“Amazing stuff,” he said. “I wish I’d invented it. Or Post-it Notes. That was a biggie.”
He held the iron box wrapped in silver tape out to Leo. Leo was nervous to take it, but besides the money, it was the last thing on Merganzer’s list. He reached out and let Dr. Flart hand it over.
“But it’s not possible,” Leo said, smiling from ear to ear at the weight of the iron box. It was light as a feather.
“You two keep saying that,” Dr. Flart said dreamily. “One day, you’ll believe: Everything is possible. Only the limit of your imagination can stop you.”
The iron box should have weighed at least ten or fifteen pounds, but Leo felt that he could let it go and it would almost float on the air like a balloon. It was practically weightless. The Wyro hummed quietly inside, and the iron box felt warm.
“It’s out of my hands now,” Dr. Flart said. He walked excitedly across the room, picked up a cheap plastic box used for holding index cards, and popped it open. There were at least a hundred cards in there. As Dr. Flart pulled out the front card, Remi saw that it was covered in small handwriting and diagrams.
“Oh, this does look interesting,” Dr. Flart said. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
Dr. Flart put the plastic box away, but he kept the card. He was completely overcome with his new assignment as Remi and Leo took off their yellow coats and welding helmets. They felt a sense of awe at Dr. Flart’s single-mindedness. It was as if they no longer existed.
“Good-bye, Dr. Flart,” Leo said as they came to the door of the dungeon that would lead them out. He stopped what he was doing, turned to them, and waved. He didn’t speak, only looked at them in a way that made them sad and happy at the same time. He was so very excited to work on something new, but he was alone, or so it seemed until Clyde came bouncing back into the laboratory.
“Clyde!” Dr. Flart said. “I’m going to need at least three hundred brass tacks. And some of those corn nuts. And a hammer!”
Clyde bounded through the laboratory as Leo and Remi slipped through the door. Blop was waiting for them on the other side.
“The next time you decide to come down here,” he said, “will you do me a favor and forget to bring me along? My head is killing me.”
“But wasn’t it exciting?” Remi said. “The ants and the Flooooob and — just all of it. I hope we do come back. And soon.”
“There’s something you should know,” Blop continued as he rolled toward the duck elevator, which stood open.
“Don’t tell me,” Leo said. “You’re going to miss Clyde after all?”
Blop rolled into the duck elevator and turned to face Leo and Remi.
“Mr. Carp has vanished.”
Leo had a lot of pockets in his maintenance overalls. They came in many sizes and shapes for holding things like nails, bolts, air conditioner parts, plumbing wrenches, elbow pipes, doorknobs, and faucet plugs. There was one pocket in particular, large and empty, low on one leg, that was perfect for the iron box. It fit like a glove.
“Just make sure it doesn’t fall out,” Remi said, tapping the pockets on his red doorman’s jacket. “The nice thing about these is the flaps. They hold everything in, like Floogers.”
“We’ve got bigger problems right now,” Leo said. They’d opened the trapdoor in the duck elevator and Leo was peering into the open shaft above. “Blop was right. He’s gone.”
“How did you know he wasn’t there before we opened the door?” Remi asked. Blop was in one of his pockets, where he liked it best.
“I yelled for him and he didn’t answer. Either he was asleep or he was gone. I deduced he was gone based on the lack of space up there. According to my calculations . . .”
Blop went on and on about sleeping standing up, sleeping sitting down, and the decibel level of his own tinny voice, but Leo and Remi didn’t pay any attention. They were busy climbing out of the duck elevator to have a look at where Mr. Carp could have gone.
“He’d have to be a monkey to climb out through the shaft,” Leo said, which got Remi worrying about Loopa. “Don’t start,” Leo added before Remi could start in about the monkey. “You shouldn’t have borrowed Loopa to begin with. I’m sure she’s safe and sound in the Flying Farm Room.”
He pulled Remi up through the opening and they both stood in the small space while Remi complained about Jane Yancey, the worst monkey babysitter on the planet.
The cable for the duck elevator went straight up into darkness. There were wooden plank walls on four sides, like a mine shaft, and Leo began banging on them one by one. When he got to the fourth wall, it sounded hollow, like there was nothing behind it.
