Whimsy and Woe

by Rebecca McRitchie

  ‘It smells like the bog nettle we put in the pies at the Idle Slug,’ Whimsy said scrunching up her nose. ‘But worse.’

  The path they were following split into two and the siblings stopped.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Woe, trying to see as far into the swamp as he could. The trees had doubled in size and the swamp had turned greener.

  Whimsy looked to the path on their right and then to the one on their left.

  ‘Right?’ she guessed.

  After taking the path to their right, they came to a few more cabins. These ones had blue roofs. There was still no-one in sight. Following the path, it soon split into three and the siblings were faced with another choice. They chose the path on their right again. It wound around the swamp, before splitting into four.

  ‘I think this is why they call it Anywhere Swamp,’ said Woe.

  They chose again, and soon after choosing, the path then split into five and then six until each path had paths going every which way like a rabbit warren. The next path they chose eventually took them to more cabins. Cabins with red roofs.

  ‘I think we’re going round in circles,’ said Whimsy, frustrated. And she was right. They had indeed been travelling in circles around the dense swamp. Each path they tried always ended up taking them back to the red-roofed cabins or the blue-roofed ones. Once they saw green-roofed cabins, but then the path they chose only led them back to red.

  ‘How is it possible?’ asked Woe looking around and combing a hand through his hair. The swamp was like a maze. Each path seemed to lead in a new direction but finished up at the same place. And everywhere was swamp. Green and brown. There were no distinctive features to remember. Nothing other than the cabins . . .

  ‘So we know it goes brown, red, blue and green,’ he said, thinking back to the order of the cabins. ‘We need to get back to green.’

  They stood on a wooden path that split into six directions.

  ‘We’ve already been left, right, second right and third left,’ said Whimsy pointing to each path and recalling their failed choices. She didn’t want them to make another wrong choice but they hadn’t seen a single person to ask for directions. ‘We can either go second left or third right.’

  ‘Second left,’ said Woe, having a good feeling about his choice.

  Hoping it led them forward, the children took the second left path. It wasn’t long until they saw cabins with green roofs.

  ‘Well done, Woe,’ a pleased Whimsy said to her brother. Her mind had already begun imagining the worst: being stuck in the swamp forever, making endless wrong choices and following endless wrong paths and smelling the seemingly endless bad swamp smell.

  Woe knew that they weren’t out of the swamp woods yet. Green was the furthest they had come but they could easily get back to red or blue or even brown with just one wrong choice.

  ‘Are you lost?’ came a soft voice. Looking to their right, the siblings saw a woman standing outside one of the green-roofed cabins.

  ‘Yes!’ Woe called out relieved. ‘Do you know which way leads into town?’

  ‘I’m heading there now. I’ll give you a lift,’ said the woman. Then she disappeared behind the cabin and came back rowing a small rowboat on the swamp. She steered herself easily over to Whimsy and Woe and they hopped in.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Whimsy, gratefully sitting down in the boat. ‘We had begun to wonder if anybody lived here.’

  The woman laughed. ‘Oh, people live here. They are working in the factory or in the fields. I’m Millie.’

  Millie had a kind face. She had long brown hair and bright brown eyes. She wore a worn dress with many pockets carelessly stitched on.

  Woe caught a glimpse of a stamp on top of her hand as she rowed them along the swamp. And Whimsy couldn’t help but pinch her nose closed with her fingers. The smell was worse in the rowboat.

  ‘You get used to the swamp smell,’ said Millie. ‘Or you wear one of these.’ She stopped her rowing to put her hand in her pocket. Then she pulled out a handful of colourful nose plugs. Whimsy and Woe gratefully took one each and put them on.

  Much better, thought Whimsy, no longer smelling the bad swamp smell. She saw an emblem stitched in black on one of Millie’s dress pockets. It was an A and an S entwined together.

  Woe was amazed at how Millie guided them through the complicated swamp without even looking. Her back was to the front of the rowboat yet instinctively she turned right or left without taking her eyes from them. Soon they came to cabins with yellow roofs.

  ‘Have you lived in the swamp long?’ asked Woe trying to take note of the way they were going in case they needed to come back.

