Walter sat, reeling. Periwinkle was sound asleep at his feet, none the wiser. Walter looked back at the closed door. He had thought he’d known her, his mother, but he realized all at once that he knew very little.
What an odd week.
CHAPTER 34
• • •
THE END AGAIN
Soon enough the day came. Walter had slept only a wink or two in preparation. The days between hadn’t been as terrible as he’d feared, however.
Walter had found that the time after death is not quite like the time we are used to. It moves slowly.
Luckily, Walter had discovered that by doing what he loved, inventing, he could stay sane, albeit numb, as he completed his most important project to date.
Walter entered the church for the first time since being thrown out. His arms were full of lights and cords. He plopped the pile in the middle of the room, then turned and plodded right back out. Moments later he returned, pushing a massive covered shape, nearly as tall as the room, on a dolly. The sheet over it slipped off momentarily, revealing a large clear . . . rock underneath?
Walter replaced the sheet, then he rushed away again without a second glance.
• • •
The noontime sun shone down on the modest steeple of the gray, stone-walled church. Moormouthians had crowded around the large arched doorway, ready for the next funeral. They were all so terribly bored of waiting and just wanted to go in. Finally the crowd heard a click, and Walter’s head popped out of the door. “We’re ready.”
The Primpets pushed to the front of the mumbling, grumbling crowd as they filtered in. Mrs. Primpet released a strangled gasp, corking the doorway. Those behind her stopped to peer inside. Everyone was silent.
Inside the church were visible the most astonishing sights anyone in Moormouth had ever seen. Giant quartz stalagmites shot up around the room. From them, ghostly figures poured over the crowd. There was a dragon emerging from the quartz column by the door.
A little Moormouthian girl, with an unnecessarily long dress that pooled on the ground, reached toward the dragon’s wing. Her mom yanked her back, but that made her only try harder.
An ax-wielding giantess and a knight battled, silent blades clashing.
Ms. Wartlebug (armed with a ruler) nearly jumped out of her hunch and screamed as a curious projection of a swarm of lemurs surged out from a cliff right behind her.
In the middle of it all were the shadowy projections of a puppeteer and, above him, a tall-backed girl on a tightrope.
The church benches had been replaced with the mossy molehills Cordelia had doodled in the bottom margins of her journal (complete with scattered dandelions).
At the edges of the room, lining the walls, was a big top tent composed of Cordelia’s favorite book covers. They had been arranged in an alternating swirling pattern like in a hot-air balloon. Between the covers were pages of text, marked up with Cordelia’s looping scrawl.
In the center of the hall was a vertical bright yellow hoop of sunflowers. Strung from marionette strings in the middle of the hoop was a simple pine coffin with a hand-carved sunflower design. Inside lay Cordelia, eye patch and all, just as she was. She held the journal clutched in both hands.
Everything looked the same as in the drawings, down to the last detail of the string of softly glowing candles circling the room.
The funeral goers slowly entered, taking in the sights as if they were children again, both frightened and excited, with no one to tell them what to think. A young, nervous mother was the first to sit on a molehill, nearly tripping over and ripping her long skirt as she positioned herself. Her baby boy ogled a giant shrew as it sniffed him. He offered the beast a dandelion—and to his delight, the shrew seemed to sniff that, too.
Walter stood in the shadows, not wanting to attract attention, as his anxious gaze shifted across the room. He stopped momentarily on the lumbering figure of Alexander Grooblan as he hunkered down on a hill. He sat among his classmates, crying into a too-small hanky. He sobbed loudly, sniffing between words, “Thee wath my betht friend!”
He howled, blowing snot into the little square, before handing it to his tiny bespectacled mother. She shook the thing out, then folded it and placed it in her pocket, patting her boy on the head.
Ms. Wartlebug smacked Elliot nearby as he pulled on a loose screw coming out of a projector box on the ground. Walter could have sworn she nearly smiled as Elliot squealed, tumbling off into the open jaws of an anglerfish projected nearby. The curious kindergartner, Nicolette, looked on, switching between amused and horrified every other second.
