The Fantastic Family Whipple (17 page)

Over the course of seven tries, Arthur steadily closed in on his mark—but the button remained just out of range.

As he raised his arm the eighth time, a dreadful scream met his ears. Arthur looked left—and started in horror.

The sweet face of his little sister Lenora was now contorted and smashed up against the wire guard at the back of her fan. The large yellow ribbon in her hair had been sucked into the cage and now tugged mercilessly at her head. Spreading her fingers and pressing her palm against the wide-gapped guard, Lenora struggled to pry her face away from the whirling blade on the other side. Her neighboring siblings, Charlotte and Franklin, watched in helpless terror.

Arthur gasped. He was out of practice runs. If little Lenora was to remain unmaimed, his next crack would have to count.

The boy locked his eyes onto the smoldering crimson button.

With the force of not just his arm, but of his entire body, Arthur sent the whip hurtling toward its target.

The snakelike cord reared back its head, pausing a moment in midair—then lashed out and struck its prey with a fatal blow.

Arthur watched in delighted disbelief as the glaring red light went dark. The distinct sound of deceleration filled the air as the fan motors ground to a halt.

He had succeeded.

But before Arthur had time to properly celebrate, he was struck by an odd sensation. It was, in fact, the sensation of falling.

Having overstepped the edge of the elephant’s cranium in his final lunge, Arthur now found himself plummeting toward the flaming floorboards below, his bullwhip trailing behind him like the World’s Worst Parachute.

It soon became clear, however, that this was simply not his night to die. He felt a sudden pressure around his waist, and—though his insides were slow to get the message—his body was brought to an abrupt standstill five feet above the ground.

A quick inspection revealed an elephant’s trunk wrapped around his midsection, and Arthur realized he had been delivered from death by the same method that had saved his youngest sister.

“Thanks, big fella,” Arthur exhaled as he affectionately patted Shiva’s trunk.

The elephant trumpeted in reply.

“Well done, Master Arthur!” shouted Mr. Mahankali from the elephant’s back. “We can take it from here, my friend!”

Bringing his front feet to rest on the floorboards at the stage’s corner, the elephant lowered the boy to the ground in front of the stage, setting him down beside his littlest sister.

As Arthur lifted Ivy into his arms, she chirped, “Whip-
crack
! Whip-
crack
!”

Giving the girl a squeeze, Arthur looked back up at the
platform. The spinning fan blades had slowed almost to a stop. Without the wind’s goading, the flames had subsided considerably, leaving a narrow, fire-free strip at the stage’s front edge.

Wasting no time, the Panther-Man led his elephantine steed along the front of the stage until they were directly beneath George, the rightmost octuplet. Once in position, Shiva reared up on his hind legs and stretched out his trunk toward the little boy. It still did not reach—so Mr. Mahankali ordered George to jump.

“Do not fear, Master George—Shiva will not let you fall.”

Another hair-raising groan from the platform provided just the encouragement the boy needed; a moment later, he was scooped up in the elephant’s trunk and then promptly retrieved by Mr. Mahankali.

Soon Beatrice had joined her little brother in the Panther-Man’s waiting arms—and shortly after, Abigail.

As Arthur looked on with Ivy—who was busy repeating the phrase, “Elfunt, wooo!”—Shiva returned all four feet to the stage and lowered the first batch of rescued children to the ground.

Hamlet, the Whipples’ Great Dane, who had been whimpering and pacing the ground below ever since arriving on the scene with Mr. Mahankali and Shiva, bounded over to Abigail and scooped her up onto his giant neck. She hugged him, and his tongue flapped gleefully from his mouth.

“You did it, Arthur!” shouted Beatrice.

“No,” said Arthur. “Shiva did all the work. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

“Yes—but
he
couldn’t have done it without
you
, Arthur.”

Even though Beatrice was only five, and might not have completely understood, her compliment made Arthur feel more a part of the family than he ever had before.

Soon all of Arthur’s siblings were standing beside him, with their mother in the grasp of the elephant’s trunk.

The moment Mrs. Whipple’s feet reached the ground, she ran to her children and wrapped her arms around each of them—reserving an extra large squeeze for Arthur. “Good work, Arthur—you saved us!” she cried. Then, retrieving Ivy from his arms and turning back toward the platform where her husband remained stranded, she added, “It’s just a shame there weren’t any world records for you in all that—or it might have been an absolute triumph.”

