The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

by Christopher Pennell

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Frontispiece

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Half title

  The Dancing Owls

  Breeza Meezy

  The White Cradle

  The Rising Creek

  The Endroot

  Smoke and Whispers

  The Crank of Crassifolia

  Granny Pitcher’s Cabin

  The Griddlebeast

  A Risky Tisk

  The Moon King

  Tree Rings

  Night Sounds

  Something in the Chimney

  The Axe Thief

  The Woop of the Wittery

  The Old Owl and the Whirlwind

  A Bag of Seeds

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Text copyright © 2013 by Christopher Pennell

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Bond

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Pennell, Christopher.

  The mysterious woods of Whistle Root /

  by Christopher Pennell ; [illustrations, Rebecca Bond].

  p. cm.

  Summary: Eleven-year-old Carly Bean Bitters, an orphan, can only sleep during the day and feels very lonely until she meets a rat, Lewis, and sets off on an adventure to figure out what is threatening the woods and its inhabitants.

  ISBN 978-0-547-79263-7

  [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Rats—Fiction. 3. Owls—Fiction. 4. Forests and forestry—Fiction. 5. Musicians—Fiction. 6. Monsters—Fiction. 7. Orphans—Fiction.] I. Bond, Rebecca, 1972– ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.P384628Mys 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012039968

  eISBN 978-0-544-15572-5

  v1.0913

  For my wife and kids. —C.P.

  For Thia, who is of course older than Carly,

  but is a night child herself. —R.B.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE DANCING OWLS

  IN A SMALL TOWN CALLED WHISTLE ROOT, rats play music in the moonlight. They play on the very rooftops there. You can hear them if you listen closely in the middle of the night when there’s a slight breeze blowing. Who knows why they like breezes, but they do. And moonlight. You’ll never hear a rat playing music without moonlight.

  The music can be scary. It sounds as if someone left a radio playing in the closet. But if you’re brave enough to look in the closet, you won’t find anything. And if you’re even braver and look out your window, the music will stop completely.

  All of which leads me to the story of a girl named Carly who looked out the window of her upstairs room one night and saw a squash sitting on the roof.

  NOW, VEGETABLES HAD BEEN APPEARING on roofs all over Whistle Root for several weeks that summer. So when Carly looked out her window and saw the squash sitting there, it wasn’t a complete surprise.

  Still, it’s odd seeing vegetables on the roof. We expect to see them in the garden or on our dinner plates. We don’t expect to look out our windows and see them staring back at us.

  But Carly felt more curious than scared. She opened her window and waited to see if anything else would appear. She waited for the music to start again too, which had caused her to look out the window in the first place.

  But there was just the moonlight and the squash and a slight breeze blowing.

  “I notice that you have a squash on your roof, dear,” said one of her older neighbors, walking by late one evening. “How lovely. I only have broccoli.”

  CARLY’S FULL NAME WAS CARLY Bean Bitters. Her parents had named her partly after a great-great-grandmother named Magritta Bean, whom everybody had just called Gritty. Carly had to be thankful that she hadn’t ended up being named Gritty Bitters.

  Carly was small for her age, which was eleven years old. Her hair was dark and her skin was pale. Strangely, she had never been able to sleep at night. She could only sleep during the day. It was a troublesome affliction, a contrary clock, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

  “She hasn’t got an ailment . . . she’s just an oddity,” Carly had overheard her doctor say once, after none of the pills he had prescribed to make her sleep at night had worked.

  Every night Carly stayed in her room, drinking hot tea and sitting in her chair by the little brick fireplace she felt so lucky to have. She read books, waiting for the sun to rise so that she could finally go to sleep and leave the lonely, wakeful hours behind.

  She also dreamed of a life in the sunlight, outside of her little room that too often felt like a prison, despite its coziness.

  But that was asking too much, she knew.

  She would settle for a friend.

  Every night Carly stayed in her room.

  CARLY WATCHED THE ROOF EVERY night from her window; she wanted to see if whatever had left the squash would come back. But several days passed and the squash began to rot and attract flies. Birds picked at it and took pieces away to eat. And then the rain came and washed what was left of it off the roof.

  Eventually, Carly stopped watching from her window.

  But moonlight and summer breezes always return. And one day, there was a brand-new squash sitting in the exact same spot as the one that had recently rotted.

  That night, Carly kept her window open and sat in a chair beside it, watching the roof again. She was startled when she heard someone ask, “Excuse me, can you play the horn?”

  There on the windowsill was a rat holding a fiddle and a little red horn.

  “You see, I can’t perform with just the squash,” said the rat. “And it would be a great embarrassment to have two vegetables in the band. I really shouldn’t ask you but the owls took poor Fenny last night.”

