The Swifts Read online

  DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Dutton Children’s Books,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023

  Text copyright © 2023 by Beth Lincoln

  Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Claire Powell

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Dutton is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com.

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

  Ebook ISBN 9780593533246

  Cover art © 2023 by Claire Powell

  Cover color by Mado Peña

  Design adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero

  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.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface to the American Edition

  Part One

  Chapter 1. An Unexpected Inheritance

  Chapter 2. The Dictionary

  Chapter 3. Mapping the Interior

  Chapter 4. A Research Proposal

  Chapter 5. Grave Matters

  Chapter 6. Guest Appearances

  Chapter 7. Collective Terms

  Chapter 8. Asking for Trouble and Courting Chaos

  Chapter 9. Retirement

  Part Two

  Chapter 10. The Inciting Incident

  Chapter 11. Suspicious Characters

  Chapter 12. A Fine Charade

  Chapter 13. Cut Off

  Chapter 14. Lessons in Villainy

  Chapter 15. Past as Prologue

  Chapter 16. After-Dinner Hints

  Chapter 17. “. . . and Lest We Lose Our Heads . . .”

  Chapter 18. Motive and Means

  Chapter 19. Pamplemousse’s Best Shot

  Chapter 20. Cold Case

  Chapter 21. A Bolt of Inspiration

  Chapter 22. The Mock-Up

  Chapter 23. Best-Laid Plans

  Chapter 24. EEK

  Part Three

  Chapter 25. A Rehearsal

  Chapter 26. String of Misfortunes

  Chapter 27. Stitch-Up

  Chapter 28. Unmasked

  Chapter 29. A Rhetorical Device

  Chapter 30. Under House

  Chapter 31. The Last Laugh

  Chapter 32. Denouement

  Chapter 33. Swift Justice

  Chapter 34. Kin and Kind

  Chapter 35. Future, Imperfect

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  _142441833_

  For my family,

  in blood and in bond

  “Dull, adjective: Not exhilarating, not delightful, as, to make dictionaries is dull work.”

  —Samuel Johnson, entry in A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

  I’ve included this definition as a warning. This is a note about language, the differences between American and British English, and the changes that have been made for the American edition of this book. If this sounds unbearably dull to you, you are welcome to skip ahead and join Shenanigan at the funeral.

  The English language is big, messy, and argumentative. Languages are alive, and they’re voracious, which means they’ll grab whatever words are lying around and swallow them whole. The lands that now make up the British Isles were invaded and settled repeatedly during their early history, so lots of different languages went down the English gullet; scraps of old Saxon and Gaelic, pieces of Old Norse from the Vikings, a great chunk of Latin from the Romans, and a healthy dollop of French from the Norman Conquest. English fed and grew from its earliest form as Old English (around 450 CE–1100 CE) to the lanky Middle English (1100–1500 CE) and only really became recognizable to the modern speaker from 1500 CE on, during the Early Modern period. In fact, if you went back in time to before 1500-ish and asked a passing villager what day it was, it is unlikely you would understand each other, which is just one of the many reasons to avoid time travel.

  The result of all this is that although the words “hypnosis,” “flux,” and “berserk” are all technically English words, they can be traced back to totally different root languages. This history of words is called “etymology,” and it’s a fascinating subject—if you’re me.

  Unfortunately, the 1500s were also when England turned around and began its centuries-long project of invading everywhere else. It began with its neighbors in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and from there the United Kingdom oversaw centuries of bloody colonization overseas. While it was robbing other countries of their wealth and liberty, it also looted many languages for useful words—this is how we got words like “pajama,” “barbecue,” and “trek,” for example, and I encourage you to look these up. At the same time, people across the globe were forced to learn English, the language of the Empire.

  By the year 1900, the British Empire believed itself to own a third of the world. It had colonies on the continents of North America and Africa, in the islands of the Caribbean, and in the regions of South Asia and the Middle East. Many of these larger British colonies were far from England, and occupied territory alongside other imperial powers like the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch. Consequently, these territories developed their own branching forms of English, which is why American, Canadian, Australian, and South African English all look and sound slightly different from each other.

  The Swifts are British, but because the book you are about to read is the American edition, we’ve made a few changes with this in mind. You might already know that the British call chips “crisps” and fries “chips,” and many of those words remain, but we’ve switched out a few to something more familiar.

  We’ve also spelled things the American way. Before the invention of the dictionary, there was no such thing as “correct” spelling—so long as you could be understood, you could spell words however you liked. In fact, I cud rite a sentens lyke thif, and it wud be perfecktly acceptabel. It wasn’t until Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language that English speakers had a shared point of reference and could begin to agree on the “right” way to spell things. A few years after Johnson and a couple of thousand miles west, Noah Webster saw that American classrooms were still using a hodgepodge of textbooks and reading materials left over from British rule, and decided to make a truly American guide to the English spoken in his country.

