The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘Oh, Emma,’ Aunt Isabelle had scolded, reading this telegram. ‘Do you think we have time to be gathering pebbles?!’ Aunt Isabelle is the eldest sister in that family and becomes very bossy when she talks about the other aunts. But then she smiled and told me that Emma had not stopped painting since she was a babbling toddler. ‘She’d make art out of the peas on her plate and her mashed potato,’ Aunt Isabelle had said. ‘Out of her hair ribbons, and the buckles on her shoes.’ She’d looked at the clock, said, ‘Get your coat, Bronte!’ and we’d rushed to Gainsleigh Harbour to collect pebbles. These were now packed in a drawstring bag in my suitcase.

  The rowboat was drawing closer. Ripples ran towards the wharf. The splash and swish of the oars was quite clear. I stood up and smiled, and Aunt Emma smiled back at me. The fishing man touched a finger to his cap, and Aunt Emma nodded.

  The boat was so close now I could hear her breathing and her little grunts of effort.

  I took a step forward. Was I supposed to help her tie the boat to the wharf?

  The oars hit the water: splash, whir, splash, whir. Aunt Emma panted. The boat bumped against a pylon. Aunt Emma used an oar to push it away. She gave a great shove, her head down. She tucked the oars back into their rings, and set to rowing again. The boat slid past the wharf. On it went, skirting the shore.

  There was a tiny grassy beach not far from the wharf. Was Aunt Emma planning to stop there instead?

  The boat slid past the little beach.

  On it went, Aunt Emma rowing hard, leaning forward and back, her scarf swishing about, and there she went, hugging the coast of the island, around the curve, and around the curve, and then she was gone.

  I stood and stared.

  The man continued fishing.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’ I asked.

  The man startled. He turned to me. ‘Where’s who gone?’ he said.

  ‘Aunt Emma!’

  The man frowned. ‘Aunt Emma? Who’s Aunt Emma?’

  ‘That was Aunt Emma in the boat!’ I said. Then I blinked. ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘In the boat that just went by?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said impatiently.

  ‘That wasn’t Aunt Emma. That was Sugar Rixel.’

  ‘Sugar Rixel?!’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes. That was Sugar Rixel.’ He smiled to himself at the thought.

  ‘What sort of a name is that?’ I demanded.

  ‘It’s her sort of a name!’ the man countered.

  I turned around and looked at the stone steps leading to the woods.

  ‘In that case,’ I asked, ‘where is Aunt Emma?’

  ‘Where is Aunt Emma?’ the man grinned, as if this were a game.

  I remembered myself. ‘Bronte,’ I said politely, and held out my hand. ‘How do you do?’

  He shook my hand. ‘Barnabas,’ he declared. ‘And I do all right. How about yourself?’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ I replied. ‘But I am wondering about my Aunt Emma. Emma Mettlestone is her proper name. Do you know her perhaps?’

  Barnabas’s face changed completely. His smile washed away and his jowls drooped.

  ‘Emma Mettlestone?’ he said hoarsely. ‘She’s your aunt?’

  ‘She is,’ I said.

  ‘And you’re her … niece?’

  I saw no reason to reply to this.

  He set down his fishing rod. ‘You’re the niece that was coming to visit her?’

  I nodded firmly.

  ‘So nobody has let you know?’

  ‘Let me know what?’

  ‘Your Aunt Emma,’ said Barnabas, grim and grey, ‘is in prison!’

  Prison!

  I threw open my suitcase, grabbed my parents’ instructions and rifled through the pages. But there was nothing about what to do if one of the aunts was in prison.

  I knew there wouldn’t be, actually. I’d have remembered reading that.

  Barnabas watched as I flicked pages back and forth, shook them violently, then crammed them back into my suitcase and closed it up.

  I tapped my forehead with two fingers. This is what Aunt Isabelle does when she is trying to think. It didn’t help. It only made my thoughts jump more violently.

  ‘Will the ferry come again?’ I asked.

  ‘Not today. That was the last one.’

  I looked up at the steep steps. ‘Is there a post office? Where I might send a telegram to Aunt Isabelle?’

