“Something’s happening,” I say, and Violet raises her eyebrow.
“Yes. It is.” She stands up and puts Erwin in the chair. “And what do we do when something happens?”
“Well, we take a look, but…”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
And so, together, we creep up the stairs to investigate.
A DISMAL BUSINESS
THE LIGHT IN MY CUBBYHOLE is off – the Lost-and-Foundery is closed, remember? – so it’s easy for Violet and me to stay hidden in the shadows. We peer over the desk into the brightly lit lobby of the Grand Nautilus Hotel.
A group of dishevelled people are struggling through the great revolving doors, the storm still snatching at them as they enter. I see at once that they are local fishermen. They’re grunting and gasping as they carry something between them, something tangled in an old fishing net. Mr Mollusc is wringing his hands and dancing from foot to foot as he protests.
“This is an outrage! We are a hotel, not a fishmonger’s! Take this frightful object away before I am forced to call the authorities!”
“This ‘frightful object’, as you call it,” says a voice I know well, “isn’t an object at all but a person. A person in need of urgent medical attention.”
That’s Dr Thalassi speaking – the town’s medical doctor. He’s also the curator at the Museum of Eerie and a distinguished member of the local community. Not that you’d guess that by looking at him now as he enters the hotel: his hair, usually so neat, has been storm-blasted in all directions, and his characteristic bow tie is wonky. The spectacles perched on his Roman nose are streaming with water, and there’s a strand of seaweed over one bushy eyebrow.
“Bring her over here, into the light,” he directs, and the fishermen heave their burden to the centre of the lobby. “Mr Mollusc, kindly make yourself useful and send to the kitchen for a large serrated knife.”
And who is this person in urgent need of medical attention? Who is so hopelessly tangled in the old fishing net?
Well, at first I think it’s another fisherman, mostly because of the wellington boots and waxed coat the figure is wearing. Also, the fishing net is surely a clue. But “her”? Almost all the fishermen in Eerie are, well, fishermen. I rise up behind the desk slightly, to get a better look, and Violet does the same.
A kitchen boy, summoned by a snap of Mr Mollusc’s fingers, hurries into the lobby with a big knife in a block of wood. The doctor takes it and begins carefully sawing through the net. There’s a moment of hush as he works. Mr Mollusc, surrounded by a knot of hotel staff, stands to one side, while the group of grizzled fishermen loiter on the other, dripping and looking completely out of place in the lobby. Then the last rope is cut, and someone wearing many layers of coats, scarves and woolly jumpers rolls out onto the floor. On her head are at least three hats, tied on with a piece of string.
“Mrs Fossil!” Violet gasps.
And it’s true. Eerie-on-Sea’s one and only professional beachcomber is now lying in a pool of seawater and chopped rope on the hotel’s marble floor.
“Wendy?” says Dr Thalassi, crouching beside her and feeling for a pulse in her neck. “Wendy Fossil, can you hear me?”
Mrs Fossil twitches, then coughs up a quantity of water and a few pieces of kelp. She nods in response to the doctor’s repeated question, and a small smile spreads over her face.
“What’s she got?” Violet whispers to me. “She seems to be holding something.”
Sure enough, Mrs Fossil’s arms are wrapped around a large object – an object that is itself wrapped in her tatty old waxed coat.
“Your patient lives, Doctor,” says Mr Mollusc with a sniff. “All’s well that ends well. Now, if you would kindly take this scruffy person home, I can get back to running a respectable hotel.”
“Mrs Fossil, I need to examine you,” says the doc, ignoring old Mollusc completely. “You nearly drowned. Please let go of that thing in your coat. What were you doing down on the beach in this storm anyway?”
“It’s low tide,” murmurs Mrs Fossil, weak and soggy from her ordeal. “Low tide after a storm … best time for beachcombing…”
“But it’s not after the storm, is it?” says the doctor, sitting her up. “The storm is worse than ever. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near the sea in this weather.”
“Aye.” The fishermen nod in agreement as another crash of thunder makes the windows rattle.
