price, the hippos come. They say they’ve come to pay you in copper coins. They fill your pockets with enough coins to buy so many penny sweets that you could fill a swimming pool. Then, they tie your hands and feet, say thanks for doing business with them and chuck you in the River Seine, where you sink like a plumb-bob. And then you stay there, on the bottom, for two months straight, unless someone finds you first.”
“Yikes! Didn’t you tell your father that this Cliché guy was a crook?”
“Yeah, of course, but my dad just laughed and said that they were probably just rumours, that Claude was probably just like any other businessman. That he couldn’t be that bad, my dad had seen Claude and me dancing together at the Christmas Ball.”
“You guys danced together?”
“Just one dance. And I only did it because he was sitting at my table and I didn’t want to be rude when he asked. I couldn’t stand him. He had bulgy fish eyes, a scrawny moustache and thick, wet lips that splattered spit as he bragged about how he’d started out in the business world. It involved two brothers, inventors, who’d just created braces clips.”
“Braces clips? I thought those had always existed.”
“No, no. In the past people used to have to button their braces. Braces clips were considered a major step forward for humanity, kind of like. . . well, escalators and electric toothbrushes. But anyway, after the hippos paid the two brothers in coppers, Cliché took over their patent and it made him filthy rich. And that’s why he always wears braces.”
“But, isn’t that a little weird?” Lisa asked. “You couldn’t stand him and yet somehow he was so in love with you that he wanted to marry you, after only having seen you just that one time.”
“In love!” Juliette exclaimed. “Cliché has no idea what love is. There was only one reason why he wanted to marry me: he wanted to become nobility. If he married a baronette, it would automatically make him a barometer. I told my father that, but he made it clear that if I said no, we would be bankrupt and kicked out of the castle. And that I should go and change because Claude was coming to propose to me that very night.”
“Double yikes!” Lisa said. “What did you do?”
“I locked myself in my room and thought. And then I realised what I had to do.”
“What?”
“Marry Victor before anyone could stop us. The only way to become a barometer is to be the first person to marry a baronette. If a man marries a baronette who’s been married before, it doesn’t make him any nobler than a mule and it certainly doesn’t give him the right to use a title that starts with baron. If I hurried up and married Victor, it would be too late for Cliché and he would leave us alone. That was my plan. I also thought that since powerful criminals like Cliché have eyes and ears everywhere, it would be smartest for us to drive across the border into Italy, where Victor and I could get married in total secrecy. So, I climbed out of my window, went straight to the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille where Victor was living and proposed.”
Lisa laughed. “That’s what the doctor told me. How exactly did you propose?”
Juliette shrugged. “I knocked on his door. He opened it and said, ‘Hi!’ I said, ‘Do you want to marry me?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Get your motorcycle helmet, we’re going to Rome to get married now.’ I didn’t give him any explanations. I really didn’t want to have to explain to him that my dad, his future father-in-law, didn’t want him as a son-in-law and had promised me to someone else instead.”
“And what did the professor say?”
“Victor just laughed and did what I said. We climbed onto the motorcycle and he floored it. Out of Paris to the south, towards the mountains of Provence and the Italian border. We drove all night and it was cold, but Victor’s scarf, which he’d knitted on a knitting machine he had invented, was twenty
“Yikes! Didn’t you tell your father that this Cliché guy was a crook?”
“Yeah, of course, but my dad just laughed and said that they were probably just rumours, that Claude was probably just like any other businessman. That he couldn’t be that bad, my dad had seen Claude and me dancing together at the Christmas Ball.”
“You guys danced together?”
“Just one dance. And I only did it because he was sitting at my table and I didn’t want to be rude when he asked. I couldn’t stand him. He had bulgy fish eyes, a scrawny moustache and thick, wet lips that splattered spit as he bragged about how he’d started out in the business world. It involved two brothers, inventors, who’d just created braces clips.”
“Braces clips? I thought those had always existed.”
“No, no. In the past people used to have to button their braces. Braces clips were considered a major step forward for humanity, kind of like. . . well, escalators and electric toothbrushes. But anyway, after the hippos paid the two brothers in coppers, Cliché took over their patent and it made him filthy rich. And that’s why he always wears braces.”
“But, isn’t that a little weird?” Lisa asked. “You couldn’t stand him and yet somehow he was so in love with you that he wanted to marry you, after only having seen you just that one time.”
“In love!” Juliette exclaimed. “Cliché has no idea what love is. There was only one reason why he wanted to marry me: he wanted to become nobility. If he married a baronette, it would automatically make him a barometer. I told my father that, but he made it clear that if I said no, we would be bankrupt and kicked out of the castle. And that I should go and change because Claude was coming to propose to me that very night.”
“Double yikes!” Lisa said. “What did you do?”
“I locked myself in my room and thought. And then I realised what I had to do.”
“What?”
“Marry Victor before anyone could stop us. The only way to become a barometer is to be the first person to marry a baronette. If a man marries a baronette who’s been married before, it doesn’t make him any nobler than a mule and it certainly doesn’t give him the right to use a title that starts with baron. If I hurried up and married Victor, it would be too late for Cliché and he would leave us alone. That was my plan. I also thought that since powerful criminals like Cliché have eyes and ears everywhere, it would be smartest for us to drive across the border into Italy, where Victor and I could get married in total secrecy. So, I climbed out of my window, went straight to the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille where Victor was living and proposed.”
Lisa laughed. “That’s what the doctor told me. How exactly did you propose?”
Juliette shrugged. “I knocked on his door. He opened it and said, ‘Hi!’ I said, ‘Do you want to marry me?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Get your motorcycle helmet, we’re going to Rome to get married now.’ I didn’t give him any explanations. I really didn’t want to have to explain to him that my dad, his future father-in-law, didn’t want him as a son-in-law and had promised me to someone else instead.”
“And what did the professor say?”
“Victor just laughed and did what I said. We climbed onto the motorcycle and he floored it. Out of Paris to the south, towards the mountains of Provence and the Italian border. We drove all night and it was cold, but Victor’s scarf, which he’d knitted on a knitting machine he had invented, was twenty
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