Jingle Jangle: The Invention of Jeronicus Jangle Read online

  “If my calculations are correct”—he stopped to scrutinize his formula—“this is it.”

  Back at his worktable, with his inventor goggles on and Joanne and Jessica flanking him, Jeronicus carefully took up the ornate cannister and flipped it open. Inside lay a smaller, thinner cannister, which opened to reveal an even tinier one nestled inside, which opened to reveal the final ingredient to create the matador, the toy he’d been dreaming of inventing his whole life. He lifted the pointed pipette with a blue bulb at one end.

  Moments later, the Jangles gathered around The Jangleator 2000, a machine with a series of tubing, pipes, and propellers. Jeronicus delicately squeezed the single gleaming blue drop from the pipette into a funneled opening. “Something should happen now,” he said victoriously.

  The Jangleator 2000 remained still. Nothing happened.

  He looked at Joanne and Jessica, who looked at the machine, waiting.

  “Now,” he repeated, waving his hands over it.

  Everyone held their breaths.

  Suddenly, steam shot out the top of the machine!

  “Now!” Jeronicus shouted and ducked down.

  The machine howled like a train. Its cogs began to spin as liquids coursed through its loops of coils. The lights in the workshop sputtered. Joanne held Jessica tight as they watched.

  “It’s working!” Jeronicus tapped pedals, twisted wheels, cranked valves, and yanked levers. The Jangleator sparked and bucked, and Joanne gasped while Jessica tittered.

  “Don’t be alarmed.” Jeronicus popped up from the other side of the machine. “This is how it’s supposed to happen.” He ducked back down, and Joanne broke into laughter. Finally, with one last twist of a wheel, and a pleased shout, the whistling machine quieted. Everyone leaned in close.

  A radiant blue liquid filled a tiny glass dropper.

  The recipe for the matador was complete.

  Jeronicus cranked an arm of the machine, guiding its dropper over the foot-tall toy. The slender figurine wore a fitted baby-blue bolero jacket with intricate details and a corbatín, and had a head of jet-black hair with a mustache and goatee. He was slumped over. A minuscule funnel jutted out from the place where a spine should have been. Jeronicus directed the drop into it.

  Then the toy began to straighten and stretch.

  Everyone crouched down around the matador, who stood on a little round pedestal. He began to hum. When he realized he had an audience, he cleared his throat and struck a dashing pose with the grace of a flamenco dancer. “¡Olé! It is I, Maestro Don Juan Diego!” he said. “When the bull sees me, he slays himself. It is an honor for you to finally meet me.” He bowed low to the admiring Jangles.

  “And I-I’m Jeronicus.” Jeronicus bowed in turn, but not nearly as elegantly as Don Juan. So overcome by his emotions, Jeronicus was nearly at a loss for words. “And this . . . this is my wonderful family.”

  “¡Hola, maravillosa familia!” Don Juan greeted.

  Jeronicus picked up the pedestal on which Don Juan stood.

  The matador swayed sideways, but steadied himself. “¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado!” he urged.

  “Gotcha,” Jeronicus said, carrying him across the room.

  “I am fragile,” Don Juan reminded him. “You can throw roses at my feet.”

  Taking great care, Jeronicus rushed toward his worktable, with Joanne and Jessica in tow. “Look at that! Look at that!” He set the pedestal down, and he and Jessica leaned over it. “Everything we ever dreamed of,” Jeronicus breathed, unable to take his eyes off the toy.

  Don Juan turned to Jessica. “I like when people stare at me! I give them something to stare at! In the form of a dance!” He struck a limber stance.

  Jessica mirrored his lithe movements, clearly entertained.

  Jeronicus took Joanne’s hands in his. “Everything I ever promised you will be ours now.” They could afford to keep the shop for years to come, to purchase a house high on the bluffs!

  “I believe in you, Jeronicus,” Joanne said.

  “Hello!” Don Juan chimed in. “Magical toy just come to life! Focus. Focus!”

  Jessica rested a hand on Jeronicus’s arm. “I believe in you the most.”

  “Aww, I cry,” Don Juan butted in.

