The Unbelievable Oliver and the Sawed-in-Half Dads Read online

  The girls placed towels over the “cut” ends of each half of the coffin, so it would seem they were hiding the bloody parts. Then they pushed the two coffin halves away from each other and turned them toward the audience.

  “And voila!” Oliver said. “Mr. Papa is sawed in half!”

  Miguel tilted his head so he could see Simon’s feet sticking out of the other box. “Why are my feet still wiggling?” he asked. “And why am I wearing Simon’s socks?”

  The audience clapped. Oliver reflexively bowed and moved to leave the stage.

  “Kid, you gotta put him back together,” Benny whispered. “Don’t want people to worry.”

  “Oops!” said Oliver aloud.

  The audience thought it was all part of the act, and laughed along as Oliver turned and moved the two halves of the coffin back together. He tapped the coffin twice with his wand, then opened the front lid.

  Miguel emerged to universal applause. The twins hastily pushed Simon’s feet back inside, lest the illusion be spoiled.

  “Thank you, thank you!” Oliver said as he accepted a flower thrown to the stage.

  “Hey, those are for decoration!” Miguel shouted. (In addition to photographing the wedding, he was also the florist.) “But bravo, Oliver, Bea, and Teenie! Let’s hear it for the Unbelievable Oliver and his Uncanny Assistants.”

  That went pretty well, all things considered, Oliver thought as they wheeled the coffin back into the library.

  What Did We Forget?

  Worn out from the performance, the twins and Oliver relaxed in the library.

  Bea sat on the coffin, looking at her notebook, but not writing anything. Teenie jumped up and down on an ottoman, causing clouds of dust to form. Oliver practiced palming a coin—almost successfully. Benny napped on the sofa beside him.

  “I feel like I forgot something, but I don’t know what it is,” said Bea, drumming her fingers on the coffin.

  “Me too,” said Teenie. “Oh, I know! We didn’t use our new names! The Busy Bea and the Thrilling Teenie.”

  “No. It was something else, and those aren’t our names. What did we forget? I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Then it must not have been important,” said Oliver. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Bea looked at him in amazement. “Did you just say ‘Don’t worry about it’? Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not nervous before.”

  “Sawing people in half really agrees with you, Oliver,” Teenie said.

  “Really? You think so?” Nervous at the thought of being un-nervous, Oliver dropped his coin to the floor. “Now that you mention it, I feel like we forgot something, too.”

  Miguel entered with hands full of flowers and cameras. His neck craned, he talked on the phone.

  “What do you mean it’s too big to fit through the door? We ordered a sensible, five-tiered cake—Zesty Orange, Ritzy Raspberry, Strawberry Angel Food, Very Vanilla, and I-forget-what Chocolate, topped with Butterscotch Buttercream and Galaxy Ganache. Now it’s ten tiers? With carrot cake?!”

  The twins looked at each other. “I thought it was supposed to be Choco-latte Ganache,” whispered Bea.

  Teenie shook her head. “No. Lucky Lemon. I’m sure of it.”

  “What? No, there is no wedding planner,” Miguel shouted into his phone. “Well, you’re talking with one of them. I don’t know where the other one went.

  “Kids, have you seen your dad, um, Mr. Simon?” Miguel asked. “He was supposed to check on the cake when it arrived.”

  “We’ll check on the cake for you, Mr. Miguel.” Oliver jumped up, glad to have a job now that relaxing was no longer relaxing. “You just, um, take it easy and handle the flowers. And the photos. And the guests.”

  The kids found the baker in the kitchen, wiping his brow with one of the many tea towels he carried in the band of his apron.

  “Oh, hello, children!” Jacques said. “Did you see the beautiful cake? A caterer just helped me get it into the fridge . . .”

  Jacques showed them the walk-in refrigerator. Inside was a multitiered, multicolored cake so tall and unwieldy that it was placed on wheels.

  This was the biggest, most glorious dessert any of the children had ever seen.

  “The top five tiers are on the house,” said the baker proudly. “I decided you were such a sweet family, you deserved the biggest and sweetest of cakes.”

  “You are a true artist, sir,” said Oliver.

  The cake was so well constructed that Oliver felt an overwhelming desire to shake the man’s hand.

  Their hands met with a poof of flour and powdered sugar.

  “I’ll be returning to help serve the cake later,” said the baker. “When you see Simon, please tell him.”

  The kids looked at one another. Simon—that’s what they’d forgotten! They’d forgotten to let him out of the sawed-in-half trick.

  “Daddy’s stuck in the coffin!” Bea whispered, horrified.

  The three of them dashed back to the library.

  “Daddy?” Teenie knocked on the lid of the coffin. “We’re so, so sorry. I promise never to leave you in a coffin again.”

  “Me too,” said Bea. “Well, at least until you die, I guess?”

  Oliver lifted the lid. The coffin was empty.

  Define Missing

  Oliver gulped. He’d never lost a parent before. He’d lost many homework assignments. And before improving his laundry skills, he’d lost several socks. But never a parent. Or any person at all.

  “Do you think he’s missing missing?” Oliver asked. “Or just missing?”

