Amanderella Gottsnobbler and the Bangolin Tree Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

 

The Lady Comes Home.

 

The SS Pedal Power came chuffing into the docks with all the dignity a steam‑driven vessel could muster.

A harbour pilot stood at the wheel, guiding her neatly between the mooring posts, but Captain Ahaboodle played second fiddle to the pilot. He stood beside him, boots planted wide, hat pulled low over one eye, and rang his bicycle bell with stubborn pride, trrringtrrring! as though the entire manoeuvre depended on the encouragement of that tiny brass instrument.

Dockworkers paused mid‑coil of rope to stare. Seagulls wheeled overhead in mild confusion.

Amanderella, standing at the rail with her luggage and her expedition tea-can, felt a familiar fondness for the man who had carried her safely across two oceans and one ill‑advised sandbar.

The pilot, to his credit, did not flinch.
“Captain,” he murmured, “the bell is not strictly necessary.”

“Nonsense!” Ahaboodle declared, giving it another sharp ring. “A ship responds to firm handling. And bells.”

The Pedal Power glided into her berth with surprising grace, propelled by the last determined revolutions of the engines. As the ropes were thrown and secured, Ahaboodle gave one final triumphant trrring! as if he’d just finished a great performance.

First Mate Riptide Noodnuzzle approached her with the wooden box of Brazilian coffee beans, his expression full of genuine gratitude. The scent drifted out as he lifted the lid, rich and warm, a reminder of the cargo that had filled the hold for the entire journey home.

“For you, Lady Gottsnobbler,” he said, offering the box with both hands. “A small token, after all you did for us on the way out.”

Amanderella raised an eyebrow. “You mean the seasickness.”

Riptide nodded, a little sheepishly. “Aye. Without your bottle of Dr Rumbletum’s Elixir, half the crew would have been green from here to Pernambuco. Captain Ahaboodle still swears it saved his life, though he may be exaggerating.”

From the bridge, Ahaboodle rang his bicycle bell in vigorous agreement.

Amanderella accepted the box with a smile. “I am glad it helped. Dr Rumbletum’s concoctions are reliable, even if the label does warn that they may cause temporary optimism.”

Riptide laughed. “Well, it worked. And we thought it only right you take home the finest beans we’ve ever carried.”

She thanked him, tucked the box under her arm, and waited to step ashore. Her luggage with her precious notebooks was waiting to be unloaded.

The gangplank thudded into position, and Amanderella stepped onto the dock with her box of Brazilian coffee beans.

The moment she stepped off the plank, the docks swallowed her in their usual chaos. Porters shouted, gulls argued overhead, and a man selling questionable oysters tried to press a sample upon her. She walked through the crowd as easily as if she were crossing a swamp on the backs of helpful alligators.

With the box tucked safely under her arm, she made her way toward the Harbour Master’s office.

Captain Trumpuffer was a broad‑shouldered fellow with a chest that rose and fell like a bellows, and a moustache that bristled at passing ships. He liked everything done exactly his way.

He touched the brim of his cap in greeting. “Welcome home, Madam,” he said, his voice carrying across the quay. “The Pedal Power made good time, though I see Captain Ahaboodle is still ringing that bell of his.”

Ahaboodle gave the bell one more ring, as if that settled the matter.

Amanderella smiled. “He finds it reassuring.”

Captain Trumpuffer gave a thoughtful grunt. “Some men prefer whistles, some prefer horns. Ahaboodle prefers… that.”

He made a note in his ledger, snapped it shut, and stepped aside with a courteous gesture.

“Captain,” she said, “I need lodgings. Somewhere I can work. Do you know of a place?”

Trumpuffer puffed out his chest, considered the matter, and nodded. “Plenty of places to sleep, Lady Gottsnobbler, but only a few where a person can think. Try the upper town. Boarding houses, mostly. Ask around for one that has a quiet parlour. I am told writers like parlours.”

It was not precise, but it was a start.

“Leave your luggage here with me until you find somewhere,” said Trumpuffer. “I will send it along when you are settled.”

The faint metallic clink from her vest reminded her of the vintage motorbike she had sold before departing for the Amazon. She had converted the banknotes into gold coins, reasoning that paper was too easily lost, torn, or eaten by creatures with more curiosity than manners. The coins had been sewn into her vest for safekeeping, and since the Grewpug expedition had paid for every meal, map, and mosquito repellent, she had never needed to spend a single one.

