Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum (17 page)

“Well,” I said, thinking. “The farmer wanted to get rich quickly and ended up robbing himself of all that gold he might’ve gotten had he been patient. Patience is a virtue, Mrs. Smears used to say. So I’d say the moral of the story is to be patient.”

“Yes, of course,” Father said with a smile. “But I was referring to the goose herself. Her
name
is Moral.”

“Moral, sir?”

“That’s right. However, unlike the goose in the story, Moral doesn’t lay golden eggs for just anybody. She is very temperamental, often rude, and exceedingly judgmental. Meaning she won’t lay a golden egg for someone unless she thinks he’ll use it honorably. In fact, this is the first golden egg Moral’s laid in over a year”—Father handed it back to me—“and she laid it for you.”

“For me, sir?”

“You saw the sign, didn’t you? Moral can control it with her mind, and it was you she bade enter.”

I glanced down at the sign, which now read,
SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

“Cor,” I whispered. “But where—how did you find her, sir?”

“Oh, that’s another story for another time,” Father said, looking at his watch. “Someone needs to get to bed.”

“But why now, Father?”

“Because it’s late, I should think.”

“No, sir, what I mean is, why did Moral lay a golden egg for me now? I’ve passed by this door many times, and all I ever got for it was rocks thrown at me—not to mention that the sign has said ‘Silence Is Golden’ ever since I got here.”

“And long before that, I’m afraid. Moral requires peace and quiet to lay her eggs. Hence the ‘Silence Is Golden’ proverb. It must be heeded quite strictly, which is why we had to keep her a secret. Silence about her existence, both in and out of her presence, is what Moral requires to lay her golden eggs.”

I held up the egg to one of the animus-burning sconces. “It truly is beautiful, sir. But why me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. There are a lot of things about our friend in there that I don’t understand, including how she works that sign. However, as Moral laid the golden egg for you, it’s up to you to use it honorably.”

At that moment, Mrs. Pinch stepped off the lift with a bowl of beans. “Blind me,” she said, squinting as she approached. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Moral laid it for me.”

“Humph, well it’s about time. And I do hope you’ll put it to good use, Master Grubb. Unlike someone else I know.”

Mrs. Pinch glared at Father, who smiled back at her sheepishly. I didn’t need to ask what she was implying. What with all his Odditoria, no doubt Alistair Grim used a golden egg or two to pay for some of it.

“I don’t suppose Moral honked if she was hungry?” Mrs. Pinch asked.

“On the contrary, ma’am,” I said. “She seemed quite sleepy.”

“Well, blind me if I take any more rocks to the noggin.”

Mrs. Pinch removed the samurai helmet from my head, placed it on her own, and then slipped quietly into Moral’s room with her bowl of beans.

“Very well, then,” Father said, indicating the tray of colored eggs. “Drop those off in the kitchen on your way to bed, and in the morning I’ll find you a box in which to keep your golden egg. I’m sure I’ve got something around here.”

Father winked and then, without warning, kissed me good night on the forehead. It was the first time he’d ever done so—in fact, it was the first time
anyone
had kissed me good night since Mrs. Smears died—and I just stood there, gaping up at him in shock.

“I’m sorry, son,” he said. “But if you were hoping for one of those stereotypical unaffectionate British fathers, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Too much time has passed for me to stand on paternal awkwardness. Besides, before you know it, you’ll be too old for such things.”

Father smiled—somewhat sadly, I thought—and I wished him good night. I made my way downstairs in the lift, dropped off the tray of colored eggs in the kitchen, and after I’d washed and settled into the shop, I lay in bed for a long time, studying my golden egg and replaying the day’s events in my mind. And what a day, indeed! A flight in a demon buggy, an escape from a mad witch, and a golden egg all rolled into one.

Then again, such days were becoming quite commonplace here at the Odditorium. And yet, for all the amazing things that had happened to me since I awoke this morning, none at present seemed more amazing than that kiss from Father.

