by Ellen Potter
The week that Mum went missing, Spoon went missing too. When Max couldn’t find Spoon, he carried on like a maniac, kicking the wall and sobbing on the floor, and none of the Hardscrabbles knew what to do. I think it was because they all felt like carrying on like that on account of Mum, but instead they were all very quiet because Dad was. They needed something to do, though, so they went on a massive search for Spoon, scouring every cranny of the house and the garden. It took their minds off Mum, and when they found Spoon crammed between the oven and the wall, it made them all feel that everything would be okay. That they would find Mum too, eventually.
So you can see why Spoon held Special Family Meaning, and why Max slept with it every single night, and why it was such a big deal when Dad forgot to pack it. It gave them all an eerie feeling that something was wrong.
Otto said, “Do you think Dad has ditched us?”
In each of their bellies, they felt a swelling of fear, like a balloon that was slowly being filled with pooshy breaths. Spoon had not been packed . . . poosh . . . the fact that Angela was not home . . . poosh . . . and wouldn’t Dad find it far more preferable to live in an exotic location than in dull old Little Tunks . . . poosh, poosh, poosh . . . and then—most horrible of all—maybe the police’s initial suspicions about Dad were true. Maybe he is a psycho who murdered Mum and now he’s abandoned his children. They stared at one another with quiet dread in their eyes.
Lucia was the first to let some of the air out of the balloons. “Dad would never just abandon us,” she said, her dark brows knitted.
“No. Of course he wouldn’t,” Max agreed.
Otto still looked grim, but he said, “When we see him, he’ll have something to answer for about this whole business.”
The other two quickly took up his righteous anger: “If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave, he would have realized that it wasn’t Angela on the phone,” and “Wait until he hears what we’ve been through—he’ll feel awful.”
The balloons in their bellies gradually deflated and they began to feel the exhaustion of a most unusual day.
“You can’t imagine how badly I have to pee,” Max said.
“Not in here,” Lucia warned.
“Where then?”
“Pee in the canal,” Lucia said.
“That’s polluting,” Max said.
“Well, fish do,” Lucia said.
This argument went on for a few minutes.
“He can pee just outside the tree, if no one’s looking,” Otto said, sick of the argument. “I’ve got to go too.”
And so did Lucia, now that she thought about it. They stepped through the fountain of branches and waited until they were sure the coast was clear. Max and Otto went right away but Lucia just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t that she was fussy; it’s only that there are some things you just can’t force.
“I’ll need a restroom,” she said firmly.
“Ha! And where do you suppose the Princess Uzima found a restroom on the African plains?” Max said.
“Well, if there were nothing but scrub and gazelles in London, I’d pee in public as well,” she snapped back.
“You’re just being difficult,” Max said.
“Oh? What’s that then? A gazelle?” Lucia cried. It was pure luck that a man with a goatee had suddenly appeared on the canal path, heading their way.
“Well, where do you propose that we find a restroom?” Max asked.
“Ever heard of a pub, genius?” Lucia said.
Suddenly she felt her heart beating faster for no reason, so she knew that Otto was scared.
She looked at him and found that he was staring fixedly at the approaching man. She glanced at the man again. She didn’t like the way he was walking. It was too fast and too purposeful for a lonely promenade at night.
A shaft of lamplight lit his face briefly, but it was long enough for Lucia to see that she had been mistaken about the goatee. He didn’t have one. It was the swirling tattoos on his chin that had given that impression.
“Let’s go!” Lucia hissed.
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Lucia. Just wait till the man passes and then go pee,” Max said. “Tell her she’s being a git, Otto.”
But Otto was also staring at the tattooed man, who was now fast approaching. Max turned to look at the man too.
“Isn’t that—?” Max started.
The man started running towards them now.
“Move, Otto!” Lucia commanded.
“Stay right there, you filthy—” The tattooed man then said some really awful stuff that I won’t repeat. The Hardscrabbles were all so shocked that they didn’t move, which was the worst thing they could have done. The man barreled into Otto, lowering his head and smashing it so hard against Otto’s chest that Otto flew backwards, right through the branches of the willow and into their makeshift hut. The man burst in after him and shoved Otto up against the tree trunk in the most brutal way.
“Leave him alone!” Lucia screamed as she and Max rushed up behind the man. She was too surprised for tears. There was only the punching of her heart in her chest.
“You owe me twenty quid,” the man spat at Otto.
“Twenty? But you said it was five,” Max protested.
The man smiled at Otto in a horrible way, his flattened frog’s nose pressing even flatter against his face. “Penalty for nicking.”
“Give him the money, Otto,” Lucia said, her voice shamefully high-pitched.
Otto hesitated and the man grabbed Otto by the throat. Well, he meant to, anyway, but he really grabbed him by the scarf.
“Come on, you little (again, unmentionable), pay up before I start stomping on your ribs.” Then Frog Nose yanked the scarf so roughly that it unlooped around Otto’s neck and slid right off, falling to the ground.
That was when Lucia knew something bad was about to happen. No one had ever touched his scarf. Even the teachers in school never insisted that he remove it, though outerwear like hats and gloves and scarves was forbidden in the classroom. They knew instinctively that this silent, strange boy would not tolerate it, that he needed the scarf more than they needed him to remove it.
