Alistair Grim's Odditorium (7 page)

I
spent the night in the shop. That’s what Mrs. Pinch called it. The shop.

“You’ll spend the night in the shop,” she said. “There’s a bed in there that Mr. Grim uses when he’s working. That should suffice until we can figure out what
to do with you.” Then she opened the door and said under her breath, “But blind me if I can’t think of a more proper place for you than here.”

The room I entered resembled the others only in its blackness and blue sconce light. It was tiny compared to Mr. Grim’s library, but appeared even tinier because of all the rubbish inside.
There were shelves with oddly shaped bottles and workbenches stacked with books and tinkerer’s tools. And tumbling out from every corner was all manner of scrap metals and strange
mechanicals. At the center of the room was a large worktable piled high with cogs and springs and gears of every sort imaginable.

“Very well, then,” said Mrs. Pinch, pushing me toward the bed. Then she placed a large bowl of gruel on the worktable and handed me a spoon. “Eat your fill and get some rest.
And for goodness’ sake, don’t touch anything. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ll begin work in the morning,” Mrs. Pinch said as she was leaving. “Until then this door will remain locked.” She stepped into the hall, but then turned back
and said: “After all, we wouldn’t want you wandering about in the middle of the night, now, would we?”

I swallowed hard.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, lad,” said Mrs. Pinch. “You’re amongst friends here.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “For everything, that is.”

Mrs. Pinch cracked a smile and closed the door. Then I heard her key clicking in the lock and her footsteps trailing off down the hall.

I looked around for a moment, and upon finding no fairies or glowing samurai staring back at me, quickly gobbled up my gruel and lay down on the bed. I didn’t feel sleepy, but thought both
the gruel and the bed pleasant enough. Indeed, I had just decided that I couldn’t remember a more pleasant place to sleep—or a more pleasant meal, for that matter—when I felt
myself being dragged under.

“I suppose I am sleepy after all,” I yawned.

What must have been a second later, I was out.

My dreams came to me in fits of flickering pictures from the day before. But mixed somewhere in the middle of it all was the girl I’d heard outside the trunk—Cleona was her name. She
sat beside me in a meadow of moonlit buttercups, but for some reason I could not see her.

“Do you have a family?” she asked.

“No, I don’t, miss,” I replied.

“Well, you’re to live with us at the Odditorium, aren’t you? So that makes you family.”

“If you say so, miss,” I said, searching for her amidst the flowers. “But how come I can’t see you, miss?”

“Because you’re not allowed to. But I can see you.”

“I wasn’t allowed to talk to the children in the manor houses, but sometimes we couldn’t help seeing each other.”

“Pshaw,” Cleona said, giggling. “What a silly boy you are, Master Grubb. May I play a trick on you sometime?”

“A trick, miss?”

“I’m only allowed to play tricks on my family.”

“Shall you bring me trouble, miss?”

“A trick well done brings joy to both the trickster and the tricked. Besides, who would want to bring trouble on one’s family?”

“I wouldn’t know, miss.”

“So then, may I play a trick on you sometime?”

“If it brings you joy, miss.”

“Thank you, Master Grubb.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Cleona.”

“You know my name?”

“I heard you talking to Nigel outside the trunk.”

“Well done,” Cleona said, giggling. “A bit of a trickster yourself, are you?”

“Begging your pardon, miss?”

“Go back to sleep now.”

“Miss?”

“Sleep.”

I must have obeyed her. And if I dreamed about anything else that night, I couldn’t remember, for I awoke the next morning with a feeling that I’d just leaped across some great black
chasm.

“I slept after all,” I said, sitting up. But for how long? Long enough, I thought, for I certainly felt rested. And as I gazed around the shop for some sign of morning, it occurred
to me that I hadn’t seen a single window in the Odditorium anywhere.

Just then there came a crackling noise, followed by a sputtering
tick-tick
and a flash of blue light from the center of the worktable. Rising from my bed and drawing closer, I spied a
large red-and-gold-checkered pocket watch quivering amongst the scattered clock parts. I picked it up and opened it.

“What time is it?” the watch asked. Startled, I gasped and let it fall. “Ach!” the watch said, flopping about the table like a fish out of water. Then, with a crackle and
a flash of blue light, the watch sprang upright on its case and shouted:

“Mind yer step, ya neep! If it’s a fight ya want, McClintock’s yer man!”

The watch’s face bore a ring of Roman numerals—I’d learned these years ago by counting the bongs from the clock tower at the center of town—but between the X and the II
there was a pair of smiling, mechanical eyes. The pupils glowed bright blue like the eyes of the samurai, as did the watch’s wide, smiling mouth, and its curved hands hung down at the VIII
and the IV so that the face appeared to be that of a jolly old chap with a large mustache.

“Well?” the watch asked. “You for fighting or gawking, neep?”

“Neither, sir,” I said. “And I don’t mean to stare, but I didn’t expect to meet a talking pocket watch this morning. I apologize for dropping you, sir.”

“Silly bam,” the watch chuckled. “It’d take more than a wee bairn like yerself to rattle ol’ McClintock.”

“McClintock?”

“Aye. Dougal McClintock. Only surviving son of Dougal the Elder, and chief of the Chronometrical Clan McClintock. And who might you be?”

“Why, I’m Grubb, sir.”

“Grubb?”

