The Tell-Tale Start (13 page)

ALLAN
and Edgar knew what they had to do: find and recover Roderick Usher, then rejoin their aunt and uncle and get out of there, all the while avoiding whatever nefarious plot the professor had in mind for them. And they had to do it quickly, as they suspected their nemesis already knew they were here.

So they raced away from the entrance to the OZitorium and toward the back of the building to make a plan in private.

As they rounded the corner it was not solitude they discovered but a long trailer that served as a dressing room for the musical’s cast members. The place buzzed with activity as a dozen little men and women scurried about, some costumed as Munchkins, others as flying monkeys. The boys looked at each other—in other
circumstances, this might be fun. Today was serious business.

Just then, a quartet of private security guards, all more formidable-looking than the usher at the front entrance, emerged from around the far corner, their handcuffs clattering on their belts, their walkie-talkies held at the ready.

There was no place for the boys to hide, and running away would only draw attention—so, lightning-fast, they infiltrated a nearby group of female Munchkins who were doing ballet exercises to loosen up before going onstage. Their backs to the guards, the boys imitated the ladies. They were glad none of their classmates was there to see them do the daintiest of the stretches, but the ruse worked. The security guards continued past.

Clearly, there was no time to waste.

The first thing the boys needed was a disguise.

They entered the trailer’s dressing room. “Where are the costumes, miss?” Edgar politely asked a Munchkin princess.

“Munchkin costume or flying monkey costume?” she inquired in a high-pitched voice.

“Flying monkeys, of course,” the boys answered.

“Over there,” she said, pointing to a rack against one wall.

A few minutes later, in furry costumes and headpieces, Edgar and Allan were identical to those around them, just as they ordinarily were to each other.

Edgar

Allan

Others

“Attention! Flying monkeys, we’re onstage in five minutes,” called their leader, who was differentiated from the other monkeys by a blue ribbon on his uniform. “Let’s go.”

His voice sounded familiar, though the twins couldn’t quite place it. The other flying monkeys shuffled into the center of the room. Edgar and Allan took the opportunity to slowly drift toward the back.

“This is a very special day for the professor, so let’s put on a great show,” Flying Monkey Number One said to his underlings as they lined up in single file. “Egad, you’re a motley bunch!” he added.

Egad
?

The boys’ stomachs lurched. Nobody used that word anymore. That is, no one but the mysterious little man from the principal’s office—the hair plucker, Mr. Archer.
That’s
why his voice sounded familiar! So this
did
stretch all the way back to Baltimore.

Or might it go back even further than that
?

Unnoticed, Edgar and Allan continued backing away from the group and then slipped behind a costume rack. From there, they watched the simian squadron follow Number One/Mr. Archer out of the dressing room.

As a precaution, the boys waited two minutes.

Stillness, silence…

Emerging from behind the rack, they adjusted the monkey headpieces, lining up the eye holes to see out, and crossed the room to the door. Yes, the costumes were good. But was their posture monkeylike enough to blend in with the others?

No.

So Edgar hunched his shoulders and bent forward at
the waist, allowing his arms to dangle. Allan imitated him, then bent his knees and turned his feet outward to add a convincing spring to his step. Edgar did the same.

Yes, better.

Allan opened the door. Outside, this was what they spied:

A few aged park visitors mingled harmlessly beside a cotton candy cart being operated by a bored teenage girl in an ill-fitting Glinda the Good costume. Near the entrance to the restrooms stood a pair of reed-thin ladies and their pot-bellied husbands, all talking distractedly on smartphones. Finally, beside an overfull trash can near the back entrance to the OZitorium, a trio of crows pecked at spilled popcorn.

There was no one else around—no flying monkeys, no Munchkins, and, most important, no security guards.

Relieved, Edgar turned to Allan, looking him up and down. “You know,” he said, “just because you look like a monkey, you don’t have to smell like one too.”

Allan smirked, though of course the headpiece hid his expression. “Very funny,” he muttered sarcastically (he’d thought of the identical joke just a moment before). “I guess it takes one to smell one.”

Now Edgar smirked too.

(Actually, the boys couldn’t smell anything except the musty odor of fake fur and a subtle hint of the Tabasco sauce they’d accidentally dripped on their shirts that morning at breakfast.)

“What we need,” Edgar observed, “is not the smell of monkeys but to have a monkey’s
sense
of smell.”

“Yeah, that way we could sniff our way to wherever the professor is holding Roderick Usher.”

“I guess we’ll have to use our brains instead,” Allan said.

The boys put their minds to work.

Within seconds, the air inside their monkey headpieces heated up by at least three or four degrees.

After a moment, they had it figured out.

“Where’s the best place to hide valuables?” Edgar asked, knowing the answer.

“In a pile of junk,” said Allan.

“And what’s the biggest pile of junk on the premises?”

There was little doubt. “The Dorothy Gale farmhouse and barn.”

“Exactly!”

“I’ll look for a secret entrance in the house,” Allan volunteered.

“I’ll take the barn.”

And the boys were off, shuffling and skipping with arms dangling, retracing their steps along the painted yellow path like a pair of slightly drunk primates.

By this point, most of the tourists (including Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith) were seated in the OZitorium watching the live musical production of the
Wizard of Oz
. So when Edgar and Allan arrived back at the “authentic” Gale family farm buildings, they encountered only a few disinterested stragglers who assumed the costumed boys were park employees.

The furry pair jumped over the picket fence that separated the exhibit from the pathway.

Allan started exploring the ruins of the farmhouse.

Edgar began combing through the massive woodpile that had once been the barn.

What a bunch of junk!
the two thought as they sorted through splintery boards and rusted sheet metal. The minutes ticked by….

Allan was the first to find something of interest.

In the rubble of the farmhouse, he spotted an old-fashioned toilet and overhead water tank, the sort used a hundred years ago. This stopped him. Wouldn’t such
a modest old farmhouse have relied on an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing? Adding to his suspicions was the fact that there were no twisted, rusted pipes anywhere near the toilet. Intrigued, he examined the antique tank, which was at about eye level.

He pulled the chain to flush it.

As there were no pipes, there was no actual flush, no flow of water. Instead, there was an unexpected metallic grinding nearby…and what had appeared to be an eight-foot-square section of collapsed roof proved to be a secret door that slid open to reveal a hidden room.

Always remember to flush
, Allan thought.

From atop the nearby junk pile that had been the barn, Edgar watched his brother slip into the newly revealed room. “Clever monkey,” he murmured.

Then he returned his attention to his own heap of planks and rusted hardware, looking for anything unusual that might serve as a key to a hidden room there, too. But he spied only a jumble of weathered, rotted
hickory and pine. Nothing as obvious as an unplumbed toilet.

Then he noticed a single weathered plank of oak, indistinguishable from the hickory and pine to all but the most experienced carpenters or arborists. Edgar was no carpenter, but fortunately he had a passing interest in arboriculture.

He went to the incongruous plank and pressed his furry foot on it.

A loud
crack
!

And then…you guessed it.

A nearby section of rubble slid aside to reveal a secret room there as well.

These were no ordinary piles of junk.

And we’re no ordinary monkeys,
Edgar thought before disappearing into the dark space.