“No bears, Mrs. Mandrake.”
“Will we be late for dinner?”
“I can’t say, Mrs. Mandrake.”
“Oh and, Sid? Sid, will the priceless Mandrake Necklace be safe in my room? My late husband gave it to me. I didn’t want to wear it outside for fear the dazzle would stupefy the dogs.”
The manager had clearly about had it with Mrs. Mandrake. “Yes, Mrs. Mandrake. It will be fine in your room. You’re going with that group,” he said, pointing to Lily, Eddie Wax, and the man in the green poplin jumpsuit. “Does everyone have a map of the mountain? And everyone knows where you’re going?”
Everyone said “Yes” or “I guess so.”
“Has everyone gone to the bathroom?”
People shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed. “Go on,” said Sid. “Go on!” Many of them headed inside.
“I’ll be back in a tick, Lily,” said Eddie Wax, jerking his thumb toward the lodge. “Right after I done nature’s business.”
“See you, horse kid,” said the man in the green poplin jumpsuit. He did some stretches, picking up his knee and clenching it in his arms. “I’m Rick,” he said to Lily. “I don’t need the bathroom right now, because I’ve taught myself the art of self-control.”
“I’m Lily,” she said. “I’m glad you …” She didn’t really know how to finish the sentence.
“Yup. Me, I’m staying out here in the sun and the fresh air,” said Rick. “Can’t shake your hand because I have my knee in my arms.”
Lily nodded. She did not like small talk very much. She never knew what to say, and that made her feel kind of dull, even though it shouldn’t have. People who are really good at small talk are sometimes a little suspicious, because they’re so smooth. Especially in a mystery novel.
Rick was not all that good at small talk. “I’m standing on one leg,” he said, “and what’s wrong with that?” He bounced up and down. “Let’s get going!” he said. “Let’s truck! Where’s the horse kid? I want to get a move on! Let’s find those Quints!”
“Poor little things,” said Mrs. Mandrake, adjusting her hat.
“I hope they’re safe,” said Lily.
Mrs. Mandrake said, “Indeed.”
The Quints, however, were not doing well at all.
“Ow,” said La Hooper.
“Double ow,” said Ray Hooper.
“You’re kicking me,” said La.
“I can’t see anything,” said Doe. “It’s dark.”
And dark, my friends, it was.
“Jeepers-to-crow,” said Ray, “a bandit’s cave in the mountainside is the perfectest place to spend our holiday!”
“Doe?” said La. “Kick Ray.”
Doe tried. No luck.
“We could sing to lift our spirits,” one of them suggested.
Believe me, you want me to end the chapter now.
Katie, meanwhile, wandered alone through the corridors of the hotel. She passed identical doors. The knuckles of her hand brushed each doorframe, as if she wanted to knock.
She couldn’t go back to her room, 23 C, because her room was inside of someone else’s bathroom, and she didn’t have the key. She frowned. This was exactly the kind of problem you had to expect when you traveled with Jasper. Something crazy always came up. Katie was tired of crazy things.
She passed a small lounge where some little kids were sitting around an entertainment specialist from the hotel. The entertainment specialist leaned toward the kids and spoke to them in a breathy, hushy voice. “There’s a story,” the entertainment specialist said, “that this hotel is haunted. Do you want to hear it?” The kids clapped their hands and shouted.
Katie snorted and walked on.
No more ghosts.
The woman looked after her. “Don’t snort at the supernatural,” said the entertainment specialist. “It can hear you snort.”
It can hear me do a lot of things, for what I care, thought Katie. I am ignoring ghosts. I am ignoring missing quints. I am going to pretend everything is normal. I am going to go down to the gift shop and buy the new issue of Snazzy, and I’m going to sit on the veranda with the sun shining on me and I’m going to read. And no dark shape is going to cover up the sun, and nothing on the veranda is going to drip blood, and the faces of girls in the magazine aren’t going to whisper my name and ask for help, and I am just going to have a good, quiet time. So there!
