The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Chief Detective Riley sat down again. ‘That,’ he said, from his seat, ‘is the evidence we used to convict your Aunt Emma of the crime.’ He sounded proud.

  There was a pause.

  ‘That, and the fact that she confessed.’ Now he sounded grumpy. I saw why. All that detective work and she goes and admits she’s done it anyway.

  I leaned over the counter again so I could see him.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But now I’d like to bail her out.’

  The old man rested his forehead onto his fist, and raised his eyes up at me.

  ‘Bronte,’ he said. ‘The trial has already happened. Yesterday, when the circuit judge came to the island. And the prisoner has been sentenced to fifteen years. There’s nothing that a sack of silver can do.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I looked at the sack. It seemed impossible that there was nothing a sack of silver coins could do.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to speak to the manager.’

  ‘I’m in charge,’ he said.

  ‘And Aunt Emma is locked up here?’

  Chief Detective Riley looked over his shoulder. ‘Down the hall there,’ he said. ‘In a cell.’

  ‘Have you got the key?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So you could go down the hall and open her cell,’ I said, ‘any time you liked?’

  He grunted.

  ‘In that case.’ I pointed to the sack of coins. ‘I will give you this sack of silver coins, and you can let her out!’

  Chief Detective Riley studied the sack of coins. He studied my face.

  ‘Think what you could buy with a sack of coins!’ I urged him. ‘Meanwhile, Aunt Emma can go on the run. She can give me the pepper grinder and I can use the gold to carry on with my journey.’

  He tilted his head.

  ‘Maybe do it quite quickly?’ I suggested. ‘Before anybody else comes in.’

  The Chief Detective opened a different drawer. Looking for the key, I guessed. But instead he drew out a thick book, and began to flick through it. Pages sprang back and forth. Eventually, he placed the open book on the counter and held his finger at a line.

  I looked at him. He tapped the line again.

  Sighing, I read it. This is what it said:

  ‘Hm,’ I said.

  My legs felt wobbly. My heart became terribly busy, as if it had suddenly remembered just how much it had to beat.

  ‘Are you an Officer?’ I whispered. I cleared my throat. ‘Of the Law?’

  ‘I am,’ Chief Detective Riley confirmed.

  ‘And if I offered you silver coins,’ I said, ‘that would be a bit like … offering you … a bribe?’

  ‘That’s not what it would be like,’ he said promptly. ‘That’s what it would be.’

  I looked at him. My eyes fell down to the book.

  10 years’ imprisonment, it said.

  ‘Do you want to put those coins away?’ the Chief Detective suggested.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Do you want to withdraw the offer you just made?’ he suggested next.

  I blinked at him. ‘What offer? I never made an offer.’

  Chief Detective Riley kept his gaze on me. ‘Good girl,’ he said at last.

  My heart was still rushing around trying to catch up on all its forgotten beating, but I put my sack of coins back in my suitcase and smoothed down my skirt.

  ‘May I visit my Aunt Emma?’ I asked, with dignity.

  But Chief Detective Riley frowned at me suddenly. ‘Why did you say you’d take the pepper grinder with you?’ he said. ‘Have you got Sugar Rixel’s pepper grinder?’

  ‘Why, no!’ I said. ‘Aunt Emma has it, doesn’t she? I only thought she’d lend it to me.’

  ‘What makes you think your Aunt Emma can do whatever she likes with Sugar Rixel’s pepper grinder?’

  I sighed. This man and his questions.

  ‘Well,’ I said carefully. ‘She stole it, so it’s hers now.’

  ‘It’s not hers! It’s Sugar Rixel’s!’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ I said. ‘Aunt Emma is giving fifteen years in prison. She must get the pepper grinder in return. Otherwise, she’s got nothing out of this bargain.’

  ‘It’s not a bargain! It’s the law!’

  We glared at each other for a while. A clock ticked.

