Floors: (3 page)

Bernard went back to staring out the window, a glimmer in his eye as he handed the report back to Milton.

“It’s time we put our plan into action,” Bernard announced. He was a tall man, thin but sturdy, and his sharp nose crinkled with excitement.

Milton was shorter, rounder, and more excitable. His fingers danced with anticipation as he jingled the keys to the black town car awaiting them downstairs.

“As you wish, sir. As you wish!”

B
etty was staring at Leo, her bill only a few inches away, quacking softly in his face. Her breath smelled like daffodils.

“You’ve been eating the flowers on the grounds again, haven’t you?” Leo asked. “Mr. Phipps will have a fit if he finds out. I’ve been blaming it on the crows, but now you’ll have to come clean.”

Betty almost seemed to understand what Leo was saying. She drooped her head and let out what could only be described as a long sigh in the form of a dying quack.

“I’m only kidding. I won’t tell.”

Betty brightened and moved a step closer, digging her orange bill into the front pocket of Leo’s overalls.

“You’re all going on a diet. Look how cramped I am in this little corner!”

Betty glanced at Leo then, and if the boy hadn’t known better, he’d have said the duck was scowling at him. No duck likes a diet.

But it was true that the duck elevator felt unusually cramped. The long ride down seemed to last forever, and the ducks were restless, wobbling back and forth on their webbed feet and climbing all over Leo, looking for pumpernickel.

When the duck elevator opened into the lobby, Leo told Betty to wait, which she did. When Betty waited, they all waited, and this gave Leo time to crawl out and find Merganzer’s walking stick. It was formed from one long, gnarled limb, its handle smooth and round. Without it, the ducks wouldn’t follow. There seemed to be magic in the walking stick, and after taking it from its closet, Leo returned to the duck elevator, stood before the group of them, and moved the walking stick across the floor. The six ducks marched out, Betty at the front.

It wasn’t until they were all out of the duck elevator that Leo saw the purple box.

“What’s this?” he whispered, barely hearing his own words. The ducks hadn’t grown larger after all; there had simply been less space for them to stand in. Leo
leaned inside for a closer look and saw that the purple box was six or seven inches tall and a foot wide, with a seal on top that could not be mistaken:

“Merganzer!” said Leo, edging into the small space so he could touch the mysterious box.

“Get these ducks out of the lobby this instant!” yelled Ms. Sparks. “Move it, move it, move it!”

The ducks were alarmed by her voice, and Leo began to lose control of the situation. The new bellboy, having gathered his courage, was inching his way toward the duck elevator. Leo couldn’t let anyone see what he’d found, but Betty had a look on her face that said
I am seconds away from biting someone’s ankle
.

Leo slammed the duck elevator door shut with a
POW!
before the purple box could be seen, then pushed the UP lever, sending the contraption on a five-minute journey back to the roof. That was the final straw for Betty and her pals. She flew up to Ms. Sparks’s desk and nearly crashed into her beehive hairdo. The rest of the ducks went into hysterics, flapping all over the room like dive-bombers.

“Open the door!” Ms. Sparks screamed, waving her arms as if a thousand wild bats were on a crash course with her face. The bellboy bolted back to the lobby entrance and pushed his small frame against the big glass door.

It was mayhem in the lobby when Leo’s father arrived from the basement, looked at Leo, then reached out his hand for the walking stick.

Clarence Fillmore was a towering figure with a calming effect. He whistled three times fast, then tapped the stick on the marble floor and walked out the door. The ducks flew outside and landed in a birdbath way too small for so many large birds, where they huddled together, waiting for their promised walk through the grounds.

“Remi, feathers, now!” said Ms. Sparks, which sent the bellboy tearing around the lobby, picking up all the feathers that had come loose. From this, and Ms. Sparks’s earlier command, Leo realized the new boy’s name had to be Remi, but there was no time for formal introductions as he skirted past and out onto the front steps.

Mr. Fillmore got an earful from Ms. Sparks about the inadequate skills of his duck-walking son, but Leo didn’t seem to mind. All he could think about was the purple box, which was safe, at least for the moment.

What did it mean? Where had it come from? And why did it have Merganzer D. Whippet’s head emblazoned on its top?

Leo could think of little else besides the purple box as he walked the long and winding path on the hotel grounds. Betty and the rest of the ducks waddled contentedly behind him in a line, following Merganzer’s walking stick to the farthest reaches of the grounds. At the most distant corner was a small pond, where all the ducks went swimming and bobbing for who-knew-what. While they did, Leo sat on a stone bench wishing he could get out of all the work he’d have to do when he returned to the hotel.

“Why so glum?”

Leo jumped at the sound of the slow Texas drawl behind him. It was LillyAnn Pompadore, who’d been staying at the hotel for almost three months. She was fabulously rich, or so Leo had been told, hiding out from a Texas social scene she’d grown weary of.

“Oh, I’m not glum,” said Leo. “I’m just walking the ducks.”

