Von Gobstopper's Arcade

by Alexandra Adornetto

  They met up with Fritz as planned and he led them to his room via the elevator. Milli and Ernest thought the word cubicle might be a better way to describe it. The walls and floor were concrete and the iron bed was narrow with a thin foam mattress. There was a small metal trunk by the bed which appeared to contain all of Fritz’s worldly possessions. His clothes hung from a portable rack and there was a ceramic wash basin with a jug balanced on it. Milli and Ernest knew from their research that Von Gobstopper had no children and it surprised them that the heir to the toy empire should be living in such reduced circumstances.

  ‘Not exactly what you expected?’ Fritz asked, reading their thoughts. The children smiled uncomfortably, not wishing to cause him further embarrassment.

  ‘I would invite you to sit down,’ Fritz said with a self-deprecating smile, ‘but standing is probably more comfortable.’

  Loyal invited the children to climb onto his back in order to free up some space.

  ‘But Von Gobstopper is your uncle,’ Milli finally blurted, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. ‘And he’s worth millions!’

  ‘He is,’ said Fritz cheerfully, ‘but he does not appear to be here now, does he?’ Although he was making light of the situation, his blue eyes were like icebergs. ‘Are you always so direct?’ he asked Milli.

  ‘Not always but usually,’ she said carefully. ‘In my experience, it saves an awful lot of mucking about.’

  ‘Where do you think your uncle is?’ asked Ernest.

  ‘I have thought about it, and it is my view that he is right here, somewhere in this arcade,’ replied Fritz matter-of-factly.

  Milli was shocked. ‘Doing what exactly?’

  ‘Not doing anything in particular but being held prisoner.’ Fritz surveyed them carefully and rubbed his chin. ‘Before I go on, I feel I should warn you that this is not something you want to involve yourselves in. It would be far better if you left this place and resumed your normal lives. The longer you spend here, the more danger you put yourselves in.’

  ‘We can’t leave now,’ Milli protested. ‘Not without knowing that Theo, Pascal and Captain Pluck are safe!’

  ‘You’re quite a determined girl, aren’t you?’ Fritz said. ‘How old are you both?’

  ‘Just turned thirteen. We were born a month apart,’ said Milli and then for the first time in her life, she found herself wishing she were older, just so she might make more of an impression on this worldly boy. She was most put out when Fritz made a whistling sound through his teeth.

  ‘Just babies,’ he muttered.

  ‘We’re extraordinarily mature for our age,’ Milli contradicted huffily.

  ‘Thirteen marks the onset of adolescence,’ added Ernest, ‘and the end of childhood. So babies, I think, is hardly an appropriate word.’

  ‘I apologise if I have offended,’ said Fritz with a humble bow. ‘You have achieved a good deal for your young years. If you wish to stay and help, I would be honoured.’

  ‘This morning we caught a glimpse of Ms Anomali talking to a marble bust,’ said Milli.

  ‘Ms Anomali is a designer—what did you expect?’

  ‘What does she design?’

  ‘Why, toys, of course. She has taken on the position of chief designer for Von Gob Toys. She wants to revolutionise the company, make cheaper toys and appeal to the mass market. She claims that my uncle has given her free rein.’

  ‘But Von Gob Toys have always been unique, never two the same in the entire world,’ said Ernest.

  ‘Yes, that was the case,’ said Fritz, ‘but I fear it is about to change now that my uncle has retired.’

  ‘And what’s all this business going on in the basement?’ interposed Loyal.

  ‘It is not a basement, old friend,’ Fritz said slowly. ‘It’s a laboratory.’

  Fritz’s words hung heavily in the air. Nobody spoke for a long moment and then Loyal found his voice.

  ‘A laboratory for what?’

  ‘Modifications,’ murmured Fritz. ‘That is the job of the Botchers. They are plastic surgeons whose licences have been revoked so they can no longer practise in the human world.’

  ‘Why are they here?’ asked Loyal in an ominous voice.

  ‘It is not something that can be easily explained,’ floundered Fritz. ‘I would have to show you. I think it is time for a visit to Hack Ward. Perhaps, together, we can work out what’s going on.’

