by Matthew Ward
“Absolutely, Chuck. In my days as a rocket-stick racer, it never would have crossed my mind to do something so foolish. Honestly, I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“Hard to believe he’s from the same family as his brothers and sisters, isn’t it, Ted?”
“Indeed it is, Chuck. Indeed it is.”
Arthur suddenly wished the radio broadcast had not been aired over the locker room PA system while he and the other riders were still inside. Though his ears had perked up with pride when the announcers first mentioned his name, it quickly became clear that pride was the wrong response to what they had to say about him.
Trying to escape the snickering of the other boys as soon as possible, Arthur swiftly stuffed his balled-up, mud-caked socks into his gym bag. He felt a bit like they smelt.
But disappointed as he was by his own loss, he couldn’t help but be just a bit happy for Roxy Goldwin. It must have been truly thrilling to win the gold medal in an event she had never even entered before. How proud her parents must be. Though it was sure to be the only event the Goldwins would win that day, at least their first Unsafe Sports Showdown had not been a total loss. For as well as Roxy had performed in the rocket-stick race, she had only won, of course, because none of Arthur’s brothers or sisters had been competing against her. Surely, the rest of the Goldwins would not fare so well when they went up against the real Whipples.
As Arthur emerged from the changing room, Uncle Mervyn and Mr. Whipple were waiting with his older siblings to greet him. Henry and Simon attempted to smile, but try as they might, they could not hide their utter bafflement with their brother’s performance. Cordelia simply stood with her arms crossed and glared at him.
Luckily, Uncle Mervyn got to Arthur before his sister could. “Nicely done, lad!” he exclaimed. “It’s nothing short of incredible how much you’ve improved in just one year. You would have certainly won the whole thing, if you weren’t so hopelessly decent—but thank God you are, lad, thank God you are.”
“Yes, Arthur,” added Mr. Whipple. “How remarkable you’ve only lost by eight places this year. Really, your failure quotient hardly looks bad at all, when compared to your last race. It’s certainly better than we expected; we’re used to seeing you do much worse!”
At once honored and injured by his father’s best attempt at a compliment, Arthur smiled awkwardly up at the man—as an increasingly familiar figure approached from behind Mr. Whipple.
“That was some race, eh, Arthur?” Rex Goldwin interjected as he clapped the boy’s startled father on the back. “You almost had it there for a moment or two, didn’t you? But I’m afraid there’s just no beating my little Roxy. Maybe if your old dad had taught you a few of his own rocket-stick moves, you might’ve had a chance; I guess you’ll just have to watch him in the premier division race later on today—you are competing, aren’t you, Charlie?”
“Actually, Mr. Goldwin,” Arthur’s father said through arched eyebrows, “extreme croquet is my event.”
“Ah, playing it safe, eh? Come on, Charlie—we can’t let the youngsters have all the fun, can we?”
Mr. Whipple’s eyes filled with fire. “Extreme croquet can hardly be considered safe, Mr. Goldwin!” he snapped. “Just try telling that to Wailin’ Waylan Martinson’s widow, who only last year lost her husband—one of the most respected extreme croqueters of our time—to the crocodile trap!”
“Whoa, there—easy, Charlie!” Rex chuckled. “Only a bit of a joke, old boy! My apologies. If I’d have known it was such a sensitive subject, I never would have mentioned it. Can’t be good for the heart at your age, getting so riled up like that….”
The fire in Mr. Whipple’s eyes had gone from orange to blue and now, to white—but before the fire could consume his entire head, the changing room door opened again, and out stepped Roxy Goldwin—the recent rocket-sticking record breaker. The instant the girl crossed the threshold, she was rushed by a herd of reporters.
“Ah, there she is!” Rex grinned. “I’d better go congratulate the girl. It’s been a pleasure. Gentlemen. Miss.”
Saluting the boys and tipping his hat to Cordelia, Rex Goldwin hurried off toward the nearby mob, leaving the Whipples with their mouths agape.
