§ § § - October 27, 1979

Roarke drove Tattoo, Leslie, and Cornelius Weiselfarber down the northern arm of the Ring Road, past a decrepit-looking farmhouse and a couple of fields, before coming onto a second house, somewhat resembling the first one but in much better condition. Here he stopped, observing, "Here we are," and everyone got out—except for Weiselfarber, whose long white scarf (an affectation Leslie supposed must have been all the rage during World War I) got stuck on the front passenger seat somehow. He tossed his hosts a game grin before giving a solid yank; the scarf abruptly came free, and his own momentum sent him crashing to the ground with a startled grunt. Roarke, Tattoo and Leslie traded wincing glances on Weiselfarber's behalf; the two men rolled their eyes, and Leslie blurted out, "Are you okay?"

Weiselfarber picked himself up and dusted himself off, nodding. "I'm fine, thanks." He focused on Roarke. "Well, gentlemen, shall we go?"

Inside, the place was decked out like a small European tavern, with a few tables and chairs scattered around, French flags displayed prominently on the wall, framed certificates, and a long polished bar at the back of the room. "Wow, this is unbelievable!" Weiselfarber exclaimed, staring around him in wonder. "Why, it's almost an exact replica of a World War I officers' club!"

"Yes," Roarke said, going around to stand behind the bar. "In fact, it's very like the headquarters of the famed group of American pilots who came over on their own to fight alongside the French." Tattoo, Leslie and Weiselfarber settled on stools at the bar as Roarke turned to the wall behind him to retrieve something.

"The Lafayette Escadrille," Weiselfarber said eagerly.

Roarke turned and favored him with an approving smile. "Precisely."

"You amaze me, Mr. Roarke. They were the greatest heroes of the war! They had such fantastic style and...and ee-lun!"

Roarke's smile grew quizzical; Tattoo and Leslie shared a blank look, and Roarke corrected gently, "Elan."

"Oh, they had that too? That's great!" said Weiselfarber. Roarke, amused, glanced at Leslie, who hastily hid her helpless grin behind one hand; he smiled back, while Tattoo just closed his eyes in disbelief. Meanwhile the oblivious Weiselfarber asked in an eager voice, "Will they be part of my fantasy too, Mr. Roarke?"

Roarke paused a moment before his smile returned. "Perhaps," he murmured, in that mysterious low voice Leslie had learned to dread because it never answered any of her questions. After a moment, Roarke added, "I had hoped to offer a toast to your adventure, Mr. Weiselfarber—"

"Weiselfarber," corrected the name's owner, pronouncing the first vowel with a long-I sound rather than a long E as Roarke had been doing.

"Uh, Weiselfarber," Roarke repeated, using the new pronunciation. "But the liquor cabinet seems to be locked."

"Ah, well," said Weiselfarber confidently as he came around behind the bar and Roarke emerged. "The lock has not been invented that can keep this locksmith out!" Roarke took Weiselfarber's vacated stool, while their guest raised a small implement in the air and announced, "My lock-pick cover, and my pick." With that, he got to work on the small lock holding the cabinet shut; Roarke, Tattoo and Leslie glanced at one another.

"Y'know," Weiselfarber suddenly remarked, turning to face them, "you don't get to see locks like this much anymore." He turned back to his task as Roarke nodded with interest, and a couple of seconds later Weiselfarber had the lock apart and the cabinet door open. "Brandy?" he asked.

"Perfect," said Roarke, and Weiselfarber set a bottle on the counter in front of Roarke, taking down three glasses from the wall behind him while Roarke opened the bottle. Tattoo seemed very pleased indeed to be one of the recipients; Leslie looked on with interest, wondering if this time he'd actually be allowed to imbibe. In her admittedly limited experience, somehow Roarke usually managed to find a way to impede his participation in any social drinking he might do with guests. Sure enough, Roarke gave Tattoo a pointed look, and Tattoo responded with a slightly pained expression before placing a reluctant hand over the top of his glass. Leslie grinned.

Weiselfarber set about pouring brandy into glasses; somehow he failed to see Tattoo's hand lying across his glass and started to splash liquid into it, only to soak Tattoo's hand and make him jump. Weiselfarber looked a bit taken aback; belatedly Tattoo mumbled, "No thank you..."

Leslie slapped both hands over her mouth, trying very hard not to burst into laughter. Unfortunately, as Roarke and Weiselfarber raised their glasses, Tattoo began to lick his fingers, and that was too much for Leslie. Roarke threw Tattoo a reproachful look and Leslie a mildly scolding one, but she couldn't stop giggling. Tattoo made an annoyed face and stopped his licking, shooting Leslie a disgusted look. She handed him a napkin; he looked even more pained than before, but made use of it anyway.

