Max’s vision seemed to slow down and get clearer, as it always did when things began to happen very fast. She saw Jerry charge forward as the bearded man stepped out of the way. She saw Jerry’s fist headed straight for Sam’s nose; she saw the fat wet slugs of Jerry’s lips pulled back in a grin over his broken teeth; she noticed his filthy cuffs and ragged fingernails.
Before Jerry’s fist could connect with his face, Sam lifted an arm almost casually and smacked Jerry’s hand away as if it were a fly buzzing around his face. Jerry spun nearly a half circle, roaring with pain.
“I warned you,” Sam said apologetically.
“Come on, Jerry!” All the men were shouting now, waving their hands and stomping their feet. “Don’t let the boy smack you around!”
Jerry came at Sam again, this time with both hands, his teeth bared like an animal’s. Sam let out a long sigh.
He brought his fist through the air slowly, indifferently, as if he intended Jerry to inspect it for him.
Crack.
His fist connected with a noise like a thunderbolt. Even Max jumped. The bearded man abruptly stopped shouting. Only the bleary-eyed man was still laughing, and his friend elbowed him sharply so he gasped and fell silent.
Jerry took one step back. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling. And then, just like that, he slumped backward, crashing through one of the wooden tables, leaving it in splinters.
Sam was blushing so hard, Max was sure he’d pop all the blood vessels in his face. “I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I tried to tell him.”
The bearded man had a wild look in his eyes that reminded Max of old Elijah Timmons, the man who was always pacing the street in front of Mr. Dumfrey’s museum holding a big sign predicting the end of the world. His hands were trembling, too, just like Elijah’s did.
“What did you do?” He grabbed Sam by the shirt collar. “How? How?”
“I—I didn’t mean to.” Sam kept his hands behind his back, as though he was worried they would reach out and hurt someone of their own accord.
The bearded man released him and stood for a second, panting. Suddenly, his face took on a murderous look. Quick as anything, he reached for something in his pants pocket.
“Look out!” Pippa screamed. “He’s got a—”
They never found out what he was reaching for. Max was already moving, faster than the speed of thought. In a flash, the knife was in her hand, and her hand was an extension of her knife. Air, space, angles, speed. She felt it, she knew, in her fingers and in the handle of her knife. For one second she was metal; she belonged to the knife and could sense the cold sharpness of its blade, aching to be released.
Then the bearded man was carried backward, halfway across the room. With a satisfying thud, the knife pinned his shirtsleeve to the precise center of the dartboard.
“Bull’s-eye,” Max said, and smiled.
They’d failed to find Reggie Anderson, or any information that might be useful in locating him. All they knew was that he played pool, darts, rummy, and poker, and was terrible at all of them. His debts gave him motive, Thomas knew, for the theft of the shrunken head. But he had a hard time picturing the boy in the mismatched clothing, who’d nearly fainted in front of the police, stringing up his own uncle and then poisoning Potts after dinner.
The sun was hovering low and lazy over the Manhattan skyline, fat as an orange. Thomas voted they return to the museum. At least there, they could confront Hugo—although Thomas had no idea what, exactly, they would say.
Back at the museum, however, they were again disappointed: both Hugo and Phoebe had vanished.
“Very strange,” Danny said, as he plunked a large pot of watery stew on the table. In Mrs. Cobble’s absence, he had taken over the duties of chef, after Goldini had spoiled a whole omelet while trying to make it levitate from the pan. “With not a word to nobody.”
“Not a word to anybody,” Pippa corrected, and then shrank backward when Danny glared at her, raising a bushy black eyebrow.
“I bet they jumped ship, just like Mrs. Cobble,” said Andrew darkly as he sloshed a bit of stew in his bowl. Thomas sniffed experimentally and swallowed a sigh. It smelled a little like the inside of a shoe. “You wait and see. He’ll be quoted in the papers tomorrow.”
“Nonsense. All of his things are still here,” Betty pointed out as she tucked her long beard neatly into the front of her dress so that it would not drag on the table.
“Hers aren’t, though,” Miss Fitch said. “One of her good dresses is missing. And a small suitcase she borrowed from Goldini. Gone!”
