Stirring Adventures and Mad Mods! Saving the world one questionable decision at a time.
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» I which, I am sorry to say, there is squabbling.
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There was no more line left, so they untied coils and coils of it from the still sleeping yeti and secured Gerhardt with that. He scrambled up again, let a little gas out of each balloon, and fastened the net closer to the ship.
They sank closer to the river’s rushing water, and were on their way for a while. But before another ten leagues had passed, they were stuck again.
“What else can we pitch?” Claire asked, thinking aloud.
They looked around them. They had thrown all the rugs and blankets out the windows for Ulrik and the boiler crew back on the surface. They had tossed out all the furniture when they’d run aground in the tunnel.
“Water!” Annabelle seized a small barrel. “There’s plenty of water now, let’s dump it. There’s another one over there.”
The second barrel proved not to be water, but a sharp-smelling, eye-watering alcohol.
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By Madame vonHedwig on Saturday, April 17th, 2010
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which the children run aground.
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They fell for two days according to Adolphus’ pocket watch, which was miraculously unharmed in all the excitement. They were tense, tired, grubby, irritable, and out of cookies.
Adolphus was once again at the controls, Mirabelle watching the tunnel with him.
“We’re not going straight down,” she said.
“No, the tunnel’s curving. I’ve swung the aft engine pods straight back to keep us away from the wall.” He fumbled at the controls. “There, I’ve got the lights on back there. Would you go watch that wall?”
“Of course. How shall I signal you? I don’t want to shout or whistle, Claire’s just fallen asleep.”
“Is there a light back there? If you flash a light I’ll see the reflection in the window here.”
Mirabelle walked around her twin and moved aft. Annabelle was once again applying her tweezers to the yeti and strange moss that grew into its skin. Concentrating on the yeti helped her forget her motion sickness, so she had made sketches, measurements, and taken extensive notes on the creature. She had even opened the cupboard and questioned Count Montesanto on the moss, but found him most unhelpful on that topic, although perfectly willing to expand her vocabulary of Italian obscenities. (She took extensive notes on this topic as well.) At this point, she had most of the moss removed, but the yeti still did not wake.
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By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
The Schöneluft boiler crew have (apparently) unionized. Why? Who knows! (None of us can speak their language, after all.) Nevertheless, a shipment of their Official Union shirts was waiting for us when we docked in Copenhagen last week. They’re rather charming, and if you would like to order one for yourself, you may do so at the Steampunk Family Zazzle Store!
By Madame vonHedwig on Saturday, February 20th, 2010
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which, although the circumstances are dark indeed, a beacon of hope shines from afar.
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Madame took off the moment her husband was on board. Although she was agitated, her flying was steady, and they soon arrived at the mouth of the tunnel that had swallowed their children. There was no place to land. They anchored, to a stalactite above them and a stalagmite below. Herr von Hedwig rappelled down to the site, bathed in the Schmetterling’s searchlight.
Madame paced between the hatch and the controls, wringing her hands. A dozen times an anxious question leapt to her lips; a dozen times she quelled it. Her husband examined the cave mouth, called for more line, and then went deeper, out of her view. She stayed at the line, alert for any signal from him. At length, one came – again, more line! He was descending. She focused the spotlight down into the blackness. Although her beloved was lost from her sight, she hoped the light would be of use to him. He carried the lantern as well.
At last, the signal to wind in the line. At last he returned.
“The ship was here; they went into the tunnel. There are scratch marks along the floor.”
“Why did they go in there?” Madame’s voice strained with the effort of control.
“The blackguard must have forced them. He must have a yeti or two with him. The children would have overpowered him otherwise.”
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By Madame vonHedwig on Friday, February 12th, 2010
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which the Fearless Fabricator and his intrepid wife find disturbing evidence.
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Herr and Madame vonHedwig made their way from the mad scientist’s underground lair, trudging toward the surface. They were tired, and mired in thought, but alert for any sign of Montesanto or yeti.
A distant throbbing broke the silence of the cave. Exchanging concerned and puzzled looks, they hurried toward the sound. Suddenly, bright white light flashed against the tunnel wall ahead of them as the throb became a roar. They ran pell mell toward the fading sound, skittering to a halt at the mouth of the volcanic tube they had discovered on their way in. The engine sound that had shattered the underground silence was only a muttering far below them.
The Fearless Fabricator listened intently. There was something familiar about the engine sound, disturbingly familiar.
“What’s that?” Madame pointed down the wall of the volcanic tube. “Was that there before?”
Her husband cupped their lantern in both hands, focusing the light. There was a tiny smear of white clinging to the rock wall, its charred edges blending with the dark rock. When at last he spoke, he could only utter a harsh whisper.
“It’s a marshmallow.”
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By Madame vonHedwig on Sunday, February 7th, 2010
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which things go from bad to worse.
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“Stop!” Claire shrieked. “Stop fighting it! Lie down!”
“What?” Mirabelle yelled.
