Hullabaloo

Won't you make room for a little chaos?

The alarm sounded at 6:15 a.m. Adeline had been dreaming of snow, which was peculiar since she’d never seen it in person before. It never snowed in Mundania, at least not in her lifetime. She turned off the alarm and placed both feet on the floor at the same time. Symmetry was of utmost importance to Adeline, as it was to all of Mundania. When she brushed her teeth, she set a timer for exactly two minutes. One minute on the upper teeth. One minute on the bottoms. She parted her hair down the middle and brushed each side ten times. Adeline sat at the kitchen table to eat her usual Tuesday breakfast: one toasted waffle, one sausage link, twelve blueberries, and one orange juice box. 

At 7:05 a.m. Adeline was out the door, dressed in her navy blue school uniform, as were the other children at the bus stop, who were lined up from shortest to tallest. Adeline took the third position in line and when she boarded the bus, made sure to sit in her assigned seat—six rows back on the left-hand side. She looked out the window as she passed homogeneous houses, each painted within a narrow palate of neutral tones. The houses weren’t exactly identical but reflected a consistency in style, which was enforced by a Mundania city ordinance. She wondered what they might look like covered in a pristine blanket of snow.

Once she entered the school building, Adeline made sure to walk on the right side of the hallway, an arm’s length apart from the student in front of her, until she reached her classroom where she took her seat on the first row, four desks back. The bell rang at 7:30 a.m. and all the students removed their textbooks from their desks in a single, synchronized motion. The teacher commenced calling roll, alphabetically, of course. 

When Adeline arrived home at 3:25 p.m., she noticed something peculiar. The hedges that lined the street-facing wall of her house were always perfectly symmetrical and trimmed meticulously every other week. But today, a stray shoot sprang from the top of the otherwise even hedge—a good four inches above the rest. At first, she tried to ignore the rouge shoot and went inside to make her Tuesday afternoon snack—six butter crackers and a string cheese. But she could not stop thinking about that hedge sprout gone awry, thrusting its unruly tendril skyward.

Adeline sat at the kitchen table to start her homework, but when she looked out her front window, she could see that rascal shoot bobbing with the light breeze. The landscapers had been there only a few days ago. How did they miss this? Must be getting lazy, she thought. She pursed her lips, slammed her textbook shut, and went into the kitchen to find a pair of scissors. 

Adeline was just tall enough to reach the top of the hedge. She snipped the rogue shoot and it fell to the ground. When she knelt down to pick it up, she discovered a strange device resting at the base of the shrub. At first, she was hesitant to touch it. She turned around to see if anyone in her perfectly manicured neighborhood might be walking their dog or watering their flower beds, and when she saw no one, picked up the device and ran inside.

Adeline went straight to her bedroom and placed the device on her desk. It was black and somewhat rectangular with rounded edges and a button on one side—roughly the size of a deck of cards. She heard her mother enter the back door and drop her keys on the kitchen counter. Adeline quickly hid the device in her desk drawer. She slid the drawer shut as her mother opened her bedroom door. Adeline leaned on her desk with one hand, her hip pressing into the closed drawer. 

“Hi, mom.”

“What are you doing, Adie? Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?”

“Yes, I was just . . .” Adeline scanned her desk. “I was just getting a new pencil.” Adeline took a sharpened pencil from a ceramic pencil holder.

Her mother nodded. “Okay, well let’s try to get it done before dinner. There’s a new episode of In the Closet on tonight.” In the Closet was a reality show about closet organization. And dinner, because it was Tuesday, would be meatloaf with roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Adeline returned to the kitchen table to start on her homework, while her mother began prepping for dinner. She couldn’t stop thinking about that device. What was it for? Why was it in her yard? Perhaps one of the landscapers had dropped it while they were so carelessly trimming the hedges. But what was it?

Her father arrived home just in time for dinner. He was tall, mild-mannered, and moved with efficiency and purpose. He kissed his wife on the cheek and took his seat at the head of the table. Adeline helped her mother set the table and made sure that every place setting was painstakingly uniform. Her father smiled contently as Adeline straightened the fork on his linen napkin.

“So, Adie, how was school today? Anything interesting happen today?”

Adeline’s eyes widened for a moment and she sputtered, “No. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Well, good. That’s how we like it,” he said and went on talking about the monotony of his own workday, while her mother nodded respectfully without interrupting.

