"I didn't want to say attack, but it sounds like that's what actually happened."
"True, but it sounds so dramatic, don't you think? So, enough about me, tell us what's happened."
"I think you know that Joseph has gone missing,” she started, but was immediately interrupted by Sarah, who had come in while DeAnn was getting her chair and getting situated.
"Joseph's not missing,” she said. “I just saw him. I was at the pet store getting some of those green treats for my Rachel, and I saw him there buying insect larvae for his dragon."
"Excuse me?” Harriet said. “He has a dragon?"
"Well, not exactly.” Sarah sat down in one of the wingback chairs. “I think it's some kind of lizard. The geeks that keep them call them dragons."
"You seem to know a lot about it,” Lauren said.
Sarah pinched her lips together in an apparently successful attempt to stop whatever rude remark she was about to make.
"Ever since my parents decided to let anyone in the community use the all-purpose room at the senior center for meetings if they were willing to let residents sit in on the gatherings, any time more than three weirdoes want to get together, they come there, including the dragon people."
"And Joseph's one of them?” Harriet asked.
"Isn't that what I just said?"
"How long ago did you see him?” DeAnn asked. “We've been trying to reach him for days. He doesn't answer his phone, and Phyllis doesn't know where he is. And she said he took our file home."
"I'm telling you, I stopped at the pet store on my way here."
"Are you sure it was Joseph?” Harriet asked.
"Now you're getting insulting,” Sarah said with an affected pout.
"So, what kind of game is he playing?” asked Harriet.
"That's what I'd like to know,” DeAnn said.
"He did look a little stressed, but I thought it was because he was grossed out about the larvae. You know how some people don't think ahead when they get exotic pets. He probably just decided how cool it would be to have a frilled lizard, and didn't even think about-"
"Sarah,” Aunt Beth said in a firm voice, “exactly how was he acting stressed? Tell us what you saw."
"Well, first of all, he completely ignored me when he came in the store, and I was standing right by the checkout register, looking through the sale bin and-"
"Joseph, Sarah-what was Joseph doing?” Mavis asked.
"He waited until there was no one in the bug aisle, and then he went to the larvae tray and started picking larvae into a carton. But he kept looking from side to side, like he was watching for someone. And he dropped the carton once and had to start over, and he didn't even pick up the ones he dropped. And-"
"Thank you, Sarah,” Aunt Beth said.
"So, he's hiding somewhere,” Harriet said.
"He's not hiding,” Sarah protested. “I'm telling you, he's at the pet store."
"Okay, we get it, he's at the pet store,” Harriet said. “Do you think he's still there?"
"Well, no. I waited until he left, just to see if he'd talk to me after he got his baby bugs."
"Did he?"
"No, he went right by me like I wasn't there-and after I've been so nice to him and his geeky friends. I even touched his lizard."
"I'm not sure I'd mention that in polite company,” Harriet said.
Carla chuckled then blushed. Aunt Beth glared but didn't say anything.
"So, DeAnn,” Harriet said. “What were you about to say you're doing in the absence of Joseph?"
"We went to Phyllis, of course, but as I said, she told us he had taken our file home and apparently everything else associated with Iloai."
"I wonder if that's usual,” Mavis said. “We'll have to check with Phyl."
Aunt Beth excused herself and went into the kitchen. Harriet watched her leave and wondered what she was up to. Everyone had fresh drinks, and Connie had brought a plate of layered bar cookies.
"Go on,” Harriet said, giving DeAnn what she hoped was an encouraging look.
"My husband decided we needed to investigate more, so he called a friend of his at the University of Washington, and that guy checked with the campus foreign studies center and found us a translator. The guy is great. He speaks several island dialects, and he has small children himself. He agreed to come to our house yesterday and talk with Iloai."
"And?” Harriet was anxious to hear the punch line.
"She was quite chatty with him, once she got comfortable. Unfortunately, she was chatty at a three-year-old level. The perplexing thing is that she talked about Mama, Dada, Sister and Aunt-in Samoan, of course. She talked about a dog and about fish, and she said her dad fished. She has a whole fantasy world peopled with family members who work a lot and fish a lot."
"That's weird for a child who was raised in an orphanage,” Harriet said.
"Maybe it was in a fishing village, and they took the children to the beach,” Jenny suggested.
"Children are able to do imaginary play when they're that age,” Connie said. “But usually it's simple-they pretend they're their dolls’ mother, or other basic games. I'll look in my child-development book when I get home and see what it says, but I think that kind of detail isn't usual. I don't know how being in an orphanage might affect a child's fantasies at that age."
"Lauren's list of words has been a big help, and the professor helped us with proper pronunciation, but it's clear, even though she's not crying all the time, Iloai wants to be somewhere else."
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry this has been so hard on you and your family,” Mavis said.
"I just feel for Iloai,” DeAnn said. “She's been miserable, and until Lauren brought us the Samoan word list we weren't getting anywhere. Now at least we have somewhere to start trying to figure this thing out.
"And I'm here. Things were calm enough this morning that David and the boys should be able to handle it. I put the binding on one of the quilts last night. I needed to do something that wasn't related to small children for a few hours and to feel like I'd done something toward the auction."
"We're glad you're here,” Aunt Beth said as she came back into the studio.
"Speaking of the quilts,” Mavis said. “Let's get them out and see what we've got."
Connie and Lauren got up and pulled a quilt out of its pillowcase, then held it up for the group to see. Connie had provided a slate-gray landscape fabric for the doghouse roofs, and Lauren had hand-dyed a pale-blue fabric so it had random streaks of white that looked like clouds. These two features provided a unifying effect among the blocks made by the various Loose Threads members. Mavis had found a print with small doghouses for the outer border, and they had used a dark-brown Moda Marble for the inner one.
"That came out nice,” Jenny said.
"It's okay,” Lauren said, “but let's be honest-if this is the best we've got, we're in trouble."
Mavis and Beth got up next but kept their quilt folded in half, obscuring the front.
"As you know, we've been working on the snowball blocks. We tried fussy-cutting images for the center, but once we saw the star blocks, we felt ours were too similar,” Mavis said.
Aunt Beth took up the story. “Next, we tried using small-scale coordinating prints-bones, paw prints, that sort of thing. They would have made a serviceable quilt, but when we put a couple of rows together, it was too boring."
"We decided it was time to get creative,” Mavis said.
"So, when you guys go off the rails it's creativity, but if I do it, I'm not being a team player,” Lauren said. “How's that work?"
Mavis ignored the interruption.
"We were doing a computer search for dog pattern fabric when this one came up.” On cue, Beth stepped to the side, opening their quilt. “It's dogwood and daffodils."
The main fabric used for the quilt had a mauve background with pink dogwood flowers and cheddar daffodils with brick-red trumpets. They had alternated the snowball blocks with green and dark-salmon-colored nine-patch blocks.