Steemjammer: Through the Verltgaat (12 page)

“Shadovecht cut!” Alfonz cried. “See? The claw, your skin breaking. This color, this from toxic, toxic on the claw of the Shadovecht, ya?”

“Toxic?” Giselle asked. “You mean poison?”

“Ya, that thing. That’s how the Rasmussens are, neh? Their steem, it’s verschrikoolink.”
Awful.
“But at poison and death, very goot.”

“But it’s just a tiny scratch,” Angelica protested.

“My dear, not even one hour we’re having, or he will die!”

Chapter
12

tANTE KLAZEE

Back in the sub-basement, Will struggled to find the right coordinates in his father’s journal. Alfonz wanted to go to the room in the old house that they’d seen earlier, and he urged Will to hurry. The poison was eating away at the inside of his body, and if they didn’t cure it soon, it could cause permanent damage or even kill him.

Will did his best but felt lightheaded, like he had a fever. The others tried to help, but even Alfonz found that running the machine was beyond him.

Giselle ran upstairs to get medicine, while Angelica, realizing they had a few minutes and, not knowing how long they’d be gone, thought about the animals. She found pen and paper, scrawled a quick note, and sealed it in an envelope with a diamond.

Racing upstairs, she dashed across the street and saw Ron’s dented mailbox perched on an upside down garbage can. She placed the envelope inside and streaked back to Beverkenhaas.

After drinking some willow bark extract that Giselle found, Will’s head cleared enough for him to set the coordinates and tune the crystals. With steam flowing, the carousel turned, and the Tracium. Will shoved the big lever, and the white circle appeared.

“Haast!” Alfonz urged.
Make haste!
“You must get shoonmaaken.”
Cleansed.

“Purple!” Giselle shouted as the color changed.

“Where’s Angelica?” Will said.

“Here!” she called, coming down the steps with a bundle in her arms. “I have Gus. Maybe he’s poisoned, too. He was acting so strange.”

As before, a high-ceilinged room in a wood and stone house came into view, framed by a large glowing circle. Alfonz peered in.

“Ya, goot,” he said, turning to Will. “Go!”

“Wait,” Will said. “Someone should stay behind to open the world hole and let us back.”

“Leave it open.”

“Dad’s journal says not to. They could find us.”

Giselle and Angelica looked queasy.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Giselle said.

“The timer,” Angelica said.

Alfonz’s face wrenched with concern. “Timer?”

“We tested it. It reopens the world hole.”

“Go, then. Set it.”

Hands shaking, Will began going over the timer settings on the control board.

As before, the scuffed, ancient lettering confused him. Why had they abbreviated everything? He knew “S.” stood for “seconden” or seconds, but it only went to 240, which wouldn’t be enough. He had no idea what the other markings meant. Then, he spotted a pair of scratched letters that seemed to clearly read “UU.” That had to mean “uuren,” he thought, which meant hours in Dutch.

“Will, vershneelen!” Alfonz urged. Hurry! “The cure zo fast is, ya? But the poison, stronger is getting!”

“Yes,” he shouted nervously, trying not to imagine what the venom was doing inside his body. “Go!”

Carrying Gus, Angelica hopped through the world hole, followed by Giselle. Just as Alfonz stepped through, a blood-curdling scream filled the air.

Even back in Beverkenhaas Will could hear it over the noise of the machinery. He set the “UU” timer dial to “1” and hit the button marked “BEGINNEN.” Turning off the world hole while grabbing his father’s journal and a sword, he ran through, the verltgaat closing right behind him.

***

“Gevoor!” shrieked a female voice.
Hey!
“Ik ben in de baadkoop!”
I’m in the bathtub!

An elderly, somewhat heavy woman sat in a large wood and copper tub in the corner of the room. Scrubbing her face, she hadn’t noticed the verltgaat opening until people arrived. She plunged herself deep into the bubbly water while reaching blindly to a nearby side table for something to use as a weapon.

