Franklin Endicott and the Third Key Read online

  Eugenia snorted.

  “I don’t know that I agree with him,” said Frank. “But in any case, I suppose it doesn’t matter, because now the key is gone entirely.”

  “Gone where?” said Eugenia. She led Frank to the kitchen.

  “I don’t think you want to know,” said Frank. “It involves Mercy Watson.”

  Eugenia snorted again. “Of course it involves that pig — that insufferable, insufferable pig.”

  “In any case,” said Frank, “when I went to try and return the key to Mr. Lamp, he made me hot chocolate and read me a story, and it was very comforting. I thought that I might read you a story, too. I thought it might calm us both down.”

  “I’m perfectly calm,” said Eugenia. She tapped her fingers on the table.

  “Okay,” said Frank. “Anyway. Let’s see here.” He opened the book to a story entitled “The Door in the Wall” by someone named H. G. Wells.

  “‘One confidential evening,’” read Frank aloud. And he and Eugenia settled together into a magical story about a green door that opened onto a beautiful garden and how this door in the wall had haunted a man for his whole life, ever since he had walked through it as a child.

  It was a sad story and a beautiful story. It was a story filled with wonder and mystery. Frank read and read. His voice was unwavering. He was good at reading out loud, and when he read the last word of “The Door in the Wall,” Eugenia Lincoln was silent for a long time.

  “Hmmmphh,” she said at last. “You may read another, I suppose.”

  Frank thought how mysterious the world was, how unexplainable and sometimes frightening. But to sit in the kitchen and read to someone he loved and to push back the darkness with a story — that was a wonderful thing.

  “Okay,” he said. He flipped through the collection of stories until he came to one by Langston Hughes entitled “Thank You, Ma’am.” The story began with a very funny sentence: “She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails.”

  The woman with the large purse was named Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, and in the story she invited home someone who had tried to rob her. She sat the robber down in her kitchen and fed him. She made him cocoa.

  Just like Buddy Lamp! thought Frank.

  When Frank finished reading the story, Eugenia Lincoln said, “I would not tolerate anyone stealing my purse, I can tell you that much.” She smiled a small smile. “But I have to say that I admire Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones. She is someone I would very much like to meet.”

  “Me too,” said Frank. “I would like to sit at her table.”

  He yawned. He closed the book of stories. It made a solid, certain thump.

  “Good night, Miss Lincoln,” he said.

  “Good night, Franklin Endicott,” said Eugenia.

  Frank slept.

  He dreamed of standing in front of a green door.

  He knocked on the door, but no one answered.

  And then he looked down at his hand and realized that he had the key. Oh, he thought, this is what the third key is for. It unlocks the green door.

  He put the key in the lock and it worked. The door swung wide, and Frank was suddenly in a room filled with light.

  He stood in the room and held the key in his hand, and he was happier than he had ever been.

  Somewhere, someone was playing an accordion.

  Frank sang along. “Humdee dum dee,” he sang. “Humdee dum dee.”

  When he woke up, the sun was shining. He could still hear accordion music, and the room was filled with light just as it had been in his dream.

  Frank got out of bed and went to the window. He looked out and saw Eugenia Lincoln in her backyard. She was playing the accordion. She was smiling.

  Frank went to visit Buddy Lamp.

  He took his book of worries. He said, “I wonder if I could leave this here with you.”

  “Certainly,” said Buddy Lamp. He flipped through the notebook. “Hmmm,” he said, “what a comprehensive list. It’s very detailed. Very thorough.”

  “Yes, well,” said Frank.

  “You know that if you look at these things differently, from a slightly different angle, you could see them not as worries, but as marvels — things to be amazed by. The speed of alligators! The mystery of black holes! Humdee dum dee.”

  “A pig ate the third key,” said Frank.

  “A pig?” said Buddy Lamp.

  “Yes,” said Frank. “A pig.”

  Buddy Lamp let out a whoop of laughter. He said, “O. Henry would be pleased. And speaking of Mr. Henry, I see you’ve brought the book back.”

  “Yes,” said Frank. “I thought I would read you a story.”

  “Excellent,” said Buddy Lamp. He clapped his hands together. “Oh, wonderful. I will make us some hot chocolate.”

  It took a while, but Frank made it through the entire volume of entertaining, inspiring, and delightful short stories. He read stories out loud to Buddy Lamp. He read stories to Eugenia Lincoln. He read to Stella and to Horace Broom.

  Sometimes, when no one else was around, Frank read to Mercy Watson.

  She did a relatively good job of listening.

  Frank would look up from his book and see Mercy staring at him and think: There is a key inside of her. She contains a mystery. And then he would think: I guess we all contain mysteries.

  Frank kept a notebook for the rest of his life.

  It was not a notebook of worries.

  It was a notebook of marvels.

  He called the notebook “The Third Key,” and he wrote in it under the pen name “H. D. D. Frank.”

  In the notebook’s pages, H. D. D. Frank considered the mysteries.

  He celebrated the marvels.

  He made some light.

  Humdee Dum Dee.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Kate DiCamillo

  Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Chris Van Dusen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2021

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

  The illustrations were done in gouache.

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  www.candlewick.com

  A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION