Bookweirder

by Paul Glennon

  There had been more than a dozen full-time staff at the hall. Now there were only the Cooks, Administrator Hepplewaithe, a single housekeeper and a part-time cook.

  “In the old days, the groundskeeper would have made his rounds at dusk, checking that the doors and casements were locked. When there was trouble, he used to bring in extra men from the village. If Father were here, we’d have five or six men scouring the grounds.”

  “Don’t let it bother you, George,” Pippa soothed. She spoke softly and thoughtfully. Her eyes followed George as he paced back and forth. “You’ve better things to do than watch for kitchen theft. We’ve our trip to London to plan. That’s the important thing—proving your father is innocent.”

  George didn’t seem to hear her. He swept a dark forelock out of his eyes. “The thieves must have been scared off before they found anything truly valuable,” he concluded. “I expect they’ll try again another night. I’m not having the silverware and family portraits stolen on my watch.”

  Pippa tried to convince him that he was judging the Gypsies too harshly.

  “They are travelling people. They live in their wagons. What do you suppose they would do with your family portraits?” she asked sensibly.

  “Sell them, of course,” George insisted. “My father always said that they would not be out of place in a museum. There are collectors all over the country who would pay handsomely to get their hands on them.”

  Gordon chuckled. “I have to walk past the portraits of some of your ancestors to have my bath. I’d pay a good penny to have them taken away.”

  George shot Gordon a stern look and the younger boy instantly dropped the smile from his face.

  “How can you be sure it’s the Gypsies?” Pippa asked.

  “It has to be the Gypsies,” Gordon cried. “Who else could it be? George is right. We have to stay here and defend the hall.”

  Gordon’s bravado brought a frown to George’s face. Gordon was only repeating the argument George had made to Hepplewaithe earlier that day, but it sounded ridiculous. He thought for a long moment as he gathered his ideas. “The Gypsies wouldn’t dare come near the house in broad daylight. We’re safe to go to London for the day still. We just have to be back for the night to keep watch.”

  “Were you planning on sleeping at all during this?” Pippa asked.

  Now that a plan was forming, George was less easily offended. “I won’t have to stay awake all night. I’ll sleep at the top of the Rook on the south lawn. It has a perfect view of the house, and if there’s any break-in, I’ll be sure to see it.”

  “You can’t sleep in the folly,” Pippa protested. “You’ll catch your death.”

  “Nonsense,” George replied. “I’ve plenty of blankets and a waterproof, if required. I’ll keep watch for a few nights to make sure our intruder isn’t coming back. We can take the train to London in a few days.”

  Gordon offered to join George on his vigil in the folly, but both George and his sister overruled him.

  Pippa glanced from Gordon to George wearily. “This whole thing is folly, if you ask me.”

  George ignored her objection. “You’ll be more use to us up here at the house, old bean,” he told Gordon. “Keep an ear open for anything strange, yes?”

  Gordon snapped to attention and saluted sharply in the manner his father had shown him when he’d sailed off for France.

  The sound of a car on the gravel outside made Norman put the book down. That would be his mom and Dora returning, so there would be hope of dinner soon.

  Norman closed his eyes. He couldn’t decide if it was weird that George had a folly, too. A month ago he hadn’t even heard of them. Now they were appearing everywhere.

  That morning in the ruined abbey folly he had been able to imagine himself inside a book. Could he do it again? Could he make the bookweird work? It had started the first time when he’d eaten part of a book. It had been difficult to break the habit of nibbling the corners of his pages, but he had forced himself to stop—partly out of fear of it happening again, partly out of fear of it not happening. He wanted to hang on to the possibility of going back there someday.

  Norman inhaled deeply and tried to visualize it. He told himself he was in the great hall of Lochwarren. All the stoats were asleep, but the castle would soon be roused by the bells of the nearby chapel of St. Sleekyn. Young Malcolm would come bounding down the stairs and order breakfast. Once again, Norman could almost taste the lingonberry pie.

  A voice called from below, “Norman, we’ve brought pizza!”

