Teacups & Tentacles | ONC 2022

4. Won't You Join Us?

Two days later at just before mid-morning, Amelia found herself in button boots and repurposed blue serge dress, bamboo handle of a parasol hooked over her wrist, standing in a long queue in front of the Special Exhibit Pavilion at London Zoo.  She had wanted to visit the Reptile House and take a closer look at the dingos, but Rose insisted on adhering to the plan she'd devised that morning: sea monster, tea and cake, garden show, home. 

"I bet it's disgusting. With huge, goggly eyes and bloody sharp fangs," said a little girl further on in the queue as she scratched at her blond curls held captive under a stiff velvet cap.  

"Disgusting," she repeated, glancing slyly around at the other people to see if her words were causing fingers to twitch or weight to be shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "Massive, drooling fangs."

That would certainly be something to see, thought Amelia. Better than a boring old crocodile, certainly. Amelia's gaze passed over the paintings of the creature on the large advert boards strapped to the iron railings of the zoo fence. It looked rather like something from a French fantasy-adventure novel. Unusual, but not something that would turn up in your nightmares. More was the pity. 

"The octopus, nor any of its relatives, have fangs, Lydia," said the girl's mother in an exasperated tone that showed she'd been through the self-same conversation many times before.  "Nor do they have goblin faces or are able to call forth the dead by chanting spells in the lost language of Atlantis. Behave yourself, we're in public."

The little girl scratched under her cap and sized up another girl of about her same age a few paces ahead of them in the queue. "But who says what's in the papers is true? That if it's not simply the largest of its kind ever found, but it's...it's a werebeast that only looks like an octopus. But in reality-- "

"Lydia! We can turn about and go home this very instant and you shall see not a one single square inch of the creature. And ice cream will not be in the offing either. I said behave yourself." 

"So sorry, she's quite excitable," said the mother, turning to the people in the queue around them. "I do apologise."  

Murmurs of not a bother and perish the thought were heard.

"Fangs," said Rose, shaking her head in dismay and clucking her tongue. "Of all the absurd notions. That child has far too much of an imagination. She'll have a devil of a time finding a husband. Her poor mother." 

"I'd be quite keen on seeing a werebeast, actually," Amelia said, examining the nearest representation of the octopus and imagining it with fangs and waving mysterious, magical objects as it undulated over the ocean floor. Perhaps there was a novel with something similar in it. She'd have to ask at the typo-graph library the next time she went to have some light reading printed up.  "Very exciting, I'd imagine."

"I believe you would think so," sighed her sister.  

"So would I, actually," said a husky voice at Amelia's elbow. 

Both Amelia and Rose turned to see a small, fine-boned individual with parasol and jaunty hat grinning at them. A river of bronze curls spilled down over her shoulders, which only highlighted the stylish cut of her emerald dress.  

"Doris!" cried Amelia. "Haven't seen you in ages. Invent anything world stopping in the last five minutes?"

"Oh, not if you don't count a four-sided crumpet toaster, and a mechanism for leapfrogging over unpopular songs on musical disks, no." Doris giggled and held out a petite gloved hand to Rose. 

"Doris van Beetraap. Inventor." 

"Mrs Maynard Dinglehythe, Amelia's older sister. How do you do."  

"Ah yes! I'd heard you were staying with relatives, Amelia dear. Nothing like being gathered up in the loving arms of family after being released from a correctional facility, is there? I should know." Doris giggled again and gave Rose an appraising look. 

"You've also been..." Rose started, but then thought better of it and fell silent. They were in public after all.

"Enabled to take an extended holiday at Her Majesty's leisure? Yes. Although, I wish I could claim it was for such an admirable escapade as Amelia's." Doris beamed. "We're all quite proud of her."

"Did I thank you properly for the strawberry tarts you sent me in the slammer?" enquired Amelia. "They were lovely." 

"My pleasure." Doris patted Amelia's arm. 

"We?" asked Rose, more than a small note of rising terror in her voice. "You aren't referring to the..."

"Mastermind Society, yes." 

"Oh. Well. In that case. Pleasant to have made your acquaintance." All colour drained from Rose's face and she turned around abruptly, fixing her eyes on the backs of the people in the queue before them, the tops of the pavillions, clouds in the sky.

Doris' eyebrows raised. She looked questioningly at Amelia, who shook her head and mouthed the word crackpots as she pointed first to Doris then to herself. Doris grinned, her delicate shoulders rising in a can't be helped, I suppose gesture.

"Doris, I have the most splendid idea. Why don't you join us?" Amelia said in a false, overly bubbly voice. "We would love the extra company. And who knows, we just might get to see a werebeast after all, if we're lucky."

"How kind!" replied Doris, hooking arms with Amelia and giving her a conspiratorial wink. "Nothing like good friends to make an afternoon special, is there?" 

Rose's back -- which was already stiff -- petrified into a galvanised girder, but she said nothing as the queue moved forward towards the Special Exhibit Pavilion, tinny music floating over their heads from speakerphones in the shapes of wild animals.   

Twenty minutes later outside the front gates of London Zoo, Doris took her leave of the sisters, wishing them a pleasant rest of the day. 

"What an odd individual," Rose said, watching Doris  weave her way through the crowds on the the pavement. "Quite a mannish voice for such a small stature. Unpleasantly reminiscent of a man in a dress."  

"That's because Doris is a man in a dress."

Rose's mouth dropped open and she turned to stare wide-eyed at Amelia.  

"Jeremy, when he's in trousers. Doris when in skirts," her sister offered, helpfully. "We never know what he's going to turn up in next. Quite the adventure, is Jeremy." 

Rose's mouth opened and shut a few times before she found her voice again. "The...people you know, Amelia. Really." Then, regaining her full composure, she said, "Well, time for tea and cake! I've reserved a table at Frogget's. Come along." And she marched off.  

The rest of the day went by without incident. The sisters continued their outing by taking the omnibus to visit the Garden Show at Crystal Palace. Amelia listened with half an ear to Rose's nattering on about gardening trivia and all of the exotic places Maynard had been in his youth as they wandered the wide, earthy smelling aisles, parasol swinging from her arm. 

Some notion had stuck in Amelia's mind and refused to be dislodged. No matter how much she shook it or attempted to ignore it, it kept returning: an image of the huge water tank in the Special Exhibit pavilion and the hulking creature lurking at the bottom. There was something off about it. Something...no, she just couldn't put her finger on it. 

Amelia sighed. Then sighed again, attempting that time to make it sound like steam gushing from a sizzlingly hot boiler tank. 

It was probably nothing. Or she'd been overly influenced by Rose's uncharitable remarks about lovely Doris. But, if she were honest, the creature hadn't been all that exciting in the first place. It hadn't moved or done anything and could have been sleeping or dead for all any of the visitors peering down at it from the viewing platform knew. 

But her mind kept sneaking back to it every so often throughout the rest of the day and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. That was, until she crawled into bed that night, pulled the blankets up to her chin, and drifted off to a dream about a giant mechanical cream bun. 

By then, she'd forgotten all about it.