After dinner, Adeline helped her mother clean up and they all gathered in the living room to watch In the Closet. Adeline sat between her parents on the couch. The whole time, as her parents smiled placidly at the warm glow of the television, Adeline could not stop thinking about that device. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she tried to think of an excuse to go to her room. At the next commercial break, Adeline said, “I think I’m going to go ahead and get ready for bed.”

“But it’s only 7:15,” her mother said. “And this is your favorite show.”

“I know. I’m just feeling tired.”

Her parents looked at one another. Her father shrugged.

“Well, alright,” her mother said. “I’ll fill you in on how they solve this shelving issue tomorrow.”

“Good night, Mom.” Adeline kissed her mother’s cheek. “Good night, Dad.” She kissed her father’s cheek. Adeline returned to her bedroom and closed the door.

Adeline could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She sat at her desk and slowly pulled out the top drawer. Taking the device in her hands, she looked it over closely, careful not to depress its button. What does it do? she wondered. A knock came at the door and she quickly placed it back into her desk drawer and started brushing her hair.

Her mother opened the door only halfway. “Are you not feeling well, dear?” her mother asked.

“I feel fine, mom. Just tired, that’s all.” She continued brushing.

Her mother felt her forehead. “Alright then. Sweet dreams.”

“Sweet dreams,” Adeline replied.

Her mother stepped back into the hallway and closed the door.

Adeline waited until her mother’s footsteps had faded down the hall and then opened the desk drawer once again. She took the device in her hands and ran a finger ever so lightly over the button. Outside a strong wind blew against her bedroom window and she startled. She dropped the device onto the floor and it bounced under her desk. Adeline got on her hands and knees and reached under the desk to retrieve it. 

She felt a strong desire to push the button on the side of the device. What’s the worst that could happen? No, I shouldn’t, she thought. I shouldn’t be pushing buttons on things if I don’t know what they’ll do. But I just have to know! She looked at her cat, Finneas, who was lying disinterested on the foot of her bed. 

“What do you think, Finn? Should I push it?”

The cat looked at her for a moment and then closed his eyes again. He couldn’t have cared less, as usual.

“I think so, too,” she said. “Ready? One . . . Two . . . Three.” She pushed the button.

At that moment the light in her room flickered off and on again. At first, Adeline thought it might have been a brief power outage due to the increasingly violent wind outside. But then it happened again, only this time when the lights turned back on, her bedroom was bathed in a warm red glow. She looked at the device she was holding. Surely, it had nothing to do with the lights in her bedroom. How could it? She pushed the button again to see if it should switch the lights back to normal.

She heard a meow above her and looked up to see her cat, Finneas sitting perfectly calm, and perfectly upside down, in the middle of her ceiling.

“Finneas!” Adeline whispered. “Get down from there!”

The cat stretched and walked casually across the ceiling to the nearest wall and nestled himself in the corner.

“Finneas, get down,” she said with her fists on her hips. “How did you get up there?” Adeline placed her chair in the corner and stood up on it, but she still wasn’t tall enough to reach her cat, who was licking an outstretched hind leg. She reached her hands up. “Jump, Finneas. Come on. Jump.”

The further she reached, however, the farther she got from the inverted feline. The wooden legs of the chair she was standing on were slowly melting into the floor, creating a waxy puddle beneath her. The legs melted all the way to the seat. Adeline frantically pressed the button to try and make it stop. Frightened that she, too might melt into the floor, she jumped onto her bed, but when she did, fell through the mattress, taking the duvet with her.

When she landed she was in another room, on another bed. Adeline was disoriented and confused as to what had just happened. She looked about the room. It was a familiar room with familiar wooden furnishings and surrounded by only three walls. She stepped to the edge of the room on the open side and looked out into a giant version of her bedroom. She had somehow been transported into her dollhouse! Adeline felt nauseous and she heard a whooshing sound in her head. 

She descended the staircase to the first floor of the dollhouse and was startled by the life-size doll family stiffly seated around the kitchen table dressed in ill-fitting fibrous felt clothing. The doll family stared with fixed smiles and perfect blue circle eyes at one another from across the table. She stepped closer to examine them when the mother doll turned her head toward Adeline.

