by Matthew Ward
By the time you read this, we shall be a thousand miles away from this godforsaken house of yours, so you may spare yourselves the trouble of searching.
Arthur’s mother gasped. “I—I don’t understand! What is she talking about? Oh, Charles—what has she done?”
Mr. Whipple looked at his wife, then dropped the letter to his side—and dashed back toward the house.
The others set out immediately after him.
Arthur’s father threw open the terrace doors and burst inside.
“Ivy!” he shouted into the great hall before racing up the stairs. “Ivy, where have you gone?”
When Arthur and the others finally caught up to him, Mr. Whipple was in the nursery, standing over Ivy’s bed. The bed was neatly made, with pink-and-white-striped sheets peeking out from the top of a white quilt embroidered with pink-flowered vines. On the pillow sat Ivy’s stuffed bear, Mr. Growls, dressed to match its owner as usual. But something about the toy struck Arthur as strange. As he stepped closer, he realized the bear’s eyes and mouth had been crudely stitched shut with thick black yarn.
Arthur shivered.
Mr. Whipple lifted the bear from the bed, staring helplessly at it for a moment, then turned and handed it to his wife, whose knees nearly buckled at the sight.
“Oh, Ivy!” she cried. “Our poor little girl! Why would Mrs. Waite do this, Charles? It makes no sense! Have we ever wronged her in any way?”
“I—I don’t know, dear,” Mr. Whipple replied, putting a comforting arm around his wife.
His other hand trembling, Arthur’s father raised Mrs. Waite’s letter to eye level once again. He drew a deep breath and continued reading.
Oh, I can just see your faces now. “But what have we ever done to Mrs. Waite that should cause her to behave in such a dreadful manner?” You really are so predictable, you Whipples. With all your extraordinary powers of perception in matters of competition, you so often fail to see what’s right in front of you in everyday life. Since you asked, however, I shall indulge your primitive curiosity:
It all started the day you killed my husband.
You remember Gregory, don’t you? Fearless face, steely gray eyes? Ah, but of course you don’t. You have surely forgotten all about him—apart, perhaps, from his bearing the name that would be given to your fiendish family’s curse. But I do not forget so easily. When my dear Mr. Lyon was drowned in a box, trying to win back his rightful record from the villain you call “grandfather” . . .
Arthur’s mind flashed back to the black-veiled woman from the archives reel, clawing at her husband’s coffin as it was lowered into the earth.
Arthur glanced to Ruby and shared a look of horror. “Hang on,” he blurted, turning back to his father. “Gregory Lyon? As in the Gregory Lyon who tried to steal our grandmother’s live burial record? As in the Lyon’s Curse? Mrs. Waite is Gregory Lyon’s widow?!”
“Oh, no,” said Arthur’s father. “How could I have been so blind?”
Mr. Whipple stared forward for one solemn moment, then returned to the letter. As he continued to read through each of its half dozen pages, the others listened in stunned silence.
. . . When my dear Mr. Lyon was drowned in a box, trying to win back his rightful record from the villain you call “grandfather,” I secretly vowed revenge (as any good wife would do) upon the man responsible for murdering him. It took a few tries—concealing king cobras, rigging runaway rickshaws, et cetera, et cetera—and a lot of talk about some “Lyon’s Curse”—but in the end, I had my revenge. When I heard the joyful news of your grandfather’s horrific plane crash, my Gregory and I were finally able to rest. . . .
That is, until a few years later, when a certain Charles Whipple Jr. began appearing in the headlines.
You can imagine my horror to find that—after leaving me a childless widow—my husband’s murderer was now living on through his record-breaking son. Clearly, I could not ignore such injustice. Unfortunately, I had exhausted the last of Gregory’s estate on eliminating the first Charles Whipple (disposing of a Whipple, mind, is hardly an inexpensive enterprise). Indeed, I should have been powerless to do anything—if not for the generous support of the Ardmore Association.
As luck would have it, there had been a recent shift in power on the Ardmore Board of Directors, clearing the way for new members. I forwarded a letter of interest through one of Ardmore’s aspiring young lawyers, a Mr. Malcolm Boyle, and the Chairman of the Board quickly recognized the benefits of my singular expertise. And soon I had managed to secure a coveted seat on the board myself—a seat once held by a certain Bartholomew Niven, long before he ever turned up as a skeleton in a sea cave.
