The Wonderling

by Mira Bartók

  Number Thirteen’s stomach wouldn’t stop growling. It seemed to take forever to get to the dining hall, for the orphanage was immense. Four long corridors radiated from the center of the cross-shaped building, each named for a bird of prey: Hawk, Kestrel, Falcon, and Owl. Kestrel Hall, which ran from the center of the cross to the back, was where the orphans slept and where they gathered for roll call each morning in the courtyard. The schoolroom and dining hall were in Hawk Hall, which ran from the center to the front, where, guarding the gates, Miss Carbunkle’s giant dogs growled and drooled and barked.

  The sides of the cross were made up of Owl and Falcon Halls, which contained dozens of workrooms, including the Home’s very own steam-powered factory, where the orphans assembled strange little widgets under the direction of an ill-tempered foreman named Mr. Bonegrubber. The widgets looked like small black beetles. What they were used for, nobody knew.

  No one knew what was on the very top floor either, for it was off limits to everyone except Miss Carbunkle and her staff. The orphans had their theories, of course: these ran the gamut from medieval torture chambers with pots of boiling oil in which to dip naughty groundlings to nasty cells where wicked creatures were forced to eat bowls of big furry poisonous spiders. As for the cellar, everyone was certain that it was full of gigantic black rats who liked to nibble on toes and would make a meal of you if you stayed down there long enough.

  “Look sharp! Snap to it!” hollered Mr. Sneezeweed. His foot was still sore from Miss Carbunkle’s cane, and he wasn’t happy about it.

  They were in the Grand Hall, where Miss Carbunkle’s office was located, the center point where all four corridors met. Sneezeweed slowed down in front of the headmistress’s office, struck with a surge of envy. Her office was enormous, as were her living quarters, and his were not. The office was soundproof and made from a special kind of glass that allowed the headmistress to see out but prevented anyone from seeing in. It rose up through all three floors of the Home. A circular stairway led to her private chambers on the top floor. From there, she could access her panoptic observatory tower on the roof, keeping watch from all sides with her spyglass and telescopic goggles. Her chambers were not lavish but they were modern and clean.

  Mr. Sneezeweed slept in a poorly furnished room barely big enough to fit a bed and a dresser. He was sequestered in Kestrel Hall, next to the infirmary and across from the dormitory, as it was his job to monitor the groundlings at night, which meant he barely slept at all. A babysitter for freaks, that’s what I am, he said to himself as he passed by Miss Carbunkle’s magnificent office in the Grand Hall.

  Outside Miss Carbunkle’s office, a giant cuckoo clock stood sentry. Number Thirteen looked down so he didn’t have to see what came next, right at the top of the hour, just when they were all marching past. A bright-yellow bird appeared from behind a door above the clock face. The mechanical bird chirped and danced for exactly ten seconds. Then a large beak popped out and swallowed the bird up with an awful SNAP!

  Finally, they arrived at the dining hall. “Get your bowls, sit down, and shut up!” yelled Mr. Sneezeweed. He tugged hard at the thick greasy rope that hung from the rafters, and a loud clang announced the beginning of the meal.

  The Home served only breakfast and dinner to the poor creatures, and the meals were almost always the same: porridge in the morning, watery pea soup at night, and a piece of stale, coarse bread. At dinner, there might be a piece of raw turnip, a small carrot, or a boiled potato too, but these luxuries were rare. By breakfast each day, Number Thirteen was famished.

  He sat down at a long wooden table where the smallest groundlings congregated — Baby Tizer (a good-natured spiny little fellow), Twinkles (part pig, part pug), Nigel (mostly dachshund), Nesbit and Snook (rabbity twins), Morris and Moe (sloth groundlings), and Rufus (mostly wombat). Nesbit and Snook looked at him kindly and mouthed “hello.” Number Thirteen forced a shy smile and tucked into his bowl of cold gray gruel. The Sloth brothers, Morris and Moe, greeted him too, but it took them so long to open their mouths that he didn’t even notice.

