Stella looked up at Frank. She said, “Where you have you been, Frank?”
Frank said, “I was at a place called Buddy Lamp’s Used Goods. I went with Miss Lincoln to get a key duplicated, and when Mr. Lamp gave me the key and its duplicate back, there was a third key in the envelope. This key.” He took the key out of his pocket and held it out so that Stella and Horace could see it. “But Mr. Lamp says he did not put this key in the envelope. He says he’s never seen it before. It’s a mystery.”
“Oooh,” said Stella. “What if the key opens a treasure chest? And what if the treasure chest is full of gold doubloons?”
“There aren’t doubloons anymore,” said Horace. “All the doubloons have been discovered.”
“How do you know they’ve all been discovered?” said Stella.
“I think that the key opens the door to a prison where someone has been locked away for years and years,” said Horace Broom. He scratched his head. “I think that this is the key that frees someone.”
The three of them studied the key in Frank’s hand.
Mercy Watson woke up. She came to stand with them. She stared at the key, too. She narrowed her eyes.
“Mercy thinks it’s something to eat,” said Stella.
“Ha,” said Horace Broom. “Pigs.”
Mercy leaned forward and snuffled the key. Her snout tickled Frank’s fingers. He laughed.
And then, without any warning at all, Mercy Watson sucked up the key and swallowed it.
“She ate the key!” shouted Frank. “Mercy ate the key!”
“Do the Heimlich maneuver!” Horace shouted back.
“Why?” said Stella. “She’s not choking.”
And it was true. The pig was not choking. She was standing and staring off into the distance with a benign, if somewhat disappointed, look on her face.
“Well,” said Horace. “I guess that takes care of the key mystery.”
“Good grief,” said Frank. “What if it kills her?”
“She’s fine,” said Stella. “She can eat anything.”
“Pigs have got great digestive tracts,” said Horace Broom.
“Good grief,” said Frank again.
The warm feeling, the peaceful feeling, the humdee-dum-dee feeling that he had experienced on his walk home from Buddy Lamp’s Used Goods, had disappeared entirely. In its place was a familiar sense of dread.
Frank went and got his worry notebook out of the hall closet. He went up to his room and sat down at his desk. He opened the notebook, and then he realized he didn’t even know where to start. Should he write down mysterious keys as a worry? Should he list pigs swallowing keys as a concern?
He closed the notebook. He felt a sudden, desperate need to consult the Bingham Lincoln Encyclopedia set. He went downstairs.
He heard Horace Broom say, “Fine. Paint Jupiter green.”
He heard Stella say, “I think you’ve made an excellent decision. It will look very zippy.”
He heard Mercy Watson burp.
Frank went out the door and across the rain-spangled lawn. The sun was coming out. He knocked on the Lincoln sisters’ door, and Eugenia Lincoln welcomed him inside. She afforded him carte blanche with the encyclopedias and told him to put everything back where he found it. Frank went and sat in the living room and stared at the books.
He truly didn’t know where to begin.
Should he look under key?
Mystery?
Digestive tract?
Humdee dum dee?
After a while, Frank got up and went home, without having removed a single Bingham Lincoln Encyclopedia from the shelf.
That night, Frank had nightmares. He dreamed about Mercy Watson coughing up eyeballs. He dreamed of a vulture flying over his head, following him. He dreamed that he was looking for something and could not find it. It was exhausting — to look for something and never find it.
When he woke up, he went downstairs and warmed up some milk — although he was beginning to doubt the efficacy of warm milk, and of hot chocolate, too. Truthfully, he was starting to doubt everything. It was a terrible feeling.
He saw that the Lincolns’ kitchen light was on. Eugenia Lincoln was sitting at the kitchen table. She looked lonely and unbearably sad.
Frank went upstairs and retrieved A Collection of Short Stories Certain to Entertain, Inspire, and Delight. He wrote another note to his family (Do not worry. I have just gone next door. Love, Frank) and then he took two mugs of warm milk, walked over to the Lincoln sisters’ house, and called out, “It’s me, Miss Lincoln. Franklin Endicott. Could you open the door? I’ve got my hands rather full here.”
Eugenia Lincoln opened the door.
Frank said, “I made you some hot milk with cinnamon and honey, Miss Lincoln. And I thought you might want to know that I took the key back to Mr. Lamp and he said that it wasn’t his, that he had never seen it before, and that he didn’t know how it had gotten into the envelope. He says that it’s a mystery. And that mysteries are gifts.”
Eugenia snorted.
“I don’t know that I agree with him,” said Frank. “But in any case, I suppose it doesn’t matter, because now the key is gone entirely.”
“Gone where?” said Eugenia. She led Frank to the kitchen.
“I don’t think you want to know,” said Frank. “It involves Mercy Watson.”
Eugenia snorted again. “Of course it involves that pig — that insufferable, insufferable pig.”
“In any case,” said Frank, “when I went to try and return the key to Mr. Lamp, he made me hot chocolate and read me a story, and it was very comforting. I thought that I might read you a story, too. I thought it might calm us both down.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” said Eugenia. She tapped her fingers on the table.
“Okay,” said Frank. “Anyway. Let’s see here.” He opened the book to a story entitled “The Door in the Wall” by someone named H. G. Wells.
“‘One confidential evening,’” read Frank aloud. And he and Eugenia settled together into a magical story