“But, Doc,” Mrs Fossil says. “If I hadn’t been near the sea … if I hadn’t been down on the beach … I wouldn’t have found … have found…”
“Found what?” Mr Mollusc demands, interested despite himself.
“I wouldn’t have found –” Mrs Fossil’s voice is no more than a whisper now – “the greatest beachcombing treasure of my whole life.”
And with that she faints away. As she does, her arms fall to her sides, her coat slips open and something astonishing rolls out, coming to rest in the mass of cut-up net and seaweed on the hotel lobby floor.
It’s a fish.
But not a living creature. This is a fish made from aqua-green glass – frosted over with age and the sea, but still recognizable from its fine workmanship as a very large, and very ancient-looking, fish-shaped bottle. It’s about two Erwins long, and three quarters of an Erwin wide at its fattest, give or take a whisker. Its mouth, a perfect circle, is stoppered up by a solid-looking seaweedy mass. And as we stare, the bottle does something amazing.
It trembles.
All on its own it trembles, and there’s a brief flicker of light from somewhere inside it.
“Fascinating!” says Dr Thalassi. “How extraordinary.”
Predictably, it’s Mr Mollusc who gets over the strange sight first.
“Humph. I don’t see why. It’s just a piece of old junk.”
“Old junk!” Now it’s the doctor’s turn to be outraged. “Can’t you see from the design how extremely old this bottle is? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a thousand years old. And besides, look!”
The doc points, but we’re all looking at the bottle anyway, which is quivering and flickering with light again.
“Oh, that’s … that’s nothing,” says Mr Mollusc, though he doesn’t sound too sure. “It’s just shaking with the storm. The whole hotel is shaking with the storm.”
“It’s like there’s something inside,” says one of the fishermen in wonder.
“Aye,” says another. “Something inside, trying to get out.”
“In that case, it definitely needs to be removed from the hotel,” Mr Mollusc declares, noting with irritation that several more fishermen have drifted into the lobby to see what’s going on. “Before some horrible, slimy glow-in-the-dark sea slug comes out and makes even more mess. We have our guests to think of.”
“For once, I agree,” says the doc. “It can’t stay here. I will have it brought to the museum immediately…”
Mrs Fossil sits up.
“No,” she splutters.
“Oh, forgive me,” says Dr Thalassi. “I was forgetting my patient. Bringing this amazing find to the museum can wait till—”
“No!” Mrs F splutters again. “I won’t let you take it, Doctor. I won’t! I found it. It belongs to me, fair and square. I won’t let you bully me into handing it over, no matter how extraordinary or historical you tell me it is. I’m keeping it, and that’s that.”
“But…” It’s the doctor’s turn to splutter. “But, my dear Wendy, surely you can see that this is no ordinary beachcombing knick-knack…”
“Knick-knack!” Mrs Fossil draws herself up straight and pulls the soggy hats from her head. “That’s just like you to call my treasures ‘knick-knacks’. My Flotsamporium is just as good as your fancy museum, and all the things I find have stories behind them, even the littlest sea-glass pebble or tide-rolled runcible spoon.”
“But…”
“But nothing!” Mrs Fossil gets to her feet, her wellies squeaking on the polished floor. “I’ve
been collecting messages in bottles on Eerie Beach since I was knee-high to a penguin, and I’m not about to let you snaffle such a fine and dandy one as this.”
“This is not a message in a bottle,” says the doc, standing himself and looming over the beachcomber. “If anything, this is a message on a bottle.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, take a look on the side.” He bends down and taps the glass bottle with his finger. “Can you see that? Have you any idea what that is?”
Everyone leans in to get a close look, though Vi and I have no chance of catching a glimpse of anything from this distance.
“It looks like … writing?” Mrs Fossil blinks. “Funny writing, on the side of the bottle.”
“Funny writing!” Dr Thalassi scoffs. “This is an inscription in Eerie Script. It is nothing less than the secret letters of the ancient fisherfolk of Eerie.”
At these words, the fishermen gathered there visibly react and exchange expressions of surprise.
