Arabel and Mortimer

by Joan Aiken

  As it happened, Arabel had the tie in her cardigan pocket. She pulled it out and waved it up and down in the cold, damp, foggy air until it was cool enough to satisfy Mortimer. Then she carefully wrapped it round and round him and walked along the deck carrying him wrapped up like a caterpillar in a cocoon with his eyes shut.

  "I'm afraid he's not enjoying the trip very much," she said.

  "He'll like it better when the weather gets hotter," Henry said.

  They had come to a big flat square in the middle of the deck with a handle on it.

  "What's that?" said Arabel. "It looks like the cover of a cheese dish."

  "It is a cover," Henry said. "The swimming pool's under there. When the weather gets hot, they lift off that cover with a hoist and we can swim. The water's heated."

  "I hope it gets warmer soon," said Arabel. "It isn't very hot now."

  A few people were sitting out in deck chairs, but they were all wrapped up in thick rugs, like Mortimer in his tie.

  Mr. Spicer came out with a trayful of steaming cups and handed them round to the people in the chairs.

  "What's that?" Arabel asked.

  "Hot beef tea and cream crackers," said Henry.

  Mortimer sniffed, opened one eye, and poked Arabel's ear to inform her that he wanted to try a cup of hot beef tea; however, when he had tasted a beakful of the stuff he decided that he did not like it and spat it out, making a very vulgar noise which caused all the ladies and gentlemen in the deck chairs to raise their eyebrows. He poked the cream cracker in among the folds of his tie.

  Arabel and Henry walked on quickly, up some stairs, and along a narrower part of the deck toward the front end of the ship. Mortimer huddled down inside his tie and shut his eyes again.

  "What are all those small boats hanging up there in a row?" Arabel asked.

  "They're the lifeboats," Henry told her. "If the ship was wrecked, or someone fell overboard, they'd unhook the boats and slide them down those sloping things, which are called davits, into the sea."

  "There don't seem to be very many boats; are there enough for all the passengers?" Arabel said.

  "Each one holds thirty people and there are fifteen on each side."

  "But how many people are there on the ship?"

  That Henry didn't know.

  Near the front end of the deck they came to another flight of steps leading up to a locked door.

  "What's in there?" asked Arabel.

  "That's the bridge, where they have all the controls and steer the ship," said Henry. "It's like the engine room of a train."

  Arabel had never been in the engine room of a train, so that did not help.

  "Well, it's like the dashboard of a car," said Henry. "I daresay my dad will let you go in and look at it sometime."

  Just then a dreadful thing happened.

  The nearer they got to the forward end of the ship, the harder the wind blew, because the ship was traveling fast and there was nothing to screen them; it was like standing up in an open car that is rushing along at sixty miles an hour.

  When they reached the steps leading up to the bridge, Mortimer opened an eye and looked about him. The first thing he noticed was a letter box slot in the locked door that said CAPTAIN. Before Arabel could stop him, he left her shoulder, scrabbled his way very fast, beak over claw, up the rail of the staircase, and posted his cream cracker, which had been tucked in among the folds of his tie, through the letter box.

  Then he began to come down again. But the tie, probably loosened by the removal of the cream cracker, was suddenly dragged off his neck by the fresh wind. Quick as thought, before he could even let out a squawk, or Arabel could grab it, the wind whisked it away, over the deck rail and out of view.

  "Oh, my goodness—," cried Arabel in utter dismay.

  She and Henry rushed to the rail and looked over; but there was nothing to be seen. The fog was now so thick that they could see only a few yards down the side of the ship.

  No tie.

  It had taken a moment or two for Mortimer, clinging to the balustrade, to understand what had happened. He felt a draft, an unaccustomed chill round his middle. Then he realized that the reason why he felt so unwrapped was because his tie had disappeared. He let out a long and lamentable squawk.

  "Kaaaaaark!"

  "Oh, Mortimer, I'm sorry!" cried Arabel.

  Mortimer gave her a look of frightful reproach. It said, plain as words, "What's the use of your sorrow to me? That won't keep me warm. Why didn't you tie the tie in a knot?"

