Mrs Burton got up and from the bottom of one of her kitchen drawers she took a wrinkled old newspaper clipping. “A few months ago I found this among some rubbish your dad had dumped in the hallway. It’s not the kind of thing he would’ve thrown away if he was in his right mind.”
Pete stared down at an old faded picture of two happy people: a proud young man in a tuxedo suit who vaguely resembled his father, and a radiant, beautiful bride at his side. Whiz kid lawyer marries his dream princess.
“This man is your real father, not the drunk who lives with you now. Remember that.”
Pete went to Mr Humperdinck’s bicycle shop on the ground floor. The doorbell played a slow, sombre tune as he opened the door. Pete had always wondered how an old-fashioned copper bell mounted on a spring screwed to the door could play a tune. Maybe it worked as some kind of switch, but no matter how hard he looked, he could never find any electrical connections. He thought he heard the doorbell sigh at the end.
As always, Mr Humperdinck ignored it.
“Hi there!”
The old gentleman’s brushy moustache trembled. “Hello.”
“You okay, Mr Hump?”
“I suppose so …”
Something was wrong. Way wrong. Mr Humperdinck was usually a friendly, talkative man. Pete didn’t want to bother him about Mrs Burton’s rats while he was in such a bad mood, so he busied himself with the chores that he usually did for the old man.
The shop was a place of marvels; apart from a few bicycles (that were seldom sold), it was filled with junk. Layers and layers of junk, on rows and rows of shelves, from top to bottom. There were Thingamabobs from the Far East, Gadgets from Egypt, Gizmos from the Amazon. In fact, you could ask Mr Humperdinck for absolutely anything. A truck for your skateboard, a toilet seat or a hard drive for your computer? He would find it. A fuel valve for a Concorde’s left jet engine, a submarine porthole or even a grand piano? He would disappear in the shadowy depths of his back room and produce a perfectly good second-hand product, covered with layers of dust.
But of all the wonders in the shop, Pete loved Squeak, the white mouse that lived in the wire cage next to the till, the best. Unlike usually, the little mouse seemed agitated, running back and forth in his cage and chewing on the bars. For a moment it seemed to signal to Pete to open the door. Pete dismissed the thought. Mice couldn’t signal! He filled its bowl with seed, and the water bottle with fresh water.
And then there was the big white cat that usually lay asleep on an old piece of canvas on a shelf. Most people in the building thought it belonged to Mr Humperdinck, who called it Snow White. This wasn’t a very good name, because it was a tomcat. But Mr Humperdinck didn’t seem to care. Maggie thought the cat belonged to her, because she fed it tuna once a day, and she called it Here-Kitty-Kitty.
Pete looked for it in all its favourite places, but the cat was gone.
“Have you seen Snow White, Mr Humperdinck?”
The old man banged something with a hammer. “He’s away on business.”
The doorbell rang and Maggie walked in. The bell played that same sombre tune again, even slower than before. This time, Pete was sure he heard a sigh.
Maggie owned AUNT ANNIE’S CONFECTIONERY next door. It would be a little rude to describe what she looked like, so let’s just say that she was her own best customer.
“Pete, I need you to do a few errands,” Maggie said. He was her delivery boy, and she paid him with a meal a day. He didn’t want money, since his father always took whatever he had earned to buy booze.
When Mr Humperdinck saw Maggie his face went red. He stomped off to his back room and slammed the door behind him.
“I wonder what’s eating him,” said Maggie. “He was even ruder to me yesterday.”
“What did he say?” Pete asked as they left the bicycle shop and entered the bakery.
She giggled, and bit a fingernail right off. “He shouted at me, like this, ‘Aaarrgh!’ and then he said, ‘GET OUT!’”
Pete knew it was difficult to provoke Mr Humperdinck. “Why? Did you do anything to upset him?”
“Nothing at all. I just came looking for you, but you weren’t back from school yet.” Perfect innocence, but Pete didn’t quite believe her.
Suddenly he saw something. “A butterfly! Look, there is a butterfly in the bakery!”
There were in fact quite a few flitting about – but Maggie ignored them. “There’s an order for twenty-two doughnuts from that guy at the bank. He tells me he’s on a doughnut diet and he’s already lost a lot of weight. I should try it myself.” Maggie giggled again.
Pete kept a straight face. She had been on a doughnut diet most of her life anyway.
“After that you have to deliver a party pack to that woman in the office on the tenth floor on the corner of Main and 22nd Street. And then three meat pies to Carlo’s restaurant across the road. I think he’s tired of his own food.”
Maggie took a box off the shelf to pack the twenty-two doughnuts, but when she touched the first one, it turned into a butterfly.
Poof!
Just like that.
Pete dismissed it as some trick the light was playing on him. The tone of Maggie’s giggle rose half an octave. She grabbed a second doughnut, which also turned into a butterfly. The same happened to the third, fourth and fifth doughnuts. She screamed, grabbed the whole tray of doughnuts and threw it against the wall. The tray clanged to the floor and a whole swarm of rainbow-coloured butterflies fluttered to the ceiling.
Maggie collapsed on the floor, her back against the wall and her thick legs spread out in front of her. Huge mascara-stained tears ran down her round cheeks and onto her apron.
“Did you see that?” she sobbed, rocking back and forth. “I’m going crazy, I’m seeing things. They’ll take me away and lock me up and I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for my whole life.”
Pete fetched her a paper towel from behind the counter. “You’re not going crazy. I can see them too.”
She blew her nose into the paper towel, and sobbed even louder.
“I can see the butterflies, Maggie!”
The sobs turned into wails of despair. “I’m jinxed, Pete! Cursed! I’ll die of hunger! Every time I try to eat something, it turns into an INSECT! I HAVEN’T EATEN ANYTHING TODAY!”
This time Pete found it difficult not to smile in spite of his bewilderment. A little bit of hunger could only do her good. In fact, a lot of hunger would be even better.
“Come on, everything will be fine. Get up and wash your face; you don’t want people to see you like this.” Pete helped her to her feet.
Just then the door opened and a customer walked in. Maggie grabbed the roll of paper towels and fled into the kitchen, so Pete stood behind the counter to serve him. The poor man’s head was hidden in a cloud of butterflies. He waved wildly, but to no avail.
“May I help you?” asked Pete.
“I thought this was a confection bakery. Since when has it changed into a butterfly farm? What’s going on here?”
The man looked very familiar. Perfectly combed dark hair, smart suit and matching tie, a toothpaste ad smile.
“Er … It was the neighbour,” Pete said. “An April fool’s prank.”
“What? It’s May already!”
“He’s