“A school paper?” The lady frowned. “Today is not school-visit day.”
As Homer pondered his next move, Hercules wandered over to a bank of elevators. A brass plaque on the wall listed the names of the various offices and which floors they called home. “There’s an office of celestial navigation,” he called. “It’s on the topmost floor.”
“Could we go to the topmost floor?” Homer asked the lady. “To have our map read by someone who reads celestial maps?”
“That office is closed to the public. No one’s allowed up there. Besides, we don’t offer a reading service here. We publish maps and send them in the mail to our subscribers.”
“I’m a subscriber,” Homer explained. “I love your maps.”
The lady looked over the rims of her cat-eye glasses. “Then perhaps you’d like to buy one. We have maps of the known world, maps of imaginary worlds, maps of the heavens, maps of the human body, land maps, ocean maps, river maps”—her sentences ran together as if she didn’t need to breathe—“maps from the ancient times, maps from medieval times, maps from yesterday, maps from the future—”
“The future? How is that possible?” Lorelei interrupted.
“I’m not at liberty to answer that question.” The lady tucked the pen behind her ear and continued. “Maps drawn by sailors, maps drawn by mountain climbers, maps of the subway, the freeway, the Milky Way, maps of circuses, maps of zoos, maps of—”
“Excuse me,” Homer interrupted. “But I don’t want to buy a map. I already have a map.” He leaned over the desk and lowered his voice. “I’m usually really good when it comes to reading maps, but this one is… odd.” Then he remembered and pulled his invitation from his pocket. “I got this,” he explained, hoping she wouldn’t realize it was a fake. “From Mr. Dimknob for a VIP tour.”
“Mr. Dimknob is very busy.” She glanced at the invitation. “Besides, the tour was at noon precisely. Tough break.” A bell rang. “Closing time,” she announced loudly, a grin breaking across her bored face. “Closing! Time!”
Two elevators opened simultaneously, and out marched a bunch of people with briefcases. They hurried across the lobby, pushing one another to get to the door. Because only a few could fit through at a time, a huge traffic jam ensued. Those closest to the door flattened themselves and squeezed through like paste through a tube.
The lady with the cat-eye glasses grabbed her purse and pulled out a lipstick. “You’ll have to leave now. I don’t want to be late for my dinner date.” She spread hot pink all over her lips.
Two more elevators opened, and more people hurried out, joining the writhing group at the front door. These people either hated their jobs or they had really important places to go. The lady tossed her lipstick into her purse, then said, “Follow me so you won’t get locked in.” And she marched around the desk and elbowed her way into the crowd.
As the last elevator opened, Homer and Lorelei shared a look of frustration. Someone bonked Homer with a briefcase. Someone else tripped over Dog. The lady had disappeared amid a sea of gray flannel suits.
“Psssst,” Hercules called. With his foot, he held an elevator door open. Without any discussion, Lorelei pushed Homer forward.
Since their death-defying experience in an elevator on their first visit to The City, neither Dog nor Homer was a fan of the contraption. Dog was about to turn his body into concrete, but Homer was fast. “Oh no, you don’t.” Luckily the floor had just been waxed, so one push was all it took. Dog slid on his tummy like an ice-skater, bumping gently into Hercules’s sneakers. The elevator doors closed.
Lorelei stared at the panel of buttons. “What floor?”
“The directory said the topmost floor,” Hercules replied.
With a shrug, she pushed the highest floor, which happened to be the thirtieth.
Ding. The second-floor button lit up, and the elevator slowed.
“Uh-oh,” Homer said. “Someone’s still in the building.” They didn’t have time to come up with a plan, because the doors swooshed open.
“Oh, it’s just a cleaning lady,” Lorelei said with a sigh of relief. Hercules’s shoulders relaxed. Homer, however, stiffened like an overstarched shirt.
The Unpolluter pressed her hand against the elevator door, keeping it open as she stood on the threshold. Her gray hair was plastered beneath her shower cap. Her athletic socks peeked over the tops of a pair of black rubber boots. She said nothing, her gaze traveling from Homer to Hercules to Dog, then resting on Lorelei. “You kids lost?” she asked.
“No,” Lorelei said.
She kept her hand on the elevator door. “The building’s closed. You got business here?”
Homer followed The Unpolluter’s gaze as it landed on the word FOUND, emblazoned on Lorelei’s pink jumpsuit. “Yes, we have business here,” Lorelei said.
“What kind of business?” The Unpolluter asked.
“The kind of business that’s none of your business,” Lorelei replied snippily.
The Unpolluter frowned. “I saw you on television. How’s the treasure hunt going?”
Lorelei folded her arms. “Fine, thank you very much.”
The Unpolluter set a bucket of sudsy water into the elevator. A mop handle poked out of the bucket. She stepped inside and pressed the fourth-floor button. The doors swooshed closed, and the elevator rose.
Dog, who couldn’t ignore a bucket of water, be it sudsy or not, stuck his nose inside and managed a few gulps before Homer pulled him away. Homer didn’t fret or scold. It wasn’t the first bucket of soapy water Dog had helped himself to. Soapy water would simply clean out his insides—maybe make his farts smell better. What worried Homer, at that very moment, was the old woman’s threat to “get rid” of Lorelei. He slid in front of Lorelei, blocking her body with his own.
“Hey,” she grumbled. “You’re squishing me against the wall.”
Hercules cleared his throat, then peered around The Unpolluter’s shoulder. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but notice that rather large mole on your nose. Antibacterial ointment might help reduce the inflammation.”
The Unpolluter ignored him and instead turned to Homer. “Do you need my help cleaning up any messes?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t need your help.”
Lorelei jabbed Homer with her elbow. “You’re squishing me. Move!” But Homer didn’t move. If he’d learned one thing from Dog, it was the “I’m-not-budging-and-you-can’t-make-me” technique. He wasn’t going to give The Unpolluter a clear view of Lorelei.
“You’re certain you don’t need help cleaning up the situation?” The Unpolluter asked.
“I’m certain,” Homer said through clenched teeth as Lorelei pounded on his back. “I can clean up the mess myself.”
“Very well.” The Unpolluter pulled a pair of yellow rubber gloves from her apron pocket and slid them onto her hands.
Ding. The elevator doors slid open. The Unpolluter clutched the bucket’s handle and stepped out onto the fourth floor. But before the doors closed, she spun around and pointed at Homer. “Remember—I offered my help, but you said you didn’t need it.” The doors closed.
“What was that about?” Lorelei asked as Homer stepped aside.
“I don’t know,” Homer lied as the elevator rose. He exhaled, but his breath was ragged with worry. Had this meeting been a coincidence or had The Unpolluter followed them to the Map of the Month Club?
“She was creepy,” Lorelei said. “She smelled like bleach. And that thing on her nose was practically glowing.”
“Bleach aggravates my mucus membranes,” Hercules said as he took a hit of his inhaler.
Ding. The elevator stopped on the thirtieth floor, but the doors did not open. Lorelei pushed the open button, but nothing happened. She pushed it again. “What’s the problem?” She jabbed it, then punched it.
“Urrrr?” Dog pressed his nose to the crack between the doors.
“If we’re trapped in this elevator, I may develop an acute case
of claustrophobia, which is the fear of getting stuck in small spaces,” Hercules said. “I’m warning you because if I start to get claustrophobic, I might hyperventilate, and then I might faint, and I don’t have my helmet.”
“We’re not stuck,” Lorelei said. She kicked both doors. “Open!”
“Don’t panic,” Homer said, even though his chest had begun to tighten. He stepped close to the panel and looked at the buttons. There was something different about the one to floor thirty. Right next to it was a little slot. He ran his finger over the slot. “What’s this for?”
“A key?” Hercules asked.
“Maybe. But it would have to be a round key. It looks like a coin slot.” He took a quarter from his pocket and shoved it into the slot. The quarter disappeared, but popped right back out. He found a nickel and a penny, but they were too small. “The quarter seems to be the right size.”
“We don’t have any other coins in this country that are the same size as a quarter,” Hercules said.