  Arabel picked up Mortimer and held him tight.

  "I'd better take him back to our cabin," she said.

  Henry kindly promised that he would ask his father to tell all the crew to keep a lookout for Mortimer's tie, just in case it had blown to another part of the ship and got tangled up in some bits of machinery.

  "But I'm afraid it's most likely gone straight into the sea," he said.

  Mortimer glared at him balefully.

  Arabel carried Mortimer back to their room, stopping at the ship's shop on the way for a bag of raspberry jelly delights. Usually Mortimer was very fond of these, but at this moment he couldn't have cared less about them. Nor did he want to throw cards into the air and stab them with his beak, or any of the other activities that Arabel suggested. He made it plain that he wanted nothing but his tie. He croaked and flapped and moped and sulked and sat hunched in the upper bunk, looking miserably down at Arabel or out through the porthole at the heaving gray sea.

  To make matters worse, the weather was becoming quite rough. The Queen of Bethnal Green was entering the Bay of Biscay, where the water comes rushing in from the Atlantic and bumps against the shore and bounces back and tosses passing ships up and down in a very disagreeable way.

  The Queen of Bethnal Green began to tip up and down and to roll from side to side. Arabel found, presently, that all the lurching about made her feel rather queer; and as for Mortimer, he started to look decidedly unlike himself; if a bird of his complexion could be said to look green, then Mortimer looked it.

  Arabel began to feel really anxious about him.

  At last she pushed the red button to summon Mike the steward.

  Mike, when he came, was cheerful and reassuring. He examined Mortimer, who was now sitting on Arabel's pink-blanketed bunk with his eyes closed.

  "Feeling a bit all-overish, is he? You, too? Lots o' the passengers are, just now. It'll be better tomorrow when we get across the Bay. You'd better take a couple of Kwenches—they'll put you right in no time. Here you are—I always carry a few."

  He brought out of his pocket a couple of large pale-green pills.

  "There you are! Guaranteed to relieve any discomfort or travel sickness or indisposition due to climatic conditions."

  "Oh, thank you, Mike. You are kind," said Arabel. She swallowed her pill with a glass of water.

  "WARNING," said Mike, reading from the packet. "These tablets may cause drowsiness. If affected, be sure not to drive or operate machinery."

  "Well, Mortimer and I aren't likely to be operating any machinery," said Arabel. "Unless you count the fruit machines. Mike, do you think this tablet is rather large for Mortimer? After all, he's only a bird. Should we cut it in half? Or even a quarter?"

  "Maybe we better," said Mike. He dug into his white jangle pocket again and pulled out a collection of jingling things—keys, bottle openers, corkscrews, can openers, and a penknife. But before he could cut the pill in half with any of these tools, Mortimer, who had been peering at it through half-closed eyes for the last few minutes, suddenly opened his beak very wide indeed and swallowed it down. Then he shut his eyes again.

  "Oh, well," said Mike. "I daresay he'll be all right. He's swallowed plenty odder things than that, if what I hear from Mr. Spicer is true. It'll probably just give him a good nap." He gathered up his keys and corkscrews.

  Mortimer slightly opened his eyes and directed a hostile look at Mike's back, which was now turned to him, as the steward drew the
curtains across the porthole to shut out the dismal view. Very neatly, and without making the slightest noise, Mortimer reached out a claw and hooked up a ring of keys which was dangling half out of Mike's pocket, and tucked it under his wing. Neither Mike nor Arabel observed this.

  "I'd have a nap, too, if I was you," said Mike. "I'll bring you along some tea and sponge cakes by and by."

  Arabel thought this was good advice. She curled up in her warm pink blankets and had a nap. Mortimer did, too, with the keys tucked safely under his wing.

  When Arabel woke next, quite a lot of time had passed by. It was five o'clock. Mike had come back with the tea and sponge cakes. He had with him also a large selection of ties.

  "Cap'n Mainbrace was sorry to hear from young Henry that your bird lost his comforter. He took up a collection among the ship's officers. This here's the result."

  There were ties of every kind—spotted, striped, wool, satin, wide, narrow, plain, and bow. But no dark green tie.