Roarke turned to Weiselfarber and raised his glass. "To Manfred, Count von Richthoven," he said with a smile.

"The greatest flying ace of them all," Weiselfarber agreed with enthusiasm.

"Von who?" said Tattoo, catching Weiselfarber as he was about to take a drink and making their guest stare at him in disbelief.

"Von Richthoven, Tattoo," Roarke said patiently. "But he was called the Red Baron." At this Tattoo's expression cleared and he nodded understanding. Roarke arose then and began, "Uh, yes, Mr. Weiselfarber—"

"Weiselfarber," the guest once more corrected Roarke's pronunciation.

Again Roarke repeated it and added, "Tattoo and Leslie and I must get back to our guests. I hope your fantasy lives up to your expectations." He raised his glass in tandem with Weiselfarber, then interrupted himself to add, "Oh, uh..." Weiselfarber stopped himself as well and this time gave Roarke a thwarted look which his host didn't see. "You do understand, don't you, that if you can go back to the era you wish, you will be quite beyond my help, should you encounter trouble."

"Yes, well...I owe this one to my boys, Mr. Roarke. It's my only real chance to tell them about the Great War, and I can't pass it up."

"Well, in that case, Mr. Weiselfarber—" Yet again Roarke mispronounced the name and his guest corrected him. "À vôtre santé."

Weiselfarber tried to return it in kind: "A voter santy...a vutrah...a votruh...a vulture...uh..." Wisely he gave up and raised his glass. "Down the hatch." Roarke smiled, cast Tattoo an almost apologetic look—which, Leslie noticed, was met with a distinctly sulky one in response—and took a quick sip while Weiselfarber finally belted back his own drink. Tattoo watched, opened his mouth as if to protest, but fell glumly silent; Leslie grinned again as Roarke set his glass down on the bar top.

"Come, Tattoo and Leslie," Roarke said, and Tattoo turned his empty glass upside down beside the puddle that Weiselfarber had left in his attempt to pour Tattoo a drink; the three of them headed for the door, and as Roarke ushered Tattoo and Leslie out, Weiselfarber seemed to realize they were leaving him there.

"Mr. Roarke!" he called, but Roarke ignored him, stepped out and closed the door.

"I think he had a question," Leslie ventured as they headed for the car nearby.

Roarke smiled at her. "In very short order, my dear Leslie, he will have an answer," he assured her. "It's time to meet with Miss Philips."

Helen Philips had at least changed clothes by the time they met her at the main house, though her vividly purple dress wasn't much more stylish than the tan-and-cream skirt ensemble had been. Leslie supposed she would get a change of wardrobe to help facilitate her fantasy; this often happened in such instances. "Mr. Roarke," said Helen as the threesome gathered behind Roarke's desk, "can you really make me look twenty-five again?" She sounded severely skeptical, and Leslie wondered why she'd bothered coming in the first place if she was so prepared not to believe.

Roarke smiled with gentle tolerance, flicked an assessing glance at Helen from head to toe, then turned to his assistant. "Tattoo?"

Tattoo handed Roarke an elegant box; Roarke thanked him, set it on the desk in front of him and lifted out a bottle about five inches in height and perhaps two inches around, full nearly to the brim with a transparent dull-purple fluid. He displayed it at Helen. "The liquid in this vial contains a very special potion. Certain legends claim it can give the appearance of youth, if only temporarily. The vial contains three doses..." He indicated the two white lines painted on the side of the bottle at one-third and two-thirds measurements. "...each to be taken precisely at twelve-hour intervals, if you are to maintain the effect."

Helen scoffed, "Now, just drinking that is going to make me young again?"

Roarke quirked a faint, brief smile, then picked up a small gold goblet and poured out an exact third of the bottle's contents into it before offering it to Helen. "There is only one way you can find out."

Helen peered at the cup's contents, then began to lift it to her lips, before Tattoo put in a little anxiously, "Boss...don't you think she should sit down first?"

Roarke nodded thoughtfully and mused, "Ah, perhaps Tattoo is right. Won't you sit down, Miss Philips?"

Helen took his advice and settled into one of the club chairs, removed her glasses, and downed the potion. Leslie's gaze shot to Roarke, who was staring at Helen with intense concentration; when she looked back at Helen, the woman was blinking and squinting, as if something had gone seriously wrong with her vision. Leslie watched both her guardian and his assistant gazing steadily at Helen, watched Helen blink, squint and swallow thickly in rapid sequence, as though she might be sick, and wondered what Helen was seeing. The room went dark then, and she froze in place, squeezing her eyes closed for a moment before the field behind her eyelids changed from black back to dull red. She opened her eyes with some caution, spotted Helen Philips and gaped, her hand drifting to her mouth. The woman had undergone an apparent metamorphosis: she was slimmer, her face had lost its faintly pudgy look, and the tiny tinge of gray had vanished from her hair, which now draped itself loosely around her shoulders. Helen's eyes were wide, as if she had come to realize that she could now see perfectly without her glasses.

