Around the World in 100 Days

Table of Contents

 

 

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

 

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2010 by Gary Blackwood

 

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Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group 345 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014
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eISBN : 978-1-101-44529-7

AS MANY READERS will realize, this is a sort of sequel to Jules Verne's famous 1873 novel
Around the World in 80 Days
. Verne was inspired by a newspaper article claiming that because of recent improvements in transportation—the Transcontinental Railroad in America, the Suez Canal, the linking of the railways in India—a traveler could conceivably circle the globe in eighty days. Verne's tale first appeared in serial form, in the French newspaper
Le Temps
. It was so popular that the newspaper's circulation tripled; steamship lines offered Verne handsome sums to mention their company's name in the story. He declined. Readers placed bets on whether or not Phileas Fogg would succeed; some even believed that Fogg and his journey were real, not fictional.

And, in fact, the novel inspired a spate of real-life attempts to duplicate Fogg's feat. In 1889, Elizabeth Cochran (using the pen name Nellie Bly), a reporter for the
New York World
, managed it in just over seventy-two days. American businessman George Train set a new record of sixty-seven days in 1890, the year before our story takes place. So why, you may ask, does this journey take so much longer? Well, Nellie Bly and George Train and Phileas Fogg all traveled almost entirely by ship and by rail. Our hero, Harry, does it the hard way.

ONE
In which

E
ven on a bright Sunday morning, the holding cell at the Marylebone station house was not a pleasant place. Indeed, it was at its absolute worst on Sunday mornings, for it contained the dismal dregs of London society, scraped from the gutters and sidewalks the night before. Most were weak-willed working-men who, after drawing their paltry pay on Saturday afternoon, proceeded to squander the greater part of it at the nearest pub. They paid the true price later on, when they woke to find themselves sprawled on the floor of a dank, dirty cell, with their pockets empty and their heads pounding.

Locked up alongside these relatively harmless sots were actual criminals of every stripe, from the bug-hunters who robbed drunks of what few coins they had left, to cracksmen (burglars) and shofulmen (counterfeiters), to murderers with black blood still visible in the lines of their palms.

Certainly Marylebone jail was not the sort of place you would expect to encounter a young man of Harry Fogg's caliber. His clothing, speech, and manners all marked him as well-bred and well-to-do. And in fact, if he had told the police who he was, they would surely have let him off with no more than a warning. His father's name was still something of a household word, even though it was nearly two decades since Phileas Fogg had made his celebrated journey around the globe.

But Harry, anxious that no word of his predicament should reach his father's ears, had given the arresting officer a false name: William G. Grace. Actually, the name was real enough, it's just that it belonged to someone else—a noted cricket player who was one of Harry's heroes. And so here he stood, in his stocking feet, on the grimy stone floor of the corridor, while the warder unlocked the barred door of the cell. Harry had been advised to leave all his valuables, including his hat, waistcoat, and shoes, at the desk; if he didn't, the clerk said, they'd only be stolen by the other prisoners. And judging from the predatory looks cast at him by the men inside the cell, Harry suspected it was good advice.

Though it was barely midmorning, the jail was already stifling, and the stench of vomit and seldom-washed bodies nearly gagged Harry. Under his breath he cursed the drayman who, by carelessly pulling out in front of him, had caused the accident that brought him here. To be fair, though, it wasn't the poor fellow's fault; chances were, neither he nor his horse had ever encountered a steam-driven car before, or any sort of vehicle that moved faster than ten miles an hour—except a train, of course, and trains could be trusted not to come roaring down High Street at you.

No, Harry had to admit it was his own recklessness that had, as it so often did, landed him in hot water—or rather in warm beer, for that was what had spewed from the kegs when his motorcar struck the drayman's wagon. Well, perhaps Johnny Shaugnessey was partly to blame, for not designing better brakes. Then again, Johnny
had
warned him that the car still needed work and Harry, impatient to try it out, had scoffed at him for being too cautious.

When the cell door clanged open, the hungover prisoners grimaced and groaned and clapped their hands to their heads. “Right, then!” shouted the warder, causing more grimaces and groans. “Them as was haled in for being drunk, if you've somebody to pay your fine, you're free to go. I expect I'll see most of you again next Saturday.” Those who had forgiving wives filed out of the cell, along with some who had had the sense to conceal a few coins in some private part of their person. As a scrawny fellow with bad teeth tried to exit, the warder held out his truncheon to stop him. “Not you, Swingle.”

“But I was drunk as a piper, Your Honor,” the man protested.

“You was also carrying a pocketful of jewelry. Get back in there, now.” The warder glanced at Harry and jerked his head toward the doorway. “You too.”

Harry stepped inside and the door closed behind him with a sound like the crack of doom. He swallowed hard and looked around at the half-dozen criminals who remained. To a man they stared back at him. Some seemed mainly curious, some suspicious, others glared at him with outright hostility. One burly man's gaze was difficult to read, for he had but a single eye; the other had been gouged out, possibly as recently as the night before.

Harry scratched his head—could the vermin that infested these places have found him already?—and cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “when do they serve breakfast around here?”