The Shrunken Head

by Lauren Oliver

  “I think we’ll take the back door today,” he said lightly. But he wasn’t smiling.

  The back door opened up from the kitchen into a grungy courtyard set six feet below street level and filled with trash bins and glass seltzer bottles. It was, thankfully, empty of press and of onlookers. Forty-Fourth Street was also free and clear, except for a spiffily dressed man walking a pair of poodles and a blues singer busking for change at the corner. Hardly anyone but the milkman knew about the museum’s back entrance, which was unmarked. Thomas led the way, then Max; Pippa followed her, and Sam took up the rear, hunching his chin to his chest and trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Pippa hugged her thin jacket more closely around herself.

  It was a pretty spring day, and the sun was perched high and round on a pillow of fluffy clouds, but the cold came from deep inside. Everything had changed overnight. They were trapped like specimens in their own museum, while people made up stories and lies about them. They might as well be pinned behind glass.

  And poor Mr. Dumfrey . . .

  They walked two blocks east before cutting downtown, passing into an area thick with dazzling marquees and Broadway theaters, women in massive fur coats despite the weather, and newsies hawking papers on the corners; ticket booths and music halls and the smell of roasted peanuts. Here no one glanced at them at all, and Pippa began to feel a little better.

  It was just before they reached the Times Square subway entrance when it happened. They were passing underneath a vast network of scaffolding. Dizzyingly high above them, Pippa could see men drilling and pacing the roofs, and the air was loud with the sound of jackhammers and shouting. Sam stopped to tie his shoelaces and Pippa paused a few feet in front of him, craning her neck, staring up at the buildings rising hugely toward the sky, like fingers pointing the way to something.

  On the scaffolding forty feet above their heads, a dark shape teetered. At first Pippa thought a person had slipped or jumped; then her heart stopped and she saw that a vast concrete block was tumbling through the air toward Sam.

  “Sam!” she screamed.

  Sam looked up and covered his head just in time. The concrete block hit his fists and shattered on impact. Pippa ducked as a chunk of stone came flying in her direction.

  Thomas and Max came dashing back toward them. Thomas hooked Sam under the arm and tried to lift him to his feet. “Are you all right?”

  Sam gently detached himself from Thomas’s grip. “I’m fine,” he said. His face was white, and he looked dazed, but he stood up, shaking his head. He flexed his fingers, wincing. “What happened?” he said. “Where did it come from?”

  Pippa shook her head. “It—it must have fallen,” she said. The sidewalk was covered now with concrete fragments. Businessmen hurried past them, shooting the children aggravated looks, as though they had been the cause of the mess. The block that had fallen must have been the size of a car tire.

  Thomas looked up. The workers on the roof were still dark shadows against the sun. No one shouted down to them. No one seemed to notice that the block had fallen. “The angle is wrong,” Thomas said.

  “What?” Sam was dusting himself off. The shattered concrete had left a fine film of white powder all over his clothes.

  “If it fell,” Thomas said, “it would have hit there.” He pointed to a spot closer by several feet to the building from where Sam had been kneeling.

  “So what are you saying?” Pippa’s voice sounded especially high-pitched, even to her ears.

  “I’m saying”—Thomas turned to her—“it was pushed.”

  Sam laughed uneasily. “I could have been killed.”

  “Would have been, if you was normal,” Max said.

  “Were normal,” Pippa corrected.

  “Maybe that was the idea,” Thomas said.

  “Come on, Thomas.” Sam crossed his arms. “Who’d do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Thomas scanned the sky, as though expecting more danger to come tumbling down out of the air. “Let’s not stick around to find out.”

  Pippa turned and cast one last glance at the scaffolding and the dark silhouettes of workers on the roof. For a second, she thought she saw a man in a long coat watching them, standing motionless at the exact spot from which the concrete block had fallen. But then she blinked, and he was gone.

