Floors: (16 page)
Authors: Patrick Carman
Tags: #Humorous Stories, #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #General, #Mysteries & Detective Stories
“So that’s your game,” she whispered, grabbing the edge of the trapdoor and sliding it over violently. Her hairdo rose slowly up into the hole like a periscope. Her head followed, spinning round as she crawled like a dog on the floor of the duck elevator. Ms. Sparks’s eyes darted back and forth, her nose wrinkled at the smell of duck feathers and enchiladas.
But there was no one in the shaft to find.
Leo and Remi had fled into the maintenance tunnel with the boxes.
Milton knew how worried Bernard Frescobaldi could be when something big was about to happen. The hotel would soon change hands, and the pivotal moment had arrived.
“According to your schedule, we are to make our move tomorrow,” said Milton. “Is that correct?”
Bernard was tired. It had been a demanding day, and he wasn’t as young as he’d once been. So little time, so much left to do.
“If all goes as planned with you-know-who, tomorrow it is,” said Bernard. “I have my doubts. You say they called again?”
“Oh yes, very enthusiastic,” said Milton. “The ponds were a disaster and the paper clips worked exactly as we’d hoped. By all accounts, the Whippet is falling apart.”
Milton saw that Bernard Frescobaldi was not comforted by this news, and added, “Which means the hotel could be fetched for a bargain price, as you’d planned.”
“And yet it seems so peaceful over there,” said Bernard. They’d parked across the street, staring at the iron gate.
“The boy and his father are efficient, I’ll give them that,” said Milton. “But they’ll be extra distracted tonight. We’ll hit them with a one-two punch that might just knock them out for good.”
“We shall see,” said Bernard. He glanced at Milton, who he thought was a bit too sure. “It’s all set, then. Tomorrow we make our offer. Before someone else beats us to it.”
The Whippet had the hotel equivalent of the flu, or so it seemed. Surely there were others watching, waiting for the perfect time to make a low offer, rip it down, and build a skyscraper on the incredible lot. It was, after all, Manhattan. That much property with such a tiny, exclusive hotel was an affront to every developer who drove by.
No, Bernard thought, it wouldn’t be long. His plan was set in motion and the time had arrived. Come next day, he’d make his offer and be done with it.
He pulled the files on Merganzer D. Whippet one last time and scanned the many papers, searching for a particularly troubling entry. He felt a twinge of regret, reading the private words of a man he sometimes understood, sometimes did not. A lunatic, a brilliant architect, a brokenhearted eccentric. Merganzer D. Whippet was many things, but mostly, Bernard had come to believe, a good man with few regrets. A little sad, but mostly happy.
Milton looked at Bernard with mixed emotions. He’d known Bernard Frescobaldi a very long time. He’d been good to Milton, if challenging at times. If this is what he wanted, Milton would do every thing he could to make sure it happened.
Milton watched as Bernard read the last letter once more, a letter that had been written one hundred and two days before, after which Merganzer D. Whippet had disappeared from the hotel.
Merganzer D. Whippet, the fieldIt took me a long time to understand what my father had meant. How wrong I’d been about those fateful words.
You will prosper in the field of wacky inventions.
I’d sold all of his buildings and all but one property, a forgotten country estate I’d never seen nor heard of. I’d spent many years building one hotel, with many invented things. And when my work was done, I sat on the roof with the ducks, looking at the city rising up all around me.
“I must go to see this last piece of property before I sell it.”
And so I did.
I took my dear friend, George Powell, who by then was also managing most of my affairs. We drove out of the city and into the far upper reaches of New York State, armed only with a map and a duck. (Always bring a duck if you can. They are very useful creatures.)
We ventured out onto a distant country road dotted with cows and goats, until we came over a bluff and we both saw it off in the distance. We just … knew. It was my father’s estate. It had to be. A high, rolling stone wall surrounding acres of land, and as we came near the gate, my heart sank.
The wall was old and falling down in places, overrun with weeds and thistle, crawling with green ivy. I had a key, which had been kept with the deed, and the key unlocked the high, arching metal door, rusted at the hinges.
We walked through the gate and my heart sank deeper still.
It had the appearance of a place that was to be, but never became, a place that had a special purpose, often thought of but never acted on.
There were no buildings, not one. Not a house or a red barn or a garage where a rich man might tinker with a foreign sports car he never intended to finish. But there were signs every where, expensive ones made of marble, like tombstones now, tipped over and dotting the acreage.
This is what the first one we came to said:
Here I will build a country house, where my wife and boy will play. And I will play with them, too. When my work is through.
Farther still, another sign, the corner cracked and broken:
This is where the greenhouse will go, where my wife will grow rare orchids. And I will grow them, too. When my work is through.
And more:
The barn will go here, with horses my son will ride. And I will ride one, too. When my work is through.
The pond will go here, with ducks for Merganzer, because he loves ducks. And I love them, too. I’ll love them best when my work is through.
