“Does it work?”
She forced a smile, pivoting to look at him.
“Of course,” she lied. She glanced over the lip of the basket at the mountains beyond. All she saw, however, were hulking gray stones. “It’s exactly what I imagined.”
Walter closed his eyes, breathing in sharply. He had to do it now. So, he leaned in and kissed her. It was slight and unsure, almost nothing, really. Cordelia reeled back with the electric shock of it.
Walter blinked wide. “I’ve wanted to do that . . .”
He met her eyes, both of them, and was humiliated to see that they looked very sad. Her voice was airy and forced, like a stranger’s, when she said, “We should be getting back.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t do anything. It’s just time to go.”
He nodded, his heart melting and dripping down to his shoes. He reached up for the handle and guided them back as quickly as he could. He offered her a smile, trying to bring back the thin hairs of normalcy.
“Take a last look,” he said. “It may be the last time in a long time that we get to see it.”
She turned, looking out at one of the most wonderful sights in the world . . . but all she saw were the mountains. She took the eye out and looked again at the view. It was the very same.
The eye didn’t work, but she couldn’t bear to tell him that.
“Why did you make this for me?”
Walter looked down, surprised to see his invention back in her hand.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve always . . .”
He glanced at her, staring a moment too long. She looked away, replacing the eye so that she would look ordinary again. Looking ordinary was the best defense against just about anything, she’d found.
“Never mind.”
He nodded in response. They floated back without another word.
• • •
Walter let the balloon down, the hospital in front of them and the glasstic dome gleaming above. After the basket weave of branches rocked to a rest, Walter held a hand out for Cordelia, who ignored him. Instead she gracelessly hopped over the side, catching a leg on the basket as she went. Cordelia righted herself, airsick, and brushed her stained nightdress off, trying to rid herself of the embarrassment.
She refused to look at Walter as he spoke. “I have to go see Flasterborn now, but you wait here and I’ll come right back.”
She turned, placing a hand on his arm, looking only at the space between her fingers on his hound’s-tooth coat. “I have to go home, Walter.”
“You could stay with me.”
“No, I—”
He ducked down to her, his voice hitching, higher and faster, saying things he’d only before thought. “Really! I’m sure Flasterborn would let you. You don’t have to go—”
She blinked up at him, one blue eye, one green, both resolute. “You may not belong in Moormouth, but I do.”
Walter’s shoulders folded in as his spirit caved. Cordelia shook her head, avoiding the eyes of the mother at the door of the hospital, who’d stopped to stare curiously at the two. When she wouldn’t leave, Cordelia quickly popped out her eye and shot her a look. The woman hurried her son inside.
Cordelia replaced the eye and ducked down with Walter, whispering into the cavern he’d made between his chin and chest, “Do what you were meant to.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
He stared at her, desperate, searching. “I—”
“Need to leave.”
His head swam as he stared back, the truth that she wouldn’t stay with him pooling on his surface, refusing to sink in. Then he had a thought. “How do you plan on getting back, if I stay here?”
Cordelia shrugged, gesturing to the balloon behind him. “When you stay, I’ll just take the balloon. I know how to steer now, after all.”
He nodded, unable to think of anything more to convince her. “That’s fine; take it.” He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, then walked toward the tallest building in the most desirable city in the whole world. Cordelia watched him and tried to stop herself—she really did—but her voice escaped anyhow.
“Oh. And, Walter!”
He turned quickly. She smiled, as sincerely as she knew how. “. . . Happy Birthday.”
He smiled back, nodding, then turned, hoping she didn’t know how crestfallen he really was.
But of course she did.
CHAPTER 23
• • •
THE TEST
Tippy was preparing for the horribly frightening task of cleaning the vaselator, which involved a very long bungee cord and several pairs of underpants, when she heard a timid knock at the door. This was particularly curious, as the door knocker installer wasn’t due until next week.
“Come in?”
Tippy nearly had a heart attack on the spot when Walter Mortinson poked his big curly head in. “Oh! Sorry. I can come back—”
“No!”
She rushed over and dragged him into her office. Tippy had waited far too long for Walter to arrive. They finally got to meet, and all she could do was stare. Walter also couldn’t look away, finding her oddly familiar.
“Hello. My name is Walter—”
“Mortinson. I know. We’ve been expecting you.”
Walter’s cheeks burned as he rubbed the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Sorry about that. We got caught up.”
Tippy didn’t bother asking who the “we” was. She had been watching Walter for the last eight years, and he hadn’t had a single friend for the entirety of that time. Perhaps it was an imaginary friend, or maybe he was talking about the voices in his own head. Geniuses often have voices in their head, she decided.
Tippy then tapped expertly on the mechanism in her ear, informing Flasterborn of their visitor. Her lips turned up shyly as she realized that Walter was investigating the listening device.
“It’s a communicator, runs on taps that it translates into—”
“Fabulous. Let him in!” Flasterborn’s voice boomed through the communicator, causing both to reel back.
“Flasterborn will see you now.”
“Th-thank you, Miss . . .”
Tippy knew everyone’s name who entered the office, but people rarely asked what hers was. After a second of surprise, she stuttered, “T-Tippy Tedesco.”
