Chapter Text
“So who are we going to see anyway?” Jack asked, trying not to get distracted from the road. Currently, he was riding his bike through London with Mary, John and Annabel precariously balanced on the ladder seat and Georgie in the front basket. The youngest’s constant moving meant it was a lot more difficult to see where he was going, but so long as he was careful, he could manage. And anyway, they wouldn’t fall off, not while Mary was around. She always had a habit of being completely on top of everything and making sure nobody got hurt, even during the silliest of activities.
“We’re going to see my cousin. Apparently he’s gotten lost in his own house.” Mary answered simply.
“How on Earth did he manage that?”
“It’s a very strange house, Jack. When we get there, you’ll realise it’s easier than you think. And it’s a left here.” She said, adding to her direction with a simple gesture. On the opposite side of the ladder, John and Annabel were eyeing each other as they tried to hold back from giggling. And upon noticing, Mary couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
“Honestly, you two are as bad as Jane. Come on then, what’s so funny?” The twins seemed to have a silent conversation as they tried to decide who would speak. In the end, it was Annabel who asked,
“Does he have a strange name too?” Mary eyed her quizzically.
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
“Well, Topsy has a really weirdly long name. We just wondered if it was a family thing to have a strange name.”
“Well I don’t have a strange name, so it seems a little silly to assume my whole family does when you only know the two of us.” The twins glanced to each other, grinning from ear to ear, not sure whether to say what they were thinking. But Jack must have had the same idea, as he quickly commented,
“You have to admit though, Mary, that Poppins is a fairly odd name.” She didn’t respond.
“Go on then,” John goaded, “what’s his name? Is it Mr Doodletip?”
“Or Chip Monk?” Annabel suggested.
“What about Lancy McDoydadoyle.” Georgie sputtered between giggles.
“Or Ben Dover?”
“JACK!” He half expected Mary to reach over and smack him, but she instead chose to glare daggers at him so he could continue cycling safely. Though that did mean it took him a minute to stop sniggering.
“Mary, if you think that’s bad, maybe later I’ll tell you the other one I thought of. That one really isn’t child friendly.” His grin grew wider, “You can get a lot of good names by shortening Richard.” Mary rolled her eyes.
“Well, that is his name, so please don’t go making inappropriate jokes about it.”
“Really? His name’s Richard? That seems very... normal.”
“Because it is normal. His name is Richard Teaside. It’s a perfectly fine name in my opinion.” The group fell silent, all quietly disappointed by the mundane nature of a usually crazy family. Mary seemed to sense this and couldn’t help but add,
“He does have a strange nickname, however.” Everyone perked up at that,
“Go on then.”
“Rumble Tumble.” That was it, there was no stopping them from laughing, and Mary had no intention of trying. The nickname was supposed to be silly. Everyone she’d ever know had had a good laugh hearing someone with such a serious name being called something so absolutely absurd. Richard himself loved it.
Eventually, they managed to calm down enough to realise they were about to arrive at their destination. They pulled up alongside a rather large mansion none of them had ever seen before. Large columns stood proudly around the perimeter of the grey- once white- building. Towering windows seemed to allow no view inside, despite being taller than any normal sized adult. An enormous door, engraved with a welcoming message, stood in the centre of the property, with an ostentatious lion shaped door knocker, that was almost as large as the decorative gargoyles lining the roof. It looked as if it had been built with all the love and care of an ancient gothic cathedral, and yet, as they hopped off the bike, they couldn’t help but notice that it seemed to be completely derelict.
“Are you sure someone lives here?” Asked Jack, stepping through the copious amounts of weeds growing through the badly cracked patio, “It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned up in years.” And after tripping and nearly falling flat on his face, the leerie was especially careful on the uneven flagstones.
“I’m afraid poor Richard doesn’t go out very much. I can’t imagine he even knows how bad it is.”
“So what, he just stays inside all day?” Georgie asked, “That must be boring.”
“You would think so.” She said, inspecting the fountain which had long since broken. All it held now was a few puddles, that were almost black with dirt and mould, and the slowly rotting carcass of a dead pigeon. “I honestly don’t know how he could let such a beautiful house fall into such disrepair.”
