by Matthew Ward
“Oh—sorry, Mother,” said Arthur.
He slid his finger along one side of the package and peeled back the paper. After revealing a well-worn cigar box, Arthur flipped open the lid.
There, in the middle of the box, sat a single domino tile with three white dots on one end and four on the other.
Uncle Mervyn grinned. “During my brief foray into record breaking—when I was just a few years older than you are now—this domino was in the lineup that secured my record for Most Dominoes Single-Handedly Toppled. There were 378,000 dominoes in that setup, but this one has special powers.”
“Really?” said Arthur. “Was it the first in the chain—the one that started it all?”
“No, it wasn’t the first,” replied his uncle.
“Then was it the last—the one that actually set the record?”
“It was neither the first nor the last. In fact, I don’t remember which number it was. Somewhere in the eighty-thousands, I think.”
“But what’s so special about this one, then?” puzzled Arthur.
“This domino is just as remarkable as the first or the last. Because without this domino, the whole thing would have stopped dead. And that’s what gives this magical domino its power.”
Arthur’s brother Henry rolled his eyes at the word “magical.”
“Magical?” said Arthur, his eyes growing wide.
“All right, Arthur. That’s quite enough,” interjected Mrs. Whipple. “Now what do you say to your uncle Mervyn?”
“Thanks, Uncle Mervyn. Thank you very much.”
“Really, Mervyn,” Arthur’s mother added with an uneasy smile, “you didn’t need to get him anything—you’re too generous!”
This was not the first “magical” gift Arthur had received from his uncle—and Mrs. Whipple had not forgotten the troubles the last one had caused. After Uncle Mervyn had given the boy a magical gardening trowel (which, he’d explained, when used to dig a hole, had the unique power to increase the size of something by actually taking away from it), Arthur had been inspired to attempt the record for Most Holes Dug in One’s Own Garden. The north lawn had never quite looked the same since.
“It was no trouble at all, Eliza,” Uncle Mervyn replied with a smile and a wink to his godson. “Surely a boy of Arthur’s age should never be without a magical object in his possession.”
Arthur smiled back, then turned reverently to his domino. As he reached down to pick up his uncle’s latest gift, he half expected a surge of electricity when he touched it—but the little black tile remained still as the boy gently dropped it into his shirt pocket.
The door opened and the lights dimmed. As Wilhelm carried in Arthur’s birthday cake alongside Sammy the Spatula, the dancing candlelight illuminated the butler’s thick handlebar mustache and cast large spiral shadows upon his rosy cheeks.
The cake, iced in plain white and topped with twelve slender candles, was neither very large nor very small, yet distinctive in a way currently quite obvious to the champion strongman who carried it.
“How do you like it, Arthur?” Mr. Whipple grinned. “At one ounce per cubic inch, it’s the Densest Cake Ever Baked—with a total weight of sixty-three pounds! Sammy tells me he devised the recipe in prison for use as a bludgeoning tool. Thrilling, isn’t it?”
Wilhelm set the cake in front of Arthur. The table groaned in protest.
“Yes,” replied Arthur, turning to the chef. “Thanks, Sammy. It’s really, um—monumental.”
Smiling uncomfortably, Sammy the Spatula leaned in to Arthur and whispered, “Sorry ’bout the cake, mate. Afraid we got our signals crossed, your parents and me. In the mayhem of party planning, I somehow got the impression they wanted a birthday-themed doorstop. Honestly, mate, if I’d known it were for you, I’d’ve suggested somefing a good bit tastier.”
“No, really, Sammy,” Arthur assured him, “it’s perfect.”
“No it ain’t, Arfur. And I aim to make it up to you. Bake a whole nuvver one tomorrow, I will—World’s Tastiest—just for you,” the chef winked cheerfully. “’Ow’s that sound?”
“Well,” Arthur smiled, “if you insist.”
“Indeed I do,” Sammy said with a nod.
