The Tell-Tale Start

by Gordon McAlpine

  Meantime, Edgar had entered the secret room he’d uncovered in the ruins of the barn. This room was outfitted with sufficient survival supplies to sustain a man for months—for example, a full pantry of canned food and bottled water. In the corner was a toilet. Against one wall was a cot and against another was a shelf of books. Edgar examined the titles of the books, all of which were about either quantum physics or the lives of infamous men—Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible.

  What sort of man builds himself such a hideout?

  A madman, Edgar thought.

  Then he noticed a scrawled note on the edge of the bookshelf, perhaps forgotten by its distracted author.

  NOTE TO STAFF:

  The name of my new black cat—who has a

  white figure 8 on his chest—is Asparagus.

  He’s mine, so hands off!

  Edgar grabbed the note and raced from the room.

  Allan was waiting for him outside.

  Neither boy had to explain to the other what he’d found, because both already knew.

  “How creepy is that video stuff?” Allan said.

  Edgar agreed. “And why would he rename our cat ‘Asparagus’?”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Isn’t it from a poem?” Edgar asked.

  The air inside the boys’ headpieces once again grew warmer as their minds began to whir.

  “Of course! It’s from T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats!” Allan exclaimed.

  Naturally, the twins considered Eliot an inferior poet to their great-great-great-great granduncle; nonetheless, they were familiar with his light verse.

  “And in the poem, Asparagus the cat is also known as—”

  “Gus the theatre cat!” Allan finished.

  “Looks like it’s showtime.”

  Allan nodded his furry head. “Handy that we’re already in our costumes.”

  Having slipped unnoticed through the backstage door of the OZitorium, Edgar and Allan mixed with the other flying monkeys, all of whom were gathered in the wings awaiting their next cue. The boys looked out onto the stage.

  A bank of spotlights cast sections in different colors: emerald green for the glittering city of Oz; a mysterious gray with hints of purple and blue where the dark forest loomed; stark, silvery white with heavy shadows for the Wicked Witch’s castle. Then the scene went dark and the boys could see into the audience, where maybe a hundred tourists, almost all of them over age sixty, sat on folding chairs.

  Flying Monkey Number One—aka Mr. Archer—whispered to his charges, “OK, everybody, time to hook up.”

  Hook up? Edgar and Allan looked around, confused.

  The other flying monkeys all grabbed at ropes that hung from the distant rafters, fastening the hooks at the ends onto a small loop at the back of their costumes.

  Edgar and Allan were not inclined to hook themselves onto anything. It seemed too much like being tied up. No way.

  “You’re on, everybody. Go, go!”

  And just like that Allan and Edgar were swept onstage and into the re-lit spotlights with their flying monkey companions. The boys hesitated at center stage, looking around; after a moment, they began doing as the other monkeys did, hopping in tiny circles. No sense drawing attention to themselves….

  Meantime, the Wicked Witch, whose thick stage makeup was the color of lime Jell-O, gazed into a giant crystal ball and shrieked: “Bring me that girl and her dog!” Her cackling filled the auditorium.

  The boys looked out beyond the stage, hoping to catch sight of their aunt and uncle, but against the glare of the spotlights they couldn’t pick them out. However, they noted that all the exits to the OZitorium were now guarded by security.

  The Wicked Witch looked up from her crystal ball as Edgar, Allan, and the other flying monkeys hopped around her. Her eyes blazed with dramatized malice as she turned to her squadron of furry henchmen. “Now fly! Fly!” she cried.

  At her cue, the flying monkeys—all but two, of course—rose off the stage floor, pulled toward the rafters by the ropes hooked to their backs. One foot above the ground, then two, five, eight…The boys looked up as a matrix of pulleys, rotating arms, and levers pulled their furry compatriots high into the air and then began to swing them in widening arcs. Some of the monkeys even glided out over the audience.

  Edgar and Allan couldn’t help but be a little envious.

