Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City Read online

  The beaver looked thoughtful. He had a kindly face. He leaned on the rail, missed his handhold, and slopped more drink over the edge of the balcony and onto the street below.

  “But they say Mr. Habib can answer any question you may think of, for the price of a single silver penny.”

  “Where can I find Mr. Habib?” asked Mabel.

  “He lives in the Giblet Packing District. Opposite Bogdan’s Offal Stop. Look out for his sign. But be warned . . .”

  He paused for dramatic effect.

  “Be warned of what?” asked Mabel. It sounded important.

  The beaver looked confused.

  “Erm . . . Be warned of . . .”

  Suddenly he squealed with fright and jumped back into his room.

  A gruff voice spoke from behind Mabel Jones. “Put your hands up and turn around slowly. This is a military revolver, capable of discharging multiple rounds before reloading. The combination of its power and my marksmanship has been sufficient to take down a variety of assailants. We’ll have no problems dispatching a common thief.”

  Mabel turned around slowly. A squat badger was pointing a large pistol at her. Hiding behind the badger stood an otter peering nervously at her through a monocle.

  “I say, CARRUTHERS, you fibber! We’ve only just bought that horrid gun, and you said yourself we need to read the instructions before using it!”

  The badger glared at his companion. “Be quiet, Speke! Can’t you see I’m bluffing?”

  “Golly! How cunning of you, Carruthers! Is it even loaded?” whispered the otter.

  “For goodness’ sake, be quiet!” hissed the badger. “The thief may speak our language.”

  The otter clapped his paws together in excitement. “How wonderful!”

  Mabel stepped forward, opening her mouth to explain the misunderstanding.

  “You stay where you are!” ordered the badger, wobbling the pistol about in her direction.

  Mabel hadn’t been shot before, but in her previous unlikely adventure she’d seen both a good friend and a dastardly enemy mortally wounded by a bullet. She didn’t fancy taking any chances.

  “Check our belongings, Speke. Make sure this creature hasn’t stolen the . . .” The badger paused. He eyed Mabel suspiciously. “Make sure this creature hasn’t stolen anything of importance.”

  The otter scrabbled beneath the bed, pulled out a briefcase, and opened it.

  “Still here,” he said, holding up a bundle of old papers. “Thank goodness!”

  The badger looked at Mabel closely. “It seems we were just in time. Truly, Speke, the NOO WORLD has some interesting species. This shifty-eyed burglar seems to be some kind of primate! An ape, I’ll warrant, for it has no visible tail. Yet it lacks the sloping brow and pleas-ant demeanor of such a creature. A zoological mystery!”

  “Would you like me to sketch it?” asked Speke, eagerly reaching for the suitcase again. “For the society magazine?”

  Mabel sighed impatiently. She was on important business. She didn’t have time to sit for a portrait.

  “Actually, I am not an ape or a monkey. I’m a girl.” She glared at the badger. “AND I AM DEFINITELY NOT A BURGLAR.”

  The two animals looked at each other.

  “It does speak our language!” said the otter. “What a charming accent!”

  The badger frowned. “Hide the bundle away from her, Speke, lest she glance upon anything that may betray our mission.”

  “But, Carruthers, she couldn’t possibly know it’s a treasure map!”

  Exasperated, the badger turned to face his companion. “Really, Timothy, you are too much.”

  It was Mabel’s chance. Spinning around, she ran for the open window. In one leap she was on the sill and in another she had jumped across the street to the balcony opposite. Then, pausing briefly to apologize to the beaver (who was now sitting on the toilet with the door open), she ran down the stairs, onto the street, and away into the city.

  Mabel Jones had business to attend to.

  Chapter 3

  Spirits of the Dark and Fetid Undergrowth

  Shhh!

  There it is again.

  The distant sound of drumming. A frenzied beat. It gets louder and louderstill!

  Listen! That voice. It speaks again. Soft but menacing, like splinters of broken glass hidden beneath the skin of a sweet and creamy rice pudding.

