Emily The Strange_ The Lost Days Part 15

9. Found a photo of the El Dungeon before it was beige, and I REALLY think the beigeifying was a mistake. I mean, the building actually looked kind of good before that.

10. Geologists believe that biiiiiiillions of eons ago (give or take a year or so), there was an underground volcano here, and when it erupted, it made a huge crater, which over the ages developed into the bland dust bowl/dust serving tray we have here today. It also left behind some underground deposits of volcanic rock, and I'm guessing that's where Emma got the name for her town.

11. No relatives are mentioned in any of the clippings.

12. I may or may not be related to Emma LeStrande, but either way I'm one of her people.

13. Emma LeStrande HAS to be a reason I'm here in Blackrock.

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Emma's place, pre-beige.

I WANT ACCESS TO MY MEMORIES. RIGHT NOW.

Well, my service request to the universe has been denied. Access to memories is being withheld. And yelling at the universe probably isn't going to get me what I want. And what I want is for a solution to rise up in front of me. Like the way I look at the espresso machine and just KNOW what it needs to hum along instead of croaking and wheezing.

You know what's crazy is that I looked at Raven last night and thought the exact same thing.

But that makes no sense at all and is probably evidence that I am losing my mind! So I'll just shut up about that now.

Anyway, back to Mrs. Schneider. I mean Hilda. She is elderly and foreign. Also, possibly loony. From what I could understand through her very brutal accent: No glue stuck like old Emma, the fleas are very ripe today, and hogs don't bark for nothing. I asked her if she'd st.i.tched up any black cats' ears lately, and found out that the spiders of dawn are gumming up the turnstiles. (Which I took for a yes.) So, no leads on the cats' owner, but I'm OK with that, because Emma's stuff in the attic was...it was SO GOOD SO GOOD. Granted, Emma died 13 years ago, so it was probably Hilda who arranged everything. But the STUFF itself was so random and peculiar and exotic and singular and wondrous and...

-OK. Enough with the adjectives, and on to My Top Favorite Things in Crazy Emma's Crazy Stuff: 1. Snow globe from Transylvania, with little vampire children making a snowman out of black snow.

2. Taxidermied vulture "eating" taxidermied bat.

3. Evil-looking Tiki G.o.d about the size of a hippopotamus.

4. Evil-looking doll with three-inch red fingernails-safely locked in gla.s.s case (whew!).

5. Really old bronze s.h.i.+eld with an engraving of the town's imaginary black rock on it.

6. Decorative rack of really sharp, suspicious-looking souvenir grapefruit spoons.

7. Full set of knight's armor including battleaxe.

8. Ye Olde Mystery Object which is either a meteorite, the world's largest raisin, or a shrunken human head.

9. Box full of gla.s.s eyes, some human and some feline.

10. Pool table with fifteen 8-b.a.l.l.s and nothing else.

11. A lifesize matchstick model of a DeLorean DMC-12.

12. Cyclopean fetal pig half-eaten by mites.

13. Antique crash-test dummy, made of...I don't know, porcelain? Yep, they don't make 'em like they used to!

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Later Curls is back at the cafe today. He was clearly surprised to see me. Turns out he has been spending less time milling about at the El Dungeon and more time milling about at the medicine show, trying to appear useful and get hired. He is refusing to accept the facts that A) I am not Molly, and B) I am not qualified to give him advice on becoming more popular with umlaut's crew, no matter how much he begs. He was getting to be such a pest that I was forced to threaten him with slingshotting in sensitive areas of his anatomy. He retreated to a far table and has been sitting there glowering for the past two hours.

After getting him out of my hair, I was in a take-charge mood, and determined to get a straight story out of Raven for once, so I went and sat at the counter for about an hour asking her questions. GAHHHH BIRDBRAIN!! She would drive the Spanish Inquisition batty. Here is a tiny sample just to show the general flavor of my pain:

ME:.

So, where IS Rachel?

RAVEN:.

Uhhh, she's away.

ME:.

Where?

R:.

Iono.

ME:.

When is she coming back?

R:.

Iono.

ME:.

So who hired you?

R:.

Uhhh, the owner.

ME:.

So you've met Emma LeStrande?

R:.

Iono.

ME:.

Well, who pays you?

R:.

Huuuhhhhh?

ME:.

WHO SIGNS YOUR PAYCHECK? YOU GET PAID TO WORK HERE, RIGHT?.

R:.

.... Iono?

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So, yeah. After that, I kind of stopped wondering what crimes Raven had committed and started wondering who is taking care of Raven, instead.

Later I walked around town with the cats for a while. I guess they'd rather stick to the dark back alleys on our explorations, but I really wanted to see what kind of progress Attikol had made on his challenge. Counted eleven buildings with full construction crews working before I ran into Jakey-first time I've seen him outside the psychic show or his own trailer. Makes sense. I can't stand people, either, and I don't have to hear their stupid thoughts. But a kid has to buy parrot food sometimes.

I was kind of surprised that he had nothing to say about my discoveries about Emma LeStrande. But I guess when you're a nine-year-old boy, there are only a few things less boring than the dead founders of towns. No matter how cool their collections were.

He asked me if I knew any Egyptian jokes.

ME:.