  ‘All my life,’ said Millie.

  As they rowed through the swamp, Whimsy thought she saw a snake move through the water. ‘Are there many creatures in the swamp?’ she asked, looking anxiously around them.

  ‘Oh yes, many. But most of them are not as dangerous as the quickswamp,’ she said seriously.

  ‘Quickswamp?’ Woe asked.

  Millie nodded. ‘Some parts of the swamp are this high,’ she motioned with one hand to just below her shoulder. ‘But some parts are much deeper and they will pull you under if you’re not careful.’

  This place just keeps getting better and better, Woe thought.

  ‘A lot of lives were lost to the swamp,’ Millie said, looking out at the green goop. Her brown eyes appeared troubled. ‘Until they put in the pipes.’ She pointed to one of the trees that shot up and out of the swamp nearby. ‘Some of the trees are hollow. If you get stuck in the quickswamp, pull the first tree branch and it’ll suck you into the hollow tree and take you down to the pipes.’

  ‘Where do the pipes go?’ asked Whimsy.

  ‘Everywhere,’ said Millie.

  Woe didn’t like the sound of quickswamp at all.

  ‘I used to work in the fields,’ Millie continued, ‘but now I work in the factory. Have you two come here to work in the fields?’

  ‘No,’ said Woe, wondering briefly if children worked in the fields. ‘We’re looking for our parents.’

  ‘Has a travelling troupe come to Anywhere Swamp by any chance?’ asked Whimsy.

  Millie continued to row, thinking. ‘Yes, not too long ago. They put on a show for everyone in town.’

  Whimsy’s heart leaped. ‘Was there a couple performing who looked like this?’ She took out her locket, her fingers fumbling with the latch before opening it and showing Millie the picture inside.

  ‘I’m afraid workers weren’t allowed to see it,’ she said shaking her head. ‘I heard it was magnificent.’

  Magnificent? The siblings looked at each other. The Blackwoods said the production they saw was terrible. Was it the same troupe?

  Then ahead of them, many large white houses came into view. They sat comfortably on carefully tended lawns that rose like perfect hills from out of the swamp. Whimsy thought they looked distinctly out of place amidst the filthy and smelly swamp. The houses surrounded a square and wooden paths led in all directions around the small town. At the edge of the town, a large bronze statue commanded attention.

  The statue was of a well-dressed man looking up to the sky, his hands outstretched at either side, as though he was showing everyone what stood around him. Like the houses around it, the bronze figure seemed out of place in the unpleasant swamp.

  Whimsy looked up at the statue. There was something about it that made her want to look away. Perhaps it was the unusual expression on the man’s face? Or the way he held out his hands? As Millie rowed them closer to the town, Whimsy tried to ignore the statue and the feeling of unease that rose within her.

  ‘Who is that?’ Woe asked Millie.

  ‘That’s Herman Astor. The Swamp Master.’

  43

  In which they explore a swamp sludge factory

  Millie docked the rowboat amongst a line of others near the square’s edge and the three of them stepped out into the swamp town. Around them people in colourful clothing bust
led about along the wooden paths. The three of them were paid little attention, which was a relief after the crowd that paid them a little too much attention in Cleeth Bay.

  ‘The Astors can tell you more,’ Millie said, taking a watch out from one of her dress pockets. ‘They should be in the factory.’ She took a path to their left and motioned for Whimsy and Woe to follow her. The path led them to a white three-storey building. It looked much like the rest of the white houses in the town square but instead had many chimneys poking out of its roof.

  Why would they need so many chimneys? Whimsy wondered. She counted ten in total. Woe felt sorry for whoever’s job it was to clean all ten chimneys.

  Millie knocked once on the door of the chimney house and then paused. Then she did it again and paused. And then she knocked quickly three times. Another pause. Then knocked twice slowly. Then she stopped and waited.

  A secret knock, noticed Woe. He made a point to remember it.

  The large double doors swung open and Whimsy and Woe followed Millie inside. Immediately a sea of people and a roar of machines greeted them. Groups of workers in factory coats stood huddled around each machine with pens and notepads. Grey smoke puffed from some machines and red lights flashed on others. The three of them moved past one group who were inspecting a big, stretchy blue glob of something that came out of a circular machine with teeth. It reminded Woe of a mechanical Vulture.

