The Doldrums

by Nicholas Gannon

  ♦ DOLDRUMS PRESS ♦

  Mr. Glub was sitting at his desk, writing an article for the newspaper. Without notice, two journalists burst in.

  “Tigers!” said one.

  “Museum!” said the other.

  Mr. Glub smiled and leaned back in his chair.

  “Slow down,” he said. “Now, what’s this all about?”

  When they finally got the story out, Mr. Glub jumped to his feet, grabbed his coat, and ran from the office with a reporter on either side.

  ♦ WING OF OCEAN LIFE ♦

  “How many wings does this place have?” said Oliver as they dashed beneath a massive octopus.

  The music was still blaring from the intercoms, but then they heard an announcement, too:

  “PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE NEAREST EXIT.

  WE ASK EVERYONE TO CALMLY MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE NEAREST EXIT.

  PLEASE SEE A GUARD FOR HELP IF NEEDED.”

  Everyone was already moving to the exits, but there was nothing calm about it. Everywhere was panic. Some people were screaming, others were shouting, but everyone was running. Parents grabbed children. Others gave up and crouched in corners.

  “Which way is the exit?” Oliver yelled, bouncing off a giant squid.

  “Behind us,” said Archer.

  He broke his own rule and glanced over his shoulder. The tigers were slipping all over the place, but they were still very much after them. He didn’t understand. Why were they the only ones being chased?

  “We can’t go back,” he said as they spilled into a hall and down a flight of stairs. Oliver lost a shoe. It clopped a tiger on the head.

  “That way!” said Archer.

  They flew into the butterfly pavilion.

  ♦ BUTTERFLY PAVILION ♦

  They were growing tired as they dashed past row after row of neatly aligned butterfly boxes. Alarms were flashing and gates were slamming all around.

  “They’re going to lock us in!” said Adélaïde.

  “With the tigers!” said Oliver.

  “Not yet!” said Archer.

  ♦ BELMONT COFFEE & CAFÉ ♦

  Mr. Belmont was too busy running his espresso machine to notice the hordes of people fleeing Rosewood Park. The flowery woman wasn’t. She spun around on her barstool and almost began clapping.

  “Oh! Look!” she cried. “It’s a parade! I do so very much love a parade! But it’s a strange parade—yes, a very strange one indeed.”

  Mr. Belmont dashed outside. This was no parade. He looked up at the museum towers. Someone yelled “Tiger!” Mr. Belmont took off. The flowery woman slipped behind the bar to make herself a triple.

  ♦ THE NOT-SO-GREAT HALL ♦

  They were running much slower when they burst back into the great hall. It had emptied, and security gates blocked the exits.

  “We’re trapped!” said Adélaïde.

  “With the tigers!” said Oliver.

  “To the kiosk!” said Archer.

  A round kiosk stood at the center of the hall. They ran in a tight circle around it. The tigers followed but slid all over the place. There was nowhere else to go. A row of telephone booths stood to their right. Archer planted his feet and whipped the others toward the booths.

  “Get inside and shut the doors,” he yelled.

  They held tightly to one another till the last possible second, then all three let go, leaped into the booths, and slammed the doors. The tigers crashed against the booths. Phones flew off the hooks. Oliver had his eyes shut. Adélaïde was on the seat with her wooden leg pressed tightly against her door, trying to keep it shut. Archer dodged a swinging phone but struck his head hard against the wall. Everything went black.

  ♦ THE MUSEUM DIRECTOR ♦

  “Archer,” said Adélaïde.

  “Archer?” said Oliver.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Archer opened his eyes. He was sitting crumpled in a cold sweat, but he didn’t know where he was. Oliver and Adélaïde were studying him.

  “Did we make it to the ship?” he asked.

  “No,” said Adélaïde.

  “Not even close,” said Oliver.

  “Out of the way!” ordered a security guard, pushing Adélaïde and Oliver to the side. He noticed Oliver’s arm and pointed to a nurse. “Have her take a look at that.”