She went down the main staircase. She looked around the lobby. That’s funny …, she thought. There was a row of mounted animal heads, and it looked like two were missing.
She curled her fists up into balls, muttered to herself, “Out being cleaned,” and walked right past. She was not going to be delayed by a couple of missing heads. There was relaxing to do.
She went into the gift shop. They had key chains, batteries for cameras, aspirin, and plush goats. They also had a rack of books and magazines. She spun the rack to hide several Horror Hollow books against the wall. She found Snazzy. (“Coolest Summer Clogs!” “Connect the Dots: Spread Freckles to Other People!” “Is Your Guy Also Luggage? One Girl Speaks Out.”)
She put the magazine on the counter. “I’d like to buy this,” she said, and took out her wallet.
Nothing weird or supernatural happened. She put down her money, and the salesclerk took it. He gave her change. She thanked him and went to find someplace to sit.
There was a beautiful view from the porch she found. It was up on the third floor, overlooking the front lawn. The sun was high and it fell through the forests that covered the steep sides of the mountain. Far below her, she could see other blue peaks. Cars crawled up the mountain road far below, swiveling around switchbacks. Kids were jostling each other in the rumble seats.
On the front lawn, the guests stood around in their search parties and waited while a few stragglers went to the bathroom or bought sun-block. Katie resolutely didn’t look for her friends in the crowd.
She put on her sunglasses and sat back in a deck chair. She opened the magazine on her lap. The pages fell wide to several cards scented with perfume. She took them out and held them close to her nose. Each one smelled good. On her favorite, there was a picture of a handsome, sweaty man with uneven hair, a pout, a corduroy jacket, and a black eye. It was called “Tainted: A Fragrance.”
She sat for a while, looking out over the landscape. She thought about how Lily couldn’t understand that, sometimes, Katie just wanted to be a girl. She didn’t want to lay demons to rest or talk about how great it would be to bring back a live pterodactyl. She just wanted to think about boys. She wanted to be pretty. She knew the teen magazines she read were sort of stupid; that was why she read them. It was fun. She laughed at them herself. But all the same—what was wrong with being silly once in a while? What was wrong with laughing and trying something new with your image? For once, when she did her hair nicely and then went to hang out at Jasper’s, she would have liked to have Jasper and Lily say, “Hey, Katie, your hair looks really nice,” instead of “Whoa. That’s going to get really messed up when you put on the mind-meld helmet.”
Though she didn’t like to admit it, sometimes Katie was a little embarrassed by Jasper and even Lily. She couldn’t imagine what some of the kids at school would say if they ever met Jasper.
She particularly wondered what some of the boys on the soccer team would say.
There was one soccer player in particular that she had a crush on. His name was Choate Brinsley. He had the most perfect oval-shaped face. That was something she couldn’t talk about with Lily. Lily would just get uncomfortable. Lily didn’t like to admit that people had faces or bodies at all.
Katie leaned back in her chair and daydreamed about kissing Choate Brinsley after a game. It would be raining, and their hair would cling to each other. She would move her lips across his cheek. His shin guards would nuzzle her ankles. And he would say:
“Now—to seize that diamond necklace and make good my escape!”
Katie’s pupils suddenly snapped back into fo
cus.
The gruff voice had come through the window beside the porch. Katie listened carefully. “It’s got to be in here somewhere.” It was a man’s voice—someone muttering to himself.
But no. No! Not her business. She’d quit. No more mysteries. Katie scowled and stared down at her knees.
The voice said, “The priceless Mandrake Necklace will soon be mine. Mine, mine, do you hear me?” It was a man’s voice, sort of grating, a little bit like the voice of an assistant manager in a second-rate electronics store that specializes in phone adapters. Katie ignored it.
There was a crash as something in the room was dropped.
Katie, unconcerned, flipped a few pages of Snazzy. “Is Your Date a Creep or a Keeper? 17 Questions to Help You Think.”