“Miss Tippy Tedesco.”
Walter nodded his head at her as he rubbed his palms on his pants. Tippy hurried forward, smiling as he stood before the door, waiting as patiently as he could.
“Welcome, Mr. Mortinson, to the office of Horace Odwald Flasterborn.”
Tippy pressed a button, hidden in the shape of a roaring lion in the doorframe’s engraved molding. The ornate doors creaked open, revealing a positively gleeful Flasterborn sitting inside, beard like a pig’s tail.
“Walter, my boy. Finally.”
Walter smiled back, not looking at Tippy as he followed the closing doors in. It was no matter. Tippy couldn’t have stopped staring at Flasterborn’s glowing face if she had wanted to.
The doors shut with an audible suction, locking the magic in—and Tippy out. She shook herself from her reverie and hurried back to business: lying face-first on the ground, eye to the hole under the little gold button.
This was going to be good.
• • •
Walter entered Flasterborn’s office and suddenly felt something he hadn’t before: a sense of purpose. Maybe this was where he was supposed to be.
Walter ducked out of the way just as a toy train zoomed over his head, racing through the maze winding around the room. Lips parted, he took in the rest of the room with a slow glance across.
It was, well, wonderful.
There were inventions that were as tall as the ceiling and thrummed and whirled in tizzies, spitting out miniature firework shows. There were inventions as wide as Walter could stretch his arms—those that bore strings thinner
than strands of dust, which danced in the windless air, making soft but tremendously pleasant sounds. There were inventions that looked just like pocket watches, but which fluttered around, struggling against their chains affixed to the ceiling. Then, of course, there was the machine that puffed out smelly bubbles—one of which, a deep mahogany, circled Walter’s head before bursting and filling him with the scent of home.
“Welcome, Walter.”
Walter’s eyes shot open. He had all but forgotten that perhaps the most famous man he had ever heard of was sitting but a few steps away.
“Hello.”
Walter debated bowing, as he bounced from foot to foot. Then he dove into the seat across from his hero. Flasterborn looked on, eyes alight with flickering curiosity.
Despite his nerves (or perhaps because of them), Walter could not pull his attention from the pretty perfume bottle that the bubbles arose from.
“One of your father’s, I admit. He did most of the fiddle-faddle in here.” Flasterborn swept a hand coolly over the room. Walter was unexpectedly filled with awe and pride.
When Flasterborn leaned in to whisper, Walter couldn’t stop himself from mirroring the action.
“He was always the dreamer. I’m more . . . practical, you see.”
Walter’s head quirked. What could be more practical? Flasterborn’s smile slipped for only a second before growing wider than before.
“But there’s no need for us to talk about me. I want to learn about you.”
Here we go, thought Walter. His mouth went dry as he tried to open it. He urgently dug through his thoughts, trying to strike upon something, anything, that would explain why he was worthy of being here. His creations were nothing like the ones in the room, or others his father had made. His inventions weren’t pretty, happy things, and he suddenly felt a bit ashamed of them.
Walter’s fear only grew as Flasterborn leaned in closer, whispering with such intensity that Walter almost didn’t hear the words.
“What is . . .”
This was it.
“. . . your favorite sandwich?”
Walter blinked, confused. That was not quite what he’d expected, but Flasterborn’s eyebrows dipped in with a sincerity that made Walter answer without thinking.
“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe pudding—”
He was horrified when Flasterborn’s smile fell and his mustache drooped back down. Walter had disappointed him? As Flasterborn opened his mouth, Walter continued, desperate to bring the smile back.
“Or maybe pickles and cheese?”
Flasterborn’s fist smacked the table with audible delight.
“Ah! Pickles and cheese!”
Walter released a sigh of relief as Flasterborn snuggled back into his overstuffed chair.
“Your father liked pickles and cheese too. I’m more of a cheese and onion man myself, but we’re all in the same family. Now on to the serious business . . .”
Walter was reassured by the idea that his dad had liked pickles and cheese; maybe he and his father did have some things in common after all.
Flasterborn picked up a little pair of gold glasses that pinched his upturned nose. He then squinted at Walter.
“Turn this way.”
Without thinking, Walter followed the older man’s finger to the left.
“And that way.”
Walter then looked to the right. Flasterborn squinted at him for a moment more before nodding thoughtfully to himself.
Walter put a hand to his cheek, trying to feel what Flasterborn had seen.
“What is it?”
“Everything, my dear boy. It’s everything.”
Flasterborn flipped up a secret panel on his desk, revealing a set of glowing, spinning, humming gears beneath. Flasterborn selected a circular toggle, twisting it slightly to the right. As he did—“Whoa!”—Walter found that the chair he was sitting in swiveled the same way.
Flasterborn looked up at Walter, nodded, and clipped the panel back into place, out of sight. He then folded his hands.
“You look quite a bit like your father, but mostly from the left side.”
Walter’s head bobbed again, dazed, and he switched his hand to feel his left cheek.
“Good enough. You pass,” declared Flasterborn.
“I do?”
“So now I would very much like to tell you something.”