“Perzak!” Alfonz cried. “Ik ben de Alfonz! Alfonz Zeldemthoos mit de Steemjammer kinter!”
Peace! I’m Alfonz! Alfonz Zeldemthoos with the Steemjammer kids!

The lady pushed her long gray, soapy hair out of her face and felt around for a pair of glasses. Huge and round, with copper frames, they made her searching eyes look like those of a great barn owl. At last they focused on the people who’d suddenly appeared in her bathroom.

Anxiety melted away, and a big smile spread across her broad face as she recognized Alfonz. A flurry of excited Dutch flew between them.

“He’s saying he warned her about taking baths in here,” Giselle explained. “She’s saying it’s the warmest room in the house, being above the boiler.”

Alfonz and the woman’s conversation continued.

“She wants to know if we’re really Steemjammers. I think she’s a relative.”

Indeed, her large eyes and slightly bulbous nose reminded them of Henry. As she realized who they were, she became so excited she almost came out to hug them, forgetting for a moment she was in the bath.

“Kinter,” Alfonz announced majestically, indicating the elderly lady, “this your Great Beetle, Klazina.”

“Beetle?” Angelica said.

“Bumble bee?”

“He means your Great
Aunt
,” the lady in the bathtub said with a mild accent and pretend frown, “and I’m glad to know you think of me as an insect, Alfonz.”

“Oh, ‘ant’ and ‘aunt,’” he said, face turning red. “At the English, not so goot.”

“That’s all right. Oo bent goot waar de rekent.”
You’re good where it matters.

He grinned bashfully as she complimented his loyalty and skills at finding and delivering things.

She turned to the kids and smiled warmly. “Zo, kinter, call me Tante Klazee, neh? Not Oudtante, please, even though that’s ‘Great Aunt.’ It really means
Old
Aunt, and who needs that? And you? Let me guess.”

She studied the older girl.

“French hair, ya?” she said. “Yvette Steemjammer’s half French, so that would make you Giselle, neh?”

“De is loyk je te ontmooten, Tante Klazee” she answered flawlessly.
It’s nice to meet you, Aunt Klazee.

The lady in the tub squealed with delight.

“Ah, such goot Dutch. You have the prettiest eyes I think I’ve ever seen, and if your steem’s even half as goot as your Dutch, you gonna make your moyder and vader very proud. And you.”

She faced Angelica, who stood before her in the oversized leather jacket and cap.

“Oh, please,” the old woman said. “Lift up those vleegbril.”
Goggles
. “Let me see you, leef.”
Dear
.

Angelica raised them.

“Such big eyes! Henry’s little one, ya? Angelica?”

“Ya, Tante Klazee,” she said. “But moyne Dutch is not so goot.”

“You’ll learn, kint. You’ll learn zo fast.”

She turned to Will.

“Zo tall, with your mother’s eyes and father’s hair. You have to be Wilhelmus – Will, they call you. Zo, let your tante finish her bath, neh? Then, we get to know each other behoorlink.”
Properly
.

Feeling weak, Will clutched his side and grabbed a table. Her eyes narrowed with concern. “You’re sick?”

“Yes, Tante Klazee,” he said. “Shadovecht cut.”

She made a face. Fourteen different sentences tried to come out at once. With effort she pushed aside all but the important one and turned to Alfonz.

“Get de teggenminkel!”
The remedy
. “Top left shelf! In de kooken!”
The kitchen
.

“This like a map, up here,” he said, tapping his head and signaling Will to follow. “We find!”

***

“Gack, it’s horrible!” Will’s muffled protest came from the kitchen.

“Ya, but all you must be taking,” Alfonz insisted.

“Poor Will,” Angelica said in the next room. “He’ll be all right?”

Giselle forced herself to sound confident. “They seem to know what they’re doing.” Privately she worried.

Having seen and smelled the foul spoonful of black, tar-like goo that Alfonz offered Will, the girls had decided to give them privacy and explore the old house. Built of thick timbers and cracked, gray stone, it seemed very old. Antique furniture filled the rooms, and the wooden floor, which warped here and there, had a scattering of threadbare carpets.

