The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson Read online

  It was crucial that children never did anything important, Ms. Wartlebug decided, because children were silly. They laughed, and they imagined, and they played make-believe. Ms. Wartlebug could not allow them to spread such nonsense, so if she couldn’t pin them down, then she would have to stop them from thinking.

  This morning she was doing her best to accomplish just that. Behind her on the slate chalkboard (which was still cracked from when Ms. Croat had disciplined a student for sneezing out of turn) was one word: “Gravitee.” This, of course, is not how “gravity” is spelled, but that was the point.

  Ms. Wartlebug’s gaze roamed the room, her chest swelling with pride. No one even seemed to be paying attention. Elliot, the miscreant who she hoped would one day fall into a large, deep hole, was burning long strands of hair belonging to the sleeping blonde in front of him. He collected the ashes in a little toast box.

  The students, ranging from six to sixteen years old, were utterly useless (she reminded herself for the fifth time that morning).

  Nicolette, a kindergartner in front, raised her hand so high, it hurt her thin, shaking arm. Ms. Wartlebug groaned, “What do you want?”

  “But how does gravity work?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Yeah, but are you sure my feet is full of rocks? They don’t feel full of rocks.”

  The teacher sighed, lurching to Nicolette’s desk. Ms. Wartlebug had a large hump in her back that caused her to bend over at the waist, which meant she was already nose to nose with the girl. “First of all, it’s not ‘feet.’ It’s ‘feets.’You have two of them.”

  “Yes, Ms. Wartlebug. Sorry, Ms. Wartlebug.”

  “And for anyone with half a brain, it’s obvious that your feets are full of rocks.”

  Nicolette looked at the teacher blankly. The girl very much wanted to have at least half a brain, but she just couldn’t understand. Ms. Wartlebug rolled her eyes, slinking back to the board.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to explain it again—”

  But before she could continue, the door burst open. And she knew exactly who it was.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Sit, Mortinson.”

  Walter scurried in, his head hung low. Ms. Wartlebug didn’t bother recording him as tardy. She had already marked him so for the rest of the year.

  Walter Mortinson was odd, and she didn’t trust him.

  “Now, where was I? Oh yes. Let us see if the other children have at least half a brain, shall we? Elliot!”

  The boy quickly blew out the match in his hand, dropping a final ashen hair into his toast box. “Yeah?”

  “Where do rocks belong?”

  Elliot scratched his head, looking out the window. “On the . . . ground?”

  “Exactly. And, Ms. Primpet, where do your feets belong?”

  Walter spun to look at Cordelia. She glanced back at him in a moment of shared truth, before she turned to the teacher and said, “I’m sorry?”

  “Apology not accepted. Now tell me, where do your feets belong?”

  After a second’s pause Cordelia answered, “On the ground.”

  Ms. Wartlebug smiled her peculiarly sharp-toothed grin and shook her hump in glee, turning back to Nicolette. “That’s right! Now, little girl, what does that mean?”

  “My feets is . . . rocks?”

  “Close enough. Gravity is when everything’s filled with rocks. And things that aren’t filled with rocks fly off into space. Now, class, that’s your homework for tonight. Write three essays on things that aren’t filled with rocks. I’ll give you a hint: balloons, birds, and astronauts. You’re welcome.”

  Ms. Wartlebug coughed, hobbling toward her desk. She couldn’t wait to throw the essays into the fire and grade the students on how well each paper burned, but Walter’s voice destroyed her reverie.

  “But that isn’t how gravity works at all! Gravity is the force that pulls us downward. Things with more mass, bigger things, have more—”

  “Shut your trap!” Ms. Wartlebug clapped her hands loudly. “There will be no nonsense, balderdash, or poppycock in my class, or else—”

  An alarm blared on her desk. The students covered their ears in pain.

  “Saved by the bell, Mr. Mortinson. It’s time for show-and-tell. Who wants to bore me first?”

  She saw Walter’s hand shoot up, the only one in the room.