She heard dresser drawers being slammed and suitcases being overturned. She heard underwear flying through the air.*
She read, “Question 3. Slick or slouch? Is he polite with your parents, or does he just mumble a few words and try to crawl out the basement window? A. Yeah! B. No way! C. …”
Behind her the man growled, “Could it be hidden in the … No … No, it isn’t… Could it…” The thief was ripping the pillows apart, by the sounds of things.
Katie read that ingredient numero uno for gals in clogs in the modern era was a sinful smother of antioxidant-enriched body soufflé applied liberally to the feet and ankles.
“I must find it quickly!”
Katie read an article on ski pants.
“Could it be that the old bat stuck the necklace in the … Aha! Yes!”
The thief laughed heartily.
Katie dog-eared a page recommending citrus juice to freshen up dimples.
“Bingo!” cried the thief.
She heard a door slam.
She didn’t move a muscle.
She turned the magazine sideways to admire a model’s boot-cut wet suit.
She heard the porch door open behind her.
She angrily flipped to the table of contents and began looking for the article on the mono-brow.
Suddenly there was a piercing scream. A bloodcurdling scream, right behind her.
Katie dropped the magazine and started to her feet.
She didn’t make it to a standing position, however, before she was engulfed—a man in a black cape fell upon her, and she tumbled backward, now screaming herself …
* It sounded silk.
Katie struggled with the cloaked man. She kneed him in the gut. He wheezed and rolled off her. She sprang up and prepared to fight. He was still lying on the deck.
He was an old man with white hairs growing out of the top of his nose. He wore blacked-out round glasses and a black cape. He tried to raise himself up on one arm.
“I’m—hunh—I’m terribly sorry, miss,” he said, addressing the door. “It appears we are all in a heap.”
“What are you doing?” Katie demanded.
“Professor Nerwald Schmeltzer,” said the old man, feeling for the railing, grasping it, and heaving himself to his feet. Katie stepped forward and gave him a hand. “Bat specialist,” he said, shaking her hand. “It is my lot to admire the bats.”
Now that he was on his feet, he carefully fixed his pearly-white bouffant hairdo by touch. He said, “You appear to be startled.”
“You screamed.”
“Bats navigate by sound.”
“What?” said Katie.
“I find my way around as the bats do— echolocation. I am the next stage in man’s evolution. I shriek and listen to hear the contours of objects. I caress the world with my voice. It is a quaint and frivolous habit that shall one day prove to be mankind’s salvation.”
Katie looked at him suspiciously. “You really can tell where to go just by screaming?”
“Indeed,” said the old man. “I have come up to the mountains to study the squeak of the Ghost-Faced Bat in the caves hereabouts.”
Katie didn’t really believe him. “So when you screeched,” she said, “you were just trying to see me?”
The professor suddenly started and Katie heard a thump—someone was trying to slip by in the hallway on the other side of the door. The thief!
She ran past the professor into the hotel. She could hear someone fleeing down the hallway. She scrambled after him.
The professor followed. Katie heard a series of bloodcurdling yelps as he listened his way down the corridor.
She paused at an intersection of hallways. She didn’t know which way the thief had gone.
She had just enough time to realize that she had accidentally started to solve a mystery, and to think, Darn it! I don’t want to— when suddenly the professor crept up by her side.
“Are you chasing someone?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately.”
“Who?” he asked.
“A thief,” she said.
“Aha,” he said.
She said, “Shh.”
For a moment they were quiet. They could hear the air conditioners in people’s rooms and someone vacuuming.
Then she heard it—someone padding quickly down one of the corridors. She couldn’t quite tell what direction it was coming from or how far away it was. She shut her eyes and—
She was flattened against the wall.
“Sorry,” said Professor Schmeltzer. “Just checking to hear if my belt buckle was tarnished.” He leaned down and polished the buckle with his handkerchief.
Katie’s ears rang.
He said, “I find the mountain air corrodes metal more quickly, even, than the vapors near the sea.”
