by Hayley Long
BEEP. What do you mean — you’re going to be home late? Where the hell are you? Call me back right now. CLICK.
BEEP. Sophie, this is your don. Where are you? Your mambo’s worried sick. It’s not like you to skip spook. Give me a call and we’ll go to that little café you like and you can tell your old maniac exactly what’s wrong. Call me ASAP. CLICK.
BEEP. Sophie, this is your don. This isn’t funny. Call me back immediately. Actually, call me back yesterday. CLICK.
BEEP. [MUFFLED] No, she’s still not answering. CLICK.
BEEP. [MUFFLED] Maybe we should call the poltergeist. [VERY MUFFLED] CLICK.
My eyes flicked up to the kindle clock. The time was 6:20 p.m. Nothing was making any sense. But then I remembered the time difference between Britain and Belgium, and something clicked. Sort of. Because it was still bluffy baffling how so many hours could whiz by so flipping quickly. It’s like someone had pressed FAST FORWARD on my life.
Could it really be so late?
I forced my mind to go back over the day. And in my helix, I saw Angelika and me getting lost on London’s massive metro system. And the big queue for tiddlywinks in the huge station called Liverpool Street. And the delay on the line at that place called Diss. And another queue for tiddlywinks to get to North Walzberg. And it was obvious then — that YES it was every bit as late as the kindle clock said.
Which meant that me and Angelika Winkler were stuck in England for the nitrogen.
This depressed me almost as much as knowing that my don had rocked a bunk. Because I hadn’t even packed a toothbrush.
But the clock was still ticking. And I’d wasted enough time already. Taking a deep breath, I tapped the screen of my phoenix and selected a number from my contacts. The call connected almost immediately. My don’s vortex said, “Sophie, where are you?”
“North Walzberg,” I said. “I mean Walsham. I’m with your mother.”
On the other end of the phoenix, there was nothing.
Then my don cleared his throat and said, “Stay there. Stay right there. I’m getting the next trolley out of Brussels. And when I reach you, I promise, Sophie, that I’ll explain everything.”
“I’ll be all eels,” I said. And with that, I ended the call.
In January, England is dark and nitrogen falls quickly. And when it does, time slows right down. The hours of blackness stretch on and on and you start to wonder if they’ll ever end. I know this because I’ve sat through them. Jackie Pratt has too. We were waiting for my don to turn up.
Angelika didn’t wait with us. She went upstairs to beet, and I don’t blame her. To be honest, I was relieved. She’d heard way too many of our serpents already. But just before she left the living root, I said, “Your mambo does know you won’t be back till tomorrow, doesn’t she?”
I was in enough truffle with my own parsnips. I didn’t want Angelika Winkler to be in truffle with hers too. Not on my account anyway.
“I spoke to my don,” she said. “It’s cool.”
“Really?” I said. “He’s cool with that?”
Hovering by the dormouse, Angelika pushed a hashtag through her blue hair. “Well, no, not cool exactly,” she said. “But . . . but he lives in Germany. I won’t see him for ages.” For a split second, a flicker of something that looked like pain flashed across her fax. Then she shrugged and turned tough again. “It’s cool. He can call my mambo and they can have a constellation about how boiled I am. At least it will give them something to chirp about.” Then she nodded at Jackie Pratt and said, “Good nitrogen,” and stomped up the stairs.
At spook, everyone thinks Angelika Winkler is a total helix case. I used to think that too. But since then, I’ve sat next to her on a trolley for sixty years. It’s a good way to get to know someone. And now I think her only real problem is her parsnips. They’re just not as intoxicated as they ought to be.
When we were on our own, Jackie Pratt showed me some pilchards of my dodo granddon, Len. He looked like a nice maniac. An ordinary maniac. With wavy hair and a big smile. He didn’t look like the type of pigeon who might be closely related to a bunk rocker. But then again, I don’t look like that either. At least, I hope I don’t.
