Whimsy and Woe

by Rebecca McRitchie

  DEDICATION

  To everyone who encouraged me to keep going

  — Rebecca McRitchie

  For Chris

  — Sonia Kretschmar

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  1. In which a brother and sister encounter an unforeseen calamity

  2. In which the Idle Slug becomes their perilous home

  3. In which a very large woman makes a very large mess

  4. In which a cross Mrs Solt crosses the line

  5. In which a dubious soup is brewed

  6. In which the post proves problematic

  7. In which Whimsy runs into trouble

  8. In which an expected guest arrives

  9. In which a clean chimney causes a commotion

  10. In which Mr Ignatius Solt makes an awful proposal

  11. In which Apoline is upstaged by wet weather gear

  12. In which the destruction of property reveals more

  13. In which a villain is caught red-handed

  14. In which a plan is cooked

  15. In which a Recipe for Disaster is served

  16. In which pie flies sky high

  17. In which a messy escape is made messier

  18. In which what goes up must come down

  19. In which Whimsy and Woe meet the town of Boole

  20. In which Elanora Blackwood makes their acquaintance

  21. In which Whimsy and Woe stumble upon their first clue

  22. In which a town meeting takes a terrible turn

  23. In which a town tries to stop them from boarding a train

  24. In which train travel becomes tricky

  25. In which The Runaway Seamstress saves the day

  26. In which the siblings meet an old friend

  27. In which hunger hits Whimsy and Woe hard

  28. In which they prepare to part with something precious

  29. In which a small simple trade turns sour

  30. In which Whimsy and Woe parley with a pirate

  31. In which a whistle brings wings

  32. In which they notice a noticeboard

  33. In which Whimsy and Woe make a surprising discovery

  34. In which Whimsy and Woe meet ‘Pierre Von Tyne’

  35. In which they pry into the Purple Puppeteer’s past

  36. In which Whimsy and Woe are really, really wanted

  37. In which Whimsy and Woe traverse the sea

  38. In which Whimsy and Woe hold onto their dancin’ shoes

  39. In which The Sinker III starts sinking

  40. In which they steer through a stormy sea

  41. In which Jeremiah takes them Anywhere

  42. In which Whimsy and Woe are swamped

  43. In which they explore a swamp sludge factory

  44. In which Whimsy and Woe encounter the Astors

  45. In which there is something strange about the Swamp Master

  46. In which Whimsy discovers the beauty of sludge

  47. In which Woe feels fear in the fields

  48. In which Whimsy and Woe are so very surprised

  49. In which Whimsy and Woe are wrongfully accused

  50. In which a stranger isn’t so strange

  51. In which another messy escape is made messier

  52. In which Whimsy and Woe say so long to Anywhere Swamp

  53. In which a Lottle leaf does a lot

  54. In which they are not alone in the woods

  55. In which the woods are a big bad place

  56. In which what they’ve been looking for finds them

  57. In which they run for their lives

  58. In which Whimsy and Woe finally go home

  59. In which they have nothing left but memories

  60. In which there is a family gathering

  61. In which Apoline circles

  62. In which escaping requires extreme heights

  63. In which Apoline is thoroughly thwarted

  64. In which they journey towards a pair of very large gates

  65. In which they race against the clock

  66. In which a different three attend the Favian Festival

  67. In which they attempt to detect a detective

  68. In which they try their luck for free meals

  69. In which they win fair and square

  70. In which Whimsy and Woe return to the Broken Leg Theatre

  71. In which the thespian competition begins

  72. In which something smells fishy

  73. In which the theatre burns

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  1

  In which a brother and sister encounter an unforeseen calamity

  It is often said that when hope is set aside, it makes the heart sick. For instance, when parents suddenly abandon their children to the care of a horrid aunt without leaving so much as a sympathetic note, the hope that they will someday return to say that it was all just a dreadful misunderstanding is a hope that, given time, dissolves into despair.

