The Shrunken Head

by Lauren Oliver

  Thomas could hear the sound of rats scurrying out of the way. Pippa was whimpering behind him. He kept one hand on the wall for balance, moving as quickly as he could along the tracks, careful to avoid the third rail, heart leapfrogging in his throat. He felt each passing second as if it had a separate taste and texture, flaking away like snow, dissolving.

  Then he saw the glimmer of lights from the subway station ahead of him. Relief broke in his chest. Almost there.

  Please, he thought. Please, let us be in time.

  They came out of the darkness, panting. They hauled themselves up onto the platform and dashed up the stairs into the street. They sprinted to the museum, shoving past people on the street. Thomas scanned every face, half expecting Rattigan to jump out at them, leering, triumphant. But he saw nothing but strangers: men nose-deep in newspapers, children hurrying to school, women calling to one another from windows and stoops. Sam plunged past a display of vegetables at the corner of Eighth Avenue, upsetting an entire tray of bruised tomatoes to roll into the street.

  “Hooligans!” the vendor cried, waving his fist.

  “Sorry!” Sam called back.

  Finally, they arrived. They burst through the front doors and skidded through the empty lobby. It was quiet and very still. Thomas thought his heart might rocket out of his chest. Through the Hall of Worldwide Wonders; up the spiral staircase to the third floor.

  They burst through Mr. Dumfrey’s office door together.

  “Children!” Mr. Dumfrey was sitting behind his desk, wearing his scarlet robe and a pair of felt slippers, sipping from a steaming cup of hot chocolate. “Where have you been? I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of a slow start this morning. But what a glorious triumph last night was! What a brilliant success!”

  “You . . . you’re all right,” Thomas panted out.

  “Of course I’m all right.” Mr. Dumfrey removed his glasses and squinted at Thomas. “What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with all of you? You look paler than Quinn and Caroline.”

  “Mr. Dumfrey, you’re in danger,” Max said between gasps.

  Mr. Dumfrey frowned. “Don’t tell me you got into the champagne last night,” he said sternly. “You’re far too young. Much better to start on beer. Kidding!”

  “It’s true, Mr. Dumfrey,” Thomas said. But even as the words escaped his mouth, he wasn’t sure. Dumfrey’s office looked the same as it always did—no booby traps or trip wires or knives dangling from the ceiling, just stacks everywhere, piles of boxes and papers and Cornelius hopping around his cage, squawking. Could Rattigan have been bluffing?

  Then Pippa stiffened. “Your pocket,” she said. “There’s a note in your pocket. For a delivery.”

  Mr. Dumfrey sighed and returned his glasses to his nose. “What have I told you a thousand times, Pippa? It’s rude to read people’s pockets without their permission.”

  “Did someone send you a package?” Thomas asked.

  “Not ten minutes ago,” Mr. Dumfrey said. He withdrew the note from his pocket and smoothed it on the desk, then read aloud: “‘Dear Mr. Dumfrey. I believe this belongs to you. Sorry for any trouble I’ve caused.’ Wonderful, isn’t it? The thief must have had a change of heart. And now the shrunken head has returned!”

  “Who brought you the head?” Thomas said. He was gripped by certainty now: Rattigan. Had to be.

  Mr. Dumfrey continued to stare as if the children had lost their minds. “Nobody brought it to me,” he said, frowning. “The doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I found the note and the package on the doorstep. I imagine the thief was ashamed to show his face.”

  “Oh no,” Max muttered.

  “Mr. Dumfrey.” Thomas was struggling to breathe. “Where’s the head now?”

  “By Barnum’s britches, what’s going on?” Dumfrey straightened up a little. “You’re acting very strange.”

  “The head, Mr. Dumfrey!” Thomas’s throat was tight with panic. “Where is it?”

  “Right over there.” Mr. Dumfrey pointed to a small cardboard box, open to reveal mounds of tissue paper. “And looking not much worse for the wear, I’m happy to say. Now will someone explain to me—”

  But Thomas was no longer listening. He dove toward the box and hefted up the head from its bed of tissue paper. It looked roughly the same. But it was too heavy. Much too heavy.

  And Thomas could hear a faint mechanical ticking, coming from somewhere directly behind the head’s glass eyes, getting faster and faster.

  The head began to vibrate in Thomas’s hands. Dumfrey sprang out of his chair, overturning it. Suddenly, everyone was shouting.

  “Max!” Thomas shouted. “The window.”

  She understood him at once. There was a small window fitted high in the wall. As Thomas vaulted up Dumfrey’s bookshelves, and hurtled himself into the air, Max grabbed a fountain pen from Dumfrey’s desk and shot it straight through the window. Glass shattered outward, and Thomas felt a blast of wind just as he released the head, hurling it as far as he could.

  There was a thunderous blast as the head exploded in midair, bright as a second sun. The walls shook. Sam and Max ducked, and Dumfrey pulled Pippa out of the way as a massive stone bust of Benjamin Franklin fell from its pedestal, shattering in heavy pieces directly where she had been standing.

