Alistair Grim's Odditorium

by Gregory Funaro

  “Very well, sir,” said Mrs. Pinch.

  And with that I heard the pocket doors close behind me.

  “Now then,” Mr. G began. “From the brief account given me by Mrs. Pinch, I take it you’ve had quite a journey. You’ll find a pitcher and a goblet on the table there beside you. Please pour yourself some water and drink.”

  I hesitated. The pitcher and goblet were finer than any I’d ever touched.

  “No need to stand on ceremony, Master Grubb. You’re welcome to it.”

  As I drained my goblet, I searched unsuccessfully for Mr. G between the books on his desk. On the wall behind him, however, I spied a wide row of polished steel pipes running from the floor to the ceiling. These were bookended on either side by oaken doors, which in turn were bookended by a pair of knights. Each wore a red, bell-shaped helmet with a horned crest and a scowling black face mask. Their body armor was painted to match, but was plated in such a manner that they looked like a quartet of big red beetles standing on their hind legs.

  “Ah, you’ve noticed my samurai,” said Mr. G. “Just a little something I acquired in my travels. They stand guard in case any busybodies try to get inside from the balcony. The pair behind you is merely a second line of defense.”

  I glanced round at the pocket doors and discovered two more suits of armor behind me, each holding a long spear.

  “The samurai are from Japan and are considered amongst the fiercest warriors in the world. Congratulations, Master Grubb. You are the first person to have ever gotten past them alive.”

  I swallowed hard, and the ticking of Mr. G’s many clocks seemed to grow louder.

  “So, you’re the troublemaker from the Lamb’s Inn, eh? The lad about whom the owner and that chap with the scar were making all that fuss?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said guiltily.

  “And am I correct in concluding that you slipped into my trunk during their pursuit of you? Perhaps only moments before our departure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “An intriguing turn of events,” said Mr. G, more to himself than to me. “Tell me, Master Grubb, at any point between your departure from the Lamb and your arrival here, did you happen to peek out from your hiding place?”

  I made to speak, but then quickly stopped myself.

  “I suggest you consider your answer carefully,” said Mr. G. “Your sooty face speaks volumes, and I’ll know at once if you’re lying.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said finally.

  “And what exactly did you see?”

  “Well, sir,” I began slowly, “I peeked out when we were leaving the Lamb, heard Mr. Crumbsby’s hounds setting off after me, and saw the inn disappear round the bend. I suppose I also peeked out a handful of times along the High Road, but then…”

  I hesitated one last time, for upon remembering Mrs. Pinch’s instructions, I decided that a proper gentleman like Mr. G would not be interested in my silly dream of flying about the countryside.

  “Then what?” asked Mr. G. “What else did you see?”

  “Nothing, sir,” I said quickly. “What I mean is, I must’ve fallen asleep, sir. For the next thing I remember is being carried in the trunk on Mr. Nigel’s shoulders.”

  I waited for what seemed like an hour of clock ticking. Finally a tall, slender gentleman dressed entirely in black rose from behind the mountain of books on his desk.

  I took in the most obvious of his features at once: longish, slicked-back hair, black-ringed eyes, and a drawn, chiseled face that glowed whitish-blue like the moon. He looked me up and down as if inspecting a horse, but at the same time I sensed something dangerous beneath his cold appraisal—when without warning he lurched forward on his desk and snarled, “Liar!”

  His eyes blazed, and his thin lips stretched wide around a toothy grin.

  Terrified, I spun on my heels and made for the exit—but the pair of samurai beside the pocket doors crossed their long spears and blocked my escape.

  I shrieked, turned round, and saw that the other samurai had left their posts and were now coming for me around the desk—armor clanging, their swords drawn, and their eyes glowing blue!

  I shrieked again, and as I raised my arms to protect myself, discovered that the silver water goblet was still in my hand.

  Clang, clang, clang! The four samurai marched closer and closer, and without thinking, I flung the goblet at the nearest one.

  The goblet struck the samurai’s helmet with a heavy clank, knocking it to the floor. But where the warrior’s head should have been, there was only a shaft of blue light shooting up from his body.