Faded paintings lined the walls. Angelica noticed a windmill, a young woman in a black dress lined with white lace who stood by a purple penguin, and a very odd looking locomotive going past a field of shaggy red cattle with enormous horns. A mix of strange and familiar scents filled the air, dominated by machine oil.

Like in Beverkenhaas, a network of steam pipes, belt drives, gears, and chain drives cluttered the walls and ceilings, only not so many. Still, this house had a noise and feel all its own, and it reminded them very much of home.

Angelica pointed. “Look.”

In the parlor stood a short, chubby bronze-and-copper man with a silver moustache and goatee. Ticking and tocking like a clock, it swished a broom across the floor while slowly walking along.

“A little wind-up man,” Angelica said, spotting a key in its back. “He’s adorable.”

“Hoy!” yelled a startled voice from the entry.

A boy about Will’s age had just come through the front door. He reached for a seemingly blank patch of wall. The girls guessed what that meant: a secret compartment with a sword in it.

“Perzak!” Giselle said, mimicking Alfonz. “Ik ben de Giselle Steemjammer mit moyne neef, Angelica!”
Peace! I’m Giselle Steemjammer with my cousin, Angelica!

He stared, slack-jawed. Grinning, he wiped imaginary sweat off his brow in relief. He rattled off some Dutch so fast that even Giselle couldn’t understand.

“What?” Angelica asked.

“You speak English?” he said with a slight accent.

“And Dutch,” Giselle said, “but apparently I need to practice.”

“Your accent is so strange. Ah! You’re from the other side. You came through the verltgaat!”

“Yes. I should think you’d be used to people dropping in, living here.”

“No, it’s not very often that it opens.” He smiled. “If you’re Steemjammers, that must make you Onkel Henry and Onkel Deet’s girls. We’re second cousins.”

They hugged, and the cousins studied each other a moment. He had white-blonde hair and a triple cowlick like Will’s, large blue eyes, and a hint of Henry’s nose. Like them, he wore homespun clothing and homemade shoes. Angelica wondered if everyone here looked like this, if she could step outside and fit right into this world.

“Call me Cobee,” he said. “What’s it like being a real Steemjammer? I mean actually having the name?”

Puzzled looks spread across their faces.

“Gaaf!” he exclaimed before they could answer.
Cool
. “I’m so jealous. My real name’s Jacobus Steemjammer Vanderslyce, but we’re pretending we’re Rensinks so we don’t fall under suspicion. My groesmoyder – your Tante Klazee – her maiden name is Steemjammer.

“Oh, why couldn’t she have been a boy? Then, I’d be a real Steemjammer, like you!”

“Cobee,” laughed Alfonz from the hallway, “if goot steem you’re having, your name matters not, neh?”

“Alfonz?” he said, astonished. “Is that really you?”

“Ter naar de vlees!”
In the flesh!

Cobee went to the doorway and hugged him.

“Names do matter, Alfonz,” he chided. “You know that. But we’re lucky to be in the Steemjammer volkstaam.” The
clan.
“You really don’t speak Dutch?”

This was directed at Angelica.

“Ene beetya,” she said.
A bit
.

“Ach, we’re supposed to use English now, anyway,” Cobee said. He spoke quickly when he was excited. “The Raz don’t suspect you as much that way.”

“Raz?” Angelica asked.

“Cobee!” Alfonz warned.

“Rasmussen agents,” Cobee said, making a face and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Verdoor, I shouldn’t say things so loud – and close to the window.”

He cautiously peered through the curtains out into the street. The girls got a glimpse of a few stone buildings nearby and a church steeple in the distance. They guessed they were somewhere in New Amsterdam.

“They’re always looking for us,” Cobee whispered, closing the curtains and leading them away from the window. “No one was there. We’re safe.”

Will entered, already looking better and holding a poultice to the wound. Relieved, Angelica had to laugh at his grimace. The remedy left such a foul taste in his mouth that he scraped his tongue with his fingernails.

Alfonz introduced him to Cobee, who was greatly impressed to hear how they killed two Shadovecht, even if one had been taken out by a closing world hole.