“Can you turn Blop upside down?” Leo whispered.
Blop was right in the middle of a long-winded stretch having to do with how the brain operates when it’s sleeping. Without waiting for the sentence to finish, Remi turned the little robot upside down in his pocket.
“That is one talkative robot,” Leo said. “I don’t know how you can stand it sometimes.”
“You’ve obviously never been a doorman at the Whippet. It’s insanely boring. I learn all sorts of great stuff from Blop.”
“Shhhhh,” Leo said. “We need to be quiet. There could be anything behind this wall.”
Leo gently pushed on the wall of wooden planks. It didn’t require much effort, and the wall swung in. The squeak echoed down a long dirt-walled corridor behind the door.
“Cool,” Remi said, peering in over Leo’s shoulder.
The way down was lit by yellow lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, each one leaving a drop of pale light on the brown surface below.
“Maybe we should go back up first,” Leo whispered. “I mean, we have everything Merganzer asked for.”
“Everything but the money,” Remi corrected.
“But he didn’t ask for that — Ms. Sparks did. I don’t think he even knows about that.”
Remi shrugged. He didn’t know what they should do.
“If Mr. Carp is down here, we should find him. He could be in trouble.”
“Yeah, it’s true. I feel bad we left him here all alone. If there’s danger down there, he doesn’t stand a chance.”
Mr. Carp certainly had struck them both as a witless wonder. Sure, he could track Leo and Remi, but other than that, Mr. Carp seemed far more suited to pushing papers across a desk in a cubicle than going on an underground adventure where hazards lurked around every corner.
“Okay,” Leo said, touching his maintenance overalls where he’d placed the iron box. “Just be careful not to lose a Flooger, and I’ll be careful, too.”
“You first, I’ll follow,” Remi said. Leo looked at him sideways. “You know,” Remi added. “In case someone comes up behind us and tries to hit us with a baseball bat. I’ve got your back, bro.”
Leo wasn’t buying it, but at least he’d talked Remi into going with him. They stepped off of the duck elevator onto cold, packed dirt. The way down was steeper than it had looked, the angle pulling them both against their will. It was like running down a mountain trail: walking, then jogging, then realizing it won’t be easy to slow down with the dirt crumbling underfoot and the path getting steeper and steeper.
“Whoa!” Leo yelled, trying to stop short. He’d been moving way too fast with Remi far too close behind, and suddenly the way down changed from a sloping path to a long flight of stairs. Leo stopped in time, but Remi didn’t, bashing into him from behind and sending them both tumbling head over heels. When they landed at the bottom, bruised but unbroken, they started yelling:
“Check the Floogers!”
“Where’s the iron box?”
“Blop? Blop, are you okay?”
They stood up, dazed and worried, and found the iron box lodged in a corner. Blop was still asleep, purring softly, so Remi didn’t wake him. And the Floogers were unbroken.
“It’s a small miracle everything is still okay,” Remi said. “Close call.”
“Thanks for having my back. Th
at was spectacular,” Leo complained.
“You stopped without warning me!” Remi protested. “It wasn’t my fault.”
Both boys kicked the dirt, standing as far away from each other as they could in the landing space. The stairs continued down, but neither of them was ready to keep going yet. They hadn’t had a good fight since officially becoming brothers, so maybe they were due. And the situation was becoming more dire by the second, so tensions were running high. Leo, in particular, was starting to feel the pressure.
“I wonder what Ms. Sparks is doing to my hotel,” he asked, staring at the wall. “I wish she’d just leave us alone.”
Remi could hear the anxiety in his brother’s voice, and it worried him. He knew one thing for sure: If Leo fell apart, the hotel was in real trouble.
“Listen to me, Leo,” Remi said. He took Leo by the shoulder and spun him around, staring right into his eyes. “The Whippet is your hotel, not hers. She hasn’t got a chance against us. Think about it. We’ve been through jungles and dungeons and we’ve burped our brains out for the hotel. We love the hotel! She can’t win.”
“And we’ve battled giant ants,” Leo said, feeling a little better.
