The Book of Nonsense (3 page)

Finally!
thought Daphna.

“No, my good man,” Rash said, smiling. “There is no other time.” Then he mouthed something again. Daphna strained to hear, assuming he was whispering, but no, there was nothing. Then Rash said, “Mr. Wax, tell me where you found the book.”

Milton responded with no further reluctance. “In a little town in Turkey. Malatya,” he said, “in a little shop I'd never realized—”

“Of course you did,” Rash sighed, apparently uninterested in the details. He shook his head and smiled as if at an inside joke of some kind. “Of course!” he repeated with a laugh.

Milton looked puzzled, but said, “Is this something you might be interested in?”

“Hmm,” Rash considered. “I'm not sure it would be of any use to me, but you've aroused my curiosity.”

Daphna nodded.
That's what you're sup-
posed to do,
she thought,
act like you don't re-
ally want what you're bargaining for
.

“Let me think a moment,” Rash added.

“Certainly,” Milton said. While he waited, he twisted his carved silver wedding band around his finger. He always did that with the thumb on the same hand. But he shouldn't be doing that now because it made him look nervous—a major no-no in negotiations. As far as Daphna knew, he hadn't taken the ring off even once in the nearly thirteen years since her mother had died.

Rash seemed deep in thought. He leaned back in his chair and took hold of a long, slender, but cracked, wooden cane resting against the shelf behind him. He laid it on top of his desk, making a slight smack. Daphna realized that must have been the source of the smacking sounds they'd heard in the entry room, but why would he have whacked his desk?

The old man rolled the cane under his hand for a while, then seemed to reach a decision. He mouthed something silently again, after which he said, “You could pay me to take this book from you, but what I need more is some quality help here for a short time. My eyes are no good, and I'm sorry to say the same is now true for my increasingly worthless assistant. Is there any chance you have a bookish youngster at home?”

“My daughter would be delighted to help!” Milton proclaimed, causing Daphna's heart to launch into fearful palpitations. She would be
horrified
to help! And why was her father letting Rash negotiate to
take
the book? Nothing made any sense.

“In fact,” Milton continued, making things even worse, “she's out browsing your stacks as we speak! She'd be thrilled to help you now, I'm sure. She loves reading to old folks at the local home,” he added, but then he paused and said, “but I do have eight more books to sell at a number of other shops. It's kind of a tradition that we do it together—I've been gone a while, you see—and tomorrow is her thirteenth birthday.”

Rash flashed a mouthful of rotten yellow teeth and said, “Tomorrow would be perfect. I promise not to keep her long, and perhaps I'll even find a gift for her here. We open at nine.”

“She'll be here,” Milton confirmed. Then he asked, “Do we have a deal?”

Daphna blinked, totally baffled. The old man, she realized, hadn't let go of the book for a second. Now he clutched it to his chest again. He mouthed something silently one more time and then said, “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wax, but we have a deal. And you can forget all the more curious parts of the exchange we've had here today.”

Milton smiled and said, “Outstanding.”

Daphna couldn't believe what she was witnessing.
Make him pay for it!
she nearly screamed, but she was upset now about too many things.

She got to her feet and stalked back through the corridors of books feeling drained and disgusted. If that was how her father negotiated, she could understand why she'd never been allowed to watch. With surprising ease given her agitated state, Daphna found her way back to the front desk and lurched outside. Fortunately, that revolting Emmet hadn't returned.

It took a full twenty minutes for Milton to make it out. The moment he stepped through the door, thunder exploded directly above, and rain came down in wild sheets. Daphna and her father fumbled their way into the car as quickly as they could.

Milton started the engine and pulled into to traffic without saying a word, which was fine by Daphna. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he drove. His brown, speckled eyes were glassy and seemed hardly to blink. Expressions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction seemed to be fighting for control of his face. It was a depressing sight—he looked like nothing more than a befuddled old man.

