CHAPTER 9
MME FLAMBÉ
THE LABORATORY OF Dr. Fifi Bubblegumme was hidden beneath the shop known as Mme Flambé’s Silver Spoons, a local boutique that sold one item only:
garden hoses.
I’m kidding. They sold spoons. Hanging spoons, dangling spoons, antique spoons, new spoons, a spoon big enough to fit a child, a spoon too small for a standard ant. These spoons were kept on velvet pillows in sparkling glass display cases and locked away with small keys in the shape of, you guessed it:
monkeys.
I’m kidding. The keys were shaped like silver spoons. They hung in a loop on the belt of Madame Tartine Flambé, minister of the most important rite of passage in the life of a young Antiquarian: the selection of a silver spoon.
Every child in Antiquarium, on his or her tenth birthday, donned either a sailor suit (the boys) or a sailor dress (the girls) and pranced down Main Street, where everyone would clap, knowing that the blessed child was on their way to perform the sacred Spoon Selection ritual at Mme Flambé’s.
Armed with this knowledge, Millicent had devised a plan of entry that was simple and implacable, whatever implacable means. I don’t feel like looking it up right now.
1) Enter under the pretense of a tenth birthday Spoon Selection,
2) Ask Mme Flambé to open Case Number 76, The Azure Spoon of Aziza,
3) Create a distraction,
4) Open the hidden trapdoor beneath Case Number 76, The Azure Spoon of Aziza, and descend into the hidden laboratory of Dr. Fifi Bubblegumme.
And so that is what they did.
The parasol-ed paraders of Antiquarium stared at the odd group walking up Main Street: three children bowing nervously, wearing improvised sailor dresses—which were really just some regular Taffetteen frocks that Millicent had pulled from a donation bin and sprayed with navy blue paint, paint that had not had even a moment to dry. Eugenia’s dress became studded with trapped and dying mosquitos as they walked. Dee-Dee accidentally brushed past a man in a cream suit, smearing him navy. “I suppose I am in my Blue Period,” she said.
“I told you we had to let these dry more!” Eugenia hissed.
“We haven’t the time to watch paint dry! We must LIVE!” replied Millicent, prancing proudly like a centaur in her improvised naval commander’s outfit.
Gertrude walked beside her, distracted.
“So. Young child named Gertrude,” Millicent said, grasping at straws for conversation. “Do you… remember getting your silver spoon? Are you even ten? Are you five or are you seventeen? I cannot tell the ages of children.”
“Technically I’m twelve and three-quarters,” Gertrude said quietly. “I never got a silver spoon ’cause I was grounded on my tenth birthday ’cause my father-uncle found a dead chipmunk under my bed that I was saving in a box to give it a proper funeral.”
Millicent breathed deep and looked to the sky, as if about to bestow a parcel of ageless wisdom.
With great gravitas, she said: “Come again? I couldn’t hear you.”
Gertrude sighed. This happened a lot. She had often been told that she had a tendency to mumble. She took a deep breath and steadied her posture, ready to speak with import, but then thought the better of it. “Never mind.”
Millicent walked on, twirling her parasol and waving at the passersby.
It wasn’t until they were at the front door of Mme Flambé’s that Millicent bent and whispered to Gertrude:
“I never got one either.”
Millicent and her painted coterie sauntered confidently into Mme Flambé’s shop, only to be greeted by a very unwelcome surprise: Imogen Crant, the glue heiress from Mrs. Wintermacher’s class, was turning ten, and was already midway through her spoon-picking ceremony.
She was surrounded by her parents, the Crants; by her father’s business associates from the Crant Glue Factory; by her mother’s friends from the Ladies’ Philanthropy Society; and by some of her classmates—among them, young Lavinia-Steve, who Mrs. Crant had invited out of pity because the other Lavinias were busy riding horses that day, and Lavinia-Steve could not be near horses, on account of the hay. Thankfully Lavinia-Steve was sneezing too much from spoon store dust to notice her cousins as they entered in their painted sailor dresses, but still the Porches could not risk being seen, and so they turned to leave.
They were halfway out the door when Mme Flambé called to them: “Have a seat in the waiting area, mes chéries! I’ll be with you as soon as young Miss Crant selects her spoon!”
But sitting was not an option, not with their freshly painted outfits, so the group stood with their heads bowed and prayed for a swift selection.
Gertrude’s gaze wandered among the glass cases and landed in a darkened corner on CASE NUMBER 76: THE AZURE SPOON OF AZIZA. The glass case sat atop a marble column and housed a humble blue spoon.
Gertrude nudged Millicent and pointed toward the case, whereupon Millicent squealed with delight. “Yes! That’s the entrance! Thar she blows! Now all that’s left is to get the key, and the entrance to Fifi Bubblegumme’s laboratory will be revealed!”
“Ahem!” Mme Flambé said, and the room fell silent. “I will now preside over the Spoon Selection of Miss Imogen Crant, who is such a kind young woman,1 and whose father, the ingenious manufacturer of Crant Glue, has been the moral backbone of this town,2 and whose mother has raised over ten thousand dollars with the Ladies’ Philanthropy Society.3 Imogen Crant, which silver spoon will you choose?”