  Chief Detective Riley frowned more deeply. ‘Actually, Emma refuses to tell us where she’s hidden the grinder. I turned her cottage upside down, I’m here to tell you, but it’s nowhere to be found.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s something,’ which was a mistake, because Chief Detective Riley growled, ‘We will find that pepper grinder, I am here to tell you, young lady!’

  I don’t like to be called ‘young lady’.

  I lifted my chin. ‘I would like to visit my Aunt Emma, and say hello.’

  The Chief Detective shook his head. ‘Visiting hours are Saturdays, 2 to 4.’

  ‘Saturday! But it’s only Tuesday!’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I must give her a gift from my treasure chest,’ I told him, ‘in exactly three days! It’s Faery cross-stitched!’

  ‘Faery cross-stitch?’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Ah, well.’

  ‘And I’d like to see if she needs anything,’ I added. This sounded like something Aunt Isabelle might say. ‘I could check she has enough paints, brushes and paper.’

  The Chief Detective leaned his elbows on the counter. ‘What makes you think she’s painting back there?’

  I stared at him. Of course she was painting. Aunt Emma did nothing but paint.

  ‘No painting allowed,’ he told me firmly. ‘She must simply sit and think about what she’s done.’

  My face gave a strange twist. Out of nowhere, I was going to cry!

  I grabbed my suitcase, almost tipping to the floor with its weight, spun around and ran out of the station.

  The key was under the cushion on the porch swing, just as Barnabas had promised.

  At first, when I opened the door, the cottage seemed very noisy.

  But that was the sound of me panting—I had run all the way here from the police station.

  Next, the cottage seemed to be a complete shambles.

  That was because it was.

  It was unbelievable. One big room, a row of windows at the back, and I honestly could not see how anyone could get across to those windows to close the drapes.

  No pathway. Just a jumble of upside-down chairs, upturned drawers, scattered paintings, books, buckets, cups, brushes, ink pots, easels, hats, petals, and tins lying on their sides and spilling paint. Mostly red.

  An upright piano stood in the middle of all this, but it was draped in boots, canisters and tangled fairy lights, as if the piano was a very young child trying to play hide and seek.

  In the opposite corner of the room, every cupboard and drawer in a kitchenette was wide open. Cutlery and crockery were helter-skelter in the sink; maple syrup ran in a stream to the floor from an upturned jar.

  Across from the kitchenette stood a four-poster bed, its sheets and blankets wound around its posts.

  ‘How does Aunt Emma live like this?’ I wondered aloud. She doesn’t live like this, I answered myself slowly.

  I turned her cottage upside down, Chief Detective Riley had said proudly.

  He had done this! Searching for the pepper grinder!

  Him and his giant nose and his frowns and all that standing, sitting, standing, and what makes you think and young lady and jabbing at things with his fingers! I turned her cottage upside down, I’m here to tell you.

  That’s why you’re here? To tell me that? No, it’s not! You’re here to lock up aunts and wreck their cottages!

  I was furious!

  In fifteen years, when she got out of prison, my Aunt Emma would be so excited about coming home to her little cottage! She would run down the path an
d throw open her door! And what would she would find? Chaos! Her heart would sink like an anchor! Actually, by then the place would be overrun with mice and rats. More! The cottage would be a wildlife reserve! Possums in the pantry! A pony sleeping in her bed! An elephant standing in her bathtub!

  That last part cheered me up a bit. A pony and an elephant. She might like those.

  But then I remembered Barnabas telling me Aunt Emma keeps her cottage neat and tidy as a pin.

  ‘And look at it now!’ I cried. Nothing like a pin.

  I took a deep breath. Through the windows across the room, I could see the darkening shapes of trees. It was late afternoon.

  ‘Right,’ I said, and I got to work.

  Hours later, I climbed into Aunt Emma’s freshly-made four-poster bed. The floor was swept clean. Chairs stood around the table. Clothes were folded into the drawers. The kitchen things were washed and put away, the piano was pushed against the wall (luckily, it had wheels), the fairy lights were strung around the front door, the cracked easel leaned against the wall, and the paintings were hanging on hooks.