“Maybe we do.” Homer reached under his shirt. He had a hunch, and his late uncle Drake had often said, “Never ignore lunch or a hunch. One can fuel the body while the other can fuel a discovery.” So, without consulting his companions, Homer pulled the chain from under his shirt and stuck the membership coin into the slot. The coin did not pop back out. A mechanical whirr sounded, and the elevator rose a bit higher. Then the doors whooshed open.
“How did you know to do that?” Lorelei asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
Homer shrugged. He had no idea why a L.O.S.T. membership coin would allow them entrance to the topmost floor of the Map of the Month Club, but he guessed he was about to find out. He retrieved the coin. Then, with a tug on the leash, he led Dog from the elevator.
They stood in a narrow corridor. Other than the elevator, there was only one door, and a sign on it read OFFICE OF CELESTIAL NAVIGATION. Homer knocked, but no one answered. He knocked again and was willing to wait politely, but Lorelei grabbed the knob and pushed it open. Dog squeezed past Lorelei’s legs and pulled Homer inside.
There could be no doubt they’d reached the topmost floor, because the domed ceiling was made of glass panels. A solid square platform had been constructed at the top of the dome. That’s where the enormous globe sat.
Homer took a long look around the room, which seemed to him to be a mapmaker’s dream come true. The room itself was cluttered with rolled parchments. Crowded bookshelves covered the northern wall. A table, laden with all sorts of mapmaking instruments and more rolls of parchment, stretched across the room. The tabletop was painted like a blackboard. Drawings and equations had been scribbled here and there in different-colored chalks. Dust coated the floor except for a trail made by footprints that led from a cot to the table and then to a stepladder and back again. The stepladder led to a porthole where a telescope pointed up at the sky. Seven other portholes were spaced at equal intervals around the dome’s perimeter.
Dog tugged the leash from Homer’s grip, then began to mosey around the room. Homer didn’t go after him, because he’d noticed someone standing at the top of the stepladder. The person’s back was to Homer, but he could tell it was a girl because she had two long red braids and wore a black skirt and a pair of kneesocks. He assumed she was a child because she was very short. She was probably the daughter of whoever worked in this office. Because she was peering into the telescope’s eyepiece, she hadn’t noticed the visitors.
Homer cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Is your mom or dad here?”
The girl turned and glared down at him. A bushy beard and mustache covered most of her face. When she spoke, her voice was deep and grumbly. “Ma maw and ma paw are lang deid.”
Apparently, she wasn’t a she after all, nor was she a child. And because she was a he, the skirt was actually a kilt.
“How did ye git in here?” the small man asked.
“Uh, the door was open,” Homer said.
“Open, ye say? Hmmm. Ah thought ah’d closed it. Well, whit do ye want?”
Lorelei stepped forward. “Do you read celestial maps?”
“Who wants tae know?”
“We do,” Homer answered.
“And who are ye?” There was so much hair on the man’s face, it was difficult to read his expressions. And his accent was thick and tricky to understand.
“Don’t tell him our real names,” Lorelei whispered in Homer’s ear.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Homer told her under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to get arrested for trespassing, and if he told this man his real name, then his parents might be contacted. There’d be a big lecture and maybe some jail time. Mr. Pudding would assign Homer a whole mess of extra chores and Mrs. Pudding would telephone Ajitabh, and everyone would be disappointed and upset.
“We’re students,” Homer said, keeping with the original lie, which was so much easier than inventing a new one. Lies, once they begin to pile up, become very difficult to keep track of. “We have to read a celestial map for a school report and—”
“Ah dinna care nothin’ aboot school reports.” The man turned away and pressed his eye to the telescope’s eyepiece.
“Do you care about subscribers?” Hercules asked. “Homer’s a subscriber to the Map of the Month Club.” Then Hercules took a quick breath and whispered, “Oops, I said your name.”
“Ah dinna care nothin’ aboot subscribers.”
“But you work for the Map of the Month Club,” Lorelei said. “Without the subscribers, you wouldn’t have a job. So you should help us.”
