A Dastardly Plot

by Christopher Healy

  “Tear your dress!” Molly yelled to her. “Loosen the buttons!”

  “What?” Mrs. Cochrane sounded appalled. “I can’t—”

  Molly dashed back and yanked hard at both sides of the woman’s fancy skirt until several buttons popped onto the stone path. “Now run.”

  Mrs. Cochrane marveled at the long strides she was able to take. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, this is . . . Oh.”

  The three zigzagged around women in shimmering kimonos and men with colorful kaffiyehs on their heads, and ducked through the beaded entryway of the first building they saw, the Persia Pavilion. Inside, a man in puffy silk pants juggled curve-bladed scimitars amid walls draped with intricate hand-woven rugs. The children slipped into the crowd.

  As the juggler caught his final sword and took a bow, Molly plucked one of the weapons from his hand. “Grraaaarrrr!” She charged at the villains.

  The gangsters shrieked and dove in opposite directions, crashing into clay urns and getting buried by falling carpets. Molly bowed for the applauding crowd until Mrs. Cochrane dragged her back outside.

  “They’re still coming,” Emmett said.

  Mrs. Cochrane and the children hurtled past the Siam Pavilion’s dancers in demon masks and into the Holland Pavilion, where they ducked the spinning arms of windmills on their way to the exit. When they burst outside once more, they found themselves before the massive golden temple of the China Pavilion. Bright red pillars held up tiered, sloping rooftops, and serpentine dragon statues flanked a door with a sign that read CLOSED FOR PRIVATE FUNCTION. But by the corner of the building, a smaller door stood open, and a woman in a shimmering pink robe waved. “Nĭ hăo,” she said as Emmett ran by.

  He stopped and turned to her. “We need help,” he said, panting. “Can you hide us? There are two men—”

  “Duìbùqi. Wo bù dŏng,” the woman replied.

  “I—I don’t—” Emmett grew flustered. “Do you speak English? We need—please. Inside?” He tried to step past her into the pavilion, but the woman raised her hands to stop him. Or possibly calm him. Molly took hold of Emmett’s arm to do the same.

  “We need to keep moving,” Molly said. “The lighting ceremony’s gonna start any minute.”

  “Qĭng shāo hòu,” the woman said, going inside and shutting the door.

  “But . . . ,” Emmett started. “Maybe she went for help?”

  “Emmett, dear,” Mrs. Cochrane warned, though not without sympathy.

  “I know, I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I just—I should have been able to . . .”

  A few yards down the path, Tusk and Crikes were marching in their direction.

  “No time for sorries,” Molly panted as they darted down another path. But all three paused as they reached a tall, silver archway in the form of two bearded wizards holding a sign between them. Sparks shot from the sorcerers’ tin fingertips, splashing colored flashes across the sign: INVENTORS’ ALLEY.

  Molly peered down the long, bustling avenue of booths. Some were adorned with clockwork figures, while others featured flashing lights or curling glass pipes that puffed pastel clouds into the air. And in each, a man gesticulated wildly as he demonstrated some strange gadget.

  “One of these guys must have something that can help us,” Molly shouted. She leapt the partition into a booth manned by photography genius George Eastman.

  “I believe there was a line,” Mr. Eastman scolded as he cranked his latest handheld camera. “But you’re here, so . . . Say ‘cheese’!” The flashbulb popped right in front of Molly’s eyes, and suddenly the Fair was gone. All she could see were swirling colored blotches. She staggered, disoriented, until Emmett and Josephine each grabbed an arm and dragged her out over the other side of the booth. She blinked rapidly, grateful to see that her vision was returning.

  “Don’t forget to stop by next week and pick up your photograph,” Eastman called as he screwed on a new flashbulb. Crikes and Tusk bounded into the booth. “I guess we’ve given up on the line,” Eastman sighed. He snapped his camera at the gangsters, and Crikes, dazed, fell into his partner’s arms.

  Struggling with her skirt, Mrs. Cochrane clumsily climbed into the next booth, startling a dapper fellow with a waxed mustache and jet-black hair that rolled in waves across his head. He was showing off a large glass sphere that appeared to be full of lightning.

  “It’s Nikola Tesla,” Emmett said as he climbed in with still-blinking Molly.

