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.