Off the Wall

by P. J. Night

  And then the very unwelcome sound of the sword from the knight’s hand clattering to the floor.

  Jane straightened up hastily just as Daria hopped off the horse’s back. The three girls looked uneasily at one another, and then at the entrance.

  When no guard came rushing in, the girls turned back to the sword.

  “It must have been loose,” said Jane. She didn’t sound very sure.

  “Not glued in very well, I guess,” said Lucy.

  “So what do you want to do about it?” asked Daria. “Should we try to put it back?”

  Jane glared at Daria. “Thanks for getting us into this mess.”

  “Lucy’s the one who jumped off like a ton of bricks and dislodged the sword,” said Daria.

  “I’m not putting that sword back,” Lucy said. “What if it falls again and hurts someone?”

  “Well, we can’t just leave it there! They might suspect that someone wandered around alone during the lock-in,” Jane pointed out.

  Daria’s lips tightened. She strode over to the sword and picked it up by the hilt with her finger and thumb. Holding it far away from her, she reached overhead and put it on top of a nearby cabinet.

  “There. You can stop worrying,” she said. “Tomorrow, write a note saying where it is, then leave the note somewhere that someone’s sure to find it.”

  “Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” said Lucy approvingly. “We can leave the note at the information desk on our way home. Good! That solves that. And now, back to the mummy. There was nothing inside that armor except stale museum air. Of course, we’d have to check all the suits of armor to be sure there’s not a mummy inside one of them.”

  Jane stretched out her aching back. “There isn’t a mummy in any of them,” she snapped. “It would have fallen apart. Mummies are all crumbling and rotting inside those old bandages or whatever they’re wrapped in.”

  “Wrong again,” said Daria, whose brief moment of helpfulness seemed to be over. “Egyptian mummies were well preserved. When scientists unwrapped King Ramses, he looked just the way he had when he was alive.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Except that he was all shriveled up and leathery-looking. And his head looked just like a turtle’s head. I’ve seen pictures in my social studies book.”

  “What does it matter, anyway?” asked Jane. She didn’t want to think about what King Ramses had looked like when he was unwrapped. “Let’s move on to the dinosaur exhibit. And no more dares!”

  “The experts can say whatever they want,” said Lucy. “But I say Tyrannosaurus rex couldn’t have been all that scary in real life. Not with those puny little arms.”

  “But look at those teeth,” Jane pointed out.

  The three girls were standing under the hulking form of a T. rex skeleton. Its eyeless skull was glaring down at them. Its teeth—six inches long, the wall placard said—were definitely sharp. But its arms did look kind of useless.

  Jane noticed that for the first time all evening, Daria looked impressed. She walked up to get a closer look at the humongous skeleton and read the information on the wall. “It says here that T. rexes had really bad breath,” she said. “Their teeth were covered with so much bacteria that they could give their prey a fatal infection. I guess if they didn’t eat their prey first.”

  “That I can believe,” said Lucy.

  The T. rex skeleton had all kinds of company in the room. Compared to some of the other skeletons, it wasn’t even that big. One dinosaur’s skull brushed the ceiling, and its body was as long as the whole room.

  “That isn’t a real skeleton,” said Daria. “No animal was ever that big.”

  “That’s not what it says here,” Lucy replied. She was studying the information card. “This isn’t even the biggest dinosaur! They’ve found one in Argentina that’s a hundred and fifty feet long. Just its spine weighs a ton. Two thousand pounds!.”

  Daria looked as if she couldn’t even comprehend what Lucy was saying..

  “And look at these dino eggs!” said Lucy, stopping by a sheet of petrified mud. Eons earlier, a dinosaur had scratched a little hollow into the mud to use as a nest. “They’re almost as big as I am. And this footprint is bigger than I am!”

  She lay down next to the footprint to prove it, then hopped back to her feet. “Don’t they have anything interactive in the dino exhibit? We might as well do something while we’re looking around. Let’s see what’s in the other room.”