Now Otto’s head jerked up. Beneath his long fringe of hair, his one visible eye was wild with rage. In a flash, he grabbed the camera off the branch on which he’d hung it, and with a single, powerful swing, he whipped it against the side of Frog Nose’s face. It made a crunching noise, but whether it was the shattering of the camera’s inner workings or of bones, it was hard to say. Frog Nose yelped, doubled over, and clutched at his face.
“Run, run!” Lucia cried, but Otto wouldn’t. He was in a frenzy and it was doubtful that he could hear anything at all except for the blood rushing through his ears. He swung the camera over his left shoulder and struck again, this time hitting the back of Frog Nose’s head. The man stumbled and fell to the ground, howling, but still Otto wouldn’t stop. He was getting ready to attack again when Max leapt forward and grabbed the camera right before the next swing.
“I’ll kill you!” Frog Nose roared, his voice strangely muffled sounding. Blood was streaming from his nose and from a gash on his temple, and it was dripping into his mouth and down the front of his shirt. At the sight of it, Lucia sucked back her breath. She felt a confusing tangle of emotions—shock at Otto’s ferocity. Admiration even. And terror for what had been unleashed.
It also made her think about the rumors back in Little Tunks, about how Otto had strangled their mum in a fit of rage.
Stop thinking about that! she told herself sternly. It’s nonsense! If you want to think about something, think about a way to get us out of this awful mess!
And that’s exactly what she did. Scooping up Otto’s scarf from the ground, she screamed at him, “Run! Run now or I’ll throw your scarf in the canal!”
It worked. Otto ran. They all three of them legged it down the canal path and through the streets of Camden Town, and they didn’t stop until they found themselves directly in front of the train
station.
Chapter 6
In which the Hardscrabbles meet a Viking, a zebra, and a bogus wild boar. Also there’s a cat.
It was very unfortunate that they had left their bags under the willow tree, but there was nothing to be done about it. They couldn’t go back and fetch them—Frog Nose might be waiting for them there.
“Good thing Spoon wasn’t in the bag, eh?” Max said, trying to see the bright side.
“Yes, but our return tickets to Little Tunks were,” Lucia reminded him.
“I have enough money to buy us all new tickets,” Otto said, checking his pocket, “but that will leave us with almost nothing. And where are we supposed to spend the night until the train comes?”
“I’ve been thinking of something,” Max said. “I thought of it before, actually, but I figured we’d first try Lucia’s plan of sleeping in London. And since that was clearly a failure—”
“Through no fault of my own!” Lucia reminded him.
“I was thinking,” Max continued, “that we might go to Great-aunt Haddie’s.”
“Who?” Lucia asked.
“Great-aunt Haddie,” Max repeated. “She wrote the letter to Dad.”
“Oh, yes, I didn’t hear what you said,” Lucia said, embarrassed that she didn’t remember the name or even realize that their mum’s aunt would be their great-aunt. “Stellar idea except for the fact that we have no clue where she lives.”
“Yes, we do,” Max said. “It said so in the letter.”
“No, it didn’t,” Lucia said.
“Yes, it did,” Max insisted. “Think about it. She wrote that she’d spent the morning snoring by the sea, in quotation marks. Well, that was her being clever. I checked the pocket atlas and there it was. Snoring-by-the-Sea.”
“Is that what you were doing up on the roof?” Lucia asked.
Max nodded.
“You could have just read it in your bedroom and spared me the climb,” Lucia said.
“Anyway,” Max said, “Snoring-by-the-Sea is a small town and I’ll bet there aren’t many Haddie Piggits living there. We could just turn up and ask how to find her. Also, it’s not too far from London so there still might be some late trains running.”
“Snoring-by-the-Sea?” Lucia said, wrinkling her nose. “It doesn’t sound very exciting.”
“It’s better than Mrs. Carnival’s,” Max said.
It so happened that there was a late train and they just managed to catch it. A train ride is nearly always an enjoyable thing, except when it’s the second one of the day and you are going to see a relative whom you know nothing about. Also, it’s not much fun when it’s dark outside. There was little to see through the windows. Here and there they could make out shadowy hummocks of fields or a blocky cluster of houses. There was something very humiliating about this trip too. Lucia, for one, felt as though she had botched things up. Maybe she should have tried harder to keep the adventure going. Who knew when they would ever get to be on their own in London again? Never probably.
“I don’t expect Haddie Piggit will be happy to see us,” Otto said miserably. “Not at this time of night.”
“Of course she’ll be happy to see us,” Max said. “She’s our aunt, isn’t she?”
“Great-aunt,” Otto said. “Which means she’s ancient and probably goes to bed at eight o’clock. After she’s eaten her mushy peas.”
Presently, Snoring-by-the-Sea was announced as the next stop. The Hardscrabbles grabbed for their bags, then remembered that they didn’t have them anymore. It’s a very discombobulating feeling to walk off a train at a strange station without having a bag to hold.