At this, Simon and Cordelia launched into an accordion/violin rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” (less, perhaps, because it was Arthur’s birthday, than because it held the record for Most Popular Song in the English Language). Before long, they were playing the last note, and Arthur realized the moment he had dreamt about for four long years had finally arrived: it was time for his birthday wish.
In order to stretch the moment out as long as he could, Arthur pretended to be thinking of what to wish for—but in truth, he had known all along exactly what his wish would be. He did his best to continue stalling, until he noticed the octuplets fidgeting in their chairs. It seemed he had delayed as long as his family would allow, so he closed his eyes and began his wish.
I wish, Arthur thought to himself, that I was a world record holder.
But as soon as the wish had entered his mind, his heart became troubled. As Arthur grew increasingly aware of all the eyes fixed upon him, he was struck by an unsettling thought: everyone had known all along what his wish would be.
And how could they not have? Of course he would wish for the one thing that constantly eluded him.
Arthur had always known his failures were a matter of public record, but he had assumed his dreams belonged to him. At that moment, however, he realized his well-known failures had betrayed his most secret hopes, and that the one thing he thought he had achieved on his own—his very dreams—had been predicted by everyone else, even before he had dreamed them himself.
The boy glanced around the table at his restless siblings. They each had an expression that seemed to say, Come on, Arthur—make your wish, already. The whole world already knows what you’re going to wish for….
Cordelia tapped her foot and glanced toward the ceiling, while George stared at his own nose, apparently practicing for an eye-crossing record. Even Beatrice peered hungrily at the cake, willing Arthur to finish his wish so she could dig in.
Arthur looked back to the cake. He was no birthday-wishing expert, but he was pretty sure it was fair to alter a wish at the last moment—and that it was the last wish made before blowing out one’s candles that actually counted. He had half a second to think of a less obvious wish—before his family tore him limb from limb.
I wish…that I belonged, thought Arthur.
It was something his family might not guess right away, and that gave Arthur a new boost of confidence. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath—deep enough to ensure victory over the twelve trembling flames before him. There was no chance of failure now. All he had to do was extinguish a few tiny candles and surely, his wish would be granted.
With his lungs filled to capacity, he pursed his lips and prepared to blow. But before any air had left his mouth, the study door flew open, creating a gust of wind that snuffed out Arthur’s candles in an instant.
“This will do,” said the short, chubby man who had barged into the room. “Just wheel it into that back corner over there. We only need to get it out of the way for a few minutes while they load the giant squid steaks into the refrigerator.”
Two men entered the room pushing a large cart. Sitting on the cart and wrapped in cellophane was a life-size statue of the Whipple family, sculpted in Gouda cheese. Each family member’s likeness had been painstakingly carved into the enormous cheese block in honor of their birthday celebration the next day—each, of course, but Arthur’s.
At the sight of the World’s Most Intricate Cheese Sculpture, the Whipples sprang from their chairs and rushed over for a closer look.
“That looks just like you, Daddy,” declared Penelope as she pointed to the Whipple patriarch’s cheesy bust.
“I dare say you’re right, Penelope,” Mr. Whipple replied. “The resemblance is uncanny. Why, we may as well be looking in a mirror!”
Still seated at the table, Arthur looked down at his cherished birthday cake as tiny wisps of smoke escaped from the blackened candlewicks.
THE WHIPPLE FAMILY BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA
Using a small fork, the Cannibal King of Manawatu carved a chunk off of Mrs. Whipple’s arm and spread it onto a sesame cracker. The life-size cheese sculpture of the Whipple family had proved a huge hit amongst the guests of the Whipple Family Birthday Extravaganza. Much of Mr. Whipple’s head was now dispersed throughout the party on appetizer plates in the hands of various guests as they mingled on the east lawn.
The Cannibal King, who politely abstained from his usual customs whenever he was fortunate enough to be invited to the Whipple estate, added one last mini quiche to his plate before stepping away from the hors d’oeuvre table. Every visible part of his body—including his large, clean-shaven head, his weathered face, and his massive, sinewy hands—was covered with the tribal tattoos of the Maˉori, the bold native people of New Zealand. He was in fact the World’s Most Tattooed Man, with tattoos covering 99.9 percent of his skin. At the present moment, however, most of his tattoos were concealed by his dinner jacket and black tie, which was common attire for all the male guests that evening.
