Nicholas Gannon - The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse

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

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

Title Page

Copyright 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 ISBN 9780008149437 (hardcover) EPub Edition © October 2017 ISBN 9780008149451 Version: 2017-10-23

Dedication To Patrick and Gannon, and Staple Guns and Dump Trucks

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♦

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.