Fennymore and the Brumella (3 page)

CHAPTER 5

In which Fennymore discovers what a worthless crew is and what an orphaned flat feels like

Aunt Elsie's flat smelt just as musty as ever, but it was quiet and weirdly empty. The kitchen clock ticked softly. The fridge hummed. Had it not been for the open door to the kitchen and the yawning emptiness in there, you might have thought nothing had changed, but the wretched remains of the dachshund in tinfoil had disappeared out of the larder and Aunt Elsie had disappeared too.

Herr Muckenthaler sat down on a kitchen chair. Fennymore found it strange to see his teacher here. Herr Muckenthaler didn't seem all that comfortable either and fiddled around with the lapels of his cord jacket.

‘What exactly is a worthless crew?' Fennymore asked into the oppressive silence.

‘Worthless crew? Well,
crew
is a nautical term, of course,' his teacher explained, looking gratefully at him. He was in his element. He explained that a crew means the sailors who sail a ship, but that it can also mean any kind of a crowd or group or team of people. And somehow it is not very complimentary, especially not if you add the word
worthless
to it. Fennymore said nothing, but he was impressed.

‘Right, Fennymore, choose the things you'd like to keep for yourself. Anything valuable and anything you'd like to remember your great-aunt by. The mayor has already earmarked the flat for a family with seven children, the Kobaldinis. Maybe you know them? Fizzy Kobaldini is in your class.'

Fennymore felt dreadfully ashamed about all the bunking off school he did.

‘Sure. She's the one with the freckles,' he said, to show that he did go to school often enough to know Fizzy Kobaldini.

‘Exactly,' said Herr Muckenthaler. ‘Up to now, the Kobaldinis have been living in the supermarket warehouse and they are delighted to have finally got their own place.'

Fennymore had a think. What should he take from Aunt Elsie's flat? He had everything he needed in The Bronx.

He went to the bathroom and got the little sponge that Aunt Elsie had bought specially for him, so that he could have a bath at her place after helping to prepare the salt-baked dachshund. In the bedroom, he opened Aunt Elsie's big wardrobe and was quite dazzled by the gaudy floral patterns on Aunt Elsie's nightdresses. He closed the wardrobe quickly. In the kitchen, he felt under the potatoes that were in a crate behind the stove pipe and pulled out a vinegar-chocolate tin which was, he knew, where Aunt Elsie kept her prize possessions.

So that was that.

Fennymore wedged the chocolate tin under his arm, stuffed the sponge in his pocket and took a last look around the flat. His eye fell on a flowery rain hat hanging on the wardrobe door. It was quite new. He made a snap decision. He took off his own battered newspaper hat, put it on top of the wardrobe and hung Aunt Elsie's rain hat around his neck instead.

It was raining as Fennymore stepped out onto the street with Herr Muckenthaler. He put Aunt Elsie's rain hat on his head. Herr Muckenthaler also pulled on his own rain hat, one with a corduroy pattern.

‘Shall I drive you home?' he asked.

‘No thanks,' Fennymore answered. ‘I've got my horse.'

Herr Muckenthaler gave him an astonished look, but then he shook his head and said, ‘Well, Fennymore, as perhaps you know, the summer holidays have started. That means no school for six weeks. Though in your case that's hardly … well, anyway, I'd be delighted to see you in my class at the beginning of the next school year. Regularly. It would be good for you to spend time with other children.' Herr Muckenthaler sounded kind but firm. ‘And if you feel lonely over the next few weeks and would like someone to talk to, you are very welcome to come and see me. This is my address.'

With these words he handed Fennymore a piece of paper, which Fennymore quickly stuck in his pocket along with the sponge, so his teacher wouldn't see that he couldn't read it. ‘Thank you,' he said.

Herr Muckenthaler shook Fennymore's hand, looked at him with a concerned expression, gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and said, ‘Well then, Fennymore. You know, you really shouldn't take what Frau Plüsch said to heart. The Kobaldinis are not a worthless crew. They're just a family like any other.'

With that, he set off.

