Fennymore and the Brumella

KIRSTEN REINHARDT

FENNYMORE

AND THE

BRUMELLA

or
How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

FENNYMORE

AND THE

BRUMELLA

or
How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

by

KIRSTEN REINHARDT

Illustrated by
David Roberts

Translated by
Siobhán Parkinson

FENNYMORE AND THE BRUMELLA
or
How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

First published 2011 as

Fennymores Reise oder wie man ein Dackel im Salzmantel macht
by
Carlsen Verlag GmBH, Hamburg, Germany

Text and illustrations © Carlsen Verlag 2011

All rights reserved

This edition published 2014 by

Little Island

7 Kenilworth Park

Dublin 6W, Ireland

Translation © Siobhán Parkinson 2014

ISBN:

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material in this publication may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing Data: A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset and designed by Kieran Nolan,
www.oldtown.ie

Printed in Poland by Drukarnia Skleniarz

Little Island has received funding to support this book from the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; the translation was partially funded by the Goethe-Institut and Ireland Literature Exchange.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CHAPTER 1

In which we are introduced to Fennymore Teabreak, Aunt Elsie and the best recipe for salt-baked dachshund

F
ENNYMORE TEABREAK was an unusual boy. He ate liver pâté for breakfast, a home-made banana-split for lunch, and in the evening he chomped on large celery sticks. If he'd calculated correctly, he'd be eleven this summer, but he couldn't be sure, because he hadn't had a birthday party for ages. That had been Aunt Elsie's decision, because on Fennymore's eighth birthday his parents had disappeared. They'd never reappeared, and no way did Aunt Elsie want to be reminded of that day. So Fennymore had to work out for himself how old he was and he really couldn't be sure.

Fennymore had tousled brown hair. His right ear was glued to his head like a limpet to a rock, and his left ear stuck out like the handle of a china teacup. Fennymore was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. His best friend was a sky-blue bicycle that thought it was a horse. It had got a bit rusty and its name was Monbijou. That is French for ‘my jewel'.

Fennymore and Monbijou lived in The Bronx, a large old house outside town. The shutters were crooked and the roof was buckled. It used to be a blue house, way back, but all the rain had washed the colour away. It has to be said that Fennymore lived in a rainy kind of area. All the sun had also bleached out the colour, because Fennymore also lived in a sunny kind of area. People around there always carried rain hats. When it rained, they put them on their heads, and when it was sunny, they let them dangle on a string around their necks.

Aunt Elsie bought two or three dashing flowery rain hats every week because the rain hats that they had in that area were not very durable. That's why there were so many rain-hat shops in town. Twenty-four, to be precise. Fennymore didn't have the money to be buying rain hats, so he just made his own out of newspaper.

* * *

Since his parents had disappeared, Fennymore lived all alone in his big wind-battered house. Well, not quite alone, because luckily Monbijou lived with him in The Bronx. And then, of course, there was Aunt Elsie.

Aunt Elsie lived in town, right over the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour, and she visited Fennymore every Sunday at exactly three minutes past three. Every Sunday they ate salt-baked dachshund and drank elderflower tea. Anyone who has prepared salt-baked dachshund knows what a long-winded and complicated business it is. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of skill. First you have to find a suitable dachshund. It must be not too fat but not too lean either. It has to be just right, a perfect edible dachshund.

Aunt Elsie's favourite hunting ground for dachshunds was the city centre, because that was where the local pensioners went strolling all day long with their dachshunds, viewing the window displays in the rain-hat shops. Aunt Elsie would spend every Wednesday afternoon eating coffee sundaes in the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour. She kept a sharp eye out, under cover of large dark sunglasses, and when a pensioner strolled by with his dachshund, she shot out of her chair like a whirlwind and crept along behind them. Aunt Elsie was astonishingly agile, considering her age and her full figure. ‘Full figure' means that she was dreadfully fat but didn't like anyone to mention it.

The pensioners usually called in to the butcher's to ask for scraps of meat for their dogs. They tied up their darlings outside the door while they went inside. Luckily for Aunt Elsie, dachshunds were not allowed in the butcher's. Like lightning, she untied the waiting dachshund, clamped it under her arm as if it was a handbag with paws and scooted off home. And by the time the pensioner came merrily out of the butcher's with his scraps, his pet was well on its way to becoming salt-baked dachshund.

Sadly, Fennymore could not sit around in the ice-cream parlour eating coffee sundaes. His teacher, Herr Muckenthaler, had spotted him there one time with Aunt Elsie when Fennymore really should have been in maths class. That was very embarrassing for Aunt Elsie, because she had encouraged him to skive off. So from then on Fennymore had to hide between the recycling bins in a side street near the ice-cream parlour while Aunt Elsie was eating coffee sundaes.

When Fennymore spotted a dachshund, he whistled through his fingers. That was the signal for Aunt Elsie.

And that is how Aunt Elsie managed to provide herself with her favourite dish every week. Fennymore didn't think anything of it. It was all he knew, apart from pâté, banana-splits and the celery that grew in the garden of The Bronx.

Every week in Fennymore Teabreak's life had been the same since his parents' disappearance. Every Sunday, Aunt Elsie came round and together they ate salt-baked dachshund and drank elderflower tea. On Mondays and Tuesdays, Fennymore had tummy ache, and on these days he didn't eat paté pâté or banana split, just munched unenthusiastically on a celery stick.

Wednesday was dachshund-hunting day, and he would stay overnight with Aunt Elsie, so that he could help with the preparation of the salt-baked dachshund in the morning.

On Fridays, Fennymore bought liver pâté and the ingredients for banana-split.

On Saturdays, Fennymore climbed up onto the roof of The Bronx to view the rainbows of the area. That always made him think of his parents.

His father, Fenibald Teabreak, was an inventor and his mother, Regina Teabreak, was really a mathematician, but when she met Fennymore's father, she discovered that she much preferred thinking up inventions to solving mathematical problems. And that is how Fennymore's parents got to be an inventing team. Fennymore's mother drew up the plans and Fennymore's father built the inventions. Fennymore's mother liked to work on the kitchen table in The Bronx, and his father liked to work in the Invention Capsule. The Invention Capsule was a tiny shed overgrown with vines right at the bottom of the garden, behind the currant and gooseberry bushes and the compost heap.

Most of Fennymore's parents' inventions were commissions for other people, but sometimes they invented something for themselves. Fennymore liked the Mechanical Waiter. That's what the toast-popper that his parents had invented was called. This contraption catapulted toast out of the toaster right onto the plate, by means of a chrome spring. Unfortunately the thing broke shortly after Fennymore's parents disappeared and Fennymore had no idea how to repair it, so after that he stopped having toast for breakfast.

The invention that his parents were working on before they disappeared was a great secret. Not even Fennymore was allowed to know anything about it.

These were the things Fennymore thought about when he sat on the roof of The Bronx on Saturdays. And then it was Sunday again, and Aunt Elsie came to visit him with the baked dachshund.

Fennymore had hardly any time to go to school, except on Saturdays, but then the school was closed. After all, Herr Muckenthaler, the teacher, had to get an occasional break. And so it went, week after week, month after month, year after year.