The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse

by Nicholas Gannon

  “Are you okay?” Archer asked, taking her arm. Oliver grabbed the other one.

  “I’m fine,” she said, but she clearly wasn’t. She had a nasty scrape across her forehead, and it was bleeding. The others stopped laughing when they saw that—except Alice, Molly, and Charlie. Adélaïde pressed her hand to the cut as the terrible three stood before them.

  “I’ll bet you haven’t leaped that high since you were a ballerina!” Charlie said.

  “But you do need to work on your form,” Alice added. “It wasn’t very elegant.”

  Archer grabbed Oliver, who was about to swing a punch.

  “I’m going to have Archer curse you!” Oliver warned.

  Alice feigned dismay. Mr. DuttonLick swooped in, and Molly became a beacon of virtue.

  “I think you made a mistake allowing them to be your assistants for the party,” she said, pointing a dainty wouldn’t-harm-a-fly finger at the trio. “They make a mess of everything.”

  Mr. DuttonLick hastily ushered the trio into the back of the shop. For the first time, the cheerful chocolatier looked anything but.

  “I’m not sure what happened out there, but please, do not make me regret taking you on. We have much to go over. So cool your little heads. I’ll return shortly.”

  Oliver grumbled, searching for a first-aid kit. Archer found one above the sink and bandaged Adélaïde’s forehead as she waved the newspaper at them.

  “Did you see it?” she asked. “Kana got into my bedroom from the rooftops and woke me up with it. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to check the café. The news is all over Rosewood.”

  ROSEWOOD CHRONICLE

  THE ICEBERG IN HIS OWN WORDS

  While we at the Chronicle are not ones to gloat, we hope those at the Doldrums Press are reading. A parcel was delivered to our office late yesterday afternoon. The parcel contained photos of a journal that prove Ralph and Rachel Helmsley’s iceberg was, as we’ve reported, a fabrication from the beginning.

  On the first four pages of the journal, Ralph Helmsley wrote his own name six hundred times. His signature, which began very neat, becomes completely illegible at the end. On the following page, he scribbled the words: Meegflog Wolpshure Fishperg Gloop. We’ve confirmed these aren’t actual words. Then comes a page revealing what appears to be a hit list, with one name crossed out. Wigstan Spinler. The final page of the journal is the most disturbing. Ralph laments being unseated as president. “This has only happened to one president before me. Antarctica. Better to die than be unseated,” he wrote.

  We phoned the Society for confirmation and were connected to a man named Mr. Suplard. He immediately hung up on us. An hour later, we received an anonymous call back. The caller confirmed that after analysis, the journal was deemed authentic. We asked where it was found.

  “In the deceased members’ section of our Archives, among Ralph’s other possessions left behind in the President’s Office.”

  “Mr. Birthwhistle had fun with this,” Archer said, lowering the paper.

  “And the Chronicle is going to ruin my father,” Oliver added. He turned to Adélaïde. “What about Mr. Bray? Is he still at Bray and Ink?”

  Adélaïde nodded, rubbing her bandaged head. “I checked on my way here.”

  Archer read the article again and again and didn’t notice Mr. DuttonLick return.

  “Have we cooled down? Yes? Very good! We have lots to do! But first, the bad news. I will not be teaching you how to make chocolates. Yes, I’m upset too, Oliver! The snow has caused a slight hiccup. No cocoa beans. So today, you’ll do an inventory to see what we can melt down into smaller treats. Can’t give away the whole shop! I’ll go bankrupt! Tomorrow, I’ll rope off the top two floors and you will clean those. And the morning of the party, we’ll melt chocolate and decorate! Very good? Do we all . . . Archer? Are you listening, Archer?”

  “Uh, yes,” Archer said, peeling his eyes from the paper. “Sounds perfect.”

  “That’s the spirit! Now take this clipboard! Time to count!”

  “Sounds perfect?” Oliver groaned, following Archer and Adélaïde out of the back room. “Inventories and cleaning and melting chocolate into smaller chocolate? That’s not what I signed up for. I thought we were going to learn how to make chocolate. Mr. DuttonLick sold me a vacuum cleaner!”