  The Wicked Witch turned angrily to the two grounded monkeys at her side. “What’s wrong with you two?” she whispered, her non-actress voice betraying an un-witchlike Brooklyn accent. “Get your butts up in the air,” she hissed. “The professor’s in the house today. Get it right.”

  The professor was in the audience?

  “Where is he?” the boys hissed back.

  “Where he always is,” she answered. Huffily, she turned back to the audience, ad-libbing: “I keep these two smelly apes with me as my personal bodyguards.”

  Ordinarily, the boys would have come back with a cutting remark of their own—perhaps something about her being the smelly one, seeing as witches who are melted by water must never bathe or shower—but they didn’t want to call attention to themselves, not even for a laugh.

  Meantime, the other winged monkeys swung and swooped about the stage, distracting the audience. The boys backed away from the witch, crossing their furry fingers in hopes that the spotlight wouldn’t follow them. To their relief, they made it into the shadows upstage, unnoticed.

  But what now?

  They still needed to find Roderick Usher, rejoin their aunt and uncle, and then escape without Mr. Archer catching them. But was Mr. Archer really their most fearsome threat? The boys suspected it was actually the unseen professor who was pulling the strings.

  The boys were right.

  However, at that moment the professor was pulling a rope, not a string. A rope that was connected to one of the two dozen trapdoors on the stage—specifically, the door upon which the boys now stood.

  For a moment, Edgar and Allan felt weightless.

  Before they could say “Isaac Newton,” they plummeted into darkness.

  The fall through the trapdoor—from the brightly lit stage of the OZitorium to the darkness beneath—was only twelve feet, but it felt farther to Edgar and Allan. Fortunately, they landed in a heap atop a pile of dusty stage curtains that was thick enough to spare them broken heads (though not thick enough to prevent them from seeing stars). By the time their vision cleared, the trapdoor had snapped shut. The ruckus of the play above was audible now only as a dim rattle, as if it were miles away.

  “Hello, boys,” came a raspy voice.

  A gas lantern flared in a corner of the room.

  In the flickering light, the boys could make out a man about their uncle’s age seated in an electric wheelchair. Clamped to the arm of the chair was a small video monitor. Beside him was a low wooden panel with a dozen foot-long handles connected to a matrix of ropes that radiated up to the stage floor and farther up into the invisible rafters of the theater.

  Like a spider at the center of a web, he sat in complete control.

  “Glad you could drop in,” he said.

  WHAT THE POE TWINS DID NOT KNOW…

  DRAFT OF UNMAILED CORRESPONDENCE,

  NOT YET SET IN CODE

  From the Desk of

  PROFESSOR S. PANGBORN PERRY, PHD

  Mother (Prisoner #89372),

  Your latest letter was quite disappointing to me. Have you acquired no wisdom in your eighty-seven years of life? Why would I want to change? Especially now, the very day that I’m to achieve my destiny. Don’t you know how long and patiently I’ve waited for those two brats to become old enough that they could be of service to me? Since they were infants! And now you, a convicted felon, choose to question my character?

  Oh well, Mother, soon enough you’ll understand why I planted that evidence years ago so you’d go to prison instead of me. And you’ll finally admit that your freedom has been a small sacrif
ice for the greatness I’m about to achieve.

  Believe me, when I’ve gained world domination I will make the cops who’ve been looking for me all this time regret their career choice.

  Sincerely,

  Your Son

  UNDERWORLD

  THE man had bushy eyebrows and slicked-back white hair. At first glance he looked very like his namesake, Professor Marvel from the Wizard of Oz movie. Amid the cloud of dust particles raised by the boys’ fall, his appearance wavered and shimmered, almost ghostlike. Something black moved in his lap.

  Edgar clambered to his feet. “Roderick—”

  “Usher!” Allan finished, right beside him.

  The twins’ cat attempted to leap toward them but was jerked back by a leash the professor held in one fist.

  “Stay with me, Asparagus,” the professor hissed.

  Enraged, Edgar and Allan started toward the brute but stopped when he showed them the shiny silver pistol in his other hand.

