Rory Inkersoll’s Official-Looking Wallet

Rory Inkersoll’s Official-Looking Wallet: Object Post 89

Source? It was probably a gift from Emer, Rory’s wife

Significance? It was a reminder that Rory, whatever else he was, really was a priest

Fate? Rory undoubtedly still has it, not being the sort to mislay things, or to trade in something that serves its purpose

Author’s inspiration? What else would a priest who is a part-time cat use to keep his ID?

Appeared in? Sunshower

***

Rory was already holding out an official-looking wallet.

By the end of Sam and the Sylvan, Sam Silver had a wonderful new life with her sylvan forever, Oash. In her new-found happiness, Sam remembered her great-aunt, Sofia “Sofa” Silver, who had been kind to her and who was now grieving her life away in a retirement home after losing the love of her life. 

Sam wanted to do something nice for Sofa, but she lacked the funds and wherewithal to travel to South Australia, and, being in a delicate condition, she didn’t want to leave Oash. Therefore, Sam despatched Tab Merriweather and his friend Josefa to deliver a message to Sofa. This proved difficult, as Sofa had retreated into depression and was trying to will herself to death. Beatrice Florin, to whom Tab and Josefa appealed for help, had a recommendation for them.

“If Sofia’s beyond your reach—and I think she is—see if you can get old Rory to come to her. Rory Inkersoll, know him? Old geezer with red hair going grey, uses the St Botolph gate. Ginger stealth cat mani.”

“I know him,” Tab said.

They tracked Rory down and he agreed to help. It took a great deal of effort, but finally the three got Sofa responding. The next hurdle was checking her out of Summerleigh Grange after her seemingly miraculous return to sentient sanity.

Rory’s mercurial skills came in handy when June the receptionist demurred that she wasn’t authorised to release Sofia into the wide world.

Tab smiled. “You should probably get in touch with the manager. If it helps, this is Reverend Rory Inkersoll. He’s Miss Silver’s pastor.”

Rory nodded, contriving to look like a sane and saintly human man. “Bless you, daughter,” he said and waved his hand.

Josefa choked.

June blinked and relaxed. “Of course, Father. I think we have your name down somewhere.”

“I was visiting Mrs Florin, another of my parishioners, tonight, and she informed me of Miss Silver’s situation.” He bowed his head. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. We were able to tell Miss Silver some happy news about her great-niece, who is expecting a baby. You’re welcome to call your manager, but if possible, Miss Silver would like to sign herself out so she can pay Sam and her partner a visit without delay.”

Tab bit the inside of his cheek. Rory was a master manipulator at work. The Reverend Rory had not told a lie, but he was pressing a gentle warming influence into June’s mind. The wicked old tomcat!

The receptionist straightened her shoulders. “I’ll just pull up the paperwork. If I might see some ID, Father?”

Tab reached for his own driver’s license, but Rory was already holding out an official-looking wallet. Presumably, he had picked it up before leaving his cottage. “I am retired now, but I still hold the occasional service at St Botolph’s. In fact, I had the felicity of officiating at the wedding of my grandson to his lovely lady just a few months ago. If you wish to call the bishop from my diocese, he will vouch for me.”

June looked towards her computer.

Naturally, Sofa got her release. Once Rory re-pocketed his wallet, conducted Sofa to Sam’s new home, and offered her temporary accommodation in his cottage while she pondered her options, Tab and Josefa set out to drive home.

June may have called the bishop, but probably not. If she had, Rory would have got a glowing recommendation. The bishop may have known Rory wasn’t human, but someone had to take care of the pastoral needs of parishioners that veered to the odd side of the compass.

Rory Inkersoll’s wallet appears in Sunshower

                                   

  ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Honeycomb Bakewell's Well-hurled Engagement Ring

Honeycomb Bakewell's Well-hurled Engagement Ring: Object Post 88

Source? Honey’s fiancé, Jake Peters, made it and gave it to her

Significance? It gave Honey a grand dummy-spitting gesture

Fate? Possibly still on the church roof, but more likely Jake retrieved it

Author’s inspiration? It seemed appropriate for an artist to make one

Appeared in? Honey and the Harvest Hob

***

Jake did provide some one-of-a-kind engagement bling, though, combining stones from three pawnshop rings in his own design.

The ring was a Jake Peters original which would have appealed to Honey, and which complemented her ooak wedding dress. She looked like a fairy rather than a bride, but as beautiful as she was, the wedding didn’t go ahead. Jake failed to arrive on time and when Honey contacted his brother, she discovered he wasn’t coming at all. Honey, understandably, was annoyed and offended.           

