The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson Read online

  There’s nothing more curious than a woman stuck in a perpetual potato sack race of one.

  The man standing across from her on the hole-strewn lawn seemed to agree. Officer Culpepper remained at Hadorah’s house only because he felt so sorry for her. None of the other cops had been brave enough to speak to the old widow. His antsiness was evident in the clenching of his jaw and the way his fingers twitched, a stress habit he thought he’d cured ages before with the help of a lotion his mother had made from sour grapes and mushroom dew.

  Alas, no stress was greater than that of a missing not-quite-teenage son, and it was Officer Culpepper’s job to deal with it before his patience wore too thin. He would have to find some disagreeable grapes and wet mushrooms later to keep the twitch in check.

  “I’m not quite sure what you want us to do, Ms. Mortinson.”

  “He’s a child. He . . .”

  “He’s nearly thirteen. You know how those monsters are.”

  Officer Culpepper chuckled; Hadorah did not. Officer Culpepper stopped to write a quick reminder in his journal, accompanied by a doodle of Hadorah’s scrunchy face: “Do not make fun of losing a child when the parent is very frowny.” He continued, trying to make his voice sound gruff and policelike.

  “Give it some time. Could just be out with his friends—I wouldn’t even say he was really missing until tomorrow.”

  He hoped this would be a helpful point. Then again, he didn’t have any missing sons. The woman balled her fists yet again.

  “If he isn’t missing, then where is he?”

  Instead of answering, Officer Culpepper struggled with his twitching fingers to write another reminder note: “Find the biggest mushroom in town.” Officer Culpepper was rather proud of his happy mushroom doodle and nearly forgot all about Hadorah, who was already tromping back into her house.

  Job well done, he thought.

  CHAPTER 13

  •  •  •

  WHERE WALTER WAS

  Rows of bare trees caged Walter and Cordelia into a one-way road. The mist was so dense, it sank below the hearse, only for its silky tendrils to be kicked back up by the wheels, toward the rising sun. Sharp-fingered branches twisted down as if to grab the car right into the air.

  The hearse ambled forward, seemingly floating along the empty landscape.

  Walter craned forward in his seat, nose nearly touching the steering wheel. He tried his very best not to look at Cordelia again. Walter had been looking at Cordelia approximately once every three minutes—which is far too many times to look at someone who hasn’t spoken to you in three hours. The last words Cordelia had said to Walter still swam in his head: “Could you move your arm, please?”

  He had moved his arm—too fast, incidentally. He’d accidentally knocked the car into reverse, which had been a sticky bit of a situation.

  Cordelia hadn’t talked after that.

  Walter hoped she wasn’t having a bad time. He was turning to look at her again—to check if she looked like she was having a bad time—when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to do that.

  Walter then tried so hard to focus that he hopped right out of his seat when the girl (you know, the one he definitely wasn’t thinking about) spoke for the second time in three hours.

  “Where are we?”

  Walter scrambled to regain his composure; he certainly didn’t want to look unobservant. “Huh?”

  “Where. Are. We?”

  Walter dug through his bag to grab the map. He whipped up just in time to avoid slamming into a blackened trunk.

  “We are . . . uh . . .”

  He stared at the map, knowing every inch but still not clear where he actually was on it. He considered the bright red line he’d been trying to follow. It was more than five hundred miles long. He drew his finger along it aimlessly.

  “Somewhere along here.”

  Cordelia sighed. Sighing was Cordelia’s specialty. She had perfected it in school (when Ms. Wartlebug rambled on about how superior ladybugs were to children), at home (when her mother would chastise her for daring to do anything fun), and even at the grocery store (when curious children and their less forgivable mothers would point at her eye patch and whisper).

  After a particularly good sigh, Cordelia returned to the journal that had claimed her nose since the beginning of the journey. Walter couldn’t help but peek over. He was intrigued by what he saw—a mess of mysterious scribbles.

