Hugo Pepper

by Paul Stewart

  Of course, the only trouble with snooping is that you could get caught. Cressida Claw was pretty good at snooping, but she got caught more often than she’d have liked, which – since people don’t like snoopers – meant that she kept losing her job. But Cressida didn’t mind too much, and she certainly learned some interesting things along the way, such as what to keep and what to leave when snooping.

  Taking money or valuable jewellery usually led to trouble because they were bound to be missed. But anything that looked forgotten, or was likely to seem as if it had been lost, was fine. So Cressida took a lot of odd coins left in overcoat pockets, and single earrings from jewellery boxes. But the best things of all to take when snooping, she soon discovered, were things that seemed the least valuable to the untrained eye such as letters, scribbled notes, address books, laundry lists, reports and accounts of all kinds – anything, in fact, that might contain information.

  Cressida soon found out that information was extremely valuable. People would pay for information. So that’s what Cressida Claw sold.

  She sold holiday dates to burglars, shopping lists to tradesmen, address books to insurance salesmen and confidence tricksters, and embarrassing love letters back to their owners. Unfortunately, Cressida soon acquired an extremely bad reputation as a housemaid – not only because she was very bad at housework, but because trouble seemed to follow her around. Finally, she found that she couldn’t get a job anywhere.

  Now, when Cressida had been unemployed in the past, she had spent a lot of her spare time snooping in the dustbins in the alleyways behind the large squares. And it was there that she’d made some unlikely friends. These were the scruffy yellow alley cats who lived there.

  They took to following her about and going through the bins with her, for fish-heads and half-empty tin cans. Cressida grew to love them for their crafty ways and ability to sneak silently into those nooks and crannies that she could never reach. So when Cressida Claw found herself permanently out of work, she spent all her time with her beloved cats and slowly, bit by bit, she began to train them.

  s the large silver moon rose above Firefly Square, all was quiet in the streets and gardens below. Apart from the lights which were still shining in Evesham’s Workshop, all the other shops on the south side were in darkness, and had been for hours. The shuttered windows of the institute were similarly dark. This wasn’t unusual. In fact, it was only when The Firefly Quarterly magazine was being printed that the windows of the institute blazed through the night – and that, for obvious reasons, was only four times a year.

  A more regular occurrence – yet one which scarcely a soul had ever noticed – was taking place at that very moment on the roof of the institute, however. Lines of small, furry figures were emerging from the chimney pots and padding silently across the tiles, the moonlight glistening on their sooty heads. Soon, on three sides of Firefly Square, the rooftops of the institute were crowded with the little creatures. They jostled silently with each other, like seals on a crowded beach, as each found a place on the silvery roof tiles and lay down. Then, one after the other, in a curious ripple effect, they raised their large, furry feet in the air and gently wiggled their toes at the moon.

  A short while later, Elliot de Mille, director of the institute appeared at the top of the iron fire escape and stepped onto the roof. Ignoring the creatures that were lying on the slope of the roof behind him, the director strode to the edge of the low perimeter wall that ran the length of the institute’s frontage, and waited.

  Several minutes passed, and behind the director – who was dressed in patent-leather mules and a monogrammed silk dressing-gown – the creatures continued to wiggle their toes, humming contentedly as they did so. Suddenly losing patience, Elliot de Mille spun round.

  ‘That’s enough feet cooling!’ he hissed. ‘Back down the chimneys with you, now!’

  The small creatures sat up and, in a spreading ripple, climbed to their feet. Then, slowly and reluctantly, they shuffled off towards the chimneys. One by one, they pulled themselves up onto the rims and disappeared into the chimney pots in quiet, sooty ploffs!

  Ploff! Ploff! Ploff! Ploff!

  Before long, the rooftops of the institute were deserted once more, and the chimneys were gently smoking with faint spirals of disturbed soot. Elliot de Mille was alone at last. He leaned over the low perimeter wall and searched the night sky.

  Then, suddenly, they began to arrive. First one, then two, then in a flock – ten pigeons that circled low over the director’s head and came to land on the low wall. Elliot de Mille dug into the top pocket of his silk robe and pulled out a handful of bird seed, which he trickled along the wall. The pigeons began pecking greedily at the seed.

  Then, one after the other, Elliot grasped each plump pigeon in a bony hand and gently pulled a small capsule from its leg with the other. He slipped the capsules into his right-hand pocket and released its feathered carrier. When he’d done this to the tenth pigeon, he shooed them all from the wall, and they flapped away over the burnished rooftops and into the dark, black night.

  Before turning to go, Elliot smiled his thin smile and patted the top pocket of his monogrammed dressing-gown.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Claw,’ he whispered after the departing pigeons. ‘You never let me down.’

  “Phineas Pepper was an academic explorer too.”

  The Compass of the Heart

  Once upon a time, there was a young explorer, called Phineas Pepper. Now, one of the interesting things about explorers is that there are lots of different kinds of them.

  There are adventuring explorers who like to go to strange far-flung places in search of adventure. This kind of explorer tends to be very rich and turns to exploring because he or she is bored. Theodore Luscombe II, conqueror of Mount Ha-Ha, was one of these.

