The Wonderling

by Mira Bartók

  When they reached the other side, a mean little man with a head the shape of a teacup was waiting for them. Around his waist was a brass box attached by a leather strap, and on his shoulder sat a mechanical monkey. The monkey jumped out in front of them and began screeching, “Pay the toll! Pay the toll! Pay the toll!”

  “You ’eard the monkey,” snapped the man. “Pay the toll. Don’t have all day.” Quintus reluctantly withdrew two ha’pennies from his waistcoat and tossed the coins into the monkey’s paw, which clamped shut in an instant. The monkey scampered up the man’s leg, opened the box, threw the coins in, then jumped back onto his shoulder.

  “Toll monkeys,” said Quintus, pulling Arthur away. “Can’t say I likes the little dodgers.”

  They didn’t have to walk far for food. Along the river’s edge was a run-down building that bowed out like a ship, with a faded sign that said THE SWAN & WHISTLE. On the door was a crude painting of a golden swan. The entire base of the building was stained green from algae, as if someone had just plucked it from the bottom of the river and plopped it down on the shore.

  Everything inside had a swan theme — swan lamps, swans carved on every table. Even the crockery had swans on it. The place was grimy and dark, but Arthur didn’t care. He could smell potatoes frying, bread baking, and all manner of other good things wafting from the kitchen. Best of all — in the corner, three musicians were striking up a reel on fiddle, harp, and drum. Just as he had the night before when he heard the woman’s lullaby, he drank the music in, letting it flow through his body like a child deprived too long of water or air.

  “You all right?” asked Quintus.

  “It’s just . . . I like . . . I like the music. You see, where I come from —” He paused. “Never mind. It’s lovely,” he said, smiling. “Thank you.”

  It was early morning, and the place was full of Drudgers, Fishmongers, and the like, catching a quick bite before work. But there wasn’t a groundling in sight.

  “Is — is it all right that I’m . . . ?”

  “That yer eatin’ in this place?” Quintus laughed. “’Course ’tis. Look at Liza over there,” he said, gesturing to the plump barmaid heading toward their table.

  Arthur saw that she had a porcine nose and tiny pink ears.

  “Even gots a tail,” said Quintus. “Quite proud of it, she is, too. Why, look at me — look at these here fins on me back. Do I hides ’em? No. Proud of ’em I am. An’ you can take that hat off, mate. No one gives a hoot on this side a the river iffen you gots one ear or twenty.” He glanced around the room and lowered his voice: “Long as you pay yer way, that is. Then yer golden, m’ boy, golden. And,” he added with a wink, “ya make yerself friends in ’igh places, if ya knows what I mean.” Arthur nodded, but the Rat’s meaning was completely lost on him.

  Quintus ordered an extravagant breakfast: fried eggs and potatoes, mushrooms, beans, fried tomatoes, kippers, toast, and, to top it off, cheese toasties. “Listen, pet,” he said to the barmaid, flashing the stolen coin for a second, then tucking it back into his pocket. “You makes them cheese toasties strong an’ bitey, mind. This here lad’s a connoisseur of cheese, he is.”

  “Oh, ain’t we chuffed,” said Liza. “Quintus’s gots his luck on today, I see.” She winked at the Rat, who winked back at her and grinned.

  When their breakfast came, Arthur took his hat off and tucked in. The food was greasy, the eggs runny, the potatoes undercooked. But to Arthur, it was pure ambrosia. Especially the cheese toasties. They were so hot they burned his tongue, but he didn’t care. They were creamy, and definitely strong and bitey, and were the best thing he had ever tasted in his life.

  Arthur, full and content, told the Rat a little of his journey — how far he had walked and how he had come from such a terrible place. Quintus was visibly impressed and kept saying, “G’won, g’won, I’m all ears, I am” or “Brave lad you are, to go all alone an’ such — into the Wild Wood!”

  Arthur didn’t say a word about Trinket. He wasn’t sure why he left her out of his story. Maybe because he liked being called brave, or maybe because he knew from experience that some things were best kept hidden, even if you didn’t yet know why.

  When it came time to pay, Quintus took out the coin he had removed from Arthur’s jacket and settled the bill in a grand manner.

  “Now, that’s a High Hat breakfast, that is,” said Quintus as they were leaving.

  “High Hat? What’s a High Hat?”

