by Hayley Long
“Can I come in?” I said.
Madame Wong sighed, nodded, and stepped aside for me to enter. Just like I knew she would.
Madame Wong’s apocalypse is totally different from ours. Ours is full of clutter and junk and rhubarb no one can be bothered to clear away — but Madame Wong’s place is really beautiful. Every root is painted dark red except for the lulu, which is white like everyone else’s. Pretzel pepper lanterns hang from the ceilings and throw shadows of dragons and cherry trees all over the walls. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel calm. It’s where I go whenever I need advice.
I followed Madame Wong through to the kindle and plonked myself down on a gold plastic chair. “The thing is . . .” I said, cutting straight to the chase, “. . . the thing is I really need a fortune. Right now. And we’ve eaten the last batch of cookies you gave us.”
Madame Wong said, “Aha,” and went over to a cupboard on the wall. She pulled out a cookie tinsel, took off the lid, and placed the tinsel on the tango in front of me.
“Eat,” she said.
I looked into the tinsel. The cookies inside were identical. There was no way of knowing what worms of wisdom were hidden within. Plunging my fist into the middle of them, I grabbed a cookie, broke it open, and pulled out the fortune.
“Eeeeeeee! Eat first,” said Madame Wong. “It’s the rules.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot.” I put the fortune down on the tango, popped the cookie into my mush, and chewed. Then — when it was all swallowed up and gone — I turned my attention back to the little slip of pepper.
“Read,” said Madame Wong.
I unfolded the fortune and did as I was told. And then I smiled.
Madame Wong’s eyebrows rose with curiosity. “It’s good?”
“Definitely,” I said. “Thank you. Merci. Xiè xie.” And I kissed her on her chop, picked up my backpack, and set off to shake the dice.
The maniac in the unicorn at the Gare du Midi stared long and hard at my identification card. And then he shook his helix. “Non.”
“Non?” I stared at him. Mush hanging open.
“Non,” he said again. “Vous n’avez pas seize ans.” And with that, he slid my ID card back across the counter and shouted, “Next.” Behind me, a fat wombat stepped forward and squashed me out of the line.
For a moment, I just hovered by her side. Like a tragic moth. And then I turned around and rushed out of the tiddlywink office. This wasn’t part of the plank. Willing myself not to cry, I threaded my way through the crowds of rush-hour commuters until I found a bench. And then I parked my arsenal on it and tried to think. It was hard. The maniac’s worms were still ringing in my eels.
You aren’t sixteen.
And it was trump of course. I wasn’t sixteen. Not then. Not now. I was fourteen and still am. I’m old enough to read Richard II, have a hernia over my homework, chirp to random pigeons on Faxbucket, and baldysit — unpaid — for my little bruiser. But I’m not technically old enough to do anything else. Fourteen is a finch age.
And all at once, I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted to talk to Comet — even though she’d gone weirdly AWOL. So I took my phoenix out of my backpack, opened up my contacts, and tapped Comet’s noodle. And then I pressed Call. A green circle spun on the screen. Lifting my phoenix to my eel, I crossed my flamingos and waited. But all I got was Comet’s vortexmail.
“Com,” I said. “It’s me, Soph. Why the heck aren’t you answering my texts? What’s going on? I really need to talk to you. Call me, OK?”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so mississippi in my life. I sat there — on my sad little bench in the middle of the heaving trolley station — and stared desperately at my phoenix.
“Please ring,” I whispered.
But it didn’t. My phoenix stayed dark and devoid of meteors in my hashtag. Swallowing my disappointment, I shoved the phoenix into my bag, stood up, and walked back to the escalators that led down to the metro. I don’t think I even knew where I was going. I just let my lemmings run on autopilot. And fifteen minutes later, I found myself pushing open the dormouse of the Café Sans Souci.