  “Take off those ridiculous masks so I can see your faces, Edgar and Allan Poe.”

  They followed his order. “How’d you know who we were?”

  He kept the gun on them. “You were the only two monkeys on that stage whose movements were perfectly coordinated with one another. Mirror images, you might say. Also, you were the only two monkeys not hooked into my rope system.”

  Drat, the boys thought. Even with two minds working as one it was impossible to cover every possibility.

  “Oh, your disguises may have outfoxed my assistant,” he continued, his mouth twisting as he spoke. “Of course, that’s not saying much. Mr. Archer is loyal, but he possesses a merely ordinary intellect. He is no match for you two. Fortunately, I was monitoring everything, so your costumed mischief has done no harm, and you’re still right where I wanted you all along.”

  “What do you want with us?” Allan asked, mopping his brow with one furry hand.

  The professor took a deep breath. “Oh, we’ll get to that soon enough, but first allow me to introduce myself.”

  “We know who you are,” Edgar said.

  “You’re Professor Marvel,” Allan said.

  The man snorted. “Actually, my real name is Professor S. Pangborn Perry, PhD, P.O.E.S.”

  The twins knew a PhD was the highest academic degree granted by universities, but as for the rest of his credentials—they didn’t think Professor Perry was a member of the Parents of Exceptional Students. “What’s the P-O-E-S stand for?” they asked.

  “Physicist of Extreme Science,” he answered.

  “‘Extreme science’?”

  “Have you boys heard of ‘extreme sports’?”

  “Like skateboarding off a ten-story ramp or snowboarding off a cliff?”

  “Exactly,” answered the professor. “That’s how I approach my scientific research.”

  “So why ‘Professor Marvel’?” Allan asked.

  “That’s a cover name I chose years ago, well suited both to this place and to my ambitious genius.”

  “You seem more like a Professor Moriarty,” Edgar observed, referring to the master criminal in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

  The professor made a face, as if he’d been exposed to a bad smell. “You insult me. Moriarty was a minor-leaguer. One only has to study the Oz story, boys.” He waved the gun casually as he spoke, still clutching Roderick Usher close to him with his other hand. “Professor Marvel, also known as the Wizard, is the greatest nefarious genius ever portrayed in the movies. Think about it. The Wicked Witch is merely a pathetic, grieving wretch who lives in a drafty castle with mutant monkeys. Meantime, Professor Marvel becomes dictator of the entire land of Oz, relaxing in luxury in a city made of emeralds. When threatened, he sends Dorothy and her friends to assassinate his only rival, the witch. Not a very nice guy…but powerful. Until he goes soft at the end of the story. That’s where we differ.”

  “This place isn’t exactly made of emeralds,” Allan observed.

  “Not to mention your out-of-date electronics,” added Edgar.

  The professor frowned. “Don’t underestimate my little roadside attraction, boys. It has not only allowed me to become a more refined version of my own boyhood hero, but it has also served me well as a hideout from the authorities.”

  “Why are the authorities looking for you?”

  “They suspect I was involved in a murder. Or two. Or more.”

  “Were you?”

  “Ah, boys…” He grinned again. His teeth were yellow—did he never brush? “The past is past. Why don’t we just leave it that way? Particularly since the future is so bright. For me, at least.”

  Edgar and Allan began to inch apart, a classic evasive maneuver.

  “Stop!” the professor shouted, dumping Roderick Usher from his lap so he could use both hands for better aim.

  The boys made eye contact with Roderick, directing him with their gaze toward a pile of dusty props and the safety of darkness. After a moment, Roderick took cover, trailing his leash after him. In the shadows, only his glowing eyes were visible.

  “Move apart another inch and I’ll fire,” the professor said, calm again.

  The boys stopped.

  “Your mother and father never knew what they had with you two,” he said almost regretfully.

  “You knew them?” Edgar asked.

  “Yes, but they never truly knew me.” His sinister expression lightened. “You may be interested to know that your mother and father actually brought you boys to this place when you were babies.”

