ALBERT WHISTLE: CHAPTER 2

Mr. Poly’s Problem

With a pop Mertyl was under the couch. She blinked. She was standing in what
looked like a large, dimly lit hall.

“Down the steps,” Albert said. Mertyl was about to ask, “Steps?” when she saw,
right by her feet, a large old wooden ladder poking through a hole in the floor
boards. “It’s not as shaky as it looks,” Albert said kindly.

Mertyl climbed down through the jagged hole. At what should have been the sixth
rung, her foot touched the ground. She stepped on to the sidewalk of a small,
winding tree-lined street.

“Oh me, oh my, what shall I do?” Someone was very upset. “What shall I do?”

A very fat man was waddling around and around the ladder, wringing his hands and
shaking his head. As if he had been talking to Mertyl all the time, he stopped
in a trip around the ladder, looked into her eyes, and pleaded, “What shall I
do?”

“Well,” said Mertyl, smoothing her dress. “I’m not quite sure. What is the
problem?”

The fat man’s little eyes filled with tears. He waved his arms hopelessly. “My
home! My lovely home!” He broke into deep, unhappy sobs and found it impossible
to say anything else.

“There, there, Roly,” Albert said as he stepped off the ladder. He put his arm
around the man’s shoulder and patted his back. “Cheer up, I’ve brought just the
person who can help. Mr. Roland Poly, Ms. Mertyl Giventhorpe.”

Mertyl said she would very much like to help, which was quite true, because she
couldn’t bear to see Mr. Poly sobbing so miserably. “Perhaps you could
explain,” she said gently.

Roland Poly blew his nose loudly on a red polka dot handkerchief. “Yes, I
should explain. But it is upsetting, you know.”


Albert nodded sympathetically and suggested that, rather than explain, Roly
should show Mertyl his house and the Terrible Shape it was in.

“MY beautiful house,” Mr. Poly said sadly, wiping his eyes, “I will show you
what has become of my beautiful house.” With that he waddled over to a small
pink cottage surrounded by masses of very brightly coloured flowers. “My
beautiful house,” he muttered again as he opened the door for Mertyl. “After
you.”

But as soon as Mertyl put one foot inside the door, she bumped her head. She
tried to rub the bump with her hand and banged her elbow.

“Ouch!” she said, and “Gracious!”

She looked around her at the neat, cozy room, the white curtains with frills
around the edges, the comfortable couch with flowers on its cushions, the
pictures of Mr. Poly’s family and friends decorating the walls. Everything was
in perfect order. Except that Mertyl Giventhorpe had banged her head because
the walls tilted almost completely over.,

“Gracious!” Mertyl said again.

“Now you see the problem!” exclaimed Mr. Poly, sticking his head through the
doorway.

“The walls,” said Mertyl, “instead of standing straight up, they lean to the
right!”

“You did it, you know,” said Albert, sticking his head through the doorway too.
“When you moved the couch you also moved Roly’s ceiling and walls.”

“And now,” Mr. Poly sighed, “I have a house that looks like the Leaning Tower of
Pizza.”

Mertyl said, “Oh dear,” feeling very responsible for the Terrible Situation.
She suddenly wished, from the bottom of her heart, that she had left her couch
were it was.

“Now there’s no point to your getting upset too, is there?” said Mr. Poly,
touching Mertyl gently on the shoulder. “What we need to do is have a cup of
tea and think the problem over.”

There was some difficulty in making tea, what with the walls leaning so sharply
over, and Mr. Poly being so plump. However, after some bangs, ouches, and spilt
milk, three steaming cups of tea were poured. Albert Whistle, Mertyl
Giventhorpe and Roland Poly sipped their tea in silence and thought very hard
about the problem at hand. It was Mertyl who spoke first.

“When I moved the couch, why didn’t the whole house move with it? Why did the
top part move, and the floor stay where it was?”

Albert obviously thought that was a Very Good Question, because he looked
puzzled. Mr. Poly, however, knew the answer right away.

“Because the floor is nailed down, of course!” he declared.

Well then,” said Mertyl, “the problem is simple. Take the nail out!”

Mr. Poly cried, “Take the nail out? Whatever for?” and Mertyl explained that,
once the nail was removed, the floor would also slide to the right and the walls
would stand straight up again. Mr. Poly was not convinced.

“If the nail is taken out, heaven knows what will happen! My house has been on
this ground since it was built!”

Mertyl looked at Mr. Poly over her teacup and sniffed. “Then it’s time for a
change.”

