“Please pass the syrup,” she said.
“Which one?” Homer asked as a strawberry river ran down his pancakes.
“What does it matter? One is as sweet as the next. The resulting rise in my blood sugar may induce a few moments of light-headed giddiness but I shall still be a very large woman who lives alone and who cannot ride on a Ferris wheel. And who has never found love.”
“For God’s sake, Zelda, don’t start with that again.” Ajitabh handed her the maple syrup.
Homer wanted to ask Zelda if the reason she seemed so sad had something to do with that missed date with Mr. Snooty at Chez Bill’s, but he felt too embarrassed to ask.
As he filled his belly with warm, fluffy pancakes, happiness filled him, too. Up in the mountain tower he felt close to his uncle. Gwendolyn and his father were out of jail, safe at home in their own beds. And his parents wouldn’t be worried about him, believing he’d gone on a museum field trip. “Will you tell me about the Society?” he asked.
“Righteo.” Ajitabh finished a spoonful of curry, then sat back on his cushion. “It all begins with Wilma von Weiner. Forty-five years ago she discovered the Lost Temple of the Reptile King and became one of the world’s most famous faces. She couldn’t even go to the grocery without a mob of reporters trailing her. Though quite at ease trekking through a jungle of poisonous snakes, she was shy by nature and hated public attention. So she went into hiding.”
Homer knew that part, but that’s where the story always ended in the history books. “Where’d she go?” he asked.
“To South America with her husband, Dr. Wortworthy, where she assisted him with his obsessive collection of rare reptiles and amphibians. But while this life kept her from the public eye, it did not satisfy her. Wortworthy had no interest in treasure hunting and Wilma discovered that she had little interest in catching and stuffing frogs. And, even though she had a young daughter for companionship, she began to feel rather lonely.”
“Her daughter is Madame,” Homer said.
“Yes, that’s right. And it was because of her loneliness that Wilma came up with the idea for the Society of L.O.S.T.—to provide a means for likeminded treasure hunters to socialize and plan quests in secret. She handpicked the membership and each member had to swear an oath of secrecy.”
“Is that why I’ve never read about L.O.S.T.?”
Ajitabh nodded. “It’s one of the few secret societies that has actually been kept secret. Great riches pass through its hands. Imagine what would happen if a thief discovered the meeting locations.”
Dog, who’d been tearing at the bone, waddled over to the coffee table and poked his nose at one of the glasses of tea. “I think he’s thirsty,” Homer said. Mumble appeared immediately and placed a bowl of water on the floor. Dog’s long ears flopped into the bowl as he eagerly lapped. “Thanks,” Homer called as Mumble left. What great service.
“Where was I?” Ajitabh asked.
“The Society of L.O.S.T.,” Zelda said, helping herself to another pancake.
“Ah, yes. Along with their love of treasure hunting, the original members shared Wilma’s passionate belief that the sole purpose of treasure hunting was to unearth the marvels and mysteries of the past for the education, enrichment, and enlightenment of the public. So each member swore a second oath to give all discoveries to the appropriate museum or university.”
“So Wilma wasn’t evil, like her daughter?” Homer asked.
“I never met her but I’ve been told she was charming,” Ajitabh said. “Unfortunately, she died only ten years after founding the Society. Thus, the question arose, how would the Society continue to flourish as the original membership died off? It was unanimously decided that future membership would be awarded in two ways—by bloodline or by achievement. But each new member still had to swear the first oath of secrecy and the second oath to use his or her treasure-hunting skills for the greater good. Zelda and I are the newest members, as was your uncle Drake.”
Homer’s pancake-filled belly pushed uncomfortably against his pants, so he set his plate aside. He made room for Dog, who curled up on his pillow and started gnawing on the bone again. “How did my uncle become a member?”
“Through achievement. When he found King Tut’s bathing suit he caught the Society’s attention and they invited him to join.”
“That’s how he met Madame la Directeur,” Zelda said, dabbing syrup from her lips. “She inherited her membership from her mother, of course.”
