Nightbirds on Nantucket

by Joan Aiken

  "Maybe it does," Dido said crossly, "but it's true just the same. You see, she ain't Miss Tribulation. She's only pretending to be her."

  "Who the blazes," said Doctor Mayhew, "would want to pretend to be Miss Tribulation Casket? You've been reading too many fairy tales—that's what's the matter with you! Now, you tell me what ails Cap'n Casket?"

  Deciding that Nate might be a better hand at convincing the doctor, Dido abandoned the subject of the Hanoverians and described Captain Casket's symptoms and strange, delirious remarks. Doctor Mayhew was very interested in the tale of the pink whale.

  "Is that so?" he kept saying. "That's mighty interesting. And why shouldn't there be a pink whale, now? There's a-plenty pink fish, pink pearls, pink shells, pink seaweed in the ocean—why not a pink whale?"

  "And why did she carry on so when she saw Cap'n Casket?"

  "Oh, that's simple enough. Guess she was the little pink whale calf he put back in the sea when he was a boy; he told me that tale once: he found her beached and dragged her back in. And, of course, whales, being warm-blooded, warm-hearted, long-lived critters—I've heard of 'em living to a century or more—she'd naturally remember him kindly. They're kin to porpoises, ye know, and porpoises are right sympathetic to the human race."

  "Oh, I see," Dido said. "Kind of old childhood pals like? Well, we'll be properly in the basket if he wants her to sit by his bed and hold his hand. Let's hope he's a bit better, time we get back."

  Captain Casket did not seem to be much better, though, when they arrived at Soul's Hill. He was wild and feverish, rolled about in his bed, and kept throwing imaginary harpoons at unseen whales.

  "He needs a dose of poppy syrup," Doctor Mayhew said. "That'll give him some rest."

  He administered a draught. Immediately Captain Casket fell back as if he had been pole-axed and began snoring loudly.

  "That'll fix him for a good few hours," Doctor Mayhew said with satisfaction. "Powerful strong it is, the way I mix it. Here," he said to Pen, "I'll leave ye the bottle, but don't give him any more unless I'm delayed getting back to ye and he seems worse. Now, why don't I drive your mule on to Polpis, where I want to see old Mr. Pardon, and bring him back tomorrow. That'll save you an extra trip to Nantucket."

  Aunt Tribulation came into the room.

  "Well, Tribulation," the doctor said, "I'd not have known ye, but I suppose we're all getting a bit long in the tooth. Remember when I pushed you in the creek and you were so mad at me?"

  "Yes, I do," said Aunt Tribulation frostily. "And it's not a thing to boast about. It was not the act of a gentleman!"

  Doctor Mayhew laughed very heartily at this and took his leave, pinching Pen's cheek. As soon as the door closed behind him, Aunt Tribulation turned fiercely on Dido.

  "What do you mean, miss, by going to the Hidden Forest and begging lobsters off the English scientists? Who gave you leave to do such a thing?"

  Oh, dear, thought Dido. She met the eyes of Pen, who looked anguished.

  "Yes, indeed, I got the whole story out of Penitence," rasped Aunt Tribulation. "And I won't have such behavior! You are not to pester those men, who are very busy botanists studying the plant life of the island, and have no time to waste on prying, spying children, who ought to be at home anyway, tending to their tasks. For that, miss, you shall be shut in the clock, and shall have no dinner or supper."

  She suddenly pounced on Dido, who, sleepy and off-guard after the eventful night and long drive, was no match for her and was soon thrust into the grandfather clock. Aunt Tribulation slammed and locked the door.

  "Oh, well," Dido thought, yawning, "it'll be a chance to catch up on my sleep." She curled herself up as comfortably as possible, with her head well below the swing of the pendulum, and prepared for a nap. Then, to her astonishment, she heard Pen crying indignantly, like a lamb at bay, "Aunt Tribulation, you are unjust! It is wrong to put Dido in the clock! You should not do so! If anybody is put in there it should be me."

  "It should be I, Penitence," Aunt Tribulation corrected coldly.

  "Hear, hear!" shouted Dido from the clock.

  "Silence, disobedient girl! As for you, Penitence, I cannot shut you in, since you are needed to look after your father. You may give me the milk posset you had prepared for him, since he will not need it at present—no, heat it up first—then polish the parlor floor."

