It wasn’t raining today, and the clouds were just high enough that we could see for a few miles. I stood there with Wyatt, looking around. The Kingsplot museum was called Wiggendale, named after one of the important people who had lived here years ago, Cedric Wiggendale. It was a large, brown brick building shaped like a fat rectangle. It had hundreds of square, opaque front windows and a crown of slate gray stone that ran along the length of the top. The Wiggendale Museum was located next to Lake Mend, the largest lake in the Hagen Valley.
The spot where Wiggendale sat was often referred to as the loveliest spot in town—at least that’s what the big wooden sign near the lakeshore claimed. There were roses everywhere and rolling green lawns that seemed to spill over the edges and into the water. This morning, however, the beauty was muted, and the scene looked washed-out and lifeless.
The Wiggendale building itself was interesting, but it really wasn’t any more impressive than the huge stone manor I lived in. In fact, part of the reason it was hard for me to get hyped about this field trip was because I felt like I already lived in a museum. Ever since I had moved to Kingsplot I had been surrounded by old things—an old father, an old house, old grounds, an old school, and old problems that my ancestors had cooked up years ago.
“I’m already bored,” Wyatt said as we all walked toward the building.
The brick walkway leading to the front of the museum was wet from mist, and at least three students slipped and fell down as we walked into the building. None of them got hurt, but it made me wish I had brought a camera. While walking to the front door, I thought I heard a couple of the rosebushes growl at me.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Kate, pointing at one of the bushes.
“Hear what?” she replied.
I looked at the silent rosebushes. Ever since we had dropped the final stone down the hidden chute in the manor, nothing treelike nor growing had bothered me. It was so nice to walk confidently through the woods without worrying that some fern would strangle me.
“I think that bush growled,” I explained.
“Come on,” Kate said, smiling. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Right inside the front door of Wiggendale was a big mural of Kingsplot, painted years ago by a man who supposedly had no arms. Next to the mural was an old photo of the actual artist painting with his feet. I was pretty impressed.
Just past the mural was a large display of cactuses in a fake Southwest setting. The scene was supposed to represent the landscape that early pioneers had left to come East and settle the Hagen Valley. Next to that was a room filled with flags and old license plates nailed to the wall.
I didn’t wonder for a second why I didn’t come here more often. Everywhere I looked I could see ancient, dusty artifacts. To my left was an old bike that the first mayor of Kingsplot had once ridden. To my right was a huge picture of Kingsplot fifty years ago, which looked almost the same as it did today. And directly in front of me was a really old security guard with a huge gray mustache. He was wearing a uniform and had a billy club strapped to his waist. His wide brown eyes looked frightened by all the students now pouring in through the front doors. He backed up a few steps and tried to blend into the wall.
I had never felt safer.
I heard our teacher Professor Squall across the room loudly telling someone to not touch something.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I whispered to Kate.
“What problem?” she asked.
“With museums,” I clarified. “You can’t touch anything here. Who knows if all this junk is even real?”
Kate pointed toward a suitcase that was sitting on a table. There was a sign underneath it that read: Duke Elliott’s official travel luggage.
“Are you saying that’s not real?” Kate asked.
“Who knows?” I replied. “It could just be a hologram.” I reached out and touched the suitcase—it wasn’t a hologram. As I was pulling my hand back, a man to my right shouted.
“Don’t touch!”
The man who was using his outdoor voice indoors was the museum director. I knew this because he had on a badge that read: Museum Director. Mr. Museum smiled the sort of smile that suggested he was on to me and then cleared his throat and turned to look at all the students. He was a slight man with tiny hands and large, perfectly round nostrils that twitched and expanded as he breathed. He had droopy ears and a Band-Aid on his forehead. Above the Band-Aid was a head of very thick black hair.
“Good day, students,” he said seriously, his thick, sticky voice as unusual as his appearance. “Today I desire for you all to see things which will provoke the sedentary mind and open your eyes to hissssssssstory.”
We all stared respectfully at him.
“History,” he clarified, as if the drawn-out hissy version was too much for our sedentary minds to understand.
A few of us nodded to let him know that we understood and that he could move on. He slowly led us from room to room talking about pictures and dusty objects that probably should have been thrown out years ago. He pointed to what looked like an old jug and said, “The winds of change can often blow with calmness and grace.”
I leaned over and whispered into Kate’s right ear. “What’s that have to do with that jug?”
“I have no idea,” she whispered back.
“We have way older stuff in my house,” I reminded her.
“Right,” Kate replied softly. “But that junk’s not important to Kingsplot.”
