The Order of Odd-Fish

by James Kennedy

  Sefino led Jo to a small side closet full of filthy black robes.

  “Dining gowns,” he said, and gave her one.

  “I’m supposed to wear this?” said Jo. Like all the other gowns, it was covered in stains, and bits of dried food clung to the sleeves.

  “They’re never washed,” said Sefino. “Squires aren’t allowed to wash their dining gowns.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a very honorable and pointless tradition,” said Sefino. “Just put it on.”

  Sefino had changed into a smart waiter’s uniform, with a six-button black vest, precisely knotted bow tie, and crisp apron. Jo saw other cockroaches, too, rushing back and forth with teetering trays stacked with plates and saucers and cups. Sefino stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse, clicking his mandibles eagerly. Above, feet clumped down the stairs.

  “Probably the other squires,” said Sefino.

  Jo didn’t know where to start. “Sefino, what is a squire?”

  “A knight’s assistant,” said Sefino. “Each knight has a squire and a butler to help them. That’s where we cockroaches come in. You’re Dame Lily’s squire. I, of course, am Korsakov’s butler.”

  “Sefino,” said Jo cautiously, “what is this place?”

  “Ah, that’s a bit of a metaphysical question, isn’t it? You’d be better off asking Sir Oort.”

  “What?”

  “Sir Oort Helmfozz. You’ll meet him. He’s the house expert on discredited metaphysics.”

  “What’s—”

  “Jo, I do have my own duties to attend to,” said Sefino. “And asking too many questions is a vulgar habit.”

  Jo sat down on a bench. “It’s too much. I don’t know why I’m supposed to be dangerous, and I don’t know anything about squires, or knights, or…or ‘discredited metaphysics,’ or anything.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t think I’ll fit in here.”

  “You certainly won’t fit in if you keep hiding in this closet,” said Sefino. “Though you may become a beloved eccentric. They might even point you out on guided tours. ‘And here’s Jo Larouche,’ they’d announce. ‘Went into this closet years ago. Never left. Don’t worry, we do feed her from time to time. No flash photography, please.’”

  “Thanks, Sefino, you’re a real help.”

  “It could be a relaxing life.”

  “I just need to catch my breath.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Sefino, and scuttled off.

  Jo sat on a wooden stool and tried to get her bearings. The lodge clamored with people, but Jo was in no state to meet anyone. She was exhausted, grungy, her nerves shot. Her pink waitress uniform (which she had always hated anyway) was a crumpled rag now, soaked in the stomach juices of the giant fish. Then she heard voices and footsteps in the hall. Jo remembered the dining gown and threw it on.

  Three boys (one tall, one pudgy, and one weirdly birdlike) and a girl came into the closet. They all halted, staring at Jo in surprise.

  “Who are you?” said the girl finally. She had red, curly hair and an unfortunate nose.

  “Um…ah…Jo Larouche?” said Jo.

  “Oh, so you’re Dame Lily’s squire.” The girl seemed unimpressed. “I’m Daphne Brockbank. Dame Delia’s squire.”

  “Maurice Farrar. I’m Sir Festus’s.” Maurice was a burly, sleepy-looking boy who seemed to be in the middle of a growth spurt in which parts of his body were developing at different speeds, such that his legs were too short, his arms were too long, and his back was curled into a perpetual stoop. He barely glanced at Jo as he fiddled with his dining gown.

  “Albert Blatch-Budgins. Sir Alasdair’s,” grunted the pudgy boy. Albert’s hair was neatly parted in the middle, and he wore big squarish glasses. He squinted at Jo with cold, fishy eyes.

  “Phil Snurr. Sir Oort,” said the birdlike boy. He didn’t even look at Jo, but immediately snatched his dining gown and left the closet.

  Jo still didn’t know what to say. There was another uncomfortable silence.

  Daphne exhaled and turned to Jo again. “I heard you had a rough time coming in. You must be used to danger, though, squiring for Dame Lily.”

  Jo almost laughed. “Danger? Aunt Lily? What’s so dangerous about her?”

  Daphne, Maurice, and Albert looked at Jo with startled disbelief.

  “Whoa,” said Maurice.