  That wasn’t a stoat’s voice or a hare’s. It was his mother’s.

  It was a mixed blessing. Pizza was, as Norman’s mother frequently declared, God’s gift to boys. Back home, Norman could have eaten a whole pizza by himself if they’d let him. But the English managed to mess it up. He couldn’t say why, but their pizzas tasted funny—something about the sauce, maybe. Since he had recently decided to be a vegetarian, though, it was about the only thing that he could eat and enjoy in this country. Everything else, even the chips, was usually beef-flavoured.

  Norman brought Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies down with him. He could easily eat pizza and read at the same time. It would save him having to listen to Dora’s pony stories. Everyone else was already in the dining room when he arrived. It always felt weird eating pizza right out of the box on that big wooden table, but Norman had gradually gotten over the sense that he should always be eating something on a plate and with the right-sized fork in this ornate room. He slid his hand inside the pizza box, marked with a “V” on the top, and was opening his book and his mouth simultaneously when his mom spoke.

  “I see you’ve found a book,” she said cheerfully. “What have you got?”

  Norman bit down on the wedge of pizza before replying.

  “It’s called Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies. There’s a whole series of them up there in the library.”

  Meg Jespers-Vilnius rolled her eyes as she listened. “Perhaps you could be slightly less barbaric and finish chewing before you speak.”

  Norman nodded but took another bite.

  “I remember those. I had the whole series,” she continued.

  Norman lifted a pizza slice to his mouth. “Actually, these are Uncle Kit’s,” he said and took another bite.

  “No, they aren’t,” Meg replied sharply. Norman was briefly stunned by her tone. Meg Jespers-Vilnius was almost annoyingly positive about everything. It was practically impossible to make her angry or provoke an argument.

  “It’s true. He wrote his name in the front.” Norman held the book up for her to see.

  “That may be so, but those Intrepids books were my books. He just wrote his name in them to be spiteful.”

  Norman wasn’t sure what to say to that. A few times now, when they’d mentioned Uncle Kit, she’d lost her cool.

  “What’s the book about?” Edward Vilnius asked.

  “It’s about these three kids,” Norman said. “One of them is some sort of junior earl or something. He lives in a cottage by himself. The other two live at some old house that’s been turned into a hospital. I guess they solve mysteries or something. Have you read it?”

  Edward thought about this for a while, wrinkling his forehead and chewing slowly. “Nope,” he said finally.

  “You’ve never read anything good,” Meg chided. “I bet you only read Shakespeare and Dickens when you were a kid.”

  Edward stroked his new goatee solemnly. “And we loved it,” he declared in his horrible fake English accent. “Kids these days are spoiled with their Computerboxes and their automagic video platters.”

  “I remember loving those books,” Meg recalled wistfully, ignoring her husband’s comedy act. She put aside her annoyance with her brother. “The oldest boy is George—do I remember that right? His father has been put in prison for a crime he did not commit,” she continued enthusiastically. “And the children seem to be able to go anywhere and do anything without any parental supervision.
”

  Norman took another slice of pizza. “Sounds perfect to me.”

  “I’d love to read those again,” Meg said. “Where did you say you found them?”

  “In the library, behind the Harvard Classics. There’s a whole series.”

  The Rook and the Poacher

  Norman almost didn’t mind going to bed that night. For once he had a book to read. It might not have won him over from the start, but he was starting to get into it. He slid Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies from where he’d left it in the stack of books on his windowsill and, pulling the fleecy orange blanket over his knees, found the place where he had left off.

  George had been about to spend the night in the folly. The Kelmsworth Folly was not a ruin, like Norman’s abbey, but a miniature round tower called the Rook because it looked exactly like the castle in a chess set. George brought his torch (which Norman finally realized was just a flashlight, not a long pole dipped in oil) and a waterproof groundsheet, along with his blankets.

  George carried his provisions up the spiral staircase to the top of the Rook. His dog, Nelson, padded silently up the stairs behind him. Drawing from his pocket the giant ring of keys that gave him access to every door on the estate, he identified the key that opened the folly’s door and used it once more on the trap door that opened to the tower roof. The border collie leapt ahead of him onto the roof.

