I pushed LOBBY again. I pushed it five or six times.
Nothing happened.
I suddenly had a lump in my throat as big as a watermelon. I really didn’t want to be stuck down in this dark basement.
I started pushing buttons wildly. I pushed everything. I pushed a red button marked EMERGENCY five or six times.
Nothing.
“I don’t believe this!” I choked out.
“Let’s get out and take a different elevator,” Libby suggested.
Good idea, I thought. There was a long row of elevators up in the lobby. We’ll just get out of this one and push the button for another one to come down and get us.
I led the way out into the dark basement. Libby stayed close behind me.
“Oh!” We both let out low cries as the elevator door quickly slid shut behind us.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “Why wouldn’t it close before?”
Libby didn’t reply.
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then I saw what Libby was staring at.
“Where are the other elevators?” she cried.
We were staring at a smooth, bare wall. The elevator that had brought us down here was the only elevator on the wall.
I spun around, checking out the other walls. But it was too dark to see very far.
“The other elevators don’t come down here, I guess,” Libby murmured in a trembling voice.
I searched the wall for a button to push to bring our elevator back. I couldn’t find one. No button.
“There’s no way out!” Libby wailed. “No way out at all!”
12
“Maybe there are elevators on the other wall,” I said, pointing across the huge, dark room.
“Maybe,” Libby repeated doubtfully.
“Maybe there’s a stairway or something,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said softly.
A sudden noise made me jump. A rumble followed by a grinding hum.
“Just the furnace starting up,” I told Libby.
“Let’s find a way out of here,” she urged. “I’m never going in an elevator again as long as I live!”
I could feel her hand on my shoulder as I started to make my way through the darkness. The huge, gray furnace rumbled and coughed. Another big machine made a soft clattering sound as we edged past it.
“Anybody down here?” I called. My voice echoed off the long, dust-covered pipes that ran along the low ceiling above our heads. I cupped my hands around my mouth and called again. “Anybody here? Can anybody hear me?”
Silence.
The only sounds I could hear were the rumble of the furnace and the soft scrape of our sneakers as Libby and I slowly crept over the floor.
As we came near the far wall, we could see that there were no elevators over here. The smooth plaster wall was bare except for a thick tangle of cobwebs up near the ceiling.
“There’s got to be some stairs leading out of here,” Libby whispered, close behind me.
Dim light shone through a narrow doorway up ahead. “Let’s see where this leads,” I said, brushing stringy spiderwebs off my face.
We stepped through the doorway and found ourselves in a long hallway. Dust-covered ceiling bulbs cast pale light onto the concrete floor.
“Anybody here?” I called again. My voice sounded hollow in the long tunnel of a hallway.
No reply.
Dark doorways lined both sides of the hallway. I peeked into each door as we passed. I saw stacks of cartons, tall file cabinets, strange machinery I didn’t recognize. One large room was jammed with enormous coils of metal cable. Another room had sheets of metal piled nearly to the ceiling.
“Helloooooo!” I called. “Helllooooooo!”
No reply.
Flashing red lights inside a large room caught my eye. I stopped at the doorway and stared in at some sort of control panel.
One wall was filled with blinking red and green lights. In front of the lights stood a long counter of dials and gears and levers. Three tall stools were placed along the counter. But no one sat in them.
No one worked the controls. The room was empty. As empty as the rest of this strange, frightening basement.
“Weird, huh?” I whispered to Libby.
When she didn’t answer, I turned to make sure she was okay.
“Libby?”
She was gone.
13
I spun around. “Libby?”
My entire body shook.
“Where are you?”
I squinted back down the long, gray hallway. No sign of her.
“Libby? If this is some kind of a dumb joke…” I started. But the rest of my words caught in my throat.
Breathing hard, I forced myself to retrace our steps. “Libby?” I stopped at every door and called her name. “Libby?”
The hallway curved, and I followed it. I began jogging, my hands down stiffly at my sides, calling her name, searching every door, peering into every dark room.
How could she get lost? I asked myself, feeling my panic rise until I could barely breathe. She was right behind me.
I turned another corner. Into a hallway I hadn’t explored yet. “Libby?”
The narrow hall led to an enormous, brightly lit room. I had to shut my eyes against the sudden bright light.
When I opened them, I found myself nearly face-to-face with a gigantic machine. Bright floodlights from the high ceiling covered it in light.
The machine had to be a block long! A big control panel, filled with dials, and buttons, and lights, stood against the side. A long, flat part—like a conveyor belt—led to several rollers. And at the very end of the machine stood a huge white wheel. No—a cylinder. No—a roll of white paper.
It’s a printing press! I realized.
I lurched into the room, stepping around stacks of paper and cardboard cartons. The floor was littered with paper, ink-smeared paper, crumpled, folded, and ripped.
As I staggered toward the huge printing press, the sea of paper rose up nearly to my knees!