“Will you be joining us for dinner, Adeline?” asked the doll mom.

Adeline shrieked and ran out the front door of the dollhouse and found herself in her front yard. As far as she could tell, she was back to normal size again. She looked down at the device she was still carrying in her hand. Surely, this device had turned everything topsy-turvy. Adeline pressed the button again and again until it got stuck.

“Oh no!” Adeline cried. She tried again but the button remained depressed in its pushed position. “I broke it!”

Adeline stood on her front porch and looked out over the once colorless, uniform row of houses. Each house was brightly painted—violet, lime green, lemon yellow, maroon, and fiery orange. Not only were they painted bright colors, but they lit up in a coordinated manner, like Christmas twinkle lights. Her own house, which had always been a boring shade of beige was now light purple with indigo trim and a bubblegum pink front door. 

She couldn’t believe what she saw next. Mr. Tanner’s Great Dane walked down the sidewalk on his hind legs. He held a leash in one paw and waved at Adeline with the other. Poor Mr. Tanner, dog collar around his neck and a tennis ball in his mouth, crawled beside him on his hands and knees! Mr. Tanner paused to wave with one hand and continued crawling as if nothing at all were out of place.

“This is madness!” Adeline cried.

Adeline felt something around her ankle. She looked down and the shoot she had trimmed from the hedge was wrapping itself around her leg. She shrieked and kicked at the reanimated clipping, which was growing at a tremendous rate and winding its way up her leg.

“Help! Help!” Adeline cried as the vine wrapped itself around her waist and began pulling her toward the hedge. Adeline fell to the ground as the vine pulled her into the hedge. She cried out in terror.

“I’ll save ye!” called a strange deep and commanding voice.

Adeline couldn’t see who it was because she was faced down, but she heard the sounds of metal hacking away at the malevolent weed. She felt the offending tendril loosen around her body and she scrambled to her feet. 

She regarded her rescuer who was wiping hedge clippings from a pirate’s cutlass. He had long braided hair under his pirate hat. His mustache curled upwards into thin loops. He wore a long frock coat over a billowy white shirt and breeches that tapered below the knee, revealing red and white striped stockings that disappeared into black leather boots.

“Who are you?” Adeline asked, brushing grass from her clothes.

“The name’s Antonio Guillermo Castillo Montoya de la Cruz. But ye can call me Flapjack.” 

“Are you some kind of pirate or something?” Adeline asked, looking the man up and down.

“Aye! That I be and then some!”

“Where did you come from?” Adeline asked. “We don’t have pirates in Mundania.”

“Why I be from Hullabaloo! And I best be gettin’ back.”

“Hullabaloo? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Say,” said Flapjack looking over his shoulder. “Ye haven’t seen me click-a-brick around here, have ye?”

“You’re what?”

“Me click-a-brick. I must have dropped it somewheres around here and I needs it to get back.”

Adeline felt a pang of guilt. “Does it have something to do with what’s going on here? Why everything got so strange all of a sudden?”

At that moment two tortoises rode by on a tandem bicycle. They tipped their bowler hats in unison as they passed by. 

“What does ye mean, strange?” Flapjack asked.

Adeline pointed at the cycling tortoises. “You don’t think that’s strange?”

“What? Ye never seen a tandem bicycle before?” Flapjack asked. He didn’t seem phased by any of the oddities affecting Mundania. Then again, his arrival coincided with the sudden strangeness. He certainly was the strangest man she’d ever met.

“What are you doing here in Mundania?” Adeline asked.

Flapjack got on one knee and held Adeline by her shoulders. He looked right and then left, and then looked Adeline in the eye.

“Can ye keep a secret?” Flapjack whispered.

Adeline nodded.

“I’ve come here to hide me booty!”

“Eww!” Adeline said thinking he meant his bum.

“No! Not me booty. Me boooty. Treasure!”

“Ohhh.”

“Aye. Nobody would ever look here in this place. It’s too . . . weird.”

“You think this place is weird?” She looked around. A whale jumped out of the clouds and splashed down into another. “Well, I mean, it’s weird now. But that wasn’t until I . . .”

“Until what?”

“Until I broke your clicky thing,” Adeline said sheepishly. She held out the broken device. “I’m sorry.”