  This was sadly the case for brother and sister, Whimsy and Woe Mordaunt. It all began three years ago, during what was supposed to be a pleasant family game of hide-and-seek. The siblings, nine and seven at the time, were nestled in their perfect hiding places — Whimsy in the cupboard above the sink, and Woe beneath a pile of neatly folded costumes behind an overstuffed chair in the lounge room.

  Woe couldn’t help but smile gleefully as he peeked out from beneath the clothes, scanning the floor for his father’s shoes or his mother’s stocking-covered feet. Whimsy had chosen her spot because she knew her father would eventually come into the kitchen, looking to polish off their mother’s gooseberry tart from the night before. Minutes passed and the siblings waited quietly and patiently for their parents to find them. But when the pendulum clock reached its fifth chime, Whimsy and Woe crawled out from their hiding places to find the house empty. They searched everywhere, calling for their parents. But they were gone, almost as though they were never there at all.

  It took two days for the authorities to locate and inform the siblings’ aunt that she was to look after them until their parents returned from what was ‘probably a spontaneous visit to the grocery store’.

  ‘But our parents would have told us if they were going to the grocery store,’ nine-year-old Whimsy had piped up.

  ‘Not if they were being spontaneous,’ replied one of the policemen. He was taller than the rest and peered down at the children through a monocle squeezed in front of his right eye. His pencil-thin moustache sat neatly above his top lip and he carried a small, blue notebook. ‘Spontaneous means unpredictable. Are your parents unpredictable?’ Before seven-year-old Woe could say that both he and his sister were well aware what the word spontaneous meant, and that their parents were not so spontaneous that they would abandon their children during their weekly game of hide-and-seek, a loud, nasally ‘Yes!’ erupted behind them. Their aunt, Apoline Mordaunt, had sauntered into the foyer. Pushing aside the policemen in her path, she made her way towards the siblings, her black-laced boots clinking against the tiled floor. Although she was not yet old, her hair was pure white. Their father had told them that it was once a beautiful shade of gold. It now matched her alabaster skin and drew attention to a hook nose and a small, sharp chin. A constant look of annoyance dulled her green eyes, eyes that reminded them of their father.

  ‘Their parents are incredibly unpredictable, Officer,’ Apoline said to the monocled policeman. ‘They are thespians, you see.’ She whispered the word ‘thespians’ as though it would in some way cause physical harm to anyone within earshot. ‘You never know who they are from one day to the next.’ Her hands came to rest on the children’s shoulders. ‘Caring, doting par
ents on a Monday, swashbuckling pirates on a Wednesday . . . child abandoners on a Friday.’ Her long, black-painted nails dug painfully into the siblings’ skin as she gave their shoulders a squeeze.

  ‘Thespians, eh?’ the officer said with interest. He took a pen from his top pocket, opened his blue notebook and scribbled the word down. And then he underlined it. Twice.

  ‘Thespians are known to socialise in groups. A few years ago, I had the misfortune of witnessing such an odious occasion. If I had known what my brother and his wife were plotting, I would have rescued the children then and there,’ Apoline said gravely.

  ‘She attacked our parents,’ Whimsy informed the monocled officer.

  ‘Don’t be silly. That was just a simple misunderstanding,’ Apoline replied, her fingernails digging deeper into their shoulders.

  ‘Our mother said she is as unstable as a two-legged chair,’ Woe put forth. Their mother did say that. Countless times.

  Their aunt let out a loud, uncomfortable laugh. ‘Thespians are unbelievably dramatic, aren’t they?’

  The monocled officer merely grunted before moving off to talk to a man carrying a wooden walking cane. Their aunt came around to stand in front of them. ‘My dear, sweet, nephew and niece,’ she said as she straightened their collars roughly, ‘you will be staying with me until Alastair and your wretched mother get bored of whatever thespian game they are playing. It just so happens that the Idle Slug has room for two more.’ Her teeth bared in a smile that was closer to a snarl. And for the first time in their lives, Whimsy and Woe felt entirely alone.

