Floors #2: 3 Below

by Patrick Carman

  Leo had been right. Merganzer D. Whippet was pressing buttons and pushing levers. The four Floogers began to glow hot and blue where they were trapped. Four thick bands of blue light appeared, one from each Flooger, rising over the roof and into the sky above. They met at the bottom of the blimp, like four thick ropes of light that held the hotel level with their weird energy.

  The blimp began to move up, up, and away as the zip rope stretched farther and farther. Leo was sure it was about to finally snap in two, but the zip rope held, stretching into the air.

  The Whippet Hotel began to slow, and then it stopped spinning altogether.

  “I see you up there, Leo Fillmore!” Ms. Sparks screamed up at the head poking over the edge of the roof. “Say good-bye to your hotel!”

  She waved the letter from the governor that gave her the power to auction off the Whippet, laughing up at the two boys.

  Leo had a moment of deep sorrow. He had lost the Whippet. He was sure of it. No matter what happened now, he would never walk the halls of the wackiest hotel in the world again as its owner. Ms. Sparks would ruin it — maybe even tear it down, a tragedy Leo could hardly bring himself to believe.

  And then, just as all hope seemed lost, the Whippet Hotel began to move again. Only this time, it was the roof that moved and nothing else. The rest of the hotel had stopped, quiet and still, as if watching for something secret and rare about to take place.

  “Leo,” Remi said. “Did you feel that?”

  “I did,” Leo answered. “I think we’re about to go for a ride.”

  The top floor of the Whippet Hotel, which included the roof and the library, lifted free.

  “A very good monkey!” Merganzer yelled out the window. “It’s holding beautifully!”

  The blimp began to rise faster, like it had finally pulled itself free from stakes tied to the ground, and the top floor of the Whippet rose with it.

  Five feet, then ten, then fifty feet into the air. It wobbled softly, but there was magic or science or both at work on the roof of the Whippet Hotel that night, and it stayed almost completely level.

  “There must be something about the Floogers that keeps it steady,” Remi said, laughing. He couldn’t stop laughing. It was just so perfect; a breathtaking event he had helped set in motion. Unimaginable, and yet it was happening!

  “Here he comes!” Leo shouted, pointing up into the sky where the buildings were flying past as the blimp rose higher still. Merganzer D. Whippet was sliding down the zip rope like it was a fire-engine pole. He slowed on his final approach, then touched down in his long jacket and perfectly shined shoes.

  “Don’t try that without gloves.” He smiled. “A zip rope will give you the king of all rug burns.”

  Remi was laughing, smiling, hopping up and down with enthusiasm. But Leo couldn’t join in the excitement. He stared at the ground on the verge of tears. He simply couldn’t bring himself to tell Merganzer he’d failed to pay the taxes. The Whippet Hotel was lost, or at least most of it.

  Merganzer winked at Remi, then knelt down next to Leo and touched the underside of his chin, lifting Leo’s head. He looked into Leo’s eyes.

  “Dear boy, don’t cry.”

  And that did it. Leo did cry, just one tear that rolled down his cheek. Merganzer flicked the tear away with his gloved finger and smiled.

  “But you don’t understand,” Leo said. “I lost the hotel. It’s gone.”

  “You see there,” Merganzer said, glancing at Remi. “I always knew I picked the right man for the job.”

  “I don’t understand.” Leo sniffed, frustrated that Merganzer wouldn’t listen. “I lost the hotel. Ms. Sparks owns it now. Don’t you see?”

  “No, that’s not true. You only think it’s true.”

  Leo felt butterflies in his chest.

  Could it be?

  Was it possible Merganzer had a plan Leo didn’t know about?

  Merganzer D. Whippet looked at his watch, then pulled a key card out of his jacket pocket. Only it wasn’t a key card.

  “All is well, I assume?” Merganzer said, talking into the card like it was a phone.

  “All is well,” came a voice Leo and Remi knew. “And you? Dr. Flart and Ingrid will want to know — how are the Floogers and the zip rope working?”

  “Very well, thank you. Please give them my best. And thank you, Karl, you’ve done well.”

  “Anytime, sir. Anytime at all.”