Flapjack took the device and brought it to his ear and gave it a shake. He pressed the button that was still stuck in the depressed position.

“Aye! Not to worry me lass. Me knows just the mate who can fix it. Come on!”

Flapjack turned toward the hedge and took three steps backward. He hopped twice and then ran and dove directly into the hedge and disappeared.

Adeline couldn’t believe her eyes! She took a closer look into the hedge but didn’t see anything besides the dense branches. Suddenly, a hand shot out of the hedge and she jumped back.

“Take me hand, lass!” Flapjack called from inside the hedge.

Adeline shook her head. “This is too weird,” she said out loud to herself. She heard something wet fall onto the grass behind her and then again to her left. She looked up and fish began falling from the sky. One of them landed squarely on her head and flopped onto the lawn. She looked at the extended hand protruding from the hedge. “Can’t get any weirder than this,” she said to herself. Adeline grabbed Flapjack’s hand and he pulled her into the hedge.

Traveling through the hedge was less uncomfortable than she imagined. She was sure she’d emerge with cuts and scrapes all over, but when she fell out on the other side, she remained perfectly unscathed. She tumbled onto a soft pillowy surface. Adeline ran her hands along the surface, trying to ascertain the buoyant material, but when she tried to stand, her feet broke through the thin surface layer and began to sink into a sticky white substance. The more she struggled to get her legs free, the more she sank into the gooey matter.

“Help!” Adeline cried, losing her balance and falling back down again, covered in white, gloopy muck.

Flapjack’s head popped up from the white stuff. He raised his eyebrows and licked his lips.

“Marshmallow!” Flapjack declared. “We must eat our way through! It be the only way!” Flapjack dove back into the marshmallow pool and disappeared again.

Adeline brought her hand to her mouth and touched her tongue to the sticky goo. “Mmm.” She had never had a marshmallow in her life. Marshmallows were banned in Mundania. She scooped a dollop of marshmallow into her palm and shoved it into her mouth. Adeline smiled with delight. She dove head-first into the marshmallow sauce.

When she emerged on the other side, Flapjack was there with an outstretched hand. He pulled her onto a large boulder and the marshmallow film covering every inch of her began to evaporate in the sun. The sweetness lingered on her tongue. She looked up into the sky, which was a swirl of orange and pink. Suddenly, the ground began to quake.

“What’s happening?” Adeline asked.

“It be the disruptors!” Flapjack called out. “If ye are to survive in Hullabaloo, ye must act unpredictably. If ye stands still for too long or carries on in an ordered or otherwise predictable fashion, the disruptors will shake it right out of ye. Quick, do something spontaneous!”

Adeline thought. Spontaneous? She knew the definition of the word but didn’t have any context for practical, active spontaneity. It just wasn’t anything she’d ever seen in Mundania. What did spontaneity look like exactly? She stood uncomfortably still as she pondered.

“Ye be overthinking it!” Flapjack yelled as the ground began to split underneath their feet. “Don’t think. Just act!” When she didn’t budge, Flapjack unsheathed his cutlass and swung it at Adeline’s feet. Adeline jumped over the blade and when it came again at her head, she ducked. The ground settled beneath them.

“Ye have fine reflexes, lass! That’ll serve ye well here. Just remember, ye must act unpredictably if ye wishes to survive in Hullabaloo. Now follow me!” Flapjack turned with a swish of his frock, walked a few steps to the right, turned on his heels, and hop-stepped to his left. “Come on, lass!”

Adeline tried to mimic the pirate’s funny walk. She spun and hopped and skipped and cartwheeled and giggled the whole way into town along cobbled streets that seemed to materialize before them as if they were creating their own path. Finally, they arrived at a quaint little shop with a green door that opened before either of them had reached for the doorknob.

Flapjack had to duck to fit through the doorway. He looked much larger indoors. The shop was filled with tools and buckets of hardware like screws and hinges, spools of wire and various cables, piles of wood scraps, and all manner of building materials. A large workbench took up the far end of the shop and behind the workbench a door leading to a back room, from which emerged a little man with round spectacles.

“Sydney!” Flapjack called out. “I need ye to fix me click-a-brick.”