  Carly didn’t know what to say, since she hadn’t understood what the rat was talking about. “Are you the one who put the squash on the roof?” she finally asked.

  “Of course,” said the rat. “Fenny and I had to have someone to play the drum.”

  “The squash plays the drum?” asked Carly.

  “No, not really,” the rat replied with a sigh.

  A breeze came in through the open window and moved the curtains gently. The light from a full moon cast a blue glow over Carly’s room.

  “It’s such a good night for music,” said the rat. “We really shouldn’t waste it.”

  “MY NAME’S LEWIS,” THE RAT told Carly, and handed the little red horn to her. “And this is Fenny’s horn. You’ll have to learn to play it, of course, but mainly you just blow into it and think sad or happy thoughts.”

  They were standing on the roof and Carly held the horn, which was about as big as her little finger.

  “How did you get the squash onto the roof?” she asked. “It’s bigger than you are.”

  “It’s a simple matter of breezes,” explained Lewis. “We ride the breezes to the rooftops. And a breeze is certainly strong enough to carry a squash. Now remember, sad songs are slower than happy songs.” And with that advice, he began to play a sad song on his fiddle that made Carly think of the moon. She blew into the little red horn and thought sad thoughts and made sad music too. As she played she watched the moon, which was just above the treetops. She was frightened when she saw shadows fly across its face.

  “What were those?” she asked.

  Lewis stopped playing.

  “It’s the ow
ls,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like they’re heading for our rooftop. We should be safe tonight.”

  “Why did they take your friend Fenny?”

  “To eat him, I suppose. And before that they took Walter. That’s why Fenny and I had to bring the squash here. A band has to have three members, you know. No more and no less. One for the fiddle, one for the horn, and one for the drum.”

  “But the squash can’t play the drum,” said Carly.

  “Oh, I know that,” said Lewis. “But he could always learn to play, couldn’t he? If he would just practice, I mean. He has at least a week before he begins to rot.”

  SEVERAL NIGHTS PASSED AND LEWIS visited Carly on each one. He was a wonderful fiddler, and Carly loved listening to his music and learning to play the horn along with him. After so many years of sitting alone in her room, it felt as if a new world had appeared, right outside her window.

  But it was a world of danger, too.

  “That horn is very old,” Lewis said on the fourth night. “Please be careful with it.”

  Carly picked up the little red horn. She had been startled by shadows flying near the house and had dropped it on the roof. “Why don’t we play in my room?” she asked as she looked around nervously. “We’d be much safer there.”

  Lewis looked at Carly as if she had said something ridiculous. “We always play outside in the moonlight.”

  “Well, maybe we could play on the ground then. There are more places to hide from the owls down there.”

  “We always play up high,” said Lewis.

  “But that doesn’t make sense!” said Carly. “Why do you make it so easy for the owls to get you?”

  Lewis plucked the strings of his fiddle and stared at the empty roof next to theirs. “The owls never bothered us before,” he finally said. “I should think they’ll start dancing again soon.”

  “Dancing?” said Carly in surprise.

  “Well, it’s more like they hop from foot to foot and flap their wings. But I don’t know what you’d call it if not dancing.”

  “They used to dance when you played music?”

  “Of course. They would listen from the trees and dance on the branches. It’s always been that way and I’m sure it will be that way again. But they won’t start dancing if we don’t play any music. Shall we play another song?”

  Carly sighed. She had learned that there was little point talking to Lewis when he was ready to play music. They were about to begin when a large shadow flew over them and headed toward the trees just outside Carly’s yard. While they watched, it turned and flew back toward them, slowly at first but then with increasing speed.

  “Keep playing!” yelled Lewis as he began to fiddle faster.

  But Carly was too scared to play the little horn. She turned to jump back through her window. As she did, something sharp grabbed her shoulders and lifted her off the rooftop.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BREEZA MEEZY

  WHEN CARLY OPENED HER EYES, she was floating on her back in a pond. She could see the dark sky and bright stars above her.

  She didn’t remember fainting, but she knew she must have, because she didn’t remember anything between being lifted off the rooftop and waking up in the pond.

  She felt calm, and perhaps that was because the water was warm and comforting. Her ears were underwater too, which made everything peaceful and quiet.

  A breeze began to blow, and Lewis came flying out of the night with his fiddle and the little red horn. He landed gently on Carly’s stomach.

  “We should get out of the water and start walking,” he said. “If we get back before daylight, we might have time to play a few more songs.”

  When they were out of the pond and walking home through the woods, Carly put the little red horn in a pocket on the front of her wet nightgown. She noticed that Lewis was tapping trees with his fiddle bow every now and then.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked.