  I might have put things in wrong places, but at least they were put. The floor was still streaked in red paint, and the rugs were still sticky with spilled syrup, but tomorrow I would find a scrubbing brush and get to work on these.

  ‘What makes you think, Chief Detective Riley,’ I said aloud, ‘that it’s okay to upturn a jar of maple syrup and walk syrup footprints everywhere?’

  I blew out the lamp and fell asleep.

  The moment I woke up, I panicked.

  Aunt Emma was in prison! Detective Riley would not let me visit! And somehow I had to get the gift to her?

  Well, I would have to break into prison.

  Maybe I could smash the prison window? I gazed around Aunt Emma’s cottage, looking for a rock.

  Of course, I couldn’t see one.

  But at least the cottage looked tidy. As neat as a pin.

  Or was it? How neat was a pin anyway? I would look for a pin to compare, I decided. Did Aunt Emma have a sewing basket somewhere? I began opening cupboards and drawers.

  There was a strange, crawling sensation at the edges of my vision. I kept rubbing my eyes to make it go away.

  I knelt down and rifled through a drawer. As it was full of socks and stockings, a pin did not seem likely. I looked anyway. Carefully, in case the pin pricked my finger. But that scribbling feeling was still there in the corner of my eye. I could not concentrate!

  I stepped towards the piano stool and my foot landed on something sticky.

  Maple syrup, all over the rugs. I’d forgotten that.

  I looked down and there, on the floor, was the scribbling sensation.

  Ants.

  Each patch of maple syrup swarmed with them. Trails ran to and from the syrup patches. Ants hurrying to spread the word, I guessed. They skirted around the splashes of gluggy red paint.

  Well, back to looking for a pin.

  I wish I were an ant, I thought tearfully, as I lifted the lid of the piano stool. I could be eating maple syrup rather than looking for pins in piano stools.

  I stopped still. What exactly was I doing? Aunt Emma was in prison, the Faery cross-stitch would be broken, and I was looking for pins? Crying about ants?

  I was mad!

  Then I realised that I’d been so busy cleaning, I’d forgotten to eat last night. I was starving. I often lose my mind when I don’t eat.

  I took breakfast out onto the porch at the back of the house. Toast with strawberry jam. There were bushes and trees, pieces of ocean in the gaps between, birds shouting at each other, and frogs croaking.

  In the middle of the garden, three spindly trees stood in a row like a family. As I gazed at these trees, the sun swung its light onto them.

  Hm, I thought.

  I stood up and stepped over the dried bark and pebbles to the trees. Up close, you could see lines and patches of sap, some fine strands, some thick and bubbled, all in shades of red. These must be the crimson tehassifer trees. The sap was what Aunt Emma used for paint. I stared at these for a while and then I did something strange.

  I went to the library.

  Down the laneway to Main Street I walked, past the ice-cream parlour and wishing well, and into the library.

  It had flat green carpet and white walls. People wandered amongst the shelves or stood frowning at the books.

  At the front desk, the librarian beamed.

  ‘A child!’ she exclaimed.

  I looked over my shoulder quickly. ‘Where?’

  ‘You!’ Her voice was full of vim. People turned to stare. ‘Oh, I love to have a child in my library! I’ve just finished redecorating the children’s section, so this is perfect, dear child! Trust me! You are going to love it!’

  She popped up from her chair, placed a hand on my shoulder, swivelled me around and pointed.

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS! cried a banner in the corner of the library. Below this were brightly-coloured bean bags, stuffed caterpillars, and a rocking horse.

  ‘It does look very nice,’ I agreed.

  ‘Go over at once!’ she urged. ‘Sit on a caterpillar while you read!’

  I was a bit dismayed. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thank you … But may I look something up instead?’

  ‘Research!’ the librarian shrieked, and inside the library people cleared their throats. One woman shot a cranky Shhhh! in our direction.

  The librarian looked guilty. ‘I make too much noise,’ she confided. ‘But I love it when people want to research! Do it! Dear child, you will love it! The catalogue is over there!’ Her voice rose to a shout at the end. People muttered disapproval.

