The Wonderling

by Mira Bartók

  Although they had only known each other for several weeks, he and Trinket had become fast friends. She told him about her family, how they had perished when she was only five — her parents, six siblings, and grandparents — all of them lost to influenza.

  He felt safe and comfortable with her, and really, really happy. If he had known it was both his birthday and Christmas the day he met her, he would have said that Trinket was the best present ever. For one, she had given him a real name, Arthur. Then there were the stories. Every day she filled his head with wondrous tales she had learned from her mother.

  Just that morning, she had whispered to him at breakfast the story of how, when King Arthur was a boy and had the silly nickname of Wart (at least in one version of the story), the magician Merlyn transformed him into a kind of falcon so he could feel what it was like to be a bird.

  “My mother,” she had said to him in hushed tones in between dainty sips of gruel, “was quite a respected storyteller among our people.”

  Arthur thought of this and smiled. But when he looked up and saw the headmistress, his smile quickly faded.

  In Miss Carbunkle’s version of school, there were no stories at all. No storytelling, no picture drawing, no play-acting, no dancing, and most important, no singing. Trinket had told Arthur that there were schools that did allow such things — some classrooms even began each day with a song! — but he had a very hard time believing that was true.

  At the Home, class always began with announcements. Miss Carbunkle would list any and all new rules and regulations. In fact, she created so many new ones that she was forced to make countless addenda to her sacred Manual. After that, she commenced with lessons. She grilled the orphans with the same questions each and every day, and the orphans responded with the same answers each and every day.

  She always began thusly: “Why are you here, groundlings?”

  Their voices, mechanical and flat, would respond in unison, “To be educated.”

  “What else, groundlings?”

  “To learn a useful trade.”

  “What else, you wretched whelps?”

  “To toil . . .”

  “And what else?”

  “. . . and suffer?”

  “And? You lazy miscreants, you ungrateful sow bugs, what else?”

  At that point, an oppressive silence would spread throughout the room. Some of the little ones, such as Arthur, would tremble in their seats. They felt they were supposed to answer the last question and yet — they knew they weren’t supposed to at the same time. It was all so confusing!

  Finally, Miss Carbunkle, a cruel smile upon her lips, would say, “Exactly, my good-for-nothing imps, my disgusting little bottom-feeders. Silence. Beautiful, serene silence. To toil. And suffer. In silence. That is the greatest lesson of all.”

  And so, that Wednesday, Miss Carbunkle discreetly touched the back of her wig, adjusting it ever so slightly, and, as on every other Wednesday for the past thirty years, she opened up her big black notebook and began listing the new rules of the day.

  As Arthur sat there, trying not to doze off, his whiskers began to twitch. Something seemed different. He sniffed the air and detected a familiar bouquet: mildew, Eau de Faucon (Miss Carbunkle’s favorite perfume), and Smelly Orlick’s boggy stench in the back row. He could smell Wire too. It was hard to miss Wire. But there was something else, something he couldn’t quite discern. He quickly forgot about it, though, and let his mind drift to other things while Miss Carbunkle, the Wig, droned on.

  There was only one window in the room, and it was always shut tight. Outside, it was raining, steady and hard, and had been for days on end. Still, he loved the sound of water playing on windows and eaves, on the stone walls and roof, and the ping ping pings from the leaky ceiling above.

  That day, he heard four distinct sounds — the pings, a low thwup THWUP, thwup THWUP from the roof, a higher-pitched pitta pitta pitta melody on the gutters, and a gentle ticka-ta-ticka-ta beat against the windowpane.

  Just like a song, he thought. I shall tell Trinket.

  Arthur told Trinket things he had never told anyone before — he had shown her his blanket scrap and key, and had told her about the strange memory of the song and the stars. But he still hadn’t told her his deepest secret of all, how he could hear things others couldn’t, and how it made him feel at once special, awestruck, and happy, and sometimes terribly sad, although he didn’t know why. He had hinted at it but was a little afraid to tell her, for what if she thought him strange? Or didn’t believe him? Especially the bit about understanding the mice and rats. But sometimes he felt like he would explode, with all these feelings bottled up inside his impatient heart.