  Before Jo could ask what this meant, another boy and girl crowded into the closet. The girl, a tiny, frantic creature with wild black hair and huge eyes, was babbling: “I’m telling you it all fits together. If you’d seen last week’s episode you’d see it all fits together. Dame Lily actually came back. It’s the beginning of the end!”

  “I paid you, stop going on about it,” groaned the boy.

  “Thirteen years, just like the show, exactly. It’s like living the show, isn’t it just like living it?”

  “For God’s sake shut up.”

  “It’s all the work of the Silent Sisters.”

  “Nora, you think your bad skin is the work of the Silent Sisters.”

  “Hey, Nora, Ian,” said Daphne. “This is Dame Lily’s squire.”

  Nora’s eyes bulged even wider. “Really?”

  There were many introductions, but the names went by so quickly that Jo couldn’t keep track. The excitable girl was Nora McGunn, and she became quiet when introduced, staring at Jo with cautious fascination. The boy was Ian Barrows. He had sandy blond hair and wore a tattered tan corduroy jacket, and he had the wispy beginnings of a mustache, which did not suit him.

  After a minute of jostling in the crowded closet, the rest of the squires had changed and hurried out. Only Jo and Ian were left behind.

  “So you’re the new girl, huh?” said Ian, wriggling into his gown. “In case nobody else has said it, welcome to Eldritch City.”

  “Actually, nobody has.”

  “Oh, the other squires?” Ian shrugged. “Don’t mind them. They just want to show they’re not impressed by you. It’s not every day that—”

  But Ian was cut short by an elderly cockroach, who marched into the closet and hit them with his walking stick until they left for the banquet hall.

  Another cockroach dressed in tails directed Jo to her seat, pulling it out for her and scooting it back in as she sat down. Jo looked around for Ian, but yet another cockroach was seating him all the way at the other end of the table.

  Then someone whispered in her ear, high-pitched, breathy, and intense:

  “This has all been foretold, you know.”

  Jo turned and was startled to find Nora right behind her. Up close, Nora’s face seemed much too small, half hidden under streams of unkempt black hair. Somewhere under all the hair Jo could just glimpse a tiny nose, tiny mouth, and alarmingly tiny teeth.

  “Foretold?” said Jo.

  “Everything.” Nora looked around significantly. “With Dame Lily back, the wheels will only move faster. Eye of the storm, Jo.”

  “Eye of…what are you talking about?”

  Nora sucked air through her teeth, leaned in, and said, “All of this. We’re all running down a path of doom laid down by the Silent Sisters.”

  “Who?”

  Nora looked shocked. “Don’t you know? About the—”

  But Nora was drowned out by a blare of trumpets, a great shout went up—Jo turned to see what was going on—the knights were marching in.

  All the knights, including Aunt Lily and Colonel Korsakov, had changed into ceremonial feast robes of gold, scarlet, and blazing purple, festooned with epaulettes, sashes, shining spurs, an ornamental sword, a bejeweled bib, and a trailing cape that looked like a doily gone berserk for seven feet. Crowning all was a towering turban clasped with a ruby in the shape of a fish. The turbans swayed wildly as the knights came tramping in, their weapons and jewelry and medals clinking and jangling, all of them singing and shouting at each other. Every knight and squire wore a ring on his or her left little finger, just like the rings Aunt Lily had found in the
black box. Jo still didn’t understand—why had she had to give hers up?

  The trumpets died down, the knights settled into their seats, and Jo felt a tug on her sleeve—Nora again. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “It’s—” said Nora, but again she was drowned out by a blare of trumpets. Everyone stood up.

  “What?” said Jo, scrambling to her feet.

  “I said—” started Nora, but then a cockroach steered her off to a different part of the table, even as she frantically mouthed something at Jo; then everybody yelled “HUZZAH!” and something extraordinary rolled into the banquet hall.

  It was Sir Oliver.

  Sir Oliver’s costume was so massive and ornate that he literally could not move. Three wheezing cockroaches had to push him in on a cart. Sir Oliver’s face just barely poked out of the monumental cavalcade of frippery, a multitiered mountain of buttons and bows and collars and jewelry and bustles and seven different hats, one on top of the other and each one more outlandish than the last, piled upon a billowing, flapping, teetering mass of crepe and silk and velvet. He looked like he had been imprisoned in a gigantic, nightmarish wedding cake.