  Adélaïde followed Oliver to the nurse. Archer was still trying to make sense of everything as the guard reached out his hand.

  Two guards escorted Archer, Oliver, and Adélaïde through a door and down a back hallway. They had been summoned to the director’s office. Archer was still fuzzy, but nearly back to his senses.

  “What happened after we jumped in the booths?” he asked.

  “I thought it was over,” said Oliver. “Until zoo personnel burst in with tranquilizers.”

  “We stayed inside the booths,” said Adélaïde. “But they saw us.”

  “I thought they were going to tranquilize us when they did,” Oliver said.

  Adélaïde nodded. “We’re in a great deal of trouble.”

  At the top of a staircase, one of their guards knocked on a door and they entered a large, dusty office with a giant window that overlooked the great hall. A man who could only be the director of the museum was standing next to his desk, speaking with two more guards. He paused when they entered. Archer didn’t like the way he stared at them. It made him feel like a criminal. The director turned back to the guards. “Just bring it to me,” he said, and sent them out while motioning the trio to come forward.

  “Take a seat,” he instructed, pointing to a bench beside his desk.

  Archer, Oliver, and Adélaïde did so and the director gave them a chance to speak.

  “It just sort of happened,” said Oliver.

  “It wasn’t our fault,” said Archer. “But we did great.”

  Adélaïde chose not to say anything.

  “No one was eaten,” agreed the director, sitting back down. “But there’s a lot of middle ground between not getting eaten and something being great.”

  That wasn’t what Archer meant, but before he could clarify, a guard reentered the office and handed the director a report. The director secured his glasses and mumbled quietly as he read.

  “Which of you is Oliver Glub?” he asked.

  Oliver slowly raised his hand.

  “And what exactly were you thinking, bringing a gazelle mask into a room filled with tigers?”

  Oliver turned to Archer and Adélaïde for support. He was never good when adults questioned him.

  “The mask didn’t matter,” Adélaïde said. “What matters is how the tigers were able to escape. Weren’t they chained down?”

  The director pinched his lips and grunted. “I’m looking into it,” he replied. “We’ve already cancelled the partnership.” He returned to the report and a few lines later, pointed a finger at Archer and Adélaïde. “And I assume, then, that you two were the ones on the museum rooftop?”

  “You were on the roof?!” said Oliver.

  “We didn’t know where we were going,” said Archer.

  “Not until we got there,” said Adélaïde.

  “You went through a ‘Museum Personnel Only’ door,” said the director. “I expect you knew that much.”

  Archer and Adélaïde were silent. They did know that much.

  “And the life raft!” shouted the director. “How did you get that thing inside the museum?!”

  Oliver was surprised about that too. “It wasn’t heavy,” he said. “But I also didn’t know it was a raft until I pulled the string. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was.”

  “But why did you have it in the museum?” the director demanded. “No one needs a life raft in a museum!”

  “We did,” said Adélaïde.

  “We would be dead without it,” said Archer.

  The director grunted again. “Do you have any idea the amount of damage you’ve inflicted on my museum?” he asked. “A two
-thousand-year-old jeweled egg was cracked, there is glass all over the place, the tigers smashed more things than could be listed on this report, and hundreds were nearly killed!”

  “We were just trying to get out of the way,” said Adélaïde. “It wasn’t our fault the tigers broke free.”

  “And they were only chasing us,” said Archer. “I don’t know why.”

  The director pointed at Oliver’s now-bandaged arm. “Blood and gazelles,” he said. “It’s a dangerous combination. And by the way, which of you is a Helmsley?”

  “I am,” said Archer. “I’m Archer Helmsley.”

  The director stared at him over the top of his glasses. “Of course you are,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t remember me, do you?”

  Archer had never met this man before and said just that.

  “I’ve been to Helmsley House,” he replied. “I was there the night you placed the porcupine on that man’s chair.”

