THE NOSE AND HIS PERFUME

Chapter Four

 This chapter is dedicated to @cracker_jack for being one of the first people to follow me and because I really like PARALLEL.

Chapter Four: After the Gingerbread Village

Penny said she was fine when Bunny asked her what was wrong, but Bunny didn’t believe her. She looked miserable, and Bunny had never seen her so quiet before. Penny hadn’t said a word about the Gingerbread Village, and considering how excited she had been to see it, this struck Bunny as odd. When they got home, Mrs. V also noticed that something was wrong with Penny. When Bunny confessed that they got separated from her in the Gingerbread Village, Mrs. V was so worried, she went and checked the store’s security camera footage.

After Mrs. V got back, she was understandably angry with the twins for losing Penny, but her anger was tempered by relief that nothing had happened. According to Mrs. V, Penny had slowly wandered through the Gingerbread Village the same as every other customer. The security cameras hadn’t captured all her movements, and Penny had disappeared in the snow in the hedge maze a couple of times, but there had been no one else around. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else the entire time she was in the village. Penny had simply gone from looking as happy as she always looked at the beginning of the tour to looking miserable by the end of it, and for no apparent reason.

Mrs. V pulled the twins aside to tell them that she thought that Penny must be homesick. It was the holidays after all and her mother was halfway around the world. After the twins promised to be more careful watching her, Mrs. V assigned them the task of cheering Penny up. Since it had been her favorite thing in the world to do when she was Penny’s age, Bunny suggested they build a fort after dinner.

Bunny had some neat things in her room, but the neatest by far happened to be an enormous, old army surplus tent that she had inherited from her parents. After dinner, they went to Bunny’s room. Beau helped Bunny half-collapse the tent to drag it to the living room. As they wrenched the tent out the door, Bunny found herself rambling on with chipper determination about how much fun they were going to have. Penny just complained that the tent stank. It did smell kind of musty and like kerosene, but to Bunny that was the smell of all the great expeditions her parents had been on. Neither of the twins remembered their parents, but both associated the smell of their stuff with them.

In the living room, they pulled the cushions off of the sofa and piled them around the tent door, draping sheets over the top, expanding Bunny’s tent into a giant fort, and then Bunny suggested they get Basil to tell them a story.

Basil had a fishbowl that employed the same technology as his fish tank, allowing him to travel short distances. Bunny held out Basil’s enormous fishbowl, turning her face away from the sprinkling water, as Basil gracefully leapt into it with a splish splosh. The twins brought an end table into the fort for Basil’s fishbowl to sit on and pillows and sleeping bags for themselves. Then they turned out all the lights, except for the Christmas tree, and hunkered down for Basil to tell them a story. Basil asked Penny if she might like to hear the story of how Spark’s and Campbell’s came to be, and when Penny mumbled okay, he launched into his favorite subject. 

“As young men,” Basil said, “Thelonius Spark and Magnus Campbell were aspiring inventors. They invented an unsinkable canoe, a fountain pen that reflected light—to ease the strain of writing by candlelight—and an early forerunner to the Pop-Tart. Most people thought they were lunatics, and no store would buy their inventions.

Then one day, it occurred to them to open a store of their own. One that would carry all the usual necessities, but also every manner of new and exciting contraption from around the globe, especially the things no one else would have, including, of course, their own inventions. They opened Spark’s and Campbell’s Emporium of Interesting Goods over a hundred and fifty years ago. Generations of Sparks and Campbells have discovered or invented amazing things for the store. XEssence and the Gingerbread Village are just the latest in a long line of interesting curiosities, though it has been a long time since we have had anything truly unusual at the store.”

Bunny asked Basil to tell them about some of her parents’ inventions. As a duo, the twins’ parents had rivaled even the greatness of Thelonius and Magnus. Every story Basil told the twins eventually turned to tales of their parents. He enjoyed telling these stories as much as Bunny and Beau loved hearing them.

“The twins’ parents were great inventors too,” Basil told Penny. “Their mother was a Spark—this is why Bunny and Beau have the last name ‘Spark.’ Unusual indeed, but necessary to ensure the continuance of the great name. You see, there are no longer any Campbells, and Bunny and Beau are the only Sparks left since Peter vanished.”

“I’m not a Spark,” Penny said.

“No, you are related to us on the twins’ father’s side,” Basil said, launching into a lengthy explanation.

Bunny’s attention drifted.

“I always thought we were the last Sparks,” Beau said, when Basil was finished.

Basil looked at him quizzically.

“That’s not what you said though,” Beau clarified. “Just now you said we were ‘the only Sparks left since Peter vanished.’ Who’s Peter?”

A funny expression flit across Basil’s face.

“Your mother had a younger brother.”

“Peter?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to him?” Bunny asked.

“There was a terrible argument. He left.”

“Will you tell us a story about him?” Bunny asked.

“I am afraid that is a very long story,” Basil said.

Bunny tried to bring up the mysterious Peter Spark again, but Basil wouldn’t talk about it, instead regaling them some of the amazing adventures of Thelonius and Magnus.

Later, after everyone else had gone to bed, the children stayed up late playing Trivial Pursuit, a game Bunny found deathly boring. Beau loved it though, and with his encyclopedic memory, got every question right. As Penny read him questions, Bunny observed Penny. She had thought that nestling into their fort would have cheered Penny up at least a little, but Penny still hadn’t smiled even once.