Gargantis

by Thomas Taylor

  “No, it will not!” cries Mrs Fossil.

  “But my museum is so much more suitable than your … your…” Dr Thalassi struggles to finish the sentence.

  Mrs Fossil comes to a halt and squares up to the doctor.

  “My what?”

  “Your bric-a-brac shop.”

  “Bric-a-brac!” Mrs F splutters. “Oh, but of course, the ‘great curator’ thinks his crummy old museum is so superior…”

  “Stop!” cries Violet. “Are you two really going to do this?”

  “Do what?” say Mrs Fossil and the doc together.

  “Fall out over a stupid fish-shaped bottle.”

  The two adults glare at each other. Then Mrs Fossil sighs.

  “No, no.” She lets a wary smile twitch across her face, and darts a look at the curator. “No, we’re not really falling out, are we, Doc? I mean, not really?”

  The doc glares at the beachcomber as if he is about to launch a devastating reply and blast her to bits. But then the furious look evaporates, and he lowers his eyes in embarrassment. He pokes a piece of broken tile with the tip of one of his patent leather shoes.

  “No, indeed not,” he says with a sheepish grin. “I apologize, Wendy, for any rudeness.”

  “I apologize too,” Mrs Fossil says. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  But I think I do. That bottle is dividing the town – and it’s starting to feel as though I can’t walk anywhere without being pestered about it!

  If Violet had hoped confronting the two adults would shame them into leaving us alone, she must be disappointed. They remain with us as we enter Dolphin Square, pass the bronze statue in the centre that gives it its name and cross the cobbles to our destination. And then there we are, the four of us, standing outside the window of the strangest bookshop in Eerie-on-Sea.

  I look up into that window. Behind the glass, a ghastly simian face leers down at us over the back of an old-fashioned typewriter. In one hand, the monstrosity holds out a battered old top hat for an offering, while the other hand is clutched crookedly to its breast. Its lower end is an iridescent fish tail, curling around a circus pedestal of flaky red and gold.

  The mermonkey.

  And it seems to be grinning right at me.

  MYSTERIES AND MUFFINS

  THE SHOP DOOR GOES DING, and we find ourselves in the tall, book-lined interior that has become Violet’s home. The owner of the shop, Jenny Hanniver, is stoking a blazing fire in the black marble fireplace – the smell of woodsmoke mixing with the heady scent of thousands upon thousands of books.

  “Violet!” Jenny drops the poker in the log basket and comes over to hug her. “I’ve been worried!”

  Since Vi came to live permanently in Eerie-on-Sea, Jenny – with her long red curls and green patterned shawl – is the nearest thing Violet has to a guardian.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny,” says Violet, from inside the shawl. Then she steps back and adds, “Has there been…?”

  But Jenny shakes her head.

  “No,” she says. “I’m sorry. No letters, no news. But never give up hope, Violet. Your parents will find their way home to you some day…”

  … if they possibly can.

  This last bit wasn’t said out loud, but I think we all know that Jenny was thinking it. Violet’s parents haven’t been seen since she was a baby, but she has reasons to think they are out there somewhere, searching for her. It’s not for Jenny or me or anyone else to tell her otherwise.

  “I heard you stayed with Herbie last night.” Jenny puts on a brisk smile as she changes the subject. “Because of the storm.”

  I’m about to wonder how she heard this when there’s a purr. Erwin slinks into the room and coils himself around Violet’s legs.

  “Hey there, moggy.” I rumple the cat’s head, feeling a bit bad when I see his cut whiskers. “Thanks for helping us earlier.”

  Erwin bites my hand.

  It’s not a real “Argh, die, human!” bite, more of an “I’ve nearly forgiven you, but not quite” nip. Pretty standard for the Eerie Book Dispensary’s cat, though I’m left rubbing my hand all the same.

  “I was just starting to wonder if I should advertise for a new assistant,” Jenny says to Violet. Then she looks at the rest of us. “And now here you are with a whole troop of customers.”

  “I was just passing by,” explains the doc, “and it seemed to me that our young friends here needed a little help…”

  “And I saw them passing by,” Mrs Fossil chimes in, “while I was waiting for my freshly baked salty caramel muffins to cool…”

  “Salty caramel muffins!” I gasp in dreamy delight, and then blush as everyone turns to look at me. Oops, did I say that out loud?