…she raised her phone above her head and smashed it down on the stone-flagged path in the first act of wanton rage of her life. In the second, she dragged off her engagement ring and flung it over the church roof.

Unwilling to face everyone after personally informing the congregation that the wedding was cancelled, Honey decided to go alone on the pre-booked mystery honeymoon. The driver, Linda, offered brisk practical sympathy.

“In you get. Since you don’t want to talk, I suggest you get in the back seat. I’ll drop the privacy screen, and you can seethe, or cry, or sleep or obsessively click through photos or rant on social media or gaze misty-eyed at your engagement ring or whatever takes your fancy.”

Honey got in the back seat. “I smashed my phone and threw my engagement ring on the church roof.”

“Then I guess your options are limited to the first three.”

At the honeymoon cottage, Honey met Robin “Hob” Cottman. She asked him…

Haven’t you got a mobile?”

“Aye, but they don’t work over here. Have you not noticed?” He fished a smartphone out of his pocket, thumbed it on and showed her the blank screen.

 “I might have, but my mobile’s in bits in a church foyer. God, why didn’t I grab the sim? I don’t want it, but what if someone else finds it? They’ll have my life at their fingertips. My old life.”

“Happen it fell down a crack,” he said. “Most churches have crannies galore.”

“And happen my ring got lodged in the tiles?”

“Happen it did. You can always replace it.”

“It was unique.” Honey put her elbows on the table and propped her chin in her hands. “Why are we saying happen? Are you from Yorkshire?”

Eventually, Honey talked to Jake and they made their peace. Jake explained…

“I did have second thoughts, but by then it was too late. I’d walked out and left my phone with Chris. It was too late to get to the church, so I cut my losses and went on a bender.” He took a deep breath. “I came to the flat a couple of days later, but you weren’t here. There was a note for you on the mat but nothing for me. I tried to call you and texted you, but you never turned your phone on.”

“I smashed it. And I chucked my ring onto the church roof.”

Jake whistled a long descending note. “Lucky I didn’t find you then.”

Honey did marry, and she did use her one-of-a-kind wedding dress at her husband-to-be’s request, but she certainly didn’t use the ring. Presumably Jake got it back (with Honey’s blessing). Being an artist, he most likely used it as the centrepiece of an installation called something creative along the lines of Second Thoughts.

                                   

  ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Inigo Hauntman's Ubiquitous Autograph

Inigo Hauntman's Ubiquitous Autograph: Object Post 87

Source? Signed by Inigo Hauntman for Jeremy Archer after a performance of C. George Archer’s play Cupid’s Arrow

Significance? It was ubiquitous

Fate? Eventually stuck in an autograph book with too much Wunda-glu

Author’s inspiration? A joking threat I made to a child at a school book talk. If you just lose that scrap of paper instead of sticking it in your autograph book as promised, I’ll haunt you

Appeared in? One Weird Week

***

“…. this autograph is for your eyes alone.”

Jeremy Archer offered to get signatures from the stars of Cupid’s Arrow for his friend Sara-Pat Blackwood, who had forgotten her autograph book. Jeremy didn’t have his either, but nevertheless, he took a piece of pad paper instead. He didn’t especially want a signature from Inigo Hauntman, the actor who looked like Dracula’s uncle and who was a menacing but non-speaking presence in the play. He asked anyway, to be polite.

Inigo Hauntman gave him the signature under three conditions.

“Mark the conditions, Jeremy Archer. First, this autograph is for your eyes alone.”

I’d meant to give it to Sara-Pat, but I was in a hurry to get away, so I said OK.

“Second, you will glue it into your autograph book immediately.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Soon as I get home.”

I meant it—then.

“Third, you will not boast of your good fortune.”

“No,” I said.

 “Then here it is.” He scrawled his signature on the gold stuff.

…”Jeremy,” he said. “Let me be plain. You must keep your word on this. If you do not, I shall make you sorry.”

A chain of incidents led to Jeremy getting ink all over his school shorts, to the shorts being taken to the charity shop and the subsequent loss of the autograph, which had been in the pocket of the shorts and then in Lost Property at the charity shop, to his enemy Donald Dennis.

Shortly afterwards, Inigo Hauntman’s autograph began to make Jeremy sorry…

When I woke up, the sheet had an autograph on it. Inigo Hauntman’s autograph. I blinked, but it didn’t go away.

