“No, and why should I?” Bonny said. “No one’s ever cared about me that much, neither.”
Hearing this made Warren incredibly sad.
“That can’t be true,” he said. “Your pirate crew cares about you.”
“Ha, yeah right! They cared so much they were ready to abandon Calm Waves and leave me behind.”
Warren noticed tears glinting in Bonny’s eyes. He wished he could say that she was wrong, but he knew she spoke the truth, and that made him even sadder.
“What about your parents?
Bonny shrugged. “They’re gone. I was mostly raised by my gramps, but he’s always traveling. He cares more about his own goals than he does about me.”
Warren placed his hand over Bonny’s. “Well, I care about you,” he said. “In this hotel, you’re family. This is your home for as long as you want it to be.”
Bonny blinked and then stood up. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.” Then she crawled out of the basket and slid down the pole.
Warren heaved a sigh. Petula had it all wrong. Bonny wasn’t bad. She was just hurt, and that made her lash out sometimes. He wished he could help Petula understand.
* * *
As morning broke, the irregular shape of the oil rig could be seen against the pastel sky. It stood alone in the ocean, a gangly structure on four tall legs, its upper body made up of steel panels, walkways, cranes, and fences. A flame shot out the top of a tall pillar like a beacon.
“I don’t see the sea circus,” Warren said as he peered through his periscope in the control room. Was he mistaken about the riddle?
“Maybe we beat it here,” Petula said. “We did get that paper hot off the presses.”
“Good point,” Warren said, feeling heartened.
Warren and Petula accompanied Captain Grayishwhitishbeard upstairs, passing through the lobby and out the front door. Warren could see workers on the oil rig scurrying about like tiny ants.
“Ahoy!” he called out. One of the workers lowered a ladder.
“You two go ahead,” Captain said. “I’ll keep watch from here.”
Warren and Petula nodded and climbed the ladder, stepping onto a metal gangplank where they were met by a stout worker wearing bright yellow coveralls and thick rubber boots that reached to his thighs.
“Hello, kids,” he said. “What brings you out to these parts? We don’t receive many visitors on this rig.”
“We’re looking for the Sea Circus,” Warren explained.
“Oh, indeed!” the worker exclaimed. At the mere mention of the circus, more workers flocked around excitedly.
“It was amazing!”
“I’ve never seen such feats of strength!”
“The trapeze artists were death defying!”
“I had so much cotton candy I threw up!”
“You mean, it already came?” Warren asked, his heart plummeting.
“Came and left!”
“Oh, it was so fun!”
“There was a bearded lady with a trained monkey!”
“And the Great Eight—it’s real!”
“Wait!” Warren said. “What’s this about the Great Eight?”
“A new act—the star of the show!” a female worker said. “It whistled like an angel. The melody was so haunting and sad. Not a dry eye in the house!”
“I always thought the Great Eight was some silly pirate myth,” said another worker. “But it’s real!”
“Where is the circus now?” Petula asked. “Did they say where they were headed?”
“No, but they did load up on an awful lot of fuel while they were here. It seems they were preparing for a long journey.”
“We were too slow!” Warren cried. “If only we had working navigational tools!”
“Don’t lose hope,” Petula said. “It can’t have gone far.”
“Well?” Captain Grayishwhitishbeard said when Warren and Petula returned.
“We missed it,” Warren said glumly. “The circus is already on to its next destination. Wherever that may be…”
Warren returned to the lobby. Many of the elderly pirates were assembled there, eager for good news, but their faces fell when they saw Warren’s expression.
“Young Warren returned with a glum countenance that those assembled took as a dire sign,” Mr. Vanderbelly narrated aloud as he scribbled in his notebook. “Another setback in our young hero’s journey!”
“I told you,” Bonny said to Warren. “You’re cursed.”
“Enough of that!” Petula snapped.
“She’s right,” Warren said. He twisted the ring on his finger. How was it supposed to help him in situations like this? Maybe Mr. Friggs was mistaken about its purpose.
“We need to find another paper for the next riddle,” Petula said. “Does that mean we have to go back to Scurvyville?”
“Never!” cried Mr. Vanderbelly. “I refuse to set foot in that horrible place!”
Warren shuddered. He didn’t want to go back either, but what choice did they have? If only there was a way to predict where the circus would be before it was printed in the paper. If only there was some sort of pattern…
That gave Warren an idea.
He ran directly to the library and burst in without knocking, startling Mr. Friggs, whose dentures fell out in surprise.
“Sorry!” Warren said, scooping them up and handing them to his tutor. “I just thought of something!”
“Oh?” Mr. Friggs said, working the dentures back into his mouth.
“I was wondering if there might be a way to predict where the sea circus will go before it’s printed in the paper. And that made me curious to see if there might be a pattern based on where it’s been in the past. If there is, we can use it to figure out where the circus will end up next.”
“A marvelous idea!” Mr. Friggs said, pulling out the pirate map dotted with pins. “How lucky for us that those old pirates marked all the past locations for us.”
