The Doldrums

by Nicholas Gannon

  “The sun would warm the hole,” he added with another shrug.

  “Did you read that somewhere?” asked a befuddled Archer.

  Oliver shook his head. “But I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw the headline,” he said. “I try to stay ahead of situations I might find myself in later on.”

  This was, in fact, a daily exercise for Oliver. Each night he read his father’s paper and tried to find solutions to the unfortunate situations other people found themselves in. Just in case.

  Archer was confused. This was an Oliver he’d never seen before (mainly because Archer was too caught up in his own ideas to hear what Oliver might suggest). And what Oliver suggested was brilliant. But Oliver grew uncomfortable with Archer’s staring and checked his forehead.

  “Is something crawling on me?” he asked.

  “We have to go to Antarctica,” said Archer.

  Oliver laughed, but Archer wasn’t joking.

  “You’re serious?” said Oliver.

  “Yes,” said Archer.

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “It will be difficult.” Archer corrected him. “But not impossible.”

  Oliver shook his head. “There are at least—at least three big problems with that. And the first is that even if you were successful—even if you somehow made it to Antarctica, you’d still probably die down there.”

  Archer leaned back on the roof and asked, “What else?”

  Oliver blinked a few times. “That’s not a big enough problem for you?” he said, then sighed and continued. “The second is that if you’re not successful, if you get caught, you’ll be shipped off to Raven Wood, which might be worse. The third is that you have no experience with anything of the sort. Antarctica is not an impulse destination.”

  He didn’t like to do so, but Archer admitted he had no experience. He had no experience to do anything he wanted to do.

  “But what if I found someone who did?” he said after a moment. “Someone who could help us? What if I went to Antarctica and found my grandparents? If I could make it happen, you would come with me, wouldn’t you?”

  Oliver didn’t like the look in Archer’s eye. This might be more serious than the library plans. Fortunately, Mr. Glub poked his head over the roof’s edge.

  “I had a feeling you’d be up here,” he said. “And a good evening to you, Archer.” Mr. Glub looked up at the stars. “A fine evening, isn’t it? Makes me sorry to break you up, but Oliver wanted to help me organize the weeklies—unless he’s changed his mind, of course.”

  Oliver hadn’t changed his mind and was all too eager to escape. He said good-bye and climbed down the ladder. Archer disappeared down his ladder as well. He turned on his radio, left the balcony door open so he could hear it, and returned to the roof with his binoculars, which he pointed to the sky. He found the constellation Orion—the great hunter—and for the first time in weeks, Archer smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We won’t be stuck here much longer.”

  ♦ CONSTELLATIONS ♦

  Down in the gardens, the crickets exchanged moonlight pleasantries.

  “Good evening,” chirped one.

  “Leave me alone,” chirped another.

  Up on the rooftop, Archer was still thinking about Antarctica. He did lack experience. He couldn’t argue with that. But with the right help, with someone who did have experience, it wouldn’t be impossible. He would need time to prepare and a ship to stow away on, and of course, a good escape plan because Oliver was right, the consequences of failing and getting caught would be great. But consequences don’t matter when they’re connected to something you have to do.

  Archer continued to jump from constellation to constellation till he landed on the beginnings of one he did not recognize. He adjusted his binoculars. It wasn’t a star. It was the garden light of the peculiar house on the opposite side of the garden.

  “Your bedroom is upstairs,” called the tall, well-groomed man, who had just turned on the garden light.

  Archer watched the second-floor light flicker on, followed by the third-floor light, and finally, the top-floor light.

  “It’s the door on your left,” said the tall, well-groomed man.

  A girl entered the top-floor room carrying a suitcase. She was followed shortly by the tall, well-groomed man with more luggage. The girl went to the balcony door and stepped outside.

  “Perhaps we should find you a room lower down,” he said.

  “This will be fine,” the girl replied.

  The man set the luggage down and left the room. The girl leaned against the railing and looked into the gardens. The south by southwest breeze changed directions and blew the music from Archer’s bedroom to the girl’s balcony. The girl spotted him. Archer quickly lowered his binoculars. She raised herself to the tips of her toes and, for a moment, stood perfectly still. Archer lifted his binoculars once more. The girl began spinning and it looked very pretty till she lost her balance and collapsed with a thud.