“Hmm… maybe… this one?” Imogen pointed to a diamond-encrusted spoon, though she couldn’t quite be bothered to extend her finger.
Mme Flambé produced her infamous ring of keys, which was as large as a dinner plate and held thousands of keys, each corresponding to an individual display case. Everyone in Antiquarium knew that the joy of choosing a spoon would be tempered by the torture of watching Mme Flambé flip through those keys.
Still, Gertrude looked on the whole scene with longing. It’s not that she particularly wanted a silver spoon—she could always just take one from the dining room if she needed one—but she wanted what a silver spoon represented: being a part of the rhythm of Antiquarium, the cycle of life. Why, if you never got a silver spoon, how could you ever really call yourself an adult?
Finally, after what felt like a full calendar year, Mme Flambé handed Imogen the diamond-encrusted spoon. It glinted in the morning light, sending a miraculous spray of playful golden sunbeams across the onlookers’ white hats and white suits. Everyone gasped at the beauty and perfection of it.
Imogen was nonplussed. “Eh?”
Mme Flambé smiled wide while clenching her teeth. “Well then, on to the next!”
Spoon number 2: “Heh?”
Spoon number 10: “Meh?”
Spoon number 35: “Bleh.”
The shadows drifted across the floor as the afternoon sun swept across the sky. Mme Flambé’s hands had grown red from flipping through keys as Imogen rejected spoon after spoon. Mr. Crant was smoking a cigar, Mrs. Crant was snoring atop one of the counters. The Porches’ legs were wobbling from hours of standing.
Eugenia gritted her teeth. “If this girl doesn’t pick a spoon right now, I’m going to pick two and use them to scoop out her eyes.”
Dee-Dee wept softly. “These spoons are so sad. They’ve all been separated from their brothers and sisters. You know—the forks and knives.”
Gertrude moved to comfort her sister, when suddenly she felt the Pastramibird squirming underneath her sailor hat.
Oh dear, I’ve done it again. I’ve forgotten to mention a giant part of the scene. Please pretend I told you pages ago that this whole time, Gertrude was hiding a Pastramibird under her hat.
The Pastramibird, if you must know, and indeed you must, is a thin pink bird with limp wings like flaps of boiled meat, crossed eyes, and an aversion to light. It knows peace only in caves and other dark spaces, such as beneath the sailor hats of schoolchildren, but when released into a sunny room, the Pastramibird becomes nervous and emits a thick stink like cured beef, a scent that waters the eyes and curdles the brain. If you are ever looking to clear a room in a hurry, consider the Pastramibird, though do not expect those same people to return to your house when your birthday rolls around.
The Pastramibird thrashed and writhed against Gertrude’s scalp, and then, just as Mme Flambé offered Imogen her final spoon, the Pastramibird snapped—specifically, it snapped through the canvas top of Gertrude’s sailor hat.
At first, no one saw the pink bird flapping flaccidly about, but they did smell the stink that descended upon them—the smell of hot brine, of boiling beef, of smoke and sinew. “Mommy, why does it smell like sandwiches?!” Imogen cried.
Imogen and her classmates dropped to the ground and rolled toward the door, while Mrs. Crant stampeded over them with her high-heeled boots. The businessmen hurled themselves through the front display windows, shattering the glass. Mme Flambé fell to the floor and army-crawled out of the store, leaving her ring of keys behind.
Outside on the sidewalk, Lavinia-Steve watched the whole feverish ruckus with a measure of calm curiosity.
Millicent and Gertrude tried to wrangle the Pastramibird, smearing the crowd navy in the process, while Eugenia and Dee-Dee absconded with the keys to Case Number 76: The Azure Spoon of Aziza.
Eugenia shoved key after key after key into the tiny lock, to no avail. “THIS IS TORTURE!” She choked on the meaty air, suddenly craving a loaf of rye and a bottle of mustard. Then Dee-Dee took a turn: She held the ring of keys to her ear, as though listening to the secrets of a seashell, then selected a sapphire key, which slipped easily into the lock. The front of the fluted marble pedestal that held the display folded in like an accordion, revealing a rickety platform at the top of a darkened mining shaft.
The frightened Pastramibird was clinging to a rafter overhead. Gertrude felt a funny sensation in her feet—like they were swelling, like she wanted to take her boots off and crawl up the wall to pet the bird on the head and calm it, but that was silly, as people cannot crawl up walls!
“Pastramibird, darling, come down!” Millicent cried. “I have sunflower seeds in my pocket!”4 The Pastramibird fluttered tentatively from the rafter and landed on Millicent’s shoulder.
“Well!” she gulped, choking on the fetid air. “I would count that as a success! Now…
TO THE TUNNEL!”
Footnotes
1 Gertrude once saw Imogen Crant rip the head off a toad.
2 The Crant Glue Factory was responsible for the yearly boiling of over five hundred horses.
3 All proceeds went to the party budget for the Ladies’ Philanthropy Society.
4 Lies.