  ‘Aunt Isabelle?’ Barnabas smiled broadly. ‘I thought you wanted Aunt Emma!’ He seemed relieved to be joking about aunts again.

  ‘I do want Aunt Emma,’ I shouted. ‘But you just told me she’s in prison! Aunt Isabelle is not in prison. At least as far as I know! Is she?’

  Barnabas looked frightened again. ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I don’t know any Aunt Isabelle.’ He glanced back at the rod. I could tell he wanted to return to fishing.

  A thought occurred to me.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’ve never met anyone named Isabelle and so,’ he began, then paused. ‘I tell a lie. I did meet an Isabelle once. I was seven at the time. She came to my school in the second grade and she had a rag doll that she clutched under her arm all the time—like so—and she chewed on the doll’s hair. I found that fascinating. How did it taste? I’ve never heard of her since, but she might have grown up to become an aunt and so I could know an Aunt Isabelle. I apologise.’

  I stared at him. ‘Not that!’ I said. ‘Why is my Aunt Emma in prison?’

  ‘Oh. She stole a pepper grinder.’

  ‘A pepper grinder!’ I said. ‘From a shop?’

  ‘From Sugar Rixel.’

  ‘The woman who just rowed by in that boat? With the scarf and sunglasses?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Barnabas nodded. ‘They’re friends.’

  I was already angry with Sugar Rixel for rowing by the wharf and not being Aunt Emma. But now!

  ‘That’s not fair! She sent her friend to prison for taking a pepper grinder? Aunt Emma probably just wanted to borrow it for a minute! To grind some pepper onto a slice of tomato or something! She probably tried to give it back but Sugar Rixel was rowing about the place so madly she couldn’t catch her! Tell Sugar Rixel to stop rowing and stay still!’

  Barnabas rocked back and forth on his boots. He shook his head slowly. ‘This pepper grinder,’ he said, ‘had sentimental value.’

  I gave him a look.

  ‘It did!’ he said. ‘Sugar Rixel got it from a water sprite, you see. She found him—the water sprite—washed up on the shore after a swordfight with his brother, and she carted him up to her house in a wheelbarrow. She put him in the laundry tub, sewed up his cuts, iced his sprains, gave him ginger tea for his headache, and generally took care of him until he got well. To thank her, the water sprite gave her the pepper grinder.’

  I still glared, but actually I could see that a pepper grinder that was a gift from a water sprite would be rather special. ‘Hmph,’ I said.

  Water plashed against the wharf. The birds twittered and the frogs made their annoying sounds. Barnabas took one quick step towards his fishing rod, but I fixed my gaze on him and he stepped back again.

  ‘I wonder,’ I said aloud. Barnabas waited obediently. My parents’ instructions only said I had to stay in Aunt Emma’s house for three days. They didn’t say Aunt Emma had to be there.

  ‘I wonder,’ I repeated, ‘if I might stay in Emma’s house alone for a few days? I mean, is this island quite safe?’

  Barnabas lit up at the idea. ‘Perfectly safe! Well, apart from robbers who steal pepper grinders, but she’s in prison now so we’re all good.’

  ‘Ha,’ I said coldly.

  Barnabas looked remorseful. ‘Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood. But yes, it’s very safe here. None of your Dark Mages ever sighted here—not even a Sterling Silver Fox—and certainly never a Whisperer. Emma’s place is just up the path, the cottage on the left. She always keeps it neat and tidy as a pin, so you’ll find everything you need
all right. The spare key’s under the cushion on the porch swing.’

  How did he know where she kept her spare key?

  ‘I live in the next house down from her,’ Barnabas explained. ‘Your Aunt Emma and I water the houseplants when either of us is on holiday. Or in prison,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘There’ll be plenty of food for you. Emma was stocking up for your visit. She was very excited you were coming, you know.’

  I took a moment to be sad about this, but then cheered up. Perhaps Aunt Emma would not be in prison for long? It was just a pepper grinder, even if it did have sentimental value. She might be out tomorrow! I could wait for her!

  ‘How long will she be in prison?’ I asked.

  ‘Fifteen years,’ said Barnabas.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t wait that long.’

