Then, because they were saying good-bye to us, Crying Alice burst into tears and sobbed all the way to their car. Which she was driving. Flying Bob wasn’t allowed to drive until they were sure his head was really all better, which wouldn’t be for another year. Crying Alice seemed happy about this. She said she wouldn’t feel right trusting the wheel to someone who wasn’t emotionally stable.

We said good-bye to Winifred, Wilfred, and Zebediah. They drove away looking pretty dismal, but really things had turned out better than could have been expected, considering.

Then Old Tom and I went to see how the hermit was doing at Miss Macy’s and tell him the military seemed to have called off the coastal hunt for spies and it was safe to go back to his cabin. If he wanted to, which he did, disappointing me and my romantic sensibilities considerably.

We drove him back to our place, and off he plodded over the fields.

“Well, really,” I said sourly to Old Tom. “I thought two kindred souls had found each other.”

“Nah,” said Old Tom. “He told me that she had taken to calling him Hermie for want of a name and it just drove him crazy and he couldn’t remember anything, none of the stories of her life, which she poured out in his general direction like syrup over pancakes, as he put it, and that drove her crazy. She kept saying, ‘No, not the Mildred who was my mother’s sister’s stepdaughter, the Mildred who was my brother Barney’s maid.’ And such. It gave him a headache. People who live alone usually do so for a reason.”

“But still,” I said.

“Still nothing, Franny,” said Old Tom.

*   *   *

Later, I walked back to Miss Macy’s because I wanted to know what she was doing with sequined underwear but didn’t think it was something I could ask when the hermit or Old Tom was around.

“That’s all I ever wear, sequined underwear,” she said, leading me to her dresser and opening the top drawer. “See?”

And sure enough it was full of gold-sequined bras and underpants.

“Wow,” I said. “Where do you find it?”

“Eaton’s,” she said. “They carry it in the underwear department, same as the plain white stuff.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why do you wear it? It doesn’t look very comfortable.”