  “To make sure we’re not dreaming.”

  Carly waited a few moments but Lewis did not explain further. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Lewis stopped walking and looked up at her. “If the tree trunks shimmer when you tap them, it means you’re dreaming.”

  “If they shimmer? Like how?”

  “Like the surface of a pond when you drop a pebble in it,” said Lewis. “Shimmer trees exist only in dreams, you see. At least that’s what the old rats say.” He started walking again and Carly followed. “I guess you were too heavy for that owl. He kept flying lower and lower until your feet were dragging in the water and then he just dropped you in. I bet he had never tried to carry a child before—even one as small as you.”

  A breeze began to blow and Carly felt a chill go through her. She had always watched the woods from her window at night but had never gone into them.

  “Could you play something on your fiddle?” Carly asked. She thought Lewis’s music would make their walk through the dark woods less scary.

  “Of course not,” he said. “A band has to have three members. One for the fiddle, one for the horn, and one for the drum.”

  “You can’t play a song by yourself?”

  Lewis didn’t respond at first. “I never thought to try,” he finally said, and stopped walking. He cautiously put his fiddle under his chin and raised his bow to the strings. He played a few notes and then stopped and looked around as if waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he played a few more. And when he finally realized that playing by himself was something he could really do, he relaxed, and beganwalking again, continuing to play as they made their way home.

  Lewis continued to play as they made their way home.

  After Lewis had played several songs, Carly took the little red horn out of her pocket and lifted it to her lips like a small flute. She could already play it quite well. She had inherited a talent for music from her father.

  Anyone who heard them as they walked through the woods that night would have thought a small parade was passing by.

  CARLY’S FATHER WAS A TRAVELING musician who had died when a tornado struck the theater where he was performing. Her mother had died two years later after a sudden illness. The main thing Carly remembered about her father was his music, which had been beautiful. The main thing she remembered about her mother was her gentleness and how hard she had tried to stay awake every night to be with Carly, even when she could barely keep her own eyes open. Even after she got sick. She had wanted to protect her dearly loved daughter, her night child, from loneliness.

  An orphan at five years old, Carly had been sent to live with her aunt, her mother’s much older sister, because there weren’t any other living relatives. The aunt was a grim woman who provided Carly with food and a room, but not much else. And she never stayed up with her. She was too tired from the long hours she spent working in the town’s rundown doll factory, painting face after face on an endless procession of round little heads. She fell asleep every day almost as soon as she got home.

  In many ways, it was as if Carly had been living alone for the past six years.

  But really, she wasn’t alone anymore. She saw Lewis every night. And on the night after the owl dropped her in the pond, Lewis asked her to meet him in the woods.

  Carly had agreed—it seemed safer than playing music on her roof—and she was now trying to follow the directions he’d given her. He’d told her to walk along the creek behind her house until she came to the old whistle root tree. The problem was that there were lots of whistle root trees along the creek, and they were all old, and Carly didn’t know which one Lewis had been talking about.

  In fact, there weren’t any young whistle root trees. At least, no one in the town of Whistle Root had ever seen one. And if anybody would have seen them, it would have been the townspeople, because the trees didn’t grow anywhere else. The whistle root trees were so unique that the town had been named after them.

  What made whistle root trees unique? Their whistle roots�
��little hollow roots about the size of fingers that stuck up out of the ground and had an opening in the tip to collect rain. You could snap a whistle root off at its base and blow through the raindrop-collecting end, and make a whistle so loud that your ears would ring for several minutes afterward.

  And the whistle root leaves weren’t flat like the leaves of other trees. They hung down from the branches like upside-down ice cream cones, hollow on the inside and pointy on top. They were dark and green and when breezes blew, they swung back and forth like a million little bells ringing silently.

  There were younger trees like oaks, sweetgums, and hackberries, but the whistle root trees were the old giants and they dominated the woods.

  Carly stood by the tallest whistle root tree with the thickest trunk she could find, thinking it had to be one of the oldest. She called Lewis’s name several times into the darkness. There was no answer. She turned slowly in a circle and searched the woods with her flashlight, but saw only trees and the creek and shadows.

  An owl hooted nearby and Carly suddenly wanted to run home to the safety of her room. But the thought of her empty chair waiting for her made her feel so sad that she stopped, bent down and snapped off a whistle root, and began to blow instead.

  She let the whistle rise until it was very loud. It had been so quiet that the whistle root’s whistle sounded like a siren warning the woods of danger. The sound seemed to move in all directions, and echoed through the trees after she had stopped blowing.

  Carly waited to see what would happen. Soon she heard a familiar voice floating through the air say, “I thought that had to be you.”