FAMILY MEETING

But on Saturday, Winifred caught a break when on our return from Brookman’s Sina pulled a letter for Zebediah from the stack and handed it to her saying, “I think I saw Zebediah heading back from the woods. Do you want to run and give him this?”

Winifred grabbed it wildly before Sina could change her mind. Sina went back to sorting through and reading her own mail and didn’t notice when we ran up to my bedroom, where Winifred opened it. It was from Fixing Bob and, like the first note, was in block letters: KEEP IT TO YOURSELF BUT FIND OUT MORE.

“Oh dear, oh dear. Wilfred will have to be concerned now,” Winifred said. “We must show it to him and we must present a united front against Zebediah. I don’t like the sound of this. This must have something to do with why Mother went up to Comox to the air force base. Maybe this time Daddy really is doing something stupid!”

“But what stupid thing can your father be planning? And why tell Zebediah?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Winifred worriedly. “But we will find out. Believe me.”

Winifred pulled Wilfred aside right before we went into lunch and showed him the letter. They decided to hold a meeting with Zebediah to get to the bottom of things. I was pleased to be included in what, after all, might be considered a family matter.

There was no talking at lunch. Perhaps because Gladys had put maraschino cherries in the tuna fish salad and we were all, even Gladys, focused on finding them with our tongues and spitting them into napkins without anyone else seeing. Do not waste food. Children in Europe are starving! was ingrained on all our brains both from posters everywhere and from the grown-ups chanting it. Never chanting it when we were eating candy, of course, only when we wouldn’t eat objectionable foods like spinach. Despite everyone’s feelings for the poor starving children in Europe, it was clear we were bent on wasting the maraschinos, so we shouldn’t have bothered pretending not to. All, that is, except Zebediah, who kept saying “Yum yum yum” every time he hit a cherry and so was, I fear, encouraging Gladys in her culinary flights of fancy. Or perhaps we were all just deep in thought. I couldn’t tell. There was no dessert. Apparently the tuna-maraschino confection was a one-dish wonder incorporating salad, sandwich, and dessert.

After lunch, without telling Zebediah anything except that a family meeting was happening, we headed to the beach.

When we got there the tide was high, so we sat on big boulders and stared silently out to sea as we tried to figure out how to broach the sticky subject of the letters.

“All right, then, I call this meeting to order,” said Wilfred finally. “Zebediah, you may suspect why we are having it.”

“No,” said Zebediah.

“No, you don’t suspect why?” said Winifred.

“No, I won’t tell you,” said Zebediah. “You want to know what Daddy meant by ‘NOW IS THE TIME.’ And I won’t tell you because I promised not to tell anyone.”