“Because Dr. Wortworthy did not know about L.O.S.T. Madame only learned about it many years after her mother’s death. When she had reached adulthood, the Society approached her. She had followed in her father’s footsteps and had become a doctor of herpetology, but the Society opened up a whole new world for her. She caught the treasure-hunting bug and with Drake’s help, they set out to find the sunken HMS Bombastic.”
Homer couldn’t believe it. He knew about his uncle’s discovery, but Drake had only mentioned a “partner.” He’d never called her by name. “My uncle and Madame went on a quest together? Why would he go anywhere with her? She’s a monster.”
Zelda repositioned herself on the cushions. Her long legs cracked as she stretched them across the carpet. “Drake didn’t think she was a monster, not back then. I think he might have married her if she hadn’t deceived him.”
“Married her?” Homer imagined Auntie Madame la Directeur coming to the farm for Christmas dinner, choking the dogs, stealing coins from Squeak’s piggy bank, shoving Gwendolyn’s animals into the garbage bin.
“Using a deep-sea, seaweed-powered submersible, one of my inventions, Drake and Madame found the remains of the HMS Bombastic and recovered the captain’s chest. Of course, you know why this was an important discovery.”
“Yes. Because the Bombastic was the last place Rumpold Smeller was seen. They made him walk its plank.”
“Exactly. Drake and Madame brought the chest to the Society but when Madame learned that everything in the chest would go to the British Museum, she left in a rage, taking most of the artifacts with her. She eventually sold them on the black market. Despite the fact that her mother had founded L.O.S.T., the membership voted to cast Madame from the Society. She had, after all, broken the second sacred vow. She’s been looking for a way back in ever since.”
Homer fiddled with his shoe, ashamed by his next question. His uncle had always told him that greed was the treasure hunter’s worst enemy, but how could he rebuild the Milkydale library if he couldn’t sell even a little treasure? “What if you want to keep a bit of treasure? I mean, I know it’s best to give everything to a museum but…?”
“Not to worry,” Ajitabh said. “We Society members still get paid, otherwise how could we afford to finance future quests? But what a museum can pay is a small percentage of what the black market can pay. You see?”
“Yes.” Homer smiled. A small percentage was so much better than nothing.
Ajitabh reached beneath the collar of his shirt and pulled out a long golden chain. He slid the chain over his head and handed it to Homer. The chain ran through a familiar gold coin. “This is just like my coin,” Homer said.
“That is the membership coin for the Society of L.O.S.T. Each member wears one at all times. The fact that Drake sent you the coin is proof that he was transferring his membership to you.”
“But I don’t have the coin anymore.”
“That doesn’t matter. You will still be granted membership. Zelda and I will bear witness that the coin was given to you.”
“It might not be as easy as that,” Zelda said. “Now that Madame has the coin, she will tell the membership that Drake sent it to her. There are some who want to readmit her—some, I suspect, who have received gifts from her. She is highly influential in the museum community. She’ll do anything to get back into the Society.”
“If she wants to sell her treasures on the black market, why does she want to be a member of the Society?” Homer asked.
�
�There are many benefits to a L.O.S.T. membership,” Zelda said. “To launch a successful treasure-hunting quest, one needs the help and special talents of other members. She wants to become as famous as her mother.”
Ajitabh smacked his hand on the table. Dog looked up from his bone. “They’d be bleeding fools to readmit her. But she’s a skilled manipulator and liar. And the membership knows that she and Drake were once close. They just might believe that he’d passed his membership on to her. You said she has Drake’s belongings in some sort of lair?”
“Yes. She said she wanted to find a map.”
Ajitabh and Zelda shared a worried look. “Then she knows.” Ajitabh leaned forward, his brow furrowing. “One year ago, your uncle found Rumpold Smeller’s map. Though he never brought it to a meeting, he told the membership about the map and asked for help in launching his quest. Someone in the membership must have told Madame!”
“Wow,” Homer said. “I didn’t know he’d found it.”
Ajitabh frowned. “If she gets her greedy hands on that map, she’ll say that Drake lied. She’ll claim it as her own discovery and use the Society’s good intentions and help to achieve the wealth and fame she desires.”
