“Which button did she push?” Remi whispered. Leo elbowed him in the shoulder as the bottle arrived in front of Clyde. The mechanical dog picked up the bottle between her wide metal jaws and carried it to the cylinder. Clyde beeped loudly and the man reached back his hand without turning around. A moment later he stood, banged his head on the edge of the cylinder door, and took a closer look at the bottle through the thickest pair of glasses Leo had ever seen.
“I specifically asked for grape, did I not?”
Clyde beeped and shook her head back and forth.
“No, no. I did, I said grape. I’m sure of it.”
He leaned forward, setting the cap of the bottle between Clyde’s metal teeth, as if he were about to use the Franken-dog as a bottle opener.
And that’s when the man saw Blop.
“What do we have here?” Dr. Flart said curiously, squinting his eyes through his thick glasses. “Is that? No, no — it can’t be.”
“Hello, Dr. Flart. It’s been a while,” Blop said.
Dr. Flart looked confused, scratching the wild tuft of white hair on top of his head.
“So it has,” he said at length. “So it has, indeed.”
He popped the cap off the bottle of Flart’s Fizz and Clyde’s head spun in a circle, steam pouring out everywhere, beeping like a lunatic robot. Dr. Flart didn’t pay any attention. Instead he guzzled every last drop from the bottle in one continuous monster glug. He got a funny look on his face, shook his head back and forth, and then let out the puniest of burps. It barely made a sound.
“Another dud,” he said, setting the glass bottle on the metal table with a clang. “Two in one day. What are the odds?”
“I didn’t come down here on purpose,” Blop complained. He was in an irritable mood, probably because of all the body blows at Clyde’s doghouse. “Those two idiots brought me.”
“Two idiots, you say?” Dr. Flart swung his head around as he took in the whole of his laboratory.
“Over here,” Leo said halfheartedly, stepping out of the shadows and pulling Remi along by his red jacket.
Dr. Flart weaved back and forth, ducking under a low beam as he moved cautiously toward Leo and Remi. He was thin and wiry, pushing seven feet tall, and he leaned down with his hands folded behind his back when he arrived within a foot of the boys.
“I’m a fan of your drink,” Remi said.
“Wherever did you get one?” asked Dr. Flart. He didn’t wait for an answer. “And what are you doing in my dungeon?”
“Merganzer sent us,” Leo said before Remi could start asking for more bottles of Flart’s Fizz. “And we got the drinks from Ingrid, upstairs.”
“In the Jungle Room,” Remi added.
Dr. Flart had gone a little soft in the face somewhere in the middle of all this, his eyes drooping and gigantic behind his glasses.
“Merganzer D. Whippet, the one and only,” he said.
“Yes, that’s the one,” Leo said with a smile. “He asked us to gather some things for him, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“Ingrid gave us the zip rope,” Remi explained, nodding with pride.
Dr. Flart stood straight up and banged his head on one of the beams.
“You should move some of those things,” Remi said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Keeps me alert, agile. But it’s a thought.”
Dr. Flart seemed to be seriously contemplating the idea of removing some of the lower beams as he looked around his work space.
“We were wondering,” Leo said nervously, unsure if he should ask, “you see, we’re on a tight schedule, and there are some things we’re looking for. . . .”
Dr. Flart held the watch on his wrist extremely close to his face, clapped his hands twice, and walked away. He shouted over his shoulder as his white lab coat trailed behind him.
“Come along, time to eat! We’ll get this all straightened out over dinner.”
Remi and Leo were famished . . . but they were also nervous about going too deep into the dungeon, away from the door that would lead them back out. Still, the idea that dinner might include Flart’s Fizz and all kinds of other fantastical menu items was enough to get them both moving as Clyde went ahead, encouraging them along.
“You don’t really think we’re idiots, do you, Blop?” Remi asked as Clyde bounced up and down, hitting Blop’s head on one of the beams as they went. Clyde didn’t seem to notice.
“Don’t answer that,” Leo said, and they kept walking until they reached a corner that turned to the left. Inside sat a large table, and around the table, all kinds of strange containers bubbling and frothing with foam and goop.
