Jingle Jangle: The Invention of Jeronicus Jangle Read online

  Also by

  Lyn Sisson-Talbert and David E. Talbert

  The Square Root of Possible

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Razorbill,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Lyn Sisson-Talbert and David E. Talbert

  Photos from the film Jingle Jangle copyright © 2020 by Netflix

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Ebook ISBN 9780593203811

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  For Elias

  Never be afraid when people don’t see what you see. Only be afraid if you no longer see it.

  Love,

  Mommy and Daddy

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Lyn Sisson-Talbert and David E. Talbert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  JANGLES AND THINGS

  260 Chancer Street, Cobbleton

  June 20th, 1890

  Dear Jessica,

  I wish I could make up for all my faults as a parent. I wanted you to have the world. Reach into the heavens, pull down the stars, just so they could shine on you. Not just read about a happily ever after; I wanted to be the one to give it to you. Jeronicus Jangle, the greatest inventor of all, who only wishes he were the greatest father of all.

  With love,

  Jeronicus

  To anyone who’s ever seen the magic

  dancing in the flames of their heart.

  Once upon a time,

  many, many years ago,

  stood the most magnificent shop

  that ever there was . . .

  Jangles and Things.

  Chapter One

  The shop sat smack-dab on a little lane in the snowy town of Cobbleton.

  Despite the ice-capped mountains shielding it on all sides, the town itself was a place where all were welcome, where all could go to be whatever they sought to be, not what they ought to be.

  Townspeople of all shapes and sizes could be found admiring the great green pine tree rising from the square, transporting fresh provisions to the quaint and toasty shops by means of cheery horse-drawn carriages, or conversing in that friendly Cobbletonian way that was always warm with kinship and connection, no matter the constant fume of breath in the chill air. Chuckling children often raced along the pavements of the charmingly narrow and crooked streets, maneuvering around lampposts and passersby as they followed ribbons of magic that streamed through the air like fireflies, a magic only they could see. Usually, it led straight to Jangles and Things, a large shop painted a merry baby blue, its marquee butter-yellow with its name printed in sprawling letters, which was rife with more than just magic, but also love.

  Inside, beyond the jingle of the bell above the door, it was bright, colorful, and lively. The magnificent clock that chimed in the second-story window drew in children and adults alike, who delighted in its one-of-a-kind games, gadgets, and gizmos that gyrated, twirled, and flew around the vast space. If the coldness in the frozen town wasn’t enough to take one’s breath away, Jangles and Things always delivered. The whole shop was abuzz. Customers, gasping and giggling, crossed the checkerboard tiles to marvel at the emporium. Everything was alive, even things that shouldn’t have been. Hot-air balloons floated through the shop like jolly, lollipop-colored lanterns. Bejeweled birds and beetles chirped from within gilded cages. Cats fashioned from plates of brass purred sweetly. Painted seagulls and clouds drifted by overhead on invisible cables. Ferris-wheel-like contraptions crammed with sweets rotated seemingly of their own accord. Dolls, toys, and games unraveled from every nook and cranny, full of promise and surprise.

  The shop truly lived up to its nickname: World of Wishes and Wonder.

  While guests enjoyed the sprawling ground floor with its plentiful potential presents, and its chalkboards encouraging customers to buy one thing, then another, there was an upper-level landing, reachable by way of a grand mahogany staircase or the sliding ladders that glided along the shop’s shelves. Some claimed to have seen the shop owner flitting past the door above, when he wasn’t holed up in his secret workshop. Curious crowds flocked from all around, hoping for a look at the many new and whimsical toys, but also for a glimpse of the greatest inventor of all . . .

  Jeronicus Jangle.

  Jangles and Things was a marvel indeed,

  inspiring to all—and to none more than

  Jeronicus’s trusted apprentice, Gustafson . . .

  Chapter Two

  In the comfortable warmth of Jangles and Things, Gustafson captivated a crowd of inquisitive customers with his peculiar prototype of a winged wooden toy.

  Despite his snug and shabby waistcoat, oversized striped shirt, and soiled newsboy hat, the young fellow was a true showman—or at least possessed the early markings of one. “Prepare yourself for Gustafson’s magnificent—!” He flashed an enthusiastic grin. “Marvelous—!” he continued, unable to contain his excitement. “Bout of brilliance!” He waggled his finger for effect. “The Twirling . . .” He spun in a circle, much to the enjoyment of the engrossed onlookers. “Whirly!”