“Ah dinna work for no map club. Ah jist live up here. And ah dinna care nothin’ aboot helpin’ no one. A jist want to be left alone.”
If the kilt-wearing man didn’t work for the map club and he was simply living on the topmost floor, as he said, then he had to know something about L.O.S.T. Otherwise, why would a L.O.S.T. coin be necessary for admittance? Homer reached into his shirt to grab his membership coin, but Lorelei stopped him. She leaned close to his ear again and whispered, “Don’t show him that. We don’t know if we can trust him.”
“But the coin got us in here,” Homer said.
“That’s a good point,” Hercules said, huddling up to the other two as if they were about to play a game of football.
Lorelei rolled her eyes. “Yes, but if he knows about L.O.S.T., then he probably knows about Rumpold’s treasure. We can’t let him figure out we’ve got Rumpold’s map.”
“That’s a really good point,” Hercules said.
Yes, of course it was a really good point. Lorelei was full of good points. Homer sighed and let go of the coin’s chain. Then he looked back up the ladder. “If you can’t read celestial maps, then do you have a book that might help us?”
“Ah never said ah couldna read celestial maps. Ah’m an expert on celestial navigation. But ah dinna care aboot helpin ye. Now, away wi’ ye.”
“He’s so rude,” Lorelei grumbled. “Keep him distracted while Hercules and I go look on the bookshelves.” She motioned for Hercules to follow, and they tiptoed over to the shelves.
A chewing sound caught Homer’s attention. “Uh-oh.” He whipped around. “Dog?”
For reasons Homer had yet to figure out, Dog loved paper. It didn’t matter if the paper came in the form of a magazine or a library book. It didn’t matter if it was a brochure on goat grooming or a school report on Tasmanian wombats. The paper could be colored, lined, or plain white. It might have wrapped a birthday present or it might have wrapped lamb chops from the butcher. Dog loved paper in all its shapes and forms, and that is why he stood on the topmost floor eating one of the rolls of parchment. Homer hurried to Dog’s side and yanked the parchment from his mouth. It was a map. “How many times do I have to tell you not to eat other people’s maps?” Homer scolded, though he was more embarrassed than angry. Being angry at such a great dog was nearly impossible.
“Urrrr.” Dog wagged his tail apologetically, a shred of paper stuck to his chin.
&n
bsp; “How can you be hungry already?” Homer shook his head in wonder. Dog had eaten a bunch of vending-machine snacks in Lorelei’s lair. For a creature who exerted such little energy, he needed a surprising amount of refueling. “I’ll get you something when we’re done here.”
Clunking footsteps sounded as the red-haired man stomped down the ladder. Homer hid the ruined map behind his back, certain that the man was going to start hollering about the destruction of his property. After the man stepped onto the floor, he walked over to Dog. His eyebrows were as bushy as his beard. He was shorter than Homer had first thought, standing at about three and a half feet tall, and some of that height was provided by his wild red hair. He picked the shred of paper from Dog’s chin.
“I’m sorry he ate your map,” Homer said. “I hope it wasn’t an important map.”
“Is yon a wee basset hound?”
“Yes,” Homer said. No one had ever described Dog as “wee.” And Homer certainly wouldn’t have chosen that word, not after carrying Dog through that revolving door.
“Ah’d a wee basset hound when ah was a lad. Ah loved yon wee hound.” Was that a tear sparkling at the corner of the man’s eye? “Ah’ve a soft spot in ma heart for bassets. Can ye guess why?” He looked up at Homer.
“Because you had one when you were…” Homer almost said the word little but was afraid that word might insult the man. “When you were… a lad?”
“Aye, but there’s another reason.” The man crouched and scratched beneath Dog’s chin. “We both hae the genetic markers of dwarfism. That’s why we both hae these short legs.”
Homer nodded. When he’d first met Zelda, she’d explained that while Dog had a condition that kept him from growing, she had a condition that’d made her grow very fast—hence her eight-foot-two-inch status. “Genetic markers,” Homer repeated.
“I’ve often wondered if I have some sort of genetic marker that makes me afraid of things,” Hercules called from the bookcase. “I have lots of phobias.”
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