Roarke smiled faintly in satisfaction and turned to Tattoo, who looked mesmerized. "Tattoo?" Tattoo just stared, even when Roarke snapped his fingers; Leslie stifled another snicker, and Roarke smiled at her, gesturing to a nearby table. "Leslie, if you would?"

She nodded and picked up a hand mirror from the table, taking it to Helen Philips, while Tattoo finally came back to life and pulled up by Roarke's side, still staring, as though he were getting a closer look at their guest. Helen smiled her thanks at Leslie, then looked at her reflection and gaped, mouth falling open. Roarke looked on with a small smile of satisfaction, and winked at Leslie.

Helen's face broke into a delighted, if dazed, smile. "Mr. Roarke, this is incredible!" Then she got a worried look about her. "What do I do now?"

"Well, I would say now, Miss Philips, you begin to enjoy your fantasy!"

Helen, beaming, peered at her reflection again, scrutinizing herself in the mirror every bit as much as Tattoo was scrutinizing her. Finally Helen gave the mirror back to Leslie and stood up. "I guess I don't have any time to waste, do I?"

"Not a moment," Roarke agreed and handed her the vial. "Remember my instructions precisely, and your weekend should be all you hoped for."

"Oh, I sure will," Helen chirped and hurried out of the study.

"Wow," Leslie said in wonder. "I mean...I knew you could do it, Mr. Roarke, but I just had no idea she'd come out looking so...so great."

"Great, nothing!" Tattoo blurted, still staring after the departed Helen Philips. "She looks stupendous! Fantastic! Magnifique! Surprenant! Étonnant!" Having lapsed into French and finally run out of superlatives, he turned to Roarke and breathed, "Ooh la la!"

Roarke grinned, and Leslie burst out laughing. "I guess now you know Mr. Roarke can really do it, like you asked at the plane dock," she teased.

"Mais oui...sacré bleu," Tattoo groaned and half stumbled out the French shutters and out of sight across the rear terrace. Roarke and Leslie watched him go, then gave in to full-bore mirth.

The day slid by mostly quietly; Leslie accompanied Tattoo on a few rounds, and they had a light lunch shortly after noon, during which Mana'olana badgered Leslie to take an extra helping of dessert. "You need fat on those bones," she scolded while Leslie reddened and let her annoyed gaze slide out of focus. Roarke and Tattoo looked on with amusement. "I don't know what they fed you before you came here, young lady, but you must have been on orphanage rations, the way you eat! You can take all you want here, you know!"

Leslie whipped around at the word orphanage. "Just because I am an orphan doesn't mean I think I'm starving like one!" she burst out, surprising both Tattoo and Roarke. "I eat as much as I want, but my mother taught me never to eat more than my stomach would hold, so I don't get sick later—because that'd be wasting food!"

"Very wise, Leslie," Roarke said, impressed. "Mana'olana, I suggest you allow the young lady to follow her mother's counsel."

"You know perfectly well the boss would never starve her," Tattoo added.

"I never said that," Mana'olana protested, offended. "Of course you wouldn't starve her, Mr. Roarke. But she might just starve herself."

Leslie groaned and rolled her eyes, and Roarke chuckled. "Let her be, Mana'olana; I see nothing wrong with her eating habits. That said, Leslie, if you'd like an extra piece of cheesecake, by all means, take it. We have no pressing engagements."

She shrugged and took one, satisfying Mana'olana enough to send the cook back to the kitchen with an approving grunt. She was pleasantly full once she finished, and Tattoo departed shortly thereafter on some more rounds while Roarke handed Leslie some mail to sort through and he himself examined a letter written on delicate stationery the color of a robin's egg. She glanced at him once, wondering what was so special about that particular letter, before devoting her attention to the newest batch of requests for fantasies.

Somewhat more than an hour later, the quiet study was breached by an older man in square-rimmed glasses, a jacket, vest and slacks the color of Helen Philips' original outfit from the plane dock, a white shirt, and a tie in gold and slate-blue stripes. He had the jacket draped over one arm and squinted despite the glasses; he looked rumpled, as though he had slept all his flights away. "Uh...you are Mr. Roarke?" he inquired, speaking in slow, measured tones, leaning forward and peering myopically through his glasses. Leslie wondered if he needed a new lens prescription.

As if startled, Roarke looked up from the letter. "Yes...what can I do for you, sir?"

"Yes...well, my name is Crane—George Crane," the new arrival announced, entering the room and stretching across the desk to shake hands with Roarke.

