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The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse
Nicholas Gannon
Archer B. Hemsley and friends are back and yearning for adventure in this second beautifully told, stunningly-illustrated story from author-illustrator Nicholas Gannon.After two years, Archer B. Helmsley’s famous explorer grandparents are finally coming home. They had been missing – abandoned on an iceberg – and Archer and his best friends, Adélaïde L. Belmont and Oliver Grub led an adventurous mission to rescue them.Archer is overjoyed by his grandparents’ return. However, he seems to be the only one . . . Rumours begin to surface that Archer’s grandparents weren’t abandoned after all. People are claiming that they made it all up. Well, Archer knows those rumours are false, and with the help of his best friends and new neighbour, Kana, he is going to prove it. Off the foursome set, into a snowstorm and beyond, to restore his grandparents’ reputation.
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
THE DOLDRUMS AND THE HELMSLEY CURSE. Text and illustrations copyright © 2017 by Nicholas Gannon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
ISBN 9780008149437 (hardcover)
EPub Edition © October 2017 ISBN 9780008149451
Version: 2017-10-23
To Patrick and Gannon,
and Staple Guns and Dump Trucks
CONTENTS
Cover (#uee9f9353-3810-5a6e-91e9-514297d3dc67)
Title Page (#ub9c42a57-9390-5311-9116-eb20cf407a5f)
Copyright (#u3bd6a2da-568c-54f3-b9ee-18b96464d939)
Dedication (#u47890994-52be-5785-8181-ab4c437e09a6)
PROLOGUE: Snowflakes and Rumors
PART ONE: AN ICEBERG IN ROSEWOOD
CHAPTER ONE: Raven Wood
CHAPTER TWO: An Odd Farewell
CHAPTER THREE: Years of Wonder
CHAPTER FOUR: The Center of a Maze
CHAPTER FIVE: The Greenhorn and His Father
CHAPTER SIX: Bite by Bite and Piece by Piece
PART TWO: JUST AND UNJUST DESSERTS
CHAPTER SEVEN: Murder Is Kind of Serious
CHAPTER EIGHT: Crooked Eustace Mullfort
CHAPTER NINE: Concerning Glubs and Misras
CHAPTER TEN: Over the Garden Wall
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Fearing Disappearing
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Budding Botanist
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Good King Oliver
PART THREE: THE STORM
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Helmsley House Disappears
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Into a Poisonous Dream
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A Long Journey Home
About the Author
Credits
About the Publisher
♦ SNOWFLAKES AND RUMORS (#ud0e1fc92-607b-5cde-bad6-245e1f65b69a) ♦
The city of Rosewood was humming with rumors. They swirled every which way, across snowy rooftops and down narrow streets.
“How is it possible? It’s been two years!”
They were exchanged in shops along Howling Bloom Street and slurped in Belmont Café.
“Are you saying you think we’ve been duped?”
“What would they have eaten?”
They were laughed about in student rooms at the Willow Academy and gulped in handfuls at DuttonLick’s sweetshop.
“Weren’t there penguins on the iceberg?”
“You think they survived by eating penguins?”
It was a blizzard of rumors. They piled as high as the snow. There were hundreds of answers to one single question:
ROSEWOOD CHRONICLE
HOW DID RALPH AND RACHEL HELMSLEY
SURVIVE STRANDED ATOP AN ICEBERG?
Ralph and Rachel Helmsley were two of the city’s most famed residents—explorers, once presumed dead, soon to return to their tall, skinny house on crooked, narrow Willow Street. And there wasn’t a single person anticipating the explorers’ return home more than their grandson, Archer B. Helmsley.
“Archer’s dangerous. He set tigers loose in a museum just to see if he could outrun them!”
“I heard he can make acorns explode simply by looking at them.”
“No, that’s impossible. But he can turn a flamingo into a glass of pink lemonade when he’s thirsty.”
In truth, Archer couldn’t make acorns explode or turn a flamingo into a glass of pink lemonade. But with the help of two friends and a life raft, Archer had outrun a pack of tigers. It had happened two months ago, during a botched rescue attempt to find his grandparents—who’d been missing from Archer’s life since he was a mere two days old. As a result, for the past two months Archer had been living at Raven Wood Boarding School. His parents had insisted it was for his own good. And to make matters worse, just before he’d boarded the train north, Archer had discovered his grandparents were not only very much still alive—they were also finally coming home.
So Archer had missed the first rumor spread through Rosewood and the first snowflake fall on Willow Street. And he’d missed the countless others that followed. It had been a particularly cold start to winter—the kind of cold where if you wrinkled your nose, it could remain wrinkled forever. The whole of Rosewood had become a white sea, and the snow only got deeper with each passing day.
♦ CLANKING RADIATORS♦
On North Willow Street, in the cellar of house number 376, a boiler was hard at work, forcing steam into pipes that traveled up four stories to a top-floor bedroom, where a radiator was hissing and clanking and Adélaïde Belmont sat at her desk, writing a letter.
… I haven’t seen your grandparents yet.
But everyone in Rosewood is talking about them…
Adélaïde paused and glanced over her shoulder. Her friend and neighbor Oliver Glub stood a few feet from her desk.