  If you were to ask Walter, he’d say that there’s nearly nothing more intriguing than a mysterious scribble.

  He turned his head this way and that, trying to decipher the scribbles, but was only able to make out a doodle of Dr. Automaton before the book snapped shut.

  Walter was so immersed in the mystery, he didn’t notice Cordelia’s second specialty—a one-eyed glare.

  “So why are you so interested in Dr. Automaton, then?” Walter asked.

  “None of your business. Just drive.”

  “I only wanted—”

  “WALTER!”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  He leaned away from the screaming girl, snapping his head back to the road. That’s when he saw the swarm of butterflies flittering past. They had been disturbed from their place inside a hollowed tree by the bright headlights, and they’d raced out as one and now blocked the hearse’s path.

  Walter didn’t mind dead things so much anymore, but he desperately hated making them that way. Why, he’d walk a good twenty feet out of the way just to avoid tromping on a trail of ants.

  Walter was thinking this as the car continued to careen down the road straight toward the swarm.

  He promptly slammed into it.

  Walter’s scream and hundreds of tiny splotches followed.

  • • •

  Cordelia had never seen a dead butterfly before, let alone a gazillion of them, and certainly hoped not to repeat the experience. She and Walter stared at the unmoving insects (and some smushed remains) littering the windshield and ground. They were as bright and patterned as quilt squares.

  “Do we just drive over them?” Cordelia asked.

  “No. They should be given a funeral.”

  Walter sounded so professional that Cordelia didn’t think to question this.

  “So . . . what do we do?” she wondered.

  “I could bury them,” he replied.

  This wasn’t an ideal situation for her—it would take too long—but at least it would make the dead things less visible. Cordelia didn’t care for dead things. “How long will it take?”

  Walter scratched his head. “With or without the proper tools?”

  “Do you have the proper tools?”

  Cordelia’s hopefulness was dashed as Walter inspected the empty forest. “I doubt it, and it would take an awfully long time to build so many tiny coffins.”

  Cordelia allowed herself an annoyed sigh. “Can’t we just leave them here?”

  “I think that’s probably rude, after killing them.”

  A staring contest ensued, but Walter was doubly as equipped as Cordelia. She sighed again. “Fine.”

  • • •

  Walter sat perched at the wheel. He whistled as he drove, a little lullaby on a loop that Cordelia was quickly growing tired of. It was a simple melody that sounded either very old or very made up.

  Trying to block the boy out, Cordelia had condensed into a ball in her seat. She was staring behind her, into the back chamber of the hearse. There, in the back, was a large stuffed body bag, inside of which hundreds of dead butterflies shook with every bump in the road.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about evil butterfly zombies wrapping her in their wings, like a terrified human burrito—when Walter’s chipper voice broke Cordelia from her horrible daymare.

  “Fortuitous, if you think about it.”

  Cordelia was glad to be distracted. “What is?”

  “That if someone needed to transport dead things, we’re particularly well equipped.”

  Walter pro
udly tapped the dashboard, where a REST IN PEACE! sign popped out. He pushed it back in, continuing to hum.

  Cordelia suddenly wondered if this trip was a very, very bad idea. At least, she thought, it couldn’t get worse.

  One should never dare think such things.

  Moments later Walter hit a large bump in the road.

  The ensuing events occurred practically in slow motion. Cordelia saw them before they transpired, but couldn’t react fast enough.

  The car hit a bump, and a lone loose butterfly jolted up and managed to glide, caught on a wave of wind, straight into Cordelia’s gaping mouth.

  Cordelia tasted, for the first and last time, a postmortem butterfly.

  She screamed and did what any reasonable lady might do.

  Cordelia spat that butterfly right out of the car.

  There was a silent pause as Cordelia and Walter took in the moment; then Walter spoke.

  “That’s probably rude too.”

  CHAPTER 13 1/2

  •  •  •

  THE LITTLE BLUE TOWN

  Elverpool was the kind of bayside town where people forgot both their responsibilities and the importance of wearing shoes.