Finally Walter dared to look at the Primpets perched in front. To his uncomfortable relief, neither smiled, though Mrs. Primpet sobbed into her husband’s drenched chest. She pointed a shaky finger toward the front, and Walter nearly had a heart attack waiting for her to speak. Eventually she was able to whisper, “She loved sunflowers.”
She turned back to watering her husband once more. Mr. Primpet allowed a small smile flecked with smaller tears of his own. “Yes, yes, she did.”
Walter felt himself relax, blending into the shadows again, but he felt hot, too, like someone was watching him. From the opposite side of the room, also hidden in a corner, Hadorah met his gaze. She smiled in a way Walter hadn’t see her do before. It was the smile of the mothers in the picture books that he used to look at time and time again after he had accomplished something. For the first time he saw the expression in person. She looked proud.
The old preacher found his place in front of the coffin and spoke, in his booming voice, to the waiting crowd. Walter was surprised to see that his normally all-black suit was a bit different today; a little yellow flower peeked out of his pocket.
“We are here to honor Cordelia Primpet.”
• • •
After the last of the sleeping children had been hauled off, the crying grannies (who, admittedly, hadn’t known Cordelia personally but felt like they had) drifted into the night, and Mrs. Primpet was coaxed away by Mr. Primpet as Cordelia’s coffin was finally carried away. Walter and Hadorah began the final part of their job.
Though the cleanup required more effort than usual, today it felt far more worthwhile. Taking out the inventions and fixtures was easy enough. Replacing the benches and podium was a bit harder. Now the two Mortinsons were left sweeping. Hadorah rubbed down a counter, a bag of trash clutched in her hand. Walter leaned on his broom, staring at the empty church.
“Now what?”
Hadorah looked at him with a shrug. “Dinner?”
“Just like . . . normal?”
Hadorah snorted, dropping the last piece of trash, her own washcloth, into the bag. “We were never normal, Walter”—she tied off the top of the bag—“but we can keep on anyway.”
Walter slumped down onto a hard bench, sleepiness finally catching up to him. “How?”
Hadorah tossed the bag out the open door, then sat beside him in the pew. “Breathing, I think, mostly.”
“It hurts.”
“Give it time.”
“And if it never goes away?”
“Oh, it won’t. The hurt stays,” she continued. “But it doesn’t have to be all there is: sadness means there were things—and are things—to be happy about.” Hadorah glanced down at him. “You know, your father always told me something, but I hardly ever agreed with him long enough to believe it: An invention never fails. You simply haven’t found the right use for it yet.”
Now that Walter was really listening, she continued, “One day there will be a use for this moment, Walter. When you find it, you’ll be a better person, I imagine.”
“I don’t want to be a better person.”
“No one does. Welcome to Moormouth.”
There was a pause, and neither knew what to do. Then Walter struggled up, cracking his back. “All right, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Dinner.”
She followed him. They walked together t
oward the door. Walter held it open for Hadorah. She turned to him, building the courage to say something that would change everything. “So, do you think you could make a ferret that twitches his nose for Mr. Everett? His just died, and he always did talk about how its nose twitched.”
Walter’s lips quirked. “I can try.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Periwinkle hopped quickly toward the closing door—and slithered out as it swung shut behind him.
• • •
No one in Moormouth paid any attention to much at all that night. They were too busy walking down the streets, chattering about their peculiar day. Children scampered past the junkyard piles on the edge of town, searching for an adventure and, perhaps, a dragon or two. (After all, no one could convince them anymore that dragons didn’t exist.)
Some of the bravest children even stopped to scrutinize the one unique fixture Moormouth had to offer. The slouching building squatted a good distance from town. The space between gave the impression that either the house was running toward Moormouth or Moormouth was running toward it. There was a long mismatched chimney chugging away, an old chestnut tree, and a car and a carriage parked out front.
The illuminated attic window gave a peek into the quiet interior and the outlines of Walter and Hadorah sitting together, hunched over something.
Hadorah pushed a photo of baby Walter and Maxwell toward her son, telling a story that wasn’t for anyone but the boy in front of her.