But it was the walls that made Leo and Remi stop in their tracks. They were very high, thirty feet or more. And the walls were something altogether more dungeonlike: scary, creepy, weird.
All around them — the floor, the ceiling, the walls — was clear glass.
And behind the glass, tons and tons of dirt.
And in the dirt, many, many tunnels big enough for Leo to crawl through.
And in the tunnels, ants.
BIG ants.
Bigger than rats.
Bigger than Clyde.
Bigger than Remi!
I call this stuff Glooooob,” Dr. Flart said. He had the handle of what appeared to be a gas-station tire pump in his hand. There was a long clear tube behind him full of something green and gloppy-looking. The handle had a thumb depressor, and Dr. Flart pushed it, sending a bright green stream of Glooooob sailing through the air.
“I’m going in!” Remi yelled — his fear of giant, man-eating ants wasn’t enough to keep him out of a room filling up with crazy green Glooooob. Clyde bounced up onto the table as Dr. Flart hosed her down with Glooooob, then he pointed the hose into his own mouth and glugged four or five mouthfuls.
He stopped spraying Glooooob and smacked his lips a few times.
“Sour,” he said, “like Pixy Stix. I might have over-cooked it just a tad.”
“Sour like Pixy Stix?” Remi said, and then Dr. Flart shot him in the face with the Glooooob and Remi had his first taste of something so delicious, he couldn’t put words to it.
“Get in here, Leo! It’s better than the Cake Room in the hotel!”
Leo reluctantly took two steps into the room, and Dr. Flart blasted his curly head of hair with Glooooob. Some of it ran down Leo’s face and into his mouth, and that was all it took to get Leo into the action.
Glooooob was sour, sweet, syrupy, sparkling perfection.
And the best part? What didn’t get eaten bubbled and fizzled and poof! It was gone.
“Dr. Flart, you’re a genius!” Remi said.
“So I’ve been told. Try this one.”
And so they went from tube to tube, showering one another and the room with every color of the rainbow. After a while they calmed down a little bit, sat in the chairs, and each held a different tube.
“Which one is this again?” Remi said, shooting Leo in the face.
“That’s the Flooooob,” Dr. Flart said. “The blue one is the Zooooob, blueberry bubble gum fizz, my personal favorite. I like to get my fruits at least once a day.”
“How’d you make this stuff?” Leo asked. It was awfully tasty, and the way it vanished like Flart’s Fizz made him like it even more. No cleanup.
“Simple molecular gastronomy, my boy. Nothing to it,” said Dr. Flart, and then he shot Remi square in the chest with a bubbling stream of pink Flooooob.
“Cotton candy!” Remi howled. He was in heaven.
It was a lot of fun, but Leo had been watching the ants and thinking about Mr. Carp and Ms. Sparks and the hotel and the things he should have been getting. He was more of a worrier than Remi was.
“Dr. Flart, can I ask you now about the things we need?” Leo interrupted. “And about the ants? They’re big.”
Dr. Flart and Remi stopped laughing and carrying on.
“Don’t worry about the ants — they can’t get out. Unless I
let them out.”
Leo gulped. “But you’re not going to do that, right? I mean, you don’t have to walk them or feed them or anything? They stay in there?”
“That they do. They have a purpose, you see. But I’m guessing you already know that.”
Merganzer hadn’t said anything about giant ants or Glooooob or a lot of things. Remi shot Leo in the ear with Flooooob, then stuffed the tube down Leo’s maintenance overalls and kept filling them up until his stomach stuck out like a giant balloon.
“Ha ha ha,” Leo said, punching himself in the stomach and sending Flooooob into the air like giant globs of pink shaving cream. Seconds later, it was gone, fizzled away into thin air.
“What we need,” Leo said, “are four Floogers and the iron box.”
Dr. Flart had just taken a huge tap hit of Zooooob and he sprayed it in Leo’s general direction.
“Four Floogers and the iron box?” he said, clearly upset. “Are you sure that’s what Merganzer asked for? Not something else?”