  Pen's spurt of courage seemed to have died; there was silence for some time; then she could be heard saying in a subdued manner, "Here is the posset, Aunt Tribulation."

  Dido went peacefully to sleep, lulled by the clock's solemn tick-tock.

  She was not suffered to sleep for very long, however; the door of the clock suddenly opened, letting in unwelcome daylight, and Pen's excited voice whispered, "Dido, Dido, you may come out!"

  "Glorious me," Dido murmured, only half-awake. "What've you done with Auntie Gruff? Dropped her down the well? You coulda knocked me down with a feather, Pen, when I heard you speaking up to her so fierce!"

  "Oh, but I have done something much, much worse now!" whispered Pen, looking quite scared at her own daring. "I put some of the poppy syrup in her milk posset and she has gone sound asleep on the parlor sofa."

  "Pen! You never!"

  "Truly! Come and see!"

  Dido climbed stiffly out of the clock and saw that it was so. Aunt Tribulation was in a deep sleep.

  "Dido, I am truly sorry that she found out you had been to the forest," Pen went on hurriedly. "I could not bear for you to be thinking that I told on you. Indeed, it was not like that."

  "Never mind, young 'un," said Dido. "I could see it musta been an accident."

  "It was the lobsters, you see; we forgot all about them, and when she woke up, there they were clambering about the barnyard. And she said, 'Where did they come from?' and I—I am not clever at inventing things on the spur of the moment—and I said, 'We had them from a man in exchange for some boots.' And she seemed to know about the man and the boots, so it all came out."

  "You could have said they was from Mrs. Pardon."

  "That would have been a downright falsehood."

  "Oh," said Dido. "Yus, I suppose it would. Eh, well, no use chinwagging over spilt chowder. How's your pa, Pen?"

  "Still fast asleep. But I think he looks better."

  They sat with Captain Casket through the afternoon, but he continued to sleep peacefully and never stirred. During this time Dido took the opportunity of giving Pen a complete account of what had happened in the forest and the conclusions that she and Nate had reached. But she did not mention their suspicions of Aunt Tribulation; she thought the news that Miss Casket might be wanted by the English police would prove too much for Pen's new-found courage.

  At last, when dusk was beginning to fall, Dido said, "Maybe us'd better get the jobs done while Cap'n Casket's still quiet."

  Pen agreed that it would be safe to leave her father for a while.

  As they were feeding the pigs Pen thought she heard cries from the bottom pasture.

  "Dido, quick!" she cried, looking over the fence. "There's somebody in trouble down there on the bog!"

  At the foot of the hill was a small cranberry bog half grown over with bushes and straggly trees. They could hear the cries for help clearly now, and see somebody floundering about among the crimson hummocks.

  "I'll go," Dido said, grabbing a long-handled, wooden hayrake. "You'd best stay here, Pen, in case your pa wakes."

  She bolted down the hill, calling, "Hold on, I'm a-coming!"

  When she reached the edge of the bog she saw that the person in distress was the little Professor Breadno. He was mired up to his knees, completely stuck; his eyes were bulging with fright, and his ears stood out like wings.

  "Well you are a clodpole, ain't you?" Dido said. "How ever did you come to get into sich a pickle?"

  "Is hoping seeing bird, seeing Nat-herrn," he explained humbly.

  Dido crawled out with caution onto a fairly safe-looking hummock and extended the rake
in his direction. He was just able to grab it.

  "That's the dandy! Hold on between the spikes!" Dido said, demonstrating. "Now I'm a-going to pull, so when I say 'heave,' you shove off like an old bullfrog. Ready? Heave!"

  She threw herself back, pulling until every muscle in her skinny frame seemed about to snap. The professor came out of the mud a reluctant six inches and fell forward onto his knees.

  "Keep a-going, don't stop now, don't sink!" shouted Dido, throwing herself back again. "Heave some more, come on, put a bit o' gumption into it. Don't pull me in!"

  She dragged him slowly through the mud.

  "If you've lost those boots I shan't half give you what-for," she added. "We had trouble enough over them already." He was so muddy that it was impossible to tell whether he had them on or not.

  "Skrek verlige öfalt!" he exclaimed, looking at himself dolefully, and then, politely, said to Dido, "Is a much nick of time, treasurechild!"