  “Define missing,” Teenie said. “He’s probably just run off.”

  Bea nodded. “He gets restless. Parents these days don’t have nearly the freedom they used to.”

  “He’s fine without supervision,” Teenie agreed. “Usually.”

  “As long as he doesn’t park in a big parking lot,” said Bea.

  “He loses his car a lot,” Teenie explained.

  “But it’s not like he loses himself,” Bea specified.

  Benny had hopped over from the sofa as soon as the coffin was revealed to be empty. “Psst.” He nudged Oliver, who picked him up in the top hat.

  “Maybe their dad got wise,” whispered the rabbit. “Better to leave early than to get left at the altar. Believe me.”

  “You mean you think he left left?” Oliver whispered back, scandalized. “But he wouldn’t . . . would he?”

  “Anyway,” said Bea, too distracted to notice that her friend was conferring with a rabbit, “Dad always has his phone.”

  “Actually, we have his phone, remember?” Teenie held up their father’s phone.

  “Oh, right,” said Bea. “The gift for Daddy and Papa.”

  Oliver was confused. “Your having his phone is a gift for them?”

  “Yes, the gift of time away from technology,” said Teenie. “To make the day special.” She put the phone down on a table.

  “Also, we’re making a wedding video,” said Bea. “That’s our real present.”

  “That’s right,” said Teenie. “And Oliver, we need your help.”

  Normally, Miguel shot all the family videos. But considering he was already doing the flowers and the still photography, the girls had volunteered—as long as they got to use Simon’s phone. (They swore they wouldn’t open any apps until after the wedding ceremony.)

  Oliver had been the victim of several of Bea and Teenie’s previous videos.

  He hoped this video would be less hazardous. In fact, he hoped he wouldn’t be involved in it at all.

  “Maybe I should go look for Mr. Simon instead,” said Oliver.

  Simon’s phone buzzed on the table.

  “I think your dad has a text.” Oliver waited for the girls to pick it up. “It might be important.”
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  “Our dad never does anything important,” said Teenie. “He’s a writer.”

  Teenie handed Oliver a stick with a single ear bud taped to it. “Here’s your boom pole. You’re running sound.”

  “Teenie is the cinematographer,” Bea explained. “I’m doing the on-camera interviews.”

  She pulled out her notebook. “Oliver, do you have anything to say to the groom and groom?”

  Teenie turned the phone to face Oliver. Apparently, they were starting right away.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard.” Bea made a checkmark in her notebook. “Now we just have to interview a hundred fifty more guests.”

  “I don’t know what you’re congratulating them for,” Benny whispered into Oliver’s ear. “There isn’t going to be a wedding if the groom doesn’t show.”

  “Let’s start with family members,” said Bea. This made sense, as only family members were around at the moment.

  Surrounded by crates, Uncle Jeff was moving bottles behind the bar.

  He shook his head as soon as he heard the word interview.

  “I had a job interview once. Let’s just say it didn’t go well. Besides, there’s something I want you to help me out with.”

  All the crates looked too heavy for the kids to lift, and the contents didn’t look safe for kids.

  “Oh, not the bar. I just need you to pull my finger real quick.”

  The twins were far too smart for such a trick, but Oliver reached out his hand and pulled Uncle Jeff’s finger.

  The fart sound wouldn’t have been so loud if Oliver hadn’t had the microphone extended as well.

  “You kids catch that on video?” Uncle Jeff laughed. “Hey, tell your dads the bar’s all set up. If they need anything, I’ll be right here.”

  They found Simon’s sister on the back steps of the mansion, leaning against a snarling stone lion.

  Aunt Margie was a favorite of the twins. She always brought them souvenirs from her travels, or “mystical journeys,” as she called them. And she was always careful to tell the girls which items had the most magic powers.

  “Hello, Bea and Teenie! Have you seen your dad?” she asked.

  “No,” said Bea quickly. “Can we interview you for our video?”

  “Of course! I was just working on the wedding ceremony.”

  She held up a notebook and a quill pen, just like the one Bea wanted. Bea made a mental note to ask her aunt for a pen as a gift for the Winter Solstice, which is how Aunt Margie celebrated Christmas.

  Ordained in seven faiths, she was the obvious choice to officiate her brother’s wedding.

  “Now, the first thing to know about Simon is that he’s a restless soul . . .”

  Aunt Margie launched into a long discussion of their father’s character, starting with his star sign (Libra) and favorite animal (llama).

  “He never sticks with anything for long. He once promised to travel with me around the world for a year, but didn’t last a week. So fickle! I’m surprised he’s stayed with Miguel all this time. And now they’re getting married? He’ll run off at the first—”

  She noticed her nieces’ expressions. “Of course, he’s probably changed. I’m sure I missed something in his star chart.”

  Teenie’s hands were getting tired from holding the camera. Oliver’s arm had fallen asleep from lifting the boom.

  Bea did her best to get her aunt to wrap it up. “That’s nice, Aunt Margie. In five words or less, what would you like to wish the happy couple?”

  With that their aunt put her hands together and bowed for the camera.

  As they started off in search of their next interview subject, Miguel approached. He held what looked like a fence dotted with donuts.