  In this strange society, the inhabitants wore fish scales pressed into their skin as a form of tight-fitting clothing, and they strode barefoot down the muddy streets, like fish with nowhere particular to be. They wore lures in their ears, starfish in their hair, and fins on their nails.

  Nearly every Elverpudlian had stringy green hair, dyed from the algae, and cracked, scaly skin, from the sea salt that coated them. Their eyes were extraordinarily round and sat quite far apart. Their noses were thin and stuck against their faces, so flat that most could hardly detect the fishy odor that overwhelmed the town.

  Men and women alike had sharp, high cheekbones that sloped into thin mouths, with teeth that had become smoothed from nibbling on bumpy coral.

  Elverpudlians were usually shorter than Moormouthians, with squat limbs and squatter fingers and toes that wiggled out of their hands and feet, forming flippers.

  Elverpudlians were very good swimmers, but terrible runners. This hardly mattered. Elverpudlians rarely ever had a reason to run.

  They were perfectly tranquil, as is every person unburdened by too much thought. What worries are there to worry about if you’d rather not think?

  Those too old to flop into the water and find tasty coral nibblings sat on the pier that encircled the entirety of the town, save for the single road leading in and out.

  Right in the middle of town, between Ye Olde Worme Shoppe and the Sand Castle Realty office, was the kind of place you’d remember.

  Sturgeon’s Rowhouse Gill was just too fishy to forget. First there was the décor (which was a bit sink-or-swim, to be honest).

  The restaurant itself was shaped like a massive treasure chest, with real barnacles, as big as beach balls, sucking at the sides. The restaurant’s sign was wedged into the split of the chest, keeping it forever ajar.

  If you looked closely, you might notice a little silver sturgeon-shaped jewel that almost seemed to weave between the letters as it glinted in the sun.

  Plunged through the top of the building, through a large hole in the roof of the restaurant, was a boatless anchor, seemingly thrust down by an angry god who perhaps had eaten some bad shellfish there once.

  The inside was even more chaotic than the outside. From hooks on the ceiling hung wide fishing nets; the paneled walls were held together by melted sea glass; and the booths were rowboats, stranded all over the main floor.

  A tired but still optimistic Hadorah sat on one side of a rowboat. A life preserver was squeezed around her very pregnant stomach, boasting FISHING FOR TWO!

  Perhaps the most amazing thing was that she had allowed it to be put on her.

  The preserver was soon sullied, when Hadorah was sprayed by a thin rain of soup. She looked up, miffed, to see a man more beautiful than every lure in town.

  Hadorah felt the frustration melt away, much to her annoyance.

  Max’s bright yellow soup was being trod by a small mechanical duck he’d just made. It had forks for feet and spoons for a beak. As it happily flapped in its squiggle around the bowl, it emitted mechanical quacks that sounded nearly like the real thing.

  Max plucked the little duck from the bowl and plopped it smack down into the middle of the slab of salmon sitting in front of her. Hadorah watched for a moment as the duck out of water attempted to continue its swim. Obliging its attempts, she cut a chunk out of the center of the fish and tipped Max’s soup into the basin. It filled quickly, and the duck was swept back into the stream. It swam, quacking once more.

  Max shimmied out of the booth and pecked Hadorah on the head as he trotted off. As soon as he was out of sight, however, Hadorah looked down, and her smile vanished.

  With two dainty fingers she fished out the duck and held it up to her eyes as it struggled.

  Hadorah brought a perfectly polished pinky nail to a tiny screw in the duck’s neck as he squirmed. She gently turned twice.

  The duck suddenly stopped moving, dangling between her fingers. She dropped him back into the soup. He floated lifelessly. Hadorah then took her first bite of fish as she waved down the waitress.

  “Check, please.”

  CHAPTER 14

  •  •  •

  SOMETHING FISHY

  By now Cordelia had nearly forgotten about their earlier mishaps. She was too consumed in the world of the book she was reading.

