Remarkable by Elizabeth Foley

rang the doorbell again. When Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa answered this time, she was humming a Strauss waltz.
    “Hmm,” she said. “You’re back.”
    “Um…yes,” Jane said. “I was wondering…I was just wondering if you wanted to go to the Science Fair Dance with my brother. He’d really like to take you.”
    “Hmmmm,” Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa hummed in a perfect B-flat. She always hummed in a perfect B-flat when she was considering something. “Will there be music?”
    “Oh, I expect so,” Jane answered.
    “Will it interfere with my search for Ysquibel?
    “I doubt it.”
    “Hmmmm,” she hummed, but this time she hummed in G, which was the note she always hummed when she’d come to a decision. “Well, okay then. Tell your brother I’d enjoy going to the dance very much.”
    Anderson Brigby Bright was overcome with joy when he found out that Lucinda had said yes. He ran all the way back to the mirror in his bedroom so that he could practice parting his wonderfully wavy hair for the big night.
    “You’re welcome,” Jane called after him. But Anderson Brigby Bright didn’t hear her, and Jane was left to walk home by herself.

A Bit More about the Jelly
    W hile Jane and Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III were at Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa’s house, Dr. Josephine Christobel Pike was eating breakfast on her back porch.
    It was a remarkably nice day for having breakfast outside. The weather was perfectly fine, and if Dr. Pike had looked up, the fabulous view of Remarkable Hill would have brought a smile to her face. But Dr. Pike did not look up. She was reading and rereading a letter she’d received a few weeks ago, and her face was scrunched up in a thoughtful frown.
    The letter was an impassioned plea from Mayor Kate Chu, begging Dr. Pike to accept an offer tobecome the official dentist of the town of Munch. She described the tooth-related woes of the town—how so very many citizens needed root canals, dental implants, fillings, scalings, cleanings, and good stern lectures about regular flossing. Dr. Pike couldn’t help but be excited by the offer. Lately, she’d even begun to wonder if her fine dentistry skills weren’t getting a little rusty. But despite the lack of tooth decay in the town, Remarkable was her home now, and it would not be easy to leave.
    Mayor Chu had sensed that she might need more persuading, so that morning, she’d sent a jar of Munch’s Generic Jelly to Dr. Pike’s house to demonstrate how sugary and cavity causing it was. Dr. Pike had brought the jar outside with her, and was planning to spread a sensibly thin layer on a piece of whole wheat toast. But she was feeling so unsettled that she picked up a spoon and ate a bite of jelly directly from the jar. The jelly was very, very sweet, and very, very good. She could understand why the people of Munch needed her services so badly.
    She took another bite, and then another, and only stopped because she suddenly saw a flash of reflected sunlight coming from the direction of RemarkableHill. She looked up and realized that someone was watching her through a telescope.
    That someone was Captain Rojo Herring. She could see him standing in the window of his mansion with the telescope pressed to his eye. Dr. Pike had never met Captain Rojo Herring, but she had seen him in town a few times hovering around the post office.
    She put down her spoon, embarrassed that she’d been caught indulging in such a sugary treat, and waved to him guiltily. He waved back. Then she stood up and went straight inside to floss and brush.
    Captain Rojo Herring was embarrassed that he’d been caught staring at the woman who’d been eating jelly with a spoon. He didn’t know who she was, and he certainly hadn’t meant to intrude on her privacy. He had only intended to check on the progress of the bell tower. The bells were supposed to be delivered soon, and he wanted to watch while they were installed.
    But the area around the post office addition