  I gasped in horror, and the samurai stopped. The three with their helmets still attached turned their glowing blue eyes to their headless companion, who promptly waved his armored hand back and forth above his shoulders. Finding nothing there, he shrugged, and the four samurai resumed their advance as if nothing had happened.

  Clang, clang, clang!

  I backed away, but the two samurai by the door grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Please, sir!” I cried, struggling against their viselike grip. “I wasn’t lying, sir, I thought it was a dream!”

  “You’re at the Odditorium, lad,” said Mr. G, grinning cruelly. “And dreams are all we have here!”

  Clang, clang, clang!

  I closed my eyes, steeling myself to receive the samurai’s sword points, and then my ears cracked with thunder and I felt a flash of heat across my face.

  So this is what it’s like to die, I thought. But in the next moment, a high-pitched voice cried out: “YOU SHALL NOT HARM HIM!”

  The grip on my shoulders released, and I opened my eyes to find the entire room bathed in a milky-yellow haze. Incredibly, all of the samurai were moving away from me, but there was something strange in their retreat.

  They’re not retreating, I realized. They’re flying!

  Light as goose down on a summer breeze, the samurai floated up into the air, over Mr. G’s desk, and back to their posts.

  I barely had time to wonder at it, and then a bright yellow ball of light quickly descended from the ceiling and wrapped me in a cloak of shimmering stars.

  Much to my astonishment, it was now my turn to fly. And in a single bound I floated, eyes wide and mouth gaping, over the armchairs and landed on the hearth.

  The light flashed and flickered and began to swirl about me like a cluster of yellow fireflies—round and round, faster and faster—until a great wind lifted me onto my tippy-toes. Then all at once the fireflies turned black, gathered in a great, rolling mass before my face, and whooshed off behind me, spinning me round on my heels as they shot up the chimney and out of sight.

  “Cor blimey!” I gasped, gaping at my hands and coat sleeves.

  All the soot, every last speck of it, was gone from my body. My gray chummy clothes were cleaner than I’d ever seen them, and my skin—well, I suspected my skin hadn’t been this clean since the day I was born.

  “Splendid, lad!” Mr. G exclaimed, and I turned to find him coming around the desk. The malice was gone from his smile, and in the crook of his elbow he held the samurai’s helmet.

  I just stood there, frozen in amazement.

  “Terribly sorry about all that,” said Mr. G, smiling. “But it was necessary, Master Grubb, I assure you.”

  “A trick?” the high-pitched voice cried out, and I spun around to discover an enormous dollhouse suspended from the ceiling in the corner behind me. The door to the dollhouse was open, and there, hovering before it, glowed another fantastical ball of bright yellow light.

  “Not a trick, but a test,” said Mr. G. Then he turned back to me and whispered, “And quite an effective test, at that.”

  I tried to speak, but my tongue felt frozen—when all of a sudden the yellow ball of light streaked out from the dollhouse and stopped, trembling in midair, only inches from Mr. G’s nose.

  “How about you pick on someone your own size!” the ball hissed. It began to grow bigger and bigger until, along the edge close
st to Mr. G’s face, there appeared the faint but unmistakable outline of teeth.

  “Temper, temper,” said Mr. G, unmoved. “I never doubted for a moment that you’d intercede to protect the child. But the test had to be authentic; the child’s fear, genuine. How else could I be sure your magic was powerful enough?”

  “Because I told you it was, you skinny little twig!”

  The ball growled, its teeth becoming clearer and sharper as they parted into a monstrous, gaping crescent.

  “Oh, very well, then,” sighed Mr. G. “Go ahead and gobble me up. See where that gets us in the end.”

  The yellow ball just hovered there for a moment, shaking with fury until finally it zoomed back to the dollhouse. The light popped and fizzled, and then a little yellow girl with dragonfly wings and crystal-blue eyes materialized on the roof. “Silly twig,” she muttered weakly, then slumped down and pouted with her back against one of the chimneys.

