Whimsy and Woe

by Rebecca McRitchie

  ‘Oh, but I can. Thanks to your parents’ disappearance, I have money and power. These two things make me formidable. Formidable means to inspire fear —’

  ‘We know what formidable means,’ Whimsy interrupted.

  ‘And we are not leaving here with you,’ Woe added.

  Mr Solt fixed them both with a reptilian stare. ‘You have your father’s courage. Unwise in this situation, but I will tell you what I told him: if you have nothing, you are nothing.’ He poked Woe sharply in the chest with a gloved finger. Looking at her brother, Whimsy could see his jaw was clenched and she was thankful she still held onto his arm. And with that, Mr Solt straightened, turned and descended the spiral staircase. They waited until they heard the distant creaks of Mr Solt’s feet on the floorboards below before they spoke.

  Whimsy let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘The inside-out cake was for my seventh birthday. How did he know that?’

  Woe began pacing the attic. ‘We have to think.’ He ran a hand sharply through his hair.

  ‘Solt mentioned someone named Fry. Did you ever hear our parents mention that name?’ Whimsy asked.

  Woe shook his head. ‘And someone paid Solt a lot of money.’

  ‘I think a nemesis is becoming more and more likely, Woe.’ Whimsy stood unmoving. They were outnumbered, out-resourced. They were tired. Aunt Apoline would soon be summoning them to serve dinner. She didn’t think it could get any worse at the Idle Slug, but a future with the Solts sent shivers up her spine. Then her brother voiced the words she was thinking.

  ‘We have to leave,’ Woe resolved. ‘Tonight.’

  14

  In which a plan is cooked

  ‘And go where?’ Whimsy asked. They had no-one.

  ‘Somewhere,’ Woe said, trying to think quickly. ‘To find Mum and Dad? Or Fry? He could be the one who sent Apoline the letter she tried to burn.’ Woe felt his heart beat faster and faster like it did when he was atop the aviary. Countless times he had thought about the day they could walk out of those slug-shaped gates and never come back, dreamed about it even. Where they would go, what they would do, how they would survive — it didn’t matter. Woe’s mind was made up. They were leaving the Idle Slug.

  ‘But we don’t know where to begin. Or even how to escape without them noticing,’ Whimsy said rationally. She knew her brother was right but his eyes glinted with excitement the way they did when he volunteered to do something dangerous. Could they really escape this time?

  During their time at the Idle Slug, Whimsy had also often thought about escape. Once, Whimsy decided to rescue herself and her brother, just like the heroine did in her favourite play Girl Against Everyone. Only months after they had arrived at the Idle Slug, Whimsy had grabbed a sleepy Woe in the middle of the night, and the two had gotten as far as Ewe Bridge. But something had made her turn back that day. It was the one thing that always stopped Whimsy from taking that extra step: their parents. And the hope that they would come back for them. Whimsy knew that they needed to be somewhere their parents could find them. As much as they needed to escape her, they also needed to be near Apoline. But Whimsy knew now that their parents weren’t coming for them. No-one was.

  ‘The balloon,’ Woe said suddenly.

  ‘Balloon?’ Whimsy repeated, still distracted by her thoughts.

  ‘In the other part of the attic.’ He motioned to the hole in the wallpaper. ‘There was a hot-air balloon . . . a basket . . . a canister. They were broken, but I can try to fix them. We can fly straight out of the round window. The balloon will need stitching . . .’

  Over the years, Woe had fixed quite a few things. From Mrs Solt’s armchairs to Miss Ballentine’s cuckoo clock, and after years of mending all of Mrs Solt’s clothes as she swelled larger and larger each summer, the siblings had become very good at sewing. But Whimsy wasn’t so sure of her brother’s escape plan. It sounded too risky.

  ‘How do we know there’s any gas left in the canister?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t. But we have matches.’ Woe pointed at the handful of matchsticks they had collected over the years. Whimsy shook her head.

  ‘Fly out of the window? Woe, listen to what you’re saying. We’re not Bertie Potts.’

  ‘We have to try, Whimsy,’ he put his hands on his sister’s shoulders. He needed to make her see that this was their chance. Their only chance.

  ‘We’re already late for dinner,’ Whimsy said as a last, feeble attempt.

  ‘They would want us to try.’