  Fritz’s words seemed to release a valve in Ernest’s brain, which he felt was on the verge of imploding. He was, admittedly, also irritable and hungry as he’d not had time for an afternoon snack.

  ‘No, we’re not sure we can handle it!’ he shouted. ‘Why should we be expected to? We’ve been through enough drama in the last year to last most people a lifetime and yet here we are again, facing danger and uncertainty and not an adult in sight to soften the blow. I know what Milli and I should be doing right now. We should be at home doing our homework or watching an episode of So You Think You’re a Genius on the telly’—Milli raised her eyebrows dubiously at this—‘before brushing our teeth and taking a mug of warm milk to bed. That’s what kids our age should be doing, not worrying about kidnapped toymakers and insane designers. There are debating tryouts at school tomorrow and we’re going to be too wrung out to do our best because we’re too busy trying to catch—’ He stopped suddenly, conscious of having held the floor uninterrupted for the duration of this outburst. He took a deep breath and regained his composure. ‘Of course we can handle it,’ he said, and looked at Milli for confirmation.

  Milli looked at Ernest as if she was seeing him for the first time. ‘Lead the way,’ she said, even though her heart was pounding in her chest.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hack Ward

  Fritz led the way to a stark corridor where the floors were pale grey and plastic chairs in a salmon pink colour were arranged in a row against the walls. The identical doors that lined the corridor were painted a maroon colour that reminded them of congealed blood. Fritz stopped abruptly in front of one of the doors.

  ‘This is Hack Ward,’ he announced. ‘This is a high-security area—where toys come for rehabilitation, so we’re told.’

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Loyal asked, going to push the door open with his nose.

  Fritz stepped in front of him and barred the way. He looked particularly at the children and his tone turned sombre.

  ‘Before you go in, I think you should be prepared. I don’t know exactly what goes on in here, but the sight that greets you behind this door may be confronting. I’m afraid your memories of childhood may be altered permanently.’

  The children nodded to indicate that they understood and were prepared to accept any ramifications. Fritz hesitated a moment longer then slowly turned the handle and pushed open the door.

  At first glance the room looked like a regular hospital ward. There were rows of metal beds, monitors, drips, and clipboards with the patient’s history hanging from bed ends. The lights had been dimmed and the room was tinged with blue, giving it a surreal quality. The children wondered whether this was for the patients’ comfort. On a trolley by the door lay an assortment of implements, not all of them surgical in nature: scalpels, a variety of hooks, scissors, an enormous metal file, sponges in basins, a staple gun, a drill and a collection of knives. A drawer in one of the bedside cabinets had been left half open and inside they could see tubes of adhesive and a blowtorch.

  The curtains, also a washed-out blue, around the beds were open so the patients were clearly visible. As it has been established that this was some kind of toy hospital, many of you may now be hoping for a charming scene of teddies in plaster recovering from broken legs or dolls in slings or a golly with an icepack over its eye to reduce the swelling sustained from falling from a display or even a minor scuffle. If so, you should perhaps consider jumping to the next chapter, or even the last page of this book, to spare yourself unnecessary upset. I would like to spare you that upset myself, but in the inte
rest of truth I cannot. For the truth is that life is not always (or even often) a bed of roses. It is full of pleasures and delights, yes, but unpleasant things also happen and often to those with the least means of defending themselves. I am of the opinion that it would be unwise for us as children to shy away from these things altogether. If we do, we run the risk of being caught unawares, and when we are caught unawares there is not much we can do to prevent such things from happening again. So, if you are still with me, steel yourself and let us continue.

  Although Milli and Ernest, as we know, had seen many extraordinary things in their young lives, nothing they had previously encountered prepared them for the grisly sights that greeted them in Hack Ward. Images of what they saw that day would stay with them for years to come, popping unexpectedly into their heads and jarring them from whatever pleasant activity they happened to be engaged in at the time. Could they have predicted such repercussions they might have reconsidered their decision, but I seriously doubt it.