  The dining hall had a large vaulted ceiling and high arched walls. In an earlier incarnation, the room had been decorated with colorful frescoes, and monks had held choir practice here. But the walls and ceiling had long since been painted over in dull gunmetal gray. However, unlike the rest of the Home, which was devoid of decoration save for a big white clock on every wall, the dining hall had its own particular form of adornment.

  There were signs everywhere, crammed from floor to ceiling. They were printed with Miss Carbunkle’s favorite sayings, such as: Know Your Place! It’s at the Bottom! and Time Waits for No One — Especially You! and Blessed Are Those Who Serve and Obey! and Music Is the Root of All Evil!

  Number Thirteen glanced at the sign that hung above his table: Why Reach for the Stars When the Stars Are Out of Reach? Good question, he said to himself, and sighed.

  His two adversaries and their new friend sat down at a nearby table. Who was this creature with his black pebble eyes and sewer breath? Number Thirteen could feel the three of them staring at him behind his back, which made his ear all twitchy. I’ll just pretend I’m invisible, he thought, and ate his watery porridge in silence.

  Silence was what was expected of him anyway, for it was the first and most important of Miss Carbunkle’s Golden Rules.

  Noise, including conversation, was barely tolerated. It was strictly forbidden in the dining hall, except when absolutely necessary. This was difficult for some, who couldn’t help but make little snuffling sounds as they dipped their snouts, claws, and paws into their gruel. Those who spoke or misbehaved at mealtime, or who were foolish enough to beg more food from Mr. Bunmuncher, the Home’s disgruntled cook (whose big bald head resembled a pink, gleaming ham), received several hard whacks across their backside.

  Singing, humming, or making music of any kind whatsoever was also prohibited. In fact, in Miss Carbunkle’s eyes, music was the worst offense of all. The culprit was sent to the cellar (otherwise known as the “rat dungeon”) for a month of solitary confinement, followed by weeks of toilet-scrubbing duty.

  Number Thirteen noticed that the two small groundlings next to him were passing notes back and forth beneath the table. Even in this wretched place, the orphans managed to communicate. They spoke in hurried whispers or facial gestures, or in a secret code of foot, hand, and paw tapping. They passed tiny notes, stories, and pictures. It was impossible not to talk or laugh with one another even in a clandestine manner, for the desire for companionship far exceeded the fear of punishment, regardless of how severe.

  The one-eared orphan longed for companionship too. But whenever he gathered the courage to approach someone, he spoke so softly and stuttered so much that it was hard to understand him. Some of the groundlings, not to mention the headmistress and Mr. Sneezeweed, treated him as though he were deaf. How could that stammering creature called Number Thirteen possibly hear with just one pathetic ear?

  But he was listening.

  He was listening to everything around him. If he concentrated hard enough and went to a quiet, secret place inside himself, he could sometimes hear extraordinary things.

  He could hear the secret movements of insects, busy at their work beneath the floorboards and inside the walls, and he wondered if they could hear him too. He could hear the old donkey in the stables softly braying itself to sleep at night, and the two carriage horses swatting flies with their tails in summer. He had never seen them, but he knew they were there. And in winter, he could even hear snow falling in the courtyard. The worst weather produced the loveliest of sounds: pfft, pfft, pfft, whoosh, pfft, pfft, pfft, whoosh, and he wondered if this was a kind of song, this melody of snow.

  And if by chance in spring, a bird, small and delicate of wing, was singing in the tree outside the Wall, Number Thirteen could hear her clear as a bell from inside the Home. He could hear the quiet snap of every twig, the gentle flutter of her wings as she flew from branch
to branch. Loveliest of all, he could hear her tender nesting song as she soared through the air to her new home. And when he did, her song filled him with such unbearable longing, he thought his swollen heart would burst.

  This thing — this gift, or curse — whatever it was, for he didn’t know — had been growing inside him ever since he could remember. But why was it so? And did others have it too? He didn’t think so, and thus, afraid to stand out, never told a soul.

  In spite of Miss Carbunkle’s Golden Rule of Silence, the room gradually filled with sound — the clatter of tin bowls upon tables, the forbidden whispers among friends, Sneezeweed screaming “Silence!” every few minutes and honking and blowing his nose, and the ever-present tick-tick-ticking of clocks on every wall in every room on every floor.