  Cordelia loved books; she particularly liked the fact that the story had already been written. The ending was entirely unavoidable, which tended to make it easier to swallow; if nothing could have been done differently, then it happened the way it was supposed to. Cordelia always worried about doing things the right way to make sure that nothing bad happened, so this whole “already written ending” thing was a huge relief.

  She was the kind of person who liked to read the ending first, in fact, because that way she knew what she was getting herself into. Books, Cordelia had long decided, were much better than real life. So as long as she sat reading, she was thoroughly distracted and thus pleased.

  Walter was also preoccupied, but not with stories. His eyes flashed between the girl and the road, now only once every five minutes. He congratulated himself. He hoped she didn’t notice.

  She did, in fact, but she certainly didn’t want to let him know that. Instead she turned the page.

  “So . . . ,” Walter started. He hadn’t yet thought far enough into the future to know what else to say. “I really, uh . . . like rabbits. They have wonderfully sharp teeth, don’t they? D-do you like rabbits?”

  He then turned to her with a lopsided grin that she ignored. If there was anything Cordelia hated more than cabbage, raisins in cookies, and cherry-flavored medicine, it was people who talked to you when you were reading.

  Walter’s Adam’s apple bobbed as Cordelia curled further into her seat, away from him.

  “I like cabbage,” he said. He still didn’t know what to talk about. This was not the right thing. “Looks like brain. Feels like brain if you cook it. Doesn’t taste like brain, though.”

  He laughed, hoping Cordelia would as well. She didn’t. He suddenly felt the need to reassure her. “I’ve never tasted brain.”

  He waited for her response. Cordelia turned a page. He took that as a good sign and decided to try his next move, placing one hand in the ashtray between them, hoping to bridge their divide if even by a few inches.

  “I’m going to just leave this here, if that’s okay.”

  She turned another page. Walter continued. “So, do you like—”

  “I’m reading.”

  “Oh! Sorry.”

  That was a cue Walter understood. He turned bright red and rubbed at his neck, muttering to himself in the way he always did when he couldn’t quite figure something out. Cordelia cut in, her glance sharper than her tone.

  “What did you
say?”

  “Uh—I was just asking how it is.”

  There was a pause. Walter waited, breath caught in his throat. Nothing good can come of this.

  She waved him off. “It’s fine.”

  Or perhaps it can. “What’s it about?”

  “A girl.”

  “Oh! That’s nice!”

  “She dies.”

  Then again, perhaps not, Walter realized.

  Eyebrow quirked, Cordelia turned back to her book, glad to have finally shut him up. She quickly read the last page and closed the book with a sigh, then tossed it onto the pile next to her. Just as she snuggled in for a bit of a break—

  “Did she die?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there a funeral?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad. No one deserves to—”

  “Look, Walter. I may have agreed to accompany you, but I never agreed to be your friend. There’s a reason we don’t talk at school.”

  Cordelia waited for a moment to see if he would respond. For the first time all trip, his eyes never left the road.

  Nodding to herself, Cordelia curled away again.

  Then a very frustrating thing happened: her stomach rumbled, quiet but audible. Walter refused to look. She drew her knees up, hoping to dull the sound, but her stomach groused again. He glanced over as she stared out the window. As he looked away again, she shifted—a big mistake. Her tummy roared, and not like roaring wind, or a roaring sea, mind you. No, it was a lion’s roar. Cordelia could no longer keep her face from going bright pink.

  Without looking away from the windshield, Walter veered off the main road, right past the sign reading ELVERPOOL CITY LIMITS.

  Cordelia anxiously looked at the highway in the distance. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m hungry,” Walter replied.

  Cordelia sighed, thanking her luck as she loosened her grip around her legs.

  “I suppose we have time,” she said, “but we have to make it fast.”

  Walter nodded, keeping a small smile off his face. He still wasn’t brave enough to look over, but if he had, he might have seen Cordelia’s sneer slip for just a second.