War of the World Records (30 page)

The Whipple children's excitement turned to confusion. Arthur looked up from the floor.

“Though it's true Arthur has now broken a world record of his own,” their father explained, “I simply don't feel it belongs here on our wall.”

Arthur's stomach felt hollow. After all this time, he had just begun to believe that maybe he really did belong there. Had it all been an illusion?

Mr. Whipple raised an arm and gestured over the children's heads. Arthur and his siblings turned to see Wilhelm walking toward them, pushing a large wheeled object veiled by a purple velvet cloth.

The crowd of murmuring children parted to make way for the mysterious artifact. When the butler had rolled it to the very center of the room he locked the wheels in place, then stepped back into the shadows.

Arthur's father walked toward the object and halted beside it. Then he slid away the cloth.

Underneath was a large glass case, set atop a dark wood pedestal. At the center of the pedestal sat a vacant velvet pillow.

“As you know,” Mr. Whipple addressed his family, “I have kept this empty trophy case in order to remind myself of that which I have not won—of the attempts I've failed—of the opportunities I've missed. . . .”

Arthur's father stared into the glass for a moment, running his fingertip along the rim of the pedestal, then slowly pulled it away.

“I have recently come to realize, however, it was not the things I thought I were missing that I truly needed to find. And now—thanks to one formerly recordless boy— I no longer feel I am missing anything at all. As such, I have no further reason to keep this case empty.”

Mr. Whipple looked to his son with twinkling eyes. “Arthur, my boy—would you be so kind as to lend us your new trophy, that we may finally put this case to its proper use?”

The pit in Arthur's stomach vanished as his heart swelled in his chest.

“It—” he started, holding back tears and holding up his trophy. “It would be my great honor, sir.”

Mr. Whipple smiled. “I had hoped you'd feel that way.”

He gripped the tall glass dome of the display case and lifted it from the pedestal.

Arthur stepped forward and, savoring every instant, placed his trophy at the center of the pillow, then slowly backed away.

Mr. Whipple lowered the dome back onto its base, then gestured again to Wilhelm, who turned and flipped a switch on the wall behind him.

A spotlight shone down from the ceiling, illuminating Arthur's trophy like a golden beacon at the room's otherwise shadowy center.

Arthur's eyes sparkled as his siblings oohed and aahed around him.

“Well now, that looks rather marvelous, doesn't it?” Mr. Whipple observed. “Thank you, Arthur, for contributing such a fine centerpiece to our distinguished collection.”

Arthur, unable to speak, simply smiled and nodded. His father grinned back at him, then gave an affectionate wink.

When they'd all stared at the new fixture for several moments, Mr. Whipple turned to the others and said, “Well then—now that's settled, who's hungry for a bit of colossal cuisine?”

The children all raised their hands.

“Let's go get some then, shall we?” their father said, smiling. “Arthur's first birthday breakfast awaits!”

The octuplets bounced up and down with excitement as their mother turned to the butler.

“Wilhelm,” she said, “go and fetch Mrs. Waite, would you please? Tell her she and Ivy may continue whatever it is they're working on as soon as Ivy has had her breakfast. Surprise birthday gift, I believe she said. Hard to tell
what
Mrs. Waite was saying last night, the poor woman was so emotional, bless her heart.”

“Right avay, ma'am,” the butler replied as he made for the door.

“Thank you, Wilhelm,” said Mr. Whipple. “Now, everyone else—to the breakfast table!”

• • •

Taking his dinner fork in one hand and his dinner machete in the other, Arthur carved off a large lump of sausage and dropped it onto his plate. Sitting there with his family, he couldn't help but be reminded of a particular morning months back, when Sammy had served French toast, and all of their adventures had begun.

Arthur cut himself another bite, pausing for a moment to make sure the fifteen-foot sausage link wasn't wobbling just a bit more than it should be.

“. . . And after the fire-breathing porcupines finish their routine,” his father continued, “it'll be time for cake. Now, if Sammy gets to work straight away, he may just have enough time to break the size record we set at the Birthday Extravaganza. What do you think? Shall I have him get started?”