“Look at this grass! It’s nearly as tall as me!” Mary turned to see where John stood, waist deep, in the untrimmed lawn.
“I wouldn’t go walking through that John. You can’t really see what’s in there and I would imagine the local stray cats would be using that as their litter tray.” John grimaced at the thought and hurried out. He rather liked his shoes and didn’t want to ruin them with cat muck.
Georgie was in a similar position with the birds. A murder of crows had taken a seat in a dead tree and were currently watching the group. He’d never seen so many before; there had to be about ten. But knowing that meant there’d be plenty of bird poo dropping, he scurried away to find Annabel, who was inspecting the engraving on the door.
“Et ait: ingredere, bene- benedictay? Domini cur foris- ugh, I give up. Mary, what does this say?” Mary wandered over and inspected the letters before announcing,
“It’s Latin. A bible verse if I’m not mistaken. My Latin is a little rusty, but I believe it says, ‘And he said, ‘Come in, O blessed of the Lord! Why do you stand outside? For I have prepared the house, and a place for your camels.’’”
“Why does he have that on his door?”
“He’s always been a religious man. And I suppose it’s nice to have something a bit different from a welcome mat.” Once everyone else had gathered at the door, Mary sighed.
“I suppose he probably won’t answer if he’s gotten lost in there. Well I guess we should be glad the house is so run down, otherwise it’d be much harder to do this.” Without warning, Mary jammed the head of her umbrella against the lock, and with a firm jolt, the old rusted lock snapped, opening the door.
“Are you sure it was a good idea to break the lock?” Mary kept her eyes forward as she answered the confused leerie.
“Well I certainly can’t imagine someone thinking to break in to try and rob this place.” She had a point. And no more questions were raised as they entered the mansion.
Upon entering, they realised just how big the place was. It seemed to have eternally high ceilings, enormous chandeliers and a perfectly polished checkered marble floor. Great red curtains adorned the windows, with golden ropes to tie them open with a knot as big as a human head. It seemed like Mr Teaside didn’t like small things.
“Huh, wonder what he’s compensating for?” Jack joked. And despite being rather far from him, Mary still heard, tutting disapprovingly under her breath.
“Oh, honestly.” However, she quickly collected herself. Straightening up, she rallied the group together.
“Come along now. Spit spot. If it’s as bad as I think it is, then we’ll need to stick together.”
“But Mary,” Georgie asked, “how are we going to find him? This place is huge!”
“I am almost certain that he’ll be in his secret room at the back of the house. We just need to find it. I’m afraid this house is the trickiest maze I’ve ever encountered. So we mustn’t split up.” The four of them seemed satisfied with that and followed her without question, as she began to lead the way through a rather complex route, passing through countless rooms.
They couldn’t help but notice that each one was more peculiar than the last. They began with a normal living room, which led into an indoor farm, then a bathroom with two toilets, followed by the kitchen. It seemed a bit ridiculous to have to walk through a farm and a bathroom to get from the living room to the kitchen. But then it got even weirder, as the next room was purely white, with a single table in the centre with a phone atop it, surrounded by at least 30 other phones along the walls, each one labelled with the name of a specific person. Jack couldn’t help but wonder why anyone, even someone so rich, would use a different phone for different people. Whereas the children were more confused by the fact that every other room had had carpeted floors, wood panelling to half way up the walls with wallpaper the rest of the way. There had been engraved patterns on the ceilings, paintings, chandeliers, copious amounts of decorative chairs, and even windows, and yet this room was just white and full of phones.
“It should be just through here.” Mary announced, finding her charges were quite relieved to know they’d be able to leave the strange house soon enough. They made their way across the room and through the next door to a room that was piled high with junk. Shelves were filled to near collapsing and a central pile was stacked to the ceiling with even more rubbish that had been unceremoniously dumped. The room seemed darker with the looming towers around them, blocking what little light the old cracked bulb (that was strangely the only light in this particular room) could provide. Though they couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of Mary’s cousin.
“Goodness gracious glory me. It looks like he’s rearranged everything again. Honestly, it’s no wonder he gets lost. Anyone would think he’s doing it deliberately.” Feeling a little confused, John asked,
“What do we do now, then?”