“They can’t help her. She killed him!” Homer cried, tipping over a syrup bottle.
Zelda’s entire body stiffened. “How do you know this?”
“Mr. Twaddle, he works for her. He told me that the same thing would happen to me that happened to Uncle Drake if I kept asking questions.”
Ajitabh leaped to his feet and began pacing.
“Calm yourself, Ajitabh. We have no proof,” Zelda said.
He clenched his fists. “You know as well as I that she’d stop at nothing to get what she wants. I knew that man-eating tortoise sounded suspicious.”
“We’ve got to find her lair,” Homer said. “It’s somewhere beneath the museum.”
“Righteo!” Ajitabh smacked his hands together. “I’ll take you back to the farm, then Zelda and I will go to the museum.”
“No. I don’t want to go back. Not yet. If she’s a murderer then the police have to be told. She can’t get away with it. It’s not right.” Homer raised himself off the pillow, certainty filling his being. He handed the coin back to Ajitabh. “My uncle sent me his most treasured possession. That’s what he wrote in his letter. His most treasured possession. I’ve got to get that coin back from Madame. It’s my responsibility.”
Ajitabh slid the chain around his neck, then gripped Homer’s shoulder. “You’d make Drake proud.”
“I’m a bit confused about something.” Zelda stood, her bones crackling as loudly as the fire. She gazed down at her two companions. “Why would Drake call the coin his most treasured possession? Don’t you find that puzzling, Ajitabh? Certainly he valued his membership in the Society but it wasn’t the most important thing to him. He rarely attended meetings. He hated all the paperwork and wasn’t fond of many of the members. He didn’t have much patience for all the chitchat.”
“Maybe he cared about it more than we knew.” Ajitabh let go of Homer’s shoulder. “It’s been a long night. We all need sleep. Then we shall deal with Madame.”
Homer let a yawn come, wide and long. Sleep sounded good. “You won’t leave without me?” he asked. “Promise?”
“My dear chap, we’ll face her together,” Ajitabh said. “I promise.”
27
The Most Treasured Possession
The guest room was three floors down. The room was dark but Lorelei’s pink hair was easy to see, poking out from under a satin quilt. “I’m afraid you’ll have to share the room,” Ajitabh whispered. “I have only two guest rooms and Zelda requires the one with the extra-long bed.”
“No problem,” Homer said, too tired to worry about sharing a room with a girl. He threw his jacket onto a chair.
Ajitabh put an arm around Homer’s shoulder. A light scent of engine oil drifted from his skin, reminding Homer of the way his father smelled after tinkering with the tractor. Ajitabh’s fingertips were stained with blueprint ink—the true mark of an inventor. “I know you’ve made a new friend, but remember you must not tell her about the Society. You must not tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“Then let’s get a good sleep. We’ll need our wits about us to deal with Madame.” Ajitabh smiled warmly, then walked back up the spiral stairs.
“Come on, Dog,” Homer whispered. Clutching the bone between his teeth, Dog pranced into the room. Homer’s entire body ached with exhaustion. He sat on the bed and took off his shoes. His mother would be really upset if she found out that he hadn’t packed any clean socks. Or a toothbrush or hairbrush. He shrugged. Treasure hunters don’t have time to worry about personal hygiene. A quest won’t wait while the treasure hunter shops for underwear at Walker’s Department Store.
“Urrrr.” Homer pulled Dog onto the bed and as he did so, the bone landed on the floor with a thunk.
Lorelei bolted upright. “What’s going on?” Daisy the rat poked her black nose from under Lorelei’s pillow, her whiskers twitching with annoyance.
“Everything’s okay,” Homer said. He pulled back his quilt. “Ajitabh and Zelda were my uncle’s friends. We can trust them. They’re going to help me get my uncle’s stuff from Madame. And they said they’ll take you back to the warehouse.”
“Oh.” She scratched her head. “That’s good. Pancakes sure make you sleepy.”
Homer yawned. “Yeah.” He plumped up his pillow and was about to climb under the quilt when Dog slid off the bed and began sniffing along the floor.