  Jeronicus stooped down so that he and Jessica were eye level. “And I believe in you.” He pinched her chin. “That’s why”—he jubilantly stepped to a cluttered desk, where he opened a simple wooden box and pulled out a pair of shiny gold inventor goggles—“I got you an early Christmas gift.” He presented the goggles to her, with a purple band, just like she’d wanted.

  She cradled them in her hands as if they were baby birds. “My own inventor goggles! They’re perfect!” She enveloped her father in the biggest hug.

  “Now you’re an inventor,” he whispered.

  She beamed. “Just like you.”

  “Aww,” Don Juan said. “Okay! Back to me!”

  From the doorway, Gustafson had heard the heartfelt exchange. He yearned for that sort of recognition and approval as an inventor, and something else—the love of his own family. He glanced down at his shoddy prototype in hand. Then his sights landed on Don Juan, his eyes widening in amazement. “Professor . . . professor, you did it!” he said, rushing over and crouching down at the table to admire the breathing, living matador toy. “B-but . . . how?”

  “¡Ay! ¡Dios mío!” Don Juan regarded Gustafson. “You are very stinky!”

  Jeronicus, Joanne, and Jessica started at his arrival. Then again, the workshop doubled as his room, with a loft bed against a far wall, so his showing up was a very common occurrence.

  But never had Gustafson seen such an uncommon toy, not in all his many years of living there, in that very room. He still couldn’t believe his eyes at the miraculous feat. “He’s perfect!”

  Don Juan brushed off Gustafson’s praise. “Por favor—admire me from a distance.”

  Jessica giggled.

  “And soon, there’ll be a million of him,” Jeronicus shared in a dreamy voice.

  Don Juan’s green eyes bugged. “A million of me?” He gulped.

  “One for every child in the world.”

  Don Juan shook his head. “But I . . . am one of a kind,” he retorted.

  “Jeronicus, we have to celebrate!” Joanne said. “Let me get dinner ready.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Jeronicus replied. Before he knew it, Joanne was rushing out of the workshop to prepare dinner, with Jessica skipping behind her.

  “Excuse me! Wonderful family!” Don Juan was still stuck on the idea of being replicated.

  Jeronicus untied his smock and placed it over his apprentice. “Gustafson, straighten up everything for me. And take good care of our new friend.” He wore a look of utmost wonder.

  The toy gave him an upbeat thumbs-up in turn. “¡Señor!”

  “Whose very existence has changed everything,” Jeronicus concluded.

  Don Juan dipped his head. “I would like to discuss this million thing.”

  “Jeronicus!” Jessica called. The smell of cinnamon and mulling spices wafted up the stairs.

  “I’ll be right there, my love!” Jeronicus hurried out the doors.

  “Oh, professor! Yoo-hoo!” Don Juan yelled, vying for his attention.

  Gustafson held up his prototype. “Oh! Wait! But would you look at my invention—”

  “It’s gonna be a merry Christmas!” Jeronicus shouted to the rafters. “Wait till Delacroix sees this! We’ll finally be able to pay back the bank! A merry Christmas indeed!” He began his descent down the spiral staircase until his footfalls faded away to nothing.

  But it wouldn’t be a merry Christmas.

  Not if Gustafson could help it . . .

  Gustafson had been willing to do whatever it would take to achieve a better life for himself,

 
even if it meant resorting to

  feckless treachery

  and deceit.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m an inventor, too,” Gustafson muttered once he was alone—well, not entirely alone.

  From the worktable, Don Juan watched the young man with a sudden interest. “Clearly not a good one,” he muttered. “Stinky? Yes. Good? No.” He cackled sadly. “A million of me?”

  “‘Calibrate the gyroscopic stabilization system,’” Gustafson babbled, removing the smock and climbing onto the sunken mattress of his loft bed. “‘Realign the gimbals.’ It’s all he has to say to me!” He set down his fractured Twirling Whirly, lay back, and gazed up at the ceiling. He always helped with Jeronicus’s inventions whenever he had the chance, but felt Jeronicus never really helped with his.

  At least, not as soon and as easily as Gustafson craved. “I know stuff.” He stared long and hard at his prototype. Why had it malfunctioned? What in the world was the matter with him?!