“Not only that, but they marked each pin with a number indicating the order that each place was visited,” Warren said, grabbing a pencil. “It’s as easy as connect-the-dots!”
Carefully, Warren drew a line from the first pin to the second. And then from the second to the third, and so on. When he reached the final pin marking the oil rig, he stepped back to see what the lines formed.
“There’s definitely a pattern,” Mr. Friggs mused.
“It looks like an infinity symbol,” Warren said.
“So that means…the next location the sea circus will be….”
“Is in the center!” Warren exclaimed. “X marks the spot!”
Mr. Friggs clapped Warren on the back. “Brilliant, my boy! Simply brilliant!”
“But Mr. Friggs,” Warren said. “I just noticed something…”
“What’s that?”
“All the locations the circus has visited are islands or ports,” Warren said. “The center one is in the middle of the ocean. Why would the sea circus go there if there’s no audience to see it?”
Mr. Friggs’s face fell. “You make a good point, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps we’re mistaken,” Warren said.
“It is easy to convince oneself to see a pattern where there is none,” Mr. Friggs agreed. “What would you rather do? Take a chance on going to that point on the map, or go back to Scurvyville to find another paper?”
“They’re in opposite directions,” Warren said. “I don’t know what to decide!”
“Well, how about I work on the coordinates for both,” Mr. Friggs said gently. “In the meantime, you can think about which course to take.”
Warren nodded and went to his attic room to think in peace. If he picked Scurvyville, they’d definitely find a hint where to find the next sea circus. But they might be too slow again. If he was w
rong about the pattern, they would end up in the middle of the ocean, and even farther from his goal than before.
Perhaps it didn’t matter what choice Warren made. As long as he was cursed, whichever path he took would be the wrong one.
“I need bad things to stop happening!” Warren cried in frustration. “And I need this ring to start working!”
He instantly felt a pang of guilt about feeling so ungrateful for his father’s gift. Perhaps the ring was trying to help, though not in the way he expected it to. Perhaps “palimpsest” was an important clue.
Warren had been so occupied with finding Sketchy that he hadn’t given much thought to the mysterious word. He unlatched the loupe on his ring and peered through it, looking around his room for invisible writing. Nothing appeared.
He pulled out his collection of Jacques Rustyboots novels and flipped through the pages as he peered through the loupe. Still nothing.
Suddenly, he had an idea. How did he not think of it sooner?
Warren reached under his pillow and retrieved his beloved journal, the one that had been written by Warren the 2nd, the builder of the hotel. It was all thanks to this book that Warren had learned the truth about the hotel’s ability to walk. Perhaps it held more secrets.
He flipped to the first page and peered through the lens. Golden words appeared across the page, written in his father’s hand. He was right!
Warren’s eyes devoured the message:
My clever son,
If you are reading this, it means that you have found the journal I hid for you in the hedge maze, and that you have been given the ring to decode these words. It also means that I am no longer with you, or else I would have told you all of this myself. I’m sorry I made it so challenging, but I couldn’t let this information fall into the wrong hands. I had to make sure that only you would be smart enough to solve the riddles I left for you to find.
You may have realized there is a curse upon this family. Many generations of Warrens have tried to break it, and all have failed, myself included.
But if anyone can do it, I believe you can!
You will be faced with many challenges, but the ring is the key to rising above them all. Use it wisely.
The hotel has been resting in a remote corner of Fauntleroy for so long, partly in an effort to hide from those who would do this family harm. The time for hiding is at an end. Surely by now you have figured out that the hotel can travel, but there are more secrets left to discover.
The only help I can offer is to share the advice my own father gave to me. He told me of a strange creature he had rescued from a horrible man many years ago. It was a tiny thing the size of his palm. It was shy and very afraid, and it slipped away down a hotel pipe, never to be seen again. My father told me to find this creature and to reunite it with the Great Eight. Unfortunately, I failed in this mission.
The Great Eight is the only thing that can break the curse.
If you can find the creature, it will help you.
Warren wiped away a tear. It was almost as if his father was in the room with him. He could hear his voice in his mind, as clear as a bell. Warren flipped frantically through the rest of the journal, but there was no more hidden writing to be found. Could the creature his father mentioned be Sketchy? His tentacled friend was far larger than a man’s palm, but perhaps it had grown since his grandfather rescued it. After all, it had been lurking in the hotel boiler room for a long time before it chose to reveal itself to Warren.
He set the book down, his mind buzzing. So the Great Eight was real, after all—along with the curse. But how was he supposed to find the Great Eight, when so many others had failed? The Great Eight…
Warren bolted upright.
Thinking about the Great Eight had triggered a realization in Warren’s mind—the pattern on the map wasn’t an infinity symbol. It was an 8, turned on its side!
Warren didn’t know what it all meant, but he rushed off to tell Mr. Friggs that he had made his decision.
arren sighed and pressed his head against the ship’s wheel. “It’s no use!” he cried. “The winds are blowing against us. We’ll never catch the Sea Circus at this rate.”