  Thomas landed badly, grunting, and an avalanche of books thunked onto his head. The room smelled like smoke and singed paper.

  For a moment, Thomas thought he might be dead.

  “Thomas!” Then Dumfrey’s face appeared above him. As Dumfrey unearthed Thomas from the mountain of books encasing him, more faces came into view: Pippa and Max and Sam, all of them wearing identical expressions of concern.

  “I’m all right.” Thomas sat up, groaning. “At least, I think I am.”

  “You did it, Thomas,” Sam said. A slow grin spread over his face. “You saved Mr. Dumfrey’s life.”

  Thomas tried to smile, and winced. He’d accidentally clunked his jaw when he fell. “We did it,” he corrected. And, extending a hand to Pippa, he allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

  “I still don’t understand what Rattigan wanted with us,” Thomas said, sitting up in bed with a blanket draped around his shoulders and a hot-water bottle steaming by his feet. Miss Fitch had insisted on both of these measures, as if he were dying of pneumonia.

  Sam, Pippa, Max, and Mr. Dumfrey were gathered around him. Sam was sitting on his bed, and Thomas couldn’t help noticing that Max had chosen to sit next to him, slightly closer than was necessary. Pippa was sitting cross-legged on the floor. And Mr. Dumfrey was standing, polishing his glasses with his handkerchief. They had just finished telling him everything: their realization that Bill Evans had bribed Potts to steal the head; that he was responsible for the murders of Potts, Anderson, and Weathersby, their visit to his apartment, their discovery of his body, and their encounter with Rattigan. Mr. Dumfrey listened quietly and didn’t even lecture the children about how many rules they had broken. His face was more serious than Thomas had ever seen it.

  Finally, when they were finished speaking, he sat down heavily on the end of Thomas’s bed.

  “I’m going to tell you a story now,” he said. “I’d been hoping—praying—that you might never have to know. But I see now that it’s time.”

  “Know what?” Max said, her dark eyes glittering.

  Mr. Dumfrey looked up at the ceiling. “Professor Rattigan was a brilliant biologist—the best, perhaps, who had ever lived. When the war broke out, he enlisted, as so many promising young men did.”

  Thomas settled back against his pillows. He didn’t know where the story was going, but he had a sense of something momentous about to be revealed.

  “War does things to people. You have to understand. Many men came back broken. Not in their bodies, but here.” Mr. Dumfrey tapped his heart. “And here.” He tapped his head. “Rattigan hated the war. Who wouldn’t? An idea began to form. What if he could make soldiers so perfect, so strong, so s
mart, that they couldn’t be defeated or killed by ordinary means? We would never have to go to war again. No one would risk it. Eventually, there would be no point in waging war at all.

  “His idea grew into an obsession: when the war ended, he would create a team of individuals so extraordinary as to be invincible.”

  Thomas tried to swallow and found that he couldn’t.

  “During one of the bloodiest battles, almost every single member of his platoon was wiped out. Only Rattigan and two others survived. Rattigan was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery and discharged.” Mr. Dumfrey closed his eyes. “But he came back from the war different. Obsessed. Convinced that his way was the only way. He wanted to create an army of his own—the most powerful army in the world. To that end, he got hold of four orphaned children, and began his experiments on them.”

  Mr. Dumfrey opened his eyes. His gaze traveled slowly over the four of them: Thomas, Sam, Max, and Pippa. Despite the blanket and the heat of the attic, Thomas felt goose bumps pop up all over his arms.

  “He was eventually arrested. The children scattered. They were placed in foster homes and orphanages. One of them escaped and spent many years on the street.” Dumfrey’s eyes ticked to Max. “The other three found their way into my care. It was not an accident. I admit I was looking for you—for all of you. I knew you were extraordinary, and I wanted to make sure that Rattigan would never get to you again. Even after Rattigan was locked away, I was scared. I’m still scared.”

  There was a long moment of silence. It took Thomas several tries before he could find his voice.

  “How?” he croaked out. “How do you know so much about Rattigan?”

  Dumfrey let out a heavy sigh. “He’s my brother.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Next!” Mr. Dumfrey called out, drumming a pen against his clipboard. He made a large X next to an entry labeled “The Amazing Sword-Swallowing Seth.” He turned to Pippa and murmured, “I thought the poor fellow was going to choke on his own blade! Most unconvincing. And what kind of name is Seth for a performer? That’s the name of my dentist!”

  It had been two weeks since Thomas had saved Mr. Dumfrey from certain death—two weeks since Pippa and the others had learned of their true origins. For several days afterward, she had not believed that she would ever feel the same, that she would ever get over what had happened and what she had learned.

  She was a bona fide freak. They all were.