  Webster asked a lot of questions about British English. Why is there a u in “humour” when “humor” would work? Why is “pretence” not spelled “pretense,” when that’s the way it sounds, or “analyse” spelled “analyze”? Why isn’t “soup” spelled “soop”? Admittedly, that last one didn’t stick, but many of his changes did.

  In 1783, Webster published the first edition of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, which became known as the “Blue-Backed Speller” because of the colour—sorry, color—of its cover. It was used in American classrooms for generations, and nowadays, Webster is still the biggest name in American dictionaries.

  Speaking of which, though we’ve largely followed Webster’s guidance, we’ve left the Swifts’ names alone. The Swifts are British, and so is the Dictionary that named them. Names don’t follow the same rules as other words and shouldn’t be changed without the permission of the owner. This means that rather than becoming “Endeavor,” Endeavour Swift keeps her extra u, for the same reason we wouldn’t remove the accented e from Inés or spell Ruairí as Rory.

  It’s important to note that neither British nor American English is the “correct” one, and in fact, there’s no proper way to speak, or write, or spell. The thing about language is that it can’t stay still. Restless and impatient, it races forward without waiting for our dictionaries to catch up. The changes made in this book are meant to make it easier for us to understand each other. That’s the entire point of having language in the first place.

  In fact, I would say that if a person is rude about the way you speak, write, or spell, they are showing a distinct lack of understanding, and it’s perfectly reasonable to make up a creative word to describe them.

  —Beth Lincoln

  It was a bright, well-dressed morning in early May, and the Swifts were in the middle of a funeral.

  The House looked very fine. The lawns had been swept clean of leaves, the hedge maze had been trimmed, and the statues had been scrubbed behind the ears. The Family had spent the morning practicing their eulogies in front o
f a mirror, and now they walked in slow procession through the cemetery, faces professionally grim.

  According to Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude, a funeral ought to look like a wedding upside down. The Swifts had done their best to honor her wishes. The path to Aunt Schadenfreude’s grave frothed with flowers, and the trees dripped black ribbon. Cook had even baked a somber cake with black icing, set on a table just to the left of the headstone. To the right, a gramophone coughed out a melancholy tune.

  Shenanigan Swift was carrying the front end of the coffin. She was considerably shorter than the other pallbearers. At the back, her eldest sister, Felicity, gangled and her uncle Maelstrom loomed, and although Shenanigan was doing her best to keep the coffin steady, it still tilted forward at a worrying angle. Phenomena, ahead of the procession and guiding her sisters through the cemetery like an air-traffic controller, shot her a wary look. Shenanigan tried to think herself taller, with limited success.

  They wound between the graves like black floss through crooked teeth. Shenanigan read the names of her late family as they trudged past:

  CALAMITOUS SWIFT

  1598–1652

  Adjective

  Causing, or fraught with, disaster

  and

  GODWOTTERY SWIFT

  1733–1790

  Noun

  i. Overly elaborate gardening or garden design

  ii. Old-fashioned and affected language

  She shifted the weight of the coffin, and it lurched alarmingly. Felicity hissed, so Shenanigan wobbled it again, just to annoy her. Her hand left a smear on the expensive, highly polished wood. Her aunt wouldn’t have liked that—Aunt Schadenfreude believed you should spend more on a coffin than you would on a house, since you spent more time dead than alive—but then, Aunt Schadenfreude wouldn’t have liked a lot of things. Like the scuffs on Shenanigan’s shoes, or the twigs in her hair, or the thoughts in her head.

  To her right, Shenanigan read:

  FAULTRESS SWIFT

  1860–1889

  Noun

  A female offender or criminal

  Shenanigan probably would have got on with her.

  They halted before the grave, and there was a flurry of confusion as each Swift lowered the coffin at a different speed. Maelstrom tried to set his end down slowly, with dignity, but Felicity was a bit too fast, and Shenanigan was still thinking about being a faultress and not paying attention.

  “Shenanigan,” Felicity hissed again, “can you please—”

  The thing inside the coffin let out a yowl.

  Felicity cried out and dropped her side. With a dull thunk, the head end of the coffin hit the grass, teetered, and tipped over into the grave, the lid flying off as it went. Shenanigan leapt out of its path and straight into the black-frosted cake, her outstretched palms scooping damp, vanilla-scented handfuls.

  There was silence, but for the gramophone’s wheeze. The Swifts peered cautiously into the grave.

  The coffin lay wide open, revealing a gleam of black silk warming in the sun. Of course, there was no one in it—only John the Cat, who blinked sleepily, gave a luxuriant stretch, and trotted off in the direction of the woods. Shenanigan licked cake off her hands.