  "Oh, that's very kind of them," said Arabel. "Mortimer's still asleep. I'll show them to him as soon as he wakes up."

  As a matter of fact, she was not too hopeful that Mortimer would like any of the ties, knowing how hard he was to please. But there would be no harm in trying.

  "Let sleeping birds lie," said Mike. "I wouldn't rouse him till he wakes of hisself. I was to tell you that your ma's having her hair done in the beauty salon, and your pa's playing bingo."

  Arabel certainly had no intention of rousing Mortimer.

  She tiptoed away, leaving him still fast asleep, warmly cocooned in pink blankets. Just to be on the safe side, she locked the cabin door.

  4

  Arabel watched Mr. Jones playing bingo for a while, but she did not find it very interesting, and presently she went off with Henry, who came to tell her that a ship's treasure hunt was being organized and she had been invited to help lay the clues. They had just begun doing this on the fiesta deck when they heard loud screams coming from the direction of the beauty salon, which was not far away.

  Screams always made Arabel anxious if Mortimer was anywhere in the neighborhood; so often they seemed to have some connection with him. She started off toward the beauty salon and saw Miss Brandy Brown running down the stairs with half her hair in curlers and the other half loose and floating behind her.

  "What is it?" Arabel asked. But Miss Brown rushed past without answering.

  Then Mrs. Jones came out of the salon.

  "Oh my stars, is that you, Arabel?" she said. "Why ever haven't you been keeping an eye on Mortimer? He came wandering into the beauty parlor as if he was under the affluence of incohol, gliding along with his eyes tight shut and his toes turned up and his wings stuck straight out before him, just like good Queen MacBess on her way to the Hampton Court Palais de Danse. It's my belief he's been magnetized by one of those hypopotanists."

  "Oh dear," said Arabel. "I thought he was safe in my cabin fast asleep."

  "He was fast asleep. That's what I mean!"

  "Why was everybody screaming?"

  "Well it wasn't everybody, dearie," said Mrs. Jones, "but only that Miss Brandy Brown, who, say what you like, is a very silly historical girl to fly off the handle just because she sees a bird walk past when she's sitting under the dryer; she says she's got an algebra about birds, or an agony—all he did was give her green towel a tweak—"

  "Poor Mortimer," said Arabel, "I expect he was looking for his tie in his sleep."

  "And then, of course, a bottle of setting lotion fell on him, and with the dryer on the floor, blowing, all his feathers turned curly, so he did look rather peculiar—"

  "I'd better find him," said Arabel, and hurried off.

  When she got to the beauty salon, Mortimer was not to be seen, though there was a fair amount of chaos which suggested that he had spent several minutes in there hunting for his tie; some dryers were knocked over and blowing hot air in every direction, taps were running, bottles were broken, green nylon overalls and towels lay all over the place, and there were enough scattered hairpins to build a model of the Eiffel Tower.

  Henry joined Arabel and they began methodically hunting through the ship. They were partly helped and partly hindered by the public-address system.

  "Will any member of the crew or passengers seeing a large raven, who doesn't answer to the name Mortimer and is apparently walking in his sleep and searching for a green tie, please contact Miss Arabel Jones in Cabin 1K on the upper deck."

  "How could he have got out of your cabin? I thought you locked it," panted Henry as they ran along the promenade deck, examining all the tarpaulin-covered lifeboats to see if any of them seemed to have been disturbed lately.

  "I don't understand it," said Arabel. "But I've heard that when people are walking in their sleep they can fall off very high places without being hurt. Perhaps they can go through locked doors, too."

  She didn't know, of course, that Mortimer had Mike's bunch of passkeys, which would open any door on the ship. Nobody knew this until the Queen of Bethnal Green suddenly began sailing in circles.

  "Losh sakes! What's come wi' the ship?" exclaimed old Mr. Fairbairn, the chief engineer, who had gone off duty and was having a cup of tea in the Rumpus Lounge. He dashed back to the bridge, where the door was swinging open and the second engineer, Hamish McTavish, with a very red face, was declaring:

  "I swearr to goodness all I did was turrrn my back for aboot thirrrty seconds tae charrt the day's courrse, and yon black rrruffian had the lock picked and was in like a whirrlwind—"

  Mr. Fairbairn roared over the public-address system, "Wull Miss Arrabel Jones come withoot delay tae the brreedge, whurr her rraven Morrtimer is mekking a conseederable nuisance o' himself?"