Daphna was profoundly disappointed. This had been by far the worst father-daughter bookselling expedition ever. Something awful made her fear that it had also been the last

Daphna was dying to ask questions. She wanted to know how her father could possibly have just given his book away and how Rash could mouth nothing at him and then order him around. But how could she ask anything without giving away the fact she'd spied? It was simple, she couldn't.

The more pressing concern was Rash's request for her help. Milton hadn't said a word about it, and they were nearly home now. Daphna wasn't going to say or do anything to remind him, that was for sure. As they parked in the driveway behind their house, she prepared to hurry to her room.

But just as she put her hand on the door latch, Milton said, “Let's go sell the other books!” He shook his head as if trying to clear the fogginess in his eyes. “I forgot we put them in the trunk! We'll come back for lunch, then grab Dex and Latty and go somewhere fun.”

Daphna took a deep breath, then said the unthinkable. “I think I'll take a pass on this one, Dad.” She tried her best not to look at her father's face, but she couldn't help it. Just as she feared, a look of wounded disbelief was deforming his already disordered features.

“Ah, you—it—wha—” he stuttered. “But—we—ah—”

Daphna couldn't stand watching her father's face droop like that, so she made up an excuse.

“I really need to write one last letter to Wren and Teal,” she said. “They're coming home from camp next week, and the mailman will be here soon.”

It wasn't a total lie. She could write a letter. It was just that their note with the camp's address somehow hadn't gotten to her yet.

Eight un-mailed letters sat in her drawer— it might as well be nine. She could give them to the girls when they got home.

Good enough.

Daphna scurried into the house, grateful to find nobody home. She listened for Milton to head off, but he didn't. The car just sat there, idling. Two long minutes crept by before it finally pulled away.

Daphna skulked to her room. She'd spied on her father, then lied to him. It was like she'd become someone else today. She tried to take a nap, but wound up lying in bed, fretting for hours. To ease her conscience, Daphna did write a letter to Wren and Teal, an extra long one, which helped. After that, she managed to sleep, though fitfully.

Just past five, Daphna woke feeling groggy and sapped. She sighed, forced herself out of bed and hurried downstairs, fully expecting to find Latty in a dither.

Latona Pellonia, Latty, was technically Milton's business manager, but she was much more than just that, of course. She was the Wax's housekeeper, nanny, cook, laundress and doer of anything and everything else that needed to get done. But this wasn't always her role. For years, she'd worked for their mother, Shimona, who owned a bookshop in a little town in Israel called Kiryat Shmona. Even though Shimona was Latty's boss, they were best friends.

Everything changed, however, shortly after Shimona met and married Milton and had Dex and Daphna. Shimona retired to raise the twins, but only weeks after they were born, Latty received a tip that books were hidden in some caves in Turkey that could turn the rare book world on its head. Unable to resist, Milton, Shimona and Latty all went.

There was an earthquake.

Milton was seriously hurt when the caves collapsed. He spent weeks in the hospital recovering from multiple bruises and breaks, but that was nothing compared to Shimona. She fell into a chasm and was buried by tons of falling rock. Latty was scarcely hurt at all, at least physically. She stumbled out of the caves under her own power with nothing worse than a host of ugly gashes on her legs, which was lucky because that's why she'd been able to find help. Daphna had no memory of any of this, of course. Neither she nor Dex even remembered living in Israel because they'd moved to Oregon almost immediately after the accident.

Latty's real injuries were emotional. Distraught, she refused to leave the twin's sides afterward, almost literally. She came to Portland and installed herself in the Wax household, which enabled Milton to take over his wife's role as international book scout. She then proceeded to watch over Daphna and Dexter as if they permanently lived inside a cave ready to collapse at any moment.

In the past, Latty's fussing had been bearable to Daphna. It was actually nice to have someone interested in every detail of her life.

But this past year, it had been getting harder and harder to endure. Latty had this increasingly annoying thing about needing to know where she and Dex were at all times. And that's why she was definitely going to be in a dither.

Daphna wasn't sure she could handle Latty just now. She tiptoed into the kitchen and took her seat at the table. Fortunately, Latty was absorbed in preparing her specialty, a Chinese soup called
Min-hun-t'ang
. It was Milton's favorite meal. She'd been out rustling up the ingredients all morning.