Leo was starting to wonder about the Floogers and the box. Ingrid had reacted in pretty much the same way.
“That’s what he said, I’m sure. Ask Remi, he’ll tell you.”
“It’s true,” Remi said. “And a six-pack of Flart’s Fizz.”
“Remi.” Leo’s eyes narrowed.
“Okay, I made that part up. He wants a case. No wait, ten cases!”
Leo rolled his eyes and Remi laughed.
“Four Floogers,” Dr. Flart mused to himself. He stood up. “And the iron box? Something big is happening. Something huge.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Leo asked. “What’s Merganzer got you doing down here?”
Dr. Flart shook his head as if he’d been dreaming and touched the wall of glass where a four-feet-long ant was crawling by.
“Merganzer D. Whippet is my benefactor. In other words, he pays for everything. He set this laboratory in motion.”
There was a sadness in his voice, like something terrible was about to happen to his work.
“What’s wrong, Dr. Flart?” Remi asked.
Clyde made a series of sad beeping sounds.
“It’s just . . . well, I’ve been working for a long time. But it appears my work may have come to an end.”
“No way!” Remi said. “You’ve got to make more gastromagical stuff! You can’t stop now!”
“My dear boy, I’m afraid this is all just for fun, to pass the time. The real work has been done for months.”
“The Floogers and the iron box?”
Dr. Flart nodded slowly, looking in at the ants once more.
“Tell us, Dr. Flart. What’s a Flooger?” Leo asked.
“And what’s the iron box for?” Remi added, his mood shifting as things turned more serious.
“It’s a lot of power. And a place to put something very dangerous.”
Leo thought about this for a moment. A lot of power. Ingrid had said that, too.
Dr. Flart started walking back and forth rapidly, his hands waving around as he talked to himself, working something out in his head.
“What’s he doing?” Remi asked.
“Did he say how long?” Dr. Flart interrupted. “How much time do I have?”
“He didn’t say exactly. But there’s another problem, too.”
Leo proceeded to tell Dr. Flart about the seven million dollars in back taxes, Ms. Sparks, all the bad news.
“That does complicate things,” Dr. Flart said. “We can’t lose the hotel — that would be a disaster. And there’s only one place you can find that much money in a hurry.”
“A bank?” Remi asked.
“Okay, there are two places.”
“Fort Knox?” Remi asked.
“Okay, three — but seven million that belongs to Merganzer D. Whippet — that kind of money can only be found if you go deeper.”
“Deeper,” Leo said. “Like where the gears are?”
“Yes, where the gears are. Only one person can run the gears, and I haven’t seen him in a very long time.”
“Who? Merganzer?” Remi was bursting with curiosity.
“Don’t worry about that now — we’ve got real work to do!”
And with that, Dr. Flart was down on his knees, tinkering with something near the floor.
“Clyde! Pronto!” he yelled.
Clyde leapt off the table in one bounce and landed at Dr. Flart’s side.
“Screwdriver!” Dr. Flart yelled.
Three jets of steam shot out of Clyde’s head and her right leg came up. Dr. Flart grabbed the leg, turned it, and yanked it off.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Remi said, but Clyde only beeped and whirled and steamed.
“She’s fine,” Blop said. “But you should know something.”
“Crowbar!” Dr. Flart yelled. He stuck the leg back on Clyde, turned her in a circle, and yanked it back off again. The end was a Phillips screwdriver.
“Does this look like a crowbar to you?” Dr. Flart scolded Clyde. Clyde beeped in a way that sounded nervous. The leg went back on.
“Crowbar!”
“What should we know?” Leo asked Blop. Dr. Flart was acting more like a mad scientist with every passing second, and Leo remembered Ingrid’s warning: He’s . . . unpredictable.
“He’s opening it up,” Blop said.
“Opening what up?” Remi asked. Even he was starting to get nervous.
“The ant farm. He’s definitely opening the ant farm.”