Jeremy’s attempt to remove the autograph from the sheet led to an overindulgence in Nanna’s ivory face powder, and a long-lasting allergy for Mocha the cat. The autograph, or as Jeremy began to know it, the hauntograph, turned up on the window, on a shirt pocket, on some rose-pink soap, in the alphabet soup and in a great any other inconvenient places. Jeremy’s attempt to remove it resulted in a buttered window, dissolved soap, and many lectures, but eventually he cornered it stuck to the elbow of a mummy costume containing Donald Dennis. Even that wasn’t the end, but Jeremy did corral the hauntograph and immediately stuck it into his autograph book with so much Wunda-glu the thing never saw the light of day again. And just as well.

Jeremy and Inigo Hauntman’s autograph appear in One Weird Week

           

                                    

  ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Pen Swan's Second Signature

Pen Swan's Second Signature: Object Post 86

Source? Pen and her husband Ben worked together as illustrators, one of them inking and the other shading. They signed their work with a joint logo

Significance? Because of the lag in publishing, Pen had to see the joint signature on newly-published books for two years after Ben’s death

Fate? Pen stopped using that signature when Ben died

Author’s inspiration? I’ve always wanted a fancy punning signature

Appeared in? Pen and Ink

The lag between his last pictures and the publishing time-frame meant books continued to arrive in the post with their joint signature on each illustration; a tiny swan supporting a stylised capital B with the upper bowl done darker so it was obviously a capital P as well.

Pen continued the work alone, taking over the inking Ben used to do, but her solo work was signed with just the swan and the capital P.

Maybe she should come up with a new logo—a female swan which was also, as Peck had noted, a pen.

Pen had been widowed for some time when Duffy Inkersoll proposed to her.

She blinked. “I’ve been Pen Swan for a long time.”

“You can stay Pen Swan if you like. Or you can be Pen Inkersoll.”

Pen decided to change her name, but Duffy, who was starting an enquiry agency, had some ideas too…

“Inkersollutions… “You could always join me. We’d be Inkerpen, not to be confused with Interpol.”

“Pen and Ink Inc.”

“Hey! I like that. Seriously?”

“We’ll see.”

Pen’s new signature was probably somewhere along the lines of Pen and Ink and although Duffy wasn’t an artist he had a very personal contribution to make to Pen’s work.

Pen and her signature appear in Pen and Ink

 ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Sam Cool’s Changehue Sam Rules Cap

Sam Cool's Changehue Sam Rules Cap: Object Post 85

Source? Sam got it from a designer in exchange for some photos

Significance? It was something Sam loved but parted with in search of a bigger score

Fate? Unknown, but Alleypuss may have got it back and kept it

Author’s inspiration? It seemed a likely thing to have by 2020

Appeared in? Shakedown

 I’ve got ragged-looking straw-coloured hair and freckles and those fade-away eyebrows surfies often have. Good eyes; dark and direct and honest-looking, and a chin with a little cleft in it. (The Rabbit would kill to have my chin. His own is a Queen Victoria special.) Broad shoulders, a mole on my cheek and a funny thumb. An anchor-shaped scar on my wrist. (My own early attempt at tattooing. Alleypuss was really pissed off.) That’s me.

That’s Sam Cool.

Until part-way through the Shakedown, I also had my changehue Sam Rules cap. It was a real top grade, made of that cloth that changes colour with the temperature or when it gets wet. I used to wear it all the time, except in the water or in bed. Alleypuss hated it, and so did The Rabbit, but I wasn’t about to leave it off to please them. I’d got it off a designer in exchange for some publicity pics I’d taken for his portfolio.

Sam Cool wanted to have it all and now. When Sam wrote a book called Joe Cool’s Adventure Book, Logo Books turned it down. Sam was furious. Celebrities got books published. So did idiots who’d got themselves into trouble… Sam decided on a shakedown of monumental proportions, a convoluted and difficult hoax. To the world’s eye, teenaged Sam Cool vanished, and reappeared weeks later, emaciated, having been stranded on Miracle Reef. The result was a best seller – Miracle Reef: The Sam Cool Story – published by (yes!) Logo Books! So, what really happened? Was Sam really stranded? Well, yes… but that came later. First of all came the brief and convincing existence of Alex Morgan.

Of course, a good disappearance needs clues…

By January 2nd this year, I was wishing I’d planted a few clues for them, since they seemed so clueless on their own account. It would’ve been easy to have staged a drowning or a suicide; all I’d’ve needed to have done was to dump my clothes (including Sam Rules) [the changehue cap] on the beach, just above the tide mark. It would’ve been a wrench to part with Sam Rules, but it would’ve been a convincing bit of evidence.

Eventually, Sam did part with the changehue cap, after spotting a poster…

            HAVE YOU SEEN SAM COOL?