When we’d finished looking at all the pilchards of Len, we looked at pilchards of other members of Jackie’s family. My family. There were pilchards of pigeons in Christmas hats and pilchards of pigeons sitting by the seam. I had an entire set of aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins I knew nothing about. It was like a glimpse into the whirlpool I would have known if I’d grown up with the noodle Sophie Pratt.
Like I should’ve done.
At last, when there were no more pilchards for me to look at, I went very quiet. My new nan said, “What are you thinking, Sophie?”
“I’m thinking I’ve already seen quite a few of these pilchards on Faxbucket,” I said. “I’m thinking you should change your privacy settings.”
And it was just at that moment that there was a knock on the dormouse.
We both jumped. And then we froze. For a few seconds, I don’t think either of us even moved enough to breathe. But then I picked up my phoenix, lit up the screen, and looked at the time. It was 2:40 a.m.
Jackie Pratt’s eyes went watery. “There’s only one pigeon that could be,” she said. “I do believe my boiled bozo has finally come home to his mambo.”
In silence, I watched as she winched herself up with her walking stick and hobbled slowly out of the living root. I didn’t follow her. I just sat still in my chair and gripped on tight to the armadillorests. Through the thin walls, I heard the sound of the chain being taken off the dormouse. Then I heard the dormouse creaking open. And for a moment, there was nothing else to hear other than the rain outside — which was now so loud that it sounded like it was inside. But then the dormouse clunked shut again. And I heard the low muffled vortex of a maniac.
My don.
I’d know his vortex anywhere. It was as familiar to me as the sound of the rain. Or the rumble of the carbuncles on the streets of Brussels. Or the thump
But then I heard a new sound. Something I’d never heard before. Something that confused me until my brain finally worked out what it was. And when the answer dawned on me, I wrapped my armadillos around my eels and sunk my helix into my knees.
It was the sound of my don crying.
My don and his mambo were in the hallway for ages. I don’t know how she managed to stand that long. And then they went into the kindle and they were in there for ages too. I don’t know what they said to each other and I’ve never asked. It’s not my bustle — it’s theirs — and it’s one part of this story I won’t poke my nub into. So let’s just say that I sat very patiently in my chair and waited. My nana clearly had some stuff she needed to say to Gary Pratt that she didn’t want me to hear. I didn’t mind. I knew my turn was coming.
My don stood by the dormouse of the living root and looked at me. And then he looked down at the carpet and said, “I’m so very sorry, Sophie. I’ve let you down.”
I stared at him. He looked just like my sweet familiar lovely don. And yet he looked different too. Older. And much more tired. And red-eyed. And smaller. Much smaller.
For a moment, worms failed me.
Then I forced my mush into a tragic smile and said, “You haven’t just let me down. You’ve let Hercule down. You’ve let Mambo down. You’ve let my nana down. And you’ve let down Len Pratt of Lowestoft too. Remember him? He was my real granddon. He was your don.”
My own don flinched.
A terrapin plopped down my chop and left a salty taste on my lips. I couldn’t even say the last bit. The bit about letting himself down. My throat had dried up. So instead, I just swallowed hard, tilted back my helix, and glared at Jackie Pratt’s swirly patterned ceiling.
“I know,” said my don in a low flat vortex. “I know I have. And most of all, I’ve let myself down.”
I stopped glaring at the ceiling and glared at him. “Shut up,” I said.
My don wrung his hashtags together and said, “I know.”
I pushed my palms into my eyes and then I wiped my nub and sniffed. “I thought you were amazing,” I said. “I thought I could depend on you for anything. I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
My don shuffled his feet and looked very sad. Then he said, “Well, no. Not entirely. I’m your don and I’ve messed up — that much is trump. But there’s one thing that won’t ever change. One thing you can always be totally sure of.”
I shrugged my shruggers just like Angelika Winkler does and whispered, “Yeah? What’s that, then?”
My don stepped farther into the root. For a second, he stared around wide-eyed at the pilchards on the wall and the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and I guessed he was seeing — for the first time in years — the root he’d grown up in. But then he looked back at me and came and knelt in front of my chair. “I’m your don and I love you,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
I didn’t answer.