  “‘What’s a High Hat,’ he says! Listen ta him! Everyone knows what a High Hat is — well, I’ll be a rat’s tail; don’t tell me ya don’t know what a Huddler is neither?”

  “H-Huddler? No,” said Arthur, shaking his head. Quintus sighed.

  “So much to learn, so little time. First lesson o’ the day: High Hats, them’s the ones in white hats as tall as yer standing. The hoity-toities that lives on the top o’ the hill in shiny white houses an’ homes pretty an’ pink as can be. But look over yonder.” Quintus pointed out the window to a shadowy place on the bank below the bridge. “See thems that crouches in the dark? Them’s ’uddlers, them is. Lowest of the low in Lumentown. Don’t wants to be one a them. Not never, not on yer life, unnerstand? An’ there’s worse things even than that, believe you me.”

  Arthur thought of the night before, and the people huddled together on the dock. He remembered the kind baker who had given him the rolls, and how she had warned him about the Dog-sea. How was he going to learn everything he needed to know? Clearly, the City was a mysterious and complicated place; he knew he needed help. And then, as if Quintus had read his mind, the Rat leaned in close and said, “What you need is a guide; a teacher, like. An’ I’m just the chap to learn ya. What say ya, Arty, m’ boy?”

  “Really? I’d like that very much, sir. But . . .”

  “Yes, m’ boy? Whot is it? Gots reservatations, do ya?”

  “It’s just that . . . Do you promise you’ll help me find that street? You see, it’s very important I find it.”

  “’Course I will! A man o’ my word, I am. But first you needs to get all trained up. There’s rules in this here city, an’ if ya don’t know how to get along, you’ll never find that Tintintangley Road or any other for that matter. So whot do ya say? Ya comin’ with me or shall I leave you on yer lonesome to fend fer yerself?”

  “I — I would like to come with you, Quintus. Can I really?”

  Quintus slapped Arthur on his back. “There’s a smart lad! Mark my words — with my help, you’ll know the ways of the City like the back of yer hand in a week. Not a stone unturned. Let Quintus be yer guide. But fer now, we best be getting to Wildered Manor.”

  “Wildered Manor?” said Arthur.

  “That’s m’ home, m’ boy. Home. An’ iffen you play yer cards right, ’twill be yours as well.”

  QUINTUS CHECKED his pocket watch, made a tsk-tsking sound, and told Arthur to put his hat back on. Arthur followed the Rat through a maze of narrow streets lined with dark, low houses, half obscured by fog. On the other side of Lumentown, there were no street sweepers, and the roads and houses were covered in dust. Everything — even people, groundlings, and animals — was covered in a thick layer of white powdery dust mixed with soot. Here, on this side of the river, the world was exceedingly gray — just like Miss Carbunkle’s Home.

  There were pigeons everywhere too, flying from every roof, rookery, windowsill, and chimney top. Wherever Arthur looked, he saw pigeons and dust, pigeons and dust.

  Quintus whistled a little tune as he led Arthur past empty stores with faded signs that said SHOP TO LET, their doors padlocked, windows shuttered, walls dirty and decayed. Those shops that were open looked neglected and dark inside.

  They crawled over a low stone wall and cut through an abandoned park, overgrown with weeds, then made their way past poorhouses and redbrick tenements with rags hanging from railings, past people laden with bundles and groundlings pulling heavy carts. The foggy air was filled with the mingled smells of rotten
fruit and fish. Along the malodorous streets, clocks tick tick ticked on every corner and every building wall.

  On one street, they passed a man in grimy gray hat and tails, cracking a whip at a large black bear chained to a wall, forcing it to dance a slow, clumsy waltz for a gathering crowd. Arthur wanted to help the poor beast somehow, but Quintus pulled him away, saying, “’Urry up, my dear. Nothink we can do. Come along.”

  “Quintus,” said Arthur after they had walked for quite some time, “where do the groundlings live?”

  “You’ll see,” said the Rat. “Almost there, almost there.”

  Soon after, they came to a gloomy area surrounded by a barbed-wire fence with one tall tenement after another painted the same dull gray; on the roofs were rows of makeshift chimney stacks billowing black smoke. The buildings were made completely from discarded objects — scraps of wood and metal, pieces of pipe, old shoes, pottery shards, and broken toys and pots. The only creatures Arthur could see were a couple of furry faces peeking out from the small narrow windows up above.