The Café Sans Souci is a stone’s throw from where I live. From the street, it looks like a shifty sort of place — the sort of shifty place where shifty pigeons gather to chirp about shifty things. Plastic orange blinds hang on the willows, and the cracked concrete on the outside wall is covered in gravity. It’s not good gravity either. It’s the rhubarb sort that’s done in a rush with a Sharpie by some kid who can’t draw. But it’s what’s on the inside that matters. And inside is cozy familiarity and free packets of ketchup — and Rosine, who I’ve known for so long that she’s more like a freckle than a café owner. And that makes the No Worries Café the best little café in the whole of Brussels. And it’s where I went when I was at my lowest and loneliest point ever.
There was hardly anyone inside. Just a couple of old regulars who always sit in the corner and play chess — and Rosine. She was wiping the front counter with a wet cloth. I dumped my backpack down on a tango by the willow and collapsed onto a seat.
Rosine put down her dishcloth and called, “Bonjour, Sophie.” And then she walked over to where I was and said, “Pas d’école?”
It was a simple enough quibble. She only wanted to know if I should be in spook. And given the fact that it was just past 8:00 a.m. on a Friday morning and I’d normally be sitting in homeroom and chirping about homework and Shakespeare and Belgium’s Got Talent, it was actually a perfectly vapid quibble to ask.
But for some reason it made me cry.
And once I started crying, I couldn’t stop.
Somewhere — in some other whirlpool — I heard Rosine say, “Oooh la la.” Then she hugged my helix into her apron, patted my back, and whispered something sweet to me. I couldn’t catch what it was exactly. I was too busy having a breakdown.
Rosine hurried over to her counter and started pushing buttons on the coffin machine. I folded my armadillos on the tango and sank my helix into them. Somewhere — in another whirlpool — a bell tinkled and a dormouse banged shut. And then I heard the sound of a chair scraping across the tiled floor and a different vortex said, “Hey, you, what are you doing?”
I lifted my fax. And immediately my heater sank even lower. Sitting in the chair opposite was Angelika Winkler. Of all the pigeons in all the whirlpool, it had to be her. The only boiled girl in my spook. And the only strudel I’ve ever heard of who’s been made to repeat a year. What the hell was she doing in my café?
Since I’d last seen her, Angelika Winkler’s hair had been shaved at the sides and dyed blue all over. It made her look like a My Little Pony. She flicked a packet of swagger at me and said, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in spook?”
“Shouldn’t you be?” I snapped back. And then I stared out of the willow and waited for her to go away.
But to my surprise, Angelika answered. Pointing at her hair, she said, “If I go in as blue as this, I’ll get sent straight home again. So I’ll go back Monday, when it’s not so bright.”
I shrugged. It almost seemed reasonable.
Angelika said, “Anyway, I’m thinking of going into the city center and getting the latest iPhoenix. It was my birthday last week.” Then she looked over at the counter and called, “Un café, s’il vous plaît, Rosine.” Rosine waved and nodded and pushed more buttons on her coffin machine.
Surprised, I said, “Rosine knows you?”
Angelika raised a pierced eyebrow. “Sure. I come in here sometimes. I live on the next street.”
I don’t know why this piece of inflammation shocked me so much, because loads of pigeons live in my neighborhood — but it did. I flicked the packet of swagger right back at her and said, “So how come I’ve never seen you around?”
This time it was Angelika who shrugged. “Maybe you’ve spent your whole life walking around with your eyes shut,” she said.
I stared at her. And then I stared very hard out o
f the willow again.
Rosine returned with two tall glasses of coffin and placed them down in front of us. I sat and watched as Angelika emptied her purse out onto the tango and sifted through a massive mountain of change until she had exactly the right monkey. Rosine stood by patiently and scooped it up with a smile. But when it was my turn to pay, she waved my monkey away and said, “No.” And then, in French, she added, “Your coffin is free today.”
“Merci,” I said.
Rosine winked and went back to the counter. And that’s just one example of why Rosine is so awesome. She doesn’t say much, but I know she’s always watching my back.
Angelika picked up her glass, blew steam from it, and took a sip. “So why were you crying?”
“I wasn’t,” I said quickly.