“Quite a character, that Mr. Goldwin—eh, Charles?” said Uncle Mervyn.
“Indeed,” grumbled Mr. Whipple.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Henry. “We’ll show him. I doubt he’ll be so smiley when his family loses the rest of their events. I mean—no disrespect to Arthur—but we haven’t really put our best foot forward, now have we? Wait till they see what we can really do!”
“Yeah,” said Simon, “they won’t even know what hit them!”
“They’ll cry themselves to sleep tonight!” added Cordelia.
“Yes,” Arthur chimed in, unable to resist, “we’ll beat them so badly their self-esteem will be injured for an entire week!”
Arthur’s surrounding family members stared at him blankly. There were many things at which Arthur knew he was not the best; it seemed he could safely add “trash-talking” to the list.
After a terribly awkward silence, Mr. Whipple finally spoke up. “Yes, well, I appreciate your resolve, children—and I look forward to watching you obliterate the competition, just as you always do. Now, let us go find your mother so we might congratulate the little ones on the heap of medals they have no doubt won this morning.”
When the group spotted Mrs. Whipple and the octuplets just outside the Pogo Pavilion, Arthur instantly noticed an unfamiliar expression on the faces of his younger siblings—an expression that apparently went undetected by his father.
“So, Mrs. Whipple,” Arthur’s father grinned, “how many records have we broken so far?”
“Nine, in all,” she replied.
“Splendid!” Mr. Whipple beamed. “Well done, children!”
It was another moment before it struck him that his children were not beaming back. “Now hold on there—why so glum? It seems you’ve broken a record in every event you entered, so where are your smiles, children?”
“Unfortunately,” Mrs. Whipple replied, “eight of those records were broken again by other competitors…all of whom happened to be members of the Goldwin family.”
Mr. Whipple’s smile vanished.
“I’m afraid Beatrice was the only one to win her event….”
For a brief moment, Mr. Whipple seemed to perk up a bit. “Well at least we’ve beaten them at something then.”
“Not exactly, dear. Since no one from the Goldwin family actually entered the extreme hopscotch event, we weren’t technically competing against them in that one.”
“I see.”
“You’ve got to hand it to them, Charles—those Goldwins are rather remarkable.”
This proved too much for her husband to handle.
“No, Eliza,” snapped Mr. Whipple, “I will not hand it to them—this is an outrage! Just who do they think they are, showing up out of the blue and robbing us of our records?”
“Charles!” Mrs. Whipple shot back. “This is hardly the sort of example you should be setting for the children. I’ll not have them learning such dreadful sportsmanship from their own father. The Goldwins beat us fair and square in every event this morning—and furthermore, they have been nothing but nice to us ever since they moved into the neighborhood. Need I remind you that Mr. Goldwin went so far as to save your very life?”
Over the course of his wife’s lecture, Mr. Whipple had been steadily drained of air, so that when she had finished, he resembled a wilted red balloon that had been left out in the sun too long. “No, dear,” he moaned.
“I thought not. Now, that’s the last unsportsmanlike comment I want to hear from you for the rest of the day—understand?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Good. All right, dear—you needn’t be so gloomy. There are plenty of opportunities left today to show the Goldwins what we Whipples are made of…. Speaking of which, how did Arthur’s even
t go?”
As if the wilting red balloon had finally been popped, Mr. Whipple let out a feeble, dispirited sigh.
Requiring no further explanation, Mrs. Whipple quickly changed the subject. “Well, no matter; the day has only begun. Come, children—we don’t want to miss our check-in for mother/child knife throwing!”
As Arthur tagged along behind his newly reunited family, he began to develop the strange sense that someone was tagging along behind him. He turned to confront his follower—and found himself standing face to face with Ruby Goldwin.
“Hello,” said the girl. “Headed over to mother/child knife throwing?”
“Oh,” said Arthur, stumbling backward at her abrupt address. “Um…yeah.”