  On the little beds in neat rows lay an assortment of toys in various stages of convalescence. It was the toys’ appearance that made Ernest recoil and Milli’s jaw drop. Both children, resilient as they were, found themselves frozen in horror. Loyal’s reaction, perhaps buffeted by experience, was merely to look immeasurably sad.

  On the bed nearest to them lay what had once been a doll. But surgery, if such it can be called, had altered her to the extent that she barely passed as a doll any longer. Her face had been cut open from chin to eyebrows leaving a gaping slash from which sprang tiny dinosaurs with razor-sharp teeth and claws. One side of the doll’s head had been shaved and the blonde hair that remained was matted. An opening in her plastic abdomen showed a screwdriver protruding like a third arm. Her feet had been replaced by feline paws.

  All around were toys in a similar condition. In the next bed, a doll had drill screws in place of fingernails. In another, a wide-eyed fleecy bear had the rippling torso of an action hero and carried miniature saws in both paws. A Mr Plod toy had had most of his body removed and replaced with jumbled chess pieces interwoven with shards of metal and glass. Grotesquely, his face was still bright-eyed and smiling. There was a two-headed doll with vampire fangs and barbed-wire hair, and a fairy doll with a rusty spear welded to her arm in place of a wand. In a corner, a tin soldier swung from a crane-like apparatus; a small sign above him read Awaiting Treatment.

  The toys in Hack Ward had been snipped and stitched and twisted and chopped and put together again in the wrong order. It was a monstrous mutation of objects originally created to generate feelings of warmth and belonging. Surrounding the beds were monitors as well as a tangle of cords, wires and transparent bags containing bright fluids connected to a part of the patients’ bodies. The toys all wore identification tags fastened around their wrists. The fact that the patients were toys and obviously not breathing did not lessen the gruesomeness of what had been done to them.

  One of the dolls’ eyelids fluttered briefly and it sent a monitor into a frenzy. In response purple fluid spurted through one of the tubes. The doll jerked and was immediately motionless again. It was also impossible not to notice that every toy had some kind of weaponry grafted onto its anatomy.

  Milli, Ernest and Loyal avoided eye contact with each other, for fear of seeing their own reaction mirrored in the other’s gaze. Milli’s limbs felt leaden and she had to focus hard to will them to move. The terrible sight of these poor toys meant only one thing to her. Even though she dared not say it out loud, it looked like the work of Lord Aldor the Illustrious. But he had been dismembered back in Mirth. Milli herself had seen him carried off in a cart by the slavish Federico Lampo. It wasn’t possible that he could have returned so soon. Even a magician of his calibre needed time to regroup. But when she looked at Ernest’s face she knew he was thinking very similar thoughts. The toys in Hack Ward weren’t the result of random vandalism by curious children who had pulled the arms off their dolls or the stuffing out of their teddies to see how they were made. The mutations they saw in Hack Ward clearly had some kind of purpose.

  Milli looked up and realised that Fritz was watching her with concern. She had been biting hard on her lower lip to stay calm but when he patted her shoulder awkwardly, she buried her face in his shirt to hide her tears. The group stood in silence, searching for something appropriate to say. Finally, Loyal spoke.

  ‘Something is very wrong here, but remember, toys have been the allies of children for centuries. It would take something more extraordinary than an operation to change that…Let’s get out of here,’ he said quietly.

  ‘We can’t just leave them,’ Milli said, reaching a hand out towards the nearest toy.

  ‘Touch nothing,’ said Fritz firmly. ‘They mustn’t know we’ve been here.’

  Loyal nodded firmly in agreement. ‘Fritz is right. Giving ourselves away now will help no one.’

  Seeing Milli’s distressed face, Fritz added, ‘We’ll come back—I promise.’

  Ernest was just reaching for the door when they heard the tapping sound of sharp heels on a polished floor. Tempest Anomali was coming in their direction and she wasn’t alone. They could hear her speaking to someone in a berating tone. They had barely enough time to huddle together on one of the empty beds and draw the curtains around them before the door was flung open so violently its metal handle smashed into the wall.