  “Speak. Speak, spirits of the dark and fetid undergrowth. Where is the one called Mabel Jones?”

  And in reply?

  Just the whistle of wind through ruined buildings . . .

  Just the rustle of ferns upon shattered sidewalks . . .

  And if we were there (and be thankful we are not, but if we were), then we would see an ancient sorceress smile and translate the jungle’s whispered words.

  “She is on her way. The one called Mabel Jones is coming.”

  Her gray, wrinkled lips, daubed with blood-red lipstick, would peel back from aging, yellowed teeth. Her cheeks, unused to such exercise, would shed the dry skin that crusts under thickly applied white face paint.

  What is this creature?

  If we were there (and, again, be thankful we are not, but if we were), then we would see her stir a magic pool with her warped and wicked staff, and we would see Mabel Jones’s face appear in the swirling waters—and hear the creature sigh with envy.

  “Thou hast such softy-softy skin, Mabel Jones.”

  Then she would feel her own mottled arms for comparison and, if there was any moisture in her dry and withered body, a wistful tear would form in her eye.

  Once, long ago, she must have been beautiful, for thousands of hoomans had paid handsomely just to glimpse her through the bars of her cage. Daily the crowds had trooped past her enclosure, their little ones pressing their faces to the fence. Occasionally, if the grown-up ones weren’t watching, they would throw candy.

  How she had loved candy.

  Even then, though, in those happier times, she had wished that she could be as they were. Shiny, pretty clothes. Smiling, furless faces.

  And now, after thousands of years spent mastering the darkest of magic, she is almost ready. Ready to become hooman.

  Not quite.

  Not yet.

  Soon, though.

  Soon all the parts of the vile ceremony will be in place. All she will need then is the hooman child whose body she will take—she glances down at a shifting, snoring bundle, hidden deep in the folds of her silken gown. A bundle containing the baby, Maggie Jones. Not this one. Not this wriggling grublet. She needs a real child. An older child. For dark magic to work, its subject must contain at least a hint of bad, a pinch of naughty, or (whisper it) a teaspoon of wicked.

  The creature strokes away a lock of fine hair from the sleeping babe’s forehead.

  Yes. This one is innocent. Too young to be truly bad. But its sister . . .

  “I can sense it, Mabel Jones.

  Something dark lurks deep inside thee.

  And this little maggot will bring thee

  right to me. . . .”

  Chapter 4

  The Collector of Beaks

  Night had fallen on the , filling its labyrinth of alleyways and avenues with the kind of dangerous darkness that only the brave, or the exceedingly drunk, dare venture out in. A young hooman girl stepped warily through the filth-strewn streets. Leaping carefully over a puddle of blood that oozed from beneath the closed door of a ramshackle warehouse, Mabel Jones (for it is she, obviously) turned to inspect a tiny wooden shack that stood close by. Taking a deep breath, she tapped politely on the door.

  The small window in the top of the door flapped open. A round, beady eye looked out.

  “What do you want?” croaked a voice from inside.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Habib,” replied Mabel Jones.
“Does he live here?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Mabel Jones. Pleased to meet you.”

  The eye blinked. “I’ve never heard of Mr. Habib,” snapped the voice.

  The small window closed. Mabel knocked again.

  “Excuse me, but on the door . . .” She paused to read the crudely scratched sign out loud.

  The window opened again. “I’m not in!”

  Mabel pushed her face close to the little window and peered through. A tiny monkey with long wispy eyebrows looked back at her.

  It blinked. “A hooman?”

  Mabel nodded.

  The window closed. Mabel could hear the monkey muttering to himself inside.

  “A hooman snuglet! Very rare. Very rare indeed. Oh my days, such a lucky, lucky monkey Mr. Habib is!”

  The door opened. “Mr. Habib will see you now,” said the monkey, fastening a filthy dressing gown. He beckoned her with a jerk of his head. Inside was cramped, dark, and dirty. Mabel could hardly see a thing.

