The driver had been carefully unloading suitcases and he was already on the seventh one. “How long will you be staying?” Leo asked Mrs. Yancey, starting to worry the Yanceys might remain aboard for the summer.
“No greeting? No cold drink?” asked Mrs. Yancey. “Your standards are getting lower every time we visit. I’ll have to tell Hubby about that.”
Mr. Yancey appeared from inside the car dressed entirely in black, phone at his ear. He was still very bald, the sun gleaming off his head like everything above his eyebrows had been covered by a plastic sandwich bag. It was altogether possible that he was never off the phone.
“If I had a kid like Jane Yancey, I’d stay on the phone all day, too,” Remi whispered. “I bet there’s no one on the other end of that call.”
“You might be right,” Leo whispered back. So many bags! Twelve or more. The poor driver was sweating like a boxer in the tenth round, and the bags were winning.
“You’ll need to bring those up to the room,” said Mrs. Yancey, breezing past Leo and Remi into the cool of the hotel. It was unclear who she was talking to — the driver or the boys — but the driver wasn’t taking any chances. The Yanceys were clear of his car, and he knew them well enough to know he wasn’t going to get a tip.
“Bill my office,” Mr. Yancey said out of the side of his mouth, then he was back into the conversation he was having about layoffs in the Denver office. The limo sped away, leaving a pile of bags in its dust.
Leo was starting to wonder whether or not he could leave the running of the hotel to LillyAnn Pompadore and Mr. Phipps. What if something went wrong? Only Leo knew how to fix a broken pipe or an air-conditioning unit.
Mr. Yancey finished his call and looked at the hotel.
“I loathe the Whippet,” he said, without any concern over what Leo might think. Then he took in the whole of the property the Whippet sat on. It was enormous — an entire corner of a city block, and most of it was empty unless you included the pond, the grass, and the towering bushes carved into the shapes of animals. He looked at the property as if he wanted to own it, which was not surprising. Every zillionaire in New York wanted to own the land the Whippet sat on.
“Has she arrived yet?” asked Mr. Yancey. He’d been lost in a daze and didn’t realize what he’d asked until it was too late.
“Who, sir?” asked Leo.
“Yeah,” Remi added. “Who?”
Mr. Yancey looked at the pile of bags and then back at the two boys.
“Never mind. Just get the bags upstairs. I’ll wait outside and make a few calls. Better hurry. You don’t want to upset Nancy Yancey on a travel day.”
Leo and Remi each grabbed two heavy bags and carried them up the wide stairs to the double doors.
“Let’s get these bags delivered and find Betty,” said Leo. “I have a feeling something isn’t right. The sooner we figure out how to use that new key card, the better.”
As Mr. Yancey looked all around the property in every direction with an evil grin on his face, it was clear that Leo was right to worry. The only time Mr. Yancey smiled was when he was looking at something he might soon add to his empire.
The Whippet had always been exclusive and mysterious. It was never really meant to operate like a normal hotel with the burden of real guests. People like Theodore Bump and Captain Rickenbacker were fine. They took care of themselves, more or less. They understood the way of things at the Whippet. But once in a great while someone did have the money — like the Yanceys — and the unexpected interest — the Yanceys again — and the Whippet had to operate like an actual hotel.
“I tried to get rid of them, but Mrs. Yancey didn’t even flinch when I said the price per night had doubled,” Ms. Pompadore told Leo.
“At least we’ll make some money,” said Remi. “We could use it.”
“How long are they staying?” asked Leo.
“She wouldn’t say. And you know Mr. Yancey — he’s always on his phone. He just handed me a gold credit card and walked away.”
“Keep an eye on them, will you?” asked Leo. “Remi and I have something we need to do. It might take a while.”
“Yeah, like a week,” Remi murmured under his breath.
LillyAnn Pompadore took this as a joke and waved them away. She was fully capable of taking care of the hotel . . . as long as nothing big went wrong.
