by Paul Haven
“Blech!” Danny croaked, looking unsuccessfully for a place to spit it out. It was vile, like eating moldy chalk.
“Well, what do you expect?” said Mr. Sycamore. “Why, that popcorn must be more than a hundred years old. This room was left exactly as it was when the great man died. All the rooms are like that.”
Molly put her finger in her mouth and made a vomiting face at Danny.
“One-hundred-year-old popcorn,” she laughed. “Now that's gross.”
She turned to Mr. Sycamore.
“I wouldn't have thought popcorn could last that long,” she said.
“Well, young lady, you're right,” he said. “We had a science professor in here one time and he said he reckoned it was on account of the cold temperature in the house that keeps things fresh longer. I just think there's something about this place that keeps things alive. Just look at me!”
In any case, Danny thought, it had been a bad day for food. The pineapple and tuna were already at war inside Danny's stomach, and the hundred-year-old popcorn was sure to add to it.
“Now, there are dozens of rooms on the ground level, and each one is unique,” Mr. Sycamore said. “I'll show you all of them, but first I must tell you the house rules.
“It is very, very important that you obey the rules,” Mr. Sycamore said, lowering his voice and pointing with his cane for emphasis.
“Yes, sir,” Molly, Danny, and Lucas answered in unison.
Mr. Sycamore was a lot less frightening in the mansion than he had been when he snuck up on them, but there was still something unnerving about him, especially when his wandering eye narrowed to a glare and fixed on a spot just above your head.
“Firstly, you are not to touch anything,” Mr. Sycamore said. “Secondly, you are not to wander around by yourselves. I must be with you at all times.
“Thirdly …” Mr. Sycamore's voice trailed off. “Now what was thirdly?”
The eye looked up at the ceiling.
“Oh, yes. Thirdly … you are not to eat any of the popcorn! Is that quite clear?” Mr. Sycamore said.
“Very clear,” said Danny, and the others nodded.
They moved on to the cotton-candy room, which had wisps of pink cotton candy hanging from all the walls and a sticky cotton-candy carpet on the floor. Danny had learned his lesson and didn't eat any.
Then it was time for the kitchen. There were fifteen wood-burning stoves and a long table about the length of a bowling lane to chop things on. All along the walls hung pots and pans, some so big you could climb inside them. There were brass spoons the size of pogo sticks and an old-fashioned bread-toasting machine that took fifty slices at a time.
“Mr. Boddlebrooks had a very large appetite,” Mr. Sycamore explained.
In his day, Manchester employed thirty chefs, and thirty more were brought in on party nights, Mr. Sycamore said. Manchester had also devised a series of bells with different sounds, so he could order his favorite foods from anywhere in the house. One bell that made a deep resonating sound meant he wanted breakfast cereal. A smaller one that made a high-pitched tinkle meant beef jerky. An order from Manchester would send the cooking staff scurrying, and it wouldn't be long before the snack was brought to him.
Mr. Sycamore was right. Each room did have something special about it.
The billiard balls in the billiard room were painted to look like baseballs instead of having stripes and spots as on a normal table. The laundry room was big enough to service an army, and there were still a couple of old Sluggers jerseys hanging out on a line.
“We left them there out of respect,” Mr. Sycamore said.
The ballroom was so big you could have played a baseball game inside it. Twenty-four chandeliers hung down on long chains from the ceiling, which was covered by millions of tiny mirrors.
As they walked down a long hallway that led away from the ballroom, Danny noticed a tall wooden door with the inscription M.B. on it in flowing letters. Just as his fingers grasped the brass doorknob, Danny heard the loud crack of Mr. Sycamore's cane.
“Stop … right … there,” said the old man, his eyes bouncing around like pinballs. “That room is not part of the tour.”
Danny's hand sprang off the knob immediately.
“Now please follow me upstairs,” Mr. Sycamore continued, recovering his composure. “We have fifty-two bedrooms to see, and I don't want you getting into any more mischief.”
“Yes, sir,” Danny said, but he didn't think it was fair.