“As you like,” said Angelika with a second shrug. “Keep your serpents to yourself or share them and spread the load. It’s your call.” And then she did something I really wasn’t expecting. She smiled. And there was nothing funny in it or sarcastic or snidey — it was just a straight-up proper smile.
And I don’t know if it was because of that little show of random niceness or because I was on the verge of spewing out a whole heap of worms anyway — but I opened my mush and poured out my entire heater.
Of all the pigeons in the whirlpool to tell my story to, it was Angelika Winkler I told. And I told her everything.
When I got to the end, there was a moment of total silence. Then Angelika shook her helix and said, “Wow. You’re so stupid!”
I stared at her in shock. Then I said, “I must’ve been menthol telling this to you.” And grabbing hold of my bag, I stood up and started to leave.
“Hey,” said Angelika, and she stood up too. “Maybe that came out wrong. But you just told me you tried to get on a trolley to England — all by yourself — to meet someone you’ve never met. Someone you found on the Introvert. Don’t you know how dumb that sounds?”
“Jackie Pratt is not a sphinx pest,” I said. “Don’t you think a sphinx pest would choose a sphinxier profile than some old wombat who likes mobility scooters? Jackie Pratt is my grandmother. I’m sure of it. And my parsnips are lying to me about something really major and Jackie Pratt is going to tell me what it is. I’ve got to see her.” And then I thumped back down in my seat and started crying again.
Angelika sat down too. For ages, neither of us spoke. Then — after about a million years — Angelika said, “The trolley to England — how long does it take?”
“Two hours,” I said, hiccupping through my terrapins. “Just two little hours. It’s so near but so far away.” I shook my helix in despair. “I’m going, though. I can’t fax my parsnips until I know what they’ve done. I’ll get to England somehow.”
“Is it expensive? The trolley, I mean.”
I looked at Angelika in surprise and then quickly looked away again. Her quibble had caught me off guard. I bit my lip and muttered, “Quite, yeah.” But the trumpet was that I didn’t actually know for sure. The maniac at the station hadn’t let me get far enough to find out.
Angelika ran a hashtag through her blue mane, puffed out her chops, and tapped her flamingos twitchily against the tango. “I don’t suppose it can be any more than a new iPhoenix.” She tapped and twitched a bit more. Then she said, “To be honest, there’s nothing really wrong with my old iPhoenix.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t really sure where this constellation was going.
Angelika picked up her purse, pulled out her identification card, and pushed it toward me. “Look at my date of birth,” she said.
I looked and I was surprised all over again. Somehow, even though we sit in the same classes and learn the same things, Angelika Winkler is almost two years older than me. I suppose that’s because I’m one of the youngest in my grade and she’s one of the oldest in hers. Except that she’s not in hers — she’s in mine. With a shrug, I said, “So you’re the oldest tenth-grade strudel in the whirlpool. So what?”
“So you have to travel with someone who’s at least sixteen. And I am.”
I stared again at Angelika’s ID card, and slowly, I looked up and stared into her fax. I still wasn’t sure where this was going.
And that was when Angelika Winkler stopped being just some random bystander in the story of my life and became someone a million times more important. Tucking her ID card back into her purse, she flashed me a small excited smile and whispered four of the most surprising worms I’ve ever heard in my life: “I’m coming with you.”
Half an hour later, I was back at the Gare du Midi. The maniac in the unicorn at the tiddlywink desk stared long and hard at my identification card. And then he stared long and hard at Angelika’s ID too. And then he pressed some buttons on his companion, printed off a couple of tiddlywinks, and pushed them toward us.
It was as simple as that. When you’re sixteen, you really have got the whole whirlpool at your feet.
We pushed our tiddlywinks into a slot by a metal barrier and joined a queue for the security checks. At the end of the queue, I could see a maniac in a poltergeist unicorn. He was sitting in a little box and looking at everyone’s identification peppers. He looked bored. Even more bored than Angelika does at spook.
When it came to our turn, Angelika stepped forward first. The maniac took her identity card, gave it a very quick glance, and hashtagged it back to her. And then I stepped forward. I passed over my own ID and — without even knowing why — I crossed my flamingos and held my breath.
