The Knot Impossible

by Barbara Else

  Books in the Tales of Fontania series

  The Travelling Restaurant

  The Queen and the Nobody Boy

  The Volume of Possible Endings

  The Knot Impossible

  www.TalesOfFontania.com

  from Z to A—

  Zac, Rosa, Olive, and Abe

  Once upon a time, the world was rich in magic. It was used wisely, not wasted on anything selfish or mean-spirited. It was saved for important things like making sure babies slept safe in their cots, that people had enough to eat, and that the world was peaceful. There were dangers, as there always is with magic. But there was also common sense. Some people began to experiment with science and machines, and that was all right. You see, everyone thought somebody was in charge.

  — Polly, The Travelling Restaurant

  The luggage had red and gold stickers: Family Summer Tour, Drama and Song. The driver had already stowed some in the limousine. Rufkin let his parents hug him as they said goodbye, but he couldn’t smile. His older brother, Oscar, promised to send postcards. His sister, Ahria, said she’d miss him. Rufkin managed to speak at last in a wobble-free voice. “Amaze them as usual. Go break a leg.” His father locked the front door, then Rufkin’s family drove away to the wharves and the Lordly Sword without him.

  Rufkin had to wait on the steps for twenty-five minutes. But at last the steam-taxi hooted. Here it was to cart him and his old canvas bag off to the salvage yard.

  Traffic was heavy through the city. The taxi passed Brilliant Academy, but he didn’t look at it. All he could think of was a line from The Jailbird of Battle Island: “This is the bitter summer of discontent.” He kicked the empty passenger seat in front of him.

  The taxi driver eyed Rufkin in the mirror. “I should’ve asked for your parents’ autographs. D’you have the family talent?” He put on the brakes. “Uh-oh, what’s happening?”

  A steam-bus sat lop-sided in the road with a broken axle. A traffic policeman was waving like a stout ballet dancer as he tried to shift steam-cars and bicycles, steam-trucks, a tram.

  The taxi moved ahead in hiccup-hops but had to stop again near City Square.

  The driver gave a sour whistle. “Something’s going on up by the bridge. We’ll be stuck here for ages.”

  Rufkin sat fiddling with the hero figurine in his jacket pocket. He also had a letter from his father to the people at the salvage yard, and a twenty-dollero note in case he had a chance to spend anything in the next six weeks. It felt crisp and tough. He felt the opposite. But a treat might help. He flung open the taxi door.

  “I’ll be back.” He raced into the square, found the zine-seller’s booth, and slapped down his money.

  “Latest issue of Heroic Hodie, please.”

  The seller shook his head. “Sold out.”

  “It was only published yesterday,” said Rufkin.

  “So you’ve still got your money.” The zine-seller grinned. “How about five fanzines of Major Murgott the Resolute? Bargain price.”

  “He’s old and retired,” said Rufkin. “That’s why they’re cheap.”

  The man held other magazines up in a fan. “Old Adventurers Special? Famous Inventors of Fontania…Royal Recipes for Picnics…Spies of the Nation?”

  By now Rufkin was grinning as well. “The one about spies is all guess-work.”

  A newsboy chanted, “Cave-lizard plague reaches City of Spires!”

  “Spare an old soldier a single penny!” a beggar called.

  Rufkin took back the twenty, tossed a friendly salute at the zine-seller and ran to the beggar. “Here.” He stuffed the twenty dolleros in the old man’s hand.

  The beggar blinked. “Thanks, boy, but…are you crazy?”

  Rufkin laughed, stood in the Attitude-respectful and gave a bow.

  “Latest on the pla-ague,” chanted the newsboy. “Public hopes Queen can resolve it with magic.”

  The taxi reached the bridge at last and Rufkin’s moment of good humour guttered out.

  “Foundations undermined,” shouted a scraggy policeman. “Foot traffic only.”

  Workers were struggling away with picks and shovels. Men peered into the excavations. Women young and old shook their heads, scribbled notes, and exchanged remarks.

  “Scientists,” the driver said. “Each with their own pet theory. Who knows why the bridge can’t stand on its own two feet? Pour more cement—that should fix it.”

  He handed back some of the fare Rufkin’s parents had pre-paid.