  Miss Carbunkle went on and on about some harsh new rule, the result of several serious infractions that year, as well as the infamous “burning desk incident” from the previous fall. No one knew what had happened to Nancy, the reptilian rebel who’d done it, for she was never seen again.

  Arthur decided that he would tell Trinket his secret later that day, before they went to bed. He thought about how nice it was to look forward to having a real conversation with — dare he say it? — a best friend.

  “And let that be a lesson to you all.” Miss Carbunkle’s piercing voice concluded her speech. “And now we shall commence with lessons.”

  Everyone sat at attention, except for one.

  I shall tell Trinket everything, especially about the birds and their songs. She’ll like that. I’ll even tell her the unpleasant things. I shall say, Trinket, sometimes I hear rats talking behind the wall and they’re really quite scary.

  Miss Carbunkle — the Wig — scanned her roster for a random victim to torture. That day, instead of drilling the entire class, she thought it would be fun to surprise someone. Why not the last name on her list?

  “Ahem. Number Thirteen?” she said.

  Well, rats aren’t always scary, Arthur said to himself. They’re funny too; in fact, the other day one of the rats was saying . . .

  “Number Thirteen,” she repeated slowly, gritting her teeth.

  Trinket let out a worried peep. But at that moment, Number Thirteen was a bird. An owl, to be precise, like the Wart in Trinket’s stories about young King Arthur. Trinket had said the Wart had been an owl, a goose, a fish, an ant, and other creatures besides. How lovely to be so many things!

  The headmistress was leaning over his desk now, but he was still floating above the clouds, looking down at the Castle of the Forest Sauvage. He conjured a stag in his mind, and a questing beast, and a unicorn racing through the trees.

  Miss Carbunkle was in a particularly foul mood that day. An incident had occurred in the middle of the night involving a rodent. A small gray mouse had climbed inside her wig, which she stored on a special shelf in her closet before bedtime. The mouse had had a litter of tiny pink babies, and in the morning when Miss Carbunkle placed the wig on her head, all the wee pinkies came tumbling down her dress.

  I shall not tell you how she disposed of them.

  Miss Carbunkle shouted Arthur’s number again and smacked his desk with her cane. Arthur practically jumped out of his seat. He thought he saw the hawk eyes on Miss Carbunkle’s cane blink, then flicker bright red. He was all ears now — or rather, all ear.

  He stammered in a quiet, timid voice, “Y-yes, ma’am?”

  “Are you deaf and dumb or just plain stupid?”

  He could hear Mug, Orlick, and Wire snickering in the back of the room.

  “I . . . I . . . No, I’m, I’m not . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Well then, let’s begin, shall we? So tell me, Number Thirteen,” said Miss Carbunkle in a very loud and deliberate voice, as if he were either very thick or hard of hearing, “why . . . are . . . you . . . here?”

  “T-to b-be educated.”

  “And? What else?”

  Trinket made an encouraging little peep from behind. He went on, more boldly. “T-to . . . to learn a trade?” he said, gulping air. Nearly
done now, nearly done.

  “And? What else, Mr. Thirteen? What else do you have to tell me?”

  “To toil?”

  “Go on! Go on!”

  “To toil . . . and . . .”

  “And, you miserable little pusball?” Miss Carbunkle gripped the hawk on top of her cane so hard her knuckles turned white. “AND?”

  When Arthur glanced up, he saw a mouse peeking out from one of the orange curls on the side of Miss Carbunkle’s head. That’s what smelled different before! The mouse stuck its head and upper body out of the curl and began sniffing the top of Miss Carbunkle’s ear. It looked like it was going to climb right in. She absentmindedly waved her hand at her ear, as if shooing away a fly.

  “If — if you p-please, ma’am . . . you . . . you have a . . .”

  “What? I have a what?”

  “Well, the th-thing is . . . um . . . there is a, um, well, it’s hard to ex-explain, I m-mean . . .”

  “What in the world are you talking about, Number Thirteen?”