He now saw why the girl had looked different to him when he’d seen her at the start of the race. Indeed, her appearance had changed rather drastically since his first encounters with her. Her complexion was not nearly so pale, and her lips no longer looked the color of dried blood. In place of her previous gothic attire, she wore a drab knitted pullover and cropped trousers. Her dark, red-tinged hair, once spilling down the sides of her face like some demonic fountain, was unceremoniously pulled back in a ponytail. And yet, somehow, Arthur found her no less terrifying.
“Perfect,” she replied. “I’m heading there myself; I’ll walk with you.”
“Oh,” said the boy.
Turning and proceeding in his original direction, Arthur picked up his pace a bit in the hopes of catching up with his family—and of making as little eye contact with the girl as possible.
Apparently Ruby did not get the hint, because the next moment she was walking alongside, half a step ahead of him. “Nice work in the rocket-stick race,” she smiled. “That double-jump thing you did was incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody jump that high before.”
“Thanks,” said Arthur, slowing his pace ever so slightly. “Actually, Jump Johnston still holds the height record.”
“You know,” Ruby added, “if you want to win next time, you probably shouldn’t stop to help your competition in the middle of the race. I’m no expert on rocket-stick racing—or on any sport, for that matter—but I think that sort of defeats the purpose of competing, doesn’t it?”
“Well,” said Arthur, “I…”
“I mean, personally,” Ruby continued, “I wouldn’t be caught dead in any of these races—but if you’re going to play their game, you might as well play by their rules, right? Not to worry, though—you’ve learned your lesson. You’ll get ’em next time, won’t you?”
There was a break in the girl’s speech, and Arthur realized she was actually waiting for a response.
“Yeah…I—I guess so,” he stammered.
“Of course you will,” Ruby smiled.
Arthur walked alongside her in confused silence for a few paces before his curiosity finally got the best of him and he couldn’t help but ask, “So what happened to your fight against ‘the oppression of popular fashion’ or whatever it was? I almost didn’t recognize you at first.”
“Ah—just a phase, you know. It was fun while it lasted, but I’m over it now. Realized I was spending far too much time obsessing about fashion in order to make the statement that I don’t really care about fashion. The only reason it lasted so long, I think, was I didn’t want Rita to think she was getting her way. Just wasn’t me in the end, though. I mean, it was all a bit creepy, don’t you think?”
Arthur nodded. “Yep. Just a bit.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not saying I won’t break out the eyeliner and nail polish for full moons every now and then…. But anyway—speaking of creepy,” Ruby added, her eyes bulging with ghoulish excitement, “I hear your family is cursed…”
“What?” gasped Arthur, stopping in his tracks.
“You know—this whole thing about your family’s recent mishaps actually being a continuation of this age-old Lyon’s Curse, or whatever it’s called. Riveting, isn’t it?”
Arthur frowned. “Maybe for you it is.”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive,” Ruby explained. “I’m just not used to this sort of real-life intrigue. It’s just so, well, you know—intriguing. Oh—and what about your chef? How they arrested him for masterminding that business with the birthday cake and trying to murder your family and so forth—shocking stuff, right?”
Arthur’s frown deepened as he slowly resumed his stride. “Yeah, well, they’ve got the wrong man.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly got proof, but I think Sammy was framed. And I’m pretty sure those clowns we saw in the Grazelby tent have something to do with it.”
“You don’t say,” said Ruby, with what sounded to Arthur a lot like sarcasm. “So what are we going to do about it, then?”
Arthur ignored the word we. “Since no one in my family seems to believe me, I’m going to have to catch the clowns in the act. It’s just turning out to be a bit more difficult than I’d thought.”
“I see,” said the girl. “Now tell me again why you didn’t just point out the clowns to your big butler friend when we saw them sneaking through the tent? It was obvious then that they were up to no good.”
“It wasn’t completely obvious,” Arthur scowled.
“Please, Arthur. When have you ever known any clowns—especially looking the way those two did—to be driven by anything other than pure evil?”
“Come on, now—that’s not really fair, is it? I don’t think you should judge an entire group of people based on the faults of a few. Obviously, there are plenty of clowns in the world who are quite the opposite of evil.”