  “We know. We’ve seen a picture.”

  The professor brushed aside their words. “Oh, the ridiculous attractions your folks dragged me through as I shadowed you all on that trip. The World’s Largest Sassafras Tree in Owensboro, Kentucky. The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, Illinois. The Pencil Sharpener Museum in Logan, Ohio. But I have to admit I’d never have stumbled across this place otherwise. And years later, when I needed a hideout, I returned here, to my own private Oz, to rule. The owner didn’t want to sell it to me at first. But it didn’t take me long to change his mind…may he rest in peace.”

  The boys gulped, their Adam’s apples moving up and down in perfect synchronization. “You were interested in us even as babies?”

  “Oh, I had you two pegged early.”

  “How?”

  He sighed. “Look, when it comes to twins there are three kinds: fraternal, identical, and…you.”

  The boys already knew they were unusual. “So what?”

  He puffed up his chest and raised his voice, as if addressing a crowded lecture hall rather than a dusty, below-stage basement. “Recent experiments in quantum physics confirm a strange phenomenon called ‘quantum entanglement.’ This phenomenon—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know about it,” the boys interrupted in unison. “Einstein called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’”

  “Very good,” the professor said, impressed. “But Einstein lacked the courage to go all the way. Only I have dared to imagine what might occur if the two joined objects were not just particles but human beings! Two bodies, two locations, but one shared mind…”

  The twins didn’t like where this was going.

  “Quantum entanglement applies only to subatomic particles, not people,” Allan said.

  “Except in the rarest of cases,” the professor countered.

  “The odds against such a thing would be trillions to one,” Edgar observed.

  The professor nodded. “And that’s why you two boys are so valuable. That’s why you must be put to scientific use. That’s why I must have you.”

  Allan and Edgar couldn’t help but be impressed by the boldness of the professor’s theory—of course, his character and motives were an entirely different matter.

  “If we’re so valuable, why would you want to shoot us?”

  “Oh, I plan on shooting only one of you.” The professor’s chair wheeled closer. “Imagine one of you dead, relocated to the ‘next world.’ Now imagine
the other my lifelong prisoner, still receiving and transmitting communications to and from his deceased brother, to and from the ‘great beyond,’ the ‘hereafter,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘the underworld,’ whatever you want to call it. Yes, a direct line to the land of the dead. Imagine what one could do with the knowledge. Rule the world! Rule both worlds!”

  The boys’ hearts began to race.

  Pushing a button on the arm of his chair, the professor activated the overhead lights. The fluorescence burned for a moment in the boys’ eyes. But now they could see the whole room. It was crowded with stage props, some of which seemed to have nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz. An old-fashioned, wind-up phonograph sat atop a pirate’s treasure chest beside a six-foot-tall hat rack and a scattering of tables, chairs, and accessories. They didn’t actually notice the boy-sized coffin standing upright against a far wall until the professor pointed it out to them.

  “That coffin’s not a theatrical prop,” he said. “It’s real. It has fine brass hinges and a lovely satin lining. And it’s for one of you.”

  The boys had to admit: it was a nice coffin.

  Still, neither was ready to claim it for his own.

  “You can’t shoot us,” Edgar said confidently. “The people outside will hear the shot and come running.”

  The professor shook his head and smiled again. “This is a well-built theater. We’re soundproofed down here.”

  Edgar looked at Allan. Allan looked at Edgar.

  It didn’t look good.

  The professor aimed his gun first at one boy, then the other. “Let’s see,” he mused. “Which will it be? I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter.”

  Desperate, the boys glanced up to the ceiling, which was actually the underside of the stage. There hung the web of ropes, pulleys, heavy sandbags, and counterweights that operated the trapdoors in the stage and controlled the monkeys’ flying mechanisms high up in the theater’s invisible rafters. The twin minds worked at lightning speed: What if the right rope was to break, particularly now that the professor had wheeled himself directly beneath one of the heavy counterweights?