  “Better finish things up, the clock has struck twelve,” Merganzer said.

  He put the key card back in his jacket and stood, staring down at the two boys.

  They were speechless, and as Merganzer clapped his hands twice, the rope ladder unfurled out of the blimp.

  “I can see you’re confused, as I suspected you might be,” Merganzer said. “Let’s get aboard the blimp, then I’ll tell you everything. Right-o?”

  “Who’s driving?” Remi asked.

  “George, of course,” Merganzer said. George Powell, his oldest and dearest friend, waved down from above as Merganzer went on. “It’s very good to have a wingman, don’t you think?”

  Remi nodded, putting his arm around Leo. “It’s the best.”

  Bewildered by the wonder of it all, Leo and Remi started climbing while things took shape on the ground below.

  Ms. Sparks and Mr. Yancey, overcome with the sight of what was happening to the Whippet Hotel, had let the clock tick past midnight without completing their transaction. They’d marveled as the levels turned around and around, wondering what it could possibly mean. Then they’d seen the top of the Whippet Hotel rise into the air, carried away in the night sky.

  An argument between two greedy people had then broken out.

  “It’s worth a little less now, don’t you think?” Mr. Yancey had asked. “I mean, with the missing floor and all. What will we do if it rains? There’s no roof. And there must be some structural damage after all that . . . spinning.”

  “Taxes are taxes, you buffoon,” Ms. Sparks had said. “We were going to rip it down anyway. Now it will be easier.”

  “Still, it is one less floor,” Mr. Yancey persisted. He was a slave to his real estate sensibilities. “Has to count for something, one would think.”

  “Are you deliberately ignoring me?” Ms. Sparks asked. “We’re going to knock it over anyway! Now we’ll have less rubble to deal with. It’s a bonus.”

  Mr. Yancey had begun to dial his phone in search of his lawyer when Jane Yancey came running over with Loopa, the monkey. She’d placed the monkey in a toy stroller and dressed her in doll clothes.

  “Daddy! This pet is sick. All it wants to do is sleep.”

  Loopa had eaten twelve cupcakes, given to her by Jane Yancey, so she did have a stomachache.

  “I’m busy right now, Jane. This will have to wait.”

  “But it won’t wait! This is important!”

  While Jane Yancey threw a fit, the long-stay guests — Captain Rickenbacker, LillyAnn Pompadore, and Theodore Bump — moved a little closer. So did Nancy Yancey and Mr. Phipps, who had been listening but acting as though they were not. They’d all come streaming out of the hotel as they figured out it was spinning in circles, and the gathering crowd did not suit Ms. Sparks one bit.

  “Mr. Yancey!” she shouted. “Let us complete our transaction, shall we?”

  Mr. Yancey, sensing the opportunity slipping from his hands, looked at his wife. She nodded — Get on with it! — and he took a sealed envelope from the jacket of his three-thousand-dollar suit.

  Jane Yancey was stomping around her toy stroller yelling, “Sick monkey! Sick monkey!” over and over again with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.

  “It’s a floor short of a hotel, but all right. My sealed bid is in the envelope,” Mr. Yancey said.

  Ms. Sparks was beaming. She lifted her long fingers out toward the prize, thinking of a wrecking ball swinging through the air toward the Whippet Hotel.

  “That won’t be necessary,” someo
ne said. As fast as lightning — or so it seemed — a receipt was placed in Ms. Sparks’s outstretched hand.

  “Mr. Carp?” Ms. Sparks said. He was flanked on one side by Dr. Flart and the other by Ingrid. Dr. Flart hadn’t been out of the dungeon in years. He was as pale as a ghost and wearing his mad scientist white jacket. Ingrid’s eyes zeroed in on Jane Yancey, who had gone suddenly quiet. And Mr. Carp, who had given Ms. Sparks the receipt, was covered in grease from his thick mustache all the way down to his grimy shoes, like he’d been fixing gears for hours, which in fact he had been.

  “Give me back my monkey,” Ingrid said. She was shorter than Jane Yancey, but no one stood between Ingrid and one of her animals. Jane was too terrified to speak and backpedaled into her mother’s arms. When Ingrid had Loopa in her arms, she smiled down at her, then turned on Jane Yancey.

