THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_

She was wearing a caftan intended to disguise her plumpness. Her husband’s leisure garb did nothing to camouflage his well-fed silhouette, but he was happy and relaxed. By comparison, the superintendent of schools looked underfed and overworked after three decades of coping with school boards, teachers, and parents. Lisa Compton was as pleasant as her husband pretended to be grouchy.

Mildred announced, “Qwill has built a guest house!”

“Expecting a lot of company?” Lisa asked.

“No, it’s strictly for emergency overnights,” he said. “It’s a little larger than a dollhouse and a little more comfortable than a tent. I come up here to get away from it all and don’t encourage guests.”

Lisa asked about Polly Duncan; they were usually seen together at dinner parties.

“She’s traveling in Canada with her sister during; July.”

“A whole month? You’ll miss her,” Mildred said.

He shrugged. “She went to England for a whole summer, and I survived.” The truth was: already he missed their nightly phone calls, and he would miss their weekends even more. “Has anyone tried the new restaurant?”

No one had, but they had read about it on the food page of the Something. A couple had come from Florida to run it during the summer months; the wife was the chef, with a bachelor’s degree from a culinary institute. It sounded promising.

Mildred said, “We stressed her training because MCCC will soon have a chef’s school, and we knew our readers would be curious about the curriculum in a school like that. It was a generous feature, but the chef’s husband had the bad taste to phone and complain because we didn’t price the entrees or list the desserts.”

Lisa nodded wisely. “He was jealous because his wife got all the attention, and he wasn’t even in the photo.”

Then they discussed the backpacker mystery (no conclusion) … the Sand Giant’s Gnomes (nice kids) … the sudden naming of beach houses (someone’s nephew was in the sign business).

Qwilleran asked Lyle, “What’s new in the school system? Any conspiracies? Any bloodshed?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Lyle said crisply. “The K Fund has been so generous with our schools that we’ve gone from the lowest per-student expenditure to the highest in the state! So our share of state funding has been reduced to peanuts. At the same time - they’re telling us what and how to teach!”

“And if we don’t comply,” Lisa put in, “they’re threatening to take over our schools!”

“Over my dead body!” Lyle said. “Our school system will go private! The whole county will secede from the state: the Principality of Moose, 400 miles north of everywhere, with our own government, our own tax laws, our own education system!”

“And my husband as reigning monarch,” Lisa cried. “King Lyle the First!”

“Thank you,” he said. “Qwill can be chancellor of the exchequer, and Arch can be master of the royal cellar.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said the host as he uncorked another bottle.

While he served, Lisa asked Qwilleran about his vacation plans, and Lyle asked if he had brought his weird bicycle.

“If you refer to the recumbent… yes, I brought it, but I plan to ride only on back roads. Mooseville isn’t ready for state-of-the-art technology.”

“And what do you intend to read?” Mildred asked.

“Chiefly old editions of Mark Twain that Eddington Smith has found in estate sales. It’s amazing how bookish previous generations were in this remote comer of the country.”

“There was no electronic entertainment,” Lyle said. “Also, there was a lot of affluence in the nineteenth century, and an impressive library gave the family status, whether or not they read the books - probably not. I imagine you run across many uncut pages, Qwill.”

“Yes, but not in Mark Twain’s books; they’re all well thumbed.”

“He came through here on a lecture tour,” Lisa said. “My great-grandmother had a crush on him. She fell for his moustache. I have her diary. The pages are brown, and the ink is fading, but it’s full of fascinating stuff.”

Qwilleran made a mental note for the “Qwill Pen”: Lisa Compton’s great-grandmother’s diary.

When Mildred invited them indoors to the table and they were spooning butternut and roasted pepper soup, she asked, “Is everyone going to the Fryers Club play? It may be Fran Brodie’s last production. I hear she’s had a good job offer in Chicago. She was there for two weeks, working on the hotel do-over.”

“Bad news!” Lisa moaned. “What can we do to keep her here?”

“Get Dr. Prelligate to propose marriage. They’ve been seeing a lot of each other.”

Arch said, “It’ll take more than a college president to keep Fran down on the farm. Get Qwilleran to propose…”

“Arch, honey, would you pour the wine? I’m ready to serve the chops,” Mildred interrupted.

With the coddled chops were twice-baked potatoes, a broccoli soufflé, a pinot noir, and a toast from Lyle Compton: “Thursday’s Independence Day! Let’s drink to the genius who single-handedly dragged the Fourth of July parade from the pits and launched it to the stars!”