Stuffed

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

The museum's curator, Dr. Edgar Burke, stood at his office window, high up in the Museum of Life, where the sea's constant onshore wind found its way into the building, making him shiver, as he held his now cold tea and stared down at the patchy entrance lawns. Beyond the fence the ground sloped all the way to the sea. A long downward slope of humanity, he always said, filled by the town's ragged and rich houses, shops, schools, parks and people, and a reduced interest in his, this, wonderful Museum. What did they say? 'Thank goodness for Friday'.

There had been a brief surge in visitor numbers during the week with the silly issue with the whale, when it 'cried'. But the numbers passing through the complaining turnstile had dropped again back to the poor attendance figures the museum had regularly recorded for so long. Some blamed the television, or the Internet, whilst others blamed the theme parks. Dr. Burke's sleep worsened nightly as the numbers reduced daily: he was desperate to turn things around, but that needed money. Money was now rarer than a tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata), which even the great Lord Thrupp, their long-dead founder, had failed to stuff.

Occasional coach-loads of school parties injected a temporary buzz of excitement, but this soon faded as the kids pulled out hidden mobile phones and instead explored the Internet as they walked past the unseen displays, quite unaware of just what it took to build and bring together the vast collection.

Dr. Burke sighed. He recalled the first time he had seen Thrupp's Museum of Life, twenty years earlier, on a sunny day, when the world seemed simpler, before electronics and the web. Dr. Burke hummed his favourite waltz, a zippy one, to cheer his part-sinking soul, and then, surprising himself, two-stepped across his vast office, past the stuffed bear (a spare one) to his desk.

Out on the lawn, in the long shadows of the museum, Eric 'Rusty' Steele stood and looked at his 'phone. But before he had a chance to text Spanner to arrange anything a booming voice froze his fingers.

"M-ustyyy!" Briggs used his special kids-that-annoy-me voice. He was halfway up the path, litter-picking, and had spotted Rusty.

"Coming..." Rusty knew there was no escape. His mum would kill him if she got wind from Briggs that he had bunked off in his first week of work experience. He walked across the sticky lawn, trying not to get much more mud on his Converse.

"I shouldn't be doing this, eh Musty?" Briggs waved the litter stick and bag in the air. "More your line of work, eh boy?"

"It's Rusty.. Not Musty.."

"Rusty? Silly name. 'Spose its because you're ginger?"

"Yes, Mr. Briggs," Rusty took the proffered tool. Briggs, with a rare grin, his old victory smile from parade grounds years earlier, spun on his ancient arthritic heel, wobbled, and set off with a lean to the museum's grand, but quiet, entrance. Rusty walked along the path, poking at occasional litter, cursing the old man. Another week of this, he would make it through, keep mum happy.

Back in his office Dr. Burke decided to face his demons and picked up the heavy phone's handset and dialled a number, which seemed to be used too often these days, and felt any previous momentary lightness of heart fade.

"Mrs. Whittle," Dr. Burke smiled as he talked, hoping to sound jollier than he felt deep down. "I hope you are well?"

"Mr. Burke," she replied in her screechy voice, forgetting, or omitting to use his correct title, as usual. "How lovely to hear from you, today."

"I've been thinking about our last, official, meeting, with yourself and the fellow trustees."

"I do hope you didn't think us rude," she replied. "We do need to move things on, with the museum, and everything. That leaking creature is a sign, I am sure."

"I beg to differ. It was just a leak, an unfortunate, inexplainable fact - most definitely not the work of Brigg's phantoms." Dr. Burke shuddered, but only because it was the phrase this odious woman had used before, with contempt. "We've cleared up the mess, and are back to business now. Visitor numbers are looking good."

"Only because of the silly whale thing!" Mrs. Whittle raised her voice. Burke pulled the handset away from his ear. She was still taking, but further away. By the time the conversation had concluded, and Dr. Burke had replaced the heavy handset, any sense of joy was long gone, whittled away, he thought, by that woman Whittle. He knew she had some scheme buzzing in her hair-sprayed head, he had picked up the whispers and winks at the last Trustees gathering. They had introduced their 'futures consultant' to the meeting, a hawk-like man called Barry Take, paid for by the slimmed profits sucked from the museum's slow-swivelling turnstiles, thought Dr. Burke. He had quietly, but correctly, objected to more costs, but Mrs. Whittle had the board in her manicured grip.

Dr. Burke returned to his window and looked down at the red-headed boy collecting blown litter across the lawn. He wished his life was as simple and carefree, rather than this chasing of hope. Hope for the future of Thrupp's Museum of Life. Even being a man of science, 'of certificates' as Briggs told him, he no wondered if the crying whale had been a sign after all.

COPYRIGHT MIKE BELL 2016