Round Robin by Joseph Flynn

kidding.”
    “Well, he made a nasty crack about you right into the camera.”
    Robin’s gloom was lifting. There was a challenge here. She was getting intrigued, wondering what that goof Ant-knee was up to this time.
    “What’d he say?”
    Mimi hesitated and then told her.
    Robin laughed, even if the crack stung a little too, coming on the heels of her doctor visit.
    “Miss Piggy’s body double? That’s pretty good. Too good for Ant-knee. He’s got somebody thinking up lines for him.”
    “I might get some grief for it,” Mimi said, “but I think I’m going to ban him.”
    “Don’t you dare,” Robin replied.
    “But he’s up to something.”
    “Yes, he is,” Robin said, feeling tough now, feeling much better really, “and whatever it is, I’ll be ready for it.”
     
    By the time Robin got off the phone with Mimi, she felt buoyant enough to tiptoe, if you could call it that when you got about on crutches, down to Manfred’s front door. Without making a sound, she left a can of air-freshener and a note for him.
    The note said: Try adding this to all of your recipes.
     

Chapter 9
    Robin woke the next morning with a plan for Tone in mind and a delicious odor in her nose. Somebody had been baking. And the results had been delivered to her front door. She knew who the deliveryman had to be: Daddy.
    He’d seen that she’d been troubled yesterday, so he’d gone out to a bakery first thing this morning, just when they were taking everything out of the oven, and then he’d let himself into the building and left the package on her doorstep for her to find when she woke up.
    What a sweetheart.
    Robin crutched over to her front door in her pajamas, opened it and almost got jolted off her feet again.
    Daddy hadn’t been there, Manfred had.
    There was a plate of something redolent of apples and cinnamon and quite possibly God’s grace sitting just outside her door. Steam seeped out from the edges of the crisp white dish-towel that covered the plate. It must have been dropped off not more than a minute ago. Whatever it was, it smelled good enough to drop to the floor and eat right there.
    Except...
    Next to the plate lay the can of air freshener she’d left for Manfred last night. It was as crumpled as a discarded Dixie cup. Under the can was a note. Leaning against the doorframe, Robin carefully bent over and picked up the note.
    In a crabbed European-looking hand, it read: Took your advice. Squeezed every last drop into strudel. Let me know how it tastes.
    As with Robin’s note, a signature had not been added or necessary.
    Robin looked at the plate. And the can. Was he kidding her? Or trying to poison her for being smartass with him?
    The safest thing to do with the stuff would be to just put it down her recently repaired garbage disposal. But it smelled sooo good. Then Robin smiled as she thought of an answer to the problem, one that fit in neatly with her other plan. What she needed was a food–taster ... and she knew just who it would be.
     
    “Hello, Nancy,” Robin said into the phone.
    “Well, isn’t this a surprise?” her sister asked. “Would you like to speak with Charlie, maybe ask him for a little favor?”
    Robin shook her head. That noodge Charlie. He hadn’t been able to keep her plea for help with the furnace from Nancy. But that would only make what Robin planned to do even sweeter.
    “Actually, I was wondering if I might ask you a favor, if you can spare a little time this morning and maybe later on today.”
    Nancy was properly suspicious, but curious, too.
    “What do you want?”
    “Well, I’m on crutches these days—I sprained my ankle—and I hate to bother Dad all the time, so I was wondering if you might give me a lift to work.”
    Nancy was silent a moment as she explored that idea for booby-traps.
    “I usually have a few extra minutes,” she finally said. “I suppose I could do that.” Then she probed further. “Anything else?”
    “Could I borrow your