Mr. Poly said, “Oh dearie me!” and “Take the nail out, dearie me!” but Mertyl
was already rolling up the carpet. She kept rolling it back until she
uncovered, in the middle of the floor, an enormous brass nail.

“Ahah!” she exclaimed. Immediately she began tugging and prying at it.

“It won’t come out anyway,” cried Mr. Poly. “It’s been there too long!”

“Goodness,” Mertyl sniffed again, “anyone would think you liked your house this
way. Instead of standing there, worrying, why don’t you and Albert help?”

Mr. Poly looked at Albert helplessly until Albert said, “Well Roly, your house
couldn’t get much worse.”

Since Mr. Poly could hardly argue with Albert about that, he said instead, “At
least let’s do the thing right.”

For a moment he disappeared outside, returning with a big garden spade. He
carried it to the middle of the room and put the tip of the spade under the head
of the nail. Then he leaned on the spade handle. Albert and Mertyl also leaned
on it, pushing with all their weight.

For nearly a full minute the nail did not budge at all. Albert was about to say
that it must be held in by magic when, suddenly, it was loose. Almost
immediately it popped completely out of the floorboards!

“That wasn’t so,” Mertyl began, when she was stopped by a tremendous rumbling of
the floor, so great that it caused the walls to shake. A vase toppled from the
mantle and rolled under the couch.


Suddenly there was a great TWANG!!! and, like a huge rubber band that had been
stretched too far, Mr. Poly’s house snapped back into its proper shape.

Mertyl Giventhorpe, Albert Whistle, and Roland Poly looked at each other and
beamed. Mr. Poly’s smile was so big that it seemed to cover his whole face, and
he broke into a laugh. Right from his belly he laughed, so all his body shook.
There was such a lot of Mr. Poly to shake, that it looked like his body was
laughing all over. He shook Mertyl’s hand, and he shook Albert’s hand, and he
just generally shook. He told Albert and Mertyl how clever they were, and to be
truthful, they both felt very clever.

Mr. Poly was so happy, he didn’t know what to do, so he made some more tea.
Then, to celebrate, he toasted some thick slices of fresh bread, and brought out
of his refrigerator the half an apple pie he had left over from Sunday. On this
feast Mertyl, Albert, and Mr. Poly dined until late into the evening, chatting
and enjoying each other’s company until long after it was time for Mertyl to be
home.

ALBERT WHISTLE: Chapter 1

Moving In

Mertyl Giventhorpe lived with her mother and father on the fifteenth floor of the Granite Arms Apartment Building on Fifty-second Avenue in Centrecity.

Except for the furnishings the Giventhorpes had brought with them, apartment number 1510 looked like every other in the building. There was the same brown flecked rug (designed not to show the marks), the same grey and pink tile on the kitchen and bathroom floors (designed never to wear out), and the same beige walls (designed not to please or displease anyone) . In fact, the only thing which made number 1510 different from all the other apartments in the building was the couch in Mertyl’s bedroom.

It had been left by the people who lived in number 1510 before and it stayed mostly because Mr. Giventhorpe and his friends had been too tired Moving Day to carry it downstairs to the rubbish. Not only did the couch stay in number 1510, but it stayed in Mertyl’s bedroom and Mertyl became very glad that it did. Very quickly she learned that, although the couch in her room looked Quite Ordinary, it was actually Very Unusual. Under it, there lived a large brown teddy bear.

He had introduced himself as, “Albert Whistle, a bear of distinction”, and Mertyl could hardly argue. He stood five feet two inches tall in his stocking feet and was the colour of dark chocolate. He was not round in the middle, as you would expect, but rather, slim. It seemed that Albert worried about his weight a great deal. As he told Mertyl, it is fashionable for people to be slender, but teddy bears are always expected to be plump.

“Look at Winnie-the-Pooh,” he would say. “He’s hardly what you could call slim and trim.”

Mertyl met Albert the day she moved in. She had been arranging and rearranging her bedroom, trying to make it look a little more like home when someone banged on her floor from below. Mertyl thought it was the people downstairs complaining about the noise she was making, and, because she was tired and cranky from moving in, she decided to let whoever it was know that they would have to put up with noise for just one day. So she jumped up and down , very hard, in the middle of the floor. But it turned out not to be complaints from the people in the apartment below, as Mertyl discovered when she tried to move the couch.

“Here! What do you think you’re doing!” cried Albert, sticking his head out from underneath. “You just can’t move in here and take over, you know,” he said, angrily. “You don’t own the place!”