  “Amelia, I’m sure you will.”

  The blonde snorted awake. “Wha’ happened?”

  “Show-and—”

  “Oh!”

  She flung her wiry frame up and tossed her long, luxurious hair over one shoulder.

  “This is my hair. I’ve been growing it since I was born. Sometimes I talk to my hair about its dreams so that it may one day reach them. Right now its dreams is my knees. Thank you.”

  Amelia bowed and strode back to her desk, grinning triumphantly. Nicolette clapped.

  “Well, Amelia, thanks for that rousing speech about your hair. Again. Next up—” Ms. Wartlebug made it a point to scan the room, making brief eye contact with Walter, her sole volunteer, before moving on.

  “Elliot.”

  The miscreant stood. He carried up the toast box full of ashes. Then, in a voice like sludge, he said: “This is the ashes from when I burned off the back of Amelia’s hair and then put ’em in a box.”

  He poured the ashes out, the black specks fluttering to the ground. As soon as Ms. Wartlebug saw Amelia’s horrified reaction, she vowed not to punish Elliot for the mess. The girl gasped, smacking a hand to the bald spot on the back of her head.

  A few more students applauded. Perhaps there was hope for the boy after all.

  “Excellent teamwork, Elliot. Who’s next?”

  Walter raised his hand yet again. Ms. Wartlebug sighed, dreading the inevitable.

  “All right, Mortinson. Get it over with.”

  Walter shakily grabbed the brown paper package at his feet. As he walked up, he looked over his shoulder at Cordelia. However, he pulled his gaze away just in time to avoid tripping over Elliot’s foot, which had snaked into the aisle.

  Walter closed the gap between himself and the front of the room, quivering as he watched the other students watch him. He willed himself not to glance up at the girl as he took a deep breath.

  Ms. Wartlebug shouted, interrupting his concentration, “Now, Mortinson! No funny business this time!”

  He set the package down and pulled gently on the bow. It came undone, falling with the butcher paper around it. Inside was his invention, the one he had worked on all morning.

  It was . . . a rabbit?

  Oh yes, it was a rabbit all right, but it was just the skeleton. Walter had turned it into a windup toy, a crank wedged in the back.

  “This is Ralph.”

  He twisted the crank. No one could say anything, all holding their breath. Rigidly the skeleton creaked to life and hopped along the table. Nicolette shrieked as it reached the edge and made a nosedive for her. Walter cradled Ralph before he hit the floor.

  Then the room exploded with sound. The students were wide awake, squealing:

  “Holy Flasterborn!”

  “Is it dead?”

  “He’s a freak!”

  “MY HAIR!”

  Walter’s eyes darted across their horrified and confused faces. He finally met the eye of the girl in the back. She squelched a small smile as she looked down at Ralph.

  “Enough!” Ms. Wartlebug snatched Walter by the ear and dragged him out.

  “Shut your traps. Mr. Mortinson and I will be taking yet another trip to see the principal.”

  Sideways, Walter watched the crowd of children cheer.

  He sighed. Mother wouldn’t be pleased.

  CHAPTER 5

  •  •  •

  FLASTERBORN THE FANTASTIC

  Tippy Tedesco had been working for Horace Flasterborn for precisely twelve years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, and eighteen hours. She was desperately hoping he wouldn
’t forget their anniversary.

  Tippy had donned her best sports coat, had slicked back her poof of tendrils, and wore the glasses she thought made her nose look only once-broken.

  So far he’d only asked for a cup of hot molasses . . . but the day was young!

  She had reported to him about the Moormouth boy as soon as she had returned. The journey had taken a day in the strange vehicle Flasterborn had built for her. It had many legs that had scuttled with such incredible speed that Tippy’s hair had thrown itself loose from its tight bun, the curls battering her cheeks until her face was puffy and red. But that was perfectly all right with her. Tippy didn’t think such silly things as her hair or her health were as important as getting back to her boss. He seemed to agree, because as soon as she’d burst in that morning, hair standing straight up, he’d first asked her what had taken so long and then had promptly locked himself in his private office.