  “Never dress a monkey. Or give it treats. Understood?”

  Jane nodded fast, leaning into her mother, who was mortified.

  “See,” Mr. Bump mumbled to LillyAnn Pompadore. “I told you there was a monkey in the hotel.”

  “Not anymore there’s not.”

  Ingrid had gotten what she came for and turned on a dime, marching back in the direction of the lobby.

  “Dr. Flart,” she said over her shoulder. “Will I be seeing you soon?”

  There was a certain something in her voice that made Dr. Flart blush.

  “I believe my duties are about to change,” he said. “You’ll be seeing me again.”

  Mr. Carp leaned down low and whispered into Captain Rickenbacker’s ear. “Lovebirds, though they are very slow about their business. They’ve been close to holding hands for going on seven years.”

  “Remarkable,” Captain Rickenbacker said.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Ms. Sparks yelled. She could feel the wheels coming off of her plan but didn’t know what to do. It was all so confusing!

  “Ms. Sparks,” Mr. Carp said. “You hold in your hand a copy of a receipt showing full payment of taxes to the great state of New York. The Whippet Hotel is, in fact, more than a year ahead on its payments as of earlier this evening. I’m afraid the auction will not be taking place.”

  “But that’s impossible! We had a deal, you little sea urchin!”

  Dr. Flart was the one person in the group tall enough to look down at Ms. Sparks. He even towered over her tall beehive hairdo. He stepped between Mr. Carp and Ms. Sparks and leaned down, staring at her through his thick glasses.

  “Why is this hideous man staring at me?” Ms. Sparks asked, but no one answered her.

  Claudius purred against Ms. Sparks’s leg, startling her.

  “Hello, cat!” Dr. Flart said, picking up Claudius and petting him with great enthusiasm. Claudius tried to squirm free, but it was no use. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  “Sorry about that,” Mr. Carp said. “You were out and I needed a little something to sell the idea.”

  “Have I got an experiment for you!” Dr. Flart said, which made Claudius go wide-eyed with concern. Dr. Flart wandered off toward the lobby, happy to have his cat and return to his very important work. Over his shoulder he said, “Breakfast tomorrow, Karl? I have something new to show you.”

  “I thought you might,” Mr. Carp answered. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Ms. Sparks was starting to back away toward the gate, for she knew that she was once again defeated. She couldn’t quite understand how or why, but she was sure her plans had failed her when she heard, from way up high in the sky, the wild and whimsical laugh of Merganzer D. Whippet.

  “This is not over!” she said, turning for the gate. “Not even close! I will prevail!”

  “She’s fun to have around,” Captain Rickenbacker said. “Never a dull moment.”

  “So true, so true,” said Mr. Phipps. “Shall we work on the puzzle and have a root beer?”

  “And then some pinball!”

  “Might I join you?” Ms. Pompadore asked.

  “Me, too,” Theodore Bump piped in. “I don’t feel like writing a novel tonight. There’s magic in the air.”

  And with that, Captain Rickenbacker and Mr. Phipps and the others were moving off. Mr. Yancey was on the phone, calling a limo to take his family away, ignoring Jane complaining about her missing monkey. They, too, moved off together in search of an expensive restaurant to make themselves feel better.

  Mr. Carp stood alone on the grounds of the Whippet Hotel, staring up at the sky, where a blimp was moving quietly and secretly to places unknown to him. He took a key card out of his pocket with his greasy hand and talked into it.

  “All finished up here,” he said. “Taxes paid, hotel at rest, gears stopped once again.”

  “You have done very, very well,” Merganzer answered. “You are, without a doubt, a man of many talents.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was a little touch-and-go at the end. Tell Remi I found the note from the governor where he dropped it. It’s all taken care of.”

  Mr. Carp could hear Remi whooping and hollering in the background.

  “Can I return to my work?” Mr. Carp asked. “Some problems down there.”

  “Of course,” Merganzer said. “And keep an eagle eye on things in the hotel for another week, won’t you? I have need of Leo and Remi. Big things. Big things!”

  Mr. Carp smiled and said he would. He looked once more into the night sky, waved, and began walking toward his true home.