  After he finished eating, Number Thirteen closed his eyes, focused his mind, and listened. Not to the rising din around him or the heartbeat of a thousand clocks but to something from deep within the bowels of the building. It was the fidgety little mice that scurried between the walls.

  Number Thirteen was used to their scuffling sounds and squeaks. But that day was different. That day, he heard something very peculiar — something wondrous and new.

  For the first time in his life, he could hear the mice talk.

  Am I going crazy? No, he decided. Those are definitely mice. And I can understand every word they say.

  What did this mean? Number Thirteen thought only humans and groundlings could talk. But mice? Mice were what humans called the “dumb beasts of the earth,” even lower in status than groundlings. Did the fact that they could talk make them groundlings too? And if not, why could he hear them and not the others? No one else seemed to be noticing the lively conversation going on behind the walls.

  He leaned closer to the wall and tipped his ear to listen.

  The mice seemed to be discussing one of their favorite topics: food. Their banter was fascinating. In just a few minutes, he discovered that mice were: (1.) Connoisseurs of French cheese, particularly a kind they called Brie, (2.) Extremely polite (to a fault), and (3.) Possessed of strong opinions about something called poetry. The mice seemed very passionate about it, whatever it was.

  Then another conversation started up behind the wall. It grew louder until it drowned out the squeaky voices of the mice, who scurried away. He surmised that the two speakers were rats, the large black ones that scampered through sewer pipes to the dark, wet cellar where Miss Carbunkle sent naughty groundlings. Number Thirteen eavesdropped on their exchange, which, for the most part, was diabolical, but in a courteous sort of way:

  RAT ONE: I say, did you see that deliciously dead thing I found last week?

  RAT TWO: Oh, yes, a fine catch indeed! Bravo, my friend, bravo!

  RAT ONE: Well, I thought so. But not everyone did. And you know of whom I speak.

  RAT TWO: Quite! I say, he is a jealous fellow, is he not? You know what they say: envy is ignorance!

  RAT ONE: Right you are!

  RAT TWO: So, my fine friend, whatever did you do about it? Rats like that need to be taught a lesson, I daresay.

  RAT ONE: Indeed! I jolly well had but one alternative, as you can imagine. I ate him. He quite deserved it.

  RAT TWO: Quite! Well done! Bravo, old chap! Bravo!

  Number Thirteen shuddered. They’re probably related to that awful rat friend of — Suddenly, he felt something cold, wet, and sticky hit the back of his head and dribble down his neck. He turned to see Mug and Orlick grinning from ear to ear. Their new friend sat between them, smirking. He set down the spoon with which he had flung the cold gruel and yawned, revealing his razor-sharp teeth.

  Number Thirteen wiped the mess off with his sleeve. Now his sleeve was dirty and wet. He sighed. He had only one shirt, and there was simply no time to clean it.

  Don’t think of them, he told himself. Think of something else.

  He rested his head on the table, and in the few minutes remaining, he let his mind drift to his favorite sounds: falling snow, birds, the gentle drumming of rain upon the roof. The world fell away — its grayness, its cruelty, its pettiness and fears. And the song from long ago that still nestled deep within his heart stirred inside him once again. He wished he knew what it all meant — the song, his lack of a name, and this secret ability to hear things no one else could hear.

  The harsh sound of the bell startled him out of his dream. He queued up with the rest of the groundlings, and they headed out the door to the schoolroom for Miss Carbunkle’s Monday morning lessons, Mr. Sneezeweed leading the way.

  There was no time now for futile wishes or birdsongs or the music of snow. No time to muse about the lovely little mice, their French cheese and poetry, for it was not a special day after all. It was just the beginning of yet another week at the Home. And as on all the days of Number Thirteen’s life thus far, there was ever so much work to be done.

  INSIDE THE HOME, time crept monotonously along. But outside the impassable Wall, life raced toward a great and glorious future. Wars were fought, kings and queens were crowned, inventions invented that changed the course of history. Men and women built machines that could project moving pictures on walls. They built steam-powered bicycles that could fly, and chronometers, barometers, aerometers, and many other incomprehensible things with names ending in “-meter”. Most miraculous of all was a secret machine that could capture the most beautiful sounds and songs in the world and play them back to you in your dreams.