Dr. Flart was leaning hard into Clyde’s crowbar leg, which was wedged into a crack in the glass. He was putting all his weight into it.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Dr. Flart?” Remi asked. “Maybe we should have a soda, think about this a little more, really weigh our options.”
“Stand back!” Dr. Flart said.
A small square of glass popped free and dirt trickled out onto the floor. Dr. Flart put his head into the opening. Remi and Leo could hear his voice echoing inside the ant farm.
“Yooooohoooooo. Anyone in there?”
A pile of dirt fell into his substantial head of white hair.
“He’s lost his marbles,” Blop said. “We’re in big trouble.”
“Nonsense,” Dr. Flart said, pulling his head out and shaking the dirt free like a wet dog just out of the bathtub. “All is as it should be. I’ll need a volunteer.”
Dr. Flart put Clyde’s leg back on and twisted it into place.
“No one?” he asked, standing at his full height and staring down at the boys.
Leo and Remi both backed up a few steps.
“Oh, come now,” he said, reaching under the table to a compartment Remi and Leo couldn’t see. “The ants aren’t that big.”
Leo tried to remember everything he’d ever learned about ants. He seemed to recall that they could lift twenty times their own body weight.
“How much do they weigh?” Leo asked, gulping as Dr. Flart opened the secret door under the table and dry ice steamed out.
“Each one weighs 46.938 pounds,” Blop said. “A rough estimate, mind you.”
Leo tried to do the math. Forty-seven times twenty.
Almost a thousand pounds.
Dr. Flart pulled out three bottles of Flart’s Fizz and set them on the table. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out golf tees, gum balls, and a bottle opener.
“There we are,” he said. “You’re all set.”
Remi was mesmerized by the Flart’s Fizz. He was head over heels for the stuff, and Dr. Flart could tell.
“It’s decided, then. Clyde will guide you through the ant farm to retrieve the Floogers while I take Leo into the lab for some very important work.”
“Wait,” Remi said, looking at the faces all around him. “You mean me?”
“Did you know an ant the size of a human can run as fast as a racehorse?” Blop asked. He went on an ant-fact tirade that included way more information than Remi wanted to know.
“Not to worry, my boy!”
Dr. Flart said, yelling over the top of Blop’s voice. “They have a mortal fear of loud noises. All you have to do is guzzle one of these if you see one coming toward you and they’ll run for cover.”
Dr. Flart picked up the bottles and set them into Remi’s red jacket pockets. He put the bottle opener, which was tied to a string, around Remi’s neck, slapped him hard on the shoulder, and bid him good-bye.
“Off with you! Clyde will show you the way. Oh — and don’t touch both ends of a Flooger at the same time.”
“Why not?” Remi asked nervously.
“You’ll act as a conductor if you do that.”
Dr. Flart looked at Remi, who was staring back blankly, as if he didn’t understand.
“There’s enough juice in one Flooger to light all of New York City for several days. You don’t want that kind of power going live between your fingers. Based on my calculations, you’d instantly turn to dust.”
“And we don’t want that,” Leo said.
“No, not that. That would be bad,” Remi mumbled. It was all too much for Remi to calculate — the ants, the Floogers, the Flart’s Fizz. He was in a nearly speechless daze.
Not so for Dr. Flart, who was full of energy and chatter, like there was a big, complicated experiment about to be done and he was in charge of all the details. He pushed Leo along, out into the laboratory, and Remi was left alone with Clyde and Blop in the dining room.
“He’s right, you know,” Blop said. “Merganzer designed it that way. Giant ants hate loud noises. The Fizz will protect you, I’m sure of it.”
Clyde was staring into the hole, making a mechanical barking sound.
“See there?” Blop said from his perch on Clyde’s back. “No ants. They don’t like loud noises, just like Dr. Flart said.”
Remi looked up the sides of the high glass walls. There were ants in there, lots of them, moving in the vast system of tunnels that ran overhead, underfoot, in every space of the wall. But it was true, none of the ants was anywhere near Clyde. They’d all moved away at the puny sound of her barking. Remi imagined what they’d do if he blasted a monster burp in their direction.
Floors #2: 3 Below Page 10