“What's in there, Mr. Sycamore?” Lucas asked.
“It is off-limits,” said the old man. “It used to be Mr. Boddlebrooks's personal study. He never allowed anyone in there while he was alive. Before he died, Mr. Bod-dlebrooks wrote a will, and in it he forbade anyone to go in there once he was dead too. You might say he felt kind of strongly about it.
“As long as I'm in charge here, nobody ever will go in that study!” Mr. Sycamore said.
The old man led the way back to the main hallway and up the marble staircase to the second floor. It took quite an effort for Mr. Sycamore to climb the stairs, and when he got to the top he was breathing heavily. Danny thought he was going to keel over.
“As I have said,” Mr. Sycamore croaked between gulps of air, “Mr. Boddlebrooks had fifty-two bedrooms, each one dedicated to a different one of his delicious gum flavors.
“I will take you into a few of the bedrooms now,” he went on, leaning one hand on his cane and another against a wall. Even his wandering eye looked tired.
“Are you sure you're okay, Mr. Sycamore?” Molly asked. “We could just, you know, look around while you sit down somewhere.”
“No, no, no! I've done this a million times. I'm fine,” Mr. Sycamore insisted.
They were standing in a long hallway, and on either side of it were a series of doors. Above each door was a number, and each one had a plaque with a bubble-gum flavor written in fancy lettering.
Mr. Sycamore took the group over to door number one, “Classic Bubble Gum.” Across the way was door number two, “Spearmint Strikeout.” Just down the hall they could make out number three, “Grand-Slam Grape,” and number four, “Tutti-Frutti Triple.”
Mr. Sycamore turned the knob to door number one and they all piled in. The walls and ceiling were painted pink, and the floor had a pink carpet. Even the bedsheets on the old-fashioned four-poster bed were pink, and the bed had the words CLASSIC BUBBLE GUM carved into the headboard. It was like being inside a pink bubble.
On the desk they found dozens of century-old boxes of Classic Bubble Gum. A drawing on the boxes showed a serious-looking man in a fancy suit standing next to a smiling woman in a big puffy dress. Both were blowing bubbles, and underneath them the caption read: “Boddlebrooks Classic Bubble Gum, delicious fun for gentlemen and ladies alike.”
They looked in the bathroom, which had pink marble walls with a big pink tub. There was a baseball-shaped stained-glass window above the bath.
“Did Manchester sleep in this room?” Lucas asked Mr. Sycamore, who was sitting on the bed catching his breath.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Mr. Boddlebrooks slept in a different room every week, and after a full year— fifty-two weeks—he would start over again.”
“Why'd he do that?” asked Molly. “It seems like an awful lot of bother moving all your things around each week.”
Mr. Sycamore looked at her strangely.
“Mr. Boddlebrooks never moved his own things from room to room,” he said. “That was a job for the staff, and they were honored to do it.”
“Sure,” said Molly. “It's just a little … eccentric, don't you think?”
“Not at all,” Mr. Sycamore snapped. “What would you do if you had fifty-two bubble-gum bedrooms? Just let fifty-one of them go to waste? Now that would be eccentric.”
It was hard to argue with Mr. Sycamore's logic.
“Come along! Come along!” the old man said. “We mustn't dawdle!”
As they made their way through
the upstairs halls, the flavors got stranger and stranger, and so did the rooms.
Number seventeen was “Simply Sauerkraut,” and it had cabbage-colored wallpaper and stringy beige drapes. It smelled a bit like Willie the Hot Dog Man's cart.
Number thirty-two was “Patently Peanut Shell.” The floor was an inch deep with pulverized peanuts, and in one corner was a grinding machine half filled with roasted nuts. Even the bed was peanut-shaped.
Room number forty-seven was “Rosin-Bag Raspberry.” That didn't sound so tasty.
Each of the rooms was different, some with big wooden beds and wide chests of drawers, some with rocking chairs and tall bookshelves filled with dusty old books. Each had a box of gum on the desk, but most of the boxes looked empty.
