“Don’t you throw away your garbage?” asked Marlin.

“Marlin,” said Fiona warningly.

“What?” said the man, who seemed stunned. “Hey, who said you could come in?”

“We are paying you a friendly call. And speaking of paying,” Fiona went on, “we have a proposition for you.”

“Oh yeah?” said the man, dropping his head forward into his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked mortally ill and smelled like wet wool.

“Yes. You see, we need a guardian,” began Fiona. “We thought of you.”

At this the man looked up and laughed uproariously. “You want me to be your guardian?”

“Yes,” said Fiona. “In name only. We are living alone on Aunt Martha’s property and we’re going to be in trouble if people find out. We need a grown-up to sign things and generally assure everyone that we aren’t alone. Even though we are.”

“Well, you can forget about me. I hate children,” said the man. “Horrible jam-handed sticky things. I didn’t have any and I don’t plan to. Go HOME.”

“We brought you a cake,” said Marlin, taking the foil package out of Fiona’s hands, where she’d been tensely clutching it. “I made it myself. It’s delicious.”

“Oh…cake,” said the man, sounding slightly mollified. He took it from Marlin’s hands and put it in his lap. “Well, now, I don’t remember the last time I had homemade cake. Can’t say I object to that.”

It took his shaking fingers a minute to open the foil and then he paused, stared down at it, and his face grew thunderous again as he said, “What’s this? Is this a joke? This isn’t cake. This is just mush!”

Fiona looked down. The almond cherry cake had not traveled well. The cherries had made a very wet cake to begin with and the trip over in her tense fingers had not improved matters. It was indeed a kind of pink mush in the foil.

“This is disgusting,” he said. “I don’t want this.”

“Disgusting? Why you!” cried Marlin, leaning forward as if to charge him.

“Marlin, hush,” said Fiona. “It must have gotten squashed coming over but it tastes fantastic. Taste it.”

“No,” said the man.

“Go on, taste it,” encouraged Fiona.

“No, I changed my mind,” said Marlin, taking it back from him. “He doesn’t deserve my cake.”

“You got that right,” said the man.

“All right, listen, we started out wrong here,” said Fiona. “I think we need to exchange names properly. I’m Fiona, this is Marlin, my little sisters who stayed home are Natasha and Charlie. You met them the other day.”

“Charlie’s the one that cries,” said the man with unexpected perspicacity.

“That’s right!” said Fiona, as if awarding him a gold star.

“I remember her,” said the man. “She was earth-shatteringly loud. God, I hate the sound of people crying. Particularly high-pitched little keeners like her.”

“And your name is?” asked Fiona, hoping to move the conversation on from how much he hated children.

“Al,” said the man.