  “That’ll get you where you’re going on the other side. I wouldn’t cheat a son of Tobias and Maria Robiasson. That performance of Dragon Lord and Gifted Girl still gives me chills.”

  Rufkin slammed the taxi door harder than he’d meant. He had a glimpse of small craters in the roadway, even a flick of what might be a tail and a flash of blue.

  A street vendor tried to sell him coffee. Another newsboy flapped a paper and cried, “Cave-lizard plague. Price of metal up again. Little duke gone missing.”

  The policeman shunted Rufkin through a barrier onto the walkway with other grumpy people who’d rather be having a ride. His bag grew heavy as he lugged it up the curve of the bridge. In it was a purple knitted beanie with a pom-pom. There were also patched shirts and thick pants that would last through six weeks of hard work in the salvage yard.

  He reached the top. Back in the City of Spires, banners flew from the highest towers and most of the low ones. In the port, masts and funnels of the ships shone in the sun. Beneath the bridge, Lazy River flowed in its muscly way, twisting with currents. The view of the other side of the estuary stretched way down past mangrove swamps. Beyond those, Rufkin could just make out a cluster of small wharves and a roof or two. That would be the engineering yard and the marina where rich folk kept their pleasure boats. He couldn’t see the salvage yard yet. His spirits sank into his boots.

  He’d missed lunch. But once he was off the bridge he had to pay every last dollero of the taxi refund to a man with a donkey-cart. The animal plodded past the mangroves on a raised road edged with scrub, wooden wheels jolting and squeaking. As the cart rolled on, the donkey sped up now and then—it took Rufkin a while to notice that it happened when little craters pock-marked the roadside.

  The donkey-cart man didn’t talk much. He only yelled at the troubled donkey. Rufkin didn’t blame it for being jumpy. He was jittery too. And annoyed. At himself. At his parents. But mostly—to be honest—he was disappointed in himself.

  His mother had sighed the way she did when she played the frazzled Queen of Monkey River. “My lovely boy, I will pine for you. But we must all accept that you’ll never conquer your terrible stage-fright. Mister and Mistress Mucclack will keep an eye on you. They’ll make sure you are quite safe.”

  Did quite mean very or no more than slightly? He wanted to boot the side of the cart but it would upset the donkey.

  The cart lurched past a new chain-link fence that glinted blue. Then came a big double gate to the marina and engineering yard, where a house was attached to a group of big sheds.

  Further on they came to the gate saying Salvage Yard, Skully and Wanda Mucclack. The donkey-cart man tossed down Rufkin’s bag. The donkey staggered a couple of steps, then galloped off the way it had come.

  Rufkin followed a path to a cottage, took the steps to the veranda and used the knocker. Some flurrying sounded inside and the door was flung wide. He opened his mouth to explain who he was…

  “Boots,” whispered the sturdy but stooped old man who must be Mister Skully Mucclack.

  “Off,” mouthed Mistress Wanda Mucclack, skinny, hair streaked with gray in an untidy knot. “Put them on the rack with all of ours.”

  In the half-minute he’d been out of the cart, R
ufkin’s boots had become rimmed with black mud.

  “The cave-lizards are not too bad,” Mister Mucclack whispered. “You’re fine in your socks up here on the veranda. Just remember, when you put your boots on again, double-knot the laces. Whatever you do, tuck your pants’ cuffs into your socks.”

  ~

  Rufkin’s stomach rumbled. From the Mucclacks’ kitchen table, the City of Spires was a blurred backdrop of towers far over the water. Up close the view was the walkways and workings of the salvage yard, then the muddy edge of the river mouth.

  Rufkin heard the far-off clang of a warning buoy. Barges of all kinds waited at anchor in the estuary to be summoned when a wharf had an empty berth for them to load or unload. A ferry cruised down from Lazy River. A steamship steamed off from the city into the haze of the horizon. A cruise ship headed out too: the Duchess of Dogjaw, the biggest and newest. Rufkin had read about it in a paper last week when he should have been doing last-minute study for his exams.

  Mistress Mucclack sat at the head of the table, chin in her skinny hand. Mister Mucclack, gray-speckled beard, clattered a spoon against an iron pot on the stove.

