Professor Renoir's Collection of Oddities, Curiosities, and Delights by Randall Platt

Author:Randall Platt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

23

Two days later, they were parked on a siding near The Dalles, Oregon. The advance man, Pepito, and either Ina, Mina, or Tina had run off to get married, leaving the outfit high and dry for new bookings and minus one dancing girl. There were only a few bookings on the tracks ahead to Portland and then south to Medford. No one to set up notices of Renoir’s show coming meant no track clearance or permits to set up the show. No show, no money.

Renoir ordered the troupe to use the delay to oil, clean, repair, and rehearse, while he headed to town to do business and see about track clearance.

“Baaaaaaaabe!”

Babe’s head came up out of a deep doze.

“Babe!” cried JoJo’s unmistakable voice, full of urgency, as she ran toward the railcar. There were now two dolls tucked into her belt.

“JoJo! What’re you . . .”

JoJo jutted her two hands up toward Babe, standing in the open door of her railcar. “Here!”

“Here what? What you got there?”

JoJo giggled, grinned, and repeated, “Here.” Babe reached down and took the small cloth bag JoJo offered up to her. “For you! I like you!”

Babe looked inside the bag, then pulled out an envelope and looked inside. JoJo jumped up and down with joy. “JoJo. Where did you get all this cash money?”

“You! You!”

“What’s going on up there?” Lotty asked, coming alongside the tracks. “JoJo, it’s too hot for you being out here.”

JoJo stuck her tongue out at her.

“Aw, come on. We’re friends now, remember? What’s in it, Babe? Babe?”

“Money. Cash money. JoJo give it to me.”

“You! You!” JoJo chanted, whirling around in a circle.

Lotty looked inside the envelope. “JoJo, where did you get this?”

JoJo pointed far off down the tracks. “Found it!”

“Where?” Babe asked.

Now JoJo pointed to the scrub brush in the opposite direction. “Found it!”

“But I don’t understand,” Lotty said. “Where did you find it?”

JoJo looked down at Lotty and gave her a mean look. “For Babe!”

“JoJo, I can’t take this money. Ain’t yours, ain’t mine.”

“Can you show us where you found it?” Lotty asked, opening the envelope and fanning the tops of the bills. “There must be over two hundred dollars in here. It has to belong to somebody.”

JoJo grabbed the envelope and held it to her chest. “Found it!” She handed it back to Babe. “You saved JoJo! You! You!”

Babe jumped down and bent down to talk to JoJo face-to-face, eye to eye. “JoJo, show us where you got this.” She offered her hand. “Come. Show us.”

“You. Not her!”

“Okay. Just you and me. Come on. Show me.”

Lotty was sitting in the shade under the railcar, fanning herself with a hanky when Babe came back alone, holding the fat envelope.

“Well?”

“Beats me. She showed me where she found it, only I don’t think she found it. You know JoJo. She don’t always see truths the same way we do.”

“You mean she stole it? From who? There’s no writing on the envelope,” Lotty said.

“She showed me a place in the tracks.”

“Well, maybe someone dropped it from a train.

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