  “A chocolate-coated vacuum cleaner,” Adélaïde sighed, sizing up the three stories of chocolate bars and mountains of sweets that needed counting.

  Archer was now reading the article a sixth time, but he put it aside when they set to work.

  The trio spent the entire day counting chocolates. It was a tedious task made worse by Alice, Molly, and Charlie, who hovered around them like gnats. Charlie kept popping out from behind shelves, grabbing his own throat, and shouting, “Archer cursed me! I’ve been cursed!”

  Molly had memorized the gibberish line from the Chronicle and began chanting it to a tune. “Meegflog! Wolpshure! Fishperg! Gloop!”

  “I finally figured out what it means!” Alice said, laughing. “That’s Helmsley for ‘our minds are rotting! Put us on ice!’”

  Archer did his best to ignore them, but he thought Adélaïde might deck Molly if her singing caused them to lose count one more time.

  “Fifty-three,” he said, hoisting an armful of chocolate bars back onto the shelf.

  Adélaïde grabbed the clipboard. “DuttonLick’s triple dark darker-than-dark chocolate bars—fifty-three,” she wrote.

  “You know who’d be great at this?” Oliver said as they moved down the aisle. “That pale man we saw at the Society—the one who couldn’t finish his sentences. What was his name?”

  “I think it was Mr. Harptree,” Adélaïde said.

  “Why would he be great at this?” Archer asked.

  “Your grandfather said the Society’s Archives are so huge that few enter without getting lost. But Mr. Harptree could see it all at once. I bet he’d know exactly how many chocolate bars Mr. DuttonLick has, simply by looking at these shelves, and we’d . . . why are you staring at me like that? I’m not suggesting we actually ask Mr. Harptree to help us.”

  “We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” Adélaïde said, setting the clipboard down and reaching for more chocolate bars. “Didn’t he go to Scotland? He said there was an archival emergency, whatever that means.”

  Archer was still staring at Oliver, his mind humming as he searched his pockets. He’d left his journal in his coat. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and hurried off.

  “I think he snapped.” Oliver sighed. “But I don’t blame him for abandoning us. What’s next?”

  “DuttonLick’s triple-cherry whipped-cream swirl bars.”

  Oliver stared at the bars in their red wrappings. He wrinkled his forehead in concentration, but his eyes fell to the floor. “It’s getting worse. I used to love those. Now I can’t remember why.”

  Archer knew he was useless when he’d finally returned to his friends, but they didn’t make a big deal of it. As they pressed on with the inventory, Archer continually excused himself, dipping behind random shelves and keeping out of their sight as he thumbed carefully though the pages of his journal. “The communications . . . maybe they’re hidden in the . . . Could it be?” Archer bit his lip. Had he actually found the corn kernel?

  “Thirty-one caramel glob bars,” Oliver said to Adélaïde as Archer approached them. “I’m afraid to ask, but what’s next?”

  Adélaïde lowered the clipboard and smiled. “We’re done!”

  Oliver practically cheered as they brought their inventory list to Mr. DuttonLick. He thanked them with a large bag of chocolate snurples. The last thing any of them wanted was to eat chocolate, but they indulged Mr. DuttonLick. Immediately, Oliver’s love resuscitated.

  “I don’t get it,” he mumbled, and closed his eyes.

  “What don’t you get?” Mr. DuttonLick asked.

  “The teachers at the Button Factory,” Oliver explained. “They spend loads of time teaching us about the
invention of electricity, but they’ve never mentioned anything about the invention of chocolate. I know electricity is important, but it’s also dangerous. Electricity has killed people. Chocolate never killed anyone.”

  “I’m sorry to say that’s not entirely true,” Mr. DuttonLick replied. “Chocolate has been used for sordid purposes. Sometimes, even as a vehicle to deliver poison! Yes. Its richness can hide many things!”

  Oliver gulped the snurple and seemed to be wondering if Mr. DuttonLick had not only sold him a vacuum cleaner, but now, had also poisoned him.

  They climbed to the third floor, hoping to rest their aching legs on a couch, but Alice, Molly, and Charlie quickly spread out, leaving not an inch of room.

  “They’ve been here all day long,” Adélaïde whispered. “Don’t they have anything better to do than annoy us?”