Now Fennymore was all alone. He looked up, through the raindrops, at the front of the house where Aunt Elsie had lived. The windows of her flat were dark. The pensioners had left the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour and the empty street looked miserable. Fennymore pulled his flowery rain hat down over his face and shuffled his way to the other side of the street to get Monbijou. All he wanted to do now was to go home and eat a banana-split in The Bronx and reflect quietly on what had happened that Sunday.

But Monbijou wasn't there. There wasn't a sign of a sky-blue bicycle anywhere. Fennymore looked up and down both sides of the street. Not so much as a glimpse of a carrier or a glimmer of sky blue was to be seen. Perhaps Monbijou had gone home on his own?

It came back to Fennymore that he had let go of his bike at just the same moment as the silvery grey gentleman had materialised in Aunt Elsie's doorway. If that weird fellow brought on my hiccups, he thought, Monbijou could easily have cycled off from sheer shock. And so he set off on the path to The Bronx.

CHAPTER 6

In which Fennymore walks alone through the dark grey night

Fennymore's head was in turmoil. Lost in thought, he dawdled along past the twenty-four rain-hat shops and the butcher's shop. The rain was easing off and dusk was falling.

A rustling in his jacket pocket reminded Fennymore about the bag of honey cookies that Frau Plüsch had given him to take home. Fennymore pulled the bag out of his pocket and took out one of the golden brown biscuits. As soon as he bit into it, the sweet taste of honey gave him renewed strength.

By now he'd walked a good way along the street and could make out the stand of apple trees behind which was the path to The Bronx. The trees stretched their branches up against the now greyish sky.

In the area where Fennymore lived, it never got really pitch dark. The night was more a kind of dark grey. Fennymore knew why, because it was in the Dictionary of Inventions.

The Dictionary of Inventions was an old notebook in which Fennymore's parents noted their ideas for new inventions, but for Fennymore it had become, over time, a kind of source of enlightenment. In the past, when his mother and father had lived with him in The Bronx, they had often read bits out of it as a bedtime story, and that was how come Fennymore knew a lot of stuff, even though he seldom went to school. He knew the definitions given in the Dictionary of Inventions off by heart. Sometimes he rehearsed them quietly to himself. And so it was that he walked through the dark grey night, whispering:

Dark grey night, The: The night in this area is dark grey, not to be confused with the usual pitch-dark night. The large number (countless) of stars above us mixes in a particular way with the residual damp of the raindrops that can be detected at night on the foliage and grass. The interplay of starlight and raindrops produces a refraction of light that is hardly perceptible to the naked eye but that, through a multiplication effect, leads to the phenomenon of the dark grey night.

Fennymore wasn't afraid as he walked home to The Bronx all alone. He was lost in thoughts about his parents' Dictionary of Inventions and took no notice of where he was going. And so he had no notion that two ice-green-grey eyes were watching him out of the apple trees. Nor did he notice that a very tall thin gentleman in a morning coat was hiding among the branches, frantically trying, as Fennymore approached, to hide the bright light at the tip of his long wand with a couple of leaves. So deep in thought was Fennymore that he didn't even hear the creaking of the boughs, the sudden bump and the soft ‘Ouch' as the silvery grey gentleman fell out of the tree and landed on the seat of his pants. It was only when a brightly shining light came shooting skywards, fizzing, out of the apple trees that Fennymore was briefly startled. Though, after all the extraordinary events of that Sunday, a fizzing light coming shooting out of an apple tree didn't make all that much of an impression on Fennymore. He retreated immediately into his thoughts again and didn't hear the muffled grumbling and the scurrilous swearing that were pouring out of the thickly grown grass under the apple trees.

Fennymore turned onto the laneway lined with wild flowers and soon came to the dirt track that brought him right up to his own front door. The Bronx was etched blackly against the sky.
All dark
, Fennymore noted sadly and gave a sigh. He'd been hoping that Monbijou would be home before him, would have put on the light and would be quietly eating his hay in the kitchen or having a snooze in the living room.

