Page 53 of The Treasure House

“I have a cat count,” Flo said through a mouthful of hot dog. “Twenty-seven cats so far.”

Jake seemed relieved that we were only talking about figurines, which made me nervous. Was there another Debussy around?

“I found records too.” Flo proceeded to tell him about them in detail. “There’s a heap by this guy called Eddie Fisher.”

“You know he was Princess Leia’s dad,” Jake told her. He reached down and took hold of Hazel’s collar as Debussy stalked closer, drawn by the smell of lobster.

“No, he wasn’t. Darth Vader was Princess Leia’s dad.”

“I mean the actress. Eddie Fisher was Carrie Fisher’s dad. She played Princess Leia.”

“How do you know that?” Flo seemed impressed.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’m fond of useless facts, I guess.”

“Well, there’s a heap of Eddie Fisher records, and a heap of Elvis records.”

“They might be worth something.”

“I know.” She gave him a look and then explained the whole concept of mint condition to him and how she needed to find out if the Elvis records were mint before listing them to sell online.

Jake listened patiently. “Well, you know what might be easier than selling them online? There’s a store on Main Street in Camden that specializes in vinyl, CDs, and cassettes.”

“What’s a cassette?”

Jake explained it to her.

“Oh, cool. Maybe I’ll find some of them in the house too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” He glanced at me. “If you’re interested, I can introduce you to Sammy, who runs the store. She’s always on the lookout for new stock.”

“That would be great,” I admitted. I’d been feeling a low-level dread at the thought of supervising Flo selling things online.

“But we can’t sell any of it yet, not until I’ve checked it out,” Flo said hastily. “And we need you to fix the wireless radio to do that, Jake.”

“You don’t have another record player you can use?”

“Nope,” said Flo.

Jake sighed. “Listen, Flo, those things are impossible to fix—the electrics are too old. Even if it was fixable, it would be way out of my league. But I think there might be a portable record player in the front room. I remember seeing it.”

“There is?” Flo lit up. “I didn’t see one.”

“It looks like a little suitcase with a handle. But it will need fixing too. I know for sure you’ll need a new needle.”

“Can you come do that?”

“When?”

“Today,” Flo said, as though it had been patently obvious. “After you close the store. Mom can feed you dinner.”

I gave her a sour look. I had so much to do before Monday. I didn’t need to be feeding our local hardware proprietor.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jake said hurriedly.

“Yes, we do,” Flo assured him. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Is it?” That came out before I could think.