       Anyone having information of the whereabouts of Sam Cool is invited to contact Robert Cool on Vidfax Code 50087.  A reward is offered for definite news of (or information leading to the recovery of) this person.

       Sam is sixteen years of age, 163 cm tall, 65 kg, and of athletic build.

Hair, sun bleached, eyes dark, cleft chin.

        Distinguishing marks; anchor-shaped scar on left forearm, mole on right cheek, bent right thumb.

        Last seen wearing faded shorts, blue shirt, blue trainers, a skull ear stud and a cap inscribed Sam Rules.

      

I decided…it would be too risky to ‘discover’ the Sam Rules cap the day after we’d seen the poster. Far better to ‘discover’ it later today…

I… hitched north towards Mangrove. Once I got within 20 km of Alleypuss’s place, I took Sam Rules and rolled it in some mud then shoved it into a storm drain, with a bit sticking out. Then I high-tailed it to the nearest public phone and dialled The Rabbit’s code.

I thought he might recognise my voice, even if I disguised it, so I faxed him instead, writing the message with my left hand.

Dear M Cool,

I saw one of the posters you put up. I saw a changehue cap with Sam Rules on it yesterday in a storm drain just past Servo 10. I was going to take it, but it was dirty, so I put it back. Is that the one you want? If it is, please post the reward (cash order) to me, Jay Garvey, in care of the Brisbane P.O. by January 20th.

Yours sincerely,

J. Garvey

That was the last heard of the cap until a newspaper article…

Hopes raised with the January discovery of a cap positively  identified as belonging to Sam Cool were later dashed when the M Latimer, Commissioner of Police called off the search.

Soon after that, Sam staged Operation Come-Back, wrote the book, and enjoyed celebrity until December 31^st when it all ended with a bang.

Meanwhile, Sam Cool’s confession was stored safely away until it was found two hundred years later who decided it really needed to be suppressed… in the family’s interests. After all, surely Sam would have come round to that way of thinking eventually…

Sam Cool’s changehue Sam Rules cap appears in Shakedown

.

 ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Arabella Dove’s Potty Coffee Jar

Arabella Dove’s  Potty Coffee Jar: Object Post 84

Source? Discovered by the rubbish bin

Significance? Arabella used it to collect all sorts of things, including the calf her sister Jessica was searching for

Fate? Presumably Arabella kept it for a while but eventually it would have been thrown out or recycled

Author’s inspiration? My children used to like putting things into jars

Appeared in? The Magician’s Box

           

“Go and ask Mum for a jar, suggested Jessica, but Arabella didn’t bother. She found an empty coffee jar by the rubbish bin instead.

Jessica Dove was devoted to the rather odd calf Silverwood, in part because she was odd herself. After winning a magician’s box at the show she thought  she had some good luck for a change, but her troubles continued. She was vague, clumsy and always seemed to annoy her parents. Silverwood disappeared, and Jessica was looking for her in company with her little sister Arabella. Arabella understood them to be playing hide and seek with a sooky calf, but she found other things more interesting. She found a worm and wanted something to put it in. Distracted Jessica suggested asking their mother for a jar, but Arabella appropriated an empty coffee jar from near the rubbish bin.

“Jecca, I put ‘m in the potty,’ she reported.

“Mmm,” said Jessica.

“I put tiny, tiny worm in the potty,” elaborated Arabella.

Jessica nodded.

“I put ‘m pillow in the potty…”

The ‘pillow’ was a grub, or caterpillar, and Arabella continued her monologue reporting the pottiong of a ladybird and a feather and a beetle and another beetle, a grub, an ant, a pretty leaf…

“’n’ I find a tiny, tiny sooky ‘n’ put ‘m in the potty.”

“Mmm.”

“Come ‘n’ look, Jecca!I find a tiny, tiny sooky. Sooky playing hide an’ seek!”

“Be quiet Bella.”

“Put ‘m in the potty,” sang Arabella.

“Oh, shut up!” cried Jessica, and then, suddenly, she realised what her sister had said. “What did you say?”

After a little coaxing, Arabella revealed the latest denizen of the coffee jar.

Jessica had to pry one of her hand loose before she could see past the label. And what she did see… she didn’t believe what she saw, at all!”

Later, Arabella told her eldest sister Anna about her adventure.

“I…I find a tiny, tiny sooky and put ‘m in a potty!” she bubbled gleefully.

“Don’t be cheeky,” said Anna in an elderly tone.

“Not that sort of potty!” said Jessica. “She means a coffee jar, one of the big ones.”

Arabella Dove and her jar appear in The Magician’s Box.

 ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!