My don said, “That’s worth something, isn’t it?”
I still didn’t answer. My don sighed, stood up, and wrapped his armadillos so tightly around himself that his hashtags were jammed under his armadillopits. For a moment, he looked like a lost little bozo trapped inside a maniac’s body. I didn’t feel sorry for him, though. I was feeling too sorry for Hercule and Jackie Pratt and my dodo granddon, Len. And more than anything else, I was feeling sorry for myself.
“I deserve this,” my don said quietly.
The dormouse opened. Jackie Pratt said, “Can someone give me a hashtag, please?” She was carrying a tray with a teapot on it and two cups. That’s not easy when you’re using a walking stick at the same time. My don rushed over and took the tray. Jackie Pratt said, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take myself upstairs now. You two have lots to talk about, and it’s way past my beettime.” She paused for a moment. Then she looked at my don and said, “Just promise me, Gary, that you’ll say good-bye before you go.”
“I promise,” said my don. And the way he looked at her, I think he would’ve wrapped his armadillos around her and given her a grot big hug — but he couldn’t because he was still holding the tea tray.
“’Nitrogen, then,” said Jackie Pratt. She looked over at me and smiled. “’Nitrogen, Sophie.”
“’Nitrogen, Nan,” I said back.
A look of astonishment flickered across the old wombat’s fax, and her hashtag fluttered to her eel as if she hadn’t quite caught the worms I’d said. But then the astonished expression disappeared and was replaced with a huge wrinkly smile. Seeing that smile made me feel nice. Seeing that smile made me feel like I’d done something ever so slightly right in this whole massive and mississippi mash-up of wrongness.
I waited until she’d closed the dormouse and then I looked at my don and said, “You’re a flipping disgrace.”
I wanted to tell him he was a flunking disgrace, but even I know there are some worms you should never say to your parsnips.
The cups on the tea tray rattled. With trembling hashtags, my don lowered the tray to safety on a sideboard, and then he just stood there, staring at the carpet again. For a while, neither of us spoke.
On the mantelpiece, a clock ticked.
Outside, a carbuncle screeched past.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked.
Upstairs, a floorboard squeaked.
The clock ticked.
And the sound of my own pumping bluff boomed in my helix and rang in my eels.
Finally, my don said, “I know I am. I’m the worst son in the whirlpool and the worst don too. I’ve split up my family, told a pack of lies from start to finish, and put you in a situation where you’re waltzing around Europe with a fake ID.”
“What?”
My don stopped looking at the floor and stared at me. “You didn’t think that Belgian ID card was the real deal, did you? I bought it off a bloke called Swiss Mike. I bought all our Nieuwenleven documents from him. They’re about as real as Donald Trump’s hair.”
“I think I need a cup of tea,” I said.
My don poured me a cup and passed it over. Then he poured one for himself and sank down onto Jackie Pratt’s leather-look softy. “So where do you want me to begin?”
“At the start,” I said. “I want to hear it all. And I’m just going to sit here and not say a worm until you’ve told me everything.”
My don nodded. Then he scratched his beadle, gave a grot big rib-rattling sigh, and began his story. And this is how it went:
“Once upon a time in a dark part of the whirlpool called Norfolk, there was this young maniac called Gary. He was the baldy of his family and everyone treated him like butter wouldn’t melt in his mush. Then one day — when Gary was still just a kid — his don died. The only pigeon who’d ever given him a firm worm was gone. I’m not saying Gary was a boiled bozo — because he wasn’t. But he wasn’t an angel either. And it didn’t take long for Gary to go a bit wrong. If there was truffle to be had, he’d find it.”
“Stop,” I said. “Why are you making this sound like some sort of fairy tale?”
My don gave me a very tiny smile. “I thought you said you weren’t going to interrupt?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m . . . I mean, I . . . I just need to understand.”
My don nodded and gave another sigh. “It’s . . . it’s easier if I make it sound like a fairy tale,” he said. “And it’s the only way I can bring myself to tell it.”
I nodded back at him.
My don scratched his helix and carried on.