  “It — it’s your ear,” said Arthur. “You see . . . you have a . . . well, it’s a m-m-m . . .”

  The Wig’s voice got very quiet. This was never a good sign. “What did you say?”

  “A m-mouse . . . Your ear . . . I th-think —”

  “Mouse? My ears?” She was almost whispering now. More of a quiet, slow hiss, really. This meant an explosion was imminent and there was nothing anyone could do about it. “Did you say I have mouse ears? Answer. Me. NOW.”

  Everyone braced for the worst and waited to see what would happen.

  A tall creature in the back row cleared his throat and raised a gray bristly hand. Miss Carbunkle noticed him out of the corner of her eye. “Yes?” she snarled. “What is it?”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Wire, his voice dripping with false humility. “I feel as if I must say something regarding the fox groundling. A terrible crime has been committed.”

  “Well, speak up,” said Miss Carbunkle, still glaring down at Arthur.

  “If you please, ma’am, the one known as Number Thirteen has been making fun of your ears for weeks now. And that’s not all he makes fun of.”

  Miss Carbunkle’s face was a storm cloud. She leaned over and screamed right in Arthur’s face. “How dare you, you stupid one-eared freak! How dare YOU of all creatures insult my ears! What impudence! You shall pay for this, you vile little maggot pie!”

  “Oh, Arthur,” Trinket whispered.

  Arthur’s ear trembled. He began to shake all over.

  With one monstrous hand, which was bigger than Arthur’s head, Miss Carbunkle seized his beautiful red fluffy ear, twisted it hard, shook it vigorously, then let go. For a moment, he thought she had pulled it right off, for the pain was excruciating. He put his hands up to stop her, but she wrenched them away and took hold of his ear again, this time twisting it even harder.

  “Stop! P-please!” cried Arthur.

  “This will teach you to insult your superiors!” she bellowed.

  She gave his ear another twist and, still holding on to it, dragged him across his desk and lifted him up in the air. He dangled there, his nose nearly touching hers. The headmistress fixed her eyes on his and said under her breath, “You little monster, you . . . you . . . putrid dog’s bottom — just wait till I —”

  All of a sudden, the frightened little mouse that had been burrowing in the headmistress’s curl jumped out of its hiding place and landed right on Miss Carbunkle’s substantial bosom. It clung on for dear life.

  It looked up at her, blinked, and let out a terrified squeak.

  Miss Carbunkle — aka the Wig — glanced down at the mouse and screamed.

  With one great swing of her powerful arm, she threw Arthur up and away and swatted at the creature on her chest. The mouseling went flying across the room while Arthur catapulted into the Wig’s giant desk and toppled to the floor.

  The last thing he remembered was a searing, earth-splitting pain and Trinket crying out his name. Then the room faded to darkness.

  “ARTHUR! ARTHUR! It’s me, Trinket.”

  Arthur awoke to find two sapphire eyes staring into his face. The sun was just coming up. He must have missed roll call! He began to panic. He was going to get a walloping from Miss Carbunkle, he was sure of that. And how was it that Trinket was here?

  Here?

  Trinket was perched on his chest. “Wh-where am I?” he asked.

  “The infirmary.” Her voice sounded muffled and strange. “I’m so happy you’re awake. I was so worried! I’ve been here all night.” She started bouncing up and down.

  “P-please stop jumping about, Trinket. It really makes me dizzy.”

  “Sorry!”

  “You sound all fuzzy, Trinket. What happened?”

  “Don’t worry! It’ll be fine! It was just a little scratch. Well, maybe scratch isn’t the best word, but . . . oh, bother! It was awful, just awful!”

  Arthur felt a deep, burning ache in his ear, as if someone had poured hot embers inside. He reached up to touch it and felt a thick bandage, which was wrapped all around his ear and the top of his head. “Oh,” he said. “I see.” Something else felt strange, but a good kind of strange. He realized that he was lying on something soft for the first time in his life — it was a four-poster bed with a real mattress, with covers that were soft and warm. In Kestrel Hall, you were lucky if you found a handful of straw for your hard, splintery bed, which was really an old piggery trough. Arthur slept, like all the others, in an unheated room with only a burlap sack filled with pebbles for a pillow, covered by a thin, scratchy blanket that smelled like coal dust, dirty feet, and pee.

