by Mira Bartók
Bone shrugged and gobbled up the bugs with one slurp of her pink serpentine tongue. The rest of the gang began chanting, “Soup, soup, soup, soup, soup!”
“That’s enough from you lot,” said Quintus. “No one badgered the bloke who painted the Mona Liser, did they? Genius is as genius does.”
“But we’re hungreeeee,” they whined.
They banged on pots and pans and stamped their feet. Throttle said that if Quintus wasn’t going to feed them already, the least he could do was sing.
Quintus wrote songs for just about everything, and soup was no exception. While he cooked, he and the others sang until the soup was done. Except for Arthur. But oh, how he wanted to sing! He felt the song in his heart, his feet, his whole body. It prickled something in him that he had no name for. But the best he could do was squeeze out a barely audible hum, which sounded more like an off-key groan. Still, it was something.
Quintus’s song was called “Soup for Kings,” and it went like this:
A pinch o’ this, a pinch o’ that,
A little salt, a lot o’ fat,◆
A beet, a boot, a radish root,
Some peas an’ cheese, perhaps a newt.†
That’s all you need to make a soup
That’s fit for kings an’ queens.
A little this, a little that,
A cozy place to hang yer hat,
A mate, a plate, a spoon, a bowl,
A song to cheer yer heart an’ soul.
That’s all you need to make a soup
That’s fit for kings an’ queens.
◆ “A lot o’ fat, mind you!” Quintus always added.
† “A newt?” someone always asked, and Quintus always replied, “Them’s good eatin’, newts!”
Soup for kings,
Soup for kings,
Soup for kings an’ queens.
That’s all, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all,
That’s all you need to make a soup
That’s fit for kings an’ queens.
Them that’s rich an’ them that’s poor,
Doesn’t matter who it’s for,
Tastes the same to me an’ you,
To man or beast or cockatoo.
So take a seat an’ have some soup
That’s fit for kings an’ queens.
Soup for kings,
Soup for kings,
Soup for kings an’ queens.
That’s all, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all,
That’s all you need to make a soup
That’s fit for kings an’ queens.
Arthur had two servings of soup; it was absolutely delicious! (Except for the shoelace, which got stuck in his teeth.) They even had a chunk of lovely cheddar to share and a loaf of bread. Bread and butter. I wish Trinket could be here, he said to himself, remembering that day in the infirmary. He imagined Trinket at Wildered Manor, jumping up and down, laughing and telling stories. She’d get along with everyone, he thought, even Goblin. He was so happy and distracted that he didn’t notice Quintus nodding to Goblin, who left the room and returned a couple minutes later holding something small and shiny in his hands. He handed whatever it was to Quintus, who slipped it into his pocket.
“Come here, Spike, m’ boy,” Quintus said. Arthur got up and went over to where he was sitting. “You want to know the secret to my soup? Would you like to know what makes it so good?”
“Very much, sir,” said Arthur. All of a sudden, everyone looked serious, and he felt as if this was a very important moment, but he didn’t know why.
Quintus went on. “An’ you want to git aroun’ the City, see the sights an’ all, with nobody givin’ ya grief, am I right?”
“Yes, Quintus, I do.”
“An’ find that Tin-tin-tangle whatsit street a yours?”
“Yes! Very much!”
“An’ ya know, for me to make this here soup, soup you like so much, we all needs to work; ain’t that right, Spike?”
“Yes, sir.”
“An’ you want to work, like the rest of us?”
“Oh, I do, Quintus. You know I do.”
“Well then, m’ boy” — Quintus paused and reached into his pocket — “you’ll be needin’ one o’ these. This here’s yer ticket to freedom. An’ I do believe, from what I seen a you so far, that you’ve earned it fair ’n’ square. You have potentiality, Spike, potentiality.”
Quintus held out his hand to reveal what he had been hiding.
Arthur gasped.
It was a tin medallion, stamped with some kind of symbol. Above the symbol was the number thirteen. He couldn’t believe it.
Everyone started to clap and whistle and shout, “Huzzah! Huzzah!”
Arthur was aghast. “What? B-but . . .” was all he could stammer out. He stood staring in disbelief at the medallion dangling from the cord.