Finding Betty was easy, because it was a summer morning and all the ducks were swimming in the pond on the roof. It took some bread crumbs to lure her out of the water, and all six of the ducklings came along. They stared up at Remi when the crumbs were gone, and Remi dug into his red bellboy jacket pocket for more.
“I’m running a little low here,” he said. “I didn’t expect seven mouths to feed. Show her the card, quick.” Remi dropped another handful of crumbs and the ducklings fought over them as Betty looked on.
Leo whistled softly, holding the card out for Betty to see. When she noticed it, she honked loudly in Leo’s face.
“It’s working!” Leo said. Obviously Betty had seen the card before, because she was actually standing on Leo’s feet, trying to get a better look. “You know this card?” he asked, holding it a little bit closer as it changed colors in the sunlight. He held it too close, and Betty half flew, half jumped into the air and chomped down on the card. She got the card and Leo’s thumb, and Leo yelled, pulling his hand away.
Just that fast, Betty was now in possession of the key card Leo and Remi had been given, a card that was supposed to lead them to seven hundred thousand dollars and a dangerous adventure.
“Perfect,” said Remi. “She’s going to eat the key card!”
Betty couldn’t quack without letting go of the card, so she made an awful wheezing sound instead, like she’d swallowed a giant marble and couldn’t cough it up.
“This is bad,” said Remi. “First the Yanceys, now this.”
Leo shook the sting out of his thumb and moved in low, trying to coax the key card out of Betty’s mouth. The ducklings stared up at Remi, quacking excitedly for more crumbs. When Betty turned slightly to one side, Leo leapt toward her head, reached out, and grabbed for the card. Ducks are faster than they look, and the pond was closer than it seemed, so Leo missed the duck and landed facedown in the water. His maintenance overalls, with their many pockets and tools for carrying and fixing, were soaked.
“Come on!” Remi yelled. “She’s getting away!”
Betty was waddling quickly away from the water, but the ducklings were only interested in more bread crumbs. They were nipping at Remi’s pant legs, so he took the last of the bread crumbs and threw them into the pond. They passed Leo coming the other way and darted off in different directions before landing in the pond, swimming for crumbs.
“Run!” Leo said, passing Remi and grabbing him by his coat. “She’s heading for the duck elevator!”
Sure enough, that was exactly where Betty was going. It was a small elevator, barely big enough for two boys and a duck, and by the time Leo and Remi caught up to her, Betty was standing inside, staring at them both.
“We’ve got her cornered,” said Remi. He looked at Leo, then back at the duck. “She bites hard, huh?”
They both wondered if getting into a tiny space with Betty was a good idea or not. It might be the same as sitting in a car with a badger, something that would involve a lot of biting and screaming. Leo inched closer, talking softly to Betty, until his body blocked the door.
“They’re coming back,” said Remi, hearing the ducklings getting out of the water. “They eat like little horses!”
But Leo wasn’t listening. Betty had set the strange key card on the floor of the duck elevator and was pushing it toward him with her bill.
“Come on,” Leo said. “Let’s get in.”
“Wait, what? Are you crazy?” Remi complained. “She’ll duck-bill us to death.”
Leo crouched low and sat inside with Betty, staring at the card but not picking it up.
“There’s not goin
g to be room in here for both of us and seven ducks,” Leo said. “Get in here!”
Remi looked at the ducklings. They were eager for more food and, actually, they weren’t that small anymore. They were growing up fast. If they got him on the ground, Remi imagined, the six of them could really do some damage.
“Move over,” he said, squeezing in next to Leo. Betty stared at them both, then at the ducklings, then honked in Leo’s face. Her breath smelled like pond water.
“I think she wants you to shut the door,” Remi said. He was intuitive with animals that way, always had been. “She wants a break.”
And it was true. The ducklings weren’t as young as they’d once been. They were demanding, and Betty did like the idea of getting away for an hour, a day, maybe even a week.
“It’s not like they won’t get fed,” Leo said, thinking it through. There were mechanical feeders on the roof that filled with orange pellets twice a day. The ducklings would be fine.