Shoving his concerns down to the bottom of his belly, Walter sat up in his seat. He definitely wanted to hear a secret. He didn’t even particularly like secrets, but he had never heard one from a legend before.
“But first I have something I think you’d like to see.”
Walter’s eyes opened as wide as saucers as Flasterborn heaved himself from his cushy chair—the arms of it releasing from their hug and settling back into their usual shape. Walter allowed himself to stare for only moment at the bizarre fixture before stumbling up and following the shorter man to the corner of the room.
Flasterborn stopped before a black vase, just like the one outside the office, that was as tall as Flasterborn himself, inked in brilliant gold swirls.
“Alleyoop!”
The old man winked before vaulting himself into the broad mouth with one hand. Walter ran after him but arrived too late, and glanced down into the abyss below. But there was no water nor dead things (which were found in the bottom of the vases in his own home) down there. It was an elevator shaft of sorts.
Echoing out from the bottom he heard, “Come along!”
Walter looked about cautiously before easing himself down the tube as well. This felt like a test, and it also felt very frightening. Before his fear could get the better of him—
Shoop!
He was sucked out of sight.
Neither was around to notice when a very curious (but not at all snoopy) Tippy counted to ten and then hopped into the second vaselator outside, following after them.
• • •
Walter was surprised that when the tube ended, he was softly pulled to the top, or was it the bottom? Somewhere along the way, he supposed, he must have been upsided down. Nonetheless, now that he was upsided up at the top (or bottom), he could easily lift himself out.
He jumped off the lip of the vase to the ground below. Walter could hardly take in his surroundings before being pulled away by a whistle ahead. Flasterborn trotted alone down a long hall. Walter had to jog to catch up.
They were in a bizarre sort of hallway—all black and gold. There were huge darkened glass panels on both sides. It was extraordinarily shiny for a room without any windows. Walter couldn’t help but think that someone had spent a lot of money to make this room look like it had cost a lot of money.
He finally caught up to Flasterborn, who stood before one of the great glass sheets lining the walls. The man casually walked to the left side of Walter as he spoke.
“Do you know where we are, my boy?”
Walter shook his head. He felt this interview was going poorly. Flasterborn just beamed, however, clapping his hands.
Lights glittered on above them, illuminating rooms behind the glass, on both sides of the hall. Walter gasped, spinning to take it all in. Each one of Flasterborn’s fantastical inventions was housed inside an exhibit, like in a museum.
“Where are we?”
Walter regained his senses, rushing to the window on the other side of the hall. Beyond the window was a cubicle filled with water. An old man, with a beard and hair so long that they floated to the top of the tank, swam behind the glass. In his mouth was a device that puffed up with each breath into rainbow-colored chipmunk cheeks.
“The Swim Bladder!” Walter shouted as he held a finger out, pointing at the bright F logo on the side of the device. Out of the corner of his eye, Walter then saw the adjacent window, and his face lit up again. He rushed there next and pressed his nose up as he watched.
Beyond this window was a room, a young girl’s room. A twentysomething woman, wearing bright pink princess pajamas that were a tad tight, was
asleep, drool pooled on her pillow. She wore a metal helmet that had a pipe that shot out the top of it and turned into a paintbrush in her hand. The brush moved feverishly, despite the girl’s lack of consciousness. It painted a mural of the woman’s dream on the wall, one of a little girl riding a unicorn.
Walter pointed again, hollering, “Paint by Slumber!”
Flasterborn sniffed, his smile faltering. “Yes, but—”
Walter turned to look at him, but was distracted by the display across the hall. He grabbed his chest, already certain of what it was, but hurried over to see it up close.
A man rode a winged tricycle, flying in circles around the room, which had been made to look like the sky outside.
“The Flycycle—”
Flasterborn grabbed Walter’s shoulder, cutting him off, and then spun him around so that they were face-to-face.
“Ah, yes, but those are all inventions Maxwell—er, that your father helped me design . . . antiques.”
He snuffled again, sucking through his front teeth.
“You must know some of my more recent products; they’re household staples.”
Flasterborn steered the boy down the hall to an even fancier section of demonstrations. The exhibits here were quite a bit larger and more ornate. Flasterborn planted Walter in front of one—inside which was a little boy, sitting at a lone table with a single cup of water. He held an oddly intricate straw in one hand that seemed to be trying to wriggle out of his fingers. He slowly lowered it into the drink. Flasterborn pointed to it, his voice confident.
“The Self-Stirring Straw.”
Just as the boy let go, the straw dropped into the liquid and sent up an impressive bolt of electricity that caused him to squeal as it singed the hair hanging over his eyes.
Flasterborn yanked a confused Walter to the adjacent window. Beyond it was a very large woman at a desk, working on a delicate model airplane, tongue sticking out as she positioned the rudder on with tweezers. She reached for a roll of tape on the edge of the desk.
“Double-Sided Super Glape.”
The woman peeled a piece off and gently stuck it to the plane. After pressing for a second, she pulled her hand away. The rudder stuck to the tape well, but, unfortunately, so did her rubber glove and a number of her arm hairs. She winced as she ripped the tape off.
The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson Page 16