  “Cockles and carrots.” Mister Mucclack heaved the pot onto the table. It made a sizzling sound on the wood.

  “Careful, you old dolt,” whispered his wife.

  Mister Mucclack grinned at Rufkin and a gap showed in his teeth. “We have our rules. No loud words unless the house is on fire.”

  “So if cockles and carrots are not your favourite supper, merely murmur your dislike,” said Mistress Mucclack. “Mind you, neither whispers nor shouts will change the menu.” She served herself a bowl of pale carrots and gray cockles still in their shells.

  “There might have been sea kale to add a scrap of green,” said Mister Mucclack. “But I’ve had no time to scavenge about. Tomorrow will be my dear wife’s turn to cook. Wanda, you might have time to scavenge sea kale now we have a boy to lend a hand.”

  “And what a boy! Tobias and Maria’s youngest son.” Mistress Mucclack smiled. Her wrinkles fanned out like feathers so for a moment she looked pretty, like a grandmother heron. “It’s a long few years since we worked with your parents. Now they’re rich and famous, and we’re just busy and happy.”

  “So we’re to teach you to manage salvage in only six weeks,” said Mister Mucclack. “To save and rescue after shipwreck. To fix and mend. To use and use again. How to sort out.”

  “Thank you, it sounds exciting.” Rufkin did his best to act the part of Truthful John Who Never Said Wrong.

  “It does.” Mistress Mucclack removed a woody piece of carrot from her mouth and dropped it back in her bowl. “Skully and I will have to learn it ourselves speedily if we’re to teach you.” The two of them shook with silent amusement. “Don’t mind my tease,” she said. “Salvage is the same principles as making scenery and fixing costumes, which we did for a decade or two.”

  Mister Mucclack opened a bottle and poured half a glass of red wine for himself and two sips’ worth for his wife. The crimson label read Bloodberry Wine, Adventurers’ Rest, Coast of Beaks. Rufkin supposed he ought to know where that coast lay. Another school project he’d failed. Maybe dinner would lift his mood.

  He gathered nerve for his first bite. The carrot—hmm, very nice. He forked a cockle from its shell and tried it. More spongy than rubbery.

  Something knocked under the floor near his foot. Another bump came nearer the kitchen bench. Mister Mucclack kicked the floor with his heel.

  “They’re coming further up the yard every day,” whispered his wife.

  “You silly old chump,” whispered her husband. “We didn’t expect a boy, but now we’ve got one, don’t scare him or he’ll be no use.”

  Rufkin had a piece of cockle stuck in his back teeth but he spoke up anyway. “How big are the cave-lizards here?” The Mucclacks looked at him. “Well—if I see one, what should I do?”

  Mistress Mucclack shuddered and took one sip of her wine. “Stand still. As soon as it glances away, take a careful step to higher ground. The main thing is never, whatever you do, cut off one’s tail. It is said to grow instantly into a new lizard.”

  “We doubt it’s true. We also share the thought that it’s best not to find out by personal experiment.” Mister Mucclack swigged his wine in one go. “The other thing is to be thankful they’re not fire-lizards.”

  “Fire-lizards?” asked Rufkin. “Around here?”

  “It’s another tease,” Mistress Mucclack whispered. “We’ve heard that children benefit from a tease or two.”

  “There’s no pudding, and that’s no joke or trick,” said Mister Mucclack. “Cockles usually call for an implement. If you’ve eaten your fill, take a toothpick from the jar on the windowsill.”

  Mistress Mucclack had her second sip of wine, pushed back her chair and gathered the bowls. “You’re not a big eater for a boy. Hard work will fix that.”

  Mister Mucclack held up a finger. “But how strong is this boy? Teaching him is one thing. Did Tobias really expect him to be actual help?”

  “He tried to explain yesterday evening over the phone, but it was all buzzing and hiss.” Mistress Mucclack picked the letter from Rufkin’s dad off the dresser and read it again. “If and how the boy helps is up to us. He is here because he can’t succeed on stage. And at school…” She let out a low whistle and folded the letter. “I’ll just say woeful.”

  “I made the C Team in slogball. That’s an improvement,” said Rufkin. “I nearly made the debating team.”