  “Where are we? And where is everyone else?” asked Arthur.

  “Breakin’ their backs somewheres across the river, I reckon. And them’s the lucky ones!”

  Here, at the entrance to the “neighborhood” (for lack of a better word) was a large sign that read BLOOMINTOWN. Arthur squinted at the small print below.

  It said D.O.G.C.

  He said the initials out loud, confused. Then he said them all together, like a word, and gasped. D.O.G.C. was Dog-sea! Or maybe it meant “Dog see,” and there was a giant dog monster with one big eye that could see him wherever he went, just like Miss Carbunkle’s panoptic tower.

  He remembered the baker woman’s warning about that dreadful word: Don’t forget to run.

  So he did.

  Arthur ran this way and that until finally, after an exhausting chase, Quintus found him hiding under a donkey cart. It took a while for the Rat to coax the poor creature out, but he finally did. “Listen, m’ boy,” he said. “There’s a few things ya need to know.”

  Quintus explained that D.O.G.C. simply meant the Department of Groundling Control, and that they were the High Authorities of the Land. “Used to be they was just in charge of groundlinks’ affairs, and the police, they was in charge of the humans, but times have changed.”

  Quintus went on to say that now the only thing higher than the D.O.G.C. was an elite group of High Hats — five brothers who held all the power in the City and the Land. Even the police and governmental departments had to answer to the D.O.G.C., including the Department for the Protection of Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures.

  “I know who they are,” said Arthur. Cheese Sunday.

  Arthur asked if Wildered Manor was in the place with the crooked gray buildings and the barbed-wire fence, which they had by now left behind.

  “Bloomintown? Bless my soul, not in a million years! Mind you, when I was yer age, ’bout thirty years back, that place was pretty as a picture — a field of flowers far as the eye could see, it was. But ya wouldn’t find the likes of me livin’ there now, not on yer life ya wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” asked Arthur.

  “Second lesson o’ the day: Not all groundlinks lives in big gray houses sinkin’ in the dust.” He put his arm around Arthur’s shoulder. “There’s worse, a lot worse, an’ there’s better. An’ where I lives is the very best o’ the best, just you wait an’ see.”

  They turned a corner, and another, until finally, on the street formerly called Wiggins Lane, only one house remained: Wildered Manor.

  AT FIRST GLANCE, the place looked abandoned, for it was a house that had been left to its own devices. The house had invited the trees and bushes in, and the squirrels and opossums, birds and mice. Then other animals came, and groundlings with no place to go who despised the crooked gray buildings beneath the sign that said D.O.G.C.

  The outside was blanketed in ivy, bird nests, and wasp nests, and all manner of plant and vine crept into every window and door, blocking most of the sunlight except on the very top floor. There once had been a sign over the entranceway that said WILFRED MANOR, but someone had crossed out the F and inserted a D and an E above.

  Quintus bent down and gripped Arthur firmly by the shoulders. He looked him straight in the eye and said, “Now, when yer inside, whatevers I say, follow my lead, unnerstand? An’ do us a favor. Try not to fumble yer words an’ do that shakin’ thing with that there ear when you take off yer hat. Most unbecomin’ like. Gotta stand tall, lad. Don’t wanna end up ’neath Stinkbottom Bridge — or someplace worse.”

  Arthur quivered a little and nodded. “I’ll . . . I’ll do my best, Quintus. Promise.”

  “Good boy,” said Quintus. “That’s the ticket!” He unlocked the door with an old rusty key and pulled Arthur in. He led him down a long dark hallway to a rickety set of stairs overgrown with leafy vines. Arthur could hear dozens of minute creatures scuttling about in the dark. “Careful where you step,” said Quintus. “We keeps the downstairs dark. Keeps the nosey parkers out of our business.”

  Someone had fashioned a candlestick from a giant turnip and set it on the bottom step. Quintus picked it up and motioned for Arthur to follow him upstairs. “Might want to keep yer mitts off that there railin’,” he said, pointing to the dozens of tiny eyes glowing in the dark.

  At the top of the stairs, Quintus turned right into a very large room. In the center sat a large rectangular table. Above it was a crystal chandelier covered in cobwebs and grime.

  Quintus let out a high-pitched whistle. Immediately a scuffling sound came from every corner as a ragtag gang of creatures scampered out of the shadows.