If only I’d known what was coming, I most certainly would have kissed him back.

A
fter an uneventful morning of last-minute preparations, we were finally about to embark on our Aquaticum. The gentlemen and I stood on the balcony, gazing out across an endless sea of rolling whitecaps, while the others manned their stations: Nigel in the lower gunnery, Mrs. Pinch in the upper (Professor Bricklewick had loaned her an extra pair of his spectacles), Gwendolyn in the flight sphere, and Cleona in the Sky Ripper.

According to the Map of Merlin, the Gates of Avalon were somewhere about two hundred feet below—one hundred feet to the surface of the water, and then another one hundred feet below that. However, as the good professor kept reminding us, we would not be able to pinpoint the precise location of the gates until we were undersea—after which, he said, the map would do the rest.

“That’s all very well,” said Lord Dreary, “but I still don’t understand how Alistair is going to keep this mechanical monstrosity from leaking.” The old man’s handkerchief had been plastered to his head for the greater part of the morning, his brow perpetually flushed and glistening with sweat.

“As I’ve explained to you already,” Father said, “as a result of rerouting the flight sphere’s induction unit, I’ve reduced the output ratio for the levitation shield while at the same time increasing the duration of its expulsion parameters, thus creating a steady flow of fairy dust that will not only repel the water at the molecular level, but will also create an antigravitational shell in which the Odditorium can submerge without the need for pressurization or the flooding of its lower compartments.”

“Good heavens, man, speak English!” Lord Dreary sputtered in frustration.

Professor Bricklewick, who had been observing the horizon through a sextant, put a hand on Lord Dreary’s shoulder. “What our long-winded friend means to say is that we shall travel underwater in a giant bubble of yellow fairy dust.”

“Great poppycock!” Lord Dreary cried, and once again he dragged his handkerchief across his head.

“All systems check out fine below, sir,” Nigel called from the organ’s talkback, and then Mrs. Pinch chimed in from the upper gunnery too.

“Same up here, sir,” she said. “And blind me if I don’t feel twenty years younger thanks to the professor’s spectacles.”

“Cleona, are you in position?” Father asked.

“Yes, Uncle,” she replied on the talkback. “But I must confess, I’m somewhat vexed as to how I shall open the Sky Ripper’s porthole without letting in all that water.”

“The bubble of fairy dust will take care of that. But you will let me know if you feel the urge to start wailing, won’t you?”

“Bubble or no bubble, I should think you’d be able to hear that for yourself.”

“All right, then, everyone,” Father said, flicking some switches. “I wish we had time for a test run, but if for some reason we don’t make it, let me just say what a privilege it has been—”

“You’re not going to start with that gloom-and-doom speech again, are you?” Cleona asked, and Nigel giggled.

“Very well, then, I’m activating the levitation shields,” Father said into the talkback. “Let me know if you sense anything unusual happening with the animus reserves, will you, Cleona?”

“Pshaw, even the most amateur of sorcerers wouldn’t worry about a thing like that.”

“Well,” Father said, “at the risk of déjà vu, here goes nothing.”

As Lord Dreary and Professor Bricklewick steadied themselves on either side of the pipe organ, Father pressed a button and the control room’s normally blue defense shield wiped across the balcony in a window of glowing yellow fairy dust. I could barely make out anything beyond its haze, but as Father played his pipe organ and we began our descent, I imagined the Odditorium looked like a giant spider caught in a drop of tree sap.

Father changed his tune and I felt a rumbling beneath my feet. Judging from the position of his hands on the keyboard, I knew he was managing the vertical thrusters. And as if reading my mind, Father said, “Go ahead, son, give it a try.”

“But I’ve never landed, sir,” I said. “I don’t even know the proper tune.”

Father shrugged. “I should think being above water the safest place to learn.” And before I could think twice about it, I was sitting at the organ and fingering the tune I’d watched him play countless times. The Odditorium wobbled for a moment, but once I got the notes right, we quickly leveled off and began to descend faster.