  “Well,” called a voice behind them. “That was an appalling rehearsal, I must say.”

  The troupe turned guiltily towards Aunt Schadenfreude, perched on Vile’s Monument. She had her walking stick in one hand and her opera glasses in the other, and she was peering through these at the mess they’d made of her final resting place.

  “It’ll be all right on the night, Auntie!” Uncle Maelstrom rolled his shoulders, his joints creaking like an old ship. He picked Shenanigan up with one hand, dodged her attempt to smear icing into his beard, and set her on her feet, grinning.

  “All right on the morning—you’re burying me at eleven.” Aunt Schadenfreude grumbled towards them, tightening the thick iron collar round her throat. “You are to have me in the ground by twelve, finish crying by half past, then head back to the House for a lunch you will all be too distraught to eat at a quarter to one. That is the schedule. You do not fill me with confidence, Maelstrom.”

  Aunt Schadenfreude’s life was highly organized. She expected her death to be the same. Since she would not be around to oversee her own funeral, she’d had the Family rehearsing the ceremony every month for as long as Shenanigan could remember. They had never managed to get everything right.

  “Shenanigan, Felicity, try to keep the coffin level next time. It looked like you were carrying me downhill.”

  “It’s hard, though, when Uncle Maelstrom’s so much taller than us!” whined Felicity.

  “Given the average rate of adolescent growth, we should be a bit taller by the time Aunt Schadenfreude dies,” Phenomena pointed out. She dabbed at the splattered icing on her lab coat. “That should balance things.”

  “Rank optimism!” snorted Aunt Schadenfreude. “I could drop dead before you grow another inch. Felicity, the decorations will do, I suppose. A few more bows. As for Shenanigan . . .”

  Shenanigan paused in her licking.

  “I’m assuming you put John in there?”

  Shenanigan shrugged. “Cats like boxes.”

  “Could you please wait until I’m in my grave before you desecrate it?”

  This remark seemed very unfair to Shenanigan, who thought she’d improved a great deal. Last month, she’d got the coffin stuck in the front door and the whole Family had to limbo their way in and out of the House for several days.

  Her aunt’s sour expression mirrored her own. “Well, you can’t help your name, I suppose.” She sighed. “We shall break for lunch. We still have to clean this up before tomorrow.”

  With this dismissal, they trooped back to the House. Shenanigan ran a hand over the headstones they passed, reading the names. Rubric. Catharsis. Endeavour. Ilk.

  You can’t help your name.

  She shook off the irritation that came with Aunt Schadenfreude’s well-worn phrase. Nothing could annoy her today, she vowed.

  Today was the day before tomorrow, and tomorrow she was going to steal her Family’s fortune.

  “Watch where you’re going,” Felicity snapped as Shenanigan leapfrogged over a gravestone and into her path. “How do you always manage to get underfoot?”

  “Maybe ’cause your feet are so massive. Hard to avoid them, really.”

  “My feet aren’t massive, you’re just small. It’s like trying to keep an eye on an ant.”

  Shenanigan started making clicking sounds, and lunged at her sister with her hands formed into pincers. Felicity recoiled.

  “Ugh, you’re so weird,” she groaned. She used her much longer legs to stalk away from Shenanigan.

  “You shouldn’t antagonize her, you know.”

  Phenomena adjusted her glasses and gave Shenanigan a knowing look. Phenomena was a scientist, so all her looks were knowing. “Don’t forget what happened to your catapult.”

  “Never,” said Shenanigan. She’d tried to explain that she hadn’t been aiming at Felicity at all, but neither Schadenfreude nor Felicity had listened. Now the Siegemaster 5000 was ashes in Cook’s furnace, and Shenanigan had sworn her revenge.

  For starters, when she found the treasure, she would not be giving Felicity any of it.

  As they drew close to the House, Shenanigan noticed two unusual things. The first was that there was a car in the driveway: sleek, low-slung, bottle green, with a nose like a barracuda. It was pointed at the front door as if it were holding it hostage. The second was that Cook was coming towards them at a dead sprint. She had a smear of oil on one cheek—she must have been working on her motorbike—and her arms and legs pumped furiously. She skidded to a stop in a shower of gravel.

  “She’s here,” she panted.

  Shenanigan gave a whoop of excitement and raced off in the direction of the House, leaving her family in the dust.

  As she ran, Shenanigan mentally went through the contents of the pack she kept ready on the roof. She had rope, a flashlight, lockpicks, a trowel, paper and pencils, a letter opener, binoculars, a packet of biscuits, and a bottle of water, in case she became trapped somewhere in the House. Her relatives would probably come better prepared. She wondered if Phenomena had bothered to build the metal detector she’d asked for.