Arthur thought back to his experience with his family's last birthday cake. “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking we might do something a bit smaller this time—still record-breaking, of course—but with a little less potential for destruction. I don't know—World's Fluffiest Cake, perhaps?”

“Hmm. I'd never thought of that one before. Won't be nearly as dramatic, of course—but then, I suppose we could benefit from a fresh approach on the matter of cake. Wouldn't want our guests to think we're becoming predictable, would we? All right then—World's Fluffiest it is.”

Arthur smiled and had another bite of breakfast. It was hard to believe how far he'd come in the span of just a few months. Before today, he'd barely been given a party at all—and here, he was about to be given the Best Birthday Party of All Time.

Breaking a world record was one thing—but now, wishes he'd never even made were coming true. Finally, things were going his way. The constant turmoil that had plagued him from birth seemed like a distant memory. For the first time in his life, his heart was truly at peace.

Arthur began dreaming of ways to make each of his other eight birthday parties even better than the one before, when he happened to notice Wilhelm approaching across the east lawn.

The butler had never been one to convey himself sluggishly, but his current pace struck Arthur as being rather more hurried than usual.

Wilhelm stopped when he reached the table and stood panting at the lawn's edge. Alone in a sea of green, the champion strongman appeared much smaller than Arthur had remembered him to be. His typically rosy cheeks were now all but white.

In his hand, he clutched a small sheaf of papers.

Upon seeing the butler, Arthur's father wiped his mouth with his napkin and exclaimed, “My goodness, man—you're white as a sheet! I hadn't noticed earlier—but it looks as though you could use a bit of sun and a good meal, eh, old boy? Come on then, pull up a chair—and try not to eat the whole thing in one bite!”

The butler did not move, but opened his mouth to speak.

“They—” he wheezed, “they are gone.”

Mr. Whipple rose from his seat with a puzzled expression and approached his valet. “What's that you say, Wilhelm? Who's gone?”

“I—I vent to fetch Mrs. Vaite,” the butler replied, “as Mrs. Vhipple asked, but nobody answered vhen I knocked. I began to vorry that something vas wrong, so I opened her door, just to make sure everything vas okay—but there vas nobody there at all.”

The other Whipples, troubled by Wilhelm's tone, excused themselves from the table and came to stand behind their father.

“Please, Wilhelm,” said Mr. Whipple, “this hardly seems reason for alarm. She's no doubt off somewhere with Ivy planning Arthur's birthday surprise as Mrs. Whipple suggested.”

“I'm afraid,” said Wilhelm, “it is not the sort of surprise you are thinking of. Before I decided to search Mrs. Vaite's quarters, I had already searched all the other places I thought they might be. Vhen I finally vent inside, I found the room tidy and the bed made, but there vas still no sign of them. And then—then I found this.”

The butler held out the papers.

“Well, what is it, man?” Mr. Whipple asked impatiently, panic seeping into his face.

“It's . . . a letter, sir. From Mrs. Vaite.”

Mr. Whipple took the papers from Wilhelm and held up the first page so he and the others could see it. Neat lines of handwritten text cut back and forth across the thin parchment.

Arthur's heart lurched at the sight of the familiar seal. It was a crown made of flames.

“Dad!” he cried. “That's the seal that was on the Treasurer's note!”

Mr. Whipple turned to his son with a look of powerless dread, then shifted his eyes back to the letter—and began to read aloud.

My Dearest Whipples,

You needn't worry about your precious little Ivy. I have taken it upon myself to look after her for the foreseeable future. I assure you, she is quite safe. For now.

By the time you read this, we shall be a thousand miles away from this godforsaken house of yours, so you may spare yourselves the trouble of searching.

Arthur's mother gasped. “I—I don't understand! What is she talking about? Oh, Charles—what has she done?”

Mr. Whipple looked at his wife, then dropped the letter to his side—and dashed back toward the house.

The others set out immediately after him.

Arthur's father threw open the terrace doors and burst inside.

“Ivy!” he shouted into the great hall before racing up the stairs. “Ivy, where have you gone?”