Fennymore entered the house. He'd only been gone since midday, but it felt as if he'd been away for an eternity, so much had changed in his life in the meantime.

The kitchen door was ajar. Fennymore pushed it open with his foot and put the vinegar-chocolate tin and Aunt Elsie's brightly patterned rain hat on the big well-polished kitchen table. The pile of hay was just as high as it had been when he'd left with Monbijou at eleven minutes past three.

Nothing had changed in the living room either. The herbs were growing away quietly to themselves. Fennymore's father's big leather sofa stood like a grand monument, casting a shadow, in the middle of the room. The little table that Fennymore had cleared especially for Aunt Elsie was bare. Spick and span and no sign of the remains of salt-baked dachshund that would usually be on it at this time on a Sunday evening. All that was on it were the gold-rimmed china plates, the silver cutlery and the elderflower-tea cups that Fennymore had taken out of the kitchen cupboard that morning. Everything looked exactly as it had when Fennymore had left in the afternoon. Except that Fennymore's sky-blue and normally very trusty steed was nowhere to be seen.

Tired and at a loss, Fennymore slumped onto the sofa, covered himself with the multicoloured blanket that was draped over it and fell asleep.

CHAPTER 7

In which Fizzy Kobaldini turns up in The Bronx, Fennymore does a lot of talking and a decision gets made

It was bright when Fennymore woke up. He scratched his head sleepily. What day was it? Ah, yes, Monday, tummy-ache day. But Fennymore didn't have tummy ache. Nor did he feel like celery. He'd much prefer one of Frau Plüsch's honey cookies, but unfortunately he'd polished those off the previous evening.

He got up from the sofa, pulled on his crumpled jeans and pressed his left ear against his head. He did that every morning, in the hope that it would eventually come to cling to his head like a limpet to a rock. Fennymore had picked up this tip from watching the old ladies in the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour. They were always hitting themselves under the chin with the backs of their hands. Aunt Elsie had explained that they believed that helped to get rid of their double chins.

After he had pressed his ear against his head and it had immediately sprung back into its original position, Fennymore looked up. Fizzy Kobaldini was standing in the doorway.

That it was Fizzy Kobaldini was beyond doubt. A shaggy ponytail, a face full of freckles and wearing washed-out, mousy brown boys' clothes. All the Kobaldini children wore hand-me-downs from Marlon, the eldest, and since Fizzy was the youngest of seven, they looked pretty worn by the time they got to her. She was wearing Fennymore's old rain hat. He recognised it by the picture of the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour, which was part of an ad for the new deluxe coffee sundae.

Fennymore went red to the very tip of his sticky-out ear. How long had she been watching him?

‘Hey, what do you think you're doing here?' The question came tumbling out all by itself. ‘And what are you looking at?' Fennymore sounded downright unfriendly.

Fizzy gaped at him in surprise.

‘Well, I heard what happened,' she said grandly, ‘and I thought you might be feeling sad and lonely. Besides, it's the summer holidays, so I can do what I like.'

Sad? Lonely? Him?

He was still half-asleep. The events of yesterday were pretty hazy. But as his head cleared, it all started to come back to him. He didn't want Fizzy to know how he was really feeling, so he did his best to give her a cheery grin.

‘Ah, I'm fine,' he said, but it didn't sound very convincing. Fennymore slumped back sheepishly onto the sofa.

‘Anyway, I had another reason for coming,' Fizzy said, sinking down beside him on the sofa. ‘You've probably heard that we're living in your great-aunt's flat now.'

He certainly had. Fennymore felt like saying something rude, but then he thought better of it. It wasn't Fizzy's fault that Aunt Elsie's flat had been passed along so quickly.

Fizzy gave him a serious look. ‘I think it's all a bit odd. But I'm the only one. My parents and my brothers are all too busy being thrilled that we don't have to live in the supermarket warehouse any longer.'

Fizzy was careful not to mention that they were also busy laughing at Marlon, who was prancing around the living room in one of Aunt Elsie's flowery nighties, with a pillow stuffed up it, calling, ‘Where's my yummy dachshund?'

