All About Max Read online

  ALL ABOUT MAX,

  and something about Moose, a girl named Mitzi, a couple of mongrels called Moxie and Mojo, a bunch of old people, and the mysterious map of Measley Manor.

  By

  Barbara Brooks Wallace

  Pangea Press

  All About Max

  and something about Moose, a girl named Mitzi, a couple of mongrels called Moxie and Mojo, a bunch of old people, and the mysterious map of Measley Manor.

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

  First Pangea Press edition.

  ISBN-13:978-0-9982542-6-5

  Copyright 2017 by Barbara Brooks Wallace.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction rights are granted without permission, unless referenced and attributed in excerpt form for a review or book report.

  An imprint of Pangea

  Dana Point, California 92629

  ISBN

  Dedication

  For Jim, Boo, Bizzy, Big & Little John, Cheryl, & Blythe (my O.A.O.P.P.)

  With love and a zillion thanks for all you do!

  Chapter I

  In which we meet Max, known at the moment by his full name, Maximilian, his very rich parents, his despicable friend Pencival, his servants, pets and life in general.

  O nce upon a time, (it’s not necessary to this story to know exactly when), there was a boy named Maximilian Pettigrew Westmorington Bassford Thorndike Finstersill Smith the Fifth. His father, Maximilian P.W.B.T.F. Smith the Fourth, naturally, was enormously rich.

  Therefore, it followed that young Maximilian Five was enormously rich as well. Or at least he would be some day when Maximilian Four was no longer around. As Five was an only boy, not to mention an only child, he would of course inherit it all. Every last penny, nickel, dime and dollar, not to mention every last euro, yen, yuan, peso, pound, rouble, rial, and loonie. Maximilian Four was indeed VERY rich!

  Five wasn’t exactly quite as rotten spoiled obnoxious as he might be from being the only child of such wealthy parents who gave him anything and everything he ever wanted, although he came perilously close to it. The “exactly” factored in because he did have two un-rotten-spoiled traits. The main one was that he was really and truly nice to animals and had never teased or tormented one even when he was very little and didn’t know any better.

  From a very early age, Five insisted that animals talked to him, including Sir Launcelot and Lady Guinevere, the very elegant (also snooty) Borzois (purebred, naturally!) that were the family dogs. Well, he talked to them, at any rate, and was quite certain he read their minds and knew exactly what they were saying to him.

  Of course, nobody believed the thing about talking to animals. His parents, even though they thought this was cute, didn’t really believe it either. Who would?

  Maximilian was smart enough to figure out (actually, he was probably too smart and clever for his own good) that people were mostly nice to him because his father was so enormously rich, and some day he would be as well. Even when he was acting rotten spoiled obnoxious, and he was certain they wanted to take him over their knees and whale the daylights out of him, they would still be nice to him. People especially in this category were Mrs. Pinkerpon, the family cook, Binge, the family butler, and Gridlock, the family chauffeur who drove him to his posh private school every day, shop clerks in the posh stores where his family shopped, and even his teachers at Ballyhoo’s, his posh private school. They were certainly all polite, at any rate.

  But animals were another matter. They loved you and were nice to you no matter how rich your father was, or how rotten spoiled you behaved. They loved you just because you were you. He was certain that even Sir Launcelot and Lady Guinevere loved him. Of course, being elegant (purebred, of course, as mentioned), Borzois, they were rather snooty about showing affection. They never leaped on you and slobbered all over you like some general, all-round, non-snooty dogs are often likely to do. Still, Maximilian Five was certain they loved him. After all, they were animals, weren’t they? And hadn’t he even asked them, each one separately?

  “Do you love me, Sir?” asked Maximilian.

  “Yes!” replied Sir Launcelot.

  “Do you love me, Lady?” asked Maximilian.

  “Of course, silly boy!” replied Lady Guinevere.

  (Animals’ replies and general conversations throughout this book are noted in italics to indicate that they are only understood by Maximilian. The author assumes that everyone reading this book knows what “italics” are, or can at least figure it out. Thank you.)

  At any rate, it was funny how Maximilian had known about animal love from the time he was old enough to know anything.

  Once, when he was still quite small, he snatched his hand away from his nanny to run out into a dangerously busy street to rescue a kitten. His nanny was fired for having let go of him, but his parents had a medallion of solid 18k gold made in his honor. It had his face and name on one side and on the other a kitten rampant. It was displayed in a glass case on their fireplace mantel.

  Maximilian Five’s second un-rotten-spoiled trait was...was...well, the truth was that he didn’t really have a second one. Unless you could consider that way deep down inside him, he probably suspected that he was rotten spoiled obnoxious. He didn’t know why that was, though, or what to do about even if he wanted to. Which he really didn’t.

  Actually, he was so used to being it that he couldn’t imagine himself being anything else. Besides, he couldn’t help remembering that his one great un-rotten-spoiled deed had certainly won him a gold medal, but it had also got his favorite nanny fired, and people who saw the medal snickered at it behind his parents’ backs. So what was the use? Why even bother to try?

  Maximilian had two whole rooms to himself in their six-bedroom penthouse apartment in the city. One room was the one which held his bed and his desk. The other was for all his toys. He had just about every expensive and even not-so toy ever manufactured. The room was bulging at the seams with them, and yet more and more kept being added. Most of his toys were because his parents traveled a lot. Both of them, and without him. That was the explanation behind so many of the toys.

  Every time they left, especially when they both left at the same time, Maximilian Five managed to stage a crying fest, and giving him a toy made his parents feel less guilty. Maximilian played this game to the hilt. He knew that all these histrionics (which means a deliberate display of emotion for effect) didn’t make them change their minds about leaving him, but he had figured, also at an early age, he might as well get something out of it. Although he had outgrown the tantrums he had when very small, his later crying scenes were worthy of a Hollywood Oscar award.

  Maximilian P.W.B.T.F. Smith the Fourth had every penny, nickel, dime and dollar, not to mention euro, yen, yuan, peso, pound, rouble, rial, and loonie invested all over the world, and so had to go visit these investments, which meant leaving home frequently. Most recently, though, he had sold out all those many investments, every single last one, and plopped every euro, yen, yuan, peso, pound, rouble, rial and loonie into one huge, enormous project which actually had him leaving home even more frequently.

  “My father has bought an island,” Maximilian bragged to his erstwhile friend Pencival one Saturday morning. The word “erstwhile” (which means formerly) is used in referring to Pencival because he was more often erst than not. At that moment, it happened to be not, so Pencival and Maximilian were on speaking terms. Pencival was also a Ballyhoo boy, and about as rotten spoiled as Maximilian. Their family chauffeurs ferried the boys back and forth to each other’s penthouses to play. This usually happened when one or the other had a new toy to show off. A lot of their conversations often consisted of bragging.

  “What’s he going to do with an island?” asked Pencival.

  “Build a whole city on it,” replied Maximilian. “There are even going to be a couple of skyscrapers. They’re practically both built already.”

  “Skyscrapers on an island sounds pretty loony to me,” said Pencival, who, Maximilian guessed, was probably eaten up with jealousy. Pencival’s own father was terribly rich, but he got that way manufacturing and selling plumbing supplies and fixtures like bathtubs and toilets. Anybody dealing with bathtubs and such boring (even though highly necessary) things as toilets would never have had the imagination to do anything as daring as buying an island and building skyscrapers on it.

  “Where is this crazy island?” asked Pencival.

  “In the South Pacific,” said Maximilian.

  Pencival had to take a moment to come up with a zinger to shoot off about this. “So what’s anyone supposed to do with themselves on an island in the South Pacific, just sit around watching the coconut trees grow? Ho hum!”

  “Oh no! This is going to be a resort island called Rainbow’s End. Only instead of a pot of gold, there’ll be lots of entertainment by big bands and movie stars, and gambling. Well, that’s for when you’re not going swimming, or snorkeling, or deep sea fishing, or hanging around on the white sand beaches, or eating in five star restaurants,” said Maximilian, who knew all about things like five-star restaurants. He knew Pencival did as well.

  “Oh, and there’s even going to be fireworks every night,” he said. He knew Percival was crazy about fireworks.

  Of course, Maximilian was m
aking all of it up once he got past the word “resort”, but why let Pencival know that? Besides, knowing his father, it was probably mostly, if not entirely true.

  Anyway, all this was a lot for Pencival to chew on. It took him even longer to come up with another zinger of a reply. “So how is anyone expected to get there?” He snickered. “Swim? Ha! Ha!”

  “Oh, they’ll just get there in one of the two ocean liners my father is building, or fly in one of his fleet of airplanes,” said Maximilian, who didn’t have to make this up. It was exactly what he’d heard his father say, and it shut Pencival right up. The son of a man who sold plumbing fixtures, bathtubs and toilets was no match against two ocean liners and a fleet of airplanes.

  “So when are we going to eat?” Pencival said, and actually managed to produce a fake yawn. He had clearly run out of zingers, so the next best thing was to pretend he wasn’t interested in any old island. Maximilian wasn’t fooled for a minute, but there was no use rubbing Pencival’s nose in this island business any further.

  “Aren’t you interested in seeing the latest first?” asked Maximilian.

  “Well, yeah, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” said Pencival. “Where’d it come from, China?”

  “Actually Germany,” said Maximilian. “And more like ‘they’. That’s where my mother was when she had them sent to me.”

  These latest gifts to Maximilian explain why Maximilian Fifth’s mother was away from home so much traveling. She wasn’t with Maximilian Fourth at all, but was traveling by herself as she always did.

  The reason for all this traveling was that, not content with just having a busy social life going to teas and lunches, and being chairman or secretary of charities, and little theatres, and art societies, she also ran a business. This was a store called The Golden Truffle.

  Maximilian never thought this name made much sense as everyone knows truffles are candy, but though the store did sell some VERY expensive bona fide (which is a dandy Latin expression meaning actually) truffles in assorted flavors, it mostly sold gifts and art objects and doodads imported from all over the world. It was a VERY posh store, and its pink gift boxes with the gold lettering, were so well known that anyone seeing one knew at once where what was packed inside came from. At any rate, while Maximilian Four was traveling around the world overseeing his many investments, Mrs. Maximilian Four traveled around the world buying things for The Golden Truffle.