  Mr. Habib ushered her in to sit on a cushion on the floor then disappeared into a dark corner. There was rattling and jangling, and then an oil lamp was lit and the room flooded with light.

  Mabel gasped.

  Hanging on the walls were beaks.

  Hundreds of beaks: large beaks, small beaks, beaks of all shapes and sizes.

  All carefully removed from the faces of their former owners and mounted on wooden boards.

  Mr. Habib followed her gaze. “Ah, you like Mr. Habib’s collection? The biggest in the world, perhaps?” He smiled proudly.

  Mabel said nothing.

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Have you seen bigger?”

  Mabel shook her head.

  “You have not been to the SACRED USEUM OF BEAKS in Otom?”

  “No.”

  “Good. It is not worth the admission fee once you have been inside Mr. Habib’s Beak Emporium.”

  He pointed to a particularly savage-looking beak hanging on the wall.

  “They do not have the beak of the carnivorous emu. Nor the beak of an octopus. Nor do they have a complete collection of Galapagan finch beaks.”

  He opened his dirty dressing gown to reveal a colorful array of tiny beaks hanging from strings like bunting.

  “Oh, the beak is a wonderful thing, is it not? So many shapes and sizes and colors . . .”

  His voice tailed off and his eyes took on a far-away look. Slowly, one of his little hands reached up toward Mabel’s face. “So many interesting specimens . . .”

  Mabel took a step backward, bumping into a cage that stood in a corner of the room. Squashed in the cramped cage was a large dark blue bird. The bird returned Mabel’s gaze with its beady black eyes. Then it squawked.

  Mabel looked at Mr. Habib. “Who’s this?”

  The bird squawked again.

  “It’s like he’s trying to tell me something . . .”

  Mr. Habib shuffled nervously and pulled a blanket over the cage.

  “But you have not come to talk of the rare blue buzzard and its extremely valuable beak. You have a question for Mr. Habib. And you have come to the right place, for Mr. Habib knows everything.”

  He pulled a tiny chair close to Mabel, sat down, closed his eyes, and began to hum.

  Mabel waited.

  Suddenly Mr. Habib opened his eyes. He was staring—staring past Mabel into an unknown distance. He was in a trance.

  “Ask Mr. Habib your question.”

  “Where is my little sister?” asked Mabel.

  Mr. Habib put his hand into a small earthenware pot, pulled out a selection of small white objects, and cast them upon the table.

  “The finger bones of my ancestors will answer!”

  Mabel leaned forward eagerly. “And?”

  Mr. Habib’s eyes rolled back in his head. His arms flopped loosely at the sides of his body. For a second, Mabel thought he was going to faint. Then he began to speak.

  His voice had changed. It was deeper. Far deeper than you’d expect from a small monkey.

  “Your sister is in great danger.”

  Mabel gasped. “Where is she?”

  “I see a faceless figure, shrouded in a jungle mist. You have something she wants. I see an ancient tower that grows from the black and burned earth of a FORBIDDEN CITY.”

  Suddenly Mr. Habib winced and put his hands up to protect his face.

  “No! Great danger!

  Her magic is strong.

  Too strong for Mr. Habib!”

  He fell to the floor writhing and sobbing. “The ultimate sacrifice must be made. Only the pure of heart can defeat dark magic!”

  Then he sat up.

  “That’ll be one silver penny, please.”

  His voice had returned to normal.

  Mabel put her hands in her pajama pockets and turned them inside out.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any money. Just gummy candies—and they’re a bit covered in fluff.”

  “No money? Very bad. Mr. Habib does not accept baby-fluff gummy.” He twiddled his thumbs thoughtfully, then stopped. “Mabel Jones pay in other way.”

  He turned away from Mabel and hunched over the oil lamp.

  A quiet hand dipped into a concealed pocket.

  Sly fingers foraged for a handful of secret herbs.

  An unseen smile crept across his face as he sprinkled them over the flame, and the room began to fill with a sweet and sickly smell . . .