  “Yes, I am Tesla!” the inventor said cheerfully. He ran his fingers along the surface of the orb and the sparks followed his fingertips. “And you are volunteer?”

  “Not I, sir,” Mrs. Cochrane said as she hoisted the children over the other side. “But the two gents behind us are good for a go.” She gracelessly tossed herself over the partition as Tusk and Crikes clambered into the booth.

  The inventor stepped into their path. “Hello, I am Tesla! Please to touch my sparky ball!”

  “Mrs. Cochrane, we could have used one of Tesla’s devices against them,” Molly said as they ran.

  Cochrane responded with a curt, “No.”

  “Look.” Emmett pointed. “That man has an automated mallet. Mallets make good weapons.”

  “Or over there!” Molly said. “That doodad’s got hooks on it.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Mrs. Cochrane snapped. She headed straight for one specific booth.

  “Levi Strauss?” Molly asked.

  “We don’t have time to figure out electric transference whatsits,” she replied. “But pants? I know how pants work.” Muttering an apology, she swiped a pair of denim dungarees from Strauss’s booth.

  “They’re coming!” Emmett yelled.

  Tusk, his hair standing on end, was still struggling to get past Tesla. But Crikes was charging like a mad bull.

  “I’m gonna burn you,” Crikes growled. “But not all the way. Just to be safe.” He leapt for Molly, but Mrs. Cochrane stepped in. Holding one pant leg in each hand, she looped the blue jeans around the gangster’s neck. The crotch of the pants hit Crikes’s Adam’s apple, and Mrs. Cochrane swung him in the opposite direction. He staggered away, sputtering and holding his throat.

  “See, everybody,” Levi Strauss called out to the mesmerized bystanders. “That’s one tough pair of pants!”

  Mrs. Cochrane and the children had a clear path to the end of Inventors’ Alley. But something caught Molly’s eye as she ran.

  “Hoity-Toity Boy,” she growled.

  She veered over to Thaddeus Edgerton’s booth, where the teenaged Guildsman was waggling his eyebrows at a pair of young female fairgoers. “. . . Not that I’d ever need to use these glasses on a couple of Venuses like yourselves,” he was saying.

  Molly snatched the spectacles from his hands, snapped them in half, and threw the pieces into his face, before running back to rejoin Emmett and Mrs. Cochrane.

  Even if Rector kills us all, she said to herself, at least I will have done that.

  But suddenly, there was a veritable wall of people blocking her path, a seemingly endless line of fairgoers. She looked up. She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t even noticed they were standing in the shadow of the Ferris Wheel.

  41

  On Top of the World

  THERE APPEARED TO be no way around the gigantic wheel and its long queue of waiting riders.

  “We’ll go under it,” Mrs. Cochrane said. “Up ahead, see where that man is letting people on and off?”

  Molly nodded.

  “The bad guys are still coming,” Emmett said.

  “Normally, cutting in line would be a tasteless breach of etiquette,” Mrs. Cochrane said as she rammed her shoulders into waiting patrons. “These, however, are extraordinary circumstances.”

  The children followed her lead. But when they finally pushed through the grumbling crowd to the base of the wheel, Tusk was right behind them.

  “Quick, get on!” Molly yelled. They dove past the startled ride operator into a moving gondola. Within sec
onds they were rising above the crowds.

  “Um, they’re still coming,” said Emmett. “And I’m getting really tired of saying that.”

  Molly looked over the side to see Tusk and Crikes in the next car down. The goons glared upward, but couldn’t reach them. Molly stuck her tongue out.

  “You were pretty great down there, Mrs. Cochrane,” she said. She smiled at the former fancy lady’s disheveled hair, torn dress, and scuffed cheeks.

  “Please, call me Josephine.”

  “I’m sorry about before, at the China Pavilion,” Emmett said. “It’s just . . . If I only knew Chinese, I might have been able . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Molly said. “When this is over—”

  “Children, look,” Josephine said as they reached the wheel’s highest point, a good ninety feet above the Fair. Thousands of people, looking for all the world like dollhouse toys come to life, roamed the labyrinthine pathways, swirling around exotic temples, palaces, and villas. Molly wished she could have focused on the fun bits, like the vendor chasing a runaway balloon or the llama eating a man’s hat. But instead she took note of the exits, which had already been barricaded with overturned wagons. And just on the other side of the wheel, on a stage at the far end of a jam-packed central plaza, was the man they were looking for: Ambrose Rector in his Edison guise.

