Alistair Grim's Odditorium (4 page)

I thumped my head on the top of the trunk and shrank back inside.

The horses whinnied, and I felt a great lurch forward. We were moving again, but unlike before, the coach was now shaking feverishly, up and down and side to side. I tried to open the trunk to
see what was happening, but then the shaking abruptly stopped and a great force pulled me down.

Another lurch, this one more powerful than the first, and then everything became…well…
smooth
is the only way I could describe it. We were no longer moving, but it felt as if we were
no longer stopped, either.

I cracked open the trunk and a great wind rushed past me, blowing the soot from my hair like the tail of some great black comet. I could see nothing but sky, and popping my head out a bit
farther, I realized the sky was not just above me but all around me too.

I flung open the trunk, lifted the storage bed door, and peered out over the side of the coach.

It took a moment for everything to sink in.

There was the meadow of silver buttercups rolling beneath me; beyond that, great patches of jagged black trees; and farther still, clusters of tiny lights and the outline of our town against the
sky. I recognized the steeple to our church, and for some reason felt sorry that I hadn’t had a chance to properly say good-bye to Mrs. Smears before I went flying about the countryside.

That’s when it hit me.

“I’m flying!” I gasped.

And then I was falling backward into the trunk again—the sound of the lid slamming down on me the last thing I remember before everything went black.

I
suspect Nigel must have awakened me when he unloaded the trunk from the coach. But as I came to, everything was so still and quiet there in the
cramped darkness that I thought I’d fallen asleep inside one of Mr. Crumbsby’s chimneys. The air was hot and stale, and my mouth was dry and tasted of soot.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Mr. Smears will box me good for sleeping on the job.”

Then I realized something was different about this particular chimney. The bricks beneath me were soft and cushiony, the ones next to me as smooth as glass.

Suddenly the flue shifted, and the entire chimney seemed to be lifted off the ground. I sensed I was moving—
traveling again
, that was it—and in a flash everything came back to
me. The Crumbsby twins, the chase from the Lamb, the fancy black coach—and the trunk in which I was hiding!

But what about that crack of thunder? What about the flash of yellow light and all that flying about the countryside?

A dream? Well, of course it had to be a dream. After all, even a humble chummy like myself knew that people didn’t just go flying about in fancy black coaches.

The coach! I was no longer on the coach speeding away from the Lamb. No sound of galloping horses, no sound of rattling wheels, only the thumping of my heart in my ears and footsteps beneath me.
Yes, I was being carried on someone’s shoulders!

Then I heard a heavy clang, like the sound of the iron gate at the churchyard, and the trunk came to a stop.

“Do you require anything else, sir?” asked a familiar voice. The coachman—Nigel, was his name.

“Take the trunk up to my chambers, will you?” said another voice—Mr. G, the owner of the fancy black coach. “And be sure you put a blanket on the horses when you return
them to the stables. It’s a bit chilly this evening.”

“Right-o, sir,” Nigel said, and then I was moving again.

The air was stifling, and I felt a tickle in my throat as if I would cough.

I swallowed hard, then swallowed again, and thankfully the tickle left me—but I hardly dared to breathe out of fear that at any moment the trunk’s lid would swing open and Mr. Smears
would haul me out by the hair.

But I’d left Mr. Smears behind at the Lamb, hadn’t I? Along with the Crumbsbys and Old Joe and the cart and the soot bags. The fancy black coach had taken me south along the High
Road, which meant that I’d left behind the cottage and the stable and the churchyard—
the whole town
, for that matter—too.

The town! I remembered seeing it from the air, far beyond the meadow of silver buttercups just before I—but no, that couldn’t be. I’d only dreamed all that. Yes, I must have
fallen asleep inside the trunk on the way to…Well, that was the question now, wasn’t it? On the way to
where
?

I was answered with the loud clang of another iron gate, more footsteps beneath me, and what sounded like an entire guild of blacksmiths hammering away in the distance. And as Nigel walked on,
the racket grew louder and louder until finally the hammering came at me from every direction.

Then Nigel abruptly stopped and said, “Hallo, hallo, what’s this?”

My heart leaped into my throat. I was sure he was speaking to me. But then a girl’s voice answered jubilantly, “Why, hello there, Nigel. Back so soon?”

“Not soon enough, from the looks of it,” Nigel said, annoyed. “You know right well you’re not allowed down here without the boss!”

“Pshaw. You won’t tattle on me, will you? I only wanted to have a quick look to see how things were coming along.”

“Not my place to go tattling, Miss Cleona. And things look to be coming along quite nicely. Just about finished, from what I can tell.”

“And from what
I
can tell, Uncle was successful on his trip to the North Country, was he not?”

“That he was, Miss Cleona, that he was.”

