Fennymore and the Brumella Read online

  KIRSTEN REINHARDT

  FENNYMORE

  AND THE

  BRUMELLA

  or

  How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

  FENNYMORE

  AND THE

  BRUMELLA

  or

  How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

  by

  KIRSTEN REINHARDT

  Illustrated by

  David Roberts

  Translated by

  Siobhán Parkinson

  FENNYMORE AND THE BRUMELLA

  or How to Salt-bake a Dachshund

  First published 2011 as

  Fennymores Reise oder wie man ein Dackel im Salzmantel macht

  by

  Carlsen Verlag GmBH, Hamburg, Germany

  Text and illustrations © Carlsen Verlag 2011

  All rights reserved

  This edition published 2014 by

  Little Island

  7 Kenilworth Park

  Dublin 6W, Ireland

  Translation © Siobhán Parkinson 2014

  ISBN:

  All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material in this publication may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  British Library Cataloguing Data: A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset and designed by Kieran Nolan, www.oldtown.ie

  Printed in Poland by Drukarnia Skleniarz

  Little Island has received funding to support this book from the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; the translation was partially funded by the Goethe-Institut and Ireland Literature Exchange.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CHAPTER 1

  In which we are introduced to Fennymore Teabreak, Aunt Elsie and the best recipe for salt-baked dachshund

  FENNYMORE TEABREAK was an unusual boy. He ate liver pâté for breakfast, a home-made banana-split for lunch, and in the evening he chomped on large celery sticks. If he’d calculated correctly, he’d be eleven this summer, but he couldn’t be sure, because he hadn’t had a birthday party for ages. That had been Aunt Elsie’s decision, because on Fennymore’s eighth birthday his parents had disappeared. They’d never reappeared, and no way did Aunt Elsie want to be reminded of that day. So Fennymore had to work out for himself how old he was and he really couldn’t be sure.

  Fennymore had tousled brown hair. His right ear was glued to his head like a limpet to a rock, and his left ear stuck out like the handle of a china teacup. Fennymore was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. His best friend was a sky-blue bicycle that thought it was a horse. It had got a bit rusty and its name was Monbijou. That is French for ‘my jewel’.

  Fennymore and Monbijou lived in The Bronx, a large old house outside town. The shutters were crooked and the roof was buckled. It used to be a blue house, way back, but all the rain had washed the colour away. It has to be said that Fennymore lived in a rainy kind of area. All the sun had also bleached out the colour, because Fennymore also lived in a sunny kind of area. People around there always carried rain hats. When it rained, they put them on their heads, and when it was sunny, they let them dangle on a string around their necks.

  Aunt Elsie bought two or three dashing flowery rain hats every week because the rain hats that they had in that area were not very durable. That’s why there were so many rain-hat shops in town. Twenty-four, to be precise. Fennymore didn’t have the money to be buying rain hats, so he just made his own out of newspaper.

  * * *

  Since his parents had disappeared, Fennymore lived all alone in his big wind-battered house. Well, not quite alone, because luckily Monbijou lived with him in The Bronx. And then, of course, there was Aunt Elsie.

  Aunt Elsie lived in town, right over the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour, and she visited Fennymore every Sunday at exactly three minutes past three. Every Sunday they ate salt-baked dachshund and drank elderflower tea. Anyone who has prepared salt-baked dachshund knows what a long-winded and complicated business it is. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of skill. First you have to find a suitable dachshund. It must be not too fat but not too lean either. It has to be just right, a perfect edible dachshund.

  Aunt Elsie’s favourite hunting ground for dachshunds was the city centre, because that was where the local pensioners went strolling all day long with their dachshunds, viewing the window displays in the rain-hat shops. Aunt Elsie would spend every Wednesday afternoon eating coffee sundaes in the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour. She kept a sharp eye out, under cover of large dark sunglasses, and when a pensioner strolled by with his dachshund, she shot out of her chair like a whirlwind and crept along behind them. Aunt Elsie was astonishingly agile, considering her age and her full figure. ‘Full figure’ means that she was dreadfully fat but didn’t like anyone to mention it.