  ‘No. You’d get hungry. She didn’t stock the pantry that well, I’m afraid.’

  I nodded. ‘Plus, if I don’t leave in three days, my home town will be torn to pieces, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Barnabas, then blinked. ‘It will?’

  ‘Fifteen years!’ I said, ignoring him. ‘They must be very strict about pepper grinders with sentimental value around these parts.’

  Barnabas tugged on his ear. ‘Well, it’s also the kind of pepper grinder that grinds out gold dust,’ he said. ‘I forgot to mention that. That might be relevant.’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘It’s an unexpected thing, the gold dust. One moment, you’ll be grinding pepper, and the next? Here comes the gold! Water sprite magic, you see. You have to keep an eye on it or you end up with gold dust in your teeth.’

  ‘Sounds a nuisance,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he agreed. ‘Especially if it goes right back to pepper so you only get a tiny sprinkle of gold and you’ve got to sift it out and you think, well, is this worth the effort? But sometimes the gold dust just keeps coming! Sugar got a bucketful once! She bought a piano.’

  I sighed.

  Then, once again, I rallied.

  I could still follow my parents’ instructions. Stay at Aunt Emma’s house and visit her in prison, on the third day, to give her my parents’ gift! Only, was the prison far away? I asked Barnabas.

  ‘It’s more a jailhouse,’ Barnabas told me, ‘than a prison. Well, to be quite frank, it’s just the back room of the police station. Go up these stairs, walk down Main Street, past the ice-cream parlour, the wishing well, the library, and there it is on your right. You can’t miss it. A five-minute walk.’

  ‘So close!’ I said.

  ‘On Lantern Island,’ Barnabas said, ‘everything’s a five-minute walk.’

  At that moment, a wonderful idea occurred to me.

  ‘I know what I’m going to do!’ I said.

  ‘What?’ Barnabas returned my smile.

  I picked up my suitcase and nodded at him. ‘You’ll see,’ I said. ‘I have no idea why Aunt Emma had to go and steal her friend’s pepper grinder, but at least I got to meet you, Barnabas. It’s been a pleasure.’

  ‘It has!’ he agreed.

  We shook hands again, and I set off up the stairs.

  ‘As for why she stole it,’ Barnabas called after me. ‘I’ll bet she wanted to use the gold dust for colour, in a very special painting.’

  I paused and turned back. ‘A very special painting?’

  ‘She’s been in a red phase for a while,’ he said. ‘But she told me that she was going to break out of that phase to paint a portrait of her niece!’ He stopped, realising. ‘A portrait of you!’

  I swung back around, lifted my suitcase higher, and hurried up the steps.

  ‘I am here to bail out my Aunt Emma!’ I cried.

  I set my suitcase on the police station floor, unzipped it, and took out my sack of silver. This, I dumped on the counter. It jangled.

  Behind the counter, an elderly man in uniform glanced up at me. He was writing. He carried on writing for a moment and then, slowly, placed his pen behind his ear, and stood. He had soft white hair and a matching soft white moustache, all neatly combed. His nose was quite enormous. The nostrils flared now as he rested his arms onto the counter and looked down at my linen sack.

  ‘There’s a hundred silver coins in there,’ I told him. ‘My parents gave me the money to cover expenses on my journey.’

  The old man studied the sack a while. He looked up at the ceiling and blinked. ‘When you say Aunt Emma,’ he said, ‘I take it you mean Emma Mettlestone?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘She is your aunt?’

  People on this island seemed a bit slow on the uptake when it came to aunts. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am her niece. My name is Bronte Mettlestone.’

  ‘And you’re here to bail her out?’

  ‘As quickly as possible, please.’

  The old man sniffed.

  ‘Where did you get the idea,’ he said, leaning over his arms, ‘that you could bail her out?’

  ‘It is a great idea, isn’t it?’ I agreed. ‘I was just on the wharf talking to Barnabas. He was fishing there. Do you know Barnabas?’

  The old man gave a slow nod. ‘I do.’

  ‘Anyway, I suddenly remembered that you bail people out of prison! You just go to the front desk and hand over money, and you come out a little later with the prisoner, and you both look very serious. You shake your head and scold them and tell them this has got to be the last time.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ said the old man.