They dashed inside so many rooms Danny's head began to spin. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be Boddlebrooks, moving from room to room every week, throwing his fantastic parties.
The last room, number fifty-two, was “Bench-warmer Banana,” which was ringed by the same thick wooden bench you'd see in the Sluggers' dugout.
“Well, that's the end of the tour,” Mr. Sycamore said, plopping down on the bench and leaning his cane against the wall. “I hope you've enjoyed it and I'm sorry I couldn't let you go in the study. House rules, you know.”
Danny, Molly, and Lucas each took a seat on the bench. They might not have been as old as Mr. Sycamore, but they had had a pretty long day too.
“You're one strong old dude, Mr. Sycamore,” Lucas said. “My grandfather would never have been able to go through all those rooms. Heck, even I'm tired. How do you do it?”
But Mr. Sycamore didn't answer. He was fast asleep, slumped over his cane and snoring softly, one eye shut but the other still moving about on its own.
Lucas bent down and snapped his fingers in front of Mr. Sycamore's open eye, but the old man didn't stir.
“Now that is strange,” Lucas said.
“Should we wake him up?” asked Molly. “We really need to be getting home. It's already two o'clock.”
“Nah, let's let him rest a bit,” said Danny. “I want to see that last room.”
“What last room?” said Molly.
“You know, the study,” Danny said.
“Oh no you don't!” Molly whispered. “There's no way we are going in there! Didn't you see how angry he got when you just touched the knob?”
Even Lucas looked unsure, and Danny had never seen Lucas shy away from potential trouble.
“The thing is, Danny, his eye is still open!” Lucas said under his breath, glancing at Mr. Sycamore warily. “I mean, maybe he can still see us even if he is asleep. Maybe it's some sort of a trap.”
“Besides, Danny, we've got to head back soon or we'll never get home in time. My mother will go crazy, and once she starts calling around and finds out we lied, we're all dead,” Molly said.
Danny had stopped listening, though. He put his hands on his knees and took a long, hard look at Mr. Sycamore's face. Other than the eye, which was dancing about the room as if it had lost something important, he seemed to be sleeping like a baby.
“Just give me five minutes,” Danny said, backing away quietly.
Lucas nodded and Molly rolled her eyes.
“You guys stay here and keep him busy if he does wake up,” Danny said. “Don't worry. Nothing can possibly go wrong.”
The Study
Danny tiptoed out of the room and down the long hallway. He crept quietly down the stairs and through the corridor to the study.
Danny turned the knob and the door opened smoothly.
Behind it was a narrow room with Persian rugs on the floor and tall bookshelves lining every wall, each filled with hundreds of leather-bound books. Heavy red velvet curtains hung down from two tall windows opposite the study door, and between them was a grandfather clock. The curtains were open a crack in the center, allowing just enough sunlight for Danny to be able to look around.
At the far end of the room sat a massive wooden desk covered in yellowing papers, and an extra-wide leather chair. Behind that, between a pair of bookshelves, was a wide closet built into the wall.
Danny took a seat in the chair (Boddlebrooks's chair!) and looked up at the ceiling. It was too beautiful for words.
The center held a round panel with a vivid oil painting of the Boddlebrooks mansion. There were twelve panels around it, each painted to depict a separate story from the Sluggers' first season.
Danny glanced from panel to panel. The first one was of smiling Sluggers players limbering up during spring training; then there was one of a packed Winning Streak Stadium on opening day; then one of all the ballplayers huddled around in the clubhouse, with legendary manager Luke Slocum delivering a speech.
The panels went right up though the play-offs, but the final one, which Danny guessed should have been of the celebration of the Sluggers' first and only championship, was blank. Boddlebrooks must never have had the chance to have it completed, Danny thought.
He got up and opened the closet door. Hanging inside were several wooden bats, their handles black with pine tar, and an extra-extra-extra-large Sluggers uniform with the name Boddlebrooks stitched on the back. The great man's own uniform! It was like heaven.
