Read Online Agatha H. and the Airship City by Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
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very worried about things he couldn’t talk about, and who would, without warning, periodically uproot them from whatever town they had established themselves in and have them travel for days, sometimes for weeks, to another town.
In the beginning Agatha had thought it was fun. But as she got older, she realized that she had no friends. Partially this was caused by their constant travel, and partially by the fuzzyheadedness that began to increase its hold upon her thinking around that time. Upon their arrival in a new location, children could tell that there was something not quite right about the newcomer, and with the casual sadism of the young, proceeded to give her a hard time. After an especially cruel series of pranks, which even her perennially preoccupied uncle had noticed, they had come to Beetleburg, and the Clays, where she had found the loving stability she had so desperately needed.
She remembered the guarded joy she had felt when the Clays had told her that this was her room. For quite a while, she tried to do as little to it as possible, convinced that they would soon leave. It had started out as a simple, bare attic, but as time passed, Agatha had begun to devote a great deal of time to it, and now it was a thing of beauty.
At a young age, Adam had shown her how to carve wood, a skill many machinists honed, as they often had to design and forge their own parts. Her early efforts defaced the bottoms of newel posts and cabinet doors, but eventually she began to develop a grace and geometric precision that allowed a profusion of cunningly interlaced designs to cover many of the wooden surfaces. The ceiling had been painted a dark blue and covered with bright yellow, white and orange stars. Hanging from the ceiling were various objects that Agatha found interesting: a gigantic dried sunflower (which she had been convinced was the result of some Spark’s biological tinkering), a stuffed iguana she had discovered in a musty old junk shop, an airship kite that her uncle had built for her long ago, and a Roman sword that Dr. Beetle had discovered while digging the foundation for a new building. Crammed on shelves were her precious books, fossils, unusual bits of madboy tech, clocks, and a small misshapen clay dog that a boy had given her when she was eight.
On the shelf in front of her single window were racks containing pots of plants, some common herbs, some exotic and strange things that she had collected from the spice shops or the Tyrant’s Botanical Gardens.
It would all have to be left behind.
Even, and the thought filled her eyes with tears, her work table, a vast swivel-topped affair that Adam had constructed in secret for her one Yuletide several years ago. All that remained on it were her drafting tools, her notebooks, and the remains of the few, painfully few, devices she had constructed that actually worked: the butter clock, the air-driven quill sharpener, the hooting machine, and the wind-up hammer. They had already been dismantled, and that had been the hardest thing to do. With a groan she allowed herself to fall back onto the bed in despair.
They had all lived together happily for several months, and Uncle Barry had made the occasional trip while leaving Agatha in the care of the Clays. Agatha had vague memories of a growing tension amongst the grownups, which culminated in a late night argument she could dimly hear from her bedroom. The next morning, the tension appeared to have cleared and Barry announced that he was going on another trip. A lengthy one, that might take as long as two months. He had written three times: once from Mechanicsburg, the home of the fabled Heterodyne Boys; once from Paris; and over a year later, a much travel-stained letter, full of disquieting and vague ramblings, that was found to have been slid under the Clays’ front door while they had been outside the city picking apples.
It was the last they had heard from or of him.
The thought of returning to that
In the beginning Agatha had thought it was fun. But as she got older, she realized that she had no friends. Partially this was caused by their constant travel, and partially by the fuzzyheadedness that began to increase its hold upon her thinking around that time. Upon their arrival in a new location, children could tell that there was something not quite right about the newcomer, and with the casual sadism of the young, proceeded to give her a hard time. After an especially cruel series of pranks, which even her perennially preoccupied uncle had noticed, they had come to Beetleburg, and the Clays, where she had found the loving stability she had so desperately needed.
She remembered the guarded joy she had felt when the Clays had told her that this was her room. For quite a while, she tried to do as little to it as possible, convinced that they would soon leave. It had started out as a simple, bare attic, but as time passed, Agatha had begun to devote a great deal of time to it, and now it was a thing of beauty.
At a young age, Adam had shown her how to carve wood, a skill many machinists honed, as they often had to design and forge their own parts. Her early efforts defaced the bottoms of newel posts and cabinet doors, but eventually she began to develop a grace and geometric precision that allowed a profusion of cunningly interlaced designs to cover many of the wooden surfaces. The ceiling had been painted a dark blue and covered with bright yellow, white and orange stars. Hanging from the ceiling were various objects that Agatha found interesting: a gigantic dried sunflower (which she had been convinced was the result of some Spark’s biological tinkering), a stuffed iguana she had discovered in a musty old junk shop, an airship kite that her uncle had built for her long ago, and a Roman sword that Dr. Beetle had discovered while digging the foundation for a new building. Crammed on shelves were her precious books, fossils, unusual bits of madboy tech, clocks, and a small misshapen clay dog that a boy had given her when she was eight.
On the shelf in front of her single window were racks containing pots of plants, some common herbs, some exotic and strange things that she had collected from the spice shops or the Tyrant’s Botanical Gardens.
It would all have to be left behind.
Even, and the thought filled her eyes with tears, her work table, a vast swivel-topped affair that Adam had constructed in secret for her one Yuletide several years ago. All that remained on it were her drafting tools, her notebooks, and the remains of the few, painfully few, devices she had constructed that actually worked: the butter clock, the air-driven quill sharpener, the hooting machine, and the wind-up hammer. They had already been dismantled, and that had been the hardest thing to do. With a groan she allowed herself to fall back onto the bed in despair.
They had all lived together happily for several months, and Uncle Barry had made the occasional trip while leaving Agatha in the care of the Clays. Agatha had vague memories of a growing tension amongst the grownups, which culminated in a late night argument she could dimly hear from her bedroom. The next morning, the tension appeared to have cleared and Barry announced that he was going on another trip. A lengthy one, that might take as long as two months. He had written three times: once from Mechanicsburg, the home of the fabled Heterodyne Boys; once from Paris; and over a year later, a much travel-stained letter, full of disquieting and vague ramblings, that was found to have been slid under the Clays’ front door while they had been outside the city picking apples.
It was the last they had heard from or of him.
The thought of returning to that
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