delivered to his house.
Captain Rojo Herring made the phone call right after Jane left. His teeth had begun to ache, which made him think about jelly, and this reminded himthat he had finished up all of the jelly from Munch at tea. He like the jelly from Munch so much that he’d never bothered to try Remarkable’s Finest Jelly, and he ate so much of the jelly from Munch that he was always having to run to Filbert’s Fine Grocery Store to pick up a few more jars. Going to the store that often was hard on his peg legs, and besides, he was tired of the disapproving looks the grocery store clerk gave him when he went through the checkout line.
Right after Captain Rojo Herring placed his order, Mayor Kate Chu got a call from one of the plant managers at the jelly factory.
“Just thought you should know that a citizen from Remarkable has ordered an entire truckload of jelly for his own personal consumption,” the jelly plant manager told the mayor.
“Is that right?” Mayor Kate Chu said, and then she immediately called Mayor Julietta Augustina Doe to ask if her position on Munch’s jelly had changed.
“Of course not, why should it have?” Grandmama Julietta Augustina snapped. She sounded crosser than she needed to, because she was drinking out of a leaky coffee mug that Jane had made for her in pottery class, and it had dribbled hazelnut cappuccino onto theofficial correspondence she’d received from the Scottish Parliament. The letter was full of words like
Cease and Desist
and
False claims made about superiority of alleged lake monster
and mentioned the possibility of an ugly international incident.
“I’ll have to call you back.” She hung up abruptly on Mayor Chu and shouted for Stilton, her highly proficient secretary, to bring her some paper towels. The Scottish Parliament was always sending her letters like this, and she always found them annoying.
Mayor Chu didn’t know about the leaky coffee mug or the letter from the Scottish Parliament, so she thought that Mayor Doe was just being rude. And if Mayor Doe wasn’t going to be civil, then Mayor Chu decided she didn’t need to be civil either. She shouted for her secretary to bring her a pen and paper so that she could write a letter of her own.
Mayor Chu’s letter went out in the mail that afternoon. By the next morning, it had arrived at Remarkable’s undistinguished post office. There, it was promptly sorted and handed off to a remarkably efficient mail carrier, and just before lunchtime, the letter was delivered to Dr. Josephine Christobel Pike, DDS.
Asta Magnifica’s Day at School
F or the next several weeks, Mayor Kate Chu sat in her office and stared at the phone, hoping against hope that Dr. Pike would call in reply to her letter. In her more optimistic moments, she gleefully allowed herself to anticipate Mayor Doe’s reaction when she discovered the lengths that she, the mayor of Munch, was willing to go to in order to defend the honor of her town’s jelly. She’d make Mayor Doe admit what everyone in Munch already knew—that their jelly was better than any jelly ever produced in Remarkable.
Meanwhile, Grandmama Julietta Augustina had no reason at all to suspect that Mayor Chu was plotting against her. Everything in her fair town wasrunning as smoothly as ever. The citizens were happy and thriving, construction on the bell-tower addition was ahead of schedule and below budget, and most importantly, Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted was nearly back to being as excellent as ever. Every inch of the building, playground, and parking lot had been scrubbed thoroughly, and the school was mostly school-colored again instead of blue.
The students were almost back to being student-colored as well. Jane had watched as Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III and Penelope Hope Adelaide Catalina’s hair and skin gradually faded from dark blue to light blue, and then to lilac, then lavender, then to pale cerulean, until they were finally
Captain Rojo Herring made the phone call right after Jane left. His teeth had begun to ache, which made him think about jelly, and this reminded himthat he had finished up all of the jelly from Munch at tea. He like the jelly from Munch so much that he’d never bothered to try Remarkable’s Finest Jelly, and he ate so much of the jelly from Munch that he was always having to run to Filbert’s Fine Grocery Store to pick up a few more jars. Going to the store that often was hard on his peg legs, and besides, he was tired of the disapproving looks the grocery store clerk gave him when he went through the checkout line.
Right after Captain Rojo Herring placed his order, Mayor Kate Chu got a call from one of the plant managers at the jelly factory.
“Just thought you should know that a citizen from Remarkable has ordered an entire truckload of jelly for his own personal consumption,” the jelly plant manager told the mayor.
“Is that right?” Mayor Kate Chu said, and then she immediately called Mayor Julietta Augustina Doe to ask if her position on Munch’s jelly had changed.
“Of course not, why should it have?” Grandmama Julietta Augustina snapped. She sounded crosser than she needed to, because she was drinking out of a leaky coffee mug that Jane had made for her in pottery class, and it had dribbled hazelnut cappuccino onto theofficial correspondence she’d received from the Scottish Parliament. The letter was full of words like
Cease and Desist
and
False claims made about superiority of alleged lake monster
and mentioned the possibility of an ugly international incident.
“I’ll have to call you back.” She hung up abruptly on Mayor Chu and shouted for Stilton, her highly proficient secretary, to bring her some paper towels. The Scottish Parliament was always sending her letters like this, and she always found them annoying.
Mayor Chu didn’t know about the leaky coffee mug or the letter from the Scottish Parliament, so she thought that Mayor Doe was just being rude. And if Mayor Doe wasn’t going to be civil, then Mayor Chu decided she didn’t need to be civil either. She shouted for her secretary to bring her a pen and paper so that she could write a letter of her own.
Mayor Chu’s letter went out in the mail that afternoon. By the next morning, it had arrived at Remarkable’s undistinguished post office. There, it was promptly sorted and handed off to a remarkably efficient mail carrier, and just before lunchtime, the letter was delivered to Dr. Josephine Christobel Pike, DDS.
Asta Magnifica’s Day at School
F or the next several weeks, Mayor Kate Chu sat in her office and stared at the phone, hoping against hope that Dr. Pike would call in reply to her letter. In her more optimistic moments, she gleefully allowed herself to anticipate Mayor Doe’s reaction when she discovered the lengths that she, the mayor of Munch, was willing to go to in order to defend the honor of her town’s jelly. She’d make Mayor Doe admit what everyone in Munch already knew—that their jelly was better than any jelly ever produced in Remarkable.
Meanwhile, Grandmama Julietta Augustina had no reason at all to suspect that Mayor Chu was plotting against her. Everything in her fair town wasrunning as smoothly as ever. The citizens were happy and thriving, construction on the bell-tower addition was ahead of schedule and below budget, and most importantly, Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted was nearly back to being as excellent as ever. Every inch of the building, playground, and parking lot had been scrubbed thoroughly, and the school was mostly school-colored again instead of blue.
The students were almost back to being student-colored as well. Jane had watched as Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III and Penelope Hope Adelaide Catalina’s hair and skin gradually faded from dark blue to light blue, and then to lilac, then lavender, then to pale cerulean, until they were finally
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