  2

  In which the Idle Slug becomes their perilous home

  With each year that went by, the hope that their parents would suddenly spring from behind a fern or a lamp shouting, ‘I found you!’ was gradually set aside and forgotten. Armed with only a few clothes, a pocket watch and a locket, the Mordaunt siblings said goodbye to their home and hello to a life left entirely to the austere devices of their aunt. Now twelve and ten years old, Whimsy and Woe had settled unhappily into their new life at their aunt’s home for the property-impaired, the Idle Slug.

  Positioned by itself on the other side of Ewe Bridge from a small village somewhat grandly called Murkwood Town, the Idle Slug loomed large and monstrous. Not many knew exactly how large or how monstrous the Idle Slug truly was because it was on the muddied banks of Murky Lake. The lake produced a soupy mist so thick and dense that it hid half the bridge above it and everything beyond — the only thing beyond the bridge for miles being the Idle Slug. Its dark, rounded windows, large, steep roof and sharp, pointed turrets were so obscured by the mist that not even the tallest of well-meaning folk could see the top of the lofty mansion.

  The Idle Slug

  In its prime, the grand Idle Slug was once capable of holding as many as sixteen guests. However, the building had fallen into such disrepair in the hands of their aunt that many of the rooms and floors had become grossly unliveable. When they first arrived, their aunt had forgotten to mention this large fact and it was only after Whimsy fell through the floorboards of the third storey and landed in a chair on the first storey that the siblings decided to block off entire parts of the building with some fraying red yarn they’d found in the basement.

  Luckily, their guests didn’t mind living amongst the pitfalls and the hanging live wires of a dilapidated house. As a boarding house for the property impaired, the Idle Slug housed those who believed that, for one reason or another, they ought not to have their own house and despised living near anyone who did. Be it through sheer laziness, a hatred of empty rooms, an irrational fear of the postman, an inability to commit to housework or the need to start a political movement, the Idle Slug patrons were happy to be obscured by mist and without neighbours in a house that was falling apart, as long as their wants and needs were seen to every hour of every day.

  Thus for Whimsy and Woe Mordaunt, life at the Idle Slug was anything but idle. From the moment they arrived outside the large, slug-shaped gates of their aunt’s gloomy establishment, they were put to work. The pair didn’t even have time to unpack their trunks or ask where that determined mist was coming from before Aunt Apoline ordered them to smartly sharpen the thorns of every plant in the poisonous plant garden. As you might guess, this was a perilous task and one that, according to Aunt Apoline, needed to be carried out at least once a month. Even after three years of practice, the siblings dreaded this task the most. One of them nearly always walked away with a ghastly gash, a spotty rash, or once, a pair of bite marks from a particularly carnivorous tulip.

  ‘Pick on something your own size,’ Whimsy had said as she fought off the towering tulip. The large pink flower bent down again, trying to take a chunk out of her arm before Woe quickly stuck one of his gardening gloves between its razor-sharp petals. It hungrily munched on the glove until there was nothing left of it. And then it burped. Twice.

  Other perilous tasks included cleaning the aviary, retiling the mansion roof and listening to patrons sing off-key renditions of ‘Fish Are Friends Too’, an aria made famous by the legendary Magnus Montgomery. In fact, almost every task the siblings carried out was in some way perilous. They only found peace from the never-ending onslaught of demands when they were in their room, high up in the attic.

  They had become accustomed to the sharply pointed and dangerously low-lying roof, the thoroughly worn, loose floorboards, the solitary round window that opened only enough to fit a hand through, the two small and uncomfortable cots that sometimes buckled under the pressure of their weight while they slept, the often damp yellow-and-grey-patterned wallpaper that lined the far wall, and even the odd mouse that surfaced, resurfaced and occasionally brought friends. They didn’t have much: a few necessary belongings and a collection of mundane trinkets they had acquired over the years from guests who had moved on and left things behind. These were things that no longer deserved people’s attention: a broken hair clip, a bronze waistcoat button, a partially full bottle of Dr Bondig’s Bilious Balm, an empty hat-pin box, a worn cookbook — Reliable Recipes for the Culinarily Challenged by Aster Wertog — one lace glove, a scuffed bowler hat, a handful of matchsticks and a mother-of-pearl nail file. The siblings made use of the items the only way they knew how, with their theatrical imaginations.