LillyAnn Pompadore had an unidentifiable animal fur wrapped around her neck, wore lots of makeup, and carried a tiny dog under one arm. Leo could not help wondering how the dog must feel about the fur draped
around its owner, but he kept silent, staring at the pond and hoping he could avoid a long conversation with the perpetually bored Ms. Pompadore. The dog’s name was Hiney, and he would sooner bite someone’s hand than allow the slightest bit of petting. He also had the annoying habit of pooping in the hotel hallways, which didn’t seem to bother Ms. Pompadore in the slightest. This would set off the alarm in the basement with a ticker tape from Pilar, with a message that usually said something along the lines of
Hiney Alert. Cleanup on Floor 7.

Hiney started barking. He wasn’t a fan of Betty and her clan, but they were safely in the water, so Leo didn’t mind when Ms. Pompadore set the little guy down and let him run around the pond as if he’d lost his mind.

“I do hope Mr. Whippet will come back soon,” Ms. Pompadore drawled, fanning herself in the morning sun with a fashion magazine. “Where do you suppose he’s gone off to?”

Leo shrugged, still hoping he could avoid a long encounter with a bored socialite.

“Well, no matter,” she said. “Still, it’s a very odd thing the way he disappeared like that. Do you suppose he’s all right?”

“Sure he is,” Leo answered without even thinking. But the thought had crossed his mind that Merganzer
had almost never left the hotel grounds. How would he do out in the real world?

“He built this place,” Ms. Pompadore said, looking back at the off-kilter hotel. “Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa … and that thing’s been standing for almost a thousand years. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”

“I’m sure he does,” said Leo, always the first to come to Mr. Whippet’s defense.

Ms. Pompadore called for Hiney and picked him up.

“Hiney and the ducks don’t see eye to eye. I believe I’ll keep walking. Good luck with Betty.”

Leo watched as LillyAnn Pompadore walked the winding path toward the hotel. Then his eye caught sight of Mr. Phipps out by the main gate. A black town car was pulling away, merging into a busy New York street.

“This is an odd day,” said Leo, not talking to anyone in particular, though Betty honked from the pond as if she agreed.

Leo watched as Ms. Sparks appeared at the gate as well, having come from the hotel. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was obvious from her gestures that she wanted Mr. Phipps away from the gate and back to work in the garden.

Leo gathered the ducks, his heart racing, and walked back to the lobby. It was all he could do not to pull their waddling butts behind him, because ducks were very slow about their business. It could take quite a while to get them back into the duck elevator.

Unfortunately, Ms. Sparks left the main gate and headed for the hotel at precisely the same moment Leo left the pond. She went by a different winding path, but emerged from behind a series of carved animal bushes right as Leo arrived at the hotel.

“I hope you’ve got them under control this time,” she said. “A new guest arrives this afternoon — thanks to me, we’re actually booking some of these outrageously expensive rooms.”

It was true that the Whippet usually had few guests besides the three long-stays, but things had indeed picked up a bit in Merganzer’s absence. Ms. Sparks seemed unable to help singing her own praises as she stared down at Betty with a sour look on her face.

“Mr. Whippet didn’t know the first thing about Internet marketing. It’s the new frontier. Just keep Betty happy and we’ll be fine. The last thing we need is the daughter of an oil tycoon getting bitten by a duck.”

Ms. Sparks brushed past Remi without a word,
flicking a tiny feather off the shoulder of his red jacket as she passed by.

Leo stopped short this time and put out his hand.

“I’m Leo. I guess you’re Remi.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” Remi replied. “My mom told me every thing about this place. You and your dad keep it running.”

Remi shook Leo’s hand enthusiastically, like he’d stood too long at the door and had pent-up energy ready to burn.

“Remi — that’s an odd name,” said Leo. “Short for Remington?”

Remi shook his head and said, a little too loudly, “Short for Remilio. That was my mom’s dad, but only my mom calls me that now. I like Remi.”

“Okay, Remi, well, I gotta go.” Leo was dying to get back to the box. “Have fun hanging out with Ms. Sparks.”

Remi gave Leo a look that said
Yeah, she’s a barrel of laughs
, then leaned in close to his new friend and whispered.

“Whatever it is, it’s got your name on it.”

“What does?” asked Leo, but Remi wouldn’t answer as Ms. Sparks looked up and glared like she might glue their mouths shut.

Leo didn’t want a repeat of what had happened an hour before in the lobby, so he kept marching with Merganzer’s walking stick until he reached the duck elevator, ignoring Remi’s strange comment.

The miniature elevator wasn’t parked on the roof, as he’d expected. Someone had called it back down to the lobby. He turned back to Remi, who smiled knowingly.

Uh-oh.

Remi didn’t know much about the hotel. He was new and landlocked in the lobby. But he
had
managed to discover something secret in the duck elevator while Ms. Sparks was out at the gate and walking on the grounds.