Pip Wren and the Whimsy Rescue

Bumblebay smelled of cinnamon and sea salt. In the morning the harbor sent up a steam of warm bread scents that mixed with gull-cry and motor oil, and the whole town seemed to wobble on the edge of a laugh. Up on the Wren bakery roof, a patchwork of tarps and salvaged shutters, Pip Wren bent over a contraption that whistled like a surprised kettle. The gadget was a Sock Polisher, half clockwork, half soapbox. Pip's hands were sticky with flour and oil. When he tightened the last screw the polisher coughed, hiccuped, and launched a lone, shining sock into the sky.

Pip flinched. The sock described a perfect arc and landed on the head of Mrs. Bramble, who was walking two rows down the lane carrying a basket of tarts. Mrs. Bramble did not so much as mutter. She only blinked, shook the sock off like one shakes rain, and put a tart into her mouth as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Pip breathed out. He liked it when mornings were almost ordinary.

Below, the bakery oven chimed a friendly chime. Rosa Wren—the baker, Pip's mother—leaned out the window and called up in her low, warm voice. 'Pip, if that machine is going to give me flying socks again, at least make them land on the clothesline. The mayor's wife will faint if a sock floats into her hat.'

Pip grinned and waved a greasy hand. 'Working on it, Ma. Might add a tether.'

He took a step and almost slipped on a stray ribbon. At the rail a rusted tin sign creaked. Far below, children chased a soap bubble three blocks wide. The bubble carried with it a small, ridiculous song, and it popped squarely on the nose of a moustached painter, leaving a ring of soap in his beard. Laughter popped up like mushrooms.

Pip's roof workshop was full of things that hummed: a clock with three faces, a wind-up loaf-turner, a pocket-sized weather vane that preferred to point at interesting stories rather than wind. And tucked in a corner, half under an old sailor's coat, a small mechanical seagull blinked with glass eyes. Its brass feathers were bent and its wing-springs squeaked when it coughed. The seagull was called Cogs, and he had a talent for finding lost buttons and for singing, horribly off-key, at midnight.

Pip rubbed his flour-stiff fingers together and felt the tug of something that was always there: the wanting to fix the strange, the need to make odd things work not because they had to but because Bumblebay loved them better when they were slightly ridiculous. He tightened the Sock Polisher's last screw and tapped the side. The machine hiccupped. A polite puff of soapy steam sighed out, and the scent of lemon filled the air. Outside, the town bell rang, and the day began in its usual, almost magical wobble.