  “I wish you could actually curse people, Archer,” Oliver sighed as they all squeezed together in a window seat overlooking Howling Bloom Street.

  ♦ BAND OF OUTSIDERS ♦

  Archer sat quietly with his journal on his lap, trying to ignore Adélaïde. He wouldn’t look at her, but he could feel her eyes bouncing between him and his journal.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell us, Archer?” she finally asked.

  Archer tried to play the fool, but fooling a one-legged French girl is no simple task.

  Adélaïde’s eyes rolled and then narrowed. “Honestly, Archer, you can’t lie to me. I’m your friend. I know you’ve been planning something all day.” She turned to Oliver. “I think he’s going to the Society.”

  Oliver looked skeptical. “She’s been spending too much time with Kana, hasn’t—”

  “When were you going to tell us, Archer?”

  “I wasn’t,” Archer admitted. “Neither of you are coming. But I think I know where to find the communications.” He opened his journal and pointed to the iceberg hoax story. “Both of you were talking about Mr. Harptree. He left for Scotland the night we arrived.” Archer held the journal toward them. “Read that line.”

  President Birthwhistle said via telephone from the Scotland Society.

  “I think Mr. Birthwhistle got Mr. Harptree out of the way so he could plant the journal in the Archives. But I also think that’s where he hid the communications. ‘Few go in without getting lost.’ Doesn’t that sound like a good place to hide something?”

  “Because it might be impossible to find them,” Adélaïde said, nodding.

  “I’ll be honest,” Oliver sighed, looking up from Archer’s journal. “I wasn’t expecting to nearly die in a closet over the winter holiday. It’s supposed to be a relaxing time. I thought we’d learn how to make chocolates and maybe have a snowball fight. But the closet happened. And I’m not stopping now. If you’re going to the Society, I’m coming with you.”

  “We both are,” Adélaïde agreed.

  Archer shook his head. “I have to go alone. This is my problem. I don’t want anything to happen to—”

  “But it’s not just about your family anymore,” Oliver insisted, holding up the Rosewood Chronicle. “They’re out to destroy my father’s paper, Archer. And they will if I don’t prove them wrong.”

  “We’re coming with you,” Adélaïde insisted before Archer could respond. “So let’s talk. How are we going to get there? The buses aren’t running. Remember the lemon drop lady?”

  “I was going to walk,” Archer said.

  Oliver almost laughed. “That’s a terrible idea, Archer. We can’t stroll into the Society, find the communications, and stroll back out again. Someone might spot us. We don’t know who we can trust in there.”

  “It would help if we could get our hands on Greenhorn uniforms,” Adélaïde suggested. “We’d blend in.”

  “That’s good,” Oliver agreed. “But if we do find the communications, we’ll have to get them to your grandparents as fast we can. And knowing our history, probably while being chased. We can’t go on foot.”

  Oliver was right, and Archer didn’t argue. Adélaïde turned to the window, thinking it over. A single headlight was flickering down Howling Bloom Street. It was the Belmont Café delivery truck. It swerved around pedestrians and slid to a halt just outside the café. Amaury wrenched himself from the cab, scaled a snowdrift, and shivered into the coffeehouse.

  “That’s how we’ll get there,” Adélaïde said, pointing to the vehicle.

  “We can’t drive a truck,” Oliver said.

  “It’s barely a truck. Look at it. It’s like someone put a normal-sized vehicle into a washing machine and accidentally shrank it.”

  “It doesn’t matter how small it is. It’s illegal. That means we can’t do it.”

  “No,” Adélaïde said, her eyes glinting. “That means we can’t get caught doing it.”

  Oliver ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t mean to be rude. But you don’t exactly have the greatest history with delivery trucks.”

  “Would Amaury notice it was missing?” Archer asked.

  Adélaïde slumped. “He would. I’d say we could ask him, but he’d never think of letting me drive it.”

  “Because we’d probably crash it,” Oliver said. “And possibly kill ourselves.”

  “Amaury would be worried we’d hurt ourselves,” Archer agreed, nodding slowly. “What if he didn’t care? Or better yet, what if he wanted us to hurt ourselves?”