When Arthur and the others finally caught up to him, Mr. Whipple was in the nursery, standing over Ivy's bed. The bed was neatly made, with pink-and-white-striped sheets peeking out from the top of a white quilt embroidered with pink-flowered vines. On the pillow sat Ivy's stuffed bear, Mr. Growls, dressed to match its owner as usual. But something about the toy struck Arthur as strange. As he stepped closer, he realized the bear's eyes and mouth had been crudely stitched shut with thick black yarn.

Arthur shivered.

Mr. Whipple lifted the bear from the bed, staring helplessly at it for a moment, then turned and handed it to his wife, whose knees nearly buckled at the sight.

“Oh, Ivy!” she cried. “Our poor little girl! Why would Mrs. Waite do this, Charles? It makes no sense! Have we ever wronged her in any way?”

“I—I don't know, dear,” Mr. Whipple replied, putting a comforting arm around his wife.

His other hand trembling, Arthur's father raised Mrs. Waite's letter to eye level once again. He drew a deep breath and continued reading.

Oh, I can just see your faces now. “But what have we ever done to Mrs. Waite that should cause her to behave in such a dreadful manner?” You really are so predictable, you Whipples. With all your extraordinary powers of perception in matters of competition, you so often fail to see what's right in front of you in everyday life. Since you asked, however, I shall indulge your primitive curiosity:

It all started the day you killed my husband.

You remember Gregory, don't you? Fearless face, steely gray eyes? Ah, but of course you don't. You have surely forgotten all about him—apart, perhaps, from his bearing the name that would be given to your fiendish family's curse. But I do not forget so easily. When my dear Mr. Lyon was drowned in a box, trying to win back his rightful record from the villain you call “grandfather” . . .

Arthur's mind flashed back to the black-veiled woman from the archives reel, clawing at her husband's coffin as it was lowered into the earth.

Arthur glanced to Ruby and shared a look of horror. “Hang on,” he blurted, turning back to his father. “Gregory
Lyon
? As in the Gregory Lyon who tried to steal our grandmother's live burial record? As in the
Lyon's
Curse? Mrs. Waite is Gregory Lyon's
widow
?!”

“Oh, no,” said Arthur's father. “How could I have been so blind?”

Mr. Whipple stared forward for one solemn moment, then returned to the letter. As he continued to read through each of its half dozen pages, the others listened in stunned silence.

. . . When my dear Mr. Lyon was drowned in a box, trying to win back his rightful record from the villain you call “grandfather,” I secretly vowed revenge (as any good wife would do) upon the man responsible for murdering him. It took a few tries—concealing king cobras, rigging runaway rickshaws, et cetera, et cetera—and a lot of talk about some “Lyon's Curse”—but in the end, I had my revenge. When I heard the joyful news of your grandfather's horrific plane crash, my Gregory and I were finally able to rest. . . .

That is, until a few years later, when a certain Charles Whipple Jr. began appearing in the headlines.

You can imagine my horror to find that—after leaving me a childless widow—my husband's murderer was now living on through his record-breaking son. Clearly, I could not ignore such injustice. Unfortunately, I had exhausted the last of Gregory's estate on eliminating the first Charles Whipple (disposing of a Whipple, mind, is hardly an inexpensive enterprise). Indeed, I should have been powerless to do anything—if not for the generous support of the Ardmore Association.

As luck would have it, there had been a recent shift in power on the Ardmore Board of Directors, clearing the way for new members. I forwarded a letter of interest through one of Ardmore's aspiring young lawyers, a Mr. Malcolm Boyle, and the Chairman of the Board quickly recognized the benefits of my singular expertise. And soon I had managed to secure a coveted seat on the board myself—a seat once held by a certain Bartholomew Niven, long before he ever turned up as a skeleton in a sea cave.

(Well then. Now that you've no doubt guessed my title, I imagine you're curious as to how exactly the position came to be open. How exactly did Mr. Niven go from a respected member of the Ardmore board to a forgotten pile of bones on a beach? Seeing as I wasn't there, I can't tell you exactly. But I can tell you this: it certainly wasn't Rex Goldwin's doing. No, Mr. Goldwin is far too obsessed with keeping his perfect hands clean to really get blood under his nails. But rest assured—the Chairman of the Board is not so squeamish. Haven't had the pleasure yet, have you? Well, never you worry; with any luck, you'll be meeting him soon. . . . But back to the story.)