Mertyl’s mouth fell open. Albert, muttering continually, crawled out from underneath the couch and pushed it back to where it had first been.

“No respect for other people! Just push everything about, get the whole world topsy-turvy, and not so much as a ‘beg your pardon’, or an ‘excuse me’.”

Albert was still carrying on like this after he had replaced the couch and was crawling back under it. But by this time Mertyl had recovered enough from her shock to grab the bear by his left foot just before it disappeared under the couch after him.

“Come back here! Who do you think you are, barging in and out of here like this?” Mertyl pulled on Albert’s foot until she had dragged him completely back in the room, huffing, puffing, and complaining loudly. “My parents pay the rent here! If I want to move the furniture, I’ll move it!”

“Rent! Rent! What do I care about rent!” Albert relied angrily. “All I know is you can’t come in here and start moving the furniture about, upsetting other peoples’ lives!”

Mertyl was so angry, she didn’t know what to say, so she put her face very close to Albert’s and very coldly said, “You, you, BEAR, you!”

ALBERT WHISTLE

Instead of being insulted, Albert appeared quite pleased that she’d noticed, and he stepped back, bowed deeply, and said, “And not any bear, madam, but rather, Albert Whistle, a bear of distinction, at your service.”

This sudden show of good manners took Mertyl so by surprise that she could think of nothing to say but, “Thank you very much. Oh! And yes, my name is Mertyl Giventhorpe and I’m at your service, too.” She tried a curtsey, but it was nowhere near as good as Albert’s bow.

“I’m charmed, Mertyl – I may call you Mertyl, I hope. Please call me Albert; Mr. Whistle is so formal. Anyway, I’m glad you at last see my point and will not move the furniture again. Although heaven knows how we’ll put right the damage that’s already been done.” Albert looked worried and then he said, “But I do thank you for being kind. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. Good afternoon.”

With that he turned to leave, but Mertyl grabbed his arm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I really don’t! How am I upsetting other people by moving my furniture? What damage have I done?

Albert sighed as if he couldn’t understand such stupidity. “Dear girl, don’t you know that we’re all attached? Surely you don’t think you’re alone in all this!” He waved his arms. “We live below you.”

“In the apartment downstairs?” Mertyl asked.

“Not in the apartment on the next floor down, exactly. We live between you and the apartment below.”

“Between?” Mertyl gasped. “But there’s nothing between!”

Albert appeared to take offense. “Well, between or around, I can’t be exact, you know! I don’t go around with a tape measure.”

Mertyl didn’t want to further upset him, but she really wasn’t at all clear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Whistle, but I don’t understand.”

“Do you have to understand everything? You could just take my word for it!”

Mertyl shook her head. Your word is very good, I’m sure, but it’s not proof of…”

“Proof!” cried Albert. “Proof! I’ll show you proof!”

With that he started pushing Mertyl toward the couch. Mertyl gasped, “Mr. Whistle!” and, “Now look here!” but by this time she very much wanted to understand what Albert was talking about. So, without much of fuss really at all, she allowed herself to be shoved under the couch.

The Creature Within

Why do I hang on to relationships long after it's clear, really clear, that I should let them go? Why is there this clinging, this refusal to admit it's over?

I know what I'm talking about, although I understand it not at all. It's like a primordial creature emerging, pimitive and powerful, from the sea within me.

An ugly truth has awakened it and it rises up. It sweeps aside thoughts of abandonment, of loss, of loneliness. It crushes images of betrayal. I cower before it, terrified and grateful.

This creature allows no ugly truths, even as I collect the bits and pieces and assemble the evidence. He doesn't love me anymore, and what he brings to me now isn't love. It's duty, its pity, it's resentment,it even tastes of hatred, but nothing about it bears the sweet scent of love. It's over, done, finished. I scramble to pick up the pieces to make sense of them, to understand WHY, but, of course that is only a distraction, like doing a crossword puzzle at a funeral.

The creature is never distracted. It knows only that the truth is unbearable, and it will hear no more of it.Everything will be alright. Be patient. Be understanding. He's just working some things through. He's busy. I swallow each thought like a little pink pill and wait for the panic to subside. icantlosehimicantlosehimicantloseehimicantlosehimilovehimsomuchohsweetlordilove
himsomuchilovehimsomuch.

I wait for the phone, the text, his voice. The creature and me, we wait, but there is only silence, black silence, and an occasional little sound in the distance, like a sob caught in the back of someone's throat.