The brutish gentleman made his way toward the bar, where he brushed past a brown-haired boy carrying two glasses of ginger ale.
“Pardon me, little man,” the cannibal said in a deep primal voice.
Arthur glanced at the man’s face, then quickly looked away. “N-no trouble, sir,” the boy stammered as he walked past.
But it wasn’t so much the Cannibal King’s diet that intimidated Arthur—as it was his celebrity status. Unbeknownst to everyone else at the bar, there was a Cannibal King poster hanging upstairs on Arthur’s wall and a mint-condition Cannibal King rookie card framed on Arthur’s bookcase. Arthur, who could hardly handle a flu shot or eat a bite of liver without wincing, couldn’t help but be fascinated with the tattooed man’s seeming imperviousness to pain and impossibly strong stomach.
His heart beating a little more quickly now, the boy made his way through the crowd and headed off across the lawn.
The grounds of Neverfall Hall were strewn with dozens of small stages, and crowds had formed around each of them to watch various persons perform various record-breaking feats. The current crop of performers consisted of those fortunate guests and Whipple associates who had been invited to attempt records in the family’s honor—though Mr. Whipple had made certain, of course, that none of them posed even the slightest threat to his family’s championship hopes.
The Whipples themselves had taken to the stages the previous hour and—amidst Arthur’s exuberant cheers—had set about breaking record after record in pursuit of reaching their critical quota before midnight. Indeed, with Charlotte’s record for Fastest Family Portrait Painted on the Head of a Pin and Penelope’s record for Most Fireflies Employed in Spelling Out a Floating Message (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!), not to mention little Ivy’s record for Fastest Viennese Waltz with a Stuffed-Toy Partner without Falling Over or Being Sick, Arthur’s family had nearly managed to meet the eligibility requirement already, with several hours left to spare.
Unsurprisingly—though he’d spent countless hours preparing an attempt of his own—Arthur had not been asked to participate.
The boy’s only consolation was the high honor of helping with his family’s birthday cake later that evening. Having never been entrusted with any sort of official birthday duty before, he was thrilled to finally get the chance. If he could not join his family in sharing a birthday, at least he might help them to celebrate it.
Until that time, however, his sole responsibility was to enjoy the party. With his family now on break to perform various birthday activities, such as showing guests around the estate and posing for photographs in the Whipple Hall of World Records, the boy had been placed in the care of Uncle Mervyn and Mrs. Waite, whose drinks he was presently on his way to deliver.
After passing by a woman on stage who was in the process of eating a school bus, piece by piece, and was at that moment gnawing on the gear lever, Arthur passed a man who had clipped 167 clothespins to his own face and was reaching for another. The next act, however, so piqued Arthur’s curiosity that he put his errand on hold and stopped for a closer look.
On a stage surrounded by over three dozen onlookers stood two suspicious-looking clowns.
Arthur was aware, of course, that many people regard all clowns with a great deal of suspicion, without any other reason than the simple fact that they are clowns. Indeed, it was a stereotype the IBCPC (International Brotherhood of Circus and Party Clowns) had been trying to quell for years. It seemed to Arthur, however, that these particular clowns—judging on appearance alone—warranted at least some minor misgivings. Their faces were coated with thick, pasty makeup that was cracking in the creases of their skin—and though each of them had a big crimson smile painted around his mouth, neither of them was actually smiling.
What had really caught Arthur’s eye, however, was not the appearance of the clowns’ faces—but the sizes of their bodies. The clown on the right was so tall that on first glance he appeared to be standing on stilts—and it was only upon further observation that his proportions proved otherwise. The clown on the left was standing on a large wooden crate, but he was so short that the tip of his head barely reached his partner’s waist.