  ‘Dr Savage, so far you have made me only empty promises!’ Tempest screeched. ‘The board wants to see results!’

  The group could see her feet beneath the curtain as she marched through the ward like a commandant inspecting troops. What she saw clearly did not impress her.

  ‘Not good enough!’ she yelled and stamped her feet.

  Her companion tried to mollify her. ‘We are moving as quickly as we can,’ he said. ‘These things take time to fine-tune. It’s a relatively new field of endeavour—’

  ‘I am not after the Nobel Prize, Savage. Finetuning, as you put it, is not high on my list of priorities. Sometimes I wonder whether you are deserving of being called a Botcher.’

  ‘Perhaps if we had access to the secret manual,’ the man suggested.

  ‘Yes, that would be useful,’ Tempest said between gritted teeth. They could imagine the look of fury crossing her face. ‘Unfortunately, and as you well know, we have not yet been able to procure it.’

  ‘But surely the toymaker could be persuaded to—’

  ‘He is proving more stubborn than we expected for an old git, but there is another tactic I’m about to try and I don’t expect to fail.’

  ‘I’m sure you will succeed,’ fawned the man.

  Tempest’s rage abated a little with the flattery.

  ‘I’ll be generous and give you another week to produce something impressive,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by appearances. The specimens you see before you may look comical but are more vicious than you would believe,’ said the Botcher, but it was a poor strategy as it served only to infuriate Tempest again.

  ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Savage,’ she snapped. ‘This looks like the rubbish you’d find in a flea market! Try at least to understand the essence of my drawings and stop taking so many short cuts. After all, short cuts are what landed you here in the first place.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ the doctor replied, sounding as if he was struggling to maintain his composure.

  ‘You’d better. Otherwise, it’s back to unemployment and you know what that means?’ Tempest snarled. ‘No more Club Med holidays or the best grammar school for the kiddies.’

  With that final barb, she pushed past the stunned doctor and flounced out through the door. Dr Savage performed a hasty round of the ward and tweaked a few tubes, before slinking out himself, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

  The main concern preoccupying the group now was the welfare of the toymaker. Fritz’s theory had been correct: Von Gobstopper was being held somewhere in the arcade. Finding him became a matter of urgenc
y.

  ‘What’s this secret manual they mentioned?’ Ernest asked. Fritz frowned.

  ‘I think I might have an idea, although I can’t be sure as it happened so long ago. I was very young at the time but I distinctly remember Uncle Gustav telling me about having inherited a friend’s private notebook. He was worried about it falling into the wrong hands.’

  ‘Why, what was in it?’ Milli asked.

  ‘He didn’t say exactly, just that it contained valuable information, information that could prove dangerous.’ Milli and Ernest exchanged glances. The mention of wrong hands had triggered disturbing memories.

  ‘There’s someone we suspect could be involved; someone we’ve had dealings with before,’ Milli said hesitantly.

  ‘He’s known as Lord Aldor,’ continued Ernest.

  ‘Who is this person?’ Fritz demanded.

  ‘Just the sort of person who would be interested in information that could be used to further his own ends, the sort of individual you wouldn’t want to know if you could help it.’

  ‘We’ll tell you more about him later,’ said Milli.

  ‘Do you think your uncle still has the notebook?’ Ernest asked.

  ‘I’m certain of it. We must find him. He has to be in the building somewhere.’

  ‘We’ll search every floor!’ exclaimed the rocking horse.

  ‘It would help if we knew where to start,’ said Fritz.

  As if in answer, several loud beeps sounded, making them all jump in alarm. It was the doctor’s pager, which he’d inadvertently left behind on one of the beds. There was no time to lose. Dr Savage would soon realise his oversight and return to collect it. Milli pocketed the pager before anyone could even offer an opinion and headed out the door to find Theo and the others.

  ‘Quick thinking,’ said Fritz admiringly, once they had regained the safety of the stairwell.

  ‘As long as it doesn’t raise any suspicion,’ qualified the ever-cautious Ernest.

  ‘Better read the message,’ urged Loyal, ‘before we decide whether it will be of any use or not.’