The Unmapped Sea: Chapters 7–10

His silver hair was askew and he was dressed in his nightshirt and nightcap over tall winter boots.

His medical bag overflowed with tinctures, ointments, bandages, tourniquets, and even surgical instruments, for he had not been told what sort of medical emergency he was about to confront, and came prepared for every eventuality.

He gave the baby a thorough examination and declared him “a robust specimen, in perfect health. All the child needs is some warm milk and careful supervision. Someone ought to stand guard over this little adventurer!”

“Blast! If only I might get him to the Oddities Museum to lay hands on the Seashell of Love! Then it would all come tumbling out. But there is no time for that today.”

“Splendid,” he said, stifling a yawn.

She watched, aghast, as the children dramatically reenacted the ice-skating catastrophe for her.

“I understand you’ve given the servants some instructions regarding my wife,” he said without preamble.

Like every Swanburne girl, she knew that good posture and a calm demeanor were the greater part of what people call self-confidence.

“Very good. If not for this blasted affliction of mine, I’d happily take her to Italy myself and be done with it. But imagine me shipboard during a full moon, with no place to hide! It’s not an option, I’m afraid.”

“Enormous! The size of an omnibus! Shh, someone is coming.”

The Incorrigible children blanched.

The two boys mumbled incoherent apologies, which Alexander graciously accepted by offering a handshake to each.

They pinched each other again, hard, to atone for their rudeness, and everyone was friends once more.

“Uncanny, isn’t it? But it’s not a painting. It’s a real picture of a real place. It’s called a daguerreotype. It’s a new picture-taking method, invented by a Frenchman, Monsieur Louis Daguerre. He also creates what he calls ‘panoramas.’ Those are enormous paintings, designed to make you feel like you’re inside whatever scene they depict.”

“The captain is strong, no-nonsense. Nothing worries him; nothing frightens him! Gogolev is the opposite. Injured, brooding, sad. I wonder what makes him so sad? Perhaps I shall go tease him for a while, to amuse myself.”

Consider how such seemingly minor decisions can have life-changing consequences: A bowl of leftover soup carelessly poured down a sink causes a clogged drainpipe and a call to the plumber. The soup pourer is charmed by the plumber, and the plumber by the soup pourer. Love blossoms, marriage ensues, a new family is begun—“And that is why we named you Piper,” your parents never grow tired of saying.

Boris and Constantin squabbled about what was admittedly a hypothetical situation—in a fight between a megalosaurus and Captain Babushkinov, who would win?—and the Incorrigibles staged a shadow-puppet show for a delighted Baby Max, based on their favorite plots from the Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! books.

Would he like a short lesson about mollusks? A rousing sea chantey? Perhaps he would like to make something out of papier-mâché?

She found him near the Seashell of Love, wielding the mop that Master Gogolev had carelessly left there.

Each head was full of new thoughts and new ideas, and none of the intrepid museumgoers—not even Baby Max, who could now whinny like a pony and move his chubby arms up and down with a dancer’s grace—saw the world in quite the same way as they had before.

“And all the rest is poetry,” Gogolev exclaimed with fervor.

He grimaced and rubbed off the tooth black with a pocket handkerchief.

The next morning Penelope awoke in a buoyant mood, like a happy seabird floating effortlessly over the waves.

They poured cups of tea from the tea station, added lumps of sugar and splashes of cream, and found adjoining seats near the fire.

“I could ask Simon for advice, for he is well versed in all things nautical....”

Life with a playwright would be scandalous enough, but a playwright pirate?

Apparently, the ancient mariners were prone to using salty language, and found it tiring to stop when young people were present.

This idea was met with enthusiasm, for a variety of reasons: Veronika was glad to spend time with “her brilliant Sasha,” the twins liked the idea of pinching Baby Max with imaginary crab claws, while Master Gogolev felt that the forced migration of the hermit crab from its borrowed shell was a tragic commentary on the relationship between the serfs and the land they worked but did not own.

For himself, Simon fashioned an admiral’s uniform out of dark trousers, a brass-buttoned jacket with fringed epaulettes, and a jaunty two-cornered hat.

The shadow of some kind of understanding passed over the old man’s face, and a smile broke out across his wizened features “Why, so it is!” he exclaimed.

The ruse had failed, and there was no need to go on pretending.

Defeated, Simon and Penelope helped Pudge into his invalid chair and wheeled him to the sitting room for a glass of punch.

“Talk about a knack for the theatrical! Old Pudge put on quite a show for us. I’d say his performance put mine to shame,” Simon groused as they trudged along the boardwalk back to the hotel.

“Poetic meter!” she cried, much as one would cry “Eureka!” when the answer to a confounding question suddenly becomes plain as the nose on one’s face, or the chocolate-milk mustache on one’s lip, for that matter.

Lord Fredrick’s blurry eyesight must have rendered the illusion even more convincing.

This happy choice had been made by Simon; it meant the twins had to stay silent and still and cling to one side of the wardrobe, which presented the hull of a sunken schooner.

It was a messy business, but thanks to his efforts The Secret World of Hermit Crabs had gained in complexity, with the addition of underwater iguanodons and other fanciful creatures.

His face clouded with sadness, and the kindhearted Incorrigibles besieged him with offers of entertainment.

“This is a mammoth undertaking. Unprecedented! I am not sure we can oblige—but if we can, I must warn you, it will be enormously expensive.”

They had spent a long morning with their parents, being dragged along on some tedious grown-up errand.