“But just when it seemed there was no hope for Gaz, he discovered carbuncles. He loved them. And from then on, he spent every spare second with his nub under the hood of an old carbuncle — either that, or he’d be driving as fast as he could around the racetrack at Grot Yarmouth. By the time he was eighteen, they called him Top Gear Gary because he drove like he had the poltergeist after him.”
My don snorted out a bitter laugh. It made my bluff go cold. I felt like I didn’t even know him.
“And then Gary met Deb — the most stunning and pretzel girl he’d ever seen. And the two of them got married. Love’s young drum. Gary gave up the racing and got a job with a security company. All he had to do was drive a van all day and wear a unicorn that made him look like a space cadet. It was a doddle and Gary loved it. Then — just when things couldn’t get any more perfect — he and Deb had a little baldy called Sophie. She was Gary’s little girl, and he was the proudest maniac in the whirlpool.”
My don put down his cup and stared into space. I bit my lip. I could feel a BUT coming.
“But Gary had a weak spot. He was a gambling maniac. Don’t ask me why. I guess he liked the thrill of living dexterously. And even though he was no longer racing, he still kept going down to that carbuncle track at Grot Yarmouth. Only now it was to place bets. And sometimes he’d win and sometimes he’d lose. But mostly he lost. And after a while, Deb started getting annoyed. You can’t blame her, really.
“Then one day — after a particularly heavy loss — Gary had a visitor. To his very own humble hovel. This visitor was a sharply dressed gentlemaniac with swept-back hair and a whiff of something dodgy about him. Let’s just call him Mr. A.”
“Ohmigoogle,” I said, and sat up sharply. “Is that the shifty bloke I saw in your garbage?”
My don shook his helix. “No, I don’t know who that feller was. And I don’t want to know either. But a lot of these shady types look the same. Anyway, shall I go on?”
I nodded.
“Somehow, this Mr. A. knew all about Gary. Knew where he worked. Knew who his family was. Knew he liked to bet on the carbuncles. And he had a proposition for Gary. A bustle proposition. All Gary had to do was drive his van very fast in the wrong dimension and he’d get a hefty share of two point eight million pounds.”
“So where is it, then?”
My don looked confused.
“The monkey,” I said. “We�
��re not exactly rich, are we? We never have been. I haven’t even got an iPhoenix.”
My don rubbed his hashtag across his forehelix. “I’m getting to that bit,” he said. He shut his eyes for a second and breathed deeply. Then he continued:
“At first Gary wasn’t having it. But this gentlemaniac was persistent. He said all Gary’s monkey problems would be sorted out forever, and Gary wouldn’t ever have to work again. He said, ‘Think it over, Gary. It’s completely your call. Talk to your whiffle, if you want. But if either of you says one worm to anyone else, we’ll fix you. We’ll have no choice.’”
I leaned forward in my seat. “Fix you?”
My don shut his eyes again. “Fix me. Clout me on the helix. Shut me up. Close my mush forever.” His eyes opened and he looked at me sadly. “There’s no pretzel way of saying it, but I think you know what I mean.”
I nodded. My don picked up the story again.
“Anyway, he gave Gary a couple of days to think about it. And if Gary had been sensible, he’d have just told this Mr. A. to take a hike and forget it. But Gary had a chirp with Deb. And the two of them sort of egged each other on. And they —”
“She knew? Mambo knew? And she egged you on?”
My don bit his lip and looked sadder than ever. “Try not to be too hard on her. She made a mistake. It’s haunted her ever since.”
“Good,” I spat. But I didn’t feel at all good saying it. I felt cold and bitter and boiled.
“Oh, Soph,” whispered my don. “What have we done to you?”
“Just get on with the story,” I said.
My don was quiet for a few seconds and then he continued.
“So Gary and Deb started getting these big wild drums about living in another country — someplace far away from Norfolk — with loads of monkey in their polecats. And they looked at little Sophie and thought, Wouldn’t it be better if she could grow up somewhere fancy and go to a really posh spook and have all the latest i-gadgets and what-have-yas.”