Amanderella set off through the harbour streets, weaving between porters, gulls, and a man selling umbrellas that looked as though they might dissolve in rain. She asked a fishmonger for directions to the nearest bank, but he sent her toward a warehouse. She stopped a lamplighter next, who insisted the nearest bank was “just past the third left after the bakery that used to be a bakery but is now a shop that sells hats for dogs.” Amanderella, who had no intention of finding her way by looking for dog‑bonnets, pressed on.

At last, she located a building with columns, a brass plaque, and the unmistakable air of a place that disapproved of muddy boots. She straightened her hat, brushed a fleck of Amazonian dust from her sleeve, and entered with the quiet authority of a woman who jingled when she walked.

The clerk behind the counter blinked at her vest, which chimed faintly as she approached.

“I should like to convert some gold,” Amanderella said, producing one of the coins she had unpicked from its seam. “Into banknotes, if you please. The kind that don’t fall apart in the damp.”

The clerk examined the coin, then Amanderella, then the coin again, as though trying to decide which was the bigger mystery. “Certainly, madam,” he said at last, and began counting out crisp notes as though it were the most important paper in the world.

Amanderella tucked the notes into her notebook, the safest place she knew, and stepped back into the harbour air, ready at last to find respectable lodgings, a pot of tea, and a room where no one would object to the occasional metallic rustle.

A woman selling ribbons pointed her uphill, though she admitted she had never been inside any boarding houses herself. A boy with a dog suggested she try his aunt’s spare room, but the dog shook its head firmly, so she declined.

The streets grew quieter as she climbed. The smell of the docks faded, replaced by the scent of baking bread and chimney smoke.

She passed three houses that looked promising, but one had a sign reading No Visitors, another had a window cracked in a way that suggested a recent argument, and the third had a cat in the doorway that stared at her with open hostility. Whilst she was rather fond of felines, she did not want to spend any time arguing with one.

At last, she reached Wimple Terrace, a neat row of houses, each one freshly swept and respectably dull. Halfway along, its windows polished to a shine and its curtains arranged as if by a ruler, was a house with a gleaming brass plaque beside the door which read, Apartments. It did not boast, it did not shout, and it did not smell of fish. It looked exactly the sort of place where a person could write a lecture and prepare a magic‑lantern show without interruption.

Amanderella adjusted her grip on the coffee box, straightened her hat, and knocked.

Mrs Gaffletter’s boarding house ran on three principles: clean floors, clean consciences, and clean lodgers. Amanderella, to her credit, upheld all three. Still, Mrs Gaffletter insisted on a daily inspection of boots. Nothing offended her quite like foreign mud being tracked into her hallway.

She was a woman whose standards were so high they required oxygen masks. Her tolerance for dust was so low that even a single speck would send her into a tizzy. Her boarding house gleamed. It did not merely shine, it glared at dirt until it retreated in shame.

She also kept a strict rule about gentlemen callers. This rule was printed and pinned beside the umbrella stand. Gentlemen were permitted to deliver messages, return lost items, or apologise for previous behaviour, but they were not permitted to linger, loiter, or even breathe in a way that Mrs Gaffletter found suspicious.

Amanderella found the rule entirely reasonable, though she suspected Mrs Gaffletter would have insisted on it even if the house had been empty.

When she learned that her newest guest was Lady Amanderella Gottsnobbler, not simply a Miss, her eyebrows rose with such refined satisfaction that they nearly reached the picture rail. A titled lodger was a rare prize, and Mrs Gaffletter heard the news with a look of great satisfaction. She adjusted her apron, straightened the umbrella stand, and ushered Amanderella inside with the air of someone welcoming royalty.

The room she offered was small but spotless. The bedspread lay so flat it might have been ironed directly onto the mattress, the writing desk gleamed with recent polish, and the window looked out over a tidy garden where even the weeds appeared to have signed a behaviour agreement. Amanderella set her box of Brazilian coffee beans on the desk, placed her satchel beside it, and felt the pleasant relief of a traveller who has finally found a quiet place to work.

The room was still, the air was clean, and the table was large enough for her notes, her sketches, and the beginnings of a lecture that would astonish the Royal Society.

Amanderella took a deep breath, opened her knapsack, took out a pad of paper and her trusty pencil, and began to write.