  “Sur la table, Adélaïde,” the tall, well-groomed man called from the garden.

  The girl picked herself up and stepped back inside. The top-floor light flickered off, followed by the third-floor light, and finally, the second-floor light.

  Adélaïde? thought Archer. What’s an Adélaïde?

  ♦ ROSEWOOD PORT & THE WALRUS ♦

  Her name was Adélaïde. Adélaïde L. Belmont. Adélaïde is a French name.

  “And how do you pronounce it?” asked the custom officer, looking up from her passport.

  It took Adélaïde a moment to respond because she was enchanted by just how much this man resembled a walrus.

  “Add—eh—lay—eed L. Bell—moan,” she finally said. “The t is quiet.”

  “I think you mean it’s silent,” the walrus replied.

  “No,” she said. “Just quiet. You can sometimes hear it.”

  Adélaïde had a French name because Adélaïde was French, and Adélaïde was French because before she arrived in Rosewood Port, Adélaïde lived in France.

  “And what brings you across the sea?” asked the officer.

  Adélaïde bit her lip, tapped her fingers on the walrus’s desk, and looked over her shoulder at her father, who was piling luggage onto a cart. She wasn’t sure how to answer this question. She herself was surprised when her father made the announcement. That’s not to say she was upset by it. On the contrary, Adélaïde was glad to leave France—but the reason?

  “Ballet,” she said, turning back to the walrus.

  “So you’re a ballerina?”

  “Not anymore.”

  The officer raised an eyebrow. “Why not anymore?” he asked.

  “Bread,” she replied.

  The officer raised a second eyebrow. “You’re not a ballerina anymore because of bread?”

  “Mostly just croissants,” said Adélaïde.

  At that, the walrus stood up and Adélaïde watched as he refilled his coffee, sharpened his pencil, and waddled back to his seat.

  “I just want to make sure I have this straight,” he said, looking over his notes. “You say you came across the sea for ballet, even though, thanks to croissants, you’re no longer a ballerina. Is that correct?”

  It was not completely correct and the order of events was a bit confused, but Adélaïde knew what she was doing so she smiled and nodded.

  “Very well,” the officer replied, having no idea what any of that was supposed to mean. He stamped her passport and handed it back to her. “Best of luck to you.”

  “Merci, monsieur.”

  Adélaïde carried her suitcase outside. Her father hailed a taxicab and they piled their luggage into the trunk.

  “Where to?” asked the cab driver.

  “To three-seventy-six North Willow Street,” Mr. Belmont said. He raised an invisible glass in the air. “And to a change of scenery.”

  Now before we continue, there’s a chance some of you might be wondering many of the same things the
walrus was.

  Ballet? Bread? Quiet Ts?

  It sounds like a bunch of nonsense, doesn’t it? The truth is that it’s not nonsense, but Adélaïde was a clever girl and while she didn’t want to lie to an officer, she did want to confuse him because she didn’t want to talk about it. So in order to answer these questions, it’s best that we go back in time—back to the same time Archer opened his front door and discovered his grandparents had drifted out to sea atop an iceberg. When that happened, Adélaïde was nine and lived in France, in the north of Paris to be precise. And it’s there that you now must go, whether by plane or boat or, si tu préfères, iceberg.

  BON VOYAGE

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  ♦ A GIRL IN THE NORTH OF PARIS ♦

  If you follow Rue de Girardon past the statue of the man who can walk through walls, continue down beyond the wooden windmill, slip through the narrow alleyway next to the yellow postbox, and follow along the bend, you’ll arrive at Belmont Coffee & Café. This café was one of many owned by Adélaïde’s father, a well-to-do coffee entrepreneur named François E. Belmont. And above this particular café was Adélaïde’s home.