  “Fairies,” groaned Mr. G, rolling his eyes. The little yellow girl growled in reply and hurled a ball of light in his direction. Mr. G dodged it, and the ball burst apart against a large, colorful top upon his desk.

  The top rose into the air and began to spin of its own accord. Mr. G quickly scooped it up with the samurai’s helmet and turned the helmet over on his desk. A flash of bright green light exploded through the scowling face mask.

  Mr. G removed the helmet, and the top was motionless again.

  “It was you I saw coming out of the Black Forest,” I said in astonishment. “You captured Gwendolyn the Yellow Fairy!”

  “Captured?” said Mr. G. “Oh, I think not, Master Grubb. Brokered an alliance is more like it.”

  “An alliance,” cried the Yellow Fairy. “Hah!”

  “An alliance out of mutual necessity,” Mr. G said for her benefit as well as mine. “But then again, we needn’t get into all that now.” He leaned back on the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “No, the most pressing matter at hand is what to do with you, Master Grubb. I must confess, I had no intention of acquiring a chimney sweep in my travels.”

  My gaze dropped to my shoes. Now my head had room for nothing but thoughts of what was to become of me.

  “From what Mrs. Pinch tells me,” said Mr. G, thinking, “I certainly can’t send you back to that chap with the scar. And to turn an orphan like yourself out on the streets of London—”

  “London?” I gasped, eyes wide.

  “You mean to tell me that you had no idea you’re in London, lad?”

  “No, I didn’t, Mr.…uh…”

  “Grim,” he said with a slight bow. “Alistair Grim. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Grubb.”

  “Likewise, Mr. G—I mean, uh, Mr. Grim, sir.”

  “As I was saying, to turn you out now in your present situation would no doubt ensure you a life of beggary and thieving. There are the workhouses, of course—”

  I swallowed hard, my stomach in my throat.

  “—but most would rather die than live in such places. Then again, I can’t very well let you go around London babbling on about fairies and whatnot. Of course, anyone who listened to you would think you touched in the head. But there’s always the chance someone might take you seriously and make trouble for us here at the Odditorium.”

  “The Odd—uh—I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Odd-ih-tor-ee-um,” Mr. Grim repeated. “Go ahead. Give it a try, lad.”

  “Odditorium,” I said slowly.

  “Very good, Master Grubb. A word unlike any other for a place unlike any other.”

  I glanced over at the Yellow Fairy, who was now listening intently and batting her thick, black eyelashes at me.

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. Grim, sir,” I said, daring to meet his gaze. “But, if you don’t mind my asking, sir, what sort of place is this Odditorium?”

  Mr. Grim smiled and replaced the helmet atop the samurai’s shoulders. “Well, that remains to be seen, now, doesn’t it, Master Grubb?”

  “If you say so, sir,” I said uneasily.

  “Tell me. In addition to hiding in trunks, do you possess any other talent of which I should be aware?”

  “Talent, sir?”

  “Yes, Master Grubb, something at which you excel.”

  “Well, sir, I—if I may be so bold—I do fancy myself quite the expert chummy.”

  “Which would imply that you excel both at climbing and at squeezing through narrow spaces. What else?”

  “Well, sir,” I said, thinking, “I can run fast, especially when I’m being chased by blokes bigger than me. And, I can read a bit—the lady who took me in taught me that before she died, as well as how to count my fingers and toes. I’ve since taught myself to read better and count higher and…well, I’m afraid that’s about it, Mr. Grim.”

  “A boy of twelve or thereabouts who excels at climbing and squeezing through narrow spaces, who can also read a bit and count higher than his fingers and toes? Well, then, perhaps we, too, can broker an alliance.”

  “An alliance, Mr. Grim?”

  “An alliance, Master Grubb. We have many chimneys here at the Odditorium, all of which have not been swept in quite some time. Come to think of it, having a resident sweep on the premises might not be a bad idea. Having a boy around who can read a bit and count higher than his fingers and toes might not be a bad idea, either. Therefore, I have a proposition for you: how would you like to work here, Master Grubb?”

  “Here, Mr. Grim?”