  ‘I know this from the cinema,’ I explained. ‘My Aunt Isabelle and I go there every other Saturday afternoon.’

  The old man looked interested at that. ‘The cinema, eh? Never been myself, but I hear it’s a cracker.’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘Sometimes. Other times, it’s exciting rather than funny. And once we saw a film that made both Aunt Isabelle and me cry all the way home. The Butler baked us chocolate scrolls to cheer us up.’

  The old man lowered himself back into his chair. I stood on tippy toes so I could see him. He was writing again. A name plate on his desk read:

  ‘Are you Chief Detective Riley?’ I asked.

  He grunted and carried on writing.

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘Chief Detective? May I bail her out?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You may not.’

  There was a long pause. Outside, children were playing, and a woman was speaking sternly to a dog.

  Chief Detective Riley opened a drawer. He took out a pale-coloured folder. Very slowly, he stood again, placed this folder onto the counter, and opened it. He nudged my sack of silver along the counter to make room.

  ‘This is the file on your Aunt Emma,’ he said.

  ‘There’s a file!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There’s always a file when a person is convicted of a crime.’ He took a stack of photographs from the folder, and spread these along the counter.

  The first photo showed a wooden cottage set amongst fir trees, smoke rising from its chimney.

  ‘This,’ said the Chief Detective, pointing, ‘is Sugar Rixel’s cottage.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I said.

  The second photo showed a window, open wide.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘is where the thief entered the cottage.’

  ‘Sensible,’ I said.

  Chief Detective Riley looked at me.

  ‘To use a window that’s already open,’ I explained. ‘Rather than smashing one? That, at least, must be in Aunt Emma’s favour.’

  He shook his head as if having a conversation with himself. ‘See this?’ he said, pointing at the photo.

  I peered closer. Smears of red stained the window ledge, ants crawling all over them. ‘Blood!’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s crimson sap from the tehassifer tree.’

  ‘Phew,’ I said, and he frowned.

  The third photo showed a bookcase. It was smeared with the same red, ants everywhere again.

  ‘And this is where the pepper grinder used to stand,’ he said, ‘before it was sto
len.’

  ‘Sugar Rixel kept her pepper grinder on her bookcase?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Strange.’

  The old man’s brows became ferocious. ‘Sugar Rixel may keep her pepper grinder anywhere she pleases!’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t get in a twist about it.’

  The fourth, fifth and sixth photos were paintings on various walls. They didn’t fit into the story at all.

  ‘Very pretty,’ I said, to be polite.

  ‘It is not relevant,’ growled the Chief Detective, ‘that they are pretty. Look at the colours in these paintings!’

  I looked again. The paintings were abstract—dashes, lines and splatters—and every one was painted in red.

  ‘These were all painted by your Aunt Emma,’ the Chief Detective told me. ‘She has, for the last two years, been favouring red.’

  I nodded. ‘Barnabas told me she was in a red phase.’

  The seventh photo was a pair of woman’s hands, stained red.

  ‘These,’ the Chief Detective said, ‘are your Aunt Emma’s hands. On the day of the robbery.’

  ‘Hm,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  ‘Caught red-handed,’ he pronounced.

  I thought about this. ‘But aren’t there other artists living on the island who are also in red phases? So they might have had red hands that day and left red paint everywhere when they stole the pepper grinder?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Only your Aunt Emma is in a red phase. Three tehassifer trees grow right behind her cottage—the only ones on the island—and she uses the crimson sap for her paintings.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Caught red-handed,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘I get it.’

  The final photo was a close-up of the woman I’d seen rowing the boat: Sugar Rixel. Her eyes were downcast.

  ‘Here is the victim of the crime,’ he said, ‘looking sad.’

  ‘She does look sad,’ I agreed.

  ‘Missing her pepper grinder,’ he added.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ I said impatiently.

  With one swoop, Chief Detective Riley gathered all the photos up, slid them back into the file, and closed it. It was very smooth, the way he did that, and reminded me of how my Aunt Isabelle and the Butler play cards. They can both shuffle cards like nobody’s business.