  Archer went red. He’d forgotten about the Glob of Seal. Adélaïde and Oliver looked at each other, trying not to smile. Archer noticed his jade elephant house sitting on the desk.

  “I think that’s mine,” he said, pointing to it.

  “What do you mean it’s yours?”

  “It was from my grandparents,” Archer explained. “I must have dropped it.”

  The director blinked at him, then picked up the phone with a sigh. “. . . There’s been a misunderstanding. . . . I know what I said. . . . Just get him back here, please.” He tossed the jade elephant house at Archer and placed the report into his breast pocket. “The rest of your class has returned to school,” he said. “Your teacher, Mrs.—Mrs.—”

  “Murkley,” said Adélaïde.

  “Yes, well, the poor woman was discovered on the floor next to a polar bear. We assume she ran into it during the chaos.”

  “Another polar bear?” mumbled Oliver.

  Archer and Adélaïde were silent.

  “We think it fell on her. Nearly killed her.” He looked at his watch and opened the door. “Now follow me. Your parents are waiting for you.” He flashed Archer an unpleasant smile. “And I’m glad it’s not me they’re waiting for.”

  They followed the director back to the great hall and down the museum steps. People were standing everywhere. No one was happy. They followed him to the edge of Rosewood Park and to the street where Mrs. Murkley was being loaded into the back of an ambulance.

  “Is she all right?” asked Archer.

  “There’s always hope,” said the director. “But no one can understand a word she’s saying.”

  The director opened a taxicab door and told them to get in.

  “We live close,” said Archer. “We can walk.”

  “That’s what your mother was afraid of,” the director said, ushering them into the backseat. “Get in. All of you. Mind your fingers!” He slammed the door and instructed the driver to take them to 375 Willow Street and to make sure they were all inside the house before leaving.

  The taxi drove off.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  ♦ BALLERINA’S SPIN ♦

  “Well, that couldn’t have gone worse,” said Oliver. “We nearly died. You nearly died twice. We destroyed the museum. And seriously damaged Mrs. Murkley.”

  Despite all of this, there was a general air of gladness to be alive in the back of that taxicab. But Archer knew his current status as a member of the living was only temporary. And while he wasn’t certain what awaited him at home, he was certain it was either a hole in the wall or Raven Wood.

  Adélaïde scratched the dried blood on Oliver’s blazer.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he replied.

  “What exactly happened in the tiger room?”

  Oliver ran his finger across the window. “I honestly don’t remember,” he said. “It was difficult to see through those eyeholes. I heard—” He stopped and turned to Adélaïde. “Never mind that! What about the crocodile? You’ve been lying to us for a long time! I had a feeling you were.”

  “I guess your mother wasn’t eaten either, was she?” asked Archer.

  “No,” said Adélaïde. “She’s still very much alive.”

  “You were a ballerina?” asked Oliver.

  Adélaïde nodded.

  “What happened with the lamppost?” asked Archer.

  She didn’t want to talk about it, but she did. And while it would be a lie to say this didn’t make her sad, she didn’t feel as sad as she thought she would.

  “Were you any good?” Oliver asked.

  “I was pretty good,” she replied.

  The taxi turned down Willow Street. Archer had a tremendous knot in his stomach. After everything and all their planning, he couldn’t even make it out of a museum. He slumped back into his seat, thinking about the iceberg.

  “I hope their best is better than mine,” he said.

  “It’s my fault,” said Oliver.

  “I’m the one who lied to you both,” said Adélaïde.

  “Maybe not the tigers,” said Archer. “But the rest was my fault.”

  “We did this together,” said Adélaïde.

  After that, no one said anything.

  ♦ 375 WILLOW STREET ♦

  What followed when they arrived at Helmsley House was now only a blurry memory. They were slow crawling out of the backseat and slower still walking up the front steps. They paused at the doorknob and after a communal nod, pushed open the door. Inside, there were lots of adults shouting lots of things and while it was a lot to take in, compared with the tigers, they didn’t think it was so bad.

  “Does this sort of thing happen often here?” asked Mr. Belmont.