“Libby? Are you in here? Libby?”
Silence.
This room was as empty as all the others.
The paper crackled under my sneakers. I made my way to a long table at the back of the room. I found a red stool in front of the table, and I dropped down onto it.
I kicked big sheets of paper away from my legs and glanced around the room. A hundred questions pushed into my mind at once.
Where is Libby? How could she disappear like that?
Is she somewhere close behind me? Will she follow the hallway to this big room?
Where is everyone? Why is this place totally deserted?
Is this where they print the comic books? Am I in the basement of Collectable Comics, the company that publishes The Masked Mutant?
Questions, questions.
My brain felt about to burst. I stared around the cluttered room, my eyes rolling past the gigantic printing press, searching for Libby.
Where was she? Where?
I turned back to the table—and gasped.
I nearly toppled off the stool. The Masked Mutant was staring up at me.
14
A large, color drawing of The Masked Mutant stared up at me from the table. Startled, I picked it up and examined it.
It had been drawn on thick posterboard in colored inks. The Masked Mutant’s cape swept behind him. Through his mask, his eyes appeared to stare out at me. Evil, angry eyes.
The ink glistened on the page, as if still wet. I rubbed my thumb over an edge of the cape. The ink didn’t come off.
I wonder if Starenko drew this portrait, I thought, studying it.
Glancing across the table, I saw a stack of papers on a low counter that ran along the entire back wall. Hopping off the tall stool, I made my way over to the counter and began shuffling through the papers.
They were ink drawings and pencil sketches. Many of them were of The Masked Mutant. They showed him in different poses
. Some of them showed him moving his molecules around, changing into wild animals and strange, unearthly creatures.
I opened a thick folder and found about a dozen color sketches of the members of The League of Good Guys. Then I found a stack of pencil drawings of characters I’d never seen before.
This must be where they make the comic books! I told myself.
I was so excited about seeing these actual drawings and sketches, I nearly forgot about Libby.
This pink-and-green building must be the headquarters of Collectable Comics, I realized.
I was starting to feel calmer. My fears dropped away like feathers off The Battling Bird-Boy.
After all, there was nothing to be afraid of. I hadn’t stumbled into the headquarters of the world’s most evil supervillain. I was in the basement of the comic book offices.
This is where the writers and artists worked. And this is where they print the comic books every month.
So why should I be afraid?
I shuffled through folder after folder, making my way down the long counter. I found a pile of layouts for a comic book that I had just bought.
It was so exciting seeing the actual art. The page was really big, at least twice as big as the comic book. I guessed that the artists made their drawings much bigger than the actual page. And then they shrank the drawings down when they printed them.
I found some really new pencil drawings of The Masked Mutant. I knew they were new because I didn’t recognize them from my comics at home—and I have them all!
Drawing after drawing. My eyes were practically spinning!
I never dreamed that Collectable Comics were made right in Riverview Falls.
I flipped through a sketchbook of Penguin People portraits. I never liked the Penguin People. I know they’re good guys, and people really think they’re great. But I think their black-and-white costumes just look silly.
I was having a great time. Really enjoying myself.
Of course it had to end.
It ended when I opened the last folder on the counter. And stared at the sketches inside.
I gaped at them in disbelief, my hands trembling as I shuffled from one to the next.
“This is impossible!” I cried out loud.
I was staring at sketches of ME.
15
I frantically shuffled through the big stack of drawings.
You’re just imagining it, Skipper, I told myself. The boy in the sketches only looks like you. It isn’t really you.
But it had to be me.
In every drawing, the boy had my round face, my dark hair—cut short on the sides and long on top.
He was short like me. And just a little bit chubby. He had my crooked smile, up a little higher on one side. He wore my clothes—baggy jeans and long-sleeved, pocket T-shirts.
I stopped at a drawing halfway through the pile and stared hard at it, holding it close to my face. “Oh, wow!” I exclaimed.
The boy in the drawing even had a chip on his front tooth. Just like me.
“It’s impossible!” I cried out loud, my voice tiny and shrill in the enormous room.
Who had been drawing me? And why? Why would a comic book artist make sketch after sketch of me?
And how did the artist know me so well? How did the artist know that I have a tiny chip on one front tooth?
A cold shiver ran down my back. I suddenly felt very frightened. I stared at the drawings, my heart pounding.
In one drawing, I looked really scared. I was running from something, my arms out stiffly in front of me.
Another drawing was a close-up portrait of my face. My expression in the sketch was angry. No. More than angry. I looked furious.
Another sketch showed me flexing my muscles. Hey, I look pretty cool! I thought. The artist had given me bulging superhero biceps.
In another drawing, my eyes were closed. Was I asleep? Or was I dead?
I was still staring at the drawings, shuffling from one to the next, studying each one—when I heard the footsteps.
And realized I was no longer alone.
“Who-who’s there?” I cried, whirling around.