Under the flickering platform lamps they could see that the station was completely deserted. Not a single passenger had gotten off the train and not a single person was waiting to get on. It was altogether ominous, rather like in those old-time books in which the children arrive at a bleak little town and are driven by a creepy coachman to the creepy house of a deeply creepy relative. Even Max glanced back at the train, as though he were wondering if it was too late to get back on. But the next moment the train’s horn blew a wheezy warning and it started up again. Then it was gone. The Hardscrabbles were completely and utterly alone.
“Now what?” Lucia turned on Max very snappishly.
“Now we find someone to ask about Haddie Piggit,” Max said, trying to sound more confident than he was.
For a solid thirty seconds Otto and Lucia stared at Max. A solid thirty seconds is a long time to stare at someone. Try it and you’ll notice that the other person will pretend to be fascinated by a smooshed piece of gum on the pavement. That’s exactly what Max was doing at that moment.
“And where, do you suggest, are we going to find this person to ask?” Lucia finally demanded.
Max didn’t answer. He just started walking. There was nothing for Otto and Lucia to do but follow him. One, because they were not so coldhearted as to let their youngest sibling wander around a strange place by himself, and two, because they didn’t want to be left alone to wander around a strange place without their youngest sibling. Max always seemed to know so much more about real-life things than they did, like how to get from one place to another.
Still, they did mutter to each other as they walked along (Otto often had to repeat himself since it was hard for Lucia to see his hands in the darkness):
“This is taking things pretty far, I’d say,” said Otto, gazing at the black stretch of fields all around them. “Sometimes I think Max is quite mental.”
“It’s just that Dad always indulges him. Because he’s the youngest, of course. He ought to be more strict with him. I think I’ll have a chat with Dad when he gets back.”
And the two continued this “older brother-and-sister conversation” because it made them feel a little less nervous about travelling to who-knew-where in the middle of the night.
Soon a lone farmhouse appeared, with a tumbledown barn behind it. A low groaning sound made Otto and Lucia stop short and stare at each other, their eyes wide.
“Cows,” Max called back, without turning or slowing his pace.
Lucia forced her nostrils to flare but it was too dark for anyone to notice. Otto yanked on the end of his scarf so that it was wrapped tight around his neck, and they continued on.
More and more houses began to appear until they came to the heart of a small town. It looked so similar to Little Tunks—the small tidy shops, now closed of course, and the rows of brick houses with their scrappy little front yards—that it made Otto and Lucia relax a bit. They even began to peer at the shop windows, most of which were too dark to see into. But there was one towards the edge of the town, where the shops began to dwindle, that had a single light on towards the back, enough to illuminate a front window and the sign above it—SAINT GEORGE’S TAXIDERMY & CURIOSITIES. The window display had a spooky-looking collection: stuffed rabbits frozen in mid-hop, stuffed foxes frozen in mid-leap, and a miniature zebra that looked out quizzically at them with glinting black eyes. There were several cylindrical-shaped glass containers that imprisoned stuffed ducks and owls, and various horns were scattered all about. The centerpiece, however, was a wild boar. The beast was standing with its huge snout pointing upwards. Its mouth was open in a snarl, baring its white curving tusks. Someone had painted the tips of the lower tusks bright red as though it had recently gored someone.
“It’s hideous,” Lucia said quietly, unable to tear her eyes away from the beast’s face.
“It’s fake,” Max said. “That’s just a very large pig with tusks stuck into its jaws.”
“How do you know?” Lucia asked.
“For one thing, only male wild boars have tusks. That one is a girl.”
“Really?”
Lucia and Otto both ducked their heads and tipped them to one side to have a better look.
“You’re right,” Lucia said, then suddenly cried, “Oh!” and drew back.
“What?” Otto asked.
“There. Look on
the floor, right by the boar’s hind legs,” she said.
“Pig,” Max corrected, but he crouched down along with Otto and they saw a stuffed black cat, curled in a sleek ball on the floor.
“It’s one thing to stuff a rabbit,” Lucia cried. “But a cat! That’s barbaric!”
“Look at his toes!” Otto said. “On his right front. He’s got”—he squinted to see if he was correct—“yes, he’s got eight of them!”
“He can’t have,” Max said. “The most they can have is seven.”
“Look!” Otto said, tapping on the window.
At that moment two things happened. The cat looked up, and a voice from within the store called out, “Have you brought me a body? If not, go away!”
The children stared at one another in silence, eyes wide. In a moment they heard a scuffling from within, then the thunk of something hitting the floor.
“I think we should leave,” Max whispered.
“Nonsense,” Lucia said, her voice full of excitement. “He asked about a body. Here’s murder at least!”
“He’s a taxidermist. He meant an animal’s body, I’m sure,” Max said.
There was the sharp snap of a lock being turned, and the door was yanked open by a great boulder of a man holding a knife with a long leather strap on the bottom. The front of his body was covered with a slick black apron, and his hair, which was a strawberry blond color, was tied back in a tight braid that reached his shoulder blades. He had a powerful nose and a chin that looked like it could hammer a nail into concrete. If he were wearing an iron helmet, Lucia mused, he would look just like a Viking.