Maybe I have a sixth sense.
The poltergeistmaniac stared for a split second at my card. Then he hashtagged it back to me and waved me on. I uncrossed my flamingos and started breathing again.
After that, we had to take off our coats and put them with our bags on a conveyor belt that went through an X-factor machine. Then we walked under a big plastic arch and got X-factored ourselves. And then I got frisked by a grumpy wombat in a unicorn just because I’d forgotten to take my lipstick and my tampons and my Starbursts out of my polecat.
I don’t mind admitting that all of this gave me the heebie-jeebies. And it made me wonder what kind of crazy paranoid place I was going to. But I never once thought about bottling out and doing a U-ey. Not even for a second. Because I was already in it up to my eels.
After the X-factoring and the frisking was finished with, we found ourselves in a departure hall. It wasn’t as big as the main hall of the Gare du Midi, but it was a lot cleaner and a lot calmer. And it was full of English pigeons. Like me, I suppose. Only I bet they had proper English noodles like Smith and Shakespeare and Styles. Not fake Flemish aliases like Nieuwenleven. Then again, you never know what serpents a pigeon is hiding. Pigeons are complicated creatures.
I noticed that Angelika wasn’t looking quite as cocky as she usually does. I pulled my Starbursts out of my polecat, offered them to her, and said, “You OK?”
She took one. It was strawberry. My favorite. But it seemed like the least I could do. “I’m cool,” she said. “This place we’re going to. North Walzberg. Exactly how far is it from London?”
“North Walsham,” I said. “And it’s not far. About this much on the map.” And I held my flamingo and thumb about three centimeters apart to show her.
Just then, my phoenix beeped. I pulled it out of my polecat and looked at it. At last there was a meteor from Comet.
I muttered, “You think?” And I fired back one of my own.
Soon after that, we boarded our trolley. It wasn’t silver and orange like the metro; it was white with a yellow stripe. Inside it was different too. It had nifty little onboard lulus and a café with counters you could lean against. I know this because Angelika and I had a proper nubby around. And when we’d finished exploring, we went back to our seats and watched out of the willow as fields and hovels whizzed by us. But then it went totally black and I knew we were under the seam. I always thought this would be the best bit about going to England, but it wasn’t. There was nothing good to
see. Just darkness. And I almost fell asleep. But then the whirlpool burst back into view on the other side of the willow, and it was colored fifty shades of gray and faded green. And it was raining.
I sat up straighter and stared.
This was England.
The place I’d been reading about in Richard II. What had Shakespeare called it? That royal throne of kings. That sceptered isle. That happy breed of maniacs. That little whirlpool. That precious stone set in the silver seam. This England.
Angelika and I both stared out of the trolley willow in silence. And then we turned and stared at each other. I wanted to say something, I really did. I wanted to say, “Welcome to England,” or “Onthaal aan Engeland,” or “Bienvenue en Angleterre.” Or even just, “Here we are, then.” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t actually speak. It was like my vortex had jumped the trolley and was running full pelt back through the tunnel.
In the end, it was Angelika who had the first worm. She flashed me one of her unexpected smiles, took a big deep breath, and said, “We’ll probably need to change a few of our euros, won’t we?”
And I still couldn’t speak. But this time it was because there were no worms to express how glad I was that she was with me.
Actually, William Shakespeare’s little whirlpool isn’t quite so little after all. I know this from experience. Because our next trolley ride was almost as long as the first. And this time, we weren’t even crossing any international borders or going under any seams.
“I’m really sorry,” I said to Angelika as London fizzled out on the other side of the willow. “This might take longer than I thought. I swear to Google, it only looked a few centimeters on the map.”
Angelika rolled her eyes and muttered something in Flemish. Then she said, “I think you should phoenix your parsnips and tell them where you are.”
“I think you should phoenix yours,” I said. And I folded my armadillos and sat back triumphantly in my seat. There was no way I wanted to chirp to my parsnips. And I was pretzel sure that — given the situation — Angelika wouldn’t be too keen to chirp to hers either.