The sign out front swung in the rolling fog, now reading:
THE MORTINSONS
And that was all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote this story first in film school with the help of three outstanding professors: Scott Sturgeon, who taught me that your idea is only as good as how you write it; Robert Ramsey, who showed me that your first draft is meant to be terrible and that your second draft is meant to be slightly less terrible; and David Clawson, who had six months to teach us what “books” were.
When I left school, I researched agents and stumbled upon John M. Cusick at Folio Literary Management. (Hi, Folio team!) Something clicked, and I instantly felt that he would understand me, which is a big deal because I don’t understand me. No exaggeration: of the hundreds of agents I looked up, I thought he was the best—and I was right. What I didn’t appreciate is that, on top of being a brilliant agent and writer, he’s genuinely kind in a way you rarely encounter outside the pages of a book.
I was also lucky to have found John because he led me to Liz Kossnar, who must be one of the bravest editors in America. Liz has an incomparable ability to dig out what makes a story work and amplify it in a beautiful way. She’s a genius and a warrior, and I’m so grateful that she’s fought for this book and made it worth reading. Without her it would not exist; or, at the very least, it wouldn’t be half as good.
Plus, without Liz, I wouldn’t be able to say that I was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers—something that I will never quite wrap my head around. Watching them transform this manuscript into a living, breathing novel was an incredible experience. Some of the key people who contributed to that are publisher Justin Chanda, who I’m so thankful took a risk on this strange little project; designers Krista Vossen and Hilary Zarycky, who transfigured plain old words into a stunning artifact; managing editor Jenica Nasworthy and copy editor Bara MacNeill, who helped make me sound 90 percent more capable than I am; production manager Martha Hanson, who ensured there would actually be a book in your hands; and Gediminas Pranckevičius, whose gorgeous artwork gave my story a face.
And while I’m beholden to the dozens of talented people who have worked together to make this book possible, there are some people who make me possible, and I like that about them. Thank you to my entire family, particularly Harper Lily and Ava Yoshiko, whose road trips are just beginning; my friends from Santa Barbara who insisted I could write even when I couldn’t (Devin Scott, looking at you); Tyler Patterson, who made my Latin slightly less made-up; my Writing for Screen and Television class, who learned with me; and Eric Borsuk, who brought me many, many, many snacks, the significance of which I cannot overemphasize.
Thank you to Lynette, who acted as one of my two readers, along with my dad, Todd, who has given me everything even when he didn’t have it to give. Then there’s my brother, Max, who is the only person who will ever fully understand this book—not only because he and I are the only two people to have lived this story through our mother, but because he’s much, much smarter than me.
Lastly, you. Without you, I couldn’t write professionally. You also just plain deserve to be acknowledged. You are remarkable because you are you, and that’s enough.
Now, that was all to say that I didn’t write this novel, many people did, and I love them for undertaking it with me. It’s also to say that if there’s something that you don’t like about the book, it’s almost certainly not my fault, and there are plenty of other people to blame (please see all the names above). I commend you wholeheartedly for doing so.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
QUINN SOSNA-SPEAR was named a California Young Playwright at seventeen and went on to study at the University of Southern California. She has since written books, film, and virtual reality projects. The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson, her debut novel, was inspired by the untimely death of her own mother. Quinn hopes to share with all readers—particularly those struggling with loss—the humor, poignancy, and adventure in such things . . . as dreary and impossible as they may seem.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Quinn Sosna-Spear
Jacket illustrations copyrights © 2019 by Gediminas Pranckevičius
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sosna-Spear, Quinn, author.
Title: The remarkable inventions of Walter Mortinson / Quinn Sosna-Spear.
Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2019] | Summary: Against the wishes of his mortician mother, Hadorah, twelve-year-old Walter and classmate Cordelia take a hearse on a road trip to meet legendary inventor Flaster
born, who once mentored Walter’s long-dead father.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060162| ISBN 9781534420809 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781534420823 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Inventors—Fiction. | Automobile travel—Fiction. | Mothers and sons—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction. | Undertakers and undertaking—Fiction. | Death—Fiction. | Humorous stories.
Classification: LCC PZ.1.S682 Rem 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060162
The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson Page 21
