Giggleswick: The Amadán Map

(Excerpt) Giggleswick: The Docket of Deceit [Book 2]

Chapter One: Leader of the Lost World  

It was that time of year again. Time to “keep up with the times” as Wally Noodle liked to call it. He hopped from the little boat affectionately named “Olive Juice” and landed squarely upon a wooden dock. His traveling com-panion and sea captain, Lefty Scrum, then cut off the noisy engine and tossed Wally a rope with which to secure the boat to a nearby post. 

“What d’ya call this place again?” asked Wally po-litely. It was a foggy, overcast morning, and he had to squint to make out the surrounding boat masts and church steeples poking through the mist. 

“The map says Newport, Rhode Island,” Lefty grunted, although Lefty’s voice was so deep and booming that nearly everything he ever said came out as a grunt. “Was shootin’ fer Maine, but the storm blew us a bit off course.” 

The previous night had involved a storm of biblical proportions across the Atlantic. Wally had taken shelter under a large blanket and clung for dear life to the sides of the boat with his slippery fingers. Adding to his discomfort, Lefty’s bird, a blue parrot named Evol, had joined him under the blanket, digging his sharp claws into Wally’s shoulder while squawking things like “Holy Giggleswick!” and “My poor feathers!” every time the boat was tossed about by a rogue wave or rattled by a crack of thunder. 

Evol was an unusually verbose parrot, but his exclamations came as no surprise to Wally, nor to Lefty. In fact, he was rather well known throughout Giggleswick for his lovely singing voice, which had opened many a parade with the Giggleswickian national anthem and had graced many a wedding with love songs and of course “Ave Maria”. But he was perhaps most noted for his slow ballads on country and western nights at the Sappy Maple pub in town, and it was widely acknowledged that no man or bird had ever sung “Danny Boy” with greater conviction. 

Now, rubbing his sore shoulder, Wally remembered the last time he’d heard Evol sing that particular song –– it’d been a few weeks prior at a memorial service for two men who’d been lost at sea. This was putting it kindly, however. Surely, many much nicer people had gotten themselves lost at sea before. In reality, George Detweiler and Martin Fenderbang (otherwise known as “Killer”) had tried to steal a very important map, one that could have endangered Giggleswick and its citizens forever if it had found its way into the wrong hands. Had it not been for Wally’s daughter, Eliza, and her best friend Elliot Bisby’s quick detective work, George and Killer might have gotten away with it too. At the last minute, the Offices of Tranquility had swapped the real map for a fake one called “The Amadán Map”, and the real map was destroyed before any harm could come from it. But by then, George and Killer had made off thinking they’d had the real map all along, and, as with anyone who’d tried to navigate the enormous wall of fog that encircled Giggleswick, they were now most certainly dead. Alas!

“Shame about poor old Agnes, isn’t it?” said Wally conversationally, walking alongside his much taller friend as they made their way off the dock and into town. “Was never quite right to begin with, poor thing, but now in light of George’s betrayal ... well, one can only imagine.” 

“Ayuh,” said Lefty in agreement. “Suppose the school’ll be needin’ a new drama teacher now, what with ‘er being in the loony bin and all.” 

“Come now, Lefty, we mustn’t be insensitive,” Wally chided. “She may not have been the most pleasant woman ever –– heaven knows the only person she ever smiled upon was George –– but after all, her son and only living relation turned traitor for Basil Donovan! I’d be dribbling applesauce down my chin at the Sissiboo Center too!” 

To be sure, it was George’s betrayal that had driven his mother to madness, and she now spent her days in the Sissiboo Center for Serious Sickness and Acne Treatment, poking nurses with her walking stick and holding entire conversations with dead actors whom she claimed often visited to thank her for all the drama lessons she’d given them years ago. Allegedly, the night of her son’s memo-rial service, Bing Crosby came to offer his well-wishes and then promptly helped himself to her Beef Wellington before she’d even gotten to take a bite. The nurses had been rather understanding under the circumstances, however, and had brought her a new dinner tray, despite the tell-tale signs of steak sauce down her nightgown.