1 MARVELLA BUBBLES a novel for young people by Peter Morris Marvella Bubbles (revised 8/20/15) © 2005 P. Morris 2 Chapter 1: The Night I Met Marvella ........................................................................................... page 3 Chapter 2: Chocolate Cake and a Frosty Glass of Milk .............................................................. page 6 Chapter 3: Bullies ...................................................................................................................... page 11 Chapter 4: Miss Fanny to the Rescue ......................................................................................... page 14 Chapter 5: Gertruda Von Gerkin Pays a Housecall .................................................................... page 18 Chapter 6: A Man Who’s Good with His Hands ....................................................................... page 23 Chapter 7: A Bit of Marvella’s Past .......................................................................................... page 27 Chapter 8: Mrs. Flummery Had a Cat ....................................................................................... page 29 Chapter 9: S-C-H-E-H-E-R-A-Z-A-D-E ................................................................................... page 30 Chapter 10: Did She or Didn’t She? ............................................................................................ page 34 Chapter 11: Unexpected Guests ................................................................................................... page 37 Chapter 12: Playing Detective ..................................................................................................... page 41 Chapter 13: No One Home .......................................................................................................... page 42 Chapter 14: Missing Person ........................................................................................................ page 44 Chapter 15: An Unfinished Game of Mah Jongg ........................................................................ page 47 Chapter 16: A Horrible Discovery .............................................................................................. page 50 Chapter 17: Choosing Sides ........................................................................................................ page 53 Chapter 18: What to Think? What to Feel ................................................................................... page 57 Chapter 19: A Jailhouse Visit ...................................................................................................... page 60 Chapter 20: The 273rd Founders’ Day Parade ............................................................................. page 64 Chapter 21: Look Who’s Back .................................................................................................... page 67 Chapter 22: Another Jailhouse Visit............................................................................................. page 70 Chapter 23: A True Ally .............................................................................................................. page 73 Chapter 24: Thpelunking ............................................................................................................. page 76 Chapter 25: Now You See Her, Now You Don’t ........................................................................ page 80 Chapter 26: A Very Confused Kid .............................................................................................. page 84 Chapter 27: Evil Puns and Cute Poems ........................................................................................ page 87 Chapter 28: Hatching a Plan ........................................................................................................ page 91 Chapter 29: The Plan Backfires .................................................................................................... page 95 Chapter 30: Mrs. Witherspoon Freaks ....................................................................................... page 100 Chapter 31: The Trial of Marvella Bubbles ............................................................................... page 103 Chapter 32: Charlie Takes the Stand ......................................................................................... page 106 Chapter 33: A Surprise Witness ................................................................................................ page 109 Chapter 34: An Almost Happy Ending ..................................................................................... page 115 Marvella Bubbles (revised 8/20/15) © 2005 P. Morris 3 Chapter One: The Night I Met Marvella There never has been and never will be anyone quite like Marvella Bubbles. In the words of Mr. Twiddle, the local pharmacist, she was “the most exquisite creature in all of Peppercorn County.” It’s true. Marvella Bubbles possessed a regal beauty, although she flatly denied having any royal blood. Still, there was something queenly about her as she stood before you in one of her flowing chiffon gowns, her jet black hair swirled high upon her head like shimmering soft ice cream in a sugar cone. Her eyes were dark but bright, her chin pronounced and her nose longer than she might have wished. But it was a good nose, straight and smooth and able to smell any lie within a quarter of a mile. She was an average-sized woman but her huge hairdo made her seem to loom over you. And where some women might be corrupted by their beauty, turned vain and selfish, Marvella Bubbles was gracious and kind to a fault. But sometimes some people find some things too good to be true. “There’s something not quite right about that woman” was what Mrs. Flummery always said when Marvella Bubbles drove by in her vintage 1959 cherry red Cadillac convertible, the one with the fins. “She’s been around as long as I can remember and she looks exactly the same. How old is she anyway?” No one knew exactly how old Marvella Bubbles was. All they knew was that she’d been around as long as they could remember and was just as beautiful now as the day they first laid eyes on her. Although she got older, she never seemed to age. Where women like Mrs. Flummery accumulated wrinkle after wrinkle, Marvella Bubbles’ skin stayed porcelain smooth. This was the reason Mrs. Flummery and many others in Peppercorn County thought she must be a witch. “Nonsense,” Marvella would say whenever anyone hinted at the rumor. “Me? A witch? Poppycock.” Then she would smile brightly and offer you a piece of homemade chocolate cake. With a frosty glass of milk, of course. I first tasted her chocolate cake when I was a small boy, about ten years old. This was long, long ago in the olden days of the 1970s. I’d run away from home as so many boys of ten do. I was fleeing for my life. My parents were subjecting me to unspeakable torture. Marvella Bubbles (revised 8/20/15) © 2005 P. Morris 4 “Charlie, eat your cauliflower,” my mother told me. “Aw, Mom.” “You heard your mother,” my dad said. “But, Pop, it’s yucky.” To which my mother replied that it was full of vitamins. (Hint to mothers: The promise of vitamins does not make vegetables less yucky.) I looked down at the cauliflower on my plate. It seemed to look back at me. “It looks like brains.” “Eat it,” my father said sternly. My father was a good man, but even good men are blind to the evils of this world. And cauliflower is evil. It looks evil. It tastes evil. I had to take a stand. “No,” I said. “Please, Charlie,” my mother urged, “eat your cauliflower.” “I’ll die.” At the time I was sure that was true. “You won’t die,” my father assured me. But he was wrong. I knew it. So I dropped my fork, folded my arms and sat in my chair defiantly. My father saw this and said to me, in his most commanding tone, “Eat that cauliflower or go to your room.” “Fine,” I said, “I’ll go to my room.” As I started to get up from the table, my father added, “Take that cauliflower with you, and don’t leave your room until you’ve eaten it all.” I sat on my bed staring at that cauliflower for almost three hours before I came to the inevitable conclusion that my parents didn’t love me. After all, people who love you don’t lock you in a room with stinky old cauliflower. So I gathered up all the money I had in the world – three dollars and eleven cents – tip-toed down the backstairs and snuck out the kitchen door. I’d gone as far as the edge of town when I began to get frightened. The sounds of the night had surrounded me. The hooting owls and chirping crickets never seemed so scary when I was at home with my mom and dad. On the outskirts of town, there were no streetlights. I couldn’t see five feet in front of me. The only light came from the lonely old house on Half Moon Hill, Marvella Bubbles’ house. I had two choices: I could continue into the darkness and risk getting lost in the woods, maybe even fall into the ravine that lay just a few feet from the side of the road, or I could go toward the light. Marvella Bubbles (revised 8/20/15) © 2005 P. Morris 5 I chose the light. I climbed up the hill, but when I got to the front door of the house I just couldn’t get myself to knock. I knew what happened to people in scary movies when they knocked on strange front doors, so I didn’t. But I couldn’t get myself to walk back out into the darkness either. I decided to curl up under a hydrangea bush in the front yard until morning. Marvella Bubbles would never even know I was there.