  “Not that I know of,” chuckled Mr. Glub. “I don’t think many people can say they outran a pack of tigers.”

  “I never did,” said Mr. Helmsley.

  “Listen to them!” shrieked Mrs. Helmsley. “They’ve all got one foot off the merry-go-round!”

  “It’s good to stretch the foot from time to time,” said Mr. Glub.

  “Tea,” said Mrs. Glub. “I think we all need tea—lots of tea.”

  “Or espresso,” said Mr. Belmont.

  “You could have died!” cried Mrs. Helmsley.

  “But we didn’t,” said Archer.

  “It just happened,” said Oliver.

  “We did good,” said Adélaïde.

  ♦ A SCARLET TRUNK ♦

  Two weeks had passed since that nightmare of nightmares, and it now seemed like an impossible dream. Archer went to the cellar, emptied a scarlet trunk, and carried it back to his room to pack his things. The train for Raven Wood left in three days.

  Mr. Helmsley stepped into the room just as he was finishing. He had dark circles under his eyes. The phones at Helmsley & Durbish had been ringing nonstop since the tiger incident and most days a line of people waiting to file lawsuits against the Rosewood Zoo wrapped around the office. The head of the zoo had been fired and they were currently undergoing major changes.

  Mr. Helmsley sat down on the bed and Archer decided to tell his father everything he had discovered. There was no reason for him to keep it a secret anymore.

  “I know Grandma and Grandpa were living in Barrow’s Bay,” he said. “And I know Mom sent them away after I was born because she didn’t want them around me.”

  His father didn’t bother asking how he’d discovered any of this. But there were a few corrections to make.

  “They were living in Barrow’s Bay,” he replied. “But your mother didn’t send them anywhere. She couldn’t. We didn’t live in this house before you were born.”

  Archer glanced over the lid of his trunk. “Why do we live here now?” he asked.

  “Your grandparents wanted us to move in after you were born. They wanted you to grow up in this house. Your grandfather had big ideas for you.” Mr Helmsley paused. “Your grandparents are very good people, but they’re part of a strange world. A world filed with many p
eculiar people—people that make your grandparents seem commonplace.”

  “The Society, you mean?”

  Mr. Helmsley rubbed his chin and raised an eyebrow.

  “The Society,” he repeated. “I trust you haven’t been there?”

  “No,” said Archer.

  “Yes, well, the Society is a big part of it. But also your mother and I agreed that we wanted to be the ones to raise you. Not your grandparents. So we said no.”

  “But we did move in,” said Archer.

  “Yes, your grandfather is a very persuasive man,” Mr. Helmsley replied, and folded his arms. “After we declined the first offer, he quickly made a second.”

  “What was it?” Archer asked.

  “He promised they would stay away until your twelfth birthday if we would take the house. It took him some time to persuade your mother, but she eventually agreed and in we moved. Of course, no one had any idea they were going to wander onto an iceberg before your twelfth birthday.” Mr. Helmsley smiled. “But that’s very much your grandparents. And while they might be a little reckless, they knew exactly what they were doing getting you into Helmsley House. They didn’t have to be here. Their magic is in these walls. They knew the house would raise you. Your mother realized this as well when she overheard you speaking to the animals. That’s why she wanted you at all those dinner parties. She wanted you to start speaking to humans. Only you were never very good at that, were you?”

  Archer grinned, though he tried not to. Mr. Helmsley’s eyes suddenly twinkled. “But you did meet your grandfather. And you know you did.”

  “At the dinner party,” said Archer, nodding. “How do you know about that?”

  “He wanted to get a good look at you. I snuck him inside for a quick visit.”

  Archer sat atop his trunk and stared glumly at his father.

  “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have shared the house with them,” he said.

  “Right or wrong, that’s what we decided. Like I said, it was our job to raise you, not theirs. And had we shared the house, many of their strange associates would have been coming and going. Your mother and I both agreed you shouldn’t grow up around all of that. ”