  The next room had tons of interactive stuff, but it was obviously meant for children who were a lot younger than the three girls. For one thing, its main feature was a huge wooden jungle gym shaped like a dinosaur skeleton. There were also tables with dinosaur coloring books and a sandbox where kids could play with plastic toy dinosaurs. Jane noticed that someone had buried a lot of the dinosaurs upside down. There were a bunch of interactive displays, but they were disappointingly babyish. All except one—the replica of a dinosaur skull with very, very pointy teeth.

  Can You Imagine? said the plaque next to the skull. Allosaurus needed these big teeth to chew his food. Dino meat was a lot tougher than a hamburger! You can feel how sharp they are, but be careful!

  Lucy pressed a careful finger onto one of the skull’s front teeth. “Yup. Sharp.”

  “I’ll pass,” said Jane.

  Then Daria reached into the open jaws to touch one of the replica’s back teeth—and the jaws snapped shut on her arm.

  “Hey!” said Daria. “Is that supposed to happen?” She shook her wrist to free it, but the jaws stayed firmly closed. “What a strange thing to have in a children’s room,” she said after a second.

  “It must be broken. Maybe there’s a spring inside or something. Does it hurt?” asked Lucy.

  “As a matter of fact, it does,” said Daria grimly. With her left hand, she was trying to bend back the top jaw, but it wouldn’t budge. “Hey, you two—how about not just watching me?”

  Jane and Lucy both sprang to help her. “Jane, you hold that side and I’ll hold this one,” ordered Lucy. Carefully they grabbed the jaws, trying to keep their fingers clear of those huge teeth. “Daria, you press down on the lower jaw and—”

  “And get bitten?” asked Daria angrily. “The only place to press down is onto the teeth!”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry,” Lucy said. “All right, then, try not to move. Jane, lift your side when I say three. One, two, three!”

  They pulled as hard as they could.

  “I think it moved a little on my side,” Jane said after a few seconds.

  “Mine too. I’ll count again. One, two . . .”

  This time, with a creaking sound, the jaws opened a tiny bit.

  “Progress,” said Lucy. “Try again.”

  “And try faster. My hand is starting to burn from the pain,” said Daria.

  On their third try, the jaws finally opened—and Daria slipped her arm out. Both Lucy and Jane gasped when they saw how mangled and red the skin on her arm was.

  “We’ve got to get something to put on that,” Lucy said. “Or at least wash it so that—”

  Daria interrupted her. “Shhhh! I hear something!”

  “Matty? Is that you?”

  It was a woman’s voice. A guard calling to another guard? It had to be.

  “Matty!” the woman said again. “Are you okay?”

  Now they could hear footsteps. And they were coming closer.

  For the third time the guard called out. Her voice was sharper this time.

  “Who’s in there? Stay where you are!”

  CHAPTER 6

  “This way,” hissed Daria. She grabbed the hands of the other girls and all but dragged them across the floor.

  Through the dim light, Jane realized that they were heading to the dinosaur-shaped play equipment. But they couldn’t hide under that. The guard would be able to see right through the ribs!

  No, Daria was leading them out through the dinosaur’s ribs and to the other side. She pointed with her chin toward what looked like a p
ile of rocks. After a second, Jane could see that they had an opening that looked like a cave entrance. That must be where Daria wanted them to hide.

  Jane’s leg slammed hard against something. “Ouch,” she said in a loud, normal voice.

  “Quiet! Get down!” Daria’s whisper had the intensity of a shriek. She dropped to her knees and began crawling rapidly toward the play cave. Jane and Lucy followed her.

  We can’t fit through that, Jane thought in terror. But Daria was scrambling through the entrance with Lucy just behind her. Jane took a breath and crawled in after them. Then, panting, the three of them leaned against the wall of the tiny chamber they had just entered.

  It was completely dark. Jane put out a careful hand and touched the wall of the cave. It wasn’t rock—it was something that felt fake. She realized that they must be inside some kind of make-believe cave.

  “That was lucky,” said Lucy. “How did you know this was here?”

  Daria shrugged. “I just noticed it. I was—”

  Then she stopped.