  “Who could conceive of such a thing? This is absurd!” Don Juan leaped off his little pedestal and loped across the surface with smoking flasks, steaming beakers, and lustrous cogs and coils. “I am singular! I am spectacular! To pull off such a feat, you’d need—” He froze when he saw a particular page in Jeronicus’s book of inventions, of a toy sketched with fine precision.

  The matador quaked. “‘Plans for Don Juan Doll.’ ¡No puedo!” He couldn’t bear the thought of being mass-produced. If only he could figure out a way to remain one of a kind. Suddenly, Don Juan had an idea. A smug smile twisted his handsome features as he glanced at Gustafson. Unaware of being observed, Gustafson continued to trifle with his prototype until the wrench he’d been using to tighten a screw jammed against his fingers. Recoiling in sharp pain, Gustafson dropped back on his bed and shook out his hand. Nothing ever seemed to go his way.

  Unless, of course, Don Juan could offer up a new possibility for the young inventor. He seized the opportunity. “It must feel good to be such an integral part of bringing something so amazing to life.” Don Juan nonchalantly gazed down his nose at his pristine plastic fingernails.

  Gustafson was startled, having forgotten he wasn’t alone. “It was, uh, it was the professor’s work, really.” He resumed fiddling with his prototype. “I’m just his apprentice,” he added sadly.

  Don Juan coyly swept his spotless black shoe back and forth across the tabletop. “Sí, pero I am sure you’ve created something of your own, almost as amazing as me. After all, you’re an inventor, too.” He was playing right into Gustafson’s glaring insecurity. He waited for a reply.

  Gustafson stopped tinkering and looked up. Could it be? Someone else who recognized his budding brilliance and maturing magnificence? He regarded his Twirling Whirly, grimacing, and set it back down before springing from his bed and taking up a broom to sweep. “I’m telling everyone just a few tweaks are all it needs. But the professor always promises to look at it tomorrow.”

  “The bull waits for tomorrow! But by then he is dead!” Don Juan’s subdued tone was gone, replaced by a voice full of intensity. “We wait for no tomorrows!”

  Gustafson stopped sweeping. What was the toy matador talking about?

  Don Juan gestured to the book of inventions. “That can belong to us,” he tempted.

  “Those are the professor’s inventions,” Gustafson retorted with a finger wag.

  “Those are your inventions!” Don Juan declared. “Those pages bear the sweat of your fingers. They’re as much yours as they are his.”

  “But that would be stealing.”

  “Borrowing. Indefinitely,” Don Juan corrected. It was an odd turn of phrase, but still . . .

  “Together, we can build an empire,” Don Juan continued with vigor. “The name Gustafson will shine brighter than a thousand Spanish skies. And I, Don Juan Diego, will remain one, and only one, of a kind. It’s easy . . . It’s not stealing . . . when you borrow indefinitely . . .”

  Gustafson’s eyes flitted back to the massive book, which beckoned to him with its hundreds of pages of designs. As he thought about ditching his days of incessant tinkering and tidying for the life of fame and fortune promised in every page, the corner of his mouth crept upward. It would be so easy. An entire, brilliant future was just within his grasp . . .

  Jeronicus, trusting and true,

  always saw the best in people—

  especially those whom he held near.

  But a biting wind of change blew from on high that would sweep aside all he held dear . . .

  Chapter Five

  “Gustafson! You didn’t think we’d have a family celebration without you, did you?”

  Jeronicus came barreling up the spiral staircase, balancing a tray of honey-dipped ham, mashed potatoes, and for dessert, sugar biscuits and cranberry juice—Gustafson’s favorites.

  There was also a tiny wrapped box resting on the tray with an early Christmas gift inside: the gyroscopic stabilizer needed to doctor the Twirling Whirly.

  “Answer soon, or this food will find a happy home in my belly!” Jeronicus gave a hearty laugh. “Gustafson!” When he stepped foot in his workshop, his apprentice was no longer there.

  Jeronicus scanned the room once more, his smile flagging.

  There was Don Juan’s pedestal—minus Don Juan.

  There was his wooden book stand—minus his book.

  The abstraction of the subtraction meant he could only deduce one common denominator.