  Teenie trained the phone camera on him.

  “If you see Dad, remind him that he was in charge of the donut wall,” said Miguel, waving the camera away. “It was his idea. I don’t even eat donuts!”

  “We do!” They each stole a donut as he walked by. Even Benny stuck a paw out of the top hat and snatched one.

  Luckily, the wall blocked Miguel’s view of their thievery.

  As she nibbled on her donut (plain glazed), Bea wrote down what Miguel had said. So far, most of her notes were things Simon was supposed to do that he wasn’t doing.

  “Dad really is dropping the ball,” she said.

  “He’s not dropping the ball, he’s dropping the wedding,” Benny (maple bar) told Oliver (strawberry cruller).

  Oliver was about to shush Benny when he heard a buzzing sound.

  “I think your dad’s phone is buzzing,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” Teenie nodded. She made no move to look at it, or even touch it. She was still eating her donut (chocolate sprinkles).

  “What if it’s him?” suggested Oliver. “What if he really is missing?”

  “I think I liked you better when you were in your not-nervous phase,” said Bea. “You should try being not nervous again.”

  The phone kept buzzing. Oliver kept trying not to be nervous about it.

  “Oh, fine,” said Teenie. “We can look at the phone. Just to make you happy.”

  She took the phone out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. Her glance turned into a stare.

  “Dad’s going to Mexico!”

  “Mexico?!” Benny exclaimed in alarm. Oliver could feel the rabbit’s feet scrambling around on his head, and then the hat being lifted. “I knew it!”

  “What?” asked Oliver.

  “Weddings—they’re all alike!” said the rabbit, jumping to the ground. “I should never have come!”

  Before Oliver could ask Benny what he was talking about, he’d hopped out of sight.

  Runaways

  In a rush, the twins declared two things:

  First, their father was not allowed to go to Mexico without them.

  “It’s not fair,” said Teenie. “He knows we’ve always wanted to go!”

  “He can go to Canada,” said Bea. “Maybe.”

  Second, Oliver was not allowed to run after his runaway rabbit—not when they had a runaway father to contend with.

  “Rabbits are cute, but you have to admit they’re easier to replace,” said Bea. “I mean, you can’t get a new dad at a pet store.”

  “That’s right,” said her sister. “We need your help catching Dad before he disappears forever!”

  Luckily, they knew somebody who was an expert at catching fugitives.

  Grandpa Bruce was a retired police officer. They found him pacing around the grand entry hall, where a pile of gifts had already started to grow.

  “Amazing the way folks leave their presents out in the open like that,” he grumbled. “Think you can trust people just because they’re invited guests? Half of this junk will be gone in an hour! Now what’s this video you’re making? I hope it’s for the insurance claim.”

  His granddaughters told him about the wedding video, and asked if they could interview him.

  “Let me give you some advice about interviews,” Grandpa Bruce said. “Don’t ever let your subject know what you know or don’t know. And don’t ask permission. Just start asking questions.”

  “Okay,” said Bea. “Say someone ran away, how would you catch them?”

  “Heh. This is my kind of wedding video. Nothing lovey-dovey. Straight to the important stuff. Well, the sad truth is, you often don’t catch them unless they want to be caught.”

  The kids looked at one another. This was not encouraging.

  “Did our dad run away before?” asked Teenie. “I mean, ever. Like when he was a kid.”

  “Not that I recall. We were always much more worried about him being kidnapped, really. Always with his head in the clouds, your dad. And so gullible.”

  “Kidnapped?” the kids repeated in unison.

 
; Grandpa Bruce nodded. “Your grandmother, god rest her soul, kept a drawer full of money, just in case we needed to pay a ransom. Those bills wound up coming in handy, let me tell you, when it was time to pay for college.”

  After the interview, the kids pondered what Grandpa Bruce had said. Could Simon have been kidnapped? They hadn’t even considered the possibility until now.

  “Kidnappers usually leave a note,” said Bea, tapping her nose with her pen.

  “Yeah, they make those cool collages out of magazines,” said Teenie.

  The kids saw plenty of notes around the gift table. There was even a bird cage filled with greeting cards.

  The twins looked through the cards, gingerly avoiding the bird, who looked ill-tempered.

  Oliver checked the guest book.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” said Oliver. “There’s a poet in the family.”

  “You got a funny idea of nice,” Benny said.

  Benny’s right, thought Oliver. “It’s a ransom poem!”

  The twins were not impressed.

  “There’s no such thing as a ransom poem, Oliver,” said Teenie confidently.

  She held up an envelope. “Isn’t this cool? It has our names on it! Not just our dads’, or For the Family.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to open it?” asked Oliver.

  “No, you don’t open presents until after the wedding ceremony,” said Bea. “And before the cake. Everyone knows that, Oliver.”

  With this key point of etiquette established, there was no more to be learned at the gift table. They decided to go back to the scene of the crime.

  The library was just the way they’d left it. Nothing seemed amiss.

  They spun the coffin in all directions. If anything, it was in better shape than before. The wheels spun more smoothly and hardly made any noise. Maybe it was lighter without their fathers inside.