(Well then. Now that you’ve no doubt guessed my title, I imagine you’re curious as to how exactly the position came to be open. How exactly did Mr. Niven go from a respected member of the Ardmore board to a forgotten pile of bones on a beach? Seeing as I wasn’t there, I can’t tell you exactly. But I can tell you this: it certainly wasn’t Rex Goldwin’s doing. No, Mr. Goldwin is far too obsessed with keeping his perfect hands clean to really get blood under his nails. But rest assured—the Chairman of the Board is not so squeamish. Haven’t had the pleasure yet, have you? Well, never you worry; with any luck, you’ll be meeting him soon. . . . But back to the story.)
With the full resources of the Association now behind me, I retrained my sights on Charles Whipple’s son—only to find he had coaxed some witless woman into becoming his wife and giving him record-breaking sons of his own.
It still pains me to think of it. Here, the family of the man who had robbed me of my husband and any chance of my own family was fast becoming one of the most celebrated families in the world. Instead of paying for their misdeeds, they were rewarded with fame and fortune. My desire for vengeance burned brighter than ever.
And yet, if I were to simply dispose of the murderer’s son now, I should only be forced to contend someday with the murderer’s son’s children. Of course, I toyed with the idea of killing them all at once—but then, I had no desire to make the entire Whipple family into martyrs. The public, you see, have an obnoxious habit of worshipping their fallen heroes—and I was not about to grant the Whipples eternal idol status.
Fortunately, my colleagues and I realized there was a much better option. Instead of destroying individual Whipples—we would destroy the name of Whipple itself.
All our plan required was a champion.
By the time Rex Goldwin received our recruitment letter, he was already seeking revenge upon the man who had ousted him from the world records game. His “involuntary adoption” scheme was well under way, and he and his wife had successfully liberated two preselected infants from their unworthy birth parents. What the Goldwins lacked, however, was the means to properly mold their children into the record-breaking machines needed to ensure the Whipples’ destruction.
We were more than happy to oblige.
Once Rex had accepted our offer, the board of directors stationed the Goldwins on an advanced training compound, while the unfortunate twins Rayford and Royston were taken underground to study military tactics and the deadly arts.
As the Goldwins’ training progressed, we assisted them in their acquisition of infant family members until we had collected enough children to match yours—save one. By this time, news of the Maternity Ward Marauders had spread across the globe, and every high-charting newborn on the planet was being given its very own security detail. Regrettably, we were forced to stop the Goldwins one child short of our minimum goal—before our luck ran out and they were discovered by the authorities. Still, we were convinced the Whipple boy, Arthur, posed not the slightest threat to the record books or to our plans—and so we proceeded with confidence.
Mr. Whipple paused for a moment and flashed a melancholy smile to Arthur. Arthur tried to imagine how it might have felt under different circumstances to know he had pro
ved their enemies wrong about him.
His father resumed his reading.
With our family of champions assembled at last, all we had left to do was infiltrate the Whipple household.
What a shock it was your former housekeeper, Mrs. Scrubb, came down with that dreadful case of malaria. I wonder if it had anything to do with that parcel full of African mosquitos she received. Whoever sent it must have gone to considerable trouble to get it through customs. Poor Mrs. Scrubb. In her advanced age, she had no choice but to opt for early retirement.
It must have struck you as rather odd to receive only a single applicant for such a distinguished position. But then, of course, all my references checked out, and my late husband had himself been a world-record breaker (you did not bother to inquire further), and so, you hired me.
Having worked my way into your home at last, our years-old plan could finally be set into action. It all began, of course, with an oversized piece of French toast. . . .
My, what a glorious time my employment at your house has been. From sabotaging your breakfast table, to helping the Goldwin twins blow up your birthday cake and then framing your chef, to planting the poison on your boat and disconnecting the rip cord on your parachute, these have truly been some of the most fulfilling days of my life. It was especially satisfying, of course, writing the “anonymous” letter that saw your dear Uncle Mervyn—poor, trusting fool—shipped off to Moscow.
But perhaps the memory I’ll cherish most was the look on your face, sir, when you first saw me running onto the dueling field. I must say I was a bit nervous trotting myself out there in front of such an angry crowd—but then, I couldn’t have you finishing off my champion before he’d completed his primary objective, now could I? It’s a good thing the twins had managed to inform me of your son’s little predicament—or I really don’t know what I’d have told you. Even so, I had serious doubts the news would do anything to stop you from continuing the duel. Your reaction, however, proved most enlightening.