“Show ’im, mates,” said Quintus cheerfully. Everyone held up a tag on a cord or opened his or her top shirt button to reveal the all-too-familiar shiny tin disk. They were all smiling. How can they be smiling? Arthur thought. He was completely bewildered. He felt the soup rising in his throat and put his hand to his mouth just in case.
Quintus placed the cord with the medallion around Arthur’s neck. It sat like a rock upon his soul.
His mentor went on to explain that without a number and the symbol below it that designated each groundling’s job, he’d be scooped up by the D.O.G.C. in a flash. “That there’s a feather duster, that is,” said Quintus, pointing to the symbol below the number 13. “That’s yer new occupation, so to speak.” A couple of the groundlings snickered. “Wear it with pride, m’ boy; wear it with pride. Constable Floop — ’member the bloke from Stinkbottom Bridge? — made it for you special. An’ I gots a special job for you. Special job for a special lad.” Quintus patted Arthur on the head and winked.
Arthur felt like someone had punched him in the chest. And some of the soup had definitely traveled from his stomach to his mouth, but he gulped it back down.
“You look like ya seen a ghost,” said Quintus. “What’s wrong with you?”
All Arthur could squeeze out of his throat was one single, feeble word: “Why?”
“Why?” said Quintus. “What do ya mean, why?”
Everyone was silent. They were all staring at Arthur. Finally, he got up the courage to speak. He said he couldn’t understand why he needed to wear “that dreadful, hateful thing,” as he called it, and why, oh why, did it have to be that terrible number?
“Has to be thirteen,” explained Quintus. “I’m five, then we go up from there: Goblin’s six, Thorn seven, Throttle eight, Houndstitch nine, Squee’s ten, Cruncher eleven, Bone twelve. Yer thirteen, an’ that’s the end of it.”
“Why not one or two or three or four? Or some other number, like forty-five or twenty-three or one hundred eighty-nine or . . .” Now Arthur couldn’t stop talking, he was so upset. “Please, Quintus, any number but that.”
Quintus looked sternly at Arthur. “Can’t be one to four. Me four brothers had them numbers, an’ no one’s to replace ’em, never. An’ Floop, he made that number special, an’ that’s that. Already been paid for too. Now, listen, Spike, yer number thirteen an’ that’s that. An’ the reason you need a number in this here town is if ya don’t got one, you gotta, well, you gotta . . . go below.”
A shiver ran down Arthur’s spine. “B-below?”
Quintus went on. “’Member I says to ya there’s even worse places to live than in one a them crookedy houses in Bloomintown?”
Arthur nodded.
“Gloomintown, we calls it. The City below the City. Wretched place. Dark, dark, m’ boy. Nothin’ but backbreakin’ work an’ misery down there. Birds with eyes as big as yer head chase ya down and eat ya up alive. Nasty eels down there, giant frogs, water spiders the size of my head, filth and muck and big black rats, not the nice kind but the kind ’twould eat his own mother if he was hungry.”
Quintus told Arthur that the D.O.G.C
. sent groundlings who didn’t have proper numbers down below. “Hard to get a proper number these days. Have to know someone iffen ya wanna stay above. Coal pits, that’s where they work down there. Darkness night an’ day. ’Course, there’s other jobs — factory work, sewer muckin’, an’ the like. But it’s a livin’ hell, Spike, an’ you don’t wanna be there. Never see the light a day again — you wouldn’t want that, now, would ya?”
Quintus said he’d explain more in the morning. He was tired and it had been a long day. But he wanted Arthur to understand how important it was to have a number, and how it was a privilege. And how he had gotten his “friends in high places” to register that very same number, Number Thirteen. “All groundlinks in the City gots to have a number,” he said again, emphatically. “Everyone’s got to know his place. You know that, don’t ya?”
Arthur felt an uncomfortable twinge in his heart, for he remembered those same words from one of the infamous dining hall signs at the Home.