“I needed that suitcase,” Goldini said morosely, as he passed a coin between his fingers, making it appear and reappear. “It had a beautiful false bottom. Darn it!” He cursed as the vanished coin failed to materialize again. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his forehead. “I’m very upset. Mrs. Cobble . . . Potts . . . and now Hugo and Phoebe . . .”
Betty patted him on the shoulder. “Hugo and Phoebe will be back, Paul.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” growled Andrew, and then picked up his soup and began to slurp.
“Must you eat like an animal?” Miss Fitch said.
“I’m the alligator boy, ain’t I?”
“What on earth happened to that coin?” the magician muttered.
“It’ll be the end of us,” Danny said, as he hauled himself up onto a chair. “These are bad times. With Hugo and Phoebe gone—”
“Hello! What’s for dinner? It smells absolutely delicious. I’m famished, I must say.” Mr. Dumfrey had appeared in the doorway, beaming, apparently recovered from his bout of weirdness earlier.
Everyone fell silent. Danny looked to the ceiling as though suddenly fixated on the paint. Miss Fitch stared guiltily at Betty, and Betty looked pleadingly at the magician. The magician concentrated on searching his pockets for the missing coin.
Thomas dropped his gaze to his stew and began eating quickly, forking pieces of mystery meat quickly into his mouth until his cheeks were as full as a chipmunk’s, so he would not be forced to speak. He knew no one wanted to break the news of Hugo and Phoebe’s disappearance to Dumfrey.
“Now, now. Why so quiet?” Mr. Dumfrey helped himself to a generous serving of stew. “What were you talking about before I came in? I thought I heard Hugo’s name.”
There was another awkward pause, in which everyone pretended to be absorbed by the table legs, the walls, or the bottom of their soup bowls.
“That’s just it, Mr. Dumfrey,” Pippa spoke up at last. “It’s Hugo. He’s . . . gone.”
“Phoebe, too,” Miss Fitch said.
Thomas had expected Dumfrey to express anger, or at least surprise. Instead, he barely glanced up from his bowl. “Really?” he said, taking a large bite. “How curious.”
There was a brief pause. Thomas exchanged a quick look with Pippa.
“Aren’t you . . . worried?” Pippa asked cautiously.
Mr. Dumfrey swallowed. “Of course not! Why should I be worried? Hugo’s a grown man. Phoebe, too—a full-grown woman. Fattest lady of all the fattest ladies I’ve ever seen, and quite a beauty!” He patted his mouth delicately with a napkin. “They’ll be back.”
“Fair-weather friends,” Andrew muttered. “Turning tail at the first sign of trouble.”
Mr. Dumfrey slammed his fist down suddenly on the table so that all the bowls of stew jumped. “Enough,” he said. “I’ve known Hugo since he was a little eleph—a little boy. I won’t hear a word against him. I won’t hear a peep against Phoebe, either. Now I suggest we all concentrate on this delicious stew. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
Thomas ate the rest of his stew without tasting it—which was actually a good thing, considering how bad it was. Should he tell Mr. Dumfrey what had happened on the train platform? But Mr. Dumfrey would tell him it was a coincidence. And what if it was a coincidence? Was Hugo capable of stealing from Mr. Dumfrey? Or of killing? And what about Reggie Anderson? Where did he fit in with all this?
Thomas was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice he’d come to the end of his bowl of stew until he bit down on something very hard.
“Ow,” he said, spitting, as a hard vibration zipped from his jaw to his head.
“My coin!” the magician cried. “You found it!” And he snatched Thomas’s spoon from his hand and tipped the missing coin into his pocket.
By the next morning, the Odditorium had been transformed for Potts’s funeral. Enormous garlands of crepe-paper roses in tasteful black and white were draped throughout the room. A large podium, hastily constructed but covered in plush black velvet, dominated the stage, and beside it stood various enormous funeral wreaths: arrangements of lilies and orchids, baby’s breath and chrysanthemums. It must, Thomas thought, have cost Mr. Dumfrey a fortune.