Arthur would not have minded if his mother had stopped at “you saved us!”—but he had to agree with her. He could not imagine anything more triumphant than if, in the act of saving his family, he had somehow been able to pull off his first world record as well. Alas, there was no denying that a certain Mr. Kalpesh Sirahathi had managed three years earlier to flip a switch from the head of an elephant with a bullwhip—in a mere 2.24 seconds. Arthur only hoped his father would not be too disappointed in him when he finally made it to the ground.

As Arthur and the rescued Whipples looked on, Shiva rose to his hind legs one last time and offered his trunk to the stranded patriarch.

Dropping his feet over the edge of the platform, Mr.
Whipple gave a reassuring wave to his family and prepared himself to jump.

The elephant took a small step forward. And suddenly, what seemed to have been a happy ending in the making shifted to a scene from a nightmare.

Crrr-ack!
The floorboards splintered beneath the elephant’s foot. The cumbersome beast gave a trumpeting cry and tumbled sideways, Mr. Mahankali clinging helplessly to his back.

The elephant crashed through the floorboards, shattering the stage into an array of flying splinters and glowing embers. There was a tortured groan, followed by an earth-shaking thud, as Shiva and his master disappeared into the fiery chasm.

“No!” cried Arthur.

The force of the crash shook the towers of scaffolding at the sides of the stage, and in turn, the platform they supported. The catwalk tilted forward with a
screech
, nearly wrenching itself free from its supports. Mr. Whipple tumbled over the front edge—and dangled by one arm over the flaming death trap below.

“Charles!” screamed Mrs. Whipple.

Arthur’s older brothers rushed forward and leapt onto the front of the stage—but even were they not cut off by a wall of flames, there was nothing they could have done to help him.

Arthur could scarcely breathe. He had watched as the brave Panther-Man and his noble steed were enveloped by fire, and now it seemed—without their help—he would
watch the fire envelop his father as well. At that moment, he would have given anything to see the disappointment in his father’s eyes once again—if only it meant the man was standing safely on the ground beside him.

Scattered screams rang out behind Arthur as some of the more adventurous party guests reconvened around the no longer exploding cake and glimpsed their host’s horrifying predicament.

It was then that the boy began to detect a distinct, high-pitched roar rising above the pandemonium.

In an instant, the screams of horror turned to shouts of astonishment as something large and luminous streaked through the sky overhead.

It appeared to be a man in a rocket pack.

The next moment, Mr. Whipple lost his grip on the platform. But before he had fallen more than a few feet, the swooping airman caught him with one arm around the chest. The force of Mr. Whipple’s fall caused the pair to dip unnervingly toward the flames, but a quick increase in the rocket pack’s thrust corrected their path. Soon they were soaring away from the deadly platform as—with one final screech—the catwalk separated from its supports and plunged into the blaze below.

Circling back over the top of the crumbling cake, the pilot and his passenger promptly began their descent. A moment later they were alighting on the ground beside Arthur and the rest of his anxious family. The tightness in Arthur’s throat became almost bearable again.

Now that they were so close, the boy was afforded a full view of his father’s rocket-powered rescuer. Apart from the rocket pack, the formality of the man’s jacket and tie was further contrasted by the dark-visored crash helmet that encased his head. Arthur could not remember being in the presence of a more awe-inspiring figure.

As the two men planted their feet firmly on the ground, Mr. Whipple staggered forward, practically doubling over with exhaustion—but his family rushed to his aid, throwing their arms around him and propping him up.

“Daddy, you’re all right!” cried Lenora, her eyes filling with tears.

“That was a close one, eh Dad?” said Henry.

“We were so worried!” sobbed Penelope.

Arthur squeezed in amongst his family in their massive embrace, closing his eyes and inhaling through his nostrils. It seemed his father would indeed live to be disappointed by his recordless son another day—and Arthur could not have been happier for the opportunity.

“Thank you, children,” panted Mr. Whipple. “I am exceedingly glad to be back on the ground with you all. But we’ve no time to waste—we must help Mr. Mahankali and Shiva!”

