Chapter One The Strange Fate of Mr.

Chapter One

The Strange Fate of Mr. Notes









The neighbors thought Gustav Gloom was the unhappiest little boy in the world.

None of them bothered to talk to him to see if there was anything they could do to make his life better. That would be “getting involved.” But they could look, and as far as they could see he always wore his mouth in a frown, he always stuck his lower lip out as if about to burst into tears, and he always dressed in a black suit with a black tie, as if about to go to a funeral or just wanting to be prepared in case one broke out without warning.

Gustav’s skin was pale, and he always had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t had enough sleep. A little quirk of his eyelids kept them half closed all the time, making him look like he wasn’t paying attention. His shiny black hair stood straight up, like tar-covered grass.


1

Everybody who lived on Sunnyside Terrace said, “Somebody ought to do something about that sad little boy.”

Of course, when they said somebody ought to do something, they really meant somebody else.

Doing something about Gustav would have meant knocking on the door of his house, and nobody on Sunnyside Terrace wanted to do that.

Nobody wanted to end up like poor Mr. Notes from the Neighborhood Standards Committee.

Mr. Notes had worked for the little town where they all lived. His job was making sure people took care of their neighborhoods, and the neighbors on Sunnyside Terrace had asked him to visit the Gloom house because it didn’t fit the rest of the neighborhood at all.

All of the other houses on Sunnyside Terrace were Lime Green, Peach Pink, or Strawberry Red. Each front yard had one bush and one tree, the bush next to the front door and the tree right up against the street. They all had the same number of bedrooms and the same kind of curtains in the window. Anybody who decided to live on the street had to sign special contracts promising that they wouldn’t “ruin”

the “character” of the “community” by putting up “unauthorized trees” or painting their front doors “unauthorized colors,” and so on.

The old, dark house where Gustav Gloom lived had been built long before the others, long before there was a neighborhood full of rules. It was a big black mansion, more like a castle than a proper house. There were four looming towers, one at every corner, each of them ringed by stone gargoyles wearing expressions that suggested they’d just tasted something bad. There were no windows on the ground floor, just a set of double doors twice as tall as the average man. The windows on the upper floors were all black rectangles that might have been glass covered with paint or clear glass looking into absolute darkness.

Though this was already an awful lot of black for one house, even the lawn surrounding the place was black, with all-black flowers and a single black tree with no leaves. There was also a grayish-black fog that always covered the ground to ankle depth, dissolving into wisps wherever it passed between the iron bars of the fence.

The lone tree looked like a skeletal hand clawing its way out of the ground. It was home


2​3

to dozens of ravens who seemed to regard the rest of the neighborhood with as much offense as the rest of the neighborhood regarded the Gloom house. The ravens said caw pretty much all day.

The neighbors didn’t like the ravens.

They said, “Somebody ought to do something about those ravens.”

They didn’t like the house.

They said, “Somebody ought to do something about that house.”

They didn’t like the whole situation, really. They said, “Somebody ought to do something about those people, with their strange house and their big ugly tree that looks like a hand and

their little boy with the strange black hair.” They called the mayor’s office to complain.

And the mayor’s office didn’t know what to do about it, so they called the City Planning Commission. And the City Planning Commission called the Department of Sanitation. And the Department of Sanitation called the Neighborhood Standards Committee, which in turn called up Mr. Notes, who was away on his first vacation in four years, but who they made a point of bothering because nobody liked

him.

They asked Mr. Notes, “Will you please come back and visit the people in this house and ask them to paint their house some other color?”

And poor Mr. Notes, who was on a car trip traveling to small towns all over the country taking pictures of his one interest in life, antique weather vanes shaped like roosters, had folded his road map and sighed. “Well, if I have to.”



On the morning Mr. Notes pulled up to the curb, five-year-old Gustav Gloom sat on a swing hanging from the big black tree, reading a big black book.

Mr. Notes was not happy about having to walk past the boy to get to the house, because he didn’t like little boys very much. He didn’t like little girls very much, either. Or, for that matter, most adults. Mr. Notes liked