  His father had waved the paper headed Brilliant Academy—End of Year Statement of Success. “My boy, in every subject, the teachers say you could be good but you never try. For Mathematics it says, ‘must learn to try harder,’ then you’ve got unending dittos. Geography. Science. Even in Physical Exploits. Cross-country—slogball—gymnastics. It’s saying fairly nicely that our son is lazy.”

  His mother had held his ears so he had to look at her. “It can be good for a child to have early struggles. It makes them resilient. Rufkin, you are a bobbing cork. You float through each day as if nothing matters but having fun. If the stage is not an option, you must try elsewhere. That means, first of all, improving at school. And learning about hard work!”

  Mistress Mucclack, oven dish in her hands, peered at him. “The boy’s turned peaky. The remedy is an evening stroll around the yard.”

  Mister Mucclack winked. “What every old man needs at his side is a clever and kind old woman.”

  Mistress Mucclack went pink in the cheeks. “A sweet old man deserves no more.”

  “That can be your second lesson on happy marriage, Rufkin. A compliment each morning, a second one every night.” Mister Mucclack gave a satisfied grumble. “Now, back in your boots. Don’t worry too much. At dusk the cave-lizards tend to be sluggish.”

  Rufkin knotted his boots as tight as he could and tucked in his pants’ cuffs. He took a wary step from the veranda, then trod over planks that bridged channels of mud. He was thankful when they reached a solid path. In front of him, the Mucclacks walked arm in arm through the salvage yard. It was full of junk but still so tidy his eyes hurt. The boats were lined up neat as cutlery on cradles and at two small jetties.

  Another chain-link fence separated the yard from the engineering business and marina. That looked even tidier: huge square workshops, rows of boatsheds, slipways and ramps, locked gates to walkways where vessels were moored in a fishbone pattern. Clean concrete paving led right to a high wooden fence at the far side. Rufkin couldn’t see over it, but beyond must be the mangrove swamp.

  “We stay on our own side of the chain-link. No going over, that’s the rule,” Mister Mucclack said in a low voice as Rufkin joined them.

  The light was going faster now, the sky a purple-gray sheet behind funnels and masts. Lights started to twinkle in the port and in city towers. It was so pretty it made Rufkin’s heart ache. He dropped back. Twinkles showed on the estuary too: blue port lights of boats making their w
ay to the wharves, red sparkles of starboard lights from ships steaming out on the tide. By now his own family would be well over the horizon aboard the Lordly Sword. Oscar might be writing the first postcards he’d promised. Then again, probably not. He’d be rehearsing the violin, trumpet, and drums. His sister Ahria would be singing along. They’d have six weeks of summer on stage with his mother and dad. Rufkin’s throat ached too with missing them.

  A private yacht with a glowing blue B on its funnel came swiftly from the city to pass Tiny Isle. It belonged to Madam Butterly, the richest person in Fontania. Rufkin’s parents knew her. She’d had that super-yacht for ages but it still made every other ship look second-rate.

  The breeze gusted sharp. The warning buoy clanged. How brave and lonely it sounded. He heard another sound, like a high voice calling once. Help!

  A shiver went down Rufkin’s spine and through his stomach. He ran to the Mucclacks. “Did you hear that?”

  The wind blew another gust. A goose flew overhead—ornk.

  “Birds,” said Mister Mucclack. “Finding a roost.”

  “Or an early night bird waking up,” said Mistress Mucclack. “Mind your footing.”

  Six more geese flew in a V-shape, calling against the gray sky. Rufkin shook off the scary moment.

  Mister Mucclack started to point here and there: ships with their sides peeled off, ships with their bows staved in, other ships merely ancient and past it.

  “Over there are the hulks we’re saving for scrap,” said Mister Mucclack. “They’ll be stripped of their innards. Those ones are due to be towed away to be restored. That lot over there, they’re new but they’re leaking—no idea why. But they’ll be dumped. It all needs guarding and sorting, so this is where you’ll be till your parents send someone for you.”

  He sounded as if Rufkin would be here forever.

  The wind whistled through holes in the sides of a sailboat.

  Mistress Mucclack put her hands over her ears. “No storm was predicted, was it?”