  “Still warm, too,” Mrs Fossil says, her face beaming as she lifts the tea towel. Instantly, the scrummy smell of sponge cake and caramel bursts from the basket and makes my mind roll over like a puppy. “They’re, um, they’re your favourites, aren’t they, Herbie?”

  Dr Thalassi scowls as he drapes his coat over a chair and holds his hands to the fire.

  “Herbie’s favourite muffins?” he says, narrowing his eyes at the beachcomber. “How considerate of you to have baked those.”

  “Well, I just thought it was time we made a bit more fuss of our favourite Lost-and-Founder.” Mrs Fossil offers the basket to me. The little caramel chunks that burst through the sugar-crusted tops of the muffins are half melted, just the way I like them. “I was going to drop them off at the hotel later today, Herbie. But, well, since we’re all here…”

  It’s probably a bit rude of me to just reach out and take a muffin, but I can’t help it. I have the thing hot and squidgy in my hand when Dr Thalassi speaks again.

  “You know, Herbie,” he says, “I was thinking of popping around too. I wondered if we should restart your lessons. It’s been a while since you last came to class in my museum, but I promised I’d take care of your schooling when you first arrived in town, and I’m ashamed to say that I’ve let that promise slide. How would you like to come regularly and study mechanics with me again?”

  “Really?” I say, pausing with the muffin halfway to my mouth.

  “Indeed,” says the doc with a twinkle. “And it’s only right that I extend the same offer to Miss Parma, now that she has come to live with us. Violet, you already come to the museum at all hours to ask about our local wildlife. How would you like to have regular classes in natural history? You and Herbie could come together.”

  I lower the muffin from my open mouth and turn to look at Vi. My mind fills with a happy memory of cluttered desks and fine-quality tools, and the doc explaining the workings of levers and gears. I hadn’t realized how much I missed those days, but I do! I owe almost everything I know about fixing things to Dr Thalassi. I’d love to learn more – to sit with Violet in the comfort of Dr T’s fabulous study, uncovering the mysteries of the universe together…

  “Muffins!” Mrs Fossil shouts, waking me from my daydream. “Hundreds of muffins! To help you study!”

  “Oh, stop!” cries Violet. “This is ridiculous.”

  Muffins are never ridiculous, I almost say, but I’m glad I don’t, because Violet looks serious.

  “Can’t you hear yourselves?” she goes on, looking at each of the adults in turn. “Now you’re trying to bribe Herbie. It’s already hard enough for him to know what to do with that bottle, without all this.”

  I take a bite from the muffin. It’s yummy, but I feel as though it would have been even yummier a moment ago.

  “This wouldn’t be the fish-shaped bottle everyone is talking about, would it?” says Jenny.

  “Everyone?” My heart sinks.

  “These things get around, Herbie.” Jenny nods. “And the townsfolk are very nervous. The storm has done a lot of damage, and this is a strange time for anything connected to the legend of Saint Dismal to come to light. So, was there anything inside this bottle?”

  Everyone turns to look at me.

  “I�
��m, um, I’m keeping the whole business under my hat,” I say, with a glance at Violet. “Till I can work out what to do about it.”

  “I see,” says Jenny, glancing briefly at my Lost-and-Founder’s cap and then searching my eyes. “Well, in the meantime, why don’t you pull up a chair while I put the kettle on. And then perhaps we can all have a muffin.”

  And with that, she heads to the door behind the shop counter marked PRIVATE. But she stops halfway through.

  “You know, Herbie, if you’re really stuck working out what to do, maybe the mermonkey can help.”

  MAMMOTHS AND NARWHALS

  “HOW IS BLAZE WESTERLEY?” Dr Thalassi asks, once we’re all around the fire and Jenny has brought tea and plates. “Poor boy. I tried to visit him after his uncle drowned, but Boadicea Bates said the fisherfolk look after their own. I hope that’s true, because Blaze will be all alone in the world now – and barely sixteen years old.”