16
“Where were you?” Libby demanded angrily, running across the room toward me. “I searched everywhere!”
“Where were you?” I shot back. “I thought you were right behind me.”
“I thought you were right ahead of me!” she cried. “I turned a corner, and you were gone.” She stopped in front of me, breathing hard, her face bright red. “How could you leave me by myself in this creepy place?”
“I didn’t!” I insisted. “You left me!”
She shook her head, still gasping for breath. “Well, let’s get out of here, Skipper. I found some elevators that are working.” She tugged my sleeve.
I picked up the stack of drawings. “Look, Libby.” I held them up to her. “You have to see these.”
“Are you serious?” she cried. “I want to get out of here. I don’t want to look at comic book drawings now!”
“But—but—” I sputtered, waving the drawings.
She turned and started toward the doorway. “I told you I found some elevators. Are you coming or not?”
“But these are drawings of me!” I cried.
“Yeah. Sure,” she called back sarcastically. She stopped at the front of the big printing press and turned back to me. “Why would anyone draw you, Skipper?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammered. “But these drawings—”
“You have a sick imagination,” she said. “You seem like a normal guy. But you’re totally weird. Bye.” Libby started jogging over the paper-cluttered floor to the door.
“No—wait!” I called. I dropped the drawings onto the counter, slid off the tall stool, and chased after her. “Wait up, Libby!”
I followed her out into the hall. I didn’t want to be left alone in this creepy place, either. I had to get home and think about this. I had to puzzle it out.
My head was spinning. I felt totally confused.
I followed her through the long tunnel of hallways. We turned a corner, and I saw a row of elevators against the wall.
Libby pushed the button on the wall, and one of the elevators slid open silently. We both peered carefully inside before stepping on. It was empty.
We were both panting. My head was throbbing. My side ached. Neither of us spoke a word.
Libby pushed the button marked LOBBY. We heard a soft hum and felt the elevator start to move.
When the door slid open, and we saw the pink-and-yellow walls of the lobby, Libby and I both cheered. We burst out of the elevator together and ran across the marble floor to the exit.
Out on the sidewalk, I stopped, lowering my hands to my knees, sucking in deep breaths of fresh air. When I glanced up, I saw Libby studying her watch.
“I’ve got to get home,” she said. “My mom is going to have a cow!”
“Do you believe me about the drawings?” I asked breathlessly.
“No,” she replied. “Who would believe that?” She waved and made her way across the street, heading for home.
I could see a bus approaching, a few blocks down. Searching in my jeans pocket for a token, I turned to take one last look at the weird building.
It had vanished once again.
I needed time to think about everything that had happened. But Wilson was waiting for me when I got home, and he followed me up to my room.
“I brought over some of my rubber stamps,” he said, raising a brown paper bag up to my face. He turned it over and emptied it onto my desk. “I thought you might like to see some of the better ones.”
“Wilson—” I started. “I really don’t—”
“This one is a ladybug,” he said, holding up a small wooden stamp. “It’s very old. It’s the oldest one I own. Here. I’ll show it to you.” He opened a blue inkpad, stamped the ladybug on it, and pressed it onto the top of a pad of paper I had on the desk.
“How old is it?” I
asked him.
“I don’t know,” he replied. He held up another one. “It’s a cow,” he said. As if I couldn’t tell. He stamped it onto the pad. “I have several cows,” Wilson said. “But I only brought one.”
I studied the cow, pretending to be interested.
“It’s another really old one,” Wilson said proudly.
“How old?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Beats me.” He reached for another stamp.
“Uh… Wilson… I just had a really weird thing happen,” I told him. “And I need to think about it. Alone.”
He narrowed his blue eyes at me, confused. “What happened?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said. “I was in a building. On the north side of town. I think it’s where they make the Collectable Comics.”
“Really? Here in Riverview Falls?” Wilson’s face filled with surprise. “And they let you in?”
“There was no one there,” I told him. It felt good to share the story with someone. “So we went in. This girl I met on the bus. Libby. And me. We tried to go up in the elevator. But it took us down. Then Libby got lost. And I found a stack of drawings of myself.”
“Whoa!” Wilson exclaimed, raising a hand for me to stop. “I’m not following this too well, Skipper.”
I realized what I had said didn’t make any sense at all. How could I explain it?
I told Wilson I’d talk to him later, after I calmed down. I helped him gather up his rubber stamps. He’d brought about twenty of them. “Twenty of the best,” he said.
I walked him downstairs and said I’d call him after dinner.
After he left, something caught my eye on the mail table in the hall. A brown envelope.
My heart jumped. Was it—? Yes! An envelope from the Collectable Comics company. The next special issue of The Masked Mutant.
I was so excited, I nearly knocked the whole table over as I grabbed for the envelope. I tucked it under my arm without opening it and ran up the stairs, two at a time.
I need total privacy. I have to study this! I told myself.