  I found a great stack of books on the subject that I wanted, and sat down to read.

  Now, I don’t know about you, but I like a book to tell a story. These books did not. They told about things. It’s true that this is what I needed them to do, and yet honestly. Did they have to? ‘Oh, just stop, you insufferable bore!’ I murmured to the authors. (This is what Aunt Isabelle says to visitors who are being dull. They usually take it as a joke, but she is deadly serious.)

  Also, I couldn’t find what I hoped to find. So there I was, turning pages, turning pages, looking up to sigh. I let my forehead thunk against the table. There were three books left in my stack, but I only wanted to punch them.

  I was done.

  ‘Here,’ said a voice. I jumped. The librarian placed a glass of milk and a plate of cookies on the table. ‘Enjoy!’

  I stared up at her, amazed.

  ‘You’re allowed to eat in the library?’ I whispered

  ‘Oh, certainly not!’ the librarian cried. ‘But rules make me so mad sometimes. Do you know what I mean? Just brush the crumbs off the pages, dear child,’ she advised.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  The librarian saluted and hurried back to her desk.

  I drank some milk. I took a bite of a cookie. It was chocolate chip.

  Well, I thought, I might as well look at a book while I eat.

  I opened the next book.

  And guess what?

  There it was. Exactly what I wanted.

  ‘Ha!’ I cried

  ‘Hush!’ hissed a woman at a nearby shelf, but across the room, the librarian gave me a double thumbs-up.

  Sugar Rixel’s cottage was only five minutes from the library. The librarian explained how to get there.

  It looked bigger than it had in the photograph. But that was to be expected. Photographs are small.

  I pounded on the door with my fists then banged with my palms.

  ‘Gracious!’ came a voice, and the door flew open.

  Sugar Rixel blinked down at me. She was wearing an artist’s smock that was splattered with colour, and her hair was falling out of its bun.

  ‘My name is Bronte Mettlestone,’ I announced. ‘I am the niece—’

  ‘Oh, you’re the niece!’ Sugar Rixel’s face leapt from its startled expression into a beam, and her arms jumped into the a
ir. ‘The child I saw on the ferry wharf! Of course! It is you! I should have realised! Come in, little one! Come in!’ And she wrapped me in a hug, which actually lifted me from the ground, and then she swung me through the door and into the cottage.

  I stepped back from her.

  ‘Emma was so excited you were coming! As was I, for Emma is my favourite person in the world. I love many people, but I love your Aunt Emma most of all!’

  I frowned. ‘It is good to love many people,’ I declared. ‘But it is not good to send those people to prison.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed, her smile vanishing. ‘It’s awful. Dreadful. Would you like a glass of water?’

  Refusing to be flummoxed, I looked around the cottage. An easel stood in the middle of the room, a half-finished painting of daisies clipped to it. On the floor beside this lay a plate of buttered toast.

  ‘You’ll step on that toast, if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do that all the time. Always got butter on my feet!’

  I did not let myself be distracted even though now I wanted to look at her feet. But there it was! The bookcase from the photograph. The top shelf was still streaked with red paint, a few ants wandering around the red.

  ‘This,’ I pointed, ‘is where you kept your pepper grinder?’

  ‘Why, yes!’ She seemed impressed. She was beside me now, handing me a glass of water. We both gazed at the rows of books on the other shelves.

  ‘Why did you keep a pepper grinder on a bookcase?’ I asked, suddenly annoyed about this.

  ‘Oh, well, you see these books? They all belonged to my father. They have peculiar, magical properties.’

  ‘All books have magical properties,’ I told her sternly. My governess always tells me this, but in a dreamy voice.

  ‘No—well, yes, of course. But these ones are Faery books! If you are ever at a loss for words, you simply open a book, tip it upside down, and give a good shake. The words you need will sprinkle out.’

  I looked up at her, very interested. ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. And the pepper grinder sprinkled out gold you see, so they were like cousins! The books and the grinder? Does that make sense?’