  Tippy didn’t like calling his room an “office,” however. No, for her it would always be the “Room of Wonders.” Nearly thirteen years ago she had christened it as such, partly because of the many wondrous inventions inhabiting it. She wasn’t sure what they all did, but that alone made them at least twice as wonderful.

  She would sneak in some afternoons (during his third nap of the day) and poke around. The guilt had been overwhelming at first, but she’d decided that anyone else would have done the same. Who would be able to resist peeking in on a living legend, the greatest inventor of all time?

  Tippy didn’t like calling Flasterborn an inventor either, though. Deep down she thought he must be a bit magic. That, of course, she never told him. No, she kept her suspicions to herself, but they were bolstered every time she was brave enough to scavenge the Room of Wonders.

  Her favorite was a curious device shaped like an old perfume bottle that plopped out little bubbles filled with smoke. They radiated every color imaginable (and even some yet unimagined). The bubbles would drift around a bit, not exactly upward, just wandering. Then, suddenly, one would pop, and from the little firework-burst of smoke would waft a smell, either peculiar or lovely.

  Tippy had sat there for the entirety of one naptime about nine years before. She’d watched as the globs had eased out of the pinched gold spout and swum around her head.

  One, she remembered, had been an apple green and had released a smell that had reminded her of a pie her mother baked only on the snowiest days. Another bubble had followed, this one the rosy brown of an earthworm, and it had exploded with the aroma of what was definitely the dirt she used to pound down and throw at her older brother. The last bubble had been metallic, though what shade, she couldn’t decide, and when it had popped, it had made her head swim and her skin flutter. She didn’t know what the smell was, exactly. It had reminded her a bit of burned sugar mixed with . . . something sweaty? Or an animal, perhaps? Whatever it was, she’d been disappointed when it had disappeared.

  Yes, she’d decided, Flasterborn had to be magic.

  That invention was one of many. The room was like a miniature carnival, full of all the most marvelous things, things that only existed in dreams, and yet somehow Flasterborn had brought them to life. It was no wonder he spent all his time in there, Tippy thought. If she could have, she would have too.

  The other reason she called it the Room of Wonders was because that was all anyone ever did about it. They wondered—about how it had come to be, what secrets it held, if they’d ever know for certain what—

  “TIPPY!”

  Her knees practically buckled as the man himself shouted excitedly through the gold device in her ear. She smoothed down her jacket, hair, and nose, then flew to the door and, with a deep inhale of anticipation, pushed it open.

  Inside, the room was brought to life, with little zaps, whirs, and thunks. A twisting maze, built from tiny gold train tracks, snaked through the room. Tippy was so enthralled by the sights that she forgot to duck when the miniature train racing by hit a jump in the track, soared right over her head, and dashed across her freshly flattened hair.

  Tippy quickly smoothed it down as she stuttered to her boss:

  “Y-yes, Mr. Flasterborn?”

  He grinned at her from his seat in the middle of the madness, and she had to stop herself from grinning back. It was particularly difficult, seeing as Flasterborn’s enthusiasm was the most infectious she’d ever seen. His round face was perfectly jolly, his eyes were alight with fire, and his little beard curled whenever his patented ear-to-ear grin appeared. Right now his goatee was doing a full loop-de-loop.

  “I’ve finished my letter to the boy.”

  “You’d like me to send it?”

  “Please.”

  He handed her a sealed envelope, black with gold ink. She was careful not to let his gloved hands meet her sweating ones.

  As she held the letter, she tried not to let her fingers tremble too much—lest they shake away the magic he’d certainly embedded in it.

  She turned to leave just as a little blue bubble popped and filled her nose with the warm smell of salt water and summer.

  “Tippy, wait!”

  Kerthunk, kerthunk, ker—She willed her heart to calm, lest it shake her fingers.

  “Yes . . . sir?”

