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lead us to her!”
    I was puzzled by this, but as Aunt Harmonica explained her scheme, I began to understand how it might work. It was an ingeniousplan, and it might be a complete failure, but it was better than nothing.
    We needed a good place for the trailer, as Aunt Harmonica’s plan would take at least a week to put into effect. So we found a farmer who was happy to let us camp on his land, and we parked in a field by the side of a river.
    It was a beautiful spot. In the evenings, as we waited for our dinner to be ready, we would sit and watch the cows amble back from their pasture. Then, as the shadows grew longer, Aunt Veronica would make a fire in a small ring of stones, and we would barbecue the juicy trout that we had caught in the river that afternoon.
    In the mornings, while the two aunts talked, I would wander the fields and watch the rabbits darting in and out of their burrows. I would also pick wildflowers, which I brought back and arranged in vases in the trailer, or, sometimes, if I was feeling energetic, I would help the farmer’s wife weed her vegetable patch and feed her ducks.
    But while all this was going on, our plan to find Aunt Majolica was in full swing, and it’s time for you to hear about it.
    That first morning when Aunt Harmonica had explained her idea, we went to the office of the local newspaper and put in an advertisement. At the same time, Aunt Veronica paid for advertisements to be placed in ten other newspapers in nearby towns. Each of them said the same thing:
    CALLING ALL CHILDREN!
    Is there a bossy teacher in your school? And we don’t mean just an ordinarily bossy teacher, we mean a teacher who is really, really bossy! If there is, then write to us and tell us about her. (We only want to hear about the bossy lady teachers, I’m afraid.) The person who has the bossiest teacher will win an interesting prize!
    Now, five days later, we were beginning to wonder when we would hear. AuntHarmonica had told the post office where we were staying, and at last, at the end of the fifth day, a small van drew up at the edge of the field and a man called us over.
    “I’ve got ten sacks of letters for you,” he said, looking quite hot and bothered about it. “It’s going to take me ages to carry them across to your trailer.”
    Aunt Veronica shook her head.
    “Give them to me,” she said firmly. “I’ll do it.”
    The mailman laughed.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “They’re very heavy. I’ll have to carry them.”
    Aunt Veronica was used to this sort of thing, and so she wasted no time arguing. Going to the back of the van, she reached in for the sacks and was soon carrying them all under one arm. The man stood in amazement, his mouth wide open.
    “That’s amazing,” he said. “Those sacks weigh a ton. You should be in a circus if you can do things like that.”
    “She is,” I said.
    Then, thanking him for delivering the letters, we went back to the trailer and began the immense task of sorting them out.
    The letters came from all over the place. There was no alternative but to open each one and read what it had to say. Then we could put them into one of three piles. One pile was called “Definitely not Majolica.” Another pile was called “Might just be Majolica.” And the third pile, the important pile, we called “Sounds just like Majolica!”
    My task was to open the letters. Then I handed them on to Aunt Veronica or Aunt Harmonica, who would skim through them and decide which pile to put them in. Some of the letters were very funny, and we all laughed as we heard of the bossy exploits of the bossy teachers. There was one who even tried to boss the school hamster and was bitten on the finger when she shook it at him. Then there was one who always said exactly the same bossy things at exactly the same time of day. This bossy teacher found thather class was able to predict what she was going to say and said it for her even before she opened her mouth. She had to make