“Name one.”
“Well…what about Spokes McGee—the First Clown to Unicycle around the Globe While Juggling? Surely he isn’t evil. The man’s brought nothing but joy to millions of people.”
“Strangled his entire family with one of his novelty bow ties.”
“He didn’t.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Ruby. “The IBCPC did their best to cover it up, but they couldn’t conceal it forever. Big article on it in The Record last month. You really should read more often.”
“Hmm,” Arthur frowned. “Well…I’m pretty sure you’ve just made that up. But either way, it doesn’t change the fact that we never actually saw those clowns doing anything wrong. My family had a lot on their minds that evening, and I didn’t want to trouble them with some silly hunch that would probably just turn out to be nothing—so I decided to keep it to myself until I found some kind of proof. Is that really so terrible?”
Ruby didn’t answer, but Arthur could tell by her expression that she was less than convinced. He couldn’t really blame her. He was hardly convinced himself.
Suddenly flustered, he snapped, “Look, you wouldn’t understand, all right?”
“Clearly,” smirked the girl. Then, before Arthur could say anything more, she stopped abruptly and added, “Well, here we are.”
The boy looked about him and saw that they had indeed reached the gates to the knife-throwing arena. It was hard to believe that such a long walk had passed so quickly.
“I’d better go find my family—not that they’ll be looking for me,” Ruby said cryptically as she and Arthur stepped through the gates. “Anyway, see you around.”
“Oh. Right,” said Arthur, caught off guard by the girl’s abrupt farewell. Apparently, she conducted her goodbyes in the same manner as her hellos.
“See ya,” he added with a half-wave.
Ruby smiled and waved back—then turned and dashed off into the stands.
As he watched the girl make her way through the crowd of eager spectators, Arthur couldn’t help but feel just a bit relieved. He had never met someone so contrary in all his life.
And yet, as Ruby disappeared from view, the boy found himself filled with a strange sense of sadness for which he could find no explanation.
Ghost or not, the girl clearly had supernatural powers.
FRIENDLY COMPETI
TION
Having located his family in the stands, Arthur watched as his mother led his younger siblings onto the arena floor.
Upon reaching the white painted line at the center of the arena, Mrs. Whipple halted her advance and waved to the crowd, while the octuplets filed in against the wooden backboard ten feet behind her. There, they set about forming a human pyramid.
After George, the last octuplet, had climbed up to form the third level, Mrs. Whipple hoisted two-year-old Ivy into his arms. As George lifted his sister’s feet onto his shoulders, she straddled the top of his head to form the pyramid’s capstone.
With a nod, Arthur’s mother returned to the baseline and faced the pyramid, her back to the hushed crowd.
Next, Uncle Mervyn—who was officiating the event—wheeled in a narrow, cloth-covered table and brought it to rest in front of Mrs. Whipple. There, he removed the cloth to reveal a long row of razor-edged knives—and began carefully inspecting each blade. When he was satisfied all were up to regulation standards, the record certifier nodded to the contender and left the field of play.
Taking a moment to gather her focus, the woman drew a deep breath—and reached for the table. It was then that Mrs. Whipple began throwing knives at her children.
There were those, of course, who might have argued this was rather irresponsible behavior for a mother to engage in, and indeed, they might have had a valid point—that is, had Mrs. Whipple not been such a skilled knife thrower.
One by one, the deadly blades dug into the backboard, each of them mere inches from a smiling Whipple child and various vital organs. Outlining the pyramid’s edges with surgical precision, Mrs. Whipple then proceeded to land knives in the spaces between each child. When every gap had been filled, she hurled her final blade at the pyramid’s tip—and skewered the bow on top of Ivy’s head.
The crowd roared.
After Uncle Mervyn had inspected the children to make sure there had been no rule infractions—such as pretending not to be stabbed by an errant blade (which, sadly, had become an all too common practice in mother/child knife throwing)—he gave a thumbs-up to the announcer booth.