There was a sixty-foot pole jutting up from behind the stage, which was labeled in big bold numbers with incremental measurements of height. According to the pole’s markings, the giant was roughly nine feet tall, while the dwarf’s height measured at just over two feet. Each clown’s height was further exaggerated by the close proximity in which they stood—the giant’s massive stature causing the dwarf to seem more like a doll than a man, and the dwarf’s tiny body causing the giant to appear as large as an oak tree.
As Arthur gazed onto the stage, the clowns performed stretching exercises, in apparent preparation for some forthcoming feat. And then, without a word, the giant clown picked up his dwarfish partner from off the wooden crate—and threw him straight up into the air.
The crowd gasped as the tiny clown shot up like a bullet, ascending higher and higher—passing the twenty-five-foot marker—and then thirty—thirty-five—forty—forty-five. He had climbed over fifty feet in the air before his speed began to slow, and he peaked at the fifty-six-foot marker before plummeting back toward the stage.
It appeared for a moment that the dwarf might slam into the stage’s wooden planks on his way back to earth, but the giant, who had not taken his eyes off his partner since hurling him into the air, extended his arms at the last second and plucked the falling dwarf out of the sky. The giant clown then set his partner back down upon the wooden crate, and the two turned toward the audience to take a well-deserved bow.
The crowd erupted in applause. Suspicious or not, these two clowns had just set a new world record for Greatest Height Reached by One Man Thrown into the Air by Another.
Just as Arthur began to clap, however, the small clown looked straight at him—and grinned in such a way that Arthur’s blood ran cold.
The boy stumbled backward. Generally, he was exceptionally fair when it came to clowns and always did his best not to judge them too hastily. He would continually remind himself that beneath all the creepy makeup, a clown is just a pleasant, if misguided, fellow in oversized shoes trying to make people laugh—against increasingly difficult odds. But this time, Arthur felt no such sympathy. His only thought was to get as far away from these clowns as possible.
Arthur sneaked behind the crowd and walked quickly away from the stage and its suddenly sinister occupants. When he felt he had reached a safe distance, Arthur’s curiosity got the better of him. He turned to venture a glance back at the stage and found—to his horror—that not only was the dwarfish clown still staring at him, the giant had now joined in as well.
A chill ran down Arthur’s spine, and he quickly turned
away. He continued on his path and did not look back again.
Uncle Mervyn held a stopwatch an arm’s length from a man on stage who was currently juggling five circular saw blades.
“Forty-one minutes!” cried the world-record certifier as Arthur approached the place where Mrs. Waite stood, just behind the crowd of daring party guests.
Arthur handed a well-traveled glass of ginger ale to the housekeeper. “Sorry it’s not entirely full, Mrs. Waite. I did have a few sips myself,” he admitted.
Mrs. Waite smiled. “Think nothing of it, dear. What a treat to have somebody waiting on me for a change! I’m just glad to see you found your way back; I was starting to worry you’d been kidnapped by gypsies.”
Arthur smiled back awkwardly. Unlike some children his age, Arthur never worried about being kidnapped. Indeed, it seemed quite unlikely that, of all the Whipple children, any kidnapper would ever decide to kidnap him. Surely a kidnapper would not expect half the ransom he could get for one of Arthur’s brothers or sisters. Of course, it was nice to have one less thing to worry about—but deep inside, Arthur longed to be worthy of kidnapping.
“Forty-two minutes!” shouted Uncle Mervyn up at the stage.
With that, the juggler let each saw blade fall to the stage floor, one after the other. The razor-sharp blades stuck into the floorboards in quick succession, landing in a perfectly spaced line. The juggler bowed low and the crowd cheered.
After filling out the proper paperwork certifying this latest world record, Uncle Mervyn hurried to the back of the now dwindling crowd, to the place where Arthur and Mrs. Waite stood waiting for him.
As Arthur watched his caretakers exchange fond glances with each other, he recalled Cordelia’s assurances that, since Uncle Mervyn was a bachelor and Mrs. Waite a widow, the two were perfect for each other. Arthur, being no expert in such matters, was not so certain—though he had noticed the pair spent a considerable amount of their free time together.