The Books: The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) (Ellen Raskin)

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Next book on the shelf is The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin.

Holy moly, how all the O’Malley kids loved this book. Actually, we were huge Ellen Raskin buffs – but this was the book that started it all. Ellen Raskin is amazing – her books are intricate whodunits – the reader becomes a participant in solving the mystery (actively – in Leon (I Mean Noel) – where she has encouraging footnotes shouting at us: “REMEMBER THIS PART. WRITE IT DOWN. OR PUT A BOOKMARK HERE. THIS IS A CLUE!” Etc. Her books are soooo fun. She’s kind of a genius. Not only does she create these masterful mysteries – almost interactive – but her characters are great as well. My favorite of hers is The Westing Game – I can’t recommend that one highly enough – but The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel) was my introduction to Ellen Raskin.

I haven’t read this book in years but here is what I remember:

It opens with 2 families – the Fishs and the Carillons – they’re neighbors – they both have farms, and one family grows only tomatoes and the other family grows only potatoes. They are having a rough year, financially – so they get together on Thanksgiving, pool their resources for a dinner. The Carillons have a little boy named Leon and the Fishs have a little girl named Caroline only everyone calls her Little Dumpling. (Everyone in this book has multiple names. Which you can guess from the title) Anyway – one family brings a bunch of tomatoes, the other brings potatoes – and they wonder: Hmm, what can we create out of this for a Thanksigivng dinner? They end up making soup – which turns out to be so spectacularly good – that they end up selling the recipe I believe and making gazillions of dollars. (Sorry – the details are not clear). Oh – but before that happens – the two sets of parents decide to cement their legacy, keep it all in the family, so to speak, by marrying their two children. Who are only, what, 7 years old? The two little kids – Little Dumpling and Leon, stand in the living room, with runny noses, their mittens dangling from their wrists, and they are promised to one another.

So. Long story longer. Leon and Little Dumpling of course have to go ahead and grow up before they can actually live as a married couple – but now – instead of everyone calling Little Dumpling Caroline – or Caroline Little Dumpling – everyone (including her parents) call her Mrs. Carillon. Even when she’s only 9 years old. This is such a wacky book.

Leon and Little Dumpling are separated for most of their childhood. Throughout that time, Leon sends Little Dumpling cryptic messages (one a year) – which sound very benign – “I’m growing a red mustache” – but end up being clues later on.

At the age of 19 they are reunited … and they are sailing in a boat – and a huge wave comes and knocks the boat over – and as Leon disappears under the water he glub-blubs one last message – which is totally mysterious – and ends up sending Little Dumpling on a worldwide search for him – because – he didn’t drown … the hospital confirms that for her, they released him ….? What was he trying to tell her? What did those last glub-glubs mean?

This is a book that is like a word game. You have to cut and paste different pieces of words to see if when put together again they make sense. It’s like a game of hangman or Jeopardy – where you have to visualize what the complete word or phrase is when you only have a few letters.

This is all I remember of the book. My siblings will probably remember more. I can’t even remember if it’s a happy ending. But it’s totally engrossing, and loads of fun. I read it when I was about 10.

Here’s an excerpt, from early on in the book – Notice her little warning guideposts in the footnotes. So much fun to read when you’re 10 – and as an adult!

Excerpt from The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin.

At times she thought those seven long years of pokes and jabs and smells of simmering soups would never end, then suddenly, one day, her dream came true.

Leon’s fourteenth card with the fourteenth message had arrived.

____________________________

Nineteen-year-old Mrs. Carillon locked the last suitcase and studied herself once more in the full-length mirror. She was singing one of Leon’s messages at the top of her lungs, because she was happy, and because it hurt Miss Anna Oglethorpe’s sensitive ears.

“Grown a mustache – it’s red, red, red …” *

Every December 9th Leon had written her a message inside identical wedding anniversary cards decorated with violets. Mrs. Carillon knew every word of the fourteen messages by heart; still, she wondered what her husband looked like as a grown man. Would she recognize him?

“No problem,” she thought as she pinned a stray black curl in place. “Leon, I mean Noel, is sure to recognize me.” She appeared taller than her five feet in her purple high-heeled shoes; but she had to admit that she still looked something like a dumpling. Besides, she was wearing a purple-flowered dress.

A car horn honked. Mr. Banks had arrived to drive her to the station.