  Then there are commercial explorers. Commercial explorers set off to try and make money from exploring. They usually go in for long sea voyages to distant islands, and some take up useful jobs like bridge-building in far-flung places. A couple of these commercial explorers are quite famous, although you probably won’t have heard of them. One is Captain Marcus Crane, who discovered the macadacchio nut, and another is Winthrop Flood, who designed the ill-fated Tamberlaine-Marx Crossing in the Dandoon Delta.

  And then there are academic explorers. These explorers neither go off in search of adventure nor deliberately set out to make money – although oddly enough they often end up with plenty of both. Instead, these explorers go travelling to far-flung places in search of knowledge. They love finding out about things and, when they return home, writing all about them in journals and papers and quarterly magazines.

  Wilfred McPherson, founder of The Firefly Quarterly, was one of these academic explorers. He was a collector of stories, and he travelled all over the world – to the Exotic East, the Sunny South, the Wild West and the Frozen North – in search of them.

  Phineas Pepper was an academic explorer too. In fact, he started out as Wilfred McPherson’s assistant and worked at the Institute of Travellers’ Tales that the story collector had set up in Firefly Square. It was there that he met and fell in love with McPherson’s beautiful daughter, Phyllida. They got married and would have lived happily ever after, it hadn’t been for one thing.

  Phineas was a born explorer. That, after all, is why Phyllida had fallen in love with him, because so was she.

  So, when Wilfred McPherson returned from his latest voyage and announced that he was getting too old for exploring and planned to retire and run The Firefly Quarterly with help from some friends, Phineas jumped at the chance to take over as chief academic explorer. He would travel to far-flung places. He would collect the stories from the people he met there, and send them back to his father-in-law, who would publish them in his magazine.

  The first thing he did was to order the very latest snow chariot, the Mark II from Crane and Sons, and set about making plans for a voyage to the Frozen North. And his wife, Phyllida Pepper (who
was not only a born explorer, but also extremely headstrong) insisted on coming along too. There was just one problem.

  Phyllida was going to have a baby.

  So, Phineas postponed the voyage and took on an assistant of his own – a promising engineer called Edward Evesham. Edward had left Crane and Sons under a cloud, but he was a wonderful inventor and soon set about making all sorts of ingenious improvements to Phineas and Phyllida’s new snow chariot. He strengthened the bump-resistant skis, rebuilt the steam engine and added a bigger propeller. But most ingeniously of all, Edward added a new invention that was all his own. He called it ‘The Compass of the Heart’.

  At Crane and Sons, Edward had worked on all sorts of inventions that you probably have never heard of. One of these inventions was an ingenious little flying box which he designed to send messages over long distances. Well, a lot of the inner workings of Edward’s ‘Compass of the Heart’ were improvements on those of the flying box – with some mechanical wizardry thrown in for good measure.

  The compass could guide you to the four corners of the world without you once having to look at a map or consult a chart. But, more magical than that, it could also guide you back home again – the place which, as everyone knows, is where the heart is.

  It was Edward Evesham’s greatest invention, and Phineas and Phyllida Pepper were delighted with it. So delighted, in fact, that when Phyllida had a baby boy, they asked Edward Evesham to be his wizard godfather.

  Six months later, Phineas, Phyllida and baby Hugo set off on a voyage, the destination needle of the ‘Compass of the Heart’ set on ‘The Frozen North’. Their friends had begged them not to go, but Phineas Pepper had simply patted the snow chariot and said, ‘With Edward’s marvellous improvements, what can possibly go wrong?’

  o ahead, Hugo, dear,’ said Lily Neptune, pushing open the small door cut into the large double doors of Evesham’s Workshop. ‘He’s waiting for you.’

  ‘We won’t come in,’ said Daisy, taking her sister’s arm. ‘After all, we’ve got so many things to do. Pick up the cake, wash our best teacups, prepare the fishing floats – we must have fishing floats, Lily, dear …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Lily, swishing off down the pavement with her sister. ‘But if we don’t get on, there won’t be time for our afternoon swim.’

  ‘Don’t you and Edward be late now, Hugo, dear,’ called Daisy as she and her sister disappeared down Brimstone Alley.

  Hugo took a deep breath and stepped inside. The workshop was large and spacious, and smelled of oily rags and turpentine. There was a huge skylight high above his head, almost the length and breadth of the roof, which allowed the light to come flooding in.

  Despite this, the first thing Hugo noticed was that there were lamps everywhere. Tall angular lamps with swivel-shades, small squat lamps set on scuttling legs, lamps that dimmed and glowed as he approached them, and lamps that followed him when he moved, craning their metallic necks after him like a flock of inquisitive goslings …

  The next thing Hugo noticed was the snow chariot.

  It was suspended from the rafters on heavy metal chains. Hugo approached it through the crowd of lamps – which parted to let him through – and looked up. A tall thin man in an oil-stained apron and carpet slippers of an unusual design stood in mid-air, a long metallic tool in his hand, like a wand. He was using this to make adjustments to the small propeller at the back of the snow chariot.

  Clink! Clunk! Clink!