  She looked at her brother. His shaggy hair hung over his blue eyes. She hadn’t seen him this hopeful in a long time. She thought of their parents. She thought of Constance. She thought of the singing schoolchildren.

  Woe looked over Whimsy’s shoulder. ‘A Recipe for Disaster?’

  ‘Okay, but we’ll still need a distraction or something to slow them down. And we still have to get through dinner.’ She grabbed Constance’s cookbook. Flipping through the pages, she noticed a dog-eared recipe. She read the name of the dish and then read it again. It was perfect. ‘Pack our things, Woe. And get the balloon ready.’

  15

  In which a Recipe for Disaster is served

  Whimsy entered the kitchen to find Cook sullenly perched over a bubbling stew. It didn’t take her long to convince him that Apoline and the Solts might prefer something more exciting to eat than stew.

  ‘I was sure we had bog nettle in here somewhere,’ Whimsy said as she opened the understocked pantry and searched the poorly labelled jars. Bog nettle was the essential and final ingredient in Constance’s Recipe for Disaster. Only the most experimental eaters used it. A rare and expensive substance, Apoline had only ordered it because she thought she could grow it in her poisonous plant garden. When it arrived finely chopped, seasoned and in a jar, she was far from pleased.

  A throat cleared behind her. She turned to find Cook holding a small jar labelled BOOG NETEL. Quickly, she tipped all of it into the pot of bubbling, thick, brown sauce already cooking on the stove. As she stirred the nettle into the sauce, a pungent smell began to fill the air. It smelt of swamp and stale fish. Perfect, Whimsy smiled in her mind. With two fingers pinching his nose, Cook looked at Whimsy questioningly.

  ‘The recipe says we must wait until the smell is gone before putting the sauce in pie pastries,’ she said. Whimsy wondered how Woe was progressing with mending the hot-air balloon. She was certain Constance’s recipe would work. It had to. It was their best chance.

  ‘Can you continue stirring, please?’ she asked Cook, and after a hesitant nod from the lank-haired man, Whimsy headed, almost with a skip in her step, for the dining room.

  They were seated at the burnt hemlock dining table. Normally the table could fit ten average-sized people, but tonight Mr Abernathy and Miss Ballentine sat on one side, the Solts sat on the other and Apoline sat in her expensive raven-feathered chair at the head of the table. Whimsy moved swiftly to the cabinet where the cutlery and candles were kept.

  ‘What brings you to the Idle Slug?’ Apoline asked, attempting small talk.

  ‘It’s our anniv —’ began Mrs Solt.

  ‘I intend to make a purchase,’ interrupted her husband.

  Whimsy’s stomach dropped. She felt the cutlery fall out of her grasp and to the ground. The pies weren’t ready. Woe wasn’t ready. Hurriedly, before anyone could notice she picked up the knives and forks, dusted them off on her apron and then placed them and the candles in front of each guest.

  ‘A purchase?’ Apoline asked, surprised.

  Mr Solt pulled a folded document out from his coat’s inner pocket. The front, Whimsy noticed, was emblazoned with a government seal. She knew she had to change the subject.

  ‘Dinner will be served in ten minutes!’ she announced a little too loudly, so that Miss Ballentine jumped in her seat.

  Mrs Solt clapped her hands excitedly. ‘Oh, what are we having?’

  ‘Stew,’ Apoline said.<
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  ‘Pie,’ Whimsy said at the same time.

  Apoline raised an eyebrow at her, demanding an explanation.

  ‘Is it a fish pie?’ asked Mrs Solt.

  ‘No, it’s a surprise pie,’ said Whimsy.

  ‘A surprise pie? Why, I’ve had every kind of pie there is and I’ve never heard of a surprise pie,’ Mrs Solt said, aghast. ‘In fact, I remember once —’

  Apparently, Mr Solt was as disinterested in hearing Mrs Solt’s experience with pie as Whimsy, for he leaned across the table towards Mr Abernathy and spoke over his wife.

  ‘That is a fine pocket square you have there,’ he said, indicating the small glint of gold peeping out from Mr Abernathy’s breast pocket.

  Mr Abernathy’s hand came up and rested over his breast pocket protectively. He hesitated a moment, then slowly drew forth the item from his pocket. It wasn’t a pocket square but Mr Abernathy’s most prized possession: a brass harmonica.

  Mr Solt’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. He extended a hand out and said, ‘I shall see it.’