“I might be able to sled over to your bedroom soon,” he said, his face pressed to her balcony window.
Adélaïde joined him, both watching as snowflakes piled the secret Willow Street gardens high.
“I’ve never seen so much snow,” Adélaïde said. “Those garden walls are seven feet tall, but I almost can’t tell where one garden ends and the other begins.”
Oliver lived diagonally across those snowy gardens. Next door to him was Helmsley House. Archer’s house. But Archer’s bedroom was dark. And had been ever since the tiger incident.
“Do you think he knows what they’re saying about his grandparents?” Oliver asked.
“I can’t tell,” Adélaïde replied, returning to her desk. “He’s never written about it. And even if we were allowed to tell him, I wouldn’t know which rumor to begin with.”
Oliver didn’t know either. There were new rumors every day. And they were getting worse.
Adélaïde finished her letter, stuffed it into an envelope alongside Oliver’s, and said, “I’m ready.”
♦ THROW CARES AWAY ♦
At the front door, they pulled on their coats and wrapped their scarves. Adélaïde wedged a second scarf into her boot to fill the gap around her wooden leg. They trudged down the front steps and forged the sidewalk snow trenches. The sun was gone and the stars were out and the lampposts lit their way.
“If I didn’t know any better,” Oliver said, helping Adélaïde over a snowbank, “I’d think we actually made it to Antarctica.”
On the corner, they passed a group of carolers.
Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells
All seem to say, “Throw cares away.”
Christmas is here, bringing good cheer.
They turned onto Howling Bloom Street—a winding lane lined with small shops, including a corner café that belonged to Adélaïde’s father. Bundled store owners stood high atop ladders, decking their windows with lights and garlands and festive displays while shoppers gathered to watch.
“Mind your heads!” Mr. Bray of Bray and Ink shouted as Oliver and Adélaïde dashed beneath his ladder. “That’s bad luck!”
When they reached Belmont Café, their faces were red and stiff, but inside, it was crowded and warm, with steaming cups of coffee all around. Adélaïde scanned the overflowing bar. The barman caught her eye and shouted, “TWO HOT CHOCOLATES, ADIE?” Adélaïde nodded and led Oliver through the buzzing café to a table in the corner. Oliver unwrapped his scarf and tilted his head. Adélaïde did the same. A newspaper had been left on the table.
ROSEWOOD CHRONICLE
ICEBERG HOAX!
Another day, another rumor. Rosewood is perfectly drunk with them. And it’s time you all stop drinking. But before you do, we ask that you stretch out your tankards one last time and allow us to refill them. We at the Chronicle have been informed that Ralph and Rachel Helmsley orchestrated their own disappearance. That’s right, the iceberg was nothing more than a hoax!
Where does this information come from? A man whose name, while not as famous as Helmsley’s, might be familiar to some: Herbert P. Birthwhistle—the sitting president of the Society.
“We’re still gathering information,” President Birthwhistle said via telephone from the Scotland Society. “But I can say without hesitation that the iceberg was no accident. We know the Helmsleys got onto an iceberg and that after an exhaustive search, the Helmsleys could not be found. We believe the Helmsleys did not want to be found.”
For those unfamiliar, the Society is an organization of explorers and naturalists headquartered in Barrow’s Bay.
“I hate to speak ill of a fellow explorer,” President Birthwhistle elaborated, “so I will not go into the details, but while president, Ralph Helmsley had made increasingly bizarre decisions. Many of our members suspected the aging explorers had lost their minds. Many believed they were out to destroy our Society. An effort was taken up to unseat Ralph. When faced with this disgrace, the Helmsleys vanished.
“Vanishing in Antarctica has made legends of already-great explorers. I suspect the Helmsleys desired to join their numbers.
“I’m not sure how they survived. I’m not sure why they’re suddenly coming home. But they are. Society members have been alerted. And I felt it my duty to extend a similar warning to the citizens of Rosewood. It’s not with a light heart that I say the Helmsleys are a danger to everyone.”
“This is bad,” Adélaïde said, tearing the article from the paper as her father wove through the crowded café. He set two hot chocolates before them, and they scooped them up to warm their hands.
“It’s good to see you again, Olrich,” Mr. Belmont said.
“His name is Oliver,” Adélaïde replied, grinning.
“That’s nice.”
A rush of cold air shot through the café as a short woman in a flowery coat dashed inside.
“Cold!” the woman cried, slamming the door behind her. “So terribly cold! So terribly cold indeed! Never in my life, never, not once have I experienced a winter so cold! It truly must be a curse! Yes, it’s the Helmsley Curse!”
Many in the café echoed, “The Helmsley Curse!” The Rosewood Chronicle had coined that phrase to explain why the city was plunging into the harshest winter any of its residents could remember.
“The closer the Helmsleys get, the colder it gets,” someone grumbled. “They’re bringing their iceberg home.”
“They should lock down the port. We shouldn’t let them in.”
The woman in the flowery coat bobbed her head in agreement and squeezed in at the bar. “A quadruple! Make it a quadruple! And make it hot!”
“The cold hasn’t been a curse for business,” Mr. Belmont mumbled, and returned to the bar.