  The pensioners usually called in to the butcher’s to ask for scraps of meat for their dogs. They tied up their darlings outside the door while they went inside. Luckily for Aunt Elsie, dachshunds were not allowed in the butcher’s. Like lightning, she untied the waiting dachshund, clamped it under her arm as if it was a handbag with paws and scooted off home. And by the time the pensioner came merrily out of the butcher’s with his scraps, his pet was well on its way to becoming salt-baked dachshund.

  Sadly, Fennymore could not sit around in the ice-cream parlour eating coffee sundaes. His teacher, Herr Muckenthaler, had spotted him there one time with Aunt Elsie when Fennymore really should have been in maths class. That was very embarrassing for Aunt Elsie, because she had encouraged him to skive off. So from then on Fennymore had to hide between the recycling bins in a side street near the ice-cream parlour while Aunt Elsie was eating coffee sundaes.

  When Fennymore spotted a dachshund, he whistled through his fingers. That was the signal for Aunt Elsie.

  And that is how Aunt Elsie managed to provide herself with her favourite dish every week. Fennymore didn’t think anything of it. It was all he knew, apart from pâté, banana-splits and the celery that grew in the garden of The Bronx.

  Every week in Fennymore Teabreak’s life had been the same since his parents’ disappearance. Every Sunday, Aunt Elsie came round and together they ate salt-baked dachshund and drank elderflower tea. On Mondays and Tuesdays, Fennymore had tummy ache, and on these days he didn’t eat paté pâté or banana split, just munched unenthusiastically on a celery stick.

  Wednesday was dachshund-hunting day, and he would stay overnight with Aunt Elsie, so that he could help with the preparation of the salt-baked dachshund in the morning.

  On Fridays, Fennymore bought liver pâté and the ingredients for banana-split.

  On Saturdays, Fennymore climbed up onto the roof of The Bronx to view the rainbows of the area. That always made him think of his parents.

  His father, Fenibald Teabreak, was an inventor and his mother, Regina Teabreak, was really a mathematician, but when she met Fennymore’s father, she discovered that she much preferred thinking up inventions to solving mathematical problems. And that is how Fennymore’s parents got to be an inventing team. Fennymore’s mother drew up the plans and Fennymore’s father built the inventions. Fennymore’s mother liked to work on the kitchen table in The Bronx, and his father liked to work in the Invention Capsule. The Invention Capsule was a tiny shed overgrown with vines right at the bottom of the garden, behind the currant and gooseberry bushes and the compost heap.

  Recipe for Salt-baked Dachshund

  Ingredients

&nbsp
; 1 edible dachshund, medium

  3 kilos salt

  1 bucket fresh mud

  Rub three kilos of salt into the dachshund, and then cover with enough mud to double its volume. Then allow the prepared dachshund to rest for fifty-five hours in a cool place, such as a cellar or a larder, to allow the full flavour to develop.

  Preheat the oven and bake the dachshund at a low heat for twelve hours. Allow to cool, and then carefully knock away the mud and salt coating, which, conveniently enough, also removes the dachshund’s hair.

  Slice the dachshund and serve.

  Enjoy!

  Most of Fennymore’s parents’ inventions were commissions for other people, but sometimes they invented something for themselves. Fennymore liked the Mechanical Waiter. That’s what the toast-popper that his parents had invented was called. This contraption catapulted toast out of the toaster right onto the plate, by means of a chrome spring. Unfortunately the thing broke shortly after Fennymore’s parents disappeared and Fennymore had no idea how to repair it, so after that he stopped having toast for breakfast.

  The invention that his parents were working on before they disappeared was a great secret. Not even Fennymore was allowed to know anything about it.

  These were the things Fennymore thought about when he sat on the roof of The Bronx on Saturdays. And then it was Sunday again, and Aunt Elsie came to visit him with the baked dachshund.

  Fennymore had hardly any time to go to school, except on Saturdays, but then the school was closed. After all, Herr Muckenthaler, the teacher, had to get an occasional break. And so it went, week after week, month after month, year after year.