Memorial cards bearing an image of Potts scowling slightly less than usual were fanned across various surfaces, and Thomas noted that interspersed with them were pamphlets advertising the museum’s exhibits. Thomas couldn’t repress a smile as he heard Mr. Dumfrey ushering people into their seats.
“A sad day, a very sad day for all of us. Of course the museum must stay closed today, out of respect for poor Potts. This is no time to gape and gawk at our world-famous display of Indian arrowheads, the largest collection in the world! The Aztec mummy exhibit must stay closed; it’s an emotional time, and we can’t have the ladies fainting. And of course it would be in very poor taste to open up our brand-new Basement of Horrors, considering the terrible end Potts came to, before he has even had a good Christian burial. What a sight . . . the way he frothed at the mouth . . . the way he screamed! We’ll have a reenactment, of course. You can even lie down on the mattress where he died. But not until tomorrow. Today we grieve, and we remember. Ah, Mr. Evans, there you are!”
The museum was packed. Mr. Dumfrey’s recent arrest, combined with the ongoing mystery of Potts’s murder and the sensation of the shrunken head, made for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for publicity. Thomas was sure most of the people in the room didn’t care at all about Potts; they only wanted to stare at Dumfrey and gawk at the extraordinary children who had been so often in the papers.
Which was why he, Sam, Pippa, and Max were hiding backstage.
“Dumfrey’s talking to Evans,” reported Max, who was picking popcorn kernels out of her teeth. She was peeking out at the audience from behind the heavy purple curtains and reporting on what she saw. “Now he’s getting his picture taken. . . .”
“Oh, look. Freckles came!” Pippa was also spying on the audience as it assembled. Freckles was their nickname for the famous sculptor Siegfried Eckleberger, who had modeled most of the faces in the Hall of Wax and had, additionally, been like a grandfather to Pippa, Sam, and Thomas. “I wish he hadn’t, though. I still haven’t finished the book he lent me and I’m sure he’ll ask me about it. Wait. Is that the mayor?” She nearly spat out her soda.
“No way. The mayor’s fatter. Oh no. I don’t believe it.”
“What is it?” Thomas had been lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling and thinking. He kept feeling as though he was missing something. Now he sat up.
Max turned around. Her face was pale. “It’s that bloodsucker, Andrea von Snoot.”
“Von Stikk,” Pippa corrected her.
“Whatever. The crazy lady from the Home for Extraordinary Children, or whatever it’s called. What do you want to bet she came just to give us a hard time?”
“Detective Hardaway came,” Pippa said with disgust. “What’s he doing here?”
But before Thomas could respond, the lights dimmed and Mr. Dumfrey took the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages,” his voice boomed out in the room, which had suddenly gone very quiet. “We are gathered here today to say farewell to a man who was known by all and beloved by even more . . . a man as brave as he was handsome . . . as sensitive as he was brave . . . and as generous as he was beloved.”
The children exchanged a look. Potts had never, to their knowledge, shown even the slightest evidence of being any of those things.
Mr. Dumfrey whipped a handkerchief—also black—from his suit pocket and began dabbing his eyes furiously. “And now, to say a few words, I present to you the bereaved brother of our poor, lost friend . . . Mr. Ernst Potts.”
“I didn’t know Potts had a brother,” Pippa whispered.
“Neither did I,” Thomas whispered back.
The brother who came shuffling on the stage was nearly identical to the brother who had passed away. His mouth was set in a deep scowl, and he was wearing the same outfit of heavy work boots, gray trousers, and a floppy cap pulled low over watery blue eyes. Dumfrey retreated from the podium and gestured for Ernst to take his place. For a moment there was total silence. Then Ernst coughed.
“I didn’t like my brother all that much,” he said. “To be fair and straight with you, he was a mean little turd.” The audience began to murmur, and Ernst raised his voice to be heard. “But he didn’t deserve the ending he got.” He fished a flask out from his jacket and raised it high. “To my brother, Dervish. I hope wherever you are, the floors are spotlessly clean.”