  “Here at the Odditorium, Master Grubb. And in exchange for your services, you shall be given room and board and a small salary, which shall be deposited weekly in your name at the Central Bank—less your pocket money, of course.”

  “Pocket money?” I asked, amazed.

  “But of course, lad. After all, a boy in London without pocket money—well, that simply won’t do, now, will it, Master Grubb?”

  I couldn’t speak and just stood there, eyes wide and mouth gaping.

  “There’s only one catch,” said Mr. Grim, and he squatted down so that our noses nearly touched. “You’re never to speak to anyone on the outside about what goes on here. Never. Not a single word about the Odditorium ever. Do you understand me, lad?”

  “Oh yes, sir, Mr. Grim,” I said, nodding. “You can count on me, sir.”

  “Then again, you haven’t much of a choice, now, do you? For if you refuse and decide to go blabbing”—he shot a quick glance at the dollhouse—“well, let’s just say Miss Gwendolyn won’t always be around to protect you.”

  I swallowed hard, for the look in Alistair Grim’s eyes sent a chill down my spine unlike any other that day.

  “What do you say, then?” he asked, his demeanor friendly again. “Do we have a deal, Master Grubb?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, smiling. My fear was gone, and all I could do was marvel again at my good fortune.

  “Good,” said Mr. Grim, offering me his hand. “Gentlemen’s shake on it.”

  And so for the first time I shook hands with Alistair Grim. It was the first time I’d ever shaken hands with anybody. But I wonder now, had I known then what I was getting myself into—samurai or no samurai—would I have tried again for the door?

  I spent the night in the shop. That’s what Mrs. Pinch called it. The shop.

  “You’ll spend the night in the shop,” she said. “There’s a bed in there that Mr. Grim uses when he’s working. That should suffice until we can figure out what to do with you.” Then she opened the door and said under her breath, “But blind me if I can’t think of a more proper place for you than here.”

  The room I entered resembled the others only in its blackness and blue sconce light. It was tiny compared to Mr. Grim’s library, but appeared even tinier because of all the rubbish inside. There were shelves with oddly shaped bottles and workbenches stacked with books and tinkerer’s tools. And tumbling out from every corner was all manner of scrap metals and strange mechanicals. At the center of the room was a large worktable piled high with cogs and spr
ings and gears of every sort imaginable.

  “Very well, then,” said Mrs. Pinch, pushing me toward the bed. Then she placed a large bowl of gruel on the worktable and handed me a spoon. “Eat your fill and get some rest. And for goodness’ sake, don’t touch anything. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’ll begin work in the morning,” Mrs. Pinch said as she was leaving. “Until then this door will remain locked.” She stepped into the hall, but then turned back and said: “After all, we wouldn’t want you wandering about in the middle of the night, now, would we?”

  I swallowed hard.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, lad,” said Mrs. Pinch. “You’re amongst friends here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “For everything, that is.”

  Mrs. Pinch cracked a smile and closed the door. Then I heard her key clicking in the lock and her footsteps trailing off down the hall.

  I looked around for a moment, and upon finding no fairies or glowing samurai staring back at me, quickly gobbled up my gruel and lay down on the bed. I didn’t feel sleepy, but thought both the gruel and the bed pleasant enough. Indeed, I had just decided that I couldn’t remember a more pleasant place to sleep—or a more pleasant meal, for that matter—when I felt myself being dragged under.

  “I suppose I am sleepy after all,” I yawned.

  What must have been a second later, I was out.

  My dreams came to me in fits of flickering pictures from the day before. But mixed somewhere in the middle of it all was the girl I’d heard outside the trunk—Cleona was her name. She sat beside me in a meadow of moonlit buttercups, but for some reason I could not see her.

  “Do you have a family?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t, miss,” I replied.

  “Well, you’re to live with us at the Odditorium, aren’t you? So that makes you family.”

  “If you say so, miss,” I said, searching for her amidst the flowers. “But how come I can’t see you, miss?”

  “Because you’re not allowed to. But I can see you.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to talk to the children in the manor houses, but sometimes we couldn’t help seeing each other.”