  But this — this was luxury! He wiggled his red furry toes under the blanket. They had never felt so warm before.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” said Trinket. She hopped off his chest and sat beside him on the bed.

  Arthur glanced about the room. Was he dreaming? He had heard that the infirmary was a terrible place, so dreadful no one dared to complain if they got sick. His whole life, he had avoided it. But if that were true, where was he now?

  To his left was a small table that held a red jar shaped like a rooster. Stuck to the jar was a note that read, Have a cookie! They’re tasty!

  “Trinket, what’s a cookie?”

  “What’s a cookie? Oh, Arthur, you certainly have a lot to learn. I haven’t even told you about pies yet.”

  “Pies,” said Arthur. He lifted the lid of the jar and took out a cookie. He sniffed it first, then tentatively took a bite.

  “Lovely!” he exclaimed.

  It was just a simple oatmeal cookie with raisins, but Arthur had never had one before, and he was ecstatic. He chewed it slowly so he could savor it until the end. When he finished, he let out a happy sigh and looked around some more.

  Across from the table was a window with blue-and-white-flowered curtains. On the windowsill was a vase filled with silk flowers. Everything was colorful, cozy, and warm. There was a rocking chair in one corner with a pretty red-and-blue throw on it; in another corner was a bed just like his but unoccupied. The walls were buttercup with cherry trim. Hanging from the rafters were bundles and bundles of herbs. Arthur breathed in. The room smelled mysterious and wonderful.

  There was even a picture in the room, hanging on the wall near his bed. It was a beautiful hand-colored engraving of two smiling girls, twins, wearing big straw bonnets, standing hand in hand beneath an apple tree. The landscape looked as if it were bathed in golden light. It was the loveliest thing Arthur had ever seen. In all his years at the Home, he had never actually seen a real picture — that is, a painting, drawing, or print made by a real artist. He had seen some pictures — the little drawings the groundlings managed to make in secret. But this was different. He felt as if he could step right into the frame and say hello to the two girls beneath the tree.

  “Arthur?” Trinket needled him gently with her beak.

  “Sorry, Trinket. I didn’t mean to ignore you.”r />
  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Would you mind speaking up a bit? And by the way — how in the world d-did you get in here? The d-dormitory’s locked at night.”

  Trinket gave Arthur another poke and said, “Picked the lock with my beak. Well, not by myself, of course. Some others — Baby Tizer, Nigel, Nesbit and Snook, you know, the nice ones — piled one on top of the other so I could reach it.” Arthur imagined what this must have looked like and laughed. “I’ll tell you everything later,” continued Trinket. “I better get to roll call or you know what will happen.”

  Just then, a lovely young woman dressed in a blue-and-white nurse’s apron and cap appeared in the doorway. A long ginger braid tied with a periwinkle bow fell down her back. Arthur looked up at her. Her face seemed to radiate kindness. “How’s my little patient?” she said, speaking loud enough for Arthur to hear her through his bandage. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m your nurse, Linette. And I still don’t know your name.”

  She glanced down at her clipboard. “There was only a number on the note I received from my aunt. I mean Miss Carbunkle.” Trinket and Arthur exchanged looks. “It says Number Thirteen,” she continued. “But that can’t possibly be right.”

  Before Arthur could respond, Trinket jumped up and said, “His name is Arthur, and, and I’m Trinket, and I’m just visiting my friend whose name is Arthur, and, oh, I already said that. Yes, well, there you have it!”

  “Thank you. Glad we cleared that up. By the way — I’m not sure how you got in here last night, Trinket . . . but I won’t tell a soul.” She smiled at them both and placed a soft, cool hand on Arthur’s forehead to check for fever. “You have a very devoted friend, Arthur.”

  Linette gently undid his bandage and examined his ear. She put a clean dressing on, this time leaving a small opening so he could hear better. After she finished, she said, “You’ll be back to — well, to everything — in no time at all. So worry not.”