As if choosing this very moment, there is an almighty thunderclap over the hotel, and the ground beneath us trembles. Flakes of brick and plaster fall from the lobby ceiling, and one of the grand arched windows cracks from side to side.
“Gargantis wakes!” cries a fisherman.
“Eerie quakes!” cries another.
“Gargantis indeed!” Dr Thalassi turns his stern gaze on the fishermen, brushing plaster from his shoulder. “The storm might be bad, but there’s no need for superstitious nonsense.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Doctor,” growls a wiry old fisherman, stepping out from the rest. “But this is a Dismal business. You said so yourself.”
“Eerie Script?” Mrs Fossil looks confused. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Then by your own admission, the bottle cannot belong to you,” says the wiry fisherman. “Eerie Script is the secret writing of Saint Dismal himself, The First Fisherman of Eerie-on-Sea. And so, by ancient law, this fish-shaped bottle belongs to us.”
BLAZE
“AYE!” DECLARE THE FISHERMEN, forming a threatening crowd. “By the beard of Saint Dismal, this bottle is ours!”
Dr Thalassi raises his finger and protests, just as Mrs Fossil puts her hands on her hips and does the same. The atmosphere grows heated, and Mr Mollusc tries to break into the argument, telling everyone to leave. Near by, momentarily forgotten despite being the cause of all this trouble, the strange glass bottle quivers again and gives its eerie flicker.
I’m just beginning to think that some sort of riot is about to break out in the hotel, when I notice someone pushing his way to the front of the fishermen. He’s a boy a few years older than me and Vi – tall and gangly and wearing oil-stained overalls that are too short in the leg. He’s pale and freckled, with a flop of red hair over one eye. His eyes go wide when he sees the bottle, and he starts to speak, but his voice is drowned out by the older men.
So he does something unexpected.
He snatches the bottle up and holds it over his head.
“If this fish bottle should go to anyone,” declares the boy in a cracked teenage voice, “it should go to my uncle Squint! He’s … he was…”
The boy falters as all eyes in the lobby swivel to look at him. His cheeks flare with embarrassment, as if they are trying to compete with his hair, and his arms begin to tremble.
“Careful!” Dr Thalassi and Mrs Fossil cry together.
The boy lowers the bottle back to the floor, and everyone breathes out in relief.
“Your uncle?” says the wiry old fisherman. “Old Squint Westerley?”
“Of course,” the boy replies. “He knows more about Eerie Script than anyone.”
Dr Thalassi looks offended at this, while the fishermen fidget and grumble to one another. When the wiry fisherman speaks again, his voice has an edge of threat in it.
“I’m not one to speak ill of the dead,” he says, “and everyone already knows that Squint Westerley liked to poke his nose where no nose should be poked. But he’s paid the ultimate price for his curiosity, lad, and left you all alone. You cannot claim the bottle for him now.”
“But this bottle might give us answers!” the boy blurts out. “It might help us uncover the truth about Saint Dismal, and—”
“Truth!” The wiry fisherman looks aghast. “We don’t need any ‘truth’ about Saint Dismal, bless his beard. We already have his laws. And those laws have served us well for centuries.”
“But—”
“Enough!” the wiry fisherman bellows. “You cannot claim this bottle for a dead man, Blaze Westerley, no matter how much you miss him. And maybe if Squint had stuck to fishing instead of exploring and inventing and looking for answers to questions that don’t need answering, he wouldn’t have got himself drowned. No, this bottle is nothing but a bad omen, and if I had my way I’d throw it back in the sea.”
“You will do no such thing!” cries Mrs Fossil. “I found it, and it will have pride of place in the window of my Flotsamporium—”
“As a precious historical artefact,” Dr Thalassi interrupts, “this bottle belongs in my museum…”
And, with that, the argument seems set to erupt again.
But just then there’s a loud, familiar ting! that reverberates around the lobby. Everyone turns to look in the direction of the beautiful old hotel elevator. The doors slide open with a clack! and golden light spills out. Silence falls, broken only by the rumble of the storm outside.
Then something emerges from the lift.