‘How come we got a flat all of a sudden, like lightning, within hours of your aunt's death, when my parents have been queuing up every Monday morning at half past six outside the social-housing office, begging to move out of the supermarket warehouse. Every time, they were told, “The ways of bureaucracy are slow and tortuous” or “The flats have been allocated to upright citizens who pay their way”. And now all of a sudden we have a flat, but we had to promise the mayor that we would immediately hand up any documents we might find there. In my book, that stinks to high heaven.'

Fennymore found this hard to listen to, and he had absolutely no interest in hearing what stank to high heaven in Fizzy's life. But Fizzy didn't appear to notice his lack of interest.

‘Look, there's even been something about it in the paper.' She swept the rain hat off her head and spread it out. ‘Sorry, I always read the rain hats. We have no books at home. Look, here.'

She stabbed at the paper with her grubby little index finger. Fennymore gave the letters, which sat like ants on the paper, an embarrassed look.

‘So what?' he said, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible. How could there be anything important in this newspaper?

Fizzy rolled her eyes. ‘Fennymore, can you by any chance not read?'

Fennymore couldn't read properly, but since Fizzy's question didn't really sound like a question, he decided not to answer it.

Fizzy read aloud, in a clear but disgusted tone: ‘“And so the mayor, Dr Rufus Hourgood, has announced that socially deprived families are to receive no further assistance, with immediate effect.” That shows how very odd it is that we have been allowed to move into your great-aunt's flat. But I'm sorry.' Fizzy interrupted herself and put a hand on his arm. ‘I didn't let you say anything at all, I just prattled on myself. That's the way you have to be in my house. Otherwise you'd never get a word in edgeways.'

So then Fizzy stopped talking and Fennymore told her everything that had gone on in the last twenty-four hours. It all came bursting out of him – he didn't know why. Normally Fennymore was not such a chatterbox, but then he'd never had anyone to talk to, or at least nobody of his own age.

Fizzy listened in silence, her eyes getting wider and wider with every word. When Fennymore had finished, she frowned.

‘Monbijou has disappeared, you say. Your sky-blue bicycle. So what are you waiting for? Let's go!' she cried adventurously.

Fennymore felt overwhelmed. ‘Why? What? Where to?' he asked.

‘Where to is a good question,' Fizzy replied. ‘But what do you mean, “Why”? Don't you want to find Monbijou?'

That tone of voice again that didn't sound like a question.

‘Maybe this weird silvery guy you saw had something to do with his disappearance. In any case, we have to find your bike. That's as clear as day,' Fizzy said briskly.

Fennymore suddenly regretted having trusted her with so much information. She was going to wreak havoc on his life. He longed for a normal Monday in a normal week. But this week was not going to be normal. That much he knew.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘But Monbijou could be a long way off by now. He can go very fast when he wants to. And what will your parents say if you disappear just like that?'

‘Oh,' said Fizzy, rubbing her hands clean on her trousers, ‘they'll never notice. There are so many of us, they lose count. Titus spent two days and nights locked in the supermarket's bean store before they missed him. He farted for three weeks after. Anyway, they're so busy being delighted about the new flat that they have no interest in anything else. Except for Marlon, who –'

Fizzy stopped herself suddenly. She'd almost let it slip that they were all busy laughing at Marlon prancing about in Aunt Elsie's flowery nighties, calling, ‘Where is my yummy dachshund?'

Fennymore went into the kitchen and packed four celery stalks, two lots of liver pâté and three bananas into his blue gym-bag as provisions for the journey. Then he grabbed a handful of hay and he went back to Fizzy in the living room. She stared in astonishment at the hay.

‘Monbijou will be hungry when we find him,' he explained and went a bit red.

Fizzy looked at him as if he had announced that vinegar chocolates were his staple diet. ‘Monbijou is a bicycle,' she said. ‘How can a bicycle eat hay?'

‘It's just that he thinks he's a horse. I have no idea why.'

Fennymore really didn't know. As far back as he could remember, Monbijou had been his horse.