  Rector was already speaking to the crowd. They could hear his voice amplified through the speakers in the lampposts, but were too high up to make out his words.

  “He’s going to turn on his machine any second now,” Emmett said. “I hope Hertha gets to him in time.”

  “She will,” said Josephine.

  “But we should try too,” said Molly as their car began its descent.

  “By all means,” Josephine replied with gusto. “No reason to let Miss Marks hog all the glory.”

  “Psst!”

  Molly turned to see Crikes’s face upside down, mere inches from hers. Tusk held him by his feet, dangling him from their gondola, which was now above Molly’s. She yelped as Crikes threw his arms around her chest and Tusk began hauling them both up.

  Emmett grabbed Molly’s legs. The cars swayed, and Molly and Crikes both squealed nervously.

  “Let go of the girl, before they both die,” Tusk called down.

  “You let go,” Emmett shouted back.

  “I’m not gonna let go,” said Tusk. “Then you’ll have Crikes.”

  “Yeah, don’t let go,” Crikes said to Tusk.

  “Then you let go,” Molly said to Crikes.

  “I’m not letting go,” said Crikes. “If you get away, Oogie’ll burn us alive. Hey, maybe that’s what he said! He’d burn us!”

  “Well, somebody has to let go!” shouted Emmett.

  “And it will be you, sir,” said Mrs. Cochrane. She stabbed the back of Crikes’s hand with something long, thin, and silvery. “A proper lady never leaves home without a hairpin.” Howling, the gangster did indeed let go. And before he could be hauled back up by his partner, Molly plucked the little metallic plugs from his ears.

  “Hey, I need those,” Crikes whined.

  “We know,” Molly retorted gleefully, tossing the plugs to Emmett.

  As their gondola swooped to ground level, the three leapt off. Molly shoved the ride operator aside and pushed his control lever as far as it would go, speeding up the wheel and sending the Green Onions for another go-round.

  “Put those earplugs in,” Molly said to Emmett, ignoring the furious cries of the ride operator.

  Emmett stared at the slimy nuggets. “These are worse than Pembroke’s.”

  “Do it!”

  Emmett closed his eyes and jammed the devices into his ears.

  “Hurry, children,” Josephine said. “To the plaza!”

  They charged into the dense crowd, squeezing their way toward the stage. “Where is Hertha?” asked Emmett.

  “It’s okay,” said Molly. “We can do this ourselves! We’re not too late!”

  But they were too late. The imposter Edison’s voice echoed through the park. “And now for the moment you’ve been waiting for!” Molly knew it would be more than just the man’s voice issuing from light poles all around the park if they let him pull the lever on the humming, silver machine before him.

  Standing at Rector’s side was President Chester A. Arthur, vying for attention with his floor-length fur coat, fluffed-out sideburns, and a jeweled ring on every finger. Beside Arthur, looking only slightly less spectacular in his medal-festooned Union Army uniform, was Ulysses S. Grant. And next to him, in a brown suit and derby, staring at his feet with eyes that said “I should have worn something more exciting,” was Governor Grover Cleveland.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a new age,” Rector said. “It is an age of automation, innovation, and electrification!” He paused as the massive crowd gave a deafening cheer. “But most importantly, this is the age of Ambrose Rector!” The politicians on the platform exchanged puzzled glances.

  “He’s gonna do it,” Molly said as she shoved between two men in fezzes.

  “Hurry, children!” Josephine urged. They were halfway across the plaza.

  “And who is Ambrose Rector, you ask?” the villain continued. “Of course you ask that, because the petty members of the Inventors’ Guild made sure no one ever got to hear the name of Ambrose Rector. Oh, I’m sure you’ve all heard of his esteemed father, Johann Rector, founder of the illustrious Guild. But did you even know Johann had a son? No, because Johann Rector never talked about his son. He was ashamed of his son. And so were his Guildsmen! They kept Ambrose Rector down because he was smarter, more imaginative, more ambitious than any of them could ever be!”