  CHAPTER 2

  In which the story starts

  because Aunt Elsie is late

  The day on which the story begins is a Sunday in August, almost three years after the disappearance of Fennymore’s parents. Fennymore had just watered the herbs in the living room, had prepared Monbijou’s lunch and was waiting for Aunt Elsie.

  Aunt Elsie did not come. Normally she was very keen on punctuality and turned up at The Bronx at exactly three minutes past three, lurching and wheezing through the front door, loudly calling, ‘Fennymore! Dinner!’

  Fennymore was rather surprised when Aunt Elsie had not come lumbering through the door by four minutes past three. By seven minutes past three, when ‘Fennymore! Dinner!’ had not echoed through the house, he started to worry.

  ‘I’m sorry, Monbijou,’ he said to his bicycle, which was standing in the middle of the heap of hay that he had put out for it, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to eat that up later. We have to find out where Aunt Elsie is.’

  Monbijou gave an indignant snort. He was feeling hard done by because he always had to eat in the kitchen when Aunt Elsie came visiting. Normally he ate in the living room, but Aunt Elsie thought a bicycle eating hay was ridiculous and didn’t want to have to watch.

  Fennymore didn’t let Monbijou’s snorting bother him. He grabbed his newspaper hat and pushed his bicycle outside. It had just stopped raining. The air was steamy and the ground was still soft. Tiny rainbows hung between the celery plants, but Fennymore scarcely noticed them. First he cycled once around The Bronx. Maybe Aunt Elsie was somewhere in the garden. But no, nothing. Coming around to the front door again, Fennymore stuck his head in and called, ‘Aunt Elsie?’

  When he didn’t get an answer, he called a little more loudly, ‘Salt-baked dachshund?’

  That was kind of pointless because even if there had been a salt-baked dachshund in The Bronx it wouldn’t have been able to answer. But it was eleven minutes past three and Fennymore was in a bit of a state.

  Monbijou braked hard. He always did that when things weren’t going his way. Fennymore was feeling a bit antsy himself. He had never gone to town on a Sunday before.

  What’ll I do if the town isn’t there on Sundays? Fennymore thought to himself. It was there on Wednesdays, he knew, because he cycled there on Monbijou to help with the dachshund hunt. And on Thursdays, when he cycled home after helping to prepare the salt-baked dachshund, it was also there. And it was there on Fridays when he went shopping. But on Sundays?

  Monbijou gave a doubtful snuffle. He really didn’t feel like moving.

  But Fennymore Teabreak was an inquisitive boy. If I don’t find out, I’ll never know, he said to himself. Deftly, he disconnected Monbijou’s brakes, a trick his father had taught him, and off they went.

  It was dry and sunny again. Fennymore could see the path stretching out in front of him, so at least that was there on Sundays, as far as he could see. At first they followed the little dirt track edged with sunflowers. Then they turned onto a country laneway where wildflowers and weeds grew on either side. And finally, by a stand of apple trees, they reached the main road, which had a white line down the middle and only a ditch along the side.

  Not much was happening on the road. Monbijou gave a disgusted snort every few metres, and Fennymore sang ‘We were approaching Madagascar’ to him at the top of his voice to cheer him up. That was his favourite song. Also, he had stuffed a handful of hay in his pocket, and he offered Monbijou a few wisps of it whenever he slowed down.

  After half an hour, they had reached the outskirts of town. So the town was there on Sundays too. The shopping street with the twenty-four rain-hat shops was there, the butcher’s shop, and even the Tristesse Ice-cream Parlour, outside of which sat ten or eleven pensioners with their dachshunds, eating coffee sundaes.

  So many dachshunds! thought Fennymore. I must immediately inform Aunt Elsie.

  CHAPTER 3

  In which a silvery grey gentleman materialises and everybody speaks at once

  Two men and an old lady were talking excitedly at each other outside the door to Aunt Elsie’s building and waving their arms about in the air. The old lady was Aunt Elsie’s neighbour. She owned a white dachshund and she always carried it around in her arms. Fennymore wondered if maybe she knew what Aunt Elsie’ss favourite food was.