  “I think he’s doing OK, considering,” says Vi. Then she reaches to her coat – hanging to dry by the fire – and pulls the large sheet of folded paper from the inside pocket. She opens it out fully on the floor in front of us.

  “I made a copy of the secret writing on the sides of the bottle,” she says to the doc. “What can you tell me about it?”

  “Ah, yes, the Eerie Script,” says the doc, allowing his spectacles to fall onto the bridge of his nose. “But I don’t remember there being quite so much of it on the bottle. Where did you find these other examples?”

  Beside the rubbing are several small lines of the mysterious runes, in Violet’s handwriting.

  “I copied them,” says Violet, “from a chart in Blaze’s boat, a chart that belonged to Squint Westerley. I think Blaze’s uncle knew how to read and write Eerie Script. Is that possible, Doctor?”

  “Hardly!” says the doc, with a snort of disbelief. “It’s an ancient form of writing whose secret has been lost to history. No one has been able to read and write Eerie Script for centuries.”

  “No one at all?”

  The doc smiles an indulgent smile. “I have devoted a great deal of time to the problem myself, Violet. As I said, we have examples in the museum. But there aren’t enough to make a proper analysis.”

  “Analysis?” I say. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if each of these marks is a letter, then we can compare how often they appear in different inscriptions. For example, the letter ‘E’ is the most commonly used letter in our language. So, if we can find the most common symbol, we can guess that it stands for ‘E’. In this way, we could at least determine if the language encoded is our own, and not some other language written in a strange alphabet. But as you can see from these examples, the symbols differ slightly from inscription to inscription.”

  “Except for the crosses,” says Vi. “Every inscription starts and ends with a cross, like this.” And she points to an example:

  “Indeed.” Dr Thalassi blinks at Violet. “I’m impressed that you noticed.”

  Vi glares out from inside her hair.

  “I’m trying to learn how to read this code, Doctor, not collecting it for fun.”

  “You think it is a code, then?” I say. “As in, each symbol stands for a letter?”

  “Yes.” Violet chews the end of her pen. “I do now. Though that doesn’t explain why the shapes differ slightly in each message. Something else must be going on.”

  “I would advise you to abandon this, Violet.” The doc’s eyebrows lower into a single caterpillar of discouragement. “The problem is very difficult, and…”

  But Violet doesn’t seem to be listening.

  “Perhaps if we look at them in a mirror…” she says, snatching a shiny cake knife from a nearby plate and licking the crumbs off. She holds the reflective surface up to the peculiar runes, one by one. When that doesn’t satisfy her, she says, “Or maybe it’s mathematical. Maybe these dots correspond to numbers somehow…”

  Then, as if she has forgotten that the rest of us are here, Vi takes her pen and crawls across the paper spread over the floor, scribbling notes and sums and talking to herself.

  “Golly!” says Mrs Fossil.

  “That’s a dead end too.” Dr Thalassi gently removes the pen from Violet’s hand, just as she’s about to write on his shoe. “I have already investigated the mathematical route. I urge you, Violet, to spare yourself a good deal of frustration and give this up. I admire your determination, but you are not likely to succeed where many others have tried and failed. Besides, writing on the floor will give you a bad back.”

  “Just because you gave up –” Violet sits up and folds her arms – “doesn’t mean I should too.”

  “I didn’t give up, Violet. I simply haven’t succeeded yet.” Dr Thalassi hands back her pen. “When you come for those lessons, we can discuss the matter further.”

  At this, Violet looks a bit less annoyed. She takes a muffin of her own and sits in the middle of her paper to eat it.

  “Doc,” I say, “did you know that Squint Westerley was building an electric engine for his boat?”

  “I did. Though he was very secretive about it. I offered to advise him, but he refused. I fear he never quite forgave me for that tusk business.”

  “Tusk business?”

  “Yes,” says the doc, taking a cup of tea from Jenny and politely refusing milk. “I expect you noticed it on the prow of his boat. It was the tusk he brought back after his lucky escape from drowning, all those years ago. He made extraordinary claims about it. He said it belonged to a gigantic creature he saw at the bottom of the sea.”

  “Gigantic?” Violet says. “Or Gargantic?”