  It was a perfect vantage point from which to keep watch on the hall. It was a clear night, and a waxing moon illuminated the sombre grey stone of the hall against the dark backdrop of Kelmsworth Wood. The hall was ancient, built originally by George’s ancestors on land granted to them by King Henry VIII. It had burned down twice and was partially destroyed by cannon fire once, so the present structure was a combination of styles and periods. The thick, castle-like walls of the original house were bridged with decorated segments carved with gargoyles and family shields. The newest windows were rounded and diamond-paned. The oldest were tall, narrow and arched. Behind those of the third floor, pale lights winked on and off. This was where Hepplewaithe and the Cooks stayed, the only part of the house still occupied. The other rooms were gradually being emptied to make way for hospital beds.

  The imposing columns of the great hall’s front entrance were out of sight, but no intruder would approach from the open lawn in front. No, it was the sides and the rear of the house that were vulnerable, and George had them covered. George lay on the cold stone roof of the Rook for several hours without seeing anything between the crenellations. Occasionally he took out the brass naval telescope presented to his great-uncle Toby by his crew on the HMS Britomart and scanned the edge of the forest, but the forest was as still as the hall. George took some satisfaction from knowing that he was doing his ancestors proud, guarding the family seat.

  But even George, who had long trained himself to go with very little sleep, was feeling drowsy. It was well past midnight when he finally drifted off. Nelson, at his side, rested his chin on his paw and stood watch over his master.

  The sky beyond Kelmsworth Wood had started to turn pink when Nelson’s low growl woke George. The dog was too clever to give himself away by barking. George patted the collie on the head and rummaged for his telescope. Raising it to his eye he trained it on the house, scanning for and focusing on the doors and windows one by one.

  “I don’t see a thing, old boy,” he whispered to the dog. “Where is it?”

  George followed the stare of the dog’s penetrating brown eyes. There, at the edge of the wood, was movement. In the dim, predawn light it was difficult to see detail, but there definitely was someone out there, a tall figure moving furtively along the copse away from the hall. In his hand he held something large and boxy. How could he have entered the house and taken something without Nelson seeing?

  “Come on, then,” George told the dog, rising and patting the border collie’s narrow head. “Let’s get a closer look.”

  There were enough obstacles on the lawn of Kelmsworth Hall to conceal George and Nelson as they snuck closer. Dog and boy ducked and followed the low stone wall as far as the arboretum, where George took his next sighting with the brass telescope. The man was definitely a stranger. George would have recognized Henry the gardener from his silhouette alone. This man was tall but walked stooped over, as if trying to conceal himself—or due to the burden of the load he carried. George still couldn’t decide what it was that he had in his arms. The stranger wore no hat or uniform, so it wasn’t one of Hepplewaithe’s army liaisons, either.

  George skirted the edge of the arboretum, dodging from tree to tree as he crept up on the intruder. Then he patted Nelson on the side and pointed silently to the wood. The collie set off briskly and noiselessly around the edge of arboretum to cut off the intruder.

  At the greenhouses, George brought the telescope to his eyes again. He could see the man’s features now. Swarthy and unshaven, he was a real ruffian. He wore a red kerchief around his neck, a rough, shapeless jumper and a long, unbuttoned coat, but no hat on his bald head. George guessed immediately that he was a Gypsy.

  As George watched him, the Gypsy halted in his tracks. The intruder turned slowly and stared directly towards the greenhouse. George knew exactly what had happened. The sun now coming up behind the wood must have caught the lens of his telescope. He collapsed the spyglass and charged fearlessly towards the intruder. As soon as he started moving he heard Nelson’s bark from close in. The dog would get there first, of course.

  The intruder was motionless for a moment, surprised by the dog’s bark perhaps, but he did not let his surprise last long. He peered around furtively a moment longer before dropping his load and dashing into the forest. Nelson burst into the forest after him while George made a beeline for the box. When he reached the box, he understood much better.