  Whimsy bit back a protest as Mr Abernathy blinked at Mr Solt’s demanding tone. He then cautiously handed the beautiful instrument across the table. Seizing the harmonica, Mr Solt stared at it with assessing eyes. Mr Abernathy fidgeted with his bow tie, anxious to have his precious instrument returned to him.

  ‘It was a gift from my wife after I finished the score for —’ but Mr Abernathy’s nervous burbling was cut off by Mr Solt who had turned the harmonica over and began reading aloud the inscription on the bottom cover.

  ‘Life is a song — H.A.’

  ‘What a disgusting sentiment,’ Apoline sneered. ‘Life is nothing like a song. Who wrote that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you know?’ Mr Solt mused to Apoline. ‘This man’s wife left him. It was all over the papers.’ He smiled at Mr Abernathy and Whimsy could see a row of sharp, pointed teeth. Whimsy watched, helpless, as Apoline laughed at Mr Abernathy and the colour drained from Mr Abernathy’s face. Then Mr Solt carelessly tossed the harmonica back across the table.

  ‘Take it,’ he scoffed. ‘At least it can’t leave you.’

  Whimsy felt an overwhelming anger towards Mr Solt rise in her chest. She clenched her fists underneath her apron. Leaving the dining room before she could betray herself, she headed back into the kitchen.

  Cook was spooning the contents of the pot into the five pie pastries. The awful smell had gone and the contents bubbled and fizzed. Grabbing the ladle from him, Whimsy added extra filling in the pastry meant for Mr Solt. Then she placed the pie lids carefully on top of the oozing filling and put them in the oven. Whimsy checked the recipe. Once in the oven, the pies only needed a few minutes to brown. She found some bread rolls and a bottle of blue wine at the back of the pantry just as Woe entered the kitchen.

  ‘Cook, could you please put these on the table?’ Whimsy asked. Cook took the basket of bread rolls and the wine and exited the kitchen, leaving the siblings to discuss their plan.

  ‘The balloon is fixed and there’s gas in the canister,’ Woe said quickly. ‘I’ve packed our things. Has Solt said anything to Apoline yet?’

  ‘Almost.’

  Cook returned to the kitchen just as the timer went off. The pies were ready. Carefully, Whimsy opened the oven door and removed the pies. The browned lids moved up and down as though the contents were trying to break free of the confining crust. Whimsy and Woe placed the pies on serving plates. Then with one final, uncertain look at each other, they entered the dining room.

  ‘I have had a contract drawn up —’ Mr Solt said.

  ‘Dinner is served!’ Woe interrupted before Mr Solt could finish.

  ‘I’ve never seen a pie like this!’ Mrs Solt said, eyeing the unusual dish as Whimsy placed it before her.

  Once everyone was served, Whimsy and Woe moved to stand near the doorway in the far corner of the room. Neither of them knew what to expect but they had to be prepared to run to the attic as soon as disaster struck.

  Without even glancing at the dish in front of him, Mr Solt continued with what he was saying before they entered. ‘I have had a contract drawn up —’

  But before he could finish his sentence, Mrs Solt cut open her pie. A high-pitched shriek rose from the pie. It grew steadily louder and louder. Miss Ballentine placed her hands over her ears. And then a tendril of black smoke made its way out of the opened crust. The tendril quickly trebled in size. Then suddenly, like cannons on a pirate ship, each pie on the table exploded with a thunderous BOOM!

  16

  In which pie flies sky high

  Whimsy and Woe watched as pastry crust and pie filling shot out from the table in all directions. Five pie lids flew upwards with such force that they embedded themselves in the ceiling. Plaster bits fell from above as chunks of thick brown slop soared this way and that around the room. Piecrusts ricocheted off lamps and furniture, knocking over anything and everything in their path.

  Glass broke, porcelain smashed. Apoline screamed as a piece of filling hit her square in the face. Mrs Solt cried out in alarm and then quickly realised that was a mistake as her pie squirted brown sauce in her direction. Mr Solt blustered in outrage until filling flew at him and covered his eyes, causing him to shoot back from the table so quickly that he slipped on pie sauce and landed with a slippery thud in a heap on the floor, taking the tablecloth with him, covering himself in cutlery, plates, glasses, bread rolls and blue wine.