“Actually, I bet it’s more important than this stuff,” I argued. “Kingsplot wouldn’t be what it is if it hadn’t been for my family and their junk.”
“Excuse me?” the tiny hand man said, apparently bothered by the fact that Kate and I were talking while he was. “Is there a tidbit of information you wish to share with the whole of us?”
I couldn’t really understand his phraseology, but I knew from his inflection that he was asking a question.
“Well?” he asked impatiently. “What do you have to say?”
I thought about continuing to ignore him, but being the polite young man that I was, I tossed out an answer.
“Museums?”
The museum curator stared at me as if I were an exhibit he wished had been discontinued. He looked at Professor Squall and shook his head. Professor Squall sighed loudly and then walked over and stood next to Kate and me.
“Beck, we don’t need any extra commentary from you today,” Squall insisted in a whisper. “This man is very important and has graciously volunteered to give us a bit of his time.”
“Sorry,” I said, trying to sound sincere without too many extra words.
Mr. Museum cleared his throat and continued talking. He went on about an old tattered flag, waving his miniature marshmallow fingers around. After he gushed about the flag, he went on and on about a big clay pole for a few minutes. I had no idea there was so much to be said about a clay pole, but he was filled to the top of his furry head with info. After the pole talk, he led us as a group into a different room.
The new room was large—the ceilings were twenty feet high—and painted gray. The walls were dirty, and I could see dark mold along the baseboards. I thought about pointing that out and demanding that I be allowed to leave and breathe fresh air, but I knew Squall wouldn’t go for it. In the middle of the room was a gigantic clear ball that was filled with half-inch metal balls. The massive orb looked like the top of a huge gumball machine with shiny steel gumballs inside. It was six feet tall, and I could see dust on the very top of it. Surrounding the sphere were a dozen or so life-sized iron statues of women and men. A low, red velvet rope circled the entire display to keep people from getting too close.
Mr. Museum—or Mr. M as I now affectionately called him in my mind—stopped in front of the large sphere and asked, “Do you know what we have here?”
One of the super-genius girls from the other class raised her hand. Mr. M pointed toward her like he was pressing an invisible doorbell.
&nb
sp; “Those are steel ball bearings in there,” the girl informed us all. “They were made at the old steel mill on the other side of Lake Mend.”
“Good answer,” the curator said. “You are a friend of history.”
“And,” the girl continued, “that mill has been closed for years, but it was the main employer in Kingsplot for a very long time.”
“Fantastic,” Mr. M said. “And the container of ball bearings is surrounded by the statues of the men and women who built and ran the factory. They in turn helped build up the town of Kingsplot here in the Hagen Valley. All of us owe them a great debt of gratitude for what we now enjoy.”
I looked around, wondering exactly what we were enjoying.
Mr. M praised Smart Girl some more and then pointed across the room toward an old car. He waved his tiny hands to motion for us to move away from the orb. Everyone except me followed like sheep addicted to history. I had seen old cars before, but I’d never seen so many shiny metal balls in one container, and something inside of me wanted to touch the display. I leaned over the red velvet rope and put my right hand against the plastic sphere. It was cold. The plastic felt like a window in autumn, and a small chill ran up my arms and caused my body to shiver slightly. I stared at all the silver ball bearings inside. The millions of shiny balls were transfixing.
Kate had walked off with the group, but she turned around and saw me touching the round display. She made some sort of hissing noise while shaking her head. I took my hands off the huge sphere and leaned back out over the rope. I stood tall and tried to make it look like I was paying attention. Kate rolled her blue eyes and turned away. Mr. M was saying something about how the car he was pointing at once belonged to the third mayor of Kingsplot. He then paused. I clapped because I thought I should. Everyone turned to look at me.
“Excuse me?” Mr. M asked.
“Nothing,” I said, my face turning slightly red. “I was just clapping about the car.”
Mr. M made an expression that looked similar to one a person might make if they had accidentally stepped in cat vomit with their bare feet.
“Sorry,” I tried.
He sniffed in a passive-aggressive way and then went back to talking about the old car. Everyone turned away from me as they continued to listen to him. I looked at Kate for support. Her expression looked similar to the one a person might make if they suddenly realized they were dating an idiot. She turned away and gave all her attention to the speaker.
Hanging my head, I sighed. I looked at the large plastic ball with the ball bearings. The millions of silver balls were spellbinding. I could see shapes and shadows all throughout the globe. I looked over at Mr. M and tried to act interested.