Quintus put his arm around Arthur. “Spike, I promise you — as long as you work hard an’ do as I say, you shall have all the food you wants an’ then some. An’ I’ll protect you with my life, I will. So will me mates here. An’ we’ll help you find that place yer lookin’ for. Just do as I says. An’ I knows what’s best, don’t I, mates?” The others nodded in agreement. “We all must pull our weight, an’ that’s the end of it. Now, let’s sing another round, shall we? Cheer up the place a bit afore bedtime?”
The group sang “Soup for Kings” once again, and banged on pipes and pots and bowls. Everyone sang at the top of his or her lungs, except for the one-eared foundling with the medallion stamped number 13, who stood silently, staring at his feet. When the song was done, they all raised a cup to toast Arthur, the glow of turnip lights illuminating their cheerful faces.
Even Goblin looked somewhat happy that night — at least he wasn’t sneering. So Arthur cracked a smile, but it wasn’t a real smile; it was a mask to make everyone else happy. Because all he could think about was the familiar weight of the cord around his neck. Was this his destiny? The thing he had once wished for upon a star? Oh, Trinket, he thought. Where are you? And then, this thought too: I can’t let Quintus down.
Everyone said good night and scampered off to their rooms. As Arthur turned to go, Quintus said, “By the way, Spike, you can pretend all you want that you can’t sing, but I know different. I heard ya singin’ in yer sleep last night. Got quite a lovely tenor, you do. Like I said, you gots potentiality. You certainly do. Now off to bed with ya, there’s a good boy.”
AS NIGHT FELL, the man in white gloves stared out the window, surveying the City from his castle on the hill. The man’s hair and eyebrows were the color of pale-white gold, and his eyes were a cold steel gray. At his feet was a sleek white cat wearing a diamond collar. In a corner of the room sat a narrow glass cabinet that held only one object: the man’s white hat. It was the highest high hat in the Land — even higher than the hats of his four brothers — at nearly three feet tall.
The man noted the silhouette of spires standing against the vermillion sky but did not think What a beautiful sunset or What a lovely night is this. Rather, he thought about the world, how it pulsed with electromagnetic light — and dark magic. He thought about empires, how they rise and fall in an instant. He thought about power, his power.
Then he thought about turtle soup.
He sat down at a long narrow table covered in stiff white linen. The cat followed him. It rubbed against the man’s legs, then stretched out below the table and started to purr.
The man dipped his spoon into his bowl and began to eat. The soup was murky green. Steam rose from the top of it, fogging the man’s monocle. He removed his monocle and handed it to another man, who stood discreetly off to the side. Close enough to serve but far enough to be rendered invisible. He was a servant, after all.
The servant wiped the man’s monocle, handed it back, and bowed.
When the man in white gloves was finished, he took a sip of red wine and dabbed his thin lips with the corner of a white linen napkin.
“Something else, my lord?” asked the servant.
“No, Reginald. That will be all.”
“As you wish, my lord. Shall I send the woman in now?”
“Wait a moment,” said the man in white gloves, removing a gold pocket watch from his cream-colored waistcoat. He wound the watch several times and put it back. He could hear the woman outside the room, pacing back and forth in the hall. After a minute or two, she stopped at the door and cleared her throat loudly.
How utterly annoying, thought the man. Why did I ever agree to meet this woman?
“Very well, Reginald. I suppose you must. You may send her in now.”
The servant led the woman with the ridiculous orange wig into the room. She stood there, unsure of what to do next. Without turning or looking up, the man in white gloves addressed her.
“Will you please take a seat.”
It was a command rather than an offer.
The woman approached the dining table, rested her cane against it, and sat down.
“What did you say your name was . . . Miss Carpbungle? Or was it . . . Fartbunkle? Barfkrumple?”
“Carbunkle, Your Excellency. Miss Carbunkle. And . . . and I thank you for seeing me today. I know how busy you are and —”
The man waved his hand to silence her. “Let’s get to the point, shall we, Mrs. Carptinkle? Tell me, madam, why in the world do you think that my brothers and I would ever want to help you — a lowly headmistress — with your so-called business venture?”
“Because, my lord,” said the woman, adjusting a stiff orange curl, “it would give you two things that I believe you value above all else.”
“And what might those be, headmistress?” asked the man, pronouncing the last word with disdain. “Who are you to presume what I would or would not value?”