“It ignored me! Get down!”
Gerhardt and Bettina dropped like stones, and the twins followed. The yeti halted, looking around for its attackers. Behind it, Claire crawled across the tilting floor to Adolphus.
“We need engines,” she whispered, “to slow us down when we crash.”
“How about an anchor, to stop us falling?”
Claire nodded, and Adolphus turned to address the ship.
“Has anyone seen the anch-?”
The question died on his lips. The gondola was strewn with debris, and the starboard windows shattered. His younger brother and sisters lay as though dead, and a 7-foot, distressingly not mythological, bleeding, growling, angry animal glared at him from amidships.
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By Madame vonHedwig on Saturday, January 16th, 2010
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which Adolphus argues, Mirabelle takes a risk, and Bettina enters the fray.
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Bettina fretted. All her older siblings were actively engaged in fighting the mustache man, while she watched. Adolphus struggled to control the ship, Claire had built a trebuchet, and the twins and Gerhardt were trying to remove the mysterious moss from the neck of the yeti. The youngest vonHedwig cast about her for something, anything she could do to help. What could be of use that the other children had discarded?
Bettina was drawn, as she so often was, to the flammable. There was a small oilcan tossed into the corner behind Claire, and some pieces of the twins’ string. She grabbed them, and crawled around the floor, collecting dust bunnies and clumps of shed hair. When she had a big enough bundle, she started to bind it together, leaving the longest bit of string as a wick. Regretfully, she bound in the moss she had pulled from the yeti’s head. This was no time to be sentimental. Indeed, this was a crisis. Bettina felt in her pinafore pocket. Four firecrackers. She judged their need to be great, and sacrificed one of her meager horde to the cause.
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This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which Bettina finds moss where no moss should be.
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The children clustered aft in the boiler launch, guarded by a yeti controlled by an evil Italian botanist. The boiler crew’s launch was larger than the Schmetterling, but far less organized. Equipment parts were strewn about, as were tools, mechanical parts, cushions, broken chairs, tin cans, forged iron puzzle toys, a Chinese checker board with its marbles everywhere, clumps of dust and hair, and food.
The yeti stood between them and the Count like a furry wall, but never looked at the children, staring straight ahead. While Montesanto looked out the fore windows to guide Adolphus’ flight, the children explored their prison.
The twins methodically checked the broken chairs for use as clubs. Claire and Gerhardt examined tools and equipment parts in the mad hope of building something useful. Bettina sifted through the rubble as well. She found a bag of marshmallows, and gave them to Gerhardt without eating a single one. As he took it from her he saw the reddish brown thatch clutched in her hand.
“Where did you get that?” he whispered.
Bettina pointed to the yeti.
“May I see it?”
She held out her hand for his inspection, but did not relinquish her souvenir.
“That’s not fur,” he said, perplexed. “Claire, that’s not fur.”
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By Madame vonHedwig on Friday, December 25th, 2009
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which the children encounter their mother’s enemy.
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Claire, Adolphus, Gerhardt, and the twins were watching through the launch windows as Ulrik and the Chief patched up the injured crewman. They saw Bettina walk around the ship to the door, and heard the door open. A rank animal smell assaulted them.
“Good Lord, Bettina,” Adolphus exclaimed, “did you roll in something?”
He turned to see his sister frantically biting the glove of a strange man, hooded in a furry parka. Behind him loomed what could only be a yeti.
“Do not move or speak, vonHedwig children! It would be extremely unpleasant for me to have to strangle your baby sister, and feed her to my servant,” said the strange man. “Yes,” he cried, shaking off his hood, “I know who you are, for I am Count Montesanto!”
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By Madame vonHedwig on Friday, December 18th, 2009
This entry is part of a series, Voyage to Antafrica» In which a perfectly lovely day is ruined by beastly luck.
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The vonHedwig children enjoyed an exhilarating day on the Himalayan slopes, after initial hours of boredom. Ulrik insisted on finding the gentlest slope in the vicinity (still nearly a sixty degree angle), and then he and the boiler crew drove long spikes into the ice and strung a parachute silk between them to serve as a net.
The children found these precautions excessive, and the younger children muttered impertinent things under their breath. They did not speak their dark thoughts aloud, however, for when Adolphus asked Ulrik how long he planned to muck about with those spikes, the boiler chief bared his fearsome teeth, and Ulrik withdrew the roll of tranquilizer doses from his pocket and contemplated it, smiling. After that, the children retreated to the warmth of the boiler crew’s launch, and played a rather wild game of snap, which even Claire enjoyed, although she believed herself far too old for that sort of thing.
When the safety net was ready, the boiler crew tested it on their skis, and, at the bottom, pronounced their enjoyment in hoots, and leaps, and victorious arm waving. The children were then allowed, at long last, to plunge down the mountainside on their toboggans, screaming their delight all the way down. They spent hours at it, enjoyed a picnic on the launch, and went out again. It was nearly teatime when disaster struck.
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