  The offices of the Daily Screamer were all the way downtown, near the vast, majestic pillars of city hall and the ever-frenzied financial district, where men puffing big cigars shouted trading advice to one another as they walked, and even the shoeshine boys gave stock tips. Here, Manhattan narrowed to a point, and Pippa always had the sense that it was in these few blocks that all of the excitement of the city was concentrated, as though every other street was running as rapidly as possible to this bustling, beating heart of the world, which pumped out the paper money people died and killed for and dreamed about and craved.

  And even though Pippa still noticed signs of the Great Crash everywhere—businessmen wearing old shoes and patched-up suits artfully concealed with thread and shoe polish, and plenty of hobos shuffling around rattling tin cans—things had begun to move again.

  The heart was beating still.

  The building that housed the Daily Screamer was a disappointment. Only four stories tall, squeezed between two buildings nearly twice its size, and made of limestone stained dark, it was like a black tooth in the middle of a fine white smile. A grungy plaque above the door identified it as “Home to the Finest Newspaper in This City or Any Other.”

  “Ready?” Thomas asked, pausing outside the front door. Pippa nodded. Even from the street she could hear the ringing of telephones and clanking of machinery.

  “Here goes nothing,” Thomas said, and pushed open the door.

  The first thing Pippa noticed was the smoke. The whole room was enveloped by it, so it looked as though a soft blue mist had descended inside, and, as a result, everything—the maze of desks jammed together in a mysterious zigzag formation; the stacks and piles and mountains of paper teetering on every available surface; the men and women hunched at their desks, clacking away on dozens of typewriters—looked a little bit blurry. The carpet was stained gray from years of footprints and cigarette ash, and even the people looked gray, as though they hadn’t seen daylight in several months.

  “Can I help you?” A woman at the nearest desk swiveled around to face them. Her blond hair, like everything else in the room, was a dingy color. She blinked at them from behind thick glasses.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Evans,” Thomas said. “Bill Evans.”

  The woman frowned. “What business do you have with Mr. Evans?”

  “What business is it to you what business we got with Mr. Evans?” Max broke in, eyes flashing.

  “An interview!” Thomas said quickly, before Max could get them in trouble. “We’re here because he wanted to interview us. For an important story.”

  The woman looked them up and down, as if she couldn’t believe there was anything of importance about them.

  Just as she opened her mouth, however, a voice boomed out, “Did I hear someone say interview?”

  Mr. Evans himself came striding down a long, dim hallway like a magician stepping out from behind a curtain. He was smiling hugely, showing off his gums.

  “Thomas!” he boomed. “And the great Samson Jr.!” Sam turned red up to the tips of his ears. “And little Mackenzie.”

  “Little—” Max spluttered. But Mr. Evans had already rounded on Pippa and was pumping her hand vigorously.

  “And Pippa! Always a pleasure, always a pleasure. Tell me, Pip—what do I have in my pockets today?” Before she had a chance to answer (thirty-seven cents, two pieces of Wrigley’s gum, and a new Zippo lighter) he burst into loud and raucous laughter, as though he had told a joke, and clapped her so hard on the shoulder, she stumbled a little.

  “This way, kids, this way. Straight down the hall and first door on your left. Let’s get comfortable. You want som
ething to drink? Coffee? Water? Whiskey? I’m just joking. It’s too early in the day for whiskey.”

  As he spoke, he herded them down the hall and into a small glass-enclosed office. The front door was stenciled with gold lettering that read BILL EVANS, HEAD REPORTER. Mr. Evans caught Pippa staring at it.

  “Not bad, huh?” He rapped on the door with a knuckle. “Just got my own digs a few days ago. People can’t get enough of this shrunken head stuff. It’s bigger than the Rattigan story!”

  It was the second time Pippa had heard the name Rattigan in a day. “Who’s Rattigan?” she said.

  Mr. Evans gave an exaggerated shiver. “Nasty man. Smart as a snake and batty as a belfry. But you didn’t come to talk about Rattigan.” He laughed again and closed the door, gesturing for them to sit down. “Go ahead and put your feet up. I’ll crank up the recorder. Just a copy, you know, in case I miss anything while we’re gabbing. Better safe than sorry!”

  “We didn’t come here to be interviewed,” Thomas interjected.

  Mr. Evans paused with one hand hovering above the Dictaphone. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I don’t follow you. You said you came for an interview.”