  "Yes, thanks, but don't kiss my hand again," she said, retreating with haste. "You better come up and get under the pump. It's lucky Auntie Trib's out for the count." She beckoned him and he followed trustfully, dripping mud and ooze at every step.

  "Mercy!" exclaimed Pen at sight of him. "I'll put on a kettle."

  "Pump first," Dido said grimly. "It's us as'll have to scrub the kitchen floor if he walks on it in that state. Make him some o' your herb tea, Penny."

  The poor little man submitted meekly to being pumped over; "I sank you; sank you!" he kept repeating piteously.

  "I should just about think you nearly did sink me! Guess you're clean enough now, you can go into the kitchen." She gestured towards the door, where Pen had an old suit of Captain Casket's ready. It was far too big for the professor, and they had to kilt it up here and there with lengths of string.

  He drank the herb tea with loud expressions of appreciation; they gathered it was something he had not expected to find outside his native land.

  "Hjavallherbteegot! Wundernice! Gratefulness!"

  "That's all right," Dido said. "Have some gingerbread. Now, we don't want to get you into trouble with your friends, but we do want you to tell us about that gun o' yours, Professor."

  "Gun?"

  "Cannon. Pistol. Bang, bang!"

  "Aha, königsbang! Is soon blowing up London."

  "What?"

  "Is will be monstershoot, grosseboom, across—"

  He looked about the room and saw an old, silvery globe of the world on one of the dresser shelves. With a finger he traced a course on it from the island of Nantucket up over Nova Scotia across the North Atlantic to London. "Is shooting up palast—Sint Jims Palast, not?"

  "Shooting right across the Atlantic? Blowing up St. James's Palace. Is that what he means, Pen?"

  "Goodso!" the professor said, delighted. "Is fine shoot, not? And is all mine, Doktor Axeltree Breadno, mine mat-tematic kalkulätted!"

  "But, Professor, blowing up London!"

  "London—not. Sönmal Kungspalast."

  "Only the King's palace," Dido guessed. He nodded. "Croopus, that's mighty pretty aiming, I must say. But, honestly, Professor, you mustn't blow up the poor old King, must he, Pen? What harm's he ever done to you?"

  "No, indeed, it would be very wrong," Penitence agreed.

  But they seemed unable to convey this idea to the professor. "Is cleverness, not?" he kept saying. "Will being magnifibang!" He was so pleased with his amazing feat of having made a gun that would shoot right across the Atlantic and hit St. James's Palace that he could not see any wrong in it.

  "He's looking forward to the bang," Dido said exasperatedly.

  "Is being donderboom!" he agreed with an eager nod. "And will pushing—lookso—" He made a gesture on the globe with his finger, from Nantucket around Long Island to New York Harbor. It took them some time to see what he meant.

  "You mean," said Dido at last, "that the whatd'you-callem—the kickback from the shot—will push Nantucket right round to that place, New York City?"

  "Is so!" he said in triumph. "Is byggdegrit, not?"

  "It certainly is! Just wait till the mayor hears this! It ought to change his notions about not interfering. 'We keep ourselves to ourselves on Nantucket.'" Dido couldn't help bursting into a fit of laughter. Then she sobered up. Pen was looking absolutely aghast.

  "Push Nantucket all that way? But the houses would fall down!"

  "That wouldn't be the half of it, I daresay," Dido said. "Think of the waves! Look, Prof, when's all this due to happen? When? Bang?" She pointed to the clock and a calendar.

  He flew into a complicated explanation; they could understand only about one word in eighteen. They gathered there was some final calculation to be made, and then he kept saying, "Expectness skepp coming."

  "Oh, I know," Dido said at last. "He's waiting for the ship, the Dark Diamond. She's bringing the cannonball."

  "So, is so!" He counted on his fingers. "Tvo, tree day."

  "Three days? We've not got much time, then. Lucky Doc Mayhew's coming back. And then you sail away in the ship, do you?"

  "Skepp awaits hjere." He demonstrated on the map that the Dark Diamond, having delivered the cannonball, would hurry round to the other side of Cape Cod to avoid any tidal waves caused by the sudden displacing of Nantucket, and when things had settled down would collect the professor and take him home.

  "Lucky thing!" said Dido with envy.

  "You wishing withcome? I fixing."

