The Amazing Adventure of Amanderella Gottsnobbler Chapter 7

 

Chapter 7:

The Grewpugs Explorers.

 

The river bent sharply, and at last, the jungle opened onto a clearing, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and blooming orchids. Smoke curled lazily into the sky above a cluster of thatched huts nestled amidst lush greenery.  Ramone slowed the boat, his vowels polished as ever. “We have arrived, senhorita. The Grewpug Explorers’ camp.”

As the boat nosed toward the clearing, Ramone gestured at the thatched huts, “Curious, isn’t it? The Amazonian natives left long ago for bathrooms and electricity, leaving the stubborn Grewpug Explorers to their quests.”  His tone carried a mix of admiration and bemusement.

Amanderella stepped ashore, compass in hand, her heart racing with excitement. This was it! The beginning of her true adventure.

Ramone tied the rope neatly and helped her to the shore. From the thatched huts the Grewpug Explorers emerged one by one, each stranger than the last. A tall man in a battered top hat strode forward. His accent was as odd as his moustache. “Welcome, we have been expecting another explorer. Your room at Carmelita’s was paid, was it not? Splendid. We never leave an explorer unprovided for.”

Ramone stepped forward. “Allow me to do the introductions. This is Miss  Amanderella Gottsnobbler of Gottsnobbler Hall in England.” Amanderella tilted her pointed hat.

Ramone continued, “And this is Professor Thimblewhack. Chairman of the Grewpug Explorers committee.”

Professor Thimblewhack bowed low. The rest of the men gathered in a semicircle, each nodding gravely as though this were the most solemn occasion in the Amazon.

Ramone bowed slightly. “Senhorita, these are the Grewpug Explorers. Their quests are many, their names are peculiar, and their welcome is sincere. You are the first lady ever to stand among them.”

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat, vest jingling faintly with coins. “Explorers must be resourceful,” she declared. “And I am honoured to join such distinguished company.” Several of the men whispered to each other in awe: “A woman! Imagine the minutes this will cause at committee!”

Ramone bowed slightly, impossibly handsome and perfectly composed. “Senhorita, you are among friends. The Amazon shall yield its secrets.. Now if you don’t mind once I have unloaded the supplies,  I will leave you in these gentlemen’s capable hands and make the journey down river.”

Amanderella excused herself and followed him to the boat. “How much do I owe you for the trip?” she asked, jingling her vest.

“Nothing, pretty lady. I have already been paid for my work.”

With effortless grace he slipped away, leaving her in the care of the camp.

Professor Thimblewack joined her at the water’s edge. “Allow me to introduce the rest of the Grewpug  Explorers.”

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat and allowed herself to be guided back into the centre of the camp.

One by one, the Grewpug Explorers stepped forward to greet Amanderella.

The first was a man whose moustache bristled like a pair of startled hedgehogs, waxed to points that twitched with every word. His boots were polished so fiercely that the evening sun bounced off them, making Amanderella blink. His uniform was a faded relic of some forgotten regiment, festooned with medals whose origins no one could quite recall. He saluted smartly.

“Colonel Jibberjack, at your service, Ma’am,” he barked in the kind of voice used to carry across a parade ground.

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat.

The Colonel did a perfect about‑turn, stamped his booted feet, and marched back to the line.

The next explorer shuffled forward, stooped so low it was hard to tell his height. Round glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose, threatening to fall but never quite doing so. His waistcoat was stained with splashes of some unrecognisable substance, and his pockets bulged with spoons of every size. His hair stood up in stiff spikes, and his shoes squelched as though filled with something sticky. He clutched a battered saucepan with porridge at the bottom that looked as if it had been there since the last Ice Age.

He spoke in bubbling phrases, interrupted by slurps. “Doctor Porridgepump. Always ready to serve cooked oats.”

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat.

The Doctor squelched back to the group.

Sir Humbuggle stepped forward next. His beard arrived first, plaited into unusual shapes — spirals, ladders, even what looked suspiciously like a map of the Amazon. His clothes were patched with scraps of paper, each scrawled with Latin words. Amanderella tried to read them, but they blurred into muttered syllables.

“Hail! Salve, peregrina Amazonica!” he declared in rolling, pompous tones, as if lecturing invisible students. “Jubilative Humbuggle at your service. Be glad to give you the proper Latin name for anything you see.”

Amanderella tilted her hat.

 Sir Humbuggle bowed gravely and stepped back.

Then came a tall, angular figure draped in a moth‑eaten velvet coat, with boots so enormous they squeaked and groaned at every step. A cracked monocle gleamed proudly in his left eye, and he carried a cane carved from jungle wood.

“Madam Amanderella,” he intoned, “you may consider it a singular distinction that I, Lord Crankleboot, deign to address you directly. It is not my custom to converse with ladies in the field, yet your presence among the Grewpug Explorers compels me to bestow this courtesy. Accept it as a mark of rare honour.”

He bowed stiffly, as though presenting her with a knighthood rather than a greeting.

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat.

Lord Crankleboot tottered back to his place, cane tapping.

The last member of the group introduced himself as Reverend Tiddlewink. He was a thin, bird‑like man draped in faded clerical robes, patched with jungle leaves and ribbons. His spectacles were slightly askew, and he carried a hymn book swollen with damp, its pages fluttering like moth wings.

He bowed, ribbons trailing from his sleeves like jungle vines. He tied a ribbon carefully to Amanderella’s sleeve, as though consecrating her, and murmured, “By this ribbon, thou art consecrated to the fellowship of explorers. Go forth in reverence.”

Somewhere in the jungle a parrot screeched something that sounded remarkably like “Amen.”

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat.     

As the Grewpug Explorers finished their noisy welcome, Professor Thimblewhack gestured toward a hut with a freshly patched thatch roof.

“This was the dwelling of Commodore Knickerflap,” he explained  “He came here seeking the night‑flying whoopee birds. After months of searching, he discovered them nesting in the roof of his own hut. Quite satisfied, he packed up and left — off on a lecture tour to tell the world of his great discovery. Bathrooms and electricity were a further inducement, of course.”

Amanderella tilted her pointed hat. “Explorers must be resourceful,” she declared. “I shall take his hut. It will do perfectly.”

The men gasped collectively, eyes wide with surprise. Not only was she the first lady among them, but she was boldly stepping into the quarters of a departed comrade. One quietly muttered, “Imagine the minutes this will cause at committee!”

And, as was his custom, Professor Thimblewhack wrote down every word spoken round the fire that night in a huge battered book, its pages swelling with the explorers’ peculiar minutes.