“A regular prodigy, I tell you,” Lord Dreary said. But then we hit the water and the Odditorium listed sharply. I snatched back my hands, and Father squeezed in front of me and took over at the organ.

“An excellent landing, son,” he said, changing the tune. “But traveling underwater is a different kettle of fish altogether.”

The Odditorium leveled off again, and all at once the world outside was swallowed up in a rising curtain of frothy green bubbles.

“It works!” Father cried. “The shield of fairy dust is the perfect submersible!”

And with a loud
whoosh
the Odditorium was completely underwater.

My body trembled with fear. After all, the only thing standing between us and certain drowning was a thin yellow window across the balcony. And yet, once the curtain of bubbles dissolved and the water around the Odditorium became clear, I was overcome with a quiet sense of awe. Indeed, not a word was spoken as we descended to the sound of Father’s organ, the whole lot of us struck dumb by the sheer wonder of this, our first Aquaticum.

For some reason we could see much better now that we were underwater. And although there was plenty of sunshine there beneath the waves, Father turned on the searchlight. The sea ignited all around us in a wall of luminous orange—a mixture of red from the Eye of Mars and yellow from the dust bubble—and with it came even greater visibility. In fact, it appeared as if we could see for miles, the water bright and shimmering with what looked like sheets of crystal-clear fire.

“The searchlight may help illuminate the gates,” Father said. “Look for any irregularities in the water ahead—strange ripple effects, shadows and whatnot that seem out of place.”

“But how do you even know you’re going in the right direction?” Lord Dreary asked. “Your compass appears to be malfunctioning.”

I gazed down at the compass on Father’s organ. Its needle was spinning madly.

“It’s the dust bubble’s antigravitational properties,” Father said. “You’ll have to take it from here, Oscar.”

Professor Bricklewick stepped into the library and once again brought the Map of Merlin to life. However, this time when the professor swiped his hands, the blue mist and navigational lines disappeared so that only the map’s glowing compass remained. The professor snatched it from the air and joined us again on the balcony, where he hung the compass in midair just above the pipe organ.

“As I suspected,” the professor said. “Merlin’s compass only works underwater.”

Father flicked some switches and changed his tune. As the Odditorium began to move forward as well as down, I took a closer look at this strange white compass. Not only did it have a directional needle like the compass on Father’s organ, but also a glowing blue ruler around its dial that Professor Bricklewick said measured depth. Hence, the farther down we traveled, the more of the compass’s perimeter glowed blue.

Very soon, however, my eyes were drawn back to the fiery depths beyond the balcony. And the quiet awe that had previously rendered us speechless quickly turned to excited chatter as we marveled at all the undersea creatures that dared to approach us on our journey. Even Gwendolyn took a break from the flight sphere to join Nigel in the lower gunnery, her “Oohs!” and “Ahs!” mixing with the others’ as she beheld what Lord Dreary classified as a pod of bottlenose dolphins.

Come to find out, Lord Dreary was quite an expert on marine life, and as we traveled on, the old man named for us all sorts of species, each one more wondrous than the next. There were dazzling schools of trout and salmon; slender, pointy-nosed blue sharks; razor-toothed conger eels; and a jolly-looking creature that Lord Dreary called a long-finned pilot whale. There were many other types of fish too—the names of which I quickly forgot—all of them drawn to the yellow light surrounding us, the old man explained.

“We should be arriving at the gates any moment now,” Father said. I noticed that the needle on Merlin’s compass was blinking—faster and faster—until the blinks became a continuous glow that swelled and brightened like an ember that had been blown upon. Father ceased his playing, and as the Odditorium slowed to a halt, he left us to consult his navigational charts in the library.

“I don’t understand,” said Lord Dreary, searching the waters. “What are we looking for, again? Are the gates nearby?”