  The little crowd watched in awe and anticipation as Gustafson set his invention down on a table, and although he gestured for them to give him space, they hemmed in around him all the same, trying to get a better look. Gustafson wound a key sticking out the top of the prototype, twisting it and twisting it with a clicking and a clatterin
g of tiny gears.

  The toy’s wooden fins turned up and began to spin like an airplane propeller.

  The onlookers erupted in cheers as it hovered in the air, and Gustafson’s face broke into a satisfied grin. The twirling invention pulled the attention of all in the shop, including that of the owner’s wife, Joanne Jangle, who looked lovely with her corkscrew curls spiraling alongside an elegant braid, and wore lemon-yellow skirts and a cherry-red jumper. She stopped ringing up a customer at the wooden cash register to point out the miraculous toy to them.

  Just then, the Twirling Whirly came crashing down.

  It shattered into bits of cogs and coils!

  Startled and shocked reactions quickly morphed into mocking ones as customers laughed and pointed at Gustafson, who removed his hat and nervously wrung it.

  “Come on! It works! It— It really does! Just a few tweaks, that’s all!” he stammered.

  Gustafson fancied himself a great inventor. But that distinction had already been taken by the famous shop owner, whose whimsical working toys drew away Gustafson’s deserters.

  There, above, on the upper-level landing festooned with ribbons and wreaths, the doors flew open, and out stepped Jeronicus Jangle, the most wondrous man in all the land. He was handsome with twinkling brown eyes and black hair cut in a short wave with a side part, and he was dressed in a mustard-yellow tartan suit, bow tie, and blue waistcoat. Children flew up the staircase and greeted him, singing his praises as he doled out toys. Once they’d scurried back downstairs, he clasped his hands together, sighed contentedly, then smiled as he contemplated the possibilities that the day ahead had to offer. From the moment he woke up, his mind never stopped spinning.

  “Package for Jeronicus Jangle!” a mail courier called from the doorway.

  The smile vanished from Jeronicus’s face. In the next instant, he was flying down the steps, gliding across the checkerboard floor, and closing his fingers around the cylindrical parcel in the courier’s outstretched hands. As the courier turned to leave, Jeronicus’s heart began to race.

  “Is this . . . ?” He inspected the package addressed to him, then beamed. “It is!” He whirled around and showed the package to Joanne. From behind the register, her eyes went wide.

  In that instant, they knew nothing was going to be the same ever again.

  Joanne and Jeronicus climbed the stairs to the upper-level landing, where Joanne held the parcel as he slid its casing away to reveal a thick cannister with ornate flourishes carved at either end. Embossed in the middle were the words FINAL INGREDIENT OF THE INVENTION. He set it down with great care on a rickety table.

  All their lives they’d waited for this day.

  Returning to the floor below, Jeronicus hopped onto the countertop to address his customers, overcome by the Christmas spirit deep in his soul. “I am giving it all away. It’s your lucky day!”

  The crowd went wild. It was a wondrous sound Gustafson wished had been for his behalf, and he momentarily forgot about trying to get Jeronicus’s attention to help him troubleshoot his busted prototype. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Gustafson was Jeronicus’s apprentice and aspiring inventor, he also lived in and tended to the shop as his assistant.

  Gustafson’s jaw dropped—not only was Jeronicus the greatest inventor, but also the most generous. It was a concept he found difficult to fathom, and a reminder of his own shortcomings.

  Joanne hoisted a large patchwork sack onto the countertop, and Jeronicus immediately reached in and tossed toys around the room—everything from nutcrackers and number puzzles to firecrackers and flutes. Customers rejoiced and thanked him for his grand show of kindness.

  “It’s going to be a merry, merry Christmas indeed!” Jeronicus exclaimed.

  Basket in hand, Joanne burst out on the snowy cobblestone street and gave away gadgets and gizmos to the townspeople. Jeronicus joined her and procured even more toys from their patchwork bag to distribute. It was a display of goodwill that had never before graced the cobblestones of Chancer Street.

  A little girl rounded the corner and emerged onto the busy lane. She was bright-eyed and smiling, looking cute as a cog in a cranberry dress, with the teeth of decorative gears pinning up her cloudlike hair, and a sleek leather-bound book of designs tucked under her arm. Jessica was a Jangle through and through. When she saw her parents dishing out gifts, her excitement intensified. She bolted to Jeronicus, who now stood in the flatbed of a horse-drawn carriage.

  “Daddy! Daddy! What’s going on?” Jessica called out, her eyes sparkling.

  Jeronicus bent to rest his big hands on her little shoulders. “Oh, sweetie! It is the most wonderful day! Hey, remember that thing Daddy told you he was gonna get you?”