  Adélaïde blinked at him. “That’s the exact opposite of what Amaury would want.”

  “And we can make him become his opposite. Oliver, do you remember the crate you found in my grandfather’s trunk? Those jars filled with colorful powders and liquids?” Oliver vaguely remembered. “It’s the work of that botanist Benjamin loves. Mr. Wigstan Spinler,” Archer said, and went on to explain what Doxical Powder did.

  “I just want to make sure I’m clear about what you’re suggesting here,” Oliver said. “If this Doxical Powder does do what your grandfather said it could, are you saying we should . . . I mean, in order to get the truck, it sounds like you’re saying you’d like to drug Amaury.”

  “We have to know it’s safe,” Adélaïde agreed. “We’re not giving Amaury Doxical Powder without testing it first.”

  “I’m not going to be the guinea pig,” Oliver said, reaching for the bag of snurples. “Doxical Powder. That doesn’t sound like something that tastes good.” He peered sideways at Adélaïde. “Fritz might eat it.”

  “You’re not doing anything to my dog! And what would that tell us anyway?”

  “If he meowed like a cat, we’d—”

  “A snurple,” Archer said, watching Oliver pull one from the bag. “Mr. DuttonLick said chocolate’s richness could hide many things. What if, when we’re melting chocolate, we add Doxical Powder to a few? No one would know. We can test it during the party. We’ll test it on—”

  “Meegflog! Wolpshure! Fishperg! Gloop!” Alice, Molly, and Charlie, still lounging comfortably, erupted into laughter.

  Archer, Oliver, and Adélaïde smiled.

  “But we shouldn’t,” Adélaïde whispered.

  “We need to test it.” Archer said.

  Oliver tossed his snurple into the air and caught it in his mouth. “It’s just dessert.”

  ♦ GOOD ADVICE? ♦

  Archer overheard his mother on the phone when he shut the front door of Helmsley House. She was speaking to his father.

  “Did you read it, Richard? I knew it was falling apart, but I wasn’t expecting this! What are we supposed to do with him now?”

  Archer frowned and climbed the stairs. She must have seen the Rosewood Chronicle, but what did she mean, do with him? Did she actually believe the story? He poked his head into his grandparents’ bedroom. They weren’t there. Ever since Mr. Dalligold had arrived, he hadn’t seen much of them. But they must have seen the Chronicle, too. They were probably with Mr. Dalligold now, discussing what to do about Mr. Bray. Archer stepped into their room and shut the door behind him. As Archer searched the crate
atop the wardrobe, he caught the hedgehog staring at him with disapproval. “Is there something you’d like to say?” he asked impatiently, clinking through the jars.

  “It’s nothing,” the hedgehog replied.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing,” Archer said, grabbing the bottle of Doxical Powder. “Don’t be coy.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” the hedgehog hissed. “I’m no koi. As to the matter at hand, it’s none of my business, but you should be very careful. Tampering with things you don’t understand is dangerous.”

  “But I understand this,” Archer said, slipping the jar into his pocket

  “You understand it in theory. You don’t understand it in practice. Those are two very different types of understandings.”

  “That’s why we’re going to test it.”

  “Yes, you’re going to test it on three people who will know nothing about it. Do you think your grandparents would approve? I don’t. And I know them well. I’ve lived in this room a long time. Your grandfather’s the one who told you, ‘The best you can do is what you think’s right and hope others will do the same.’”

  Archer tried to put the hedgehog’s words out of his mind, but they followed him all the way to his bedroom. And they were still with him when he sat down on his bed, fiddling with the jar of Doxical Powder. Archer wasn’t sure if he should take the advice of a stuffed hedgehog, but the critter had a point. Maybe he shouldn’t test it on Alice, Molly, and Charlie, as much as he’d like to. There was really only one person it seemed right to do the experiment on.

  Archer set the jar on his nightstand and slid off his bed. He stood before his mirror and studied his face. He scrunched it up. What would his opposite be like?

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  ♦ THE BUDDING BOTANIST ♦

  “Why are we going to the library?” Oliver asked Archer over a yawn the following morning as they slogged their way up Foldink Street. “We’re supposed to avoid school during the winter holiday.”