It’s an antique-looking electric wheelchair made of bronze and wicker. Sitting in it is an even more antique-looking lady in a silk turban, tucked under a blanket embroidered with the crest of the hotel. Her face is wizened like that of an old tortoise, her mouth is surrounded by frothy white foam, and on her lap is a silver bowl with water sloshing in it. With one hand she guides the wheelchair forward with the use of a control box, and with the other she holds aloft a foamy toothbrush as if it’s a sword she’s just pulled from a stone.
“I was brushing my tooth,” the lady says in a creaky old voice, “when I heard the commotion. Mr Mollusc, kindly explain to me what is happening in my hotel.”
“Lady Kraken!” I whisper, clutching my cap.
“That’s Lady Kraken?” Vi whispers back. “I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen her.”
And that’s not surprising. Lady Kraken, the owner of the Grand Nautilus Hotel, lives in a vast suite of rooms on the top floor. She hardly ever leaves those rooms, and very few people in the town will have clapped eyes on her at all. Even I have seen her only a handful of times, and that was enough to last me for ever.
“Your Ladyship!” cries Mr Mollusc, raising his hands in a motion that seems to say, Don’t blame me! and I can explain! all at once. “I … I was just dealing with a little disagreement … an indelicate unpleasantness … a regrettable misunderstanding of a most peculiar kind … a…”
“Stop wittering, man, and spit it out,” snaps Lady Kraken. She looks around at the group of wild-haired fishermen, at Mrs Fossil in her many soggy layers, at the doc with his skew-whiff bow tie and at the hotel staff cowering behind Mr Mollusc. “Is it a revolution?”
“It is more in the nature of a beachcombing dispute.” Mr Mollusc clasps his hands together. “An item of alleged significance has come to light …”
“Has been found!” declares Mrs Fossil. “By me.”
“… been found,” Mollusc continues. “An item that the doctor thinks is of some value…”
“Historic value, that is, Lady Kraken.” The doctor gives a respectful nod in the old lady’s direction.
“Historic value, indeed.” Mr Mollusc grins desperately at Dr Thalassi. “But the fishermen seem to feel strongly that the item is theirs by right…”
“And so it is!” declares the wiry old fisherman. “It is a Dismal business.”
As if conjured by these words, the storm spews lightning and thunder once more, shaking the hotel to its foun
dations. Everyone looks skyward in alarm, while Mr Mollusc cowers before his employer.
“But I assure you, Your Ladyship, I have it all under control…”
Lady Kraken propels her electric wheelchair past the hapless hotel manager as if he isn’t there, and she comes to a whirring halt beside the strange fish-shaped bottle.
“And this is it, is it?” she says. “The cause of all the hullabaloo?”
She unhooks an antique backscratcher from the side of her chair and gives the bottle a good sharp tap. The bottle shudders, and the eerie light flickers inside it once again.
“It is,” says the red-haired boy. He approaches the old lady respectfully, clutching a skipper’s cap in his hands. “My uncle would have known what to do with it.”
“And where is this knowledgeable uncle now?”
“Lost,” the boy says. “At sea.”
Lady Kraken squints at him.
“And you think this bottle might be a clue to finding him again?”
The boy says nothing. But you can tell from his face that he does.
“And what is your name, young man?” Lady K asks.
“Blaze.” The boy stares at the floor. “Blaze Westerley.”
“Well, Mr Westerley, I have heard enough claims for now.” The lady twirls her toothbrush. “Maybe I should just claim this fishy old bottle for myself. After all, it is in my hotel lobby.”
There’s a rumble of discontent at this, but no one – not even the fishermen – seems brave enough to argue with the venerable owner of the Grand Nautilus Hotel.
“But of course I won’t,” Lady Kraken continues, giving the bottle another tap. “I already know it doesn’t belong to me. Deep down, everyone always knows whether or not something really belongs to them.”
And she sweeps a wizened eye over everyone in the room.
“What we need right now,” she continues, “is someone wise and true to decide on the rightful owner of this curious bottle.”
Gargantis Page 3