He was now telling everyone about how the mayor’s car had a secret compartment in it. Normally that was something I would care about, but at the moment I had millions of silver balls on my mind. Plus, the statues surrounding it were cool looking. The still metal faces and expressions of those who had once lived here were hypnotizing. One of the statues behind the plastic orb even looked oddly familiar. I wanted to step over the rope and take a better look, but I forced my feet to keep still. I needed Mr. M and the crowd of students to move on. There was something about that statue’s face that I needed to examine.
Chapter 3
Help
All I could do was wait. It took all the patience I could muster not to move instantly. But just as soon as everyone had walked to the other side of the room and was fully distracted by the new displays Mr. M was squawking about, I quietly stepped over the low velvet rope and moved closer to the display.
I walked carefully between a bronze statue of a woman named Emily Welt and a short bronze statue of a man labeled Dan Gardiner, who was wearing a hat. Next to the plastic ball was a tall bronze statue of a guy with a short beard and puffy sleeves. I stared at his face, half expecting him to say something to me.
He didn’t.
I looked down toward his feet and read the metal plaque near his shins.
“Pillage,” I whispered in surprise.
I bent down and looked at the dusty plaque. There was no first name or any other marking, just the single word, Pillage. I straightened up and looked directly into the statue’s cold metal eyes. I had no idea exactly who he was or what he had to do with the ball bearing factory. I supposed if I were forced to guess, I would have guessed that he was my great-grandfather Taft. Of course, it could also not be my great-grandfather, or he could be another Pillage altogether.
Mr. M, Kate, and all of the students moved out of the room, leaving me completely alone. I touched my bronze relative on the right shoulder. I was probably just being dramatic, but I swear I felt a small shock run through my arm and charge the back of my neck with goose bumps. Suddenly this museum didn’t seem so dumb. The statue represented my family, and I wanted family. I know at my age a lot of kids push away from their families, but I felt differently. I wanted my father to get out of the hospital and for him to be all right. I wanted the sickness and confusion that swirled through so many of my ancestors’ brains to be gone forever.
“I wish you could talk,” I said quietly to the statue.
There was no reply from the statue, but I could hear a soft crackling, like the sound of static, growing around me. I listened carefully in an attempt to decipher where it was coming from.
“Beck?” Kate’s voice called softly, surprising me and cutting through the sound of the soft static.
I jumped an inch.
“Beck, are you still in here?” she whispered loudly.
I smiled because Kate had come back for me.
“Here,” I called out to her.
Kate looked at me as I stood on the other side of the velvet rope among the statues.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Come here,” I said with excitement.
“No,” she said responsibly. “We need to get back to the group.”
“Just for a second,” I insisted. “Come look at this.”
Kate looked around. She glanced into the other room where everyone was and pushed her long red hair back behind her right ear.
“Really quick,” I promised.
Kate was one of the most independent and intelligent girls I knew. Yet for some reason she listened to me. She stepped over the low velvet rope and weaved between the statues to where I was.
“Look,” I said, pointing down.
Kate looked at the plaque and shrugged. “Who is it, one of your crazy relatives?”
“I think so.”
“Which one is . . . ?” Kate stopped talking. “Wait, do you hear that?” she asked.
The faint cackle of static was growing louder once more—like a radio being slowly turned up.
“I don’t know what that is,” I whispered. “The sound system must have a broken speaker or something.”
“I don’t think that’s the sound system,” Kate gasped, pointing down and toward the wall closest to the display.
I looked down and jumped back just a bit. The floor looked like it was bubbling around the edges of the room. I glanced around and could see huge brown mounds bubbling up from the baseboards.
“Are those . . . ?”
“Mushrooms!” Kate exclaimed.
Mushroom caps the size of cantaloupes were pushing up from the mold below the baseboards and sending out long shoots that sliced through the air like wet spaghetti noodles. The entire edge of the room looked like it was boiling with dirty brown water. Mushrooms sprang from every crack and corner, wherever tiny bits of mold gave them life.
“Are you doing that?” Kate cried, backing up into my arms.
“I’m not doing anything!” And I put my arms around her to prove it.
Once again, the vegetation was after me. I stared at the fungi growing out of the mold. It was gargantuan and cancerous looking. The mushroom caps began to pop free from their stems and roll toward us. They were bouncing off the displays like fleshy bubbles.
One
of us screamed.
“That’s not going to help!” Kate yelled back.
I held onto Kate tightly as the mushrooms bounced toward us from all directions. One mushroom cap the size of a fat tomato slapped me in the face as strands of fungi wrapped around our legs. We both decided that now was the perfect moment to scream for help. We opened our mouths, but before anything came out, Professor Squall came walking in from the other room calling my name. Apparently he had noticed that his most troublesome student was no longer with the group, and he had come to round me up.