And finally, we came to the saddest marble sign of all, the one that echoed my father’s words down through the years. The largest plot remained.
And here I will make my field, a place with tools and sheds and tables of every kind, a field where we will imagine the wildest things in the summer sun, my boy and me. In the field of wacky inventions, my boy will prosper. And I will, too. When my work is through.
I stood in that open field, watching the wind blow through the tall weeds, and my good friend, George, put an arm around me. We cried for what never was and what could never be.
“His heart was in the right place after all,” George said.
It was just the sort of thing a best friend should say.
I believe he was right.
M.D.W.
AUNTED
D
INNER
P
ARTY
L
eo showed Remi how to double back through the maintenance tunnel onto the grounds through a trapdoor in the gardening shed. Unfortunately for Remi, when he opened the trapdoor, Mr. Phipps was in the shed, sharpening his shears.
“Lost?” asked the old gardener, sliding a blade across a big stone on a bench without even a glance at Remi.
Remi thought he might run, but what he really needed was an alibi.
“I was helping Leo. He showed me the way out.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mr. Phipps, holding the shears in the light and running his finger along an edge. Remi gulped.
“Anyway, you know how Ms. Sparks can be. She hates Leo. Any chance I could say you needed some help out here instead?”
Mr. Phipps looked at Remi then, one dark eyebrow raised, and Remi crumbled.
“It’s only my second day on the job, Mr. Phipps. My mom will kill me if I get fired.”
Mr. Phipps smiled, laughed soft and deep, and waved his hand toward the door.
“Better get back where you belong — tell Ms. Sparks I needed help moving dirt bags.”
“Wow, thanks, Mr. Phipps! I totally owe you one.”
Remi dug into his pocket and held out the smashed remains of his enchilada, which Mr. Phipps gladly accepted. Remi ran with all his might, the red jacket flipping up behind him in the wind. He waited outside the hotel door to catch his breath, then went inside and found that Ms. Sparks had returned.
“Mr. Phipps needed help,” Remi blurted. He was a lousy liar. “You were sleeping so I didn’t want to wake you.”
Ms. Sparks was fuming mad, but what could she say? She’d been caught snoozing.
“You and that maintenance boy are up to no good. Don’t think I don’t know.”
“His name is Leo,” said Remi.
Ms. Sparks stared down at Remi with a look that said
Of course I know his name is Leo! I just don’t care!
Ten minutes later, she let Remi off for the night with a stern warning about sneaking around, and soon after that he was standing on the eighth-floor landing with Leo, late by fifteen minutes for the dinner party they’d been invited to.
“Are you ready?” asked Leo, who had put on his one and only suit and tie, a sad little affair that made Remi laugh.
“Trust me, yours isn’t much better,” said Leo, pointing out that Remi was wearing a red-and-white monkey suit.
“You got me there,” said Remi, and then added, “Do you think he’ll be in there?”
“You mean Merganzer?”
“Yeah, the main mystery dude.”
Leo shrugged his shoulders, hoping that would be exactly who they would see inside. He had already imagined the dinner party. It would be Merganzer D. Whippet, Leo, Remi, and Betty. The four of them would talk about
every thing
(Betty would quack a lot): all the hidden floors, all the mysteries of the hotel.
“Here we go,” said Leo, taking the skull-and-crossbones knocker in his hand and whapping it against the door three times.
The door began to open, and Remi saw the darkness and shadows inside. He started backpedaling toward the stairs and bumped into something, which made him scream. LillyAnn Pompadore had come up the stairs, half out of breath. She was holding Hiney in one arm as she touched up her hair with the other.
“Oh, good,” she said, brushing past Remi as if he didn’t exist. “I hate to be the last one at a party, and I’m running terribly late.”
Before Leo and Remi could say a word, Ms. Pompadore had gone through the door and slammed it shut.
“What’s
she
doing in there?” asked Leo. “You don’t think she was actually
invited
?”
Remi shrugged, stepping forward and knocking on the door once more.
“Hey, if she can do it, I can definitely do it. Let’s go in and see what this is all about.”
Leo’s heart was broken. He’d made the mistake of letting himself get excited about seeing Merganzer again, but it was beginning to look like the invite list for the party was anything but exclusive.
The door opened, and this time the two boys went inside the Haunted Room. It was the least-rented floor in the entire hotel; in fact, the rumor was that it had never been rented. Not even once. When the door slammed behind them, Remi could see why.
“It’s dark in here,” he whispered. “And spooky.”
A collection of bats — were they real or mechanical? — flew low overhead, screeching as the boys ran farther into the gloom. A dark blue moon hovered in a cloudy sky as the shadow of a werewolf crept into the moss-encrusted trees. The shadow (or whatever was
making
the shadow) growled, baring its huge, shadowy teeth.
“I can see why this room isn’t very popular,” said Remi, practically jumping into Leo’s arms.
“Just remember it’s all fake and you’ll be fine,” said Leo. “It’s like a haunted house. Embrace it.”