  Arabel and Henry rushed to the bridge, but by the time they arrived Mortimer, in his somnambulistic search for his tie, had evidently decided that it was not there, and had left by way of a ventilator. Just after he did so a series of red and green rockets began to shoot up from the Queen of Bethnal Green.

  "Och, mairrrcy, he must ha' set off the deestress signals when he was sairrching through yon bank o' sweetches," exclaimed Hamish McTavish, and began hastily sending out radio messages to cancel the message of the distress signals before a whole posse of passing ships should begin to take them seriously and come steaming to the rescue.

  Now a new message sounded over the loudspeaker.

  "Will Miss Arabel Jones please come to the first-class kitchen where her raven, Mortimer, walking in his sleep, has destroyed seventy-four pounds of iceberg lettuce?"

  But long before Arabel and Henry had got to the kitchen, Mortimer had moved on, leaving a trail of green beans, spinach, brussels sprouts, angelica, broken plates, and irate cooks' assistants.

  "Will Miss Arabel Jones please come to the casino, where a large black bird is wandering around the pool table in a dazed manner with a sprig of broccoli dangling from his beak?"

  But by the time they reached the casino, Mortimer had departed, leaving a scene of torn green baize and snapped cues behind him.

  "Will Miss Arabel Jones please come to the Swedish gymnasium—the Finnish sauna—the Spanish bar—the Chinese laundry—the bank—the crèche—the card room—the library—the hospital—"

  Mortimer was never there.

  To add to the confusion, Isabella the parrot, not wanting to be left out of any excitement, had managed to escape from Lady Dunnage's cabin and was flying gaily about the ship; several times she was grabbed by people who thought she was a raven and that they would be rewarded for capturing her, but Isabella had a very neat left-beak uppercut combined with a right-claw hook which ensured that no one ever held her for long. Her activities added most unfairly to Mortimer's general unpopularity.

  At last Arabel, worn out, was obliged to go to bed without having found him.

  "Poor Mortimer," she said sadly. "I do hope he's got somewhere comfortable to spend the night."

  About an hour after she had gone to bed, Arabel was ro
used by screams from the cabin next door.

  Miss Brandy Brown had been woken by a sound, and had switched on her bedside light just in time to see Mortimer walk slowly through into her kitchenette, open the fridge, and peer gloomily inside. She was so paralyzed with astonishment that she did nothing until he had turned and was halfway across the room again. Then she jumped out of bed yelling: "Help! Murder! Thieves! Jackdaws! Magpies!"

  By the time she had reached the door, Mortimer, as usual, had vanished from view.

  She banged on Arabel's door.

  "Have you got that bird in there with you?"

  "No," said Arabel, anxiously opening up. "I only wish I had."

  "Well, he was here just now. And I warn you," said Miss Brandy Brown ominously, "if he pesters me anymore, I shall take whatever steps seem proper."

  "I don't see how taking steps will help," Arabel said, looking at the steps up to Mortimer's bunk. "Anyway, Mortimer's usually the one who takes them."

  But Miss Brown had flounced back to her own room.

  It was a night of terror on board the Queen of Bethnal Green. People burst screaming from their cabins, they rushed in a panic out of lifts and got jammed in staircases; rumors flew about the ship far, far faster than Mortimer could have, even if he had had the speed of a vampire jet: "There's a mad raven on board—a bloodsucking vulture—a giant bat—it attacks any green article—beware!"

  ***

  By next morning, luckily, the ship had got through the Bay of Biscay, the weather had turned sunny and hot, and the coast of Spain came into view.

  Mortimer was nowhere to be seen, so everybody could relax except Arabel, who was more and more worried, terribly afraid that he might have fallen overboard, though she hoped, of course, that he had simply found some green thing that would do instead of his tie, and had curled up with it in a quiet corner for a good long nap.