Until yesterday, I was not entirely sure what level of importance you placed on the lives of your children. But when you left the championships in search of your son—the recordless one, no less—it became clear to me you cared at least enough about your offspring to sacrifice your own reputation to keep them from harm. (This new knowledge, as you will soon discover, has factored rather significantly into our present strategy.)
In the end, of course, Arthur’s unexpected success proved to be the Goldwins’ undoing, and our first plan failed—but I am hardly one to cry over spilt milk. Indeed, I am inclined to congratulate the lad on his accomplishment. Even I—who have sworn to destroy every last Whipple on earth—can appreciate a good, heartwarming underdog story when I hear one. And besides, without this first bit of failure, we should never have landed upon our new and improved plot to annihilate the Whipple name.
Which brings me at last to the real aim of this letter. As much as explaining the details of such a long-running and meticulous plot has been necessary—not to mention surprisingly therapeutic—it pains me to think you’ve had to wait so long to get to the really exciting part.
And so, without further ado, allow me to present my inevitable list of demands.
As I have already assured you, your daughter Ivy is presently safe and sound in my care. If you wish, however, to ever see her alive again, you will adhere to the following condition: From this moment on, every member of the Whipple family shall refrain from the act of world-record breaking.
There shall be no individual records; there shall be no family records; there shall be no world records of any kind. Unless, of course, you wish for little Ivy to break a record of her own—say, for Greatest Height to Plummet without a Parachute—or, perhaps, for Longest Time to Survive on the Open Ocean before Sinking to the Sea Floor. You can imagine what a logistical nightmare this last one will be to certify—so please, do us all a favor and just heed the demands, won’t you?
I must also ask you, of course, not to mention our little arrangement to anyone outside your own household. You can see how defeating it would be to our purpose to have the whole world suddenly sympathizing with you, as you nobly abstain from record breaking in order to save your poor kidnapped daughter. No, I’m afraid it just won’t do. Breathe a word of this to the papers, and you’ll soon find your daughter’s story concluded in the obituary column.
And in case you’re thinking of attempting to break records without my knowledge, you can forget about that right now. The Association has eyes everywhere. If you so much as twirl a plate on a stick, we shall hear of it.
Very well then. Goodbye for now, dear Whipples. If you have not already thought to do so, you may consider this my official resignation. I apologize for the limited warning, but surprise abductions hardly lend themselves to a two-weeks’ notice.
Sincerely Yours,
Mrs. Lyon-Waite
The Treasurer
Mr. Whipple looked up from the letter. His face was hollow and lifeless, save for the smoldering glow of fury gleaming through his eyes.
Arthur’s brother Simon ground his fist into the palm of his hand. “So Rayford and Royston were henchmen all along to the Goldwins—but the Goldwins were henchmen all along to Mrs. Lyon-Waite!”
“And she was the Treasurer from the start,” Arthur murmured, shaking his head in disbelief as he looked to Ruby. “Under our noses the whole time.”
Tears poured down the cheeks of Arthur’s mother and many of her children. Mr. Whipple pulled his wife close to him.
“Oh, Charles,” Arthur’s mother sobbed, “what ever shall we do?”
“I do not entirely know, dear,” the man replied. “But I can tell you this: we shall not sit idly by and surrender our daughter to traitors and madmen! We shall track them to the ends of the earth if need be—and rescue our little girl from the clutches of the Association, wherever they may dare to hide!”
“But, Dad,” said Henry, “how will we ever get to her without breaking any records along the way? It’s all we know how to do!”
“Yes,” their father sighed. “It does seem a cruelly impossible task, does it not? Honestly, we may as well have been commanded to refrain from breathing in and out! Either way, we shall have to unlearn all that is natural to us. Left to ourselves, I fear we’d be unable to manage such a feat. But there must be a way. If only we had someone to keep us on track—to guide us away from our instincts. Someone not so prone to constant overachievement. . . .” A small spark caught fire at the back of Mr. Whipple’s eye. “An expert, if you will, in not breaking records. . . .”
Arthur stood waiting to hear the next step in his father’s plan. Where would they find such a person? Could someone like this really help them bring back their sister?
Arthur searched his family for an answer.
Slowly, every eye in the room turned—and looked at him.
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