  Someone was walking toward them.

  The guard! Jane mouthed silently.

  The footsteps were slow and steady, as if the walker knew exactly where she was going. Step, step, step . . . right toward the cave.

  There’s no door, Jane thought. And without a door, she could see that a light was coming toward them as well. It was swinging back and forth in slow arcs. A flashlight!

  Step, step, step. Jane didn’t dare move. But from the corner of her eye, she saw that the light was being trained on the cave.

  In a few seconds the guard would find them.

  Jane closed her eyes and waited to be caught. She was already imagining how she would try to explain this to Willow and Katherine. Would they be kicked out of the lock-in—and if they were, where could they go? How would she ever explain what happened to her mother?

  But now the light was . . . was it moving away? Could it possibly be that the guard hadn’t realized where they were hiding?

  She must not have. Because now the light was gone, and the footsteps were walking away.

  Still motionless, Jane glanced at the other girls. She could see that they were listening too. A few seconds more, and the sound of the steps was almost gone. Lucy clasped her hands over her head in a silent cheer.

  “Wait,” Daria whispered. But she didn’t need to warn them. The girls weren’t going to move until they were absolutely sure the coast was clear.

  In her head Jane counted to a hundred. Then two hundred. There was still no sound outside their cramped little hiding place. She looked questioningly at the other girls. “Okay?” she whispered.

  “I guess so,” Lucy said.

  They’d been sitting without moving for so long that Jane had to shake the kinks out of her arms and legs when she could finally stand again.

  “That was too much,” she told Lucy and Daria crossly. “Being caught by a guard would be even worse than being caught by a mummy. I didn’t make this bet—you two did. I’ll hunt with you for a half an hour more, and then I’m going back to the Great Hall. By myself, if I have to.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Lucy sounded subdued. Then her face brightened. “What about the Hall of Extreme Weather? If I were a mummy, I’d want to go to the Hall of Extreme Weather. But wait—we have to get Daria’s arm fixed up.”

  “No need.” Daria showed them her arm. To the astonishment of Jane and Lucy, it looked fine. There were no marks on her skin to show what had happened. Her arm seemed to be completely healed.

  “How could that happen?” asked Jane. “Your arm was all shredded up!”

  Daria shrugged. “I heal quickly.”

  “Get me off this thing! Get me off!” Jane whispered. Her mouth was dry with fear. But there was no one to help. And she was buckled in. She, Lucy, and Daria were going to have to suffer through the whole tornado before their seats unlocked and they could return to normal.

  The Templeton Museum’s Hall of Extreme Weather was completely interactive. That made it a lot more interesting than just looking at pictures of different kinds of clouds. Even Daria seemed to loosen up a little. But most of the exhibits were some kind of scary ride, and Jane’s stomach was starting to feel woozy. Already the girls had buckled on electronic skis to see how it would feel to be swept up by an avalanche. They’d stood in little booths that felt as hot as the Sahara Desert and as cold as Antarctica. They’d felt the floor shake beneath them in the earthquake simulator and been buried up to their shoulders in fake quicksand. They’d even been struck by lightning—not real lightning, of course, but just as loud and bright.

  The tornado simulator was way too realistic for Jane. To ride it, you buckled yourself into a seat and whirled into the air. Or at least that was how it felt. The girls were actually sitting still—only the view in front of them and the vibrations in the floor were changing—but the images on the screen were moving so fast that they were completely believable. The sound of the wind (actually coming from speakers) was so loud it made Jane dizzy. Luckily, no guard would be able to overhear it. The simulator—like all the other rides—was inside a soundproof booth. Lucy explained that this way the museum could still give tours when the rides were being operated.

  But Jane wasn’t sure what a guard would hear if she suddenly started screaming for help.

  Far below, or so it seemed, the girls could see the Missouri farmhouse where the “tornado” had touched down. Now they were moving toward it at terrifying speed. As the ground rushed up at them, Jane closed her eyes . . .

  And then everything was quiet. The floor stopped shaking. The ride was over.

  With trembling hands, Jane unbuckled her seat belt.