  President Arthur leaned over and whispered something to the governor. Grover Cleveland shrugged.

  “Mr. President, stop him!” Emmett cried. “Don’t let him pull the switch!”

  “He’s a fake!” Molly screamed. “He’ll kill us all!”

  But no one onstage could hear them. Rector began speaking faster. “Now Ambrose Rector is about to burst free from his prison of obscurity! And no one will ever forget his name again!” He peeled back his fake eyebrows and twisted off his false nose.

  “I am Ambrose Rector!” the madman howled. “Welcome to my world!”

  And he pulled the lever.

  42

  The Main Event

  NOBODY’S BRAIN EXPLODED. That was a good sign. Maybe Rector’s machine hadn’t worked?

  But then, as electric lamps lit up throughout the park, people began to cover their ears. In moments, everyone Molly and Emmett could see dropped to the ground, Mrs. Cochrane included.

  “Josephine!” Molly cried.

  Onstage, Arthur, Grant, and Cleveland collapsed into a pile. And Molly knew that any police or emergency workers who might rush to the rescue would fall the moment they set foot in the park. She, Emmett, and Rector seemed to be the only people unaffected.

  The earplugs worked.

  “Get down!” Emmett hissed. “Pretend it’s affecting us too.”

  Molly nodded and joined Emmett on the pavement. Josephine’s eyes were open. Was she still awake? Could she hear and see what was happening, even if she couldn’t move? Molly looked into her pleading eyes and whispered, “You kept us safe. Now we’ll help you. That’s my promise.”

  “What you are currently experiencing is the effect of my patented Mind-Melter Machine,” Rector said to his incapacitated crowd. “Well, it’s not technically patented, of course. It’s not like the government would grant a patent to someone who is legally deceased. But that will change when I run the government. Which should be in, oh, ten minutes, give or take.

  “What’s that you say? Nothing. You say nothing, because your mouths don’t function. But if you’re thinking, ‘How is he going to take over the US government in ten minutes?’—watch and enjoy. It’s not like you can do anything else.”

  A telephone sat on a small table next to the pile of politicians. “United St
ates Capitol, please,” Rector said into the mouthpiece. “Ahoy! This is Ambrose Rector, your new president, king, and supreme overlord of all things. . . . Yes, I’m serious. . . . I’ve taken the World’s Fair hostage. All of it, everyone. I can melt the brains of a hundred thousand people with a slight twist of the intensity knob on my doomsday device. And if losing a slew of random sidewalk slugs isn’t high enough stakes for you, consider that I also have every member of the Inventors’ Guild, the governor of New York, and the man you called your leader up until thirty seconds ago, Chester A. Arthur. I also have Ulysses S. Grant, although, you know, what has he done lately?”

  Rector crouched and poked a set of his special plugs into President Arthur’s ears. Arthur sat up, gasping, relieved of the Mind-Melter’s power. Rector held the telephone to him and the president shouted into the mouthpiece, “It’s true! He’s got us all! We’re at his whim! But—”

  Rector plucked the plugs out and Arthur flopped back to the floor.

  “And there you have it,” Rector said into the telephone. “You all work for me now. What’s that? Oh, I see. Congress will have to vote on it. Well, sure. Rules are rules. I want this to be official. Go vote. I’ll wait. Just keep in mind that if you vote no, I kill a hundred thousand people instantly.”

  Rector tapped his foot and whistled while he waited. Molly and Emmett began crawling away, inch by inch, trying not to attract attention. They were unsuccessful. A hand clamped over each of their skulls and, with a metallic creak, lifted them off the ground.

  “How come haven’t ye two meltit?” asked Oogie MacDougal.

  “What’s going on down there, MacDougal?” Rector asked from the stage, his voice still echoing through the loudspeakers.

  “Th’ bairns, they’re no frozen,” Oogie shouted, as Molly and Emmett writhed fruitlessly. “Ach, Ah see. Looks lik’ thay git thair hauns on some o’ yer fancy wee lug plugs.”

  “Marvelous,” Rector said with a sigh. “Must’ve stolen them straight out of the ears of your oh-so-capable goon squad. That was sarcasm, by the way.”

  “Whit dae ye want ah shuid dae wi’ thaim? Crush thair skulls?”