  “We did.” Thomas swallowed visibly. “We came to interview you.”

  Mr. Evans leaned back in his chair, stroking his mustache. “I see,” he said, and Pippa thought she saw a smile flicker across his face. Suddenly, he leaned forward again. “All right. How about we make a deal? You ask me a question, and I ask you a question. Tit for tat. Fair’s fair, right?”

  Pippa didn’t really think it was fair—but what choice did they have? She met Thomas’s gaze, and Thomas shrugged.

  “All right,” Thomas said cautiously. “But we go first.”

  Mr. Evans smiled again, big and toothy. “By all means. By all means. Fire away.”

  There was a moment’s awkward pause. Pippa realized they hadn’t exactly planned what they were going to say. Fortunately, Sam jumped in.

  “Was it really cyanide that killed Potts?” Sam asked. Pippa shivered involuntarily. It was terrible to hear the question out loud. It made it seem so real. She hadn’t exactly liked Mr. Potts—nobody had, really—but still. No one deserved to die like that. Poisoned.

  “That it was, my boy. The ME—that’s the medical examiner, you know, who works on the body—said it was a dose large enough to flatten an elephant.” Mr. Evans extracted a small cigarette from the box on his desk and tried several times to light it with a match. Pippa was about to suggest he use the lighter in his pocket but stopped herself. She didn’t want him to think she was showing off. “Probably killed him instantly, poor fellow.” Mr. Evans exhaled a foul-smelling cloud in their general direction. Pippa coughed. Mr. Evans barely glanced at her. “Tissue, my girl?” he said.

  “But when did—” Thomas started to say. Evans held up a finger.

  “Not so fast. My turn. Fair’s fair, remember.” He stretched his long fingers and bent over his typewriter. “First question,” he said, as his fingers flew over the keys. “How long has Mr. Dumfrey been having money problems?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Thomas stuttered.

  “He doesn’t tell us.” Pippa jumped to his aid. “He doesn’t like to worry us with that stuff.”

  “Mmm-hmmm.” Mr. Evans continued typing for several long moments. Pippa wondered how he could have gotten so much material from their responses.

  “Our turn again,” Thomas said.

  Before he could speak, Max broke in: “How come you wrote all those lies about us in the paper?”

  “That’s the business, my girl.” Mr. Evans grinned. “My turn!”

  “Wait,” Pippa said, glaring at Max. “That wasn’t a real question. It didn’t count.”

  “Of course it did!” Mr. Evans said cheerfully, and jammed the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, once more hunching over the keys. “Now, let’s see. Where were we? Oh, yes. When did you first become aware that Mr. Dumfrey hated Mr. Potts?”

  “He didn’t!” Thomas cried.

  “Mr. Dumfrey doesn’t hate anybody,” Pippa said.

  “Don’t you see?” Sam said. “He couldn’t have killed anyone.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Max put in.

  “Any time we find a spider in the museum, he makes us release it outside,” Thomas said.

  “And he’s an awful crybaby,” Sam said.

  “He loves Christmas,” Pippa offered.

  “And children,” Thomas said.

  Mr. Evans’s fingers were flying over the keys so fast they were a blur behind the haze of cigarette smoke. “Excellent, excellent,” he muttered.

  “Is it our turn now?” Pippa ventured.

  “It is,” Mr. Evans said.

  “What time did—” she started to ask, but Evans cut her off again.

  “No fair! That’s two questions in a row!” he said.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Max said.

  “That’s three questions!” Evans trumpeted.

  Pippa stared at him. “But—but—”

  “A deal’s a deal. Now I get three.” He whipped the paper, already full, from the typewriter, and fed a new one under the roller. “Tell me this: Where do you go to school?”

  “We don’t,” Pippa said. She hurriedly added, “Monsieur Cabillaud teaches us.”

  “The pinhead?” Mr. Evans said.

  “That’s a question!” Max protested.

  “He’s very smart,” Thomas said defensively. “He did great things for the French government.”

  “The Belgian government,” Pippa corrected.