  Now Pencival’s mother also had a busy social life going to teas and lunches, and being chairman or secretary of charities, and little theatres, and art societies, but still, she was the wife of someone who sold bathtubs and toilets. And most especially, she did not run a posh business whose pink boxes with the gold letters were becoming legendary, and even whose truffles Pencival adored. He had to use every power he possessed to pretend to Maximilian he though they were yucky. So Maximilian stopped offering them to him, and Pencival was sadly learning the meaning of “cutting off his nose to spite his face.”

  “So what is it you have to show me?” he asked Maximilian.

  Maximilian lifted off a box from his overloaded shelf of boxes, and handed it to Pencival.

  “This is just a bunch of building blocks!” said Pencival, managing to produce a very nice sneer.

  “Not just any building blocks,” said Maximilian. “They’re skyscrapers. I can set up a city with them.”

  “So they’re still just building blocks,” said Pencival. “Is that all I came over to see?”

  “No,” said Maximilian, trying to sneer right back at Pencival. The word “trying” is because he was never able to out-sneer Pencival, no matter how hard he practiced sneering in front of his bathroom mirror. Sneering really is an art form, and they should give classes in it. “I suppose you didn’t hear me say ‘they’ instead of ‘it’. I’ve got something else.”

  Maximilian pulled another box from his shelf. “I suppose you’ve heard of Quadrilla?” He knew very well that Pencival hadn’t.

  “Oh, sure,” said Pencival. “But it’s been such a long time since I’ve played it. You’d better tell me.”

  Quadrilla was such a new kind of game that Pencival couldn’t possibly have played it a long time ago. But Maximilian decided he wouldn’t mention it. Pencival, such as he was, was his only friend. No point in ruining the relationship any further. So Maximilian explained all about it, and they ended up getting so engrossed in playing the game, that Maximilian rang the bell for Binge to bring lunch to his room.

  “So what did you think of Quadrilla?” Maximilian asked Pencival when it was time for him to leave.

  “Oh, it was okay,” said Pencival, who wouldn’t have admitted to liking it for his life. But then he tipped his hand by making the big mistake of asking, “Is your mother going to send you anything more from Germany?” He did produce a credible bored yawn, though.

  “No,” said Maximilian. “She already left Germany to go to Rainbow’s End.”

  “I thought your parents never traveled together,” said Pencival.

  This was true. They didn’t. That was because in case a plane went down, it would still leave one parent to look after Maximilian Five. That was no big secret.

  “They’re not going together,” said Maximilian. “My father’s already there, and she she’s going to meet him. I’ll get to see it when I go there to spend the summer.”

  “Well, I hope the island doesn’t sink,” said Pencival in a tone of voice that hoped just the opposite.

  “Oh, no fear of that,” said Maximilian. “My father had dozens of the smartest engineers and scientists, and even deep sea divers checking it out. It’s the safest place in the world. You’ll have to have to come visit me this summer.”

  “I might,” said Pencival, trying to look bored. “And again I might not. Who knows?”

  He didn’t produce a sneer, however, as there wasn’t anything really to sneer about. And though Pencival was a lot of unpleasant things, one thing he was not was stupid. There was no point in cutting off his nose to spite his face over a possible trip to this fantastic island where there would even be fireworks very night. Pencival had already ruined himself over the truffles.

  As it turned up, something was actually happening right at that very moment that was to determine whether Pencival was ever to go by plane, or ship, or on the back of a whale, or any other way to Rainbow’s End. And, as soon will be revealed, it had nothing to do with how many tubs or toilets his father sold, in case anyone was wondering if the cost of the trip might have anything to do with this.

  No, it was something else entirely.

  Chapter II

  In which we learn why Pencival would no doubt never get to visit Maximilian at rainbow’s end, which has nothing to do with his father not being able to sell enough tubs and toilets to pay for him to get there but another reason entirely.

  N ow there is a poem by a famous Scottish poet that says “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley.” What this means, of course, is that no matter how carefully you plan and plot, things often can get all fouled up. That’s probably how he would have put it if the word “fouled” had been in popular use in those days.

  Maximilian Pettigrew Westmorington Bassford Thorndike Finstersill Smith the Fourth knew all about the meaning of things ganging aft agley. Therefore, he had no intention of risking a single penny, nickel, dime, and dollar, not to mention one euro, yen, yuan, peso, pound, rouble, rial, or loonie on some harebrained scheme ganging anywhere that wouldn’t safely guarantee the doubling, trebling, or even quadrupling every penny, nickel, dime, etc. etc. etc.

  So Maximilian P.W.B.T.F. Smith the Fifth was absolutely right when he told Pencival that his father had hired dozens of the smartest engineers and scientists, and deep-sea divers to check out the island where he intended to build and run the most fantastic resort ever imagined by anyone in their wildest dreams. He had scoured every university and science laboratory and oceanographic institution to hire these people. They were the best in the world, and every last one had assured him that the island for Rainbow’s End was one hundred per cent safe for this magnificent venture.