“Yes, sir. Just Grubb. Spelled like the worm but with a double
b
.”

“Never heard of a Clan Grubb,” the watch said. “Never heard of a grub with a double
b
either. A foreigner ya must be, then. But foreigners are always welcome amongst the
McClintocks. A pleasure to make yer acquaintance, Mr. Grubb.”

“Likewise, Mr. McClintock.”

“Call me Mack, laddie. All me friends do.”

“Very good, then, Mack.”

“Would ya mind picking me up again? Me eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”

I did so, and the watch’s bright blue eyes seemed to study me.

“Hmm,” he said finally. “Yer outsides look all right. Got yerself some trouble on the inside, then, have ya?”

“Trouble, sir?”

“Aye, laddie. This is Mr. Grim’s shop for Odditoria what’s giving him trouble, so that would indicate ya being both Odditoria and trouble, would it not?”

“Well, I must admit I’ve been quite some trouble to Mr. Grim, but I thought the Odditoria was
where
I am, not
what
I am.”

“Ya silly bam,” Mack chuckled. “Odditorium is
where
you are. Odditoria is
what
you are. Ya follow?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”

“Loosely defined, the word
Odditoria
, at once both singular and plural, is used to classify any object living, inanimate, or otherwise what’s believed to possess magical
powers. Thus, Odditori
ummmm
is the place, and Odditori
aaaaa
are those objects
inside
the place. I dunno how much clearer I can make it, laddie.”

“Oh, that’s quite clear now, thank you. However, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mack, but as far as my being Odditoria, I’m afraid there’s nothing magical about
me.”

“Rubbish,” Mack said, hopping into my hand. “Yer here in Mr. Grim’s shop, ain’t ya? And since this is the place for Odditoria what’s giving him trouble,
it’s only logical to conclude that you, too, must be both Odditoria and—tick—tick—”

McClintock crackled and flashed, and then his eyes went black and he stopped ticking.

“You still in there, Mack?” I asked. “Mack?”

I shook him, opened and closed his case, then tapped him gently on the XII on his forehead. This last bit did the trick, and he started ticking again.

“What time is it?” he asked, the blue light returning to his eyes.

“Judging by your hands—er, by your face, I should say—well, I gather the time is twenty minutes past eight o’clock, give or take a bit since last we spoke.”

“Ach, ya don’t understand,” Mack said sadly. “Me time is always twenty past eight. No matter how often Mr. Grim sets me, eventually I stop ticking and me hands go back to
eight and four. And Mr. Grim can’t for the life of him figure out why.”

“So that’s makes you Odditoria and trouble? A pocket watch what’s not only magical, but what also can’t keep Mr. Grim’s time for him?”

“Aye, laddie,” Mack said, hopping back onto the table. “And I dunno if I’ll ever get outta this shop in one piece. Mr. Grim’s got bigger problems now, which leaves
only the scrap heap for ol’ McClintock.”

“The scrap heap?”

“Aye. After all, what good’s a talking pocket watch to Mr. Grim if it can’t properly keep his time for him?”

“Well, you’re very good at talking. That should count for something. And you can hop about and shine as bright as the lamps in Mr. Grim’s library. That should count for
something too, I’d think.”

“Yer very kind,” Mack said, turning away. Then he stopped. “Hang on.
You
have been inside Mr. Grim’s library?”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid I have.”

“But that’s where Mr. Grim keeps me cousins!”

“Your cousins?”

“Aye, me cousins the clocks!”

“Magical clocks?”

“Nah, ya silly bam, but clocks what’s keeping their proper time
without
magic!”

“I don’t know about that, but there certainly are a lot of clocks in there.”

“Grubb!” Mack cried, hopping to the edge of the table. “Me new friend, you’ve got to get me inside!”

“Inside Mr. Grim’s library, you mean?”

“Aye, laddie!”

“But what for?”

“What for?” asked Mack, jumping from the table and onto my shoulder. “What for? So I can keep me time correctly, that’s what for!” I looked at him quizzically.
“Don’t you see, laddie? If I were to join me cousins in the library, I’d always know what time it was no matter how long I stopped ticking!”

“That’s true,” I said, thinking. “But Mr. Grim certainly wouldn’t approve of my going in there without his permission. I suppose I could ask him, but come to think
of it, why haven’t you asked Mr. Grim yourself if you can join your cousins?”

“Well, uh,” Mack stammered. “I, uh, well, it’s just that—tick—tick—”

Mack crackled and flashed as before, then stopped ticking altogether, and his eyes dimmed to black. I caught him as he fell from my shoulder, and was about to tap him again on his XII, but then
I heard Mrs. Pinch’s key in the lock.

I quickly returned McClintock to the table and stepped back just as Mrs. Pinch entered the shop.

“Already awake, are you,” she said. “No snooping about or touching anything, I should hope.”

“Oh no, ma’am,” I said. “And good morning to you, Mrs. Pinch.”

“Humph,” she replied. “Now off to the kitchen with you. Lots to do, and blind me if I’m going to waste my day playing hostess to a chimney sweep.”

As Mrs. Pinch ushered me from the shop, I was tempted to ask her the time for Mack’s sake. But when I glanced back at the worktable and saw none of his blue light amidst the clutter, I
assumed he was still out and unable to hear me.

Good thing, I thought. Mrs. Pinch struck me as the sort who didn’t like answering questions, never mind telling little boys the time.