“It’s sure weird how he does that,” Lorelei said. “Even though he can’t smell.”
Dog sniffed around the edge of Lorelei’s bed, then stood on his hind legs and stuck his nose under Lorelei’s pillow. “Urrrr.” Daisy the rat crept out from the pillow and stared at Dog. Dog stuck his nose deeper, rooting around like a pig.
“Hey,” Lorelei said. “Go away. I’m sleepy.”
“Urrrr.” Dog clamped his teeth on Lorelei’s pillow and pulled it off the bed.
A glint of silver shone where the pillow had been. Homer leaned forward, squinting through the darkness. “Is that a spoon?” he asked.
“That’s odd,” Lorelei said, picking up the spoon. “Where did that come from?”
“I think the cook is looking for that.”
“Well, I didn’t take it. Why would I want a spoon?”
An awkward silence hung between them. Homer didn’t want to accuse Lorelei’s rat of stealing, but it seemed pretty obvious that’s what had happened. Dog whined until Homer helped him back onto the bed.
“Weird dog,” Lorelei said, collecting her pillow.
Homer stretched out on his back. Dog stretched beside him, his breath tickling Homer’s ear. Maybe Lorelei had known that the spoon was under her pillow. Maybe she needed that spoon. Maybe she was tired of using the plastic ones that came with the soup cart. “Lorelei? Don’t you want to live somewhere else? I mean, you could come live with me.”
“And be a goat farmer? No offense, Homer, but that’s not what I want to do with my life.”
“Oh. I understand. But if I tell my mom about you—”
Lorelei leaped out of her bed and pointed a finger in Homer’s face. “DON’T tell your mom. Don’t tell anyone. I’m not going to an orphanage, Homer. You got that?”
“Okay.” Though he couldn’t see her very well through the darkness, he could feel her powerful gaze. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Good.” She got back into bed and as silence settled, her breathing slowed and deepened.
Homer looked across the room and out a little window where the ridge of mountains stood in silhouette against the starry sky. Everyone in Milkydale would be asleep. His mom and dad curled beneath goose down. Squeak, sleeping sideways in his bed the way he always did. And Gwendolyn, sleeping beneath the flying squirrel that hung from her ceiling. They seemed so far away. Even his old self seemed far away. He was going to
become an official member of the Society of Legends, Objects, Secrets, and Treasures. Homer Winslow Pudding was going to become a real treasure hunter.
He closed his eyes. Though sleep beckoned him toward its depths, his mind continued to pick over the day’s details. He’d come to The City to find out why his uncle had hidden a coin on Dog’s collar. The mystery had been solved—Uncle Drake had wanted Homer to join the Society of L.O.S.T. But Zelda’s question tugged at him.
“Why would Drake call the coin his most treasured possession?” Zelda had asked. “He rarely attended meetings. He hated all the paperwork and wasn’t fond of many of the members.”
“I’ve found something amazing,” Uncle Drake had told Homer on that last night in Homer’s room.
“Something more amazing than Rumpold Smeller’s map?”
“Yes, even more amazing.”
Dog began to snore, his jowls vibrating with each expulsion of air. Homer ran his hand down Dog’s long back. “I’m glad Uncle Drake gave you to me,” he whispered. “If it hadn’t been for you I would never have found my decoder ring. And I probably would have lost the coin on the train. And Mr. Snooty wouldn’t have his brooch. And Lorelei wouldn’t have her Galileo Compass. And Mumble…”
Homer’s eyes flew open and he sat up straight. Dog groaned.
Could it be? Was it possible? Had the answer been at his feet this entire time?
“Is it you?” Homer asked.
Dog opened one eye.
Homer lay back down and looked at Dog’s droopy face. He found my ring, he found the coin. He found Snooty’s brooch and he found Lorelei’s compass and the silver spoon. All those things were lost and someone wanted them found.
“You can’t smell regular things, can you?” Homer whispered. “But you can smell…” Homer grabbed Dog’s face and turned it so they were looking into each other’s eyes. “You can smell lost treasures.”
Smells Like Dog Page 16
