Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

it as hard as he could), he still hadn’t figured out how to change his clothes.
His flip-flops snapped against the floor, and he felt oddly vulnerable in his
old shirt and sweats.
But no one paid him any mind. They continued on as if he weren’t there at
all.
He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed.
Before he could make up his mind, he felt eyes on him and looked over at
the counter. A tiny older woman prattled on about how there could be no nuts
in her muffin, it couldn’t even touch a nut of any kind or her throat would
constrict and she’d die a terrible death, Hugo, I know I’ve told you this
before, but it’s serious.
“Of course,” Hugo said, but he wasn’t looking at her.
He watched Wallace, that quiet smile on his face.
“Don’t make this into a big deal,” Wallace muttered.
“I would never,” Hugo said.
“Thank you,” the old woman said. “My tongue gets swollen and my face
balloons up, and I look like quite the fright. No nuts, Hugo! No nuts.”
And after that, Wallace spent most of his days out in front of the tea shop.
Nelson was thrilled. “You can overhear some of the strangest things,” he
told Wallace as they walked between the tables. “People aren’t very careful
with their secrets, even when they’re out in public. And it’s not
eavesdropping, not really.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s true. At all.”
Nelson shrugged. “Gotta get our kicks from somewhere. So long as we
don’t interfere, Hugo doesn’t seem to mind.”
“I mind a lot,” Hugo muttered as he walked by them, carrying a tea tray to
a couple sitting near the window.
“He says that, but he doesn’t mean it,” Nelson whispered. “Oh, look. Mrs.
Benson is here with her girlfriends. They talk about butts all the time. Let’s
go listen in.”
They did talk about butts. Including Hugo’s. They giggled amongst
themselves as they watched him, batting their eyelashes when he stopped by
their table to ask if they needed anything else.
“Oh, the things I’d let him do to me,” one of the women breathed as Hugo
reached up to the board above the counter to write down a new special of the
day: lemon balm tea. “Such lovely hands.”