  Adélaïde was a trifle small for a girl her age—perhaps even two or three trifles small. She was also a clever and kind and pleasantly sincere girl who by all means looked like any other perfectly normal nine-year-old girl. Yes, if you saw her on the street, you wouldn’t think she was anything special or anything out of the ordinary, but that’s where you’d be wrong. Adélaïde was someone special and quite out of the ordinary.

  It begins with bread.

  ♦ PATHETIC CROISSANTS ♦

  Adélaïde loved bread, all types of bread, and Paris is a very good city for the bread lover. Her personal favorite was the buttery and flaky croissant with chocolate baked inside. She could eat them all day long, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (but her mother wouldn’t hear of such nonsense). Fortunately, each morning at seven A.M., fresh bread was delivered to the Belmont café. And each morning at seven A.M., Adélaïde made her way down the stairs.

  One morning, inside the café, Mr. Belmont was busy at work with an espresso machine and the barman, Amaury P. Guilbert, was eyeing a tray of croissants suspiciously. Adélaïde sat atop a barstool and watched him. Amaury was a gentle man, generously proportioned, and always wore a small cap, which Adélaïde thought made him look like a fishmonger. Or perhaps it was just his smell that did that. Either way, Adélaïde liked him.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Amaury placed the croissants in front of her.

  “Do these look fresh to you?” he asked.

  Adélaïde picked one up. A true bread connoisseur can instantly tell fresh bread from stale bread. “It’s all in the flakes,” Adélaïde will tell you. “No flake? It’s a fake.” Adélaïde saw no flakes.

  “I think they might be yesterday’s,” said Amaury.

  “Or the day before yesterday’s,” agreed Adélaïde.

  “Now tell me that’s not delicious,” said Mr. Belmont, turning from the espresso machine and placing a yellow cup in front of her. “It’s a new espresso bean I’m selling. Take a sip—tell me what you think.”

  Adélaïde looked at the yellow cup. The yellow cup looked back at Adélaïde. For her own part, Adélaïde wasn’t much of a coffee drinker. She preferred tea.

  “That bread is stale again,” said Amaury over his shoulder. “Third time this week.”

  Mr. Belmont wasn’t listening.

  “Go ahead, Adié,” he said. “Tell me that’s not exquisite.”

  Adélaïde took only a sip but that was enough. Her eyes sparked and her voice went fluty. “Exquisite,” she squeaked, though she was thinking just the opposite. She now had espresso eyes—white all around with beady black dots at the centers.

  Mr. Belmont picked up a croissant and took a bite.

  “I think it’s going to do very well and if we can”—he stopped and frowned at the sorry excuse for a pastry he just swallowed—“these are awful!”

  “I just told you that,” said Amaury. “Didn’t I just say that, Adié?”

  Adié shook her pinky. It was the best she could do.

  “But that’s the third time this week,” said Mr. Belmont.

  Amaury sighed. “Why do I even bother speaking to you?”

  Mr. Belmont combed through the dismal pastries. “I think we have bad luck,” he said. “Do we have bad luck?”

  “No,” said Amaury. “We have stale croissants.”

  Adélaïde blinked twice and slowly pushed the yellow cup away. She sorted through the bread, found two fresh croissants at the bottom, and said good-bye. On her way out, she passed a man who dropped a stack of papers next to the bar. She tilted her head sideways to read the headline.

  LE PETIT JOURNAL

  EXPLORERS ADRIFT IN ICY WATERS

  “They had bad luck,” Mr. Belmont said, and took another bite of the croissant, forgetting it was stale.

  ♦ SNAILS BECOME THE LADY ♦

  Adélaïde climbed the stairs back to the apartment. She stepped into the kitchen, set a wooden crate in front of the sink, and stood on top to fill a kettle with water. She then carried the kettle over to the stove, nudging the crate with her foot, and lit a burner to boil the water and make a cup of tea. She tapped her fingers against the counter, thinking the water never boiled fast enough when she had a croissant staring her in the face.

  “I mustn’t,” she insisted, and turned from the pastry.

  Her mother, Christine L. Belmont, was sitting at the kitchen table eating her breakfast.

  “Who are you talking to?” she snipped, without looking up.

  “Myself,” Adélaïde replied.