  Jeronicus’s smile fell, and he staggered dizzily. His tray crashed to the floor, its contents clattering. How could this be? Had someone he deeply trusted and cared for, someone he’d housed and fed and taught, someone whom he considered family, truly just betrayed his trust?

  Jeronicus raced back downstairs, calling out for Gustafson. He burst into the cold street. It was dark, save for coal fires and slanted shapes of light streaming softly from shop windows.

  “Gustafson!” he cried again and again.

  But his voice was only lost to howling winds and distant carolers. He peered through the window of Sisson Arms, the pub next door, thinking maybe Gustafson had gone there for a cup of hot cocoa. But he was not there. Horror gripped Jeronicus, closing around his heart, tightening his throat. He dashed down the lane, where a horse pulled a Gustafson-less carriage around the bend.

  “Gustafson!” Jeronicus ran frantically back to the front of his shop, where he let out a strangled sob. His plans to replicate Don Juan had been stolen from him, along with his sacred book of designs that not only secured his family’s future, but also the joy born from his toys and trinkets for tots, tweens, teens, and all who needed it. For years, he and his family had worked hard to get to where they were, from their days peddling their wares at a makeshift trolley in the square to the day they earned a store to call their own. He and Joanne had talked at length about paying off the debt on the shop, with enough profits to afford their dream home, and even a good school for Jessica where she could prosper. But now, all those plans had been snuffed out.

  How could Gustafson have deceived them?

  Joanne and Jessica appeared in the doorway, holding each other.

  With heaving breaths, Jeronicus stared into the night as it began to snow—the first flakes before everything would snowball.

  Unfortunately, Gustafson wasn’t coming back.

  Not then . . . or perhaps ever.

  Chapter Six

  Jeronicus tried to convince the constable of what Gustafson had done, but he had no proof. And so, in the coming weeks and months, Jeronicus, ever the optimist, returned to what he knew best.

  Day in and day out, he didn’t shy away from finessing prototypes in his workshop. Only . . . things weren’t quite the same. He couldn’t seem to find the right screw, or turn the right gear.

  And year after year, the the crowds shrunk and the bills sta
cked high while his once-trusted apprentice emerged as the world’s biggest toy maker. The chuckling children on Chancer Street played with gadgets and gizmos with a G emblazoned on each, a constant reminder of Gustafson’s presence. Only the Jangles knew the truth: Gustafon’s toys were each based on Jeronicus’s ingenious designs in his stolen book of inventions (though the world had yet to see Don Juan dolls, meaning the matador must have gotten his wish of remaining one of a kind). It was worse than seeing the factory that Gustafson had built on the craggy bluffs overlooking the town, its gigantic G shining bright as a beacon and as green as the exact shade of jealousy.

  Still, Jeronicus was determined. Once a great inventor, always a great inventor. He kept at ideating, working his hands to the bone. Eventually, when he tried to ignite his fiery formulas in the air, they flickered, and went out. Despite his faltering, Joanne and Jessica continued to support him and his ever-creative endeavors, along with his banker and friend, Mr. Delacroix, who’d wish him words of encouragement. But the magic, it seemed, had escaped him.

  And soon, so would everything else.

  One day, Joanne collapsed in his arms outside the shop, dropping a bag of groceries brimming with fresh-cut flowers. He rushed her to her bed, where he held a warm cloth to her forehead. She had taken ill. Jessica watched from the doorway. She had only ever seen her mother brave, beautiful, and strong. But Joanne faded, shrinking, until one night, she was gone.

  The funeral came and went like a biting winter wind. The engraving on the headstone was forever etched in Jeronicus’s and Jessica’s minds, solidifying their bleak new reality.

  JOANNE JANGLE

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

  Jeronicus was devastated. Jessica tried to fill the space left behind, but the loss was too great, and Jessica too small. Her hot meals for Jeronicus grew cold on the worktable. Her visits happened less and less as her father’s inventions and boxes piled up around him, dust coating every inch of the workshop. Sheets covered inventions as they would a corpse. Jessica had only ever seen her father cheerful and upbeat, but the sunny sparkle in his eyes had dimmed to a faint flicker, blinding him to her love, and his moods became brooding, mercurial.