  When he caught sight of Hugo looking up at him, Edward Evesham stopped what he was doing and clicked his heels together. Gracefully descending to the floor, he wiped an oily hand on his apron and held it out.

  ‘Hugo! My dear, dear boy!’ he exclaimed in a thin, reedy voice. ‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me to see you again after all these years!’

  Hugo shook Edward Evesham’s hand.

  ‘Why, the last time I saw you, you were a little baby in your mother’s arms … Your poor, dear mother … And your father …’

  Edward let go of Hugo’s hand and turned away, his shoulders hunched. He searched the pockets of his oil-stained apron, pulled out an equally oil-stained handkerchief and blew his nose. Then he turned back to Hugo and cleared his throat.

  ‘Daisy and Lily told me your story, Hugo. We’re a close-knit little community here on the south side. We have to be – especially with the institute the way it is these days.’

  ‘Institute?’ said Hugo.

  ‘Once upon a time, the institute was a marvellous place,’ he said wistfully. ‘It published a beautiful magazine, The Firefly Quarterly, which was full of fascinating stories collected from far and wide.’ Edward Evesham shook his head. ‘But that bounder Elliot de Mille runs the institute now. Mysterious character. Keeps himself to himself. We never see him. All I know is he’s turned the Quarterly into the nasty, gossip-filled magazine it is today. But enough of all that …’

  He took Hugo’s arm and led him over to a work bench, where he motioned for him to sit down.

  ‘It was a bit of a shock seeing the old Mark II chariot after all these years, I must say. Battered and bruised …’ He paused. ‘Then again, the old girl’s not in bad shape considering the crash you had.’

  ‘I don’t remember too much about it,’ said Hugo, squinting through the glare of several inquisitive reading lamps. ‘I turned the needle of the compass to Home and the chariot seemed to do the rest. We flew for days and days … I don’t know for how long. I was cold and hungry, but I didn’t give up. I gritted my teeth and clung on tightly as the snow chariot flew on and on … And then the engine just seemed to cut out and I found myself here.’

  ‘You’ve been very brave, my boy,’ said Edward Evesham, patting Hugo on the shoulder. ‘You’re an explorer at heart, just like your father, Phineas …’

  He took out the handkerchief and blew his nose again. Hugo looked down at his feet and swallowed hard.

  ‘I’ve seen the polar bear claw marks on the chariot,’ said Edward sadly. ‘Terrible, terrible tragedy. But at least they didn’t get you – and of course you’ve come back to tell us your story. It was the not knowing that was the truly terrible part …’

  Hugo nodded. Edward sat down beside him. ‘If only your grandfather had known the whole story,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps things might have turned out differently.’

  ‘My grandfather?’ said Hugo, looking up.

  “… snowmen are extremely shy creatures and hardly anyone has ever seen one.”

  The Story Collector and the Snowmen

  Once upon a time, there was a small tribe of snowmen living in the ice forests of the Frozen North. Now, for those of you who don’t already know, snowmen are extremely small (only about two feet tall), are covered from head to toe in thick white fur, and have long thin arms and short skinny legs. Their eyes are small and intelligent-looking, their mouths wide and expressive, while their fingers are both long and particularly nimble.

  They also have one other feature that is, in many ways, their most remarkable. Snowmen have absolutely enormous feet.

  These huge feet have three toes each, which is why you’ll also sometimes find snowmen referred to as the three-toed yeti. But not very often, because snowmen are extremely shy creatures and hardly anyone has ever seen one.

  What many travellers to the ice forests of the Frozen North have seen, however, are the snowmen’s footprints. This has quite naturally led them to suppose that the snowmen – or three-toed yeti – are, themselves, absolutely enormous creatures, and has made it seem all the more surprising that nobody has actually seen one.

  The other remarkable thing about snowmen, for those of you who don’t already know, is that there are hardly any snow-women. Snow-women are a little smaller and a lot shyer than snowmen – but they have even bigger feet!

  Snowmen spend a lot of their time forlornly wandering through the ice forests looking for the footprints of a snow-woman to follow, in the hope of meeting her. This hardly ever happens an
d most snowmen live rather sad, solitary lives, brightened up only by the gifts left out for them by superstitious reindeer herders.

  But once in a very long while, a snowman will actually meet a small, shy, big-footed snow-woman and, after a good deal of foot thumping and toe wiggling, they’ll usually decide to have a family. Now, for those of you who don’t already know, a snow-woman doesn’t just have one snow-baby at a time. Or twins. Or even triplets … No, she has no fewer than two hundred in one go.

  This is probably why snow-women are so shy in the first place.

  Now, one snowy day, a snowman was wandering forlornly through the ice forest when he saw a sight to melt his snowy heart. It was an absolutely enormous footprint. In fact, a whole line of them. He immediately started following them.

  They led through the ice forest and into a clearing, where they ended just beside an old Crane and Sons Aeronautical Snow Chariot – Mark I. Now the snowman had never seen a Crane and Sons Aeronautical Snow Chariot – Mark I before, and to him it looked very strange and rather scary – but having followed the giant footprints this far, he wasn’t about to give up now. So he walked up to the snow chariot, sniffed, tasted the air and looked inside.