  “The Grand Bebisoy of the Order of Odd-Fish, Sir Oliver Mulcahy!” bellowed a cockroach.

  Prolonged applause. Sir Oliver smiled and nodded, everyone sat down, and he began, “Welcome home, Odd-Fish! It’s a relief to have almost everyone back at the lodge—”

  “Hear, hear!” shouted the knights and squires.

  “It’s been a difficult year,” said Sir Oliver. “Money’s been tight, as usual. I won’t dwell on the woes of the past months—including, of course, that this lodge was stolen—”

  “Boo! For shame!”

  “And for three months we’ve had nowhere to live. Now, before we start the feast, I will tell you this: in my search for the lodge, I did discover who had stolen it—”

  A general gasp around the table—

  “But I won’t tell you who until after dessert,” said Sir Oliver.

  “No!” came the protests. “Tell us now!”

  “You will need a full stomach,” said Sir Oliver firmly. “I will say no more. On to happier matters. We also have back in Eldritch City, after a thirteen-year exile, Dame Lily Larouche, Colonel Anatoly Korsakov, and Sefino—as well as a new addition to the Order of Odd-Fish, Dame Lily’s niece and squire, Jo Larouche.”

  Jo flinched as all eyes turned to her, and she looked down, embarrassed. Nobody was staring at her the horrified way Korsakov and Sefino had; still, she was relieved when Sir Oliver spoke again and attention shifted away from her.

  “You squires never knew Dame Lily, Colonel Korsakov, or Sefino personally, of course—a bit before your time—but I trust everyone shall make both our new and returning Odd-Fish welcome. I see our soup is becoming tepid. Let the feast begin!”

  The cockroaches descended from all sides, bearing soup. Jo was starving, and luckily, the chunky, purple soup was delicious, with a mild pork-plum flavor. Glimpsing to the side, Jo noticed that Sir Oliver’s costume prevented him from moving his arms, and a cockroach had to feed him, spoonful by spoonful, as though he were a baby.

  Aunt Lily sat on Jo’s right. She seemed like an entirely different woman now; or no, Aunt Lily was somehow more herself than she had ever been in Dust Creek. Her voice was clear, her body shimmered with renewed health, and even a few wrinkles seemed to have disappeared. It was as though Aunt Lily had grown up.

  “So…what do knights do?” Jo asked.

  “Oooh, tons,” said Aunt Lily over the noise. “There are quite a few orders of knights in Eldritch City, each with their own traditions and missions. The Order of Odd-Fish’s mission is to research an encyclopedia.”

  “An encyclopedia?”

  “The appendix to an encyclopedia, actually,” said Sir Oliver as a cockroach held a spoonful of soup near his mouth. “The project of writing an encyclopedia of all knowledge was abandoned centuries ago, but we’re still writing its appendix. It is a pleasantly futile task. Our archives take up the entire fifth floor—we’re adding new information all the time. For instance, Dame Lily might be amused to know that there’s now an entry on her in the Appendix.”

  “Really!” said Aunt Lily. “What’s it say?”

  “It says you’re dead.”

  “What!”

  “Probably should change that in the next edition,” said Sir Oliver.

  “It doesn’t sound like much of an appendix,” said Jo.

  “Oh, it’s usually wrong,” admitted Sir Oliver.

  “But the Appendix isn’t known for its accuracy,” said Aunt Lily. “Accuracy isn’t the point.”

  “‘It is an Appendix of dubious facts, rumors, and myths,’” recited Colonel Korsakov. “‘A repository of questionable knowledge, and an opportunity to dither about.’ That’s from our charter,” he said to Jo. “The bit about dithering is the most important. We are a society of ditherers.”

  “Dithering?” said Jo.

  “You know—fiddling about, puttering, loafing. The Order of Odd-Fish has a long and distinguished history of dithering. Sir Oliver is the world’s foremost authority.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” protested Sir Oliver.

  “He wrote a six-hundred-thousand-page dissertation on dithering,” said Aunt Lily. “Puttering, Muddling, and Mucking About: An Inquiry into Idleness. Quite well known in the field.”

  “I make no claims,” said Sir Oliver.