  “Gather ’round, my dears, gather ’round.”

  The group made a semicircle around Quintus and Arthur. They were a motley crew of all shapes, sizes, and ages, although none of them looked as young as Arthur. There was a rather corpulent mole-porcupine groundling, a white weasel groundling, a groundling who was part English setter, an anteater groundling, a raccoon groundling, a stern-looking rabbit person, and a creature in a bottle-green trilby. Arthur had never seen such a peculiar-looking groundling. He had the face of an aye-aye◆ and the body of a small hunched-over man.

  ◆ An aye-aye is a nocturnal primate that lives in Madagascar. It does not, however, wear a trilby, which is a special kind of hat. In Lumentown, aye-aye groundlings were rare indeed.

  “Here’s my faithful lot a good-for-nothin’s,” Quintus said with obvious pride and affection. He gestured to the groundling in the green trilby and said, “Goblin, will you do us the honors?”

  In the glow of turnip light, everyone’s shadows loomed larger than life on the wall, hovering over Arthur like some kind of ghostly shadow play. He shuddered and took a deep breath.

  The hunched-over creature named Goblin made a stiff bow and said, in a very unenthusiastic tone, “Yes, Master Quintus, I’d be delighted.” The groundling had enormous bulging eyes and a twisted, squished-up sort of face that looked as if a very large person had just sat on him. His leathery black ears were enormous too, as were the two yellow teeth protruding from his tiny pink mouth, which was slightly curled into a smile. Arthur couldn’t tell if the smile was sinister or kind.

  “Right, then,” said Goblin, who proceeded to introduce the others, pointing at each one with a long knobby finger. They each bowed as Goblin said their names. “This here’s Thorn and Throttle,” he said, gesturing toward the Mole-Porcupine and the Raccoon, “Houndstitch and Squee to your left,” he motioned to the dog boy and weasel groundling. “Cruncher to your right.” The rabbit person narrowed her eyes at Arthur and cracked her knuckles loudly. “She’s what you might call the strong an’ silent type,” said Goblin. “An’, oh — that ’un over there, that’s Bone, that is.” The tall white anteater groundling squinted at Arthur with milky eyes and grimaced, revealing a long pink tongue coiled up like a snake inside her mouth. “That’s it. Them’s the lot.”

  Arthur thought,
When in doubt, bow. So he did.

  Quintus cleared his throat.

  “Oh, lordy me,” said Goblin, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “I forgot me manners! And you are . . . ?”

  Arthur opened his mouth to speak, when Quintus said, “All in good time, Goblin.” He nudged Arthur and said, “Take off yer hat, laddie. Show ’em what yer made of. No need to be shy.”

  Arthur didn’t know whether they were going to pat him on the back, beat him up, or eat him. Or worse. Maybe they were the D.O.G.C. But it was too late to run. He slowly removed his red hat.

  Quintus did pat him on the back, then put his arm around him as if they were old friends.

  “Now, listen up,” Quintus said. “This is a special one, this is. Part fox — can see that right away. Them’s crafty an’ clever like, foxes. An’ see that there ear, nice an’ fluffy an’ all?” The group moved in closer to observe Arthur’s ear. “Lost t’other in a fight, he did.” The creatures made various sounds of approval. “Show ’em yer teeth now,” said Quintus. “Go ahead. Open up.” Arthur, bewildered but obedient, opened his mouth — what else could he do? “Sharp as a razor, them is,” continued the Rat. “Good teeth, good nose, battle scar or two. Not to mention” — he paused for effect — “this one escaped from a high-security prison, then walked all the way by his lonesome from the hinterlands and through . . . wait for it . . . the Wild Wood.”

  “My word,” said Squee, pulling on one of his whiskers. The Weasel was clearly impressed. “That’s a long way, that is. And dangerous too.” The others grunted in approval, all except for Goblin, who looked incredibly bored. He began picking nits out of his fur and eating them.

  “Now, listen up, you lot,” continued Quintus. “He’s new to the game, but he’s brave. An’ I do believe he’s worthy of the work. Who’s in favor of him a-stayin’, say aye.”

  Work? What kind of work? wondered Arthur. And what about the house on Tintagel Road?

  Everyone raised a hand or paw and said “Aye.” Goblin hesitated a moment before he rolled his eyes and croaked, “Very well. Aye.”