  “The fishermen might agree with you, Violet,” the doc replies with a chuckle. “They are extremely superstitious. Anyway, when Squint brought the object to me for identification, I was able to tell him it was merely the tusk of an extinct woolly mammoth. They sometimes wash up on the coast here, and his was a finely preserved example. A little straight, perhaps, and rather overlong, but almost certainly Mammuthus primigenius – a species from the late Pleistocene.”

  “Almost certainly?” I say. “So you’re not really sure?”

  “Hmm,” the doc replies. “Anyway, looking back, I should perhaps have told Squint Westerley this in private. Telling him in front of the other fishermen made his life quite difficult. They laughed at him all the more after that.”

  “Doc!” Mrs Fossil looks shocked. “You didn’t ought to have done that. Mind you, when he asked me what I thought it was, I said it was probably a narwhal tooth. You know, a ‘sea unicorn’, as some call them? But at least I told him that on the quiet. And at least I said ‘probably’ – you can get out of a load of trouble by using a word like ‘probably’.”

  “The blame isn’t all mine.” The doc sips his tea. “He asked others, too. I believe he even took it to Sebastian Eels.”

  At the mention of Sebastian Eels, Violet puts her muffin down, half eaten. Her father’s arch-enemy may be dead and gone, but his name still has the power to put her off even Mrs Fossil’s baking. And as the author of The Cold, Dark Bottom of the Sea, he’s not my favourite person either. I glance over my shoulder and see the hairy back of the mermonkey, hunched as if challenging me to approach.

  “That rotter!” says Mrs F. “What did he say Squint’s tusk was, I wonder?”

  Dr Thalassi pulls a disapproving face. No one liked Sebastian Eels much.

  “Goodness only knows. But few people knew our Eerie legends and folklore like Eels did. I remember he took the tusk away for several weeks, to examine it.”

  “Poor old Squint.” Mrs Fossil shakes her head. “He never did recover from that whole sorry episode. The other fishermen teased him cruelly.”

  “True,” agrees the doc. “But what any of it means is anyone’s guess. Neither Sebastian Eels nor Squint Westerley is alive to tell us, so I doubt we’ll ever know. And I don’t see how any of this can be connected to our current storm…”

  But the doc’
s words die away as the Eerie Book Dispensary starts to shake.

  STORMQUAKE!

  FIRST THE CUPS START TO JANGLE, the tea inside them rippling like the surfaces of miniature seas. Then Mrs Fossil’s basket falls off the arm of her chair as the rumbling increases.

  “Heavens alive!” Jenny cries as all around us books begin to dance on their shelves, shrugging out of their places and flapping open as they topple to the ground. Over us, in the midnight blue of the ceiling, white cracks appear and showers of plaster rain down, covering us with a fine powder.

  The mermonkey’s head wobbles eerily, and its hat falls to the floor in a cloud of dust.

  Then the shaking ends.

  “Not again!” Mrs Fossil clutches the arms of her chair. “Another stormquake!”

  “Earthquake, more like it,” says the doc, jumping to his feet and grabbing his coat and hat. “The storm is still far out over the bay.”

  “But since when do we have earthquakes in Eerie-on-Sea?”

  “Since the storm blew up, that’s when.” Jenny looks around in dismay at the books covering the floor. “And they’re getting worse.”

  “Gargantis wakes, Eerie quakes,” says Violet.

  “I must go back to the museum and check my seismographs,” Dr Thalassi declares, ignoring Violet and heading to the door. “If the tremors worsen, we might have to consider evacuating the town.”

  “What?” cries Mrs Fossil. “Wait for me, Doc. I need to check up on my Flotsamporium.”

  And with that, they both leave, Mrs Fossil snatching up her basket as she goes.

  Jenny fetches a dustpan and brush, while Violet starts to gather up books. I pick up the spilled muffins and wish that there was some way to remove plaster from salty caramel.

  “Wiaow,” says a voice, and I see that Erwin has the mermonkey’s top hat in his teeth. I stoop and pick up the hat, dusting it off with my cuff.

  “Thanks, puss,” I say, and go to replace the top hat back in the mermonkey’s crooked paw. The creature leers down at me, waiting. Even though its light-bulb eyes are not lit up, there seems to be a twinkle in them.