She listened. Nothing. The thief was far away by now.
“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”
“For … ?” asked Professor Schmeltzer.
“Never mind,” said Katie, stomping away from him.
She disappeared down the corridor.
“Ah, impetuous youth,” said Professor Schmeltzer.
He lifted up his dark glasses and watched her retreat. He smiled to himself.
Then he put away his handkerchief and, without making a noise, walked back to his room to read the paper.
The forest smelled sweetly of pine needles. The trees sparkled in the sun. Lily, Mrs. Mandrake, Eddie Wax, and Rick walked down a steep slope toward a stream. In the woods Lily could see little benches on little side paths. There were places where people had tied Chinese lanterns to branches. In the evening guests could stroll out from the hotel veranda and walk through the woods. The forest would look soft and haunted. People could talk about the things that were important to them, like hope or sadness or their families.
Lily wished that she were with her friends. She wished they were all doing this together. When you are with your friends, even chores can seem like fun. Once, for example, some friends of mine and I tried to lift up the sinking city of Venice on concrete pilings. Dave nearly dropped the cathedral of San Marco on Chloe’s leg. Man, we laughed so hard, we almost spat out our snorkels. We still tease him about that occasionally. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
Lily felt uncomfortable about how things were turning out. Katie was sitting by herself somewhere. Jasper—poor Jasper—was off with the Manley Boys, who were probably being mean to him.
Sometimes Lily worried about Jasper. He was a little too good for this world. Even though he usually was the one protecting her with his ray guns and his atomic cannon, sometimes he was the one who needed protecting. She wanted to put her arm around his shoulders and tell him that everything was fine, that he was a good person and it didn’t matter what people said about his belief that the world was hollow or about the antennae on his bike.
Instead, she was walking along beside Eddie Wax, who was nice but who wouldn’t stop talking.
“Yep, Stumpy and me won the Portertown Derby. Mayor of Portertown turned bright red as a roadhouse borscht and threwed his hat right on the ground. Guess you know that, if you read the book. The wind was blowing up through my hair. It was blowing
it back kind of heroic. Like this.” He held up some of his hair. “Hey. Lookee here. Like this. Wind. And Stumpy, Stumpy was …”
Lily had imagined the vacation working out very differently. She wanted Jasper, Katie, and her to be walking together through these woods, talking about school and movies, with the lights sparkling in the trees, and people whispering secrets to each other, and the fountains lacing the evening air with water.
“They said I couldn’t do it, but I showed them I could,” said Eddie Wax. “I gentled Stumpy, I took her in the race, and I won first place, fair and square. They said I couldn’t, but I did. The prize was a pie so big, I swum in it for a week.”
Rick called back, “Hey, you two getting to know each other? That’s cute.”
He and Mrs. Mandrake waited by a turn in the path for Lily and Eddie Wax to catch up. Lily was relieved. Rick had never appeared in a book. He was just staying at the hotel. He seemed a little boastful, but Lily thought he might be less peculiar than some of the other guests, a little more straightforward. She gladly joined him, and the four of them walked together down the path.
Rick was busy trying to impress Mrs. Mandrake. “You psychic?” he asked. “I’m psychic. I can move things with my mind. I just don’t do it. I choose not to use my powers.”
“How delightful,” said Mrs. Mandrake. “One could just stand on the diving board and have the water jump to you. It would save a lot of unnecessary flexing. Do you know, Rick, I am a little anxious about this resort.”
“Because of the kidnapping?” asked Rick.
“Yes. Of course because of the kidnapping. Just before we left, Sid, the hotel manager, told me that they had received a ransom call from the kidnapper asking for forty thousand dollars apiece for the Quints.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Rick. “Forty thousand smackers. Times five.”
“Wow, indeed,” said Mrs. Mandrake. “If this were a hotel of quality, they would be asking for twenty times that, at least.”
“Wait!” said Lily. “They called asking for a ransom?”
“If you can call that a ransom. I pay more than that to have my fridge cleaned.”