  Herr Muckenthaler, Fennymore’s teacher, was also there, and an old man with a large white moustache and a black coat, carrying a black suitcase. In the other hand he had a lead with a fat orange-striped cat on the other end of it. This was Dr Hourgood. Fennymore had visited his surgery a long time ago because he’d had tonsillitis. He’d been very small at the time, and Dr Hourgood had given him a horrible-tasting medicine. But what were Frau Plüsch, Herr Muckenthaler and Dr Hourgood doing standing outside Aunt Elsie’s apartment block? And where was Aunt Elsie? It all seemed very odd to Fennymore.

  Suddenly a man appeared in the doorway. He came out of nowhere, you might say.

  Fennymore immediately got the hiccups. That always happened when something unusual and exciting was going on. The last time it happened was the time Aunt Elsie had accidentally prepared salt-baked dachshund with sugar instead of salt.

  The curious gentleman who was the cause of Fennymore’s hiccups this time was unbelievably tall and thin, so tall and thin, in fact, that it looked as if he might snap in the middle at any moment. His old-fashioned clothes – he wore a morning coat with tails and a bowtie – were all silvery grey. Even his hair and his face seemed to be silvery grey, just like his large thin hands. In one of these silvery grey hands he held a long silvery grey wand, and at the tip of this wand was a bright light.

  The silvery grey gentleman stood for a moment beside Frau Plüsch, Herr Muckenthaler and Dr Hourgood, though they didn’t seem to notice him at all. They were still waving their arms around and talking over each other. Only the fat cat hissed and arched its back, which made it look even fatter. Dr Hourgood jerked impatiently on the lead.

  This silvery grey gentleman looks familiar somehow, thought Fennymore, though he couldn’t remember if they had ever met. The man’s face looked awfully old and wrinkly, but somehow not unkind. For a moment, they caught each other’s eye. The silvery grey man stretched his eyes in surprise, and Fennymore felt a chill running down his back, as if someone had stuck a scoop of vanilla ic
e-cream down his collar. He gave a particularly loud hiccup. And suddenly the silvery grey man disappeared.

  But Frau Plüsch, Herr Muckenthaler and Dr Hourgood had spotted Fennymore on the opposite side of the street and came running towards him, all of a flap.

  ‘My poor, poor boy,’ wailed Frau Plüsch, tears running down her face.

  She dug her pointy little fingers into his arm and the white dachshund in her arms began to lick his ear. Fennymore pulled a face and hiccupped.

  Herr Muckenthaler spoke sharply. ‘Frau Plüsch, I must ask you to take that dog away. You must see that Fennymore is quite overcome.’

  Indeed Fennymore Teabreak was rather overcome. And so he was very glad when Dr Hourgood cleared his throat and Frau Plüsch and Herr Muckenthaler fell silent and looked respectfully at the doctor.

  ‘Hmmm,’ went Dr Hourgood. ‘Dear Fennymore Teabreak …’

  But he said no more. He just looked thoughtfully at the gleaming toes of his polished shoes.

  ‘Yes?’ said Fennymore and hiccupped. He gave an embarrassed grin.

  Dr Hourgood drew his bushy eyebrows together in a frown and regarded Fennymore suspiciously.

  ‘Hmmm,’ went Dr Hourgood again. ‘Dear Fennymore Teabreak, I have to inform you that your great-aunt, Elisabeth Grosskornschroth, has gone from us.’

  Fennymore was not quite sure if he had properly understood what Dr Hourgood had said. Elisabeth Grosskornschroth was Aunt Elsie. That was her full name. And ‘gone from us’ meant that she had died. Stone dead. Kicked the bucket.

  ‘I – Aunt Elsie – hic – is dead?’ Fennymore asked. ‘That – hic – can’t be true,’ he added quietly.

  But it could be true. That was clear to Fennymore when he looked into the mortified faces of the adults.

  Suddenly he felt quite lost and dreadfully small. He gulped.

  Frau Plüsch gave a heartrending sob. ‘Oh, the poor boy!’

  Dr Hourgood gave a thoughtful frown. His big white moustache trembled a little.