The man said nothing but motioned them over to his workbench. He took the device in his plump little hands and pulled a work light over so he could get a better look. Using small tools, the man nimbly disassembled the device’s casing and fiddled with its internal components. Sydney made little guttural sounds and breathed heavily as he worked. Adeline stretched her neck to see what he was doing. Finally, he replaced the casing and tested his workmanship. He handed the device back to Flapjack.

“Good as new!” Flapjack said and laughed heartily. “Thank ye old friend!” Flapjack placed the device in his pocket and retrieved a gold coin. He flipped it to the little man who caught it with one hand and placed it in his vest pocket. He nodded and waved as Flapjack and Adeline left the shop.

“What does it do?” Adeline asked once they were outside. She didn’t know why she hadn’t asked sooner.

“What this?” Flapjack said, removing the device from his pocket. “Why it opens me garage.”

“It what?” Adeline said a bit disappointed. “I thought it was magic.”

“Why would ye think that?”

“Well, when I pushed the button, that’s when everything started going crazy.”

“Maybe it be a coincidence.”

“Well, what caused everything to go nuts?” The ground began to quake again. Adeline spun around and jumped with her hands to the sky, then she touched her toes, snapped back up, and did jazz hands. The ground settled again.

“I suppose I must have brought some of Hullabaloo with me when I crossed over into your world,” Flapjack said. “But don’t ye worry, lass. The effect will dissipate after a while.”

“How do you know?”

“Because your orderly world cannot support the chaos. Everything eventually finds its equilibrium. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless ye choose to feed it.”

“Feed it? How do you mean, feed it?”

“The more spontaneous and unpredictable ye be, the more ye stirs up the chaos. Me thinks your world could use a bit of chaos.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe just a bit,” Adeline said. She worried any amount of chaos might take over and lose control. “I should probably head back home.”

At that moment several tiny sprouts emerged from cracks in the sidewalk. They grew quickly and began to intertwine their branches. Leaves sprouted from the branches and grew together into a fully formed hedge—just like the one in front of Adeline’s house. 

“Me thinks ye knows the way back,” Flapjack said, twisting the end of his mustache between his fingers. 

“Will I ever see you again?” Adeline asked.

“Ye knows where to find me. Next time, I’ll shows ye me pirate ship.”

At that moment Adeline felt tiny flakes upon her eyelashes. She looked up. It was beginning to snow.

“Snow! I’ve never seen snow before! Does it snow here often?”

“Aye!”

Adeline looked around as snow covered every surface in a blanket of sparkling white. She opened her mouth as flakes landed and melted onto her tongue. She took a mental picture knowing it might be the only time she would experience such wonder. 

“Well, I guess I better go,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t want my parents to worry.”

“Be a good lass! And remember, every once in a while, it’s okay to be a bit spontaneous,” Flapjack said.

Adeline nodded.

“Adieu!” He took a theatrical bow.

Adeline looked at the hedge. She took several steps back to get a running start. Her mouth twisted into a look of concentration and she sprang directly into the hedge.

Adeline found herself in her bedroom again. Everything was just as it was before she found the device. Her desk chair was perfectly positioned at her desk. It had not melted into the floor. Her cat slept soundly at the foot of her bed and not on the ceiling. She sat up and felt the bed for any strange portals that might be hidden there under the covers. Everything was as it should be—everything in its right place. 

She swung her legs off the side of the bed and was about to step onto the floor with both feet as she was accustomed to doing every morning. She couldn’t remember when she started this habit or if it had ever been explicitly taught. She had never questioned it before. Adeline wondered what might happen if she—just this once—if she stepped onto the floor one foot at a time. She carefully placed her left foot on the floor, keeping her right foot up. So far so good. She held her breath as she brought her right foot onto the floor and stood up. She exhaled sharply and chuckled to herself. 

A knock came at her door and she startled. She worried she had done it again, this time with her carelessly asynchronous foot placement. Had she reversed the migration patterns of teams of wildlife? Had she caused any of her neighbor’s pets to walk their owners? Had she turned her parents blue? 

“Come in,” Adeline said warily.

Her mother opened her bedroom door. “Addie, I’m afraid there will be no school today.” She wasn’t blue.

“No school? But it’s Wednesday.”

“I want to show you something.” Adeline’s mother walked to the window and threw back the curtains. Light poured into her bedroom.

Adeline gasped. She ran to her mother by the window and wrapped her arms around her waist. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Snow!”