  A Recipe for Disaster

  Splattered with pie, Apoline started using her plate as a shield, deflecting the treacherous pie bits that continued to fly in her direction. Mr Abernathy and Mrs Ballentine had found cover underneath the table from the seemingly never-ending food explosions, pie sprayed across their legs and feet.

  Whimsy and Woe couldn’t believe their eyes. They had hoped that the Recipe for Disaster would be enough of a distraction for them to sneak away from the dining room but they had never expected it to be this much of a distraction. They enjoyed watching the show — so much so that they themselves were distracted from escaping. Realising that they had stayed too long already, Whimsy grabbed Woe’s arm and the two of them sprang into action.

  Together, they raced out of the room, down the hallway, across the foyer and up the main stairs. Behind them, Whimsy and Woe could hear what sounded like fireworks from the dining room. There were more screams and bangs from below as they sprinted up the spiral staircase to the attic. Crawling through the hole in the yellow-and-grey-patterned wallpaper, Whimsy was impressed with the progress Woe had made. The red hot-air balloon was patched together with the white sheets that had once covered the items in the room. The gas canister and the large wicker basket were also awkwardly attached to the balloon with bits and pieces Woe had scavenged.

  ‘Hurry. The pies can’t last for much longer,’ Woe said, placing their suitcases in the balloon’s basket.

  Whimsy moved to the large circular window. Undoing the latch, she pushed it. But it wouldn’t budge. Looking closely, she noticed that several tarantula vines outside covered the opening of the round window.

  ‘Oh no! The vines have sealed the window shut,’ she said to Woe. They could still hear the muffled sound of chaos downstairs. They didn’t have much time before Apoline would notice their suspicious absence. She looked swiftly around the cluttered room hoping to find something she could use. Then she remembered. ‘Woe, pass me the nail file.’

  Unable to grow her nails, Whimsy had never found a use for the mother-of-pearl nail file outside of their theatrical games. Like most of the other possessions they found in the Idle Slug rooms over the years, she sometimes looked at it every now and then, imagining the life it had once belonged to.

  Clumsy from nerves, Woe opened his sister’s suitcase and handed her the nail file he found inside. He pushed on the window so that it opened just enough for the pointed file to fit through. Whimsy began madly cutting away at the tarantula vines. They snapped, one by one, writhing as they fell away.

>   Then suddenly the siblings heard a flurry of footsteps bound up the spiral staircase and into the attic.

  17

  In which a messy escape is made messier

  Woe and Whimsy stopped and waited to hear the shrill shriek of their aunt’s voice. But it never came. Instead, two bread rolls and two green apples rolled through the hole in the wallpaper. The siblings looked at each other and knelt down to peer through the hole. There, on the other side, were Mr Abernathy and Miss Ballentine. They were covered from head to toe in blue wine and pieces of piecrust and filling. But it was the expressions on their faces that gave the siblings pause. Never had they seen Mr Abernathy beaming with such joy or Miss Ballentine with such a fierce look of resolve on her face.

  ‘Miss Ballentine, Mr Abernathy, what are you doing here?’ Woe asked, surprised.

  ‘Children, that was fantastic! I haven’t seen a recipe for disaster like that since I was a young boy!’ Mr Abernathy enthused.

  ‘It was incredibly exciting,’ Miss Ballentine agreed.

  ‘Sorry if we frightened you. It was our only chance,’ said Whimsy.

  ‘Mr Solt wants to buy us,’ Woe attempted to explain.

  ‘We know,’ said Mr Abernathy. ‘While we were under the dining table, we saw the contract.’

  ‘We thought that must be why you cooked the recipe.’

  ‘A distraction for your escape!’

  ‘Constance would be so proud,’ Miss Ballentine said.

  ‘As would your parents,’ said Mr Abernathy.

  ‘Hurry, you don’t have much time.’

  ‘But what about y —’ Whimsy began, but was cut short by the sight of their aunt’s stark white hair as she stepped into the attic. She was followed quickly by Mr Solt and then less quickly by Mrs Solt. They looked as though they had been in a tornado of food. Apoline’s hair was loosening from its taut bun and partly stained with blue wine. It hung around her livid face in sticky clumps. Her nostrils flared dangerously. Mr Solt’s green suit was covered with muddy brown pie filling and torn apart at the seams. Mrs Solt was breathing heavily as she laboured after her husband. She was covered from head to toe in white plaster dust from the dining room ceiling. She looked like a waddling ghost.