  She didn’t think she would ever look at Dumfrey the same way again, either. Not after what he had told them about his past. At last she had made sense of the two conversations she had overheard. Miss Fitch, Mr. Dumfrey confessed, was the only other person at the museum who knew the truth about Rattigan and his experiments, and Pippa found herself feeling unaccountably affectionate toward the sour-faced seamstress, who had kept their secret all these years. Pippa understood, too, about the telephone call Mr. Dumfrey had received from the police after Rattigan’s escape, which at the time had struck her as so mysterious.

  And slowly things did return to normal, or as normal as they ever got at Dumfrey’s Dime Museum. Now she was sitting between Thomas and Mr. Dumfrey in the dark, in the front row of the Odditorium, watching a parade of aspiring performers looking to fill Hugo’s and Phoebe’s places. It was nice to be in the audience for once.

  “She calls herself a fat lady?” Phoebe whispered, from the row behind Pippa’s, as the next act toddled onto the stage: Felicia, the Fat Lady of Lansing, Michigan. “I was three hundred pounds before I was a teenager!”

  “There, there, Phoebe,” Hugo whispered back. “No one can take your place.”

  “It’s insulting,” Phoebe responded. “She’s barely round.”

  “Next!” Mr. Dumfrey hollered. “And please, Felicia—consider adding more carbohydrates to your diet. You’re looking a little trim.”

  Felicia nodded and stomped off the stage. Mr. Dumfrey sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This is difficult—truly difficult,” he muttered. “So far we’ve seen an incompetent sword swallower, a fat lady who’s too thin, and a thin man who’s too fat. And that so-called giant! Why, Smalls could pick his teeth with him.”

  “Don’t worry,” Pippa said, patting Mr. Dumfrey’s hand reassuringly. “You’ll find someone.”

  “I hope so,” Mr. Dumfrey said darkly, as the next performer took the stage: Freddy the fire-breather.

  The first trick went very well. Freddy lit a long torch and brought it close to his mouth. The flame was extinguished momentarily; then, as he exhaled, a blast of fire roared from his mouth.

  “Cool,” said Sam.

  “I could do that,” sniffed Max.

  Everyone applauded, and even Thomas looked up, closing his book at last. He had been strangely quiet since the explosion. Pippa saw that he had once again been reading a book about probabilities.

  “What are you thinking about?” she whispered as Freddy the fire-breather, encouraged by the applause, ignited three torches and began to juggle.

  “Rattigan,” he admitted.

  Pippa kept her eyes on the stage, on the swooping circles of flame, orange and blue, passing inches from the fire-breather’s face. “Do you think he’ll try again?”

  “Probably,” Thomas said, his fingers tightening momentarily around the book.

  Pippa knew she should be afraid. But sitting there in the dark, in the home she loved, with the people she loved, she wasn’t—not then.

  It happened in an instant. The fire-breather lost his footing. He slipped, and one of the torches shot out of his hands, catching the hem of the curtain, which promptly began to smoke. Quinn shrieked; Caroline screamed; the torches fell with a clatter. Fortunately, Danny was prepared and appeared instantly on the stage, carting a bucket of water, which he reversed onto the smoldering curtain.

  “Oh, dear,” Mr. Dumfrey sighed. “Will someone go fetch Miss Fitch? I’m afraid we’ll need another curtain for tonight’s performance. Thank you, Freddy. That was very—erm—illuminating. Next!”

  Thomas coughed. Then he began to laugh. Pippa started laughing, and soon Max and Sam were laughing, too.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Mr. Dumfrey said. “It’s appalling. Truly appalling. Very hard to find good talent nowadays.” But he cracked a smile.

  Pippa settled back in her chair, her stomach aching, her cheeks sore from smiling. Maybe things would never exactly be normal. But to Pippa, just then, they were perfect.

  BOOKS BY LAUREN OLIVER

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  Liesl & Po

  The Spindlers

  FOR OLDER READERS

  Before I Fall

  Panic

  Vanishing Girls

  The Delirium Trilogy

  Delirium

  Pandemonium

  Requiem

  Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, & Raven

  FOR ADULTS

  Rooms

  COPYRIGHT

  CURIOSITY HOUSE: THE SHRUNKEN HEAD. Text copyright © 2015 by Laura Schechter and Harold Schechter. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Benjamin Lacombe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Oliver, Lauren, author.

  The shrunken head / Lauren Oliver and H.C. Chester. — First edition.

  pages cm. — (Curiosity House)

  Summary: “Orphans Philippa, Sam, Thomas, and Max must find out who stole a valuable artifact in order
to save to save their home, Dumfrey’s Dime Museum of Freaks, Oddities, and Wonders”— Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-06-227081-8 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-06-241936-1 (int’l ed)

  EPub Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780062270832

  [1. Curiosities and wonders—Fiction. 2. Freaks (Entertainers)—Fiction. 3. Museums—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Chester, H. C., author. II. Title.

  PZ7.O475Shr 2015 2014041199

  [Fic]—dc23 CIP

  AC

  * * *

  15 16 17 18 19 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

  www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF, UK

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  www.harpercollins.com