The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Chapter 5- Hugo's Father

Chapter 5

Hugo's Father

HUGO RAN UNTIL HE FOUND HIMSELF back inside his secret room. He tried to turn on the light, forgetting, as he usually did, that the bulb in the ceiling had burned out. He struck a match, watched a flare, and lit a few candles. The room filled with a warm golden glow, and huge shadows rose against the walls. Instinctively, Hugo's fingers reached for the empty pocket where his notebook had been. Not knowing what else to do, he walked to a cluttered pile of boxes in the corner of his room and moved them to the side, revealing a hiding place in the wall.

Hugo reached in and pulled out a large, heavy object. He untied the frayed ropes and unwrapped the fabric that covered it.

The man was built entirely out of clockworks and fine machinery. From the very first moment his father had told him about it, the mechanical man had become the center of Hugo's life.

Hugo's father had owned a clock shop and worked part-time in an old museum taking care of the clocks there. One evening he had come home later than usual.

"Captain," he said to Hugo, who was already in bed. "Sorry I'm so late, but I found something fascinating tonight in the museum... in the attic. Apparently no one at the museum knows how it got there. Even the old guard doesn't remember, but then again he doesn't remember very much of anything. It's the most beautiful complicated machine I've ever seen. It's a shame the museum didn't take care of it."

"What is it?" Hugo asked.

"An automaton."

"What's that?"

"It's a windup figure, like a music box or a toy, except it's infinitely more complicated. I've seen a few before, a singing bird in a cage and a mechanical acrobat on a trapeze. But this one is far more complex and interesting than those."

"What do you mean?" said Hugo eagerly.

"This one can write. At least I think it can. It's got a pen in its hand, and i's sitting at a desk. I looked inside it and there are hundreds of little parts, including dozens of wheels that have edges cut with notches and grooves. I'm sure that if it were working, you could wind it up, put a piece of paper on the desk, and all those little parts would engage and cause the arm to move in such a way that it would write out some kind of note. Maybe it would write a poem or a riddle. But it's too broken and rusty to do much of anything now."

"Who made it?" Hugo asked.

"No one at the museum knows, but the other automata I've seen were all built by magicians for use in their performances."

"Magicians?" asked Hugo excitedly.

"Some magicians started off as clock makers. They used their knowledge of machines to build these automata to amaze their audiences. The sole purpose of the machines was to fill people with wonder, and they succeeded. No one in the audience could figure out how these mysterious figures danced or wrote or sang. It was as if the magicians had created artificial life, but the secret was always in the clockworks."

"You're a clock maker," said Hugo. "So you should be able to fix it."

"I don't know about that. It's pretty badly rusted and pieces are missing. And I've got enough other things to fix."

Hugo was good with clocks, too. The talent ran in the family. Hugo's father had always brought home broken clocks for his son to play with, and by the time he was six, Hugo was able to fix just about anything. Later, when he visited his father at his clock shop, Hugo watched him carefully, and then when he grew restless he made little mechanical animals out of the extra bits and pieces lying around. Hugo's father displayed the creatures proudly on his workbench.