  “Here, Nelson!” He whistled sharply, calling the dog back. Holding up the box trap that the Gypsy had left, he knew that it was not safe for Nelson to pursue.

  “Poacher,” he told the dog, who tilted his head questioningly. “It wouldn’t have happened if Father were here. If Father were here, we’d still have a proper gamekeeper.”

  The Intrepids Go to London

  For three nights George maintained his watch from the Rook, but the poacher did not return. The Intrepids scouted the ravine where they’d seen the Gypsy tents, but the camp had been evacuated. Perhaps they’d scared the intruder off. George felt confident enough to leave Kelmsworth for London to carry out his other mission.

  They stepped down onto the platform at Paddington Station just before dinner. Behind them the bottle green engine let off a hiss of steam.

  Gordon pulled his woven cap down over his unruly hair and marched down the platform. “Right, follow me to Dodgeworth’s, then,” he said.

  George and Pippa followed more slowly.

  “You sure you can find this place?” George asked, unused to following other people’s directions. He glanced towards Pippa for corroboration.

  “Of course. I’ve been there millions of times. Dad used to bring me when he needed something special. Pippa wouldn’t go. She’s too squeamish.”

  “That’s not true at all. It’s just that I don’t like London.”

  They had stepped out of the station into what back home would have been sunlight. Pippa wrinkled her nose at the scents and sounds of Praed Street. In front of them, a double-decker omnibus was disgorging its passengers, who hurried up the steps to the station or through the crowds onwards down the street. The air was grey with smoke and fog. It might only have been the idea of the smoke pouring from nearby factories and train yards that made Pippa’s eyes water, but they watered all the same.

  “Right, gang, after me.” Gordon waved his encouragement as he trotted down the stone steps. Pippa and George followed.

  “I have to tell you, old bean,” George said as they clambered onto a red London bus and climbed the stairs to the second deck, “I’d feel an awful lot better if you knew the address. We’d get there
more directly, I expect, if we used the London Street Atlas.” He patted the pocket of his jacket.

  “Don’t need an address. I’ve an explorer’s nose.” Gordon tapped his nose with his finger. “Besides, Dad’s brought me here a million times—every time the Zoological Society called him in. Dad was indispensable to the zoo, you know. If it was anything to do with the rare animals, it was him they’d have down to look after them. We always stopped at Dodgy’s first to get supplies, especially if it was the Tassie Tiger. They fed it on rabbits usually, but Dad said it needed a platypus or a potoroo every once in a while to remind it of home.”

  “A potoroo?” George asked, skeptical but curious.

  “It’s a half-rat, half-kangaroo thing,” George explained. “Dodgy’s bound to have one.”

  George glanced at Pippa for some confirmation, but she was staring out the window, her thoughts elsewhere. London reminded her of her father.

  Oblivious, Gordon warmed to his theme. “If you did want a king cobra or one of those Persian vipers you were looking for, Dodgeworth’d be the man to get it for you. Dad told me he had a two-headed kitten for sale once. I never saw that kitten, but I did see an Amazonian parrot. Dodgeworth claimed it knew two hundred different words and phrases.” Gordon’s emphasis on the words “two hundred” told them they were meant to be impressed.

  “Did it say anything to you?” George asked, more amused than curious.

  “It told him to mind his manners, that’s all,” Pippa replied in an even voice. So she had been listening. “There’s the Zoological Society there. Oughtn’t this Dodgeworth’s place be nearby?”

  Gordon looked out, squinting through the steamy omnibus window. “Right you are, Pips. Good spot. Let’s be off.”

  Recognizing Regent’s Park, George extracted his street atlas and located himself on the map. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his young friend; it was just that he liked to know where he was at all times. They left the main thoroughfare and entered a neighbourhood of smaller winding streets. It was not a part of London that George knew well. As Gordon led them on confidently, deeper into the maze, George followed along as best he could in his street atlas. Ahead Gordon bobbed along cheerfully, re-telling long and exaggerated tales that his father had told him about Dodgeworth and his menagerie.