way, miss. We have to get all these into this flat here.”
I said, “But what are they?”
“Trampolines, miss,” they said.
This caused me to bolt into my flat and race about scattering canary food and looking for that list Liam gave me. I found it just as they manoeuvered the first trampoline in. There were supposed to be nine of them. How they thought they were going to fit them in I have no idea. As I opened the list, one of the men got attacked by the broody goose on the sofa and they all went outside to let it settle down. Liam had written, “Ninth day: Nine lords a- leaping; Tenth day: Ten ladies dancing; Eleventh day: Eleven pipers piping…”
I didn’t read any more. I gave a wild wail and raced into my bedroom, where all the parrots seemed to have congregated, and to shrieks of “I
It wasn’t. I got through to Liam. “What is it now?” he said grumpily.
“Liam,” I said, “I’ve got nine trampolines now. Is it really true that I’m going to get ballet dancers and skirling Scotsmen next?”
“Pretty certainly,” he said, “if you got milkmaids yesterday. Did you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Liam, I have had enough.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?” he said.
“Marry me,” I said. “Take me away from all this.”
There was a dreadful, long silence. I thought he had hung up on me. I wouldn’t have blamed him. But at length he said, “Only if you can assure me that I’m not just an escape for you.”
I assured him, hand on heart. I told him that the mere thought of Franz Dodeca had made me realise that Liam was the only man for me. “Otherwise I’d get on a plane and go to my sister in Sweden,” I said. “Or maybe to Bali, to Stepdaddy Five.”
“All right,” he said. “Are you coming round here at once?”
“Quite soon,” I said. “I have to fix Dodeca first.” We then exchanged a surprising number of endearments before I rang off and raced back to my flat for what I sincerely hope was the last time.
I got back just as a minibus drove up and unloaded half a dozen fit-looking young men in scarlet robes and coronets and three more middle-aged ones, who looked equally fit. Most of them were carrying bottles of champagne and clearly looking forward to some fun. They all poured into my flat ahead of me. I had to sidle among them and past the men squeezing the last trampoline in and past several enraged geese and terrified partridges to get to my phone-a phone dear Franz was certainly bugging. While I punched in his number, the chaps all climbed on the trampolines and began solemnly bouncing up and down. One of the geese accidentally joined them. I had to put my hand over one ear to detect that I had got Dodeca’s answering service. Good.
“Franz, dear,” I said after the beep. “I’m
More than all this it would be, I discovered as I left. Another herd of cows was coming down the street, lowing and cowpatting as it came. From the other direction, I could see the big lady from the Birds Protection, or whatever it was, advancing. She seemed to have a policeman with her. And Mr. Wilkinson was just storming out of Stepdaddy Five’s front door. I ran the other way, past the herd of cows. And who should I see but the nice courier lad just getting out of his van with a fifth parcel of rings.
I stopped him. “You know me, don’t you?” I said. “Can I sign for them now and save you coming to my door?” He innocently did let me and I raced away with the parcel. “I’ve brought you a dowry!” I said to Liam as I arrived-
The diary ends here.
Stewart O’Nan. LAND OF THE LOST
SHE WAS A CASHIER AT A BILO in Perry whose marriage had long since broken up. Soon after that her two boys moved out of the house, leaving Ollie, her German shepherd, as her sole companion. From the beginning she followed the case in the paper and on TV, absorbing it like a mystery, discussing it with her coworkers and customers-so much so that her manager had to ask her to stop. Early on she visited the Web site and left messages of support in the guest book, from one mother to another, but after James Wade confessed that he’d buried the girl somewhere west of Kingsville, she began keeping a file. At night when she couldn’t sleep she sat up in bed and went over the transcripts and the mother’s map, convincing herself it was possible. She couldn’t believe a feeling so strong could be mistaken.
She didn’t tell anyone what she was doing-she wasn’t stupid. The first time was the hardest because she felt foolish. In the privacy of her garage, while Ollie looked on, she stocked the trunk of her car with a shovel, a spade, a dry-cell flashlight and a pair of work gloves. She opened the door and he leaped into the backseat, capering from window to window, frantic just to be going somewhere.
“All right, calm down,” she said. “It’s not playtime.”
Searching on foot took longer than she thought. They came across nothing more sinister than a rotting seagull, but she wasn’t disappointed. Bushwhacking through the overgrown no-man’s-land behind the commercial strip on Route 302 was an adventure, and looking gave her a sense of accomplishment. They could cross this location off and move on to the next one.
Later she added more serious gear like bolt cutters and a lightweight graphite walking stick recommended by professionals, whose Web sites she treated like the Bible. She religiously documented everything, taking videos of any ground they disturbed, writing up her field notes as soon as they got home.
As fall came on she rearranged her shifts, working nights so she could take advantage of the daylight. In a couple of weeks the ground would be frozen and she’d have to shut down until spring. It was then, when she was feeling rushed, that she discovered a U-Store-It outside Mentor with a stockade fence and a dirt road running