  Pen gave Dido an anxious look but did not speak.

  "Oh, goodness," Dido said. "Thanks, Professor, but I can't leave till Pen's fixed up. Anyway, I'd just as soon not sail along of Mr. Slighcarp." Or Auntie Trib, she thought. "Much obliged for the offer, though."

  The professor now politely took his leave, indicating that he would return next day to collect his dried clothes. He offered handfuls of golden guineas to the girls, but they shook their heads.

  "Not if they're your pay for blowing up poor old Kingy," Dido said. Professor Breadno beamed at her uncomprehendingly, kissed her hand again, murmuring, "Excellenzchildren," and trotted off down the hill.

  "Well!" Left alone, the girls stared at one another in amazement.

  "I said they was a peevy lot," Dido remarked at length. "But I never thought they was as peevy as that. Blowing up St. James's Palace!"

  "And moving our island! Without so much as a by your leave!"

  There came a tap at the door. Both girls jumped guiltily, but it was only Nate.

  "Anyone in?" he said, putting his head round the door. "Say, girls! Guess the news! Guess who's turned up?"

  "The Sarah Casket?"

  Dido wondered if it could be the real Aunt Tribulation, but did not say so.

  "No, it ain't that. It's the old pink 'un!"

  "The pink whale?"

  "Where is she?"

  "Off Squam Head, as plain as plain. She's a-diving and a-playing and a-carrying on like a porpoise; everyone from Polpis has been there watching all afternoon. Doc Mayhew's given strict instructions no one's to hurt her. Is Cap'n Casket awake?"

  "I'll see," said Pen, and ran upstairs.

  "He ought to get a sight of her," Dido said, "as soon as he is well enough to go out. I dessay she'd do him all the good in the world."

  They tiptoed upstairs after Penitence.

  "Papa," she could be heard saying softly, "Papa, are you feeling better?"

  "Is that thee, Daughter? Why, where am I?"

  "In your own bed at home, Papa."

  "Why, so I am. I have been having strange dreams." He sighed. To Pen's fright, two tears formed in his eyes and rolled slowly down his cheeks. "I dreamed that I had caught up with her at last," he said sadly, "and that she welcomed me."

  "Who, Papa?"

  "The pink whale. It was but a dream, though."

  "No, Papa, it wasn't a dream! It was true! And she is waiting for you now, off Squam Head, waiting to see you, so you must hurry and get better," Pen told him joyfully. But his response was disappointing.


  "I know thee does it for the best, Daughter, but thee must not tell falsehoods. There is no pink whale. It was but a dream. Else why should I be here, at Soul's Hill, and not aboard the Sarah Casket? I have been ill and dreaming."

  "But, Papa, it was no dream. Other people have seen her too—Nate saw her!"

  "It was a dream," he said obstinately. And to himself he added with a groan, "Alack, and was the first time a dream, too? The little pink whale calf washed up on Quidnet Beach? Has all my life's search been but a fool's quest for a phantom?"

  "But, Papa, truly, she is out there now off Squam Head. Indeed, she is!"

  Two more tears stood in Captain Casket's eyes, but he shook them away angrily, hunched his shoulders, and turned his face to the wall. To all Pen's protestations he would merely reply, "I do not believe thee. It was a dream."

  Poor Pen came sadly out to the others.

  "Never mind," Dido comforted her. "Maybe Doc Mayhew'll be able to convince him tomorrow. You make him some nice porridge or broth, summat strengthening, now. Nate'll help me with the butter."

  While they were churning, Dido quickly told Nate about the abominable plan to blow up King James III in his palace, and the disastrous effect this would have on the island of Nantucket.

  He whistled in dismay. "Heave Nantucket right back against the mainland just so's they can swap one king for another? Sounds like plumb foolishness to me. Did you tell the doc?"

  "No," Dido said crossly. "He wouldn't listen to me. He thinks little girls tell fairy tales. You'll have to tell him tomorrow, Nate. Maybe he'll pay attention when he hears Nantucket's going to end up in New York Harbor."

  "Guess so!"

  "I hoped he'd know Aunt Tribulation was a faker," Dido went on, "but she turned him round her finger, smooth as pie, pretending to remember when he pushed her in the creek. He was fooled."

  "Does Pen know she's really Miss Slighcarp?"