  “That was great. Now let’s go try One Fateful Day in Pompeii!” said Lucy.

  “What happened in Pompeii?” asked Daria.

  “You’ll see,” replied Lucy.

  “You two can go,” said Jane. Her legs didn’t feel too steady. “I’ll wait for you. Is there a Hall of Nice Weather anywhere around here?”

  Lucy laughed. “I don’t think so. Just go hang out in Colonial American Life—that’s next door. We’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

  Jane sighed with relief as she headed toward the Extreme Weather exit. When you’d been buried in quicksand and struck by lightning, Colonial American Life would make a nice change.

  The colonial galleries turned out to be very, very traditional, which was very, very soothing. Jane wandered happily through an exhibit about candle making and then turned her attention to a wall of samplers. Two hundred years ago, little girls had practiced their needlework by learning to make these samplers. They had cross-stitched wobbling alphabets or little pictures of chicks and flowers. One ambitious girl named Felicity Barrow had tried to stitch a picture of her baby sister. The baby’s head was shaped like a mushroom, but Jane—who had never even held a needle—thought Felicity deserved credit for trying.

  This is nice, Jane thought. It seemed so peaceful to think of girls her age working calmly away at their sewing.

  Then she saw the sampler in the next case.

  No pretty flowers here. This girl had stitched a tombstone, and she was much more talented at needlework than poor Felicity Barrow.

  It was a very detailed tombstone, in different shades of gray thread. And on it Jane read these words:

  Sacred to the memory of my classmate and friend

  Jerusha Partridge,

  who died May 19, 1791 in the 12th year of her age.

  Come hither, mortals, cast an eye

  Then go thy way—prepare to die.

  Think on thy doom, for yet thou must

  One day, like me, be turned to dust.

  Here rests my frame in this cold ground,

  Where all of you may soon be found.

  Death suddenly took hold of me,

  And so the case of you may be.

  Death gave to me a sudden call,

  I have obeyed and so must all.

&nb
sp; Death is a debt to Nature due

  Which I have paid—and so must you.

  Jane shivered. It was creepy to think of the death of a girl about her own age—and what kind of person put a tombstone on a sampler?

  She turned, startled, when Lucy tapped her on the shoulder. “Oh! It’s you!” Lucy and Daria were standing right behind her.

  “Who did you think it would be?” asked Lucy.

  Jane didn’t answer her.

  “Oh, right,” Lucy answered her own question. “The mummy. Well, it’s just us.”

  “What are you so interested in, anyway?” asked Daria.

  Jane gestured to the sampler.

  “That’s so sad!” said Lucy when she’d read it. But Daria was frowning.

  “Whoever wrote that poem should have made it shorter,” she said. “It just keeps saying the same thing over and over.”

  “That’s true,” Jane admitted. “Maybe she just liked to embroider letters. But it’s still sad.”

  “Oh well, it was a long time ago. Let’s not think about it anymore,” said Lucy. “Pompeii was great. We got away from the lava just in time. Let’s go see the dioramas.”

  The dioramas in the next gallery showed what family life in that area had been like two hundred years before. Life-size figures in old-fashioned clothes were posed in all kinds of settings. Daria wasn’t much interested, but Lucy and Jane pored over each new scene. In one, a girl untangled wool while her sister churned butter; in another, a man was tapping a maple tree for sap. A string of boys played crack-the-whip on a frozen pond, and a teacher who looked about their age was teaching in a one-room schoolhouse with six students. Pigs strolled through a diorama that showed what the center of town had looked like. It turned out that pigs in the street had been very common back then.

  Lucy’s favorite diorama featured a blacksmith shoeing a horse. Jane’s was a colonial kitchen where a woman was stirring an iron pot hanging on a fireplace hook. The kitchen looked smoky and dark but also cozy. Strings of onions and dried herbs were hanging on the wall, and in the corner a small black cat was dozing next to a baby’s cradle.

  As the girls were passing on to the next diorama—an old-fashioned barber shop—Lucy came to an abrupt stop.