  Looking up, Whimsy noticed that several of the machines went right up through the second-storey ceiling. The chimneys, she thought.

  In the furthest corner was the biggest of all the machines. Gears much larger than Whimsy and Woe seemed to power it and written across it in gold letters were the words SLUDGE-O-METER.

  Suddenly, a shrill whistle sounded in the room. Whimsy and Woe jumped, alarmed. From a door on their right, a line of workers carrying buckets entered. The siblings gathered that they must have come straight from the swamp as their clothes were soaking wet and their hair was flecked with what looked like green moss. Even their skin, Whimsy observed, was stained green. One of the workers placed a long ladder on the side of the Sludge-O-Meter and climbed it with his bucket. Once at the top, he tipped the green contents into the open top of the machine.

  ‘The Sludge-O-Meter measures the swamp mud that the workers gather from the fields, it churns it and then presses it flat, making it into sludge,’ explained Millie to Whimsy and Woe as she watched on with them.

  After the first worker descended the long ladder, the next in line climbed up and emptied his collection of sludge into the machine. Whimsy and Woe noticed conveyor belts at the bottom of the Sludge-O-Meter where every so often globs of green sludge were deposited and trundled along the black belts out of the room.

  ‘Where do they go?’ Woe asked Millie.

  Instead of answering, Millie smiled and led them through the sea of people to a long line of closed doors. Each door had a small window with a conveyor belt of sludge running through it. They stopped outside a door with EXPERIMENTAL FOOD DEPT written across it. From one of her pockets, Millie pulled out a key and opened the door. Inside the experimental food department were many kitchen workstations. Big stone benches, brass pots and pans, large stoves, and pantries facing this way and that filled the large space. Men and women in aprons busied themselves at each workstation, cooking furiously. Millie handed Whimsy and Woe a hairnet each. They put them on.

  Ahead of them, walking around the room and peering into the pots on the stoves were an extravagantly dressed man and woman. The woman, her blonde hair pulled back in an elegant bun, wore a white lace dress, matching gloves and held a small white parasol above her head. Why she needed one of those inside, Whimsy had no idea. The man, also all in white, wore a suit with a black tie and held a cane. His white hair stuck out in both directions above his ears. Woe recognised him immediately from his bronze statue. Herman Astor.

  44

  In which Whimsy and Woe encounter the Astors

  Herman Astor picked up one of the pots simmering on a stove, held it to his nose and then threw it disgustedly into a sink. ‘Remember the goal, Tina. We don’t want people to know they are eating —’ he stopped, sensing another presence in the room and turned around with a flourish. His eyes fell on Millie first. ‘Millie, you’re late.’

  ‘Sorry, Swamp Master,’ said Millie. From the wearied tone in their chaperone’s voice, Whimsy got the feeling that Millie must’ve said those words a lot.

  The man in white strode over to the three of them, holding his cane tightly in his right hand. The Swamp Master looked down at Whimsy and Woe, his sharp brown eyes narrowing slightly. The Mordaunt siblings couldn’t help but straighten up under his hard gaze. Whimsy noticed that each of his fingers was adorned with gold rings.

  ‘And you’ve brought guests,’ he said.

  At the mention of guests, the woman with the parasol turned around suddenly and strode over to stand by his side. Whimsy saw her long porcelain face fall at the sight of them.

  ‘Oh, children-shaped guests,’ she observed with disappointment. Woe thought her voice sounded like a bird. And not the cute kind.

  ‘Welcome to Anywhere Swamp and Sludge Farm,’ said the Swamp Master, opening up his arms and bowing slightly. He paused, and for a moment he looked exactly like his bronze statue. ‘Let me show you around.’

  ‘There’s no need, really, I —’ said Millie quickly. She took a hesitant step forward.

  ‘Hush, Millie. We can’t be rude to our guests, can we?’ The Swamp Master smiled. ‘You may go about your business.’

  ‘But sir —’

  ‘Millie.’ He looked at Millie warningly from the corner of his eye. She said goodbye to Whimsy and Woe and exited the experimental food department. The children looked at each other, unsure of what they’d gotten themselves into.