“Let’s do it,” said Remi.
As soon as Remi closed the door, he pulled the down lever and the duck elevator began its leisurely descent to the lobby of the hotel. It was a magnificently slow elevator.
Betty turned away from both boys, staring into a corner, and for a moment Leo thought she was either sad or angry. He was dangerously close to the back end of a duck in a very small space. It was terrifying.
“How much do you trust this duck?” Remi asked.
“Not that much,” Leo answered. “She can be unpredictable.”
Leo carefully picked up the key card and turned it in his hands. He’d fallen asleep the night before doing the same thing, trying to find a clue to its secrets. It was dimly lit in the duck elevator, but he saw the same patterns of color in the card. Blues and purples, reds and greens, appearing in a line down the long end of the card, kind of like the bar on the back of a credit card, the one you swipe through a machine to pay for groceries.
“What’s she doing?” Remi asked, peering like a mind reader around Betty’s feathery rear end, up her long neck, and into the very thoughts of the duck itself. She was staring at the corner of the duck elevator, as if there should be something there. She was completely still, focused.
“Let me see that card,” Remi said, and Leo handed it to him. They were only halfway to the lobby and Leo was already getting tired of the thick smell of wet duck.
“I see what Betty is staring at,” Remi went on, gently reaching over Betty’s head and placing the edge of the card into the top corner of the elevator. It had seemed like a normal corner, but it was not. There was a thin gap there, about double the length of the long edge of the card. Without thinking twice, Remi inserted the card and swiped downward slowly. As he did, the elevator walls changed — they danced with color! — and Betty quacked and hopped up and down excitedly. When Remi pulled the card out, Betty backed up, crowding the boys into corners of their own. She was hogging the very center, staring down. The walls of the elevator returned to the milk-chocolaty color they had been. For a few seconds, nothing else happened. But then the soft sound of the elevator moving came to an end.
They had stopped.
This, in and of itself, was not that unusual. Leo had stopped the elevator many times and gotten out into secret passageways that ran between the floors. The same door they’d entered would open, and out he would go. But this time it was different, because a different place opened than had ever opened before. Or at least Leo had never seen it happen.
A wall simply dropped down, like it was on rollers that let it slide below the elevator. This was unfortunate for Remi, because he was leaning against it. Remi was a little bit on the round side, and before Leo could get over the fact that a wall of the duck elevator was no longer there, Remi was falling backward through the opening.
Leo was a lighter boy by almost half, but he grabbed Remi by the ankles, hoping he could somehow hold on. Remi’s tube socks rolled down in Leo’s hands until his fingers reached the shoes and the shoes popped off like two bottle caps.
“Oh no!” Leo yelled. For a split second he thought he’d gained a brother only to lose him one day later in a horrible elevator accident. But then Betty jumped through the opening, too, and Leo heard the sound of a duck bill chomping on something crunchy. Maybe the duck elevator was closer to the bottom of the hotel than Leo had thought. He peered slowly over the edge and found Remi and Betty four or five feet below. Both of them were eating.
It’s a known fact that Whippet Hotel ducks love animal crackers more than any other treat. And Remi liked them, too. They’d landed in what appeared to be a separate shaft, next to the duck elevator and filled with animal crackers. Remi dug deep and threw handfuls up into the air. The crackers rained down on Betty, who caught one on the drop and swallowed it whole.
“I thought I was a goner there for a second,” said Remi, popping a crunchy, monkey-shaped cracker into his mouth. “Best cookies ever.”
“No wonder Betty wanted to come in here.” Leo smiled. “She must have known about the card and the cookies.”
“C’mon down, there’s something you should see.” Remi’s words were garbled because his mouth was so full.
Leo wasn’t so sure about leaving the safety of the elevator. What if it left without them? How long could they live on animal crackers with no milk to wash them down?
Instead, Leo hung his head into the open space, the blob of curly hair on his head nearly reaching the pile of cookies below. He saw what Remi saw, only upside down.
