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and kick their butts,” Tony agreed in a less quaint style. “I know you can do it, Jessie. He listens to you.”
    I shrugged. “I’ll talk to him about it. But from the way it sounds, the knights are very popular right now. You guys might have to spice up your performances so you get your crowd back. Then Adventure Land would be more likely to listen to complaints about them.”
    Tony nodded. “Like I said—big, white horses. Chicks love them.”
    “Thanks, Jessie,” Robin added. “We’ll see what we can do. Any suggestions?”
    I didn’t step into that pit of no return. Nothing I could say would really be appreciated by these men who believed wearing green tights and living in the forest was enough for every woman to fall in love with them. Children loved the tree houses, but it sounded like they enjoyed the big black tents, too. Robin and his group of tree dwellers were going to have to find their own way out of this.
    I got over to the hat shop at the stroke of nine A.M. The group of assistants were already being dressed down by Andre for their lack of work on recent projects.
    “We are short ten hats. Ten! We have only a few days before they’re needed at the Stage Caravan. I shouldn’t have to tell any of you about this, but it seems I must do it each day. Now go and get busy. If all of you had worked on the movie Cleopatra , as my father did, they would still be filming it!”
    The assistants ran out of the room, jostling with each other to see who could get out first. I wondered where Andre had found this particular group of young men who seemed more inclined to be squires or jesters than to be working with hats.
    “I’m delighted to see that you’ve returned, Jessie.” Andre sat down on a pretty little chair with delicate needlework on the seat. “I hope having you here will make a difference. These boys aren’t interested in haberdashery. I don’t know why they’re here.”
    A good reason came through the door. Blond hair tousled, blue eyes wide and starlit, the young woman was looking for a green hat to complement her costume. All of the assistants came back from the work area to help her make that choice.
    Andre shooed them out of the sales area and personally helped the young woman, who bought a wide-brimmed, apple green bonnet with pink flowers on it. I played cashier, amazed at what people were willing to pay for a hat. It was a very nice hat, to be sure, but it cost more than I made in a month.
    After the lady was gone, Andre seemed preoccupied. He kept fingering his fashionable yellow and purple scarf that he wore with his yellow tunic. “I can hardly concentrate for thinking about the death of Cesar Rizzo,” he finally told me. “Have you heard anything about what happened?”
    “I was there this morning. The police have decided it was a homicide. That’s about all I know.”
    Andre dropped the red hat band he’d been looking at while I spoke. His face became even paler beneath the graying brown hair. “That can’t be true! Who would want to kill Cesar? There has to be some mistake.”
    “Were you friends with Cesar?” I asked him.
    “No. Not really. But to think of something like that happening here—it’s terrible.”
    “I know.” I tried to divert him, looking around the room that was crowded with hats of all types, colors, and styles. “Tell me what I can do to help make hats.”
    He nodded and pulled himself out of his funk. “Since we make mostly hats that could be from the Renaissance, we use a lot of satin, lace, and other older materials. Sometimes velvet and felt. I try to stay realistic.”
    It was fairly easy to get him talking about his craft. Who knew how much work went into making hats? I’d never been much of a hat wearer myself, but I knew hats were very popular with visitors and residents of the Village.
    I tried on a few hats at Andre’s insistence. One of them was very large and made of red satin. It drooped down over my left eye. Andre adjusted the