  But Number Thirteen had little knowledge of the world, except for snippets of stories he heard from new arrivals to the Home. For his world was eternally the same: roll call, porridge, lessons, chores, widgets, pea soup, bed.

  But Sundays, ah, Sundays! Instead of two hours of mind-numbing lessons after breakfast, the orphans were allowed outside of Kestrel Hall. Each hall had its own courtyard, but Kestrel Hall was the only one where the groundlings could, for one precious hour a week, be free. (The second hour that replaced lessons was taken up with extra factory work, but that was to be expected.)

  On Sundays, they were even allowed to run around and play (within reason), and although there was nothing on the grounds that resembled a swing set, sandbox, or ball, the little ones invented many games on their own, despite the fact that exercising one’s imagination was emphatically discouraged at Miss Carbunkle’s Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures.

  It was Christmas Day — not that one could really tell it was Christmas, for there were no tinseled trees or shiny gifts or trays of little cakes and sweets lying about the place. It was also Number Thirteen’s eleventh birthday. But he was unaware of these two important facts. So rather than eating birthday cake and Christmas tarts, or opening presents and singing holiday songs, he stood shivering in a corner at the far end of Kestrel Courtyard, pretending to be a bug.

  He imagined himself to be like the ones who lived below the floorboards in the dormitory, just a tiny thing that hid in darkness and made hardly a sound. That’s me, he told himself. I’m just a little bug. Too small to even bother with.

  Then he thought about the charming little mice he had heard behind the wall and decided to be a mouse, sharing a morsel of cheese with another mouse, having a chat about poetry (whatever that was) over a cup of tea.

  Outside the Wall, a gentle snow began to fall. But inside Kestrel Courtyard, it began to rain. It almost always rained inside the Wall, and always a thudding sort of rain, devoid of rainbows or bursts of glorious sun in its wake.

  What capricious magic was this that caused bad weather in one place and perfect weather in another a hop, skip, and jump away? No one seemed to know. Naturally, Number Thirteen wondered if it was his fault. After all, his name was so very unlucky.

  Soon the courtyard was slick with mud, but the groundlings didn’t care a toss. Some were jumping and splashing in puddles, others were playing tag, while still others pretended to be explorers, pirates, fairies, goblins, balloonists, and adventurers at sea.

  In short, they were
playing, for once, like children.

  In Number Thirteen’s small corner of the world, life was as good as it could be. High above him was one of the Home’s massive stone gargoyles, hiding him in its shadow. Water spilled from the roof onto the gargoyle’s eyes and face, from which it, in turn, poured into the yard, but away from Number Thirteen, who stayed safe and dry behind the gargoyle’s watery veil. On one side of the waterfall was a narrow gap, in case he needed to slip through without getting wet.

  Each of the four courtyards had four medieval gargoyles, remnants of the Home’s monastic past. They were not birds of prey, like Miss Carbunkle’s ubiquitous hawk, although there was something birdlike about them. They mostly looked like sad monsters, with misshapen snouts, large ears, mournful droopy eyes, and droopy wings, their faces worn down from weather and neglect. When it rained very hard, water poured out of all sixteen gargoyles in the courtyards of Hawk, Kestrel, Falcon, and Owl Halls.

  It was as if the orphanage itself were weeping.

  Number Thirteen pulled out a small piece of cheese from his pocket and nibbled on it slowly. He had saved it from the Sunday before, which had been, to the delight of all, a Cheese Sunday. Cheese Sunday meant that an official from the Department for the Protection of Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures (the D.P.W.M.C.) had visited the Home. They did this from time to time to make sure everything was running smoothly. At the end of the visit, each orphan was rationed a piece of cheese. The cheese was usually green and so hard that many creatures lost a tooth or two when they bit into it. And yet, it was cheese, after all, and once in a great while it wasn’t so old and green but nearly fresh.

  If the cheese was indeed fresh, some of the creatures used their ration as currency: a piece of cheese could be exchanged for two carrots, a scrap of paper or a pencil, part of a broken toy, or a handful of straw for one’s bed. Even stories were bartered for, and news from the outside world.