There were two slots in the bottom of the elevator, like the ones on a hotel door where a key card could be inserted to unlock the door. To the right of each slot was a symbol. The symbols were these:
A tree
A glass beaker
“What’s this do?” Remi asked, reaching toward something that was on the wall.
“No, don’t!” Leo said. He was worried the button Remi was reaching toward might send the elevator wall back up and cut him right in two, like a magic trick gone terribly wrong. But Leo was too late to stop Remi and his insatiable curiosity.
Leo closed his eyes, waiting for the wall to slam into his chest, but instead he heard a familiar voice.
Merganzer D. Whippet was back.
“Don’t let Betty eat too much or she’ll throw up in the duck elevator. And I hope you brought gloves. If you haven’t . . . actually, never mind. It will be fine.”
It was Merganzer’s voice, but he wasn’t there. The voice had the scratchy sound of a recording, and Merganzer was acting distracted, like he was doing nine things at once and his mind was only partly on the task of leaving a message. There was a pause in which Merganzer yelled something out of range, probably to Mr. Powell.
Leo dropped his arms over the edge and craned his neck so he could look at Remi. He pointed to one of his hands. What did he mean about the gloves? Leo said with his eyes and his hands, but Remi just shrugged, picked up a handful of animal crackers, and set them in Leo’s outstretched hand. Betty stole one with her lightning-fast bill. She was eating a lot.
“Can’t talk long, much to do!” Merganzer’s voice was back. He was always busy, but Merganzer D. Whippet was never specific about anything he was doing, only that it was all very important and there was never enough time.
“If you’re not Leo and Remi, then you’ve gotten extremely lost in the hotel. Push the green lever down. And never get in a tiny elevator again.”
Merganzer started banging on something Leo and Remi couldn’t see. It sounded like he was hammering dents out of a car door, waiting patiently for someone to leave in case the card had fallen into the wrong hands. Remi was slowly reaching for a green lever, but Leo slapped his hand away just in time.
“Are you nuts? The floor probably falls out and sends you, Betty, and ten thousand animal crackers down a twisting slide going a million miles an hour!”
Remi liked the sound of that and began reaching for the green lever again.
“Not funny,” Leo said, but he
couldn’t help smiling. Remi was the most curious kid in the world. He was the best.
Merganzer’s voice resumed. “Now listen carefully, both of you. No more dilly-dally, no more fiddle-fuddle. All business! The card will work for the first subbasement — the one with the tree. The other key you’ll have to get along the way. Visit the floors in order; it’s the only way. You’ll find the money and some other items I’m in desperate need of. You must bring these items back to me! Ask for them by name: four Floogers, a zip rope, and the iron box. Can you remember? You WILL remember! Say it once more.”
Remi was like a zombie on cue: “Two flumpers, a burp bag, and the ironing board.”
“Excellent!” said Merganzer’s voice.
Leo rolled his eyes as he tried to reach out and grab Betty but missed. She was really eating a lot of animal crackers and he wished he could get her back up in the duck elevator so she’d stop.
“Everything will be fine, just fine,” Merganzer’s voice said, which meant he had no idea how things were going to go. “You can get more fuses from Dr. Flart — he should have a few of them lying around. And if you’re really in a pinch, ask Ingrid — she’s got one. Also, Blop has one of the special fuses inside him. Just take off his head.”
“Fuses?” Leo said.
“Who’s Flart?” Remi said. “And who’s Ingrid? And what’s this business about taking Blop’s head off?”
Remi reached his hand into a place under the elevator Leo couldn’t see while Leo considered the situation. Maybe the duck elevator had blown a fuse he didn’t know about. As a second-generation maintenance man, his mechanical brain was spinning with ideas when Remi held out his hand.
“He must mean this.”
This time, Remi wasn’t holding an animal cracker. Instead he held a glass tube the size of a roll of pennies. It had a series of twisting red and green wires inside and metal caps on each end.
Floors #2: 3 Below Page 3
