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.