Arthur’s father stepped away from the circle, but just as he started for the stage, Uncle Mervyn appeared at his back—and with him, the fire brigade.

A moment later, a team of firemen raced past with axes
and hoses in hand—and set about issuing streams of water onto the burning stage before them.

Mr. Whipple rushed to their chief and cried, “There is a man and an elephant in the midst of that mess who are both very dear to us. Please—you must bring them back alive!”

“We’ll do our best, sir—but it doesn’t look good from here.”

Arthur’s father returned to his family with his head hung low, and Mrs. Whipple put a comforting arm around her husband. “They’ll be all right, dear,” she said in the most reassuring voice she could muster. “When have they ever let us down before?”

As the fire brigade continued to douse the stage, Mr. Whipple turned to his rocket-pack-wearing rescuer, addressing him with the tone of a man recently reminded of his own mortality. “Thank God for you, Wilhelm—I was sure I was a goner. It’s a good thing you convinced me to purchase that rocket pack—but how did you ever get it to work? Last I heard, you still couldn’t get the blasted thing off the ground….”

Before the man in the rocket pack could speak, a blackened and battered Wilhelm limped his way around the cake and into the gathering—much to Mr. Whipple’s surprise, of course, as Arthur could plainly see. Some yards behind the butler trailed Mrs. Waite, who was clearly shocked as well—by how difficult it was keeping up with a man who had been completely unconscious just one minute earlier.

“Oh thank God you all are all right,” Wilhelm raved to a very confused Mr. Whipple. “I came as soon as I voke up.” His eyes scanning the scene as he spoke, Wilhelm seemed to notice something missing. “But vhere is Mahankali and Shiva? Mrs. Vaite says they saved my life.”

Mr. Whipple was so taken aback by the unexpected appearance of a second Wilhelm that all he could get out was: “Um—er—they’ve fallen through the stage—the fire brigade is doing their best—but what are you…I thought…” His head now darted back and forth between the Wilhelm in front of him and the helmeted man with the rocket pack to his rear.

Upon hearing Mr. Whipple’s fragmented, yet disturbing account, the
un
helmeted Wilhelm’s mouth dropped open with deep concern and blurted, “I must help them!” Then, leaving his master in utter bewilderment, the battered butler took off hobbling toward the stage as fast as his injured legs would carry him (which was indeed much faster than most men can run on perfectly healthy legs). Rushing up the stage steps, Wilhelm grabbed an ax from one of the firemen and dashed through the spray of water and dwindling flames, fighting his way to the stage’s center. Discovering an open gash in the floorboards, he promptly jumped through it, feet first—and disappeared from view.

“Godspeed, old boy,” muttered Mr. Whipple, breaking free of his bewilderment to admire the butler’s bravery.

With his best man on the job, there was little more Mr. Whipple could do to help, so he turned back to the mysterious
man in the rocket pack. “My apologies for incorrectly addressing you earlier, good sir. You can see I am not altogether in my right mind this evening. Now, if you’ll permit me—to whom does my family owe their deepest debt of gratitude for so courageously saving their father’s life?”

As the man began to lift his helmet, he spoke for the first time.

“Sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner there, but I had to pop out to the car and grab the old rocket pack. Good thing we’ve been taking it with us everywhere we go lately. You just never know when you might need a rocket pack these days, eh, Charlie?”

With his helmet fully removed, the man’s chiseled features became visible, and Arthur instantly recognized him as Rex Goldwin, the Whipples’ new neighbor—and Ruby Goldwin’s father.

Having finally learned the girl’s name, Arthur had thought he’d put an end to the mystery surrounding her—but now the Goldwin girl and her family seemed more mysterious than ever. Not even the Whipples kept a rocket pack in their car.

As Arthur’s father stood speechless, Mrs. Whipple ran to Rex Goldwin, taking his hand in hers and shaking it vigorously. “Oh, you dear, dear man!” she cried. “You are one remarkable neighbor, Mr. Goldwin. We’ve only known you for a little over an hour—and here you’ve already saved my husband’s life. I’m sure there is nothing we can ever do to fully repay such an act of selflessness,
but if anything ever comes to mind, please do not hesitate to ask. We are deeply indebted to you for the rest of our lives!”