  Thomas turned to her, confused. “Are you sure he isn’t French?”

  Mr. Evans was typing and puffing so furiously, Pippa was afraid he might combust. “Answer me this,” he said. “If two trains leave from Grand Central Terminal at nine a.m., and one goes sixty miles per hour and the second one goes forty miles per hour and must stop for a new paint job in New Haven, how fast will the first train have to go to get to Boston on time?”

  There was a brief pause. Thomas frowned. “That question makes no sense,” he said.

  “Aha!” Mr. Evans said triumphantly, and peeled yet another sheet of paper, densely covered with words, from the typewriter.

  “It’s our turn to ask a question,” Sam said firmly. Pippa could tell he was holding himself very carefully, so he didn’t accidentally break anything.

  “Go ahead.” Mr. Evans sat back in his chair and finally extinguished his cigarette. Still, the air was cloudy with smoke and Pippa felt like her lungs were encased in a wet, smelly blanket. “I’m all finished.”

  Pippa was desperate to ask what he had written, but she didn’t want to waste another question.

  “What time did Mr. Potts die?” Thomas asked.

  “Wish I could tell you,” Evans said. Now that he wasn’t typing anymore, he seemed once again at ease. He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. “Doc Rosenkrantz—that’s the ME at Bellevue—is a hard nut to crack. He keeps his lid screwed on tight, if you catch my drift. Funny. Most people like to see their names in print.”

  “Not us,” Pippa said pointedly.

  “You might change your minds,” Evans said with a wink.

  She scowled.

  “Now listen, kiddos.” Mr. Evans put both hands on his desk and began to stand. “I don’t want to take up too much more of your time—”

  “That’s all right,” Thomas said. “We have just a few more—”

  “So I’ll just see you out. Thanks for dropping by. Always a pleasure.”

  Before they could protest, Mr. Evans herded the children out into the hall and ushered them back toward the front door. Even as he was pressing them out the door, he was beaming and shaking their hands.

  “Incredible, all of you. Don’t mind what the papers say, it’s all the biz, ha. I’m your biggest fan, really I am, don’t forget, Bill Evans has your back. . . .”

  The door slammed shut behind them. And suddenly they we
re standing in the blazing sunshine with the blue sky high above them, stretched like a wire between the buildings. Pippa took a deep breath of clean air.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” Max said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Thomas said quietly.

  Max rounded on him. “Are you crazy? He didn’t tell us nothing.”

  “Anything,” Pippa couldn’t help but saying. Max glared at her.

  “He did, too,” Thomas said. “He told us the name of the doctor—the medical examiner—who looked at Potts. Dr. Rosenkrantz. He’ll have the answers we need.”

  Pippa hated to say she agreed with Max. “But you heard what Mr. Evans said. He said Dr. Rosenkrantz—or whatever his name is—would never talk.”

  “So we’ll have to make him talk,” Thomas said, and he turned to Sam, and grinned.

  “No way,” Sam said, for about the seventeenth time in two minutes, as they descended into the vast black entrance of the Chambers Street subway station. “You must be out of your mind. I’ll wind up in jail next to Dumfrey.”

  Thomas trotted beside him like a puppy hoping for a treat. “Okay, okay.” He held up both hands. “No tough-guy stuff.”

  Sam stopped in the middle of the stairs, glaring, and an old woman, moving in the opposite direction, let out a volley of curses.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” Thomas said, making an X over his heart with a finger.

  Sam sighed. “What’s the plan, then?” he said.

  They once again began making their way through the crowd, down the stairs, and into the tunnels. Sam was already tired. The interview with Bill Evans—the thought of seeing their names or, worse, their pictures, in the paper—had made his head hurt. His feet hurt, too. His shoes were too small—everything was always too small.

  He just wouldn’t stop growing. Sometimes, he lay in bed with his ankles sticking out over the footboard and his head banging up against the wall, and he tried to think very small thoughts: of being squeezed inside a walnut; of fitting, like Thomas, into a pipe in the wall; of being pressed underneath a gigantic thumb. He kept hoping that if he thought hard enough, it might help him shrink a little. But so far, nothing was working.