When important objects go missing, witch place do you start looking for them?

 
The room inside seemed like a slice of another world, far from the suburban realm of Southern California. The wood flooring --oak, but the boys didn't know that-- glowed with the light that comes from a century of proper care; waxing, stripping and waxing again until the buttery depths of the wood reveal themselves. The windows had attached windowboxes, one of them padded like a loveseat, the other two supporting planters filled with flowers.

The furniture looked old, expensive and perhaps lovingly restored to some remembered opulent yesterday. A heavy mahogany bureau topped with an ancient, yellowish mirror sat against the longest length of interior wall. A collection of painted bisque figurines, each showing two women dancing or holding hands or -- kissing, covered the top of the bureau. A half life-size marble statue of two naked women embracing sat on a pedestal in the space between the two front windows.

On the left, an archway opened into a formal dining room with a long, again mahogany, table and eight chairs. The windows had similar treatments to the sitting room but in place of the massive bureau sat a combination buffet-butler's table-bar that might have come directly out of the parlor of the first class suite in some Edwardian ocean liner. Between the front windows stood a sculpture of Ganymede, shyly holding out a cup to an invisible Jove.

Phil directed her visitors through this richness and perched on the window seat near a grandiose cast-iron lion. "So what happened?" she asked after the boys had sat on the antique sofa she indicated.

"They're gone," said Dick in an empty-sounding voice.

"Missing," agreed Willie. "Mine were gone when I got up this morning."

"Hmm," said Phil, not bothering to hide a smile. "Both of you?"

Dick nodded that the same had happened to him.

"I didn't tell him!" Willie protested.

"He guessed, so I guessed that he knew because he knew...you know?" Dick explained.

"You both look like you've lost your best friend--your two best friends," said Phil. This time she didn't just smile, she snickered.

They cringed.

"Please, can we have them back?" asked Willie.

"We don't care how or why you did it, but just please give them back!" said Dick.

"We promise not to tell anyone. Ever!"

"And we won't do whatever we did again..."

"But you'll have to tell us what it was..."

"'Cause we don't know..."

"Honest!"

Phil's smile widened and her eyes narrowed. She stepped forward, stomping with her high heel sandal while she raised her hands in claw-like movements and hissed through her teeth like a matinee vampire.

The boys squealed and clutched each other, pushing back into the cushions so hard they almost over-turned the sofa.

Phil relaxed, laughing. She laughed loud and for a long time. Finally, still chuckling, she managed to say, "It's true. You boys have no balls at all, now."

Dick looked at Willie and Willie looked at Dick and both began to cry.

* * *

[next: Out of Their League]