When Latty finally turned and saw Daphna, her green eyes panicked. “Daph, you're home!” she cried. “Where's Milton? I checked the computer when I got home and saw he got in earlier, but I assumed he'd come home and taken you kids out. I was just getting worried about why you were late for dinner!”

“We did go out,” Daphna sighed. “But Dad dropped me back home. I was safe and sound upstairs taking a nap.”

“Yes, but I didn't know that! Where is your father, then? Where's Dex?”

At that moment, Dexter slouched in through the back door looking as dazed as Daphna felt. There were snarls of crumbled leaves in his wet hair and patches of moss clinging to his bedraggled clothes.

“Good Lord, Dexter!” Latty yelped. She was a petite woman, but formidable when worried, which was always. Dex didn't give her the chance to say anything more as he ducked quickly into the laundry room and shut the door.

“You'll catch your death in this weather—with no jacket!” Latty scolded, anyway. “Summer is over! What's going on, Dexter? Why won't you check in these past few days?! I've been worried about you!”

“I fell asleep,” Dex said when the door opened again. He came into the kitchen wearing sweats and rubbing his head with a towel.

He wondered when Latty was going to figure out he wasn't about to report his whereabouts to her every five minutes, not any more, anyway. Being a worrywart was her problem, not his.

Dex had considered skipping dinner, even at the risk of Latty calling out the National Guard to search for him, but he knew if he avoided his father much longer, he'd have some serious explaining to do, if he didn't already.

With no further explanation, and without so much as a nod to his sister, Dex sagged into his seat. Daphna was rubbing her eyes and seemed to take no notice of him anyway.

Latty approached the table with a troubled look on her open, pink face, causing both twins to cringe. Even her short frizzled hair looked anxious. “Kids,” she said, looking between them, “I know I ask a lot, but I—you know I—”

“—
promised your mother
,” Dex and Daphna sighed.

Latty, they knew quite well, had promised their mother that if anything ever happened to her, she'd look after them. The thing was, up until this very moment, the guilt induced by those three words had always worked to bring them into line.

Latty looked alarmed, but the back door opened again.

“Hello, Latona!” Milton called, stepping inside. “Daph told me you were out shopping when I got in.”

“Welcome home, Milton!” Latty replied. “Had to get your favorite together. Soup's on!”

But Milton's attention was on Dexter.

“Hello, Dex!” he said, clapping Dexter on the shoulder in an extravagantly fatherly sort of way. He was overdoing it by a long shot, Daphna thought, probably because he wasn't sure how to approach his son after being so rudely blown off. She felt a stab of irritation with her brother for making what should be a simple hello so complicated.

Dex wasn't quite sure what to make of the greeting. It seemed phony. Milton Wax wasn't one of those touchy-feely, I-love-you blubbering kind of dads, which was something Dex actually appreciated.

“Hey, Dad,” he replied, trying to sound totally bored.

“Hey, what'd you get for the rest of the books?” Daphna asked, annoyed by her brother's needlessly indifferent tone.

“Well,” Milton answered, tucking himself into his place at the table, “Sold a nice copy of Yeats'
Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen
.” Then he smiled and said, “And I did drive a hard bargain over at that new place, your ABC.”

Daphna looked at her father incredulously, but then his still glassy eyes fluttered a bit, and his face fell.

“You look exhausted, Milton!” Latty cried, setting down the tureen of soup. “Why didn't you come right in to rest? What is wrong with everybody today?”

“I'm fine, Latona,” Milton replied, but rather unconvincingly. “I'm a bit tired, I suppose. Perhaps I'll turn in early this evening.”

“Perhaps definitely. Eat up and go have a hot soak. Then straight to bed.”

Milton didn't argue. Instead he said,“Oh, Daph, speaking of that new place, the old bookbuyer, Mr. Rash, he'd like you to stop by tomorrow morning to lend a hand, or your eyes, as it turns—”