“I’ll have a look around and see if I can find any clue as to what he’s done.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just wander around?”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be such a good idea in a house this big. When he called me, he said he’d been lost for a week. That doesn’t just happen in any old house.” So as John contemplated what else they were going to find, Mary had a look around. Richard had a habit of leaving various fantastical items all over the place. If she could find anything like that, then she’d finally have a chance.
While she got to work, Jack and the children were left to wander around the room, looking at all the strange things it had to offer. Jack couldn’t help but stop and stare when he saw a map of the world, which, at a first glance, looked normal, but upon closer inspection, was completely wrong. The Caribbean, England, Ireland, Iceland, Madagascar, New Zealand, and most of the islands in the East Indies simply weren’t there. Not to mention that, according to the map, Atlantis was a real place you could visit, New York was the capital city of Thailand and Antarctica was simply called ‘Pengwin’. The whole thing was bizarre and poorly printed, interesting him so much that he didn’t even notice what Georgie found.
Only a few feet away, the youngest of the Banks children had come across a rather unusual porcelain rabbit. It was painted in the usual brown shades one would expect for a rabbit, but it had rather strange metallic gold patches in swirled shapes. But Georgie thought the weirdest thing was when it blinked.
“Are you alive?” He whispered, not wanting anyone else to wonder why he was talking to a seemingly inanimate object. But it wasn’t inanimate. An inanimate object wouldn’t nod at him.
“That’s so cool! Do you know where Rumble Tumble is?” He asked, giggling at the name. However, the rabbit shook its head where it sat. It didn’t look very happy being in the junk room, and was looking at the floor miserably, as if it was looking for a bit of pity. Which was pretty easy to get from the young boy.
“Don’t you like it here?” It shook its head. “Do you have any friends?” No. “Oh.” But then he was struck with a brilliant idea.
“I know! We passed through a room that was like a farm. I bet there’s carrots in there. I could go get you some and we could be friends.” The porcelain rabbit looked up, smiling with its eyes as it nodded enthusiastically. Georgie grinned at the prospect of having something to do other than standing around and waiting. So, with the idea firmly seated in his head, he made his way to the door, slipping out before Mary or Jack could spot him and sneakily closing the door behind him. However, he wasn’t totally unseen.
John and Annabel saw him leave, having not been as interested in inspecting broken snow globes as they may have looked. With Mary’s words of the importance of sticking together ringing in their ears, they followed soon after. They couldn’t let him run off and get lost somewhere. They had to bring him back.
This time, however, the door was not quietly shut, as the twins hadn’t thought they needed to be stealthy. So as soon as they heard it close, Mary and Jack’s heads shot to where the sound came from.
“Where are they going now?” Mary muttered, pacing over to the door, “I thought I told them we need to stay together.” But when she opened the door, she was given a shock she was nowhere near prepared for. The door now led to a different room. The white phone room should have been there, but it had been entirely replaced.
“Jack, you need to see this.” When the leerie joined her, his eyes widened.
“How is that possible?” Mary shut the door for a moment and opened it again, revealing another room. She closed it and opened it again and once more, the scene had changed. Several times she shut the door and opened it to see something entirely new. Reality set in as the pair realised they’d lost the kids, and now with the rooms changing so fast, they were probably never going to find them.
“This is so much worse than I imagined.”
“You’re not kidding.” Jack’s attempt at lightening the mood failed as soon as he started to speak, the fear of what was going on, being far more powerful than any joke.
“We need to find Richard as soon as possible and put a stop to this, otherwise I can’t imagine we’ll ever find them, or the exit.” Jack’s heart pounded slightly faster than he’d ever admit as his mind raced for any idea of what they could do.
“So I guess we can’t get a route now.”
“You’re right. But we’ll be fine,” Mary assured, “We just need to stay together and with a bit of luck we’ll find Richard. He’ll be able to put this right with our help.”
“I hope you’re right.” Jack groaned.
“Alright then. Let’s go.” Opening the door once more to a random room, the pair took a deep breath and stepped through together. They’d get this sorted eventually. It was their only option.