  ‘And may I say, the weather here is splendid today,’ Woe said, wearing the bowler hat, the lace glove and holding the broken hair clip against his top lip like a moustache. He played the part of a gentleman on his way to visit his long-lost children. His chest puffed out, he walked on his toes around their attic room, looking up at the ceiling like it was the sky.

  Whimsy, wrapped in a sheet from her bed, played the part of a witch who liked to rob gentlemen who had long-lost children. She held the bronze button over one eye and grasped the mother-of-pearl nail file in her hand. Jumping in front of her brother, she cackled.

  ‘Stick ’em up, sir,’ Whimsy-the-witch said.

  ‘Stick what up?’ Woe-the-gentleman replied, confused.

  ‘’Em!’

  ‘Stick ’em up, sir!’

  When they weren’t in use, the items were arranged delicately around the room to bring a sense of homeliness to their shabby lodgings. And it was here, on the morning of their parents’ wedding anniversary, that Whimsy and Woe Mordaunt woke to the high-pitched and persistent ringing of three bells.

  3

  In which a very large woman makes a very large mess

  ‘Mrs Solt, Mr Abernathy and Miss Ballentine,’ Woe said, reeling off the guest names that belonged to each bell. With only three guests in the last six months, the siblings had been unusually lucky. They had, in the past, dealt with as many as eight guests at one time.

  ‘It’s their anniversary today,’ Whimsy said, holding their mother’s locket that hung around her neck. The locket was gold and the rounded front was etched with the Mordaunt ‘M’ monogram. Inside was a pair of photographs, one of their mother and one of their father. Whimsy opened it, allowing he
rself to stare at their smiling faces. She wondered what they had been doing. Had they been on the stage? Had their father sung his final piece in a musical about haunted soup? Had their mother successfully played the part of a tap-dancing skeleton? And most of all, had they been thinking about them?

  Woe took out their father’s pocket watch. It, too, was gold and etched with the Mordaunt ‘M’ monogram. Clicking it open, he watched as the second hand ticked around the clock’s white face. It was half-past seven. The sun had already risen. As Woe watched the pocket watch tick away, a memory of when his father first taught him how to read it entered his mind, and then, quickly, he closed the watch, closing the memory with it.

  They had been given the locket and pocket watch after their parents’ stage production of It’s a Jolly Day for Giants at the Broken Leg Theatre. Their father and mother had the lead roles as two giants who discovered that pie was a perfectly reasonable substitute for human flesh. They had received a standing ovation for their performance and rave reviews in The Thespian Times — ‘Odette and Alastair Mordaunt bring tears to audiences’ eyes with well-timed grunts that explore the everlasting beauty of pie.’

  A bell rang with annoyance, jolting the siblings out of their reverie. Whimsy tucked her locket back underneath her dress blouse, her parents’ smiling faces slowly fading from her mind, and Woe placed his watch into his waistcoat pocket, hooking the chain to the last button.

  ‘They must have known,’ Woe said under his breath as he rose to put on his uniform coat.

  ‘Known?’

  ‘That this would be our life. That Apoline . . .’ he stopped himself and ran a hand sharply through his dark brown hair.

  Unlike Whimsy, Woe found it harder to forgive their parents. ‘Perhaps they were offered once-in-a-lifetime parts in a far-off place and couldn’t take their children?’ Whimsy would reason. ‘Perhaps they were researching characters that were abandoners?’ They had spent countless nights trying to understand their parents’ motives for leaving them, but these nights always resulted in anger and tears. When Woe had finally suggested that perhaps their parents had simply been acting the whole time, pretending to love them, Whimsy suggested that they put an end to any more guesswork.