  “Then tell yourself to pipe down. I can’t enjoy my breakfast with you running at the mouth all morning.”

  “But how can I tell myself to pipe down and pipe down at the same time?” she asked.

  Mrs. Belmont did not respond. Instead, she bit into her toast with a crunch, and crumbs fell onto her otherwise spotless exterior. She lit a cigarette and vanished in a plume of smoke.

  There are lots of different mothers in this world, but it’s likely Mrs. Belmont would be at the bottom of almost everyone’s list. Adélaïde didn’t really know her mother because Mrs. Belmont was rarely to be seen. That was nothing terrible. Adélaïde preferred it, and if you had a mother like hers, you wouldn’t be terribly upset if she was rarely around. Of course, sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.

  “Snails for the lady,” said the waiter. “And what will your lovely daughter be eating this afternoon?”

  “If you think she’s so lovely, perhaps you’d like to take her,” said Mrs. Belmont. “I can have the necessary paperwork to you in one hour.”

  The waiter blinked at her. Adélaïde shrugged.

  “But how can you say that?” the waiter asked. “This is your daughter!”

  Mrs. Belmont lit a cigarette. “Quite easily, monsieur, quite easily. I have a mole on my back. That mole belongs to me, but that does not mean I want it there.”

  Adélaïde made her tea, placed it on a tray with the croissants, and carefully walked up the stairs and out onto her rooftop. One croissant she gave to the pigeons waiting patiently for their breakfast, and the other she dipped into her tea and ate, perched on the roof’s edge alongside the birds. When finished, she licked the buttery flakes from her fingertips and spun around to watch as the whole of Paris, stretching out as far she could see, came to life.

  One of the birds cleared its throat.

  “Do you think you were a pigeon in a previous life?” it asked.

  “It’s possible,” Adélaïde replied. “But I doubt it.”

  “I think you were a croissant,” said a second pigeon.

  “If that’s true,” said the first, “there’s a good chance we ate you.”

  “You must have,” she said. “And then I became—”

  “ADÉLAÏDE!” shouted Mrs. Belmont.

&nbs
p; Adélaïde looked down. She couldn’t see her mother, but was nearly certain she saw specks of spit reflecting the morning sunlight.

  “I’m right here,” she replied.

  “I know where you are—that’s why I’m yelling! Now stop frolicking with those birds and get yourself downstairs. Don’t you keep Madame Lambert waiting one more minute!”

  Adélaïde pulled the label off her tea bag, placed it in her pocket, and glanced at the pigeons as she loaded her tray.

  “Eat her next time,” she said. “She’ll come back as a snail.”

  ♦ THE PARIS BALLET THEATER ♦

  Mrs. Lambert was Adélaïde’s tutor. Adélaïde was tutored at home, and the reason for this was ballet. Like most girls her age, Adélaïde wanted to be a ballerina. Unlike most girls her age, Adélaïde was a true prodigy of dance. At the age of six, she was admitted and enrolled into the Paris Ballet Theater, and because her time was spent in countless lessons, rehearsals, and performances, she couldn’t attend normal school. Instead, she was tutored until one o’clock, after which she set off for the theater. It was a short walk, but Adélaïde enjoyed it. She packed her bag, slipped down the narrow alleyway next to the yellow postbox, continued past the wooden windmill, tapped the head of the man who could walk through walls, and followed the street to the theater.

  It was an old, round building. She entered through a small door at the back and tried her best to slip past the front desk without Mr. Stanislas’s notice and nearly succeeded but for a sudden and unexpected hiccup.

  “Ah, Fräulein Adié.”

  Mr. Stanislas was the theater attendant and a most unpleasant man. His rusty words always left Adélaïde with a terrible aftertaste.

  “Good afternoon,” she replied, trying her best to smile.

  Mr. Stanislas was not paid to exchange pleasantries so he rarely did. Instead, he clapped a messy stack of paper against his desk till the pages were uniformly aligned, all the while staring down his gravity-defiant nose at her.

  “Have you been up on the roof feeding those filthy birds again?” he asked.

  Adélaïde shrugged. “Maybe,” she replied.