“And shot each other with Zooooob!”
“And borrowed a monkey tail!” Leo said.
“Actually, I don’t think we’re giving that back, but still, you’re right. We got a super-elastic monkey tail!”
“Come on, Remi,” Leo said. “Let’s find Mr. Carp and get back up there. This is our hotel, and we’re not letting Ms. Sparks get her hands on it.”
“Our hotel?” Remi said. He was astonished. It had never, ever occurred to him that Leo might see things that way. Remi was just happy to have a job and a place to sleep.
Leo grabbed Remi by the shoulder. “Yeah, our hotel. And we’re going to save it together.”
Remi beamed, looked down the flight of stairs, and took the lead the rest of the way down.
“Don’t follow too close,” he called back. “I might stop short. And if someone comes up behind you —”
“I’ll have your back,” Leo said, finishing Remi’s sentence for him.
The way down started to have fewer lightbulbs the farther they went. First there had been one every ten feet, then every twenty. But as they approached a landing and a turn, they peered around and saw only one dim bulb, way off in the distance, at least fifty feet away. Everything in between was pitch-dark.
“This is bad,” Remi said.
“Mr. Carp?” Leo called. Then louder, “Are you there, Mr. Carp?”
There was no answer. Staring out into the blackness, Leo had to agree with Remi.
“You’re right,” he told his brother. “This is bad.”
The one lightbulb looked like a single, faraway star in an otherwise black sky. They couldn’t see the floor out there, and for all they knew, it fell away into a thousand-foot shaft they couldn’t see.
“Hang on,” Remi said, pulling out one of the four Floogers and holding it out in front of him. It radiated a faint blue light, electricity flowing back and forth under the glass, but it only showed them an extra few feet. He pulled the others out, holding all four together, but still, the darkness swallowed up most of what the Floogers had to offer in the way of light.
“I have an idea,” Leo said. He took the iron box out of his maintenance overalls and started unwrapping it.
“I’m not sure Dr. Flart would approve,” Remi said. “That thing is radioactive.”
But Leo kept at it, pulling duct tape away like he was peeling a banana. He was careful not to remove the lid as he came to the last of the tape, letting it hang loosely along the sides of the iron box.
“Ready?” Leo asked.
“Not really.”
Leo held the edge of the box, slowly turning the lid. Light burst forth, filling the space between where they stood and the faraway bulb. The Wyro began to shake and the iron box started getting heavier.
“It’s clear, just a path!” Remi said, but Leo wasn’t listening. The iron box had suddenly gotten so heavy, he couldn’t hold it up any longer. He fell to the ground, the iron box pinning his hand to the dirt.
“Leo!” Remi yelled. “Close it!”
“I’m trying! It wants to come out!”
Leo was pushing down on the lid, which was also pushing down on his pinned hand, but the lid wasn’t budging. There was still a crack where brilliant light burst out.
“I got this!” Remi screamed, putting his foot on the lid. His foot was also on Leo’s hand. Between Remi’s full weight and the weight of the iron box, Leo’s pinned fingers were screaming with pain. It felt a lot like the time he’d gotten his fingers closed in a car door, but he didn’t cry out. He kept his cool as the iron box closed shut and the light vanished.
“Okay, don’t get off yet,” Leo said through clinched teeth. “Let me slide my hand out from under your foot.”
Remi was balancing with one hand against the wall. His other hand was busy putting the four Floogers back in his red jacket pocket. Leo slowly worked his fingers out from between Remi’s doorman shoe and the iron box, then held the loose duct tape at the ready. Remi spun in a circle like a ballerina as he stood on the iron box, screwing it into place.
Leo’s other hand was still pinned between the iron box and the ground, and Remi was still standing on the iron box.
“On the count of three, jump, then land again,” Leo instructed. “Can you do that?”
“I can do it, but it’s going to hurt.”
Leo just shook his head. It was the only way. The Wyro was capable of unscrewing the lid if they didn’t secure it with tape.
“One, two, three!”
Remi jumped, Leo wrapped one strip of silver duct tape over the lid, and Remi landed back on the iron box.