  ‘My name is Herman Astor. I am the Swamp Master and owner of Anywhere Sludge. The name is trademarked, of course, so don’t get any ideas. And this,’ he motioned to the bird woman, ‘is my wife, Zelia.’

  ‘My name is also trademarked,’ she said, pointing a manicured finger at the siblings.

  Whimsy and Woe introduced themselves to the Astors.

  ‘So, Mordaunts . . . can I call you Mordaunts? The name actually sounds like a brand of mints.’ the Swamp Master stopped, his eyes widening. ‘Zelia, write this down. Swamp mints. Working name: Swints.’

  Expertly, Zelia whipped a pen and paper from her dress pocket and scribbled down Herman’s idea. Then the Swamp Master looked at the Mordaunts from out of the corner of his eye before adding, ‘Trademarked also, of course.’

  Whimsy wasn’t sure of what to make of the Astors as they stood before her singing an off-tune jingle for Swampy-fresh Swints. They were . . . odd and perhaps even a little paranoid but maybe they could help them, if they could just find a chance to ask them about the travelling troupe. Woe, on the other hand, knew exactly what to make of the Astors. They were mad. Stark-raving mad.

  Then, suddenly, Herman Astor remembered that they were there and his jovial demeanour changed. He moved closer to them, his brows furrowed. ‘How much of the factory has Millie shown you?’

  ‘Just this room and the one before,’ said Whimsy trying to recall if they had seen anything they mightn’t have been supposed to.

  ‘Most of our departments are highly confidential,’ said Herman.

  ‘Highly,’ chirped Zelia.

  ‘Have you come to Anywhere Swamp looking for work?’ the Swamp Master asked.

  ‘No, we are looking for our parents,’ said Woe, wondering again if children worked at Anywhere Swamp and Sludge Farm.

  The Swamp Master and his wife shared a glance.

  ‘Your parents?’ questioned Herman.

  ‘Have you tried looking at home?’ asked Zelia, as though it were an obvious place to look.

  ‘They were kidnapped . . .’ but before Woe could finish telling the Astors about their parents, Herman Astor had already turned on his heel and started walking a
way from them.

  ‘Now that you’ve seen the experimental food department, do either of you wish to have a career as a taste-tester? We have an opening,’ he said over his shoulder as he walked over to a long table in the corner of the room. A perplexed Whimsy and Woe followed him. On the table was an array of labelled foods: sludge soup, sludge pasta, sludge milk, sludge sandwiches, sludge salad and even sludge ice cream. Whimsy realised then what the experimental food department was trying to do. They were trying to make swamp sludge edible.

  ‘We are going to take over the world with sludge!’ said Zelia, joining them at the table.

  Woe picked up a glass of sludge milk while Whimsy inspected the sludge ice cream with a spoon. Both were too thick in texture and slightly green in colour.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Whimsy said, declining the Swamp Master’s job offer as politely as she could, but not before Woe had drunk two mouthfuls of sludge milk. Whimsy quickly took the glass from her brother before he could drink any more.

  ‘Wise choice,’ Herman Astor said peering at the milk distrustfully. Then he raised a bejewelled finger in the air, his white eyebrows high. ‘Perhaps the fields would interest you, young man? Come along.’ And the Swamp Master took off once again, this time across the room towards the door.

  Woe looked at his sister, uncertain. Whimsy wasn’t sure either. The Astors were odd but not dangerous, surely? And they needed to know more about the travelling troupe. Woe nodded, reading his sister’s mind before trailing cautiously behind the mad man in white.

  ‘And you and I are going to do something about that face of yours,’ cheeped Zelia.

  45

  In which there is something strange about the Swamp Master

  With every step the Swamp Master took through the factory, Woe had to take three just to keep up with him. He almost lost Herman twice amongst the sea of workers. If it weren’t for his white outfit, Woe would have followed someone else, someone who he’d thought was the Swamp Master, into an area called THE SMELLARIUM. Woe wasn’t sure exactly what a Smellarium was but by the look of the green gas that seeped and swirled out from below the door, he figured it mustn’t be pleasant.