  Mr. Habib turned to face Mabel. Reaching out his tiny paw, he stroked her hand. “Mabel Jones has something very valuable for Mr. Habib.”

  Poor, unknowing, trusting Mabel Jones shifted awkwardly on her cushion. She was pretty sure she didn’t have anything of value.

  “I should really be going . . .”

  But the smell of the lamp was overpowering.

  Why do I feel so tired?

  “Mabel Jones feeling sleepy?” said Mr. Habib. “Mabel stay with Mr. Habib a little longer.”

  Mabel tried to stand.

  So tired . . .

  can’t . . .

  get . . .

  up . . .

  She stumbled

  to her knees.

  Must stay awake . . .

  Mr. Habib reached out two bony fingers and pinched Mabel’s nose. She tried to wriggle free, but it was as though she had no control of her body. Her eyelids were closing. The need for sleep was overwhelming.

  Mr. Habib grinned nastily.

  He gave her nose a twist, and then tilted it to look up her nostrils. Then he jerked it to the left and the right. Finally he felt the top bit where the bone was.

  “What a specimen. Even the SACRED MUSEUM OF BEAKS in Otom doesn’t have a hooman beak!”

  Slowly he reached beneath the blue buzzard’s cage and pulled out a pair of rusting iron shears, clacking the blades together gleefully.

  So that was how Mabel Jones’s debt was to be repaid: her nose would adorn the walls of Mr. Habib’s Beak Emporium.

  It would never be picked again!

  Chapter 5

  Fluffy Bunnies

  Oh, it is too much!

  Avert your eyes from the gruesome spectacle.

  Close this grisly book you read.

  Close it at once, I say.

  At once!

  Hand it to a responsible adult to throw upon a bonfire. Unless it was borrowed from a library, in which case return it with a strongly worded letter of complaint (you wouldn’t want to get a fine, for librarians are a callous breed that would send their own grandmothers to the poorhouse for an unpaid debt).

  That’s better. Now fetch a nicer book. I’ll warm some milk while you toddle off for a copy of Princess Pink Kitten’s Birthday Picnic. That’s much safer. Or how abou
t that one with the fluffy bunnies that love each other very much? No severed noses in that one either, I’ll bet!

  Bye-bye, then.

  Sleep tight.

  Kiss-kiss.

  Love you all the way to the moon and back!

  Good, they’ve gone. We’ve got rid of the pale-kidneyed readers who don’t realize that with unlikely adventures must come great danger, and with great danger sometimes comes the loss of an appendage—in this case, a nose!

  They can run home to their mommies to sob into their silky-soft handkerchiefs about the dreadful things they’ve read, while we continue with the story. So grit your teeth, furrow your brow, and hold on to your tail, for the beak-shearing of Mabel Jones is upon us . . .

  What’s that you say?

  I cannot hear you above the

  frantic

  squawking

  of the caged blue buzzard.

  Mabel’s eyelids are flickering!

  Can the bird’s warning squawks penetrate the stupefying fug of Mr. Habib’s soporific herbs?

  Mr. Habib opens the shears to their maximum width . . .

  Mabel groans slightly.

  Mr. Habib tenses his muscles and steadies his hands. He needs a clean cut for a neat specimen . . .

  The bird in the cage squawks again. It is a piercing shriek that shatters the fusty air,

  and . . .

  With a last-possible-nanosecond jerk of her neck, Mabel Jones pulled her nose away from the slicing blades of Mr. Habib’s shears.

  Shaking her head to clear her fuzzy brain, she stumbled against the table and knocked it over. Burning oil spilled from the upturned lamp, filling the room with a choking smoke.

  Fresh air! Need fresh air . . .

  Mabel reached for the door, pushed it open, and collapsed onto the street. She took a breath of cool sweet night air. Slowly but surely her head cleared.

  She looked up.

  Next to her sat Mr. Habib, watching his home burn. Large flames were jumping from the windows. Thick black smoke was climbing high into the sky.