“Okay, that hurt a little bit,” Leo said. “One more time and we should have it secured for sure.”
“Are you sure you can do this?” Remi asked. He felt awful having to jump up and down on Leo’s hand.
“One, two, three!” Leo said without answering, and Remi jumped. Leo wrapped another thick strip of duct tape over the iron box, then told Remi to get off his hand.
The box was weightless once more, but Leo didn’t move his injured hand until he and Remi had completely wrapped the box up again.
“You okay?” Remi asked, holding the featherlight box as Leo squeezed his fingers in and out of a fist.
“Nothing’s broken, but wow, that hurt. I think I’m going to have some bruises.”
“Better put this away,” Remi said. “That Wyro is serious business.”
“Thank goodness for duct tape.”
Both boys looked out in the direction of the soft yellow light and started walking. It was a long way, farther than it had looked, and at the end, under the bulb, there was a door with a message stenciled in black paint:
WHIPPET PROPERTY.
DO NOT ENTER.
DANGER.
TURN AROUND.
GO AWAY.
DON’T COME BACK.
BOO!
WHY ARE YOU STILL STANDING THERE?
“He’s a funny guy, Merganzer,” Remi said.
“Mr. Carp has to be down here,” Leo said, touching the doorknob, which matched the ones in the hotel upstairs. “Where else could he be?”
“It’s kind of a lot of warnings, though, right? Is that normal for Mr. Whippet?”
Leo wasn’t sure. It was a lot of warnings, but it was now or never.
Leo turned the handle and pushed the door open. He stepped through with Remi close behind.
What lay behind the door of warnings took Leo’s breath away.
Whose cat is this?” asked Mr. Phipps. He was holding Claudius at arm’s length, plugging his nose. “It’s stinking up the basement.”
He’d been trying to find Leo and Remi for over an hour with no luck. Checking the basement, he’d found Claudius sleeping on Leo’s bed.
“Keep that thing away from me,�
� said Ms. Sparks. “It belongs to Mr. Carp, and he’s obviously done a poor job taking care of it.”
“Well, then, where is this Mr. Carp? Did you bring him here?” asked Mr. Phipps. He was rather proud of himself for standing up to Ms. Sparks so forcefully.
Ms. Sparks hadn’t seen Mr. Carp for hours, and it was unnerving her as well. The little doofus only had one task — keep an eye on those kids! And this, suddenly, bothered her, too. She looked outside through the main doors of the lobby, where night had settled in, and wondered, Where are Leo and Remi? What are they up to? She’d been so focused on the clock — only two more hours to go! — she’d forgotten all about them.
“Where are those boys, Mr. Phipps?”
“You’re not really helping about the cat,” Mr. Phipps replied. “So I’ll assume you want me to put it outside.”
He dropped Claudius, and the cat turned on Mr. Phipps, hissing at his leg. It walked, very slowly, toward Ms. Sparks. Ms. Sparks stood stock-still, staring down at the smelly cat, until it purred against her leg, leaving a trail of cat hair on her polyester slacks.
“Claudius,” Ms. Sparks said, for she had liked the way the cat had hissed at Mr. Phipps. “Go outside and kill mice. Make yourself useful.”
The cat couldn’t have understood, but he had been interested in the garden and the pond ever since setting eyes on it. He was all too happy to be shooed out the door.
Ms. Sparks looked at her watch, then glared at Mr. Phipps.
“I demand that you keep this lobby clear of anyone but Mr. Yancey. I will not stand for that lunatic Rickenbacker or pompous Mr. Bump! Keep them away from me, understood?”
Mr. Phipps didn’t understand why the guests of the hotel couldn’t move about the hotel they were paying to stay in, but he nodded just the same.
Something was up; he only wished he knew what it was.
When the lobby was clear, Ms. Sparks took out the special papers she’d been given the authority to fill out. She’d already carefully filled in every piece of information. By law, people had been invited to the auction. She’d sent out all the invitations to every known developer worth their salt in the entire state. Too bad for them those letters had all been accidentally mailed to a PO box owned by Ms. Sparks.
Floors #2: 3 Below Page 12