  “Oh yes, he’s brilliant,” Merganzer said. They were far above the city, moving silently below the clouds. “One of my best men.”

  “So Mr. Carp works for you?” Remi asked. He was still terribly confused, trying to piece it all together.

  “They all do, but Mr. Carp is my favorite. You might say he’s my underground wingman.”

  Mr. Powell, at the wheel of the blimp, winked at Leo. “Merganzer is the only fellow I know who needs two wingmen, one below and one above ground.”

  “I am terribly forgetful about taxes and bills. I have no idea why,” Merganzer said. “It’s the strangest thing. Anywho, Ms. Sparks was aware of my shortcomings. She knew I’d forget, knew how to manipulate the system. By the time George reminded me for the ninth time, it was too late. Too dangerous. I needed to bring in Mr. Carp.”

  “He seems so . . . I don’t know.” Leo tried to find the words. “Harmless, I guess.”

  Mr. Powell laughed, turning the blimp to the right as he did.

  “You won’t believe it’s true, but he built the Realm of Gears,” Merganzer said.

  “And most of the hotel, too,” Mr. Powell added.

  “Did not,” Remi said. He simply couldn’t believe someone as drab and boring as Mr. Carp could be so smart and resourceful.

  “Oh, but he did,” Merganzer said. “And he’s quite good at playing the part of a tax agent as well.”

  “The role was tailor-made for Mr. Karl Carp,” Mr. Powell said. “He was perfect.”

  Betty flew up from the roof and landed on the ledge of the cab, honking.

  “I do love a good duck,” Merganzer said, fishing around in his pocket for a treat. “It will be nice to have them with me again.”

  “Why in the world did you pull the top of your hotel off?” Remi asked. Remi was a great question asker, everyone agreed.

  “Well, I wanted the ducks with me, so there’s that,” Merganzer said. “But it’s so much more. You see, I’m working on something big. The biggest.”

  “Huge,” Mr. Powell said.

  “And I knew the day would come when I’d need my books, my plans, my notes.”

  “You mean your library?” Leo asked, for really, that’s what they were carrying across the sky.

  “Precisely! The library. But not just the library, something else, too.”

  “What?” Leo asked.

  “Why, I needed you, of course,” he said, putting one arm around Remi and one around Leo.

  Leo and Remi smiled and looked at each other. For whatever reason, they had been
handpicked by Merganzer D. Whippet to own the hotel, travel through its many rooms and secret places, and fly across the sky in the middle of the night.

  “Oh!” Leo said, remembering that he had one more item for Merganzer, something he’d asked for. Leo fished the iron box out of his maintenance overalls and held it out.

  “Is the Wyro inside?” Merganzer asked, awed and delighted.

  “See for yourself,” Leo said, tossing it into the air and watching Merganzer catch it.

  “Light as a feather,” Merganzer marveled. “And safely strapped inside with duct tape. I wish I’d invented that one.”

  “So does Dr. Flart,” Remi said.

  “Well,” Merganzer said, smiling with deep satisfaction, “this calls for a toast.”

  Merganzer tossed the iron box to Mr. Powell, who regarded it as something extremely dangerous and volatile. He gently placed it in a basket under the steering wheel and sighed with relief.

  Leo was happy the hotel was still his and, more important, that it was safe. He was excited about the adventure under the hotel he and Remi were a part of. He was glad Ms. Sparks, at least for one night, was not a threat.

  But he’d been wanting to ask about something else, and finally he did.

  “Where are we going, Merganzer D. Whippet?”

  Merganzer gazed out over the city below, which shimmered with lights. He knelt down and turned away from Leo and Remi, opening a small refrigerator. When he turned back around, he held four bottles of Flart’s Fizz in his hands.

  “Flart’s Fizz!” Remi said. “Oh man, I hope I don’t get a dud!”

  Merganzer handed out the bottles and they all popped the tops at the same time.

  “My last four bottles,” Merganzer said. And then he made the toast: “To the field of wacky inventions, where anything is possible!”

  They all agreed at once. “To the field of wacky inventions!”

  And then they drank and burped and laughed.

  Leo would soon find that by anything, Merganzer really did mean anything.