"How do you do, Mr. Crane," Roarke greeted him warmly.

"I am looking for a lady named Helen Philips...her, uh, her landlady said that she came here to Fantasy Island," Crane explained with a nervous laugh, displaying large, horsey teeth. Roarke smiled politely back.

"I see...and what is your interest in Miss Philips, if I may ask?" he queried.

Diffidently Crane replied, "Ah...well, I am going to marry her."

"Oh," Roarke said with interest. "You and Miss Philips are engaged, are you?"

Crane's smile vanished. "No," he admitted. "Not...not exactly."

"Oh?" prompted Roarke, while Leslie gazed on, mail forgotten.

"W-well, what I mean is..." Crane began, blinking, flustered.

Roarke seemed to take a touch of pity on him. "Sit down, Mr. Crane," he urged, rounding the desk and Leslie's chair, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder as he did so. Crane watched him come around for a moment, and Roarke explained quickly, "My ward, Leslie Hamilton." At this, Crane nodded and lowered himself into a club chair; Roarke took the other, motioned at Leslie to resume her task, and turned his attention to Crane. "Yes...as you were saying?" he prompted.

"Uh, see...I've been working as head librarian at Vassar for the past twenty years," Crane began. "And for fifteen of those years, I've been, uh...kinda sweet on Helen."

The old-fashioned term made Leslie look up again. If he's fifty like her, she thought, counting back, then that means they were born in...what, 1929? Wow! That must've been the way they talked back then. With Roarke's full attention on Crane, she felt safe in openly eavesdropping. "Sweet enough," Crane went on, "that we go to dinner and the movies every Saturday night." He chuckled nervously, and Roarke, though listening politely, shifted a little in his chair, as if not quite able to hide an encroaching case of boredom. Leslie grinned at his expression as he lifted his gaze back to Crane, who stumbled on. "So, I...I figured that we would be husband and wife by the end of the year. Uh...at her age...she really doesn't have too much of a choice." Leslie eyed Crane oddly; even Roarke looked a little surprised. It was hard to tell whether Crane was denigrating Helen Philips, himself, or both of them.

Finally Crane asked, "Where is Helen, Mr. Roarke?"

Roarke cleared his throat slightly and arose, going to one of the shuttered windows at the side of the room. "Uh, well, as a matter of fact, we do have a Helen Philips on the island," he said. Pulling open a shutter, he turned back to Crane. "Would you take a look out this window?"

Crane got up, crossed the room and cleared his own throat, peering out. Leslie could just see past him and was able to discern a couple through the open slats, strolling along side by side. "Is that your fiancée?" Roarke inquired.

Crane shook his head slightly. "No...that, uh, that girl is a lot younger."

"Ah," said Roarke in a conciliatory tone, "it's quite obvious that a mistake has been made. I'll arrange passage for you on the next flight out." He started for the desk; Leslie went back to the mail at the same moment, part of her wondering where Crane had gotten the charter pass from. She supposed he must have bought one, at the customary exorbitant rate all impulse vacationers to the island were charged at the Honolulu airport.

But Crane protested, "Uh, no, Mr. Roarke...you see, my Helen is...still somewhere on this island, and uh...I plan to find her, and take her...uh, take her back home with me."

Roarke studied him doubtfully, with a slight frown, but nodded acquiescence. "In that case, why don't you go to the hotel and see if you can get a room there; we may still have a few empty ones. There is a car waiting for you outside."

"Right," Crane agreed. "Thanks, Mr. Roarke." He cast Leslie a glance and another of those horsey smiles of his, which she returned automatically, before departing the study.

Roarke noticed Leslie staring after him. "Don't you have something to do, Leslie?" he inquired, reseating himself behind the desk.

She blinked and yanked herself up straight in the chair. "Oh, yeah...well, I know, I know. But he sure is a monkey wrench in the works, isn't he?"

Roarke settled back in his chair. "Quite a fly in the ointment, yes," he agreed.

"So what'll you do about him?" asked Leslie.

"Nothing, my child," he responded, flicking a pointed glance at the letters. "You have other matters to worry about. Mr. Crane is Miss Philips' problem, not ours."

"She won't be happy about that," Leslie mumbled, giving in at her guardian's reproving stare and slicing open another envelope. "So when do we go check on the World War I fantasy? For Mr. Whistle—I mean, Weasel—I mean, Weiselfarber?"

Roarke chuckled. "Perhaps later," he said. "You have work to do...and so do I." Once more his attention drifted to the letter on the blue paper, and Leslie caught a glimpse of some very feminine handwriting on it before her guardian relaxed in the chair and held the letter in such a way that she could no longer see what was on it. With a little sigh, she put her attention back to the mail.