  “I’ll take another cup of molasses when you get the chance.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Twelve years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, eighteen hours, and ten minutes (give or take), but it felt like the first day.

  She quietly shut the door behind her, locking the magic back in, and went to the little rectangular window in her sparsely decorated but quite nice (if she did say so herself) office.

  Tippy pulled a small black disk from her pocket and brought it to her lips. She blew into it until it inflated into a box with helicopter blades that spun wildly as soon as they popped free. She flicked up a small button pad on the box and punched in the location, then dropped the letter into a slit on its side. Without any more direction, the little box zoomed out the window and disappeared behind a cloud.

  CHAPTER 6

  •  •  •

  MOTHER MORTICIAN

  To see anything in Moormouth was a task. The town was stuffed with smog, like an overburdened teddy bear. The smog forced you to squint past the layers of gray until the equally colorless buildings came into view. This squinting was widely believed to be the reason why even baby Moormouthians had tiny crow’s-feet. There were some things, however, that no one bothered squinting at.

  The Mortinson home was one such place.

  Even the braver children who would scamper toward the outskirts of town knew to avoid the crooked house. They would take the long way around, so that they didn’t have to run into the Mortinsons.

  After all, in Moormouth it was commonly accepted that it was far better to be alive than be adventurous.

  What the few folks who did pass the house saw wasn’t all that impressive. The first thing they noticed was the sign out front:

  THE MORTINSON MORGUE

  Curiously, the sign looked like it had been broken in half, and the bottom piece jaggedly sawed off.

  What the missing piece had said, no one could guess. The sign seemed to tell you all that you needed to know: this place belonged to the Mortinsons, but, unlike most houses, it wasn’t only the living who were welcome.

  The two-story building buckled in the middle, as though the thick thatched roof were attempting to return to the sunburned grass below.

  The house used to be a brilliant blue, but you could hardly guess it from the soured gray it had become, with its chipped, bleached paint.

  The only living greenery was a little vegetable garden lining one wall of the house. In the front yard was the only living brownery: a sprawling leafless tree that had usurped the entire lawn.

  Out back was a thicket of wild bougainvillea that had long since laid claim to an old mechanized carriage, with two metal horses slumbering at the front. The vicious vine grew in and around the vehic
le in such a way that made everyone too afraid to chop it down—just in case it decided to lay claim to them too.

  It might surprise you, but inside the house wasn’t much better than outside.

  There wasn’t even a facade of comfort. The oak floors seemed to curve upward into the pine-paneled walls. The furniture was sparse and unkempt, rotting with the dead grass outside, the flowers in the vase on the dining room table, and the dreams of the home’s inhabitants.

  Hadorah Mortinson, the woman of the house, had considered replacing the old furniture for the sake of the business nearly five years before, but had then thought better of it. As the only mortician in town, she was never lacking for customers. People died whether they wanted to pay you for it or not. Because they never had visitors, there was no one to impress.

  The Mortinson Morgue was practically a coffin—just how Hadorah liked it. That also happened to be a large part of the reason why her son, Walter, dreamed about anything and everything else.

  Hadorah worried that Walter’s dreams were at best foolish and at worst perilous, so she tried her hardest to get him to dream about something a bit more reasonable.

  This concern was only reinforced as she read through the school note for the third time in a row. Walter had managed to hide the note from her for the entire night before, but after twelve years of practice, she’d learned to sniff out a disciplinary letter even when he’d hidden it in his dirty socks. If you happened to know the smells that arise from Walter Mortinson’s dirty socks, you’d be quite impressed.

  But Walter was not impressed. He was too focused on trying to work out what the note said. The night before, he’d cobbled together a monocle that would allow him to look through paper when he shook the monocle’s chain. At least, that was what it was supposed to do. Really, he’d made the light embedded in the monocle too bright, and the first time he’d tested it, it had burned a hole straight through the paper he’d been testing. He never quite got the kinks worked out, something he was terribly frustrated about now, as he sat across from his mother reading the dreadful note.