  “Don’t be so modest! Your work was years ahead of its time.”

  “Is it worth reading?” said Jo.

  “Nobody’s ever read it,” whispered Aunt Lily.

  “Please!” Sir Oliver smiled.

  “Honestly, he can’t take a compliment,” said Aunt Lily.

  The cockroaches swooped in, snatched away the soup bowls, and served plates heaping with a gooey stew. It was spicy and slimy, and after a few cautious bites, Jo decided she liked it.

  “Sir Oliver edits the Appendix,” said Aunt Lily. “He makes sure that everything in it is properly dubious.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jo. “Your Appendix is supposed to be unreliable?”

  “Or useless,” said Sir Oliver happily. “Unreliable or useless. We also print information that is out of date or contradictory. Though, I must stress, we never publish anything misleading.”

  “Deliberately misleading,” said Aunt Lily.

  “Good point, yes. All the information in the Appendix is true, as far as we know. Which, er, isn’t too far, actually, sometimes.”

  Jo said, “Isn’t it stupid to have an unreliable reference book?”

  All conversation stopped at once.

  Every single knight put down his or her fork and knife, and glared at Jo.

  Jo’s stomach dropped. “Sorry…I didn’t mean…”

  A general harrumphing, and the knights went back to their dinners.

  “Actually, Jo, there is a point to it,” explained Aunt Lily gently. “There are many things in this world that we know a little bit about, but not enough to say we really know. Things that are vague, or only half understood. Or known once and then forgotten, or once thought to be true, and now thought to be false, but maybe they’re really true, who knows? This stuff doesn’t fit into the encyclopedia. It’s too dubious. So we put it in our Appendix instead. Rumors, leads, myths, things that are maybe true, maybe not.”

  A tiny man almost entirely covered in white whiskers peered over at Jo. “For instance,” he said, in a voice that sounded like a rapid series of hiccups, “my research is particularly dubious. Not to mention entirely useless. I study discredited metaphysics.”

  Jo remembered. “Oh! Sir Oort Helmfozz, right? Sefino said you—”

  The furry man was thunderstruck.

  “She knows me,” he whispered. “She knows my work! She knows my name! Somebody cares! At long last…somebody cares!”

  “Well—”

  “It has never happ
ened before,” said Sir Oort with astonished awe. “Nobody has ever said they cared about my research. Do you know how boring my research is?”

  “I didn’t actually say—”

  “How tedious metaphysics is?”

  “But—”

  “It is spectacularly tiresome,” crowed Sir Oort. “Some of my metaphysics positively sparkles with dullness. Oh yes! You have no idea. My life, year upon year of arcane drudgery—aha! I see that you, too, thirst for knowledge!”

  “Not—”

  “You want to learn more about my work. Don’t be shy, girl! I can tell!” Sir Oort tapped his glass with his fork, announcing to the table, “I shall tutor her every week!”

  Aunt Lily said, “We wouldn’t dream of imposing—”

  “Not at all, not at all! No, no, I won’t hear of it!” exclaimed Sir Oort. “It is obvious to me that this girl thirsts for knowledge of discredited metaphysics. I will not permit you, Dame Lily—oh no!—to stand in her way. Oh ho ho, oh no, oh no! I daresay it’s a dream come true for her. Yes—a dream come true,” he said, and went back to muttering into his yams.

  “All due respect to Sir Oort, but discredited metaphysics isn’t all we study,” said Aunt Lily quickly. “Dame Isabel, for instance, studies unusual smells.”

  “How do you do,” said a prim lady down the table.

  Jo couldn’t help but smile. “Smells?”

  Dame Isabel regarded Jo with supreme distaste. “Rest assured,” she said crushingly, “you have never smelled what I have smelled; and even if you had, you would scarcely understand what you were smelling.”

  Jo gritted her teeth—she’d made another faux pas. But Aunt Lily briskly moved on. “We also have Sir Alasdair Coveney, who studies unlikely musical instruments.”

  Sir Alasdair looked like a boiled sausage disguised as a person. His face was bulging but pinched, his pink skin flushed and wet with sweat. He had removed his turban because of the heat, and his head was completely hairless.

  “What kind of instruments do you study?” said Jo politely. “I play the organ, actually.”