Mrs. Carillon grabbed her bags stuffed with purple-flowered resort clothes and ran down the stairs.

“Good-by soup! Good-by house!” she shouted.

“And good-by, forever, Miss Anna Oglethorpe!”

LEON’S FOURTEEN MESSAGES**

1. Hi! Leon
2. I am fine. How are you? Leon
3. I hate school. I’m the smallest one here. Leon
4. Got to wear glasses because I can’t see the blackboard. Leon
5. My best friend is called Pinky. Leon
6. I’m writing the story of my life. You are in it. Leon
7. I’m going to wear a black tie to mourn my folks from now on and always. Leon
8. Who wrote that awful soup song? I can’t stand it! I hate the song as much as I hate the soup. In fact, I hate all soup – except won ton. Leon (I hate my name, too!)
9. Pinky taught me how to ride a horse – it’s great fun, except the stable only has slow nags. I think I’ll get a horse of my own. Noel (That’s my new name. It’s much more genteel, don’t you think?)
10. Help! Mr. Banks won’t let me buy a horse. Try and make him change his mind. Noel
11. Found a great job. Tell tight-wad Banks to keep his old riding boots – I don’t need handouts. Noel
12. Grown a moustache. It’s red! Noel
13. Shaved off my moustache. Noel
14. Meet me at the Seaside Hotel, Palm Beach, this Friday. Noel

Leon? Noel!

No one in the lobby of the Seaside Hotel recognized her, or her purple-flowered dress. She announced herself to the desk clerk and was handed a key to room 1164. No one was in the room.

Mrs. Carillon wondered whether today was Friday; then she saw the note in the familiar handwriting propped up on the desk.

Put on a bathing suit and meet me at the dock. Noel

No one seemed to recogniz her, or her purple-flowered swimsuit. She jostled through the throng of vacationers looking for – no, not a black tie, no one wore neckties with bathing trunks – glasses, perhaps, and a red … Suddenly, she saw him.

“Leon, I mean Noel!” Mrs. Carillon shrieked and threw her arms around a skinny man with brown hair, red moustache, and sunglasses. The little man struggled desperately to free himself from her tight embrace.

She didn’t realize her mistake until a pretty blonde woman hissed, “Seymour, what are you doing?” and yanked him out of her arms. Mrs. Carillon watched the couple hasten away. She was too confused and embarrassed to feel someone tapping her on the shoulder.

“Mrs. Carillon?” And another tap.

Mrs. Carillon spun around. A tall, clean-shaven man with brown hair and sunglasses smiled down at her.

“Leon?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Noel,” he replied.

THE LAST MESSAGE***

It was an awkward moment, not at all the way she had dreamed it would be. Fourteen years had passed; they had grown up into strangers.

“We still have time for a sail,” Noel said at last. “Let’s go!”

Mrs. Carillon studied her handsom husband as he guided the sailboat out of the bay. “I never would have recognized you,” she said.

Noel turned to her and smiled.

She smiled.

They sat there and smiled.

They didn’t move; the boat didn’t move. It hung suspended on the crest of a monstrous wave. It teetered. It crashed into the thrashing sea, smashed.

Mrs. Carillon somersaulted into the wild water, rose to the surface, climbed onto the broken hull, and looked about her.

“Leon, Leon!” she shouted at the bobbing head a few yards away. The head went under; the head came up; the head went under; the head came up.

“Leon!” she cried.

And he answered:

“Noel glub C blub all …. I glub new …” ****

__________________________

Mrs. Carillon didn’t know what hit her, or what happened next. Two days later she woke up in a hospital with an aching head.

“How’s Leon — Noel?” were her first words.

“Leon Noel?” repeated the nurse. “You must mean the man who was rescued with you. Just a cut on the elbow. We patched him up right away and let him go.”

Mrs. Carillon returned to the hotel, but Noel was no longer registered there. The only message was a checkroom stub for her luggage. She finally found a bellhop who remembered delivering a plane ticket to a man of her description.

“A ticket to New York, I think.”

* Message 12. Strange, for Leon had brown hair, but not impossible.

** Some very important clues here. You don’t have to memorize all the messages as Mrs. Carillon did; a bookmark will do.

*** Hereupon referred to as the glub-blubs.

**** That’s it! Copy it down, or memorize it; most of all, try to solve it.