Danny closed the door and walked around the room, scanning the bookshelves. Each wall was dedicated to a different subject. One held books about baseball, another was almost exclusively about bubble gum, and another was filled only with history books. There was a shelf with several volumes about the town of West Bubble and another, interestingly, that included a five-part history of circus acts.
Danny was about to sneak back upstairs to find Molly and Lucas when he heard a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!
It was the unmistakable thump of Mr. Sycamore's cane coming along the corridor.
“When I find that little rascal …,” Mr. Sycamore's voice boomed.
Danny froze.
“Oh no, Mr. Sycamore, I'm sure he's not in the study,” Danny heard Lucas say. “He must have gone to the bathroom.”
“We'll just see about that,” the old man said, and Danny realized the voice was coming from right outside the door.
His heart was racing, and he looked around desperately for a place to hide.
Danny lunged for the closet and scrambled inside, pulling the door closed behind him just as the study door creaked open.
“You children wait out in the hall,” he heard Mr. Sycamore snap. “Nobody is allowed in here but me.”
Danny could feel his heart pounding in the darkness. It was remarkably cold and musty in the closet, and there was a strange fruity smell that he couldn't identify. Through the keyhole, Danny could see Mr. Sycamore shuffling around the study, poking back the curtains with his cane.
“Are you in here, son?” Mr. Sycamore called out. “You better come out this instant if you are.”
As the old man drew closer, Danny held his breath and counted backward from eleven for good luck.
Mr. Sycamore was just on the other side of the closet door, so close that it sounded as if he were wheezing right into Danny's ear.
As the stooped figure brushed by the door, Danny found to his horror that he was staring straight into one of the old man's eyes, which was right on the other side of the keyhole.
He prayed it was the one that didn't work.
“All right, mister,” the old man said. “I guess you aren't in here after all.”
The eyeball pulled away from the keyhole, and soon Danny could hear the fall of Mr. Sycamore's cane pulling farther away. The study door opened and closed with a click, and silence again filled the room.
Danny let out a deep breath. Why hadn't Mr. Sycamore opened the closet door? Just lucky, Danny thought. He leaned back in relief, but instead of a wall, his shoulders met thin air. Danny stumbled backward in surprise.
He put his hand out behind him and felt for the back of the closet,
but there was nothing there. Just darkness.
He turned and took a few steps deeper into the closet, waving his hands before him so as not to bump into anything. Nothing.
After a few more paces, Danny began to realize he was not in a closet at all, but instead in some sort of passageway. He moved haltingly, deeper and deeper into the darkness, until finally he hit something wooden. It was another door!
Danny grabbed the knob, swung the door open, and gasped.
The Round Room
Danny was standing in a round stone room with impossibly high walls. There was a small circular window about fifteen feet above his head through which the sun cast a sharp beam of light on a long wooden table and chair in the center of the room.
The walls were lined with curved wooden shelves stacked with broken glass beakers and jars, just like the ones they used in science class in school.
Danny stood up straight and brushed himself off. Where could he be? He craned his neck to look at the ceiling, but it was so high above him he could barely make it out. It was like being inside a chimney or a tower, he thought.
That was it! He must be inside one of the baseballbat towers that stood at each corner of the house!
On the table were piles of experimenting equipment: silver mixing spoons, brass funnels, round glass petri dishes, and a glass measuring jar. There were several old books on the table, each as big as a dictionary. Some were written in a foreign language Danny couldn't recognize. Others, written in English, had the strangest titles: Fruit and Karma: A Digestive Guide to the Stars, The Power of Sour, and Infusion Solutions: It Boils Down to Fortune.
Danny lifted up one of the heavy books and his eye lit on a small tin box that had been partially hidden alongside it.
It was about the size of a cigar box, and it was covered in dust.
Danny bent down and blew as hard as he could. The dust rushed up off the box and billowed back into his face. When he opened his eyes, he could see the picture of a baseball player with knee-length pants and a funny little cap looking toward the sky. Across the top of the box, the word TESTING was written in red letters.