Giggleswick: The Amadán Map

Chapter Six: Giggleswick

Chapter Six: Giggleswick

The next morning, the Bisbys were just having another look around the house in their pajamas when there came a polite knock upon the front door. Not one of them felt presentable enough to be answering front doors at this hour of the morning, but after they had all straightened their pajamas and patted down their hair, they decided Mr. Bisby was clearly the tidiest, and so he was sent shuffling down the hallway in his cast to see who it was while Mrs. Bisby and Elliot hid in the kitchen peering round the corner. 

“Helloooo,” sang a voice they didn’t recognize, and Mr. Bisby swung the door open to find the entire Noodle family on the doorstep. A woman he expected was Lilly Noodle was beaming up at him with a smile full of teeth and dimples, and she was holding a plate of pancakes stacked as high as her chin. She had strawberry-blonde hair pulled into an elegant low bun, and a string of pearls hung round her neck overtop a very classic red pencil dress, which Mrs. Bisby was busy admiring from her hiding place in the kitchen. Wally stood beside his wife wearing a bow-tie to match her dress, as they were seldom seen in conflicting colors, and his hands were resting on the shoulders of a freckly girl with wispy brown hair that flicked in every direction. Clutched in the girl’s hand was a leash with a particularly droopy-looking basset hound at the other end. 

“How d’you do?” said Lilly Noodle, still smiling so that all her teeth should have a view. “We thought you might be needing breakfast,” she said, holding the plate of pancakes out for Mr. Bisby to take. Her voice was low and bookish, but on the contrary, she seemed anything but dull.

“That’s very thoughtful,” said Mr. Bisby, nearly buckling under the weight of the pancakes. “Won’t you come in?” he said, and the Noodles happily accepted the invitation.  

Mrs. Bisby and Elliot gave one last tug on their pajamas and then left the dignity of their hiding places to greet their new neighbors. All the proper introductions were made, including Bert the basset hound, who barked in recognition at the sound of his name and then trotted off in search of a comfy place to lay down. Mrs. Bisby said how much she liked Lilly Noodle’s dress, and then Mrs. Noodle made a very polite but ill-fated attempt to compliment Mrs. Bisby’s plaid pajamas. This caused them both to giggle, and they were soon chattering away like old school friends while Mrs. Bisby dug through the suitcases to find dishes and silverware for their pancakes. 

Wally had already begun telling Elliot’s father about the exciting day at work he had planned for them, and this left Elliot and Eliza to stare awkwardly at one another. Eliza began to hum absentmindedly, and Elliot decided it was much less awkward staring at his toes instead, and they both went on like this for quite some time until suddenly Eliza spotted Elliot’s worn copy of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe poking out of the suitcase his mother’d just been rifling through.

He was quite sure he saw her eyes light up at the sight of it, but just when it looked as though she were about to say something, she pressed her lips back together and began to hum once more.  

Elliot couldn’t help finding Eliza’s reaction rather curious. He doubted very much that C.S. Lewis’s books had made it all the way to Giggleswick, but then again, perhaps Wally had been particularly thorough in his travels. He swallowed uncomfortably, and though he wasn’t altogether sure he wanted to say anything either, Elliot finally cleared his throat and pointed to the book. “Do you –– er, know it?” he asked.     

“Know it?” Eliza replied, now quite animatedly. “I love it! I’ve read it ‘bout a hundred times!” she professed. “I sometimes wish I could crawl through my mother’s wardrobe ... you know –– to another world, and then save it from the grips of a terrible Queen. And then––” But Eliza must have sensed the look of surprise on Elliot’s face, because she suddenly grew very bashful, and she stared back down at the floor.