The hotel’s progress was painfully slow as it navigated to the center of the infinity symbol on the map.
“I’m telling you, it’s your curse,” Bonny chimed in. “Besides, it’s a terrible idea sailing to the middle of nowhere. What makes you think the sea circus will be there anyway?
“Just a hunch,” Warren said.
“The whole point of a circus is to make money!” Bonny scoffed. “There’s no customers in the middle of the ocean. If I were you, I’d go back to land and wait for your curse to pass. It’d be safer.”
“Mmm, wafers,” Uncle Rupert muttered in his sleep.
“I don’t think this circus cares about making money,” Warren said. “I think it’s all a ruse.”
Bonny’s tanned face turned unusually pale. “What?”
“A ruse for what?” Petula asked.
“I believe they’re really searching for the Great Eight,” Warren said. “And that somehow Sketchy is involved. All the more reason to find Sketchy quickly.”
Warren hadn’t yet mentioned what he’d learned from his father’s letter about the Great Eight and the curse. Until Sketchy was rescued, he could not afford to focus on anything else.
If only the hotel could go faster, Warren thought to himself. It can walk. It can sail. If only it could fly.
Wait…could it?
Warren looked at his ring. His father had said that it was the key to rising above his obstacles. What if he meant that literally? Warren rushed over to the controls and began running his hands over the panel, looking for anything that might be a keyhole.
“What is it, Warren?” Petula asked.
“The curse is making him cuckoo!” Bonny scoffed.
“CUCKOO!” her parrot mimicked.
“Are ye O.K., lad?” Captain Grayishwhitishbeard asked.
“I think my ring might be some sort of key,” Warren said, and he continued searching the control panel for anything he might have missed.
But no—every button, knob, and latch was accounted for and had a purpose. He saw no hidden panels or triggers that might reveal another function of the hotel.
“Maybe I’m mistaken,” Warren said, his excitement turning to despair. “Maybe it’s nothing after all.”
“Try the decoder,” Petula suggested.
“Great idea,” Warren agreed, and he flipped out the loupe. He peered through the lens and immediately noticed a glowing circle to the side of the wheel that wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
“That’s it!” he cried, startling everyone in the control room.
Even Rupert awoke with a start. “Danger?” he cried. “Where? Save me!!”
“It’s fine, Uncle Rupert,” Warren said, laughing. “There’s no danger…unless you’re afraid of heights.”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” he replied.
“Here we go!” Warren announced, and he pressed his ring against the glowing spot. A tiny round panel sank into the console, its seams so fine that it was impossible to see.
Lights flashed and the hotel’s engine began to whir.
“Warren!” Petula cried, grinning, “you don’t mean to tell me that—”
“This hotel can fly!” Warren finished. “Hang on tight, everyone!”
There was a loud clanking as an enormous hatch opened in the roof, revealing a giant balloon that was inflating with helium. Propellers jutted out from the hotel’s sides, and with a PUTT-PUTT-PUTT they sputtered into motion. The entire structure vibrated as the engine keened even louder and the blurred propellers kicked into full speed.
With a lurch, the hotel began rising from the ocean. The cockpit window broke the surface of the wate
r, giving them a bird’s-eye view as they shot into the sky. Water droplets streamed from the belly of the building as it soared upward, faster and faster.
“Woohoo!” Warren yelped as the hotel rose into the clouds.
“It’s like being on a broom—but better!” Petula said. “I’ve never flown this high before!”
“Arr, and I’ve never seen the ocean from above!” marveled Captain Grayishwhitishbeard, looking out the window. “ ’Tis a beauty!”
“Hurrumph! Well, I don’t like it,” Bonny declared. “It ain’t right to be in a flying building. It’s unnatural!”
“I’LL SAY!” her parrot shrieked.
“I d-d-don’t like it either!” Uncle Rupert stammered. Quaking, he clung to his hammock like it was a life preserver.
“Don’t be scared, Uncle Rupert,” Warren said. “Just pretend you’re a bird!”
“He already is,” Bonny said with a smirk. “He’s a chicken!”
“WAAAAAH!” Rupert wailed. “That’s not very nice! And now I’m hungry for chicken!”
Warren slowed their ascent and admired the ocean below as it glistened in the sunlight. From all the way up here, he could make out dark patches of coral, islands on the horizon, and the spray from a giant pod of whales in the distance. Captain Grayishwhitishbeard was right—it really was beautiful. He could see for miles in every direction.
Thanks, Dad, he thought.
Gently, Warren pushed the hotel forward. It glided through the air, skimming the clouds at a pleasant clip. After weeks spent bobbing on ocean waves, flying felt as smooth as glass.
Petula hugged him. “You figured it out, Warren! Now we’ll find the Sea Circus in no time.”
“Great,” Bonny muttered.
here it is!” Warren cried. He could make out the tiny shape of the sea circus at the exact location he had marked on the map—the dead center of what Warren had thought was an infinity symbol.
Warren the 13th and the Thirteen-Year Curse Page 9
