The Viking Seal

4 - Suspicions Confirmed

The party spent several moments perusing the breakfast menu and placing their orders before returning to the probing small talk that began the process of learning about one another.

"Cheesy tells me your- ah- your friend, Miss Van Reagar is coming in day after tomorrow?"

"Cheesy?" He looked at the professor, who just blinked and waved a dismissing hand. "Yes, Mel's kind of insistent on keeping me in her sights." He blushed slightly and smiled again. "She would have come earlier but her dad's not too well and she wanted to make sure about his arrangements before leaving."

He failed to mention the argument over the acceptance of CONGA's offer and how she refused to come with him, only relenting when he said goodbye at the airport boarding line. He had called when the plane landed in Canada, and after a flurry of apologies and promises, Mel agreed to follow as soon as she could get a flight.

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"He's getting on . . ." Stone shot a worried glance at the professor who was smiling down at the tabletop. "Sorry, I didn't mean . . . " The professor blinked his acceptance and waved him on. "He uh- he contracted malaria a number of years ago and it keeps recurring. Plus, he's got some other stuff going on. Each bout hits him a little harder."

"This was after you first met him?"

Stone glanced up at Gretta realizing she was almost interrogating him. "Yeah, it was. He wasn't well when we went into the desert the first time but he got over that okay. The malaria happened a few years later after he accepted a permanent post at the university out there."

Gretta gave Cheesy a stern glance. "Some people have a difficult time accepting retirement age, don't they?"

"I suppose, anyway she's confident that he'll be okay on his own for a while." Missing the visual exchange.

"It'll be nice that she can join you here. Has she been to Canada before?"

"No, it's going to be quite a surprise. When you get out in the desert, you think it's endless and nothing could be bigger. I tried to show her but maps just don't cut it with Mel."

"Are you . . . is she your . . . ?"

"Gretta, that's his business!" Arny blurted in surprise.

"No, it's okay. We just live together. Have for quite a while now. Our story is not unlike your own . . . at least from what Professor Stilton tells me."

Gretta and Arnold turned to the professor, raising their eyebrows in expectation of his excuse.

"I just mentioned how you met, nothing detailed nor intimate." His brow creased at having his bit of gossip exposed.

Gretta's eyes opened wider. "Intimate?"

"Whoa, I didn't mean to say something out of line here." Stone looked to the professor for help. "It was like he said. He just told me that you," he nodded at Arny, "were on a job in Mexico with Gretta and that you- you uh- you took a fancy to one another. Same thing with Mel and me," he hurried on, "I took she and her father into the desert on a job that turned out to be quite an adventure and we kinda found an attachment for one another." He waited while they all fiddled with cutlery and sipped water. "Are we all okay?"

"For my part, I'd like to say that meeting your- Miss . . . "

"Van Reagar."

" . . . Van Reagar . . . is something I'm quite looking forward to. We might even have notes to compare." Arny displayed a smile of his own, and the tension around the table evaporated in good-humoured chuckling.