“Splendid!” Cleona squealed. “Let’s have a look at her.”

“Now, hold up! No need to go flying off like that. The boss will introduce the two of you when he’s good and ready. Come along, then, off to bed with—hallo, hallo, what do we
have here?”

“What do we have where?”

“There in your hand tucked behind the folds of your gown?” No reply. “Now, now, don’t go playing tricks on
me
, miss. I want no part of that business. Come on then,
Cleona, cough it up.” A brief moment of only hammering and then: “Just as I suspected. A book! You’ve been gadding about the library again!”

“I only wanted to read a little before bed.”

“But the rules state clearly that no books are to leave the library without the boss’s say-so. Them’s the rules.
Period
.”

“Pshaw. Uncle and his rules.”

“Rules are rules for a reason, miss. And after your little trick of stacking all them books up to the ceiling, well, you’re lucky you’re allowed in the library at
all.”

“I know, but I’ll return the book in the morning. I promise. I’ve been conducting research all week in case Uncle tries to trick me back.” Another brief moment of only
hammering. “Oh, please, Nigel,” Cleona said. “I just wanted to make sure I knew everything before Uncle returned. Promise me you won’t tell him, will you?”

“You’re certain there’s no trickery involved? I want no part of it.”

“On my honor. No trickery involved whatsoever.”

“Right-o, right-o,” Nigel grumbled. “But I didn’t see you, understand?”

“You’re a gem, Nigel!” Cleona said, and her giggling trailed away.

Nigel giggled too, and then we were moving again.

Soon there came another loud clang, followed by a jumble of sounds that reminded me of the coal mines at the edge of town—chains and pulleys, winches and metal cranking against metal.
Nigel set down the trunk, but it still felt as if we were moving—not sideways this time but upward into the air.

The hammering faded away, and when the cranking stopped, the sense of traveling upward stopped too. Another loud clang, and Nigel hoisted the trunk onto his shoulders with a grunt and started
walking again.

“Hallo there, Mrs. Pinch,” Nigel said, stopping. “Didn’t expect to find you still up and about.”

“Lots to do, lots to do,” replied a weary voice. “And blind me if I haven’t gone and misplaced my spectacles again.”

“Shall I help you look for them, mum?”

“Certainly not. What kind of housekeeper keeps others from their beds because of her own carelessness?”

The trunk rose and fell quickly—Nigel shrugging, I assumed.

“Besides,” said Mrs. Pinch, “they’re in here somewhere. Got a speck of dust in my eye as I was laying out the linens, got distracted and—well, blind me if my head
doesn’t need oiling.”

“You’re sure it was you who misplaced them and not—”

“Oh, no, Cleona knows better than to play her tricks on me.”

This Cleona seems awfully fond of tricking people, I thought, and Nigel shrugged again. “Right-o, then, mum,” he said, setting down the trunk. “Off to the stables, I
am.”

“Head needs oiling, I tell you,” Mrs. Pinch muttered distractedly.

“Good night, then, mum.”

The coachman’s heavy footsteps trailed away as Mrs. Pinch set about the room in search of her spectacles, all the while huffing and puffing and mumbling, “Blind me,” when her
search came up empty.

The tickle in my throat returned. I swallowed hard, but the tickle only seemed to get worse. That’s it, I was going to cough, no remedy for it now, so I pressed my face into Mr. G’s
clothes and let out a muffled, “Kipff!”

The tickle left me at once, but as I cocked my ear to listen, I noticed that all the huffing and puffing and blind me–ing outside had stopped. I waited, my heart pounding in terror, and
then Mrs. Pinch began to hum pleasantly.

Dodged her for now, I thought. Yes, from the sound of things, it seemed as if Mrs. Pinch had set about the room again in search of her spectacles. Indeed, I’d just begun to entertain
thoughts of an escape—when much to my surprise the trunk flew open and Mrs. Pinch screamed:

“
Rat!
”

Then she swung her broom and caught me square atop my head.

“Ow!” I cried.

Puzzled, Mrs. Pinch leaned cautiously over the trunk, her broom ready to strike.

“What on earth?” she said, squinting down at me. Then she slowly lowered her broom and exclaimed: “Why you’re not a rat at all!”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am,” I said, rubbing my head. “Though I must admit you’re not the first person to call me that lately.”

“Well, what on earth are you doing inside the master’s trunk?”

I explained in short the circumstances surrounding my present situation, including how I came to live with Mr. Smears, as well as my apprenticeship as a chummy. Oftentimes I’d get ahead of
myself, and Mrs. Pinch would become confused and ask me to go back. Her wrinkled face and squinty eyes seemed to soften when I told her about Mrs. Smears. However, when I got to the part about the
trunk, her lips drew together so tightly that her nose nearly kissed her chin.