“Forgive me, my lord. I spoke out of turn.” She looked down at the table.
“Go on,” he said impatiently. “I don’t have all day.”
The woman licked her thin lips and said, “Money and power, my lord. Money and power.”
“Hah.” The man sneered. “As if I don’t have enough of those. I butter my bread with them in the morning and go to bed with them at night. Money and power, madam — that is the very air I breathe.”
“Oh, but my lord,” said the woman, “this is something else altogether.” She leaned forward, fixed her eyes on the man, and whispered, “This is something that can change the world.”
AS THE CITY SLEPT and worked and ate and raced along in time with clocks and speed and steam-powered machines that never stopped, the gargoyles kept watch. They kept watch atop the glowing white towers of Lumentown. They watched as creatures trudged along murky streets, carrying burdens too heavy to bear; they watched as Huddlers sought warmth in dark corners and along riverbanks; they watched and waited and felt the shifting of the earth below. The gargoyles had weathered the storms of change, of fog and darkness, of light and despair. They had been there forever. Long before the High Hats, before the groundlings. They were ancient creatures and bore the weight of sorrow and greed in the Land.
While Lumentown breathed opulence and industry, its heart beat in shadows, far below its gleaming white streets. It beat in factories and coal pits night and day, day and night in Gloomintown, the City’s dark unruly twin.
The epicenter of both realms was a castle perched high on the hill near the entrance to Lumentown. It looked like a glowing white cake, all turrets and towers; gates inlaid with precious stones. There were five who lived there, five brothers in cream-colored suits and five white fur hats.
Here too, above the castle, the gargoyles kept watch. They watched as white peacocks and pampered cats wandered the gardens behind soaring white walls. They watched as the five men gathered, the highest of High Hats in the Land, the ones who stamped decrees and chose where some could live and some could not, who decided how much a
soul was worth.
And like the poor stone creatures at Miss Carbunkle’s unhappy Home, the gargoyles of Lumentown, tired of cruelty and greed and darkness, had begun to weep.
Across the river, in a house grown wild with time and neglect, a one-eared orphan could hear their tears falling in his sleep. And in his sleep, he began to form a song from their sorrow.
But he had far to go before he would sing it.
THE MORNING AFTER Arthur received his medallion bearing the dreaded number, Quintus handed him a brand-new suit of clothes — a crisp white shirt, navy-blue pants, coat, and waistcoat. The clothes were a bit too large for him and had lots of extra pockets sewn into them, but they were stylish and well made. Quintus told him to go to his room and put them on straightaway, then come back. He had a “special job” just for Arthur.
When he returned, all dressed up, Quintus slapped him on the back and said, “Look at you, Spike — or should I say ‘guv’nor’?” Arthur tried to smile but couldn’t. He could feel the medallion choking him, even though the cord wasn’t tight.
“Come on, buck up!” said Quintus. “Let’s not grouse about what can’t be changed.” Arthur forced a weak smile. “There’s a good boy,” said Quintus. “An’ take off that red hat. It’s seen better days. The suit looks better without it, I do believe.”
He handed Arthur a feather duster and a rucksack, and said that Arthur was to go with Goblin to the other side of town that morning and seek out the house of “a certain lady friend.” While Goblin procured sustenance from the nearby market, Arthur was to, as Quintus put it, “borrow a few trinkets from the house” — whatever he could fit in his pockets and rucksack. Arthur felt a little pang when Quintus said the word trinkets.
Quintus said the feather duster plus the symbol and number that hung around his neck should grant him safe passage.
Arthur’s face fell. “But Quintus, I — I don’t quite understand.”
Quintus turned to the others and said, “Look at ’im. Fresh as a daisy, he is. Perfect for the job!” He gave Arthur’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Listen, lad, I’ll spell it out for ya. I’m what ya call a snout. Sniff things out fer the coppers, I do, an’ the coppers, they looks out fer me. They do little favors, like Constable Floop makin’ me that there tag around yer neck. An’ they tries to keep D.O.G.C. out of my business, see? So there’s nothink to worry about. Now, be a good lad. Don’t wanna bite the paw that feeds you. Do this one thing for me an’ I’ll help you find that place you were lookin’ for.”