  “Which thing?” Jessica asked. Could it have been her own pair of inventor goggles she’d been asking for, purple band and all? Or perhaps it was a brand-new instrument for her tool belt!

  Jeronicus laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna get you ten of them!” He undid the necklace he always wore and looped it over his daughter’s head before jumping off the carriage and joining Joanne by the shop.

  Jessica studied the tiny invention dangling from the necklace in her palm. It looked like a silver-and-gold whistle, and made curious clicking noises. And was it glowing?

  Inspired, she hurried through the upbeat and celebratory crowd to reach her parents, whose basket and bag were now empty. Jeronicus lifted Jessica and spun her while Joanne lovingly looked on. In the next moment, Jessica was leading them back into the shop, which was now quiet, since the customers had left to follow Jeronicus and Joanne into the street. She sprinted up the staircase, eager to explore her own racing imagination.

  “Jessica, wait for your father,” Joanne called out, hot on her daughter’s heels.

  “Mom, I have to get my smock!” Jessica replied. “We’re inventing!”

  Before Jeronicus could reach the steps, Gustafson appeared behind him.

  “Hey, hey, uh, professor, you said you’d— You promised you’d look at my invention,” he said nervously, handing him the Twirling Whirly. He’d figured now was as good a time as any.

  “Ooh.” Jeronicus returned it to him before ascending the stairs.

  Stuttering and stammering, Gustafson squeezed past him and stopped on the step above. “N-no, no, no! Professor, wait! Just a couple minutes—”

  “Did you calibrate the gyroscopic stabilization system like we discussed?” Jeronicus asked jovially as he continued upward and reached the landing. If Gustafson had done that, all the Twirling Whirly needed was a gyroscopic stabilizer to get it up and running properly!

  Gustafson flushed. “No, no, n-not yet, but—”

  “Realign the gimbals?” Jeronicus picked up the cannister containing the final ingredient for his latest life-changing invention.

  Gustafson followed him onto the landing. “No, but professor—”

  “You do that, and I’ll take a look at it tomorrow,” Jeronicus said from the doorway.

  Gustafson held up the pieces of his invention. “Hey! But professor—!”

  “Brilliance beckons! Genius awaits!” And with that, Jeronicus sprinted away, toward his secret workshop and out of sight.

  Gustafson dropped his arms at his sides and sagged in defeat. Then he gazed down at the empty shop and his semblance of an invention—shattered in hand like all his dreams. What he’d give for one fraction of Jeronicus’s notoriety, or for a shop to call his own one day. He was tired of waiting for tomorrows. He was tired of living in Jeronicus’s giant warm-and-fuzzy shadow.

  But what was a sad and lowly apprentice boy to do?

  Inventing together as a family

  was just as much a holiday tradition

  for the Jangles as baking Christmas cookies.

  Chapter Three

  Jeronicus arrived upstairs, where a pair of bookshelf doo
rs swung open to reveal his workshop.

  Flames crackled in the hearth of the brick fireplace, and over a long worktable in the center of the room stood prototypes of his inventions among percolating vials and beakers of vibrant liquids that bubbled and steamed. Jeronicus pulled a lever, and a sled-like contraption lowered from the ceiling and stopped just above his shoulders to dress him in his leather inventor smock. He regarded the cannister in his hands with glee, then reached up and grabbed his inventor goggles as the contraption began to lift. At his worktable, he set down the tube.

  “I told you he’d already be here!” came Jessica’s voice. Seconds later, she and Joanne burst into the workshop while Jeronicus crossed the room to his giant book of inventions propped up on a stand. Jessica, now wearing her own inventor apron, set down her little notebook of designs and raced over to her father, who kept flipping pages. Despite his book’s size, the designs drawn within were each more intricate than the last, with tiny notes and labels scribbled in the margins.

  Finally, he paused on a spread marked by a blue ribbon, tapping the page with his finger.

  It showed a design for a toy matador, or bullfighter. This figurine would be the toy that would change everything. And now, he possessed the final ingredient to make it all possible . . .

  He rubbed his hands together to warm up, and Jessica mirrored his movements. It was their father-daughter tradition whenever inventing was afoot. He stopped to blow on each of his flattened palms, sending sparkles flurrying off his fingertips, and Jessica did the same. Then he scribbled formulas in the air with his finger. The mathematical notations floated before him and glowed like streaks of flaming lava. Joanne and Jessica eagerly looked on, though only Jeronicus could see the shimmering symbols. Still, Jessica traced her pointer finger through the air, copying him as he shifted around variables, coefficients, and exponents to his satisfaction.