Chapter Six Mrs. Janeiro
"Is there an official time for the Christmas season to begin?" Mrs. Tweedlebare asked.
"Good question," Mrs. Janeiro said.
"Cual es la fecha de hoy de la Navidad?" Mary asked.
Mrs. Janeiro smiled. "A very pertinent question," she said ignoring for the moment, Mary's grammatical boo-boo. Mary had said, What is the date today of the Christmas Season. Mrs. Janeiro replied, "Cuando es la Navidad?"
Although she understood both Portuguese and Spanish quite well, Mrs. Tweedlebare put on a puzzled face. She was not about to admit to speaking either language. Allow the kid her fun, she thought. Once again, she was surprised at her willingness to cater to Mary. It just wasn’t like her to be so reasonable with children, especially children who could too quickly grow into writers destined to become competitors.
"The Christmas season starts," Mrs. Janeiro said pausing for a moment to leaf through a calendar retrieved from the kitchen wall, "December, 15."
"Six days from now," Mrs. Tweedlebare replied.
"We've got to work fast," Mary said.
"That we do, Mary, that we do," Mrs. Tweedlebare said. "True. We have to work fast but move slowly."
Mrs. Janeiro came in with a lemonade for Mary and refilled the coffee cups.
"Where do we go from here?" Mrs. Tweedlebare asked.
"I think we should go over the history of Freddie Fudge," Mary said.
"All the details your mother told me," Mrs. Tweedlebare agreed.
She looked back, almost with nostalgia, at the innocence of her 23-gingersnap interview.
"We should examine the details of Freddie's life in the Amazon to see if we can determine a pattern,” Mary said.
Mrs. Tweedlebare's brain was in a whir. The details that had been taken down were rapidly being transformed into case mode. She recognized that she had been wearing her writer's cap. It's now long past time to doff it and put on her deerstalker hat. When Mrs. Tweedlebare was writing a mystery she liked to play detective even if the case never evolved into an actual crime.
"Yeah, Mary," added "Modus operandi. That sort of stuff."
"We need some current events also," Mrs. Janeiro suggested. "Let me get the latest paper from Lima. It’s only three days old. We need to learn about the political situation in the upper Amazon."
"Airmail?" asked Mrs. Tweedlebare.
"No, Mrs. Señora, next door. She flies to Lima once a month," Mrs. Janeiro said. "She always brings me back a stack of papers. As luck would have it, she got in just last night. Oh, I feel like such a fool," Mrs. Janeiro said all of a sudden.
"Huh?" Mary asked.
"Let me get my maps," Mrs. Janeiro said.
Mary and Mrs. Tweedlebare looked at each other puzzled.
"Oh yes, here it is," Mrs. Janeiro said. "It is a tributary of a tributary of the Amazon. It is so small that it is only on large scale maps."
"Wowee," Mary said. "If this is where Uncle Herman is it would be logical for Freddie to pick up Matanza."
"That would be my first choice," Mrs. Tweedlebare said feeling both disappointed and relieved.
"Could you phone your Mom and ask her if she knows exactly where Uncle Herman's camp is?"
"Sure."
Crestfallen, Mary hung up the phone. "Mom doesn't know where the camp is.
Uncle Herman hasn't ever referred to any river."
"A minor setback," Mrs. Janeiro said.