“Beautiful!” Mr. Dumfrey stepped forward again, dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief. “Magnificent! Well said! To Potts! May your eternal cup overfloweth! And now—please join us for light refreshments in the Hall of Worldwide Wonders. You’ll find sandwiches to the right of the largest collection of fossilized dinosaur eggs in existence, and cookies just past the display case containing the world’s biggest hairball, disgorged from the belly of an Asian water buffalo. Please—take a pamphlet! Remember, tomorrow it’s back to business as usual, opening at ten a.m., closing at seven p.m., and nothing but wonder and magic in between. But today we reflect! We remember! We—ah, yes, Mr. Mayor, I’d love to pose for a picture.”
The gears of Thomas’s brain had finally become unstuck. He turned to Sam. “Dervish Potts,” he said. “D. Potts. Do you know what that means?”
“He had a terrible name?” Sam ventured.
“Hardaway told Dumfrey that Mr. Anderson had an appointment the day he died. Appointment with D.,” Thomas said. “What do you wanna bet he meant Dervish?”
“But where does that get us?” Pippa said. “Even if Potts did meet with Mr. Anderson, we can’t prove it. And we still don’t know what happened to that head.”
“Children!” Mr. Dumfrey was gesturing to them frantically from the stage. “What are you doing back there? Come here! This instant!”
They emerged cautiously out of the wings. Instantly, Dumfrey threw his arms around them and ushered them to the center of the stage. “That’s right, that’s right. In the spotlight, where you belong. You’re my star performers! Max, get that toothpick out of your mouth. Remember to smile. I said smile, Sam. You look like you’re about to have a tooth extracted.”
There was a sudden explosion of camera flashes, and Thomas was blinded. Spots of color swam in front of his eyes. Disembodied voices called out: “Over here! Look over here!”
Suddenly, Thomas saw a monstrous bird bearing down on them. No. Not a bird, but something much worse: Andrea von Stikk, wearing a feather hat.
“Mr. Dumfrey,” she said with a look of distaste, as if the name were a dirty word. “Up to your usual tricks, I see. Parading these poor children in front of the crowds like little lambs offered up for sacrifice.”
“Miss von Stikk.” Mr. Dumfrey greeted her with a stiff bow. “What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here. I rather thought you were too busy torturing children with their multiplication tables.”
She smiled thinly. “Education is never torture, Mr. Dumfrey,” she said. “And I’m here on official business.” She withdrew from her large purse a stack of papers and slapped them in Mr. Dumfrey’s hands. “A court petition,” she said, as he fumbled for his glasses, “for the removal of the children from your custody.”
“What?” Thomas nearly choked on his tongue.
Mr. Dumfrey lowered his glasses. His face was white. “You won’t get away with this.”
“I most certainly will,” Miss von Stikk said. Her beady black eyes glittered dangerously. “You may have been cleared by the police, Mr. Dumfrey, but I can assure you the court of public opinion has found you guilty many times over. I will not sit by and let you corrupt these four extraordinary children. These angels belong with— Ahhhhhh!”
As she spoke, Miss von Stikk placed a hand on Max’s shoulder. Instantly, Max whipped the toothpick from her mouth and drove it straight into von Stikk’s hand. Miss von Stikk let out a blood-curdling scream.
“I told you to keep your hands off me,” Max growled.
“Max, that was very wrong,” Mr. Dumfrey said, but Thomas was sure he was struggling not to smile. “Miss von Stikk is only trying to help, misguided though she may be in her methods.”
“We don’t want no help,” Max said.
“Any,” Pippa said. Max glared at her. Pippa blushed and turned to face Miss von Stikk. “We don’t want any help. We want to stay with Mr. Dumfrey.”
Miss von Stikk was cradling her injured hand to her chest. Her nostrils flared with every breath. She reminded Thomas very much of a bull when confronted by a red flag. “I have no need of further proof,” she said in a voice strangled with fury. “You have raised these children to be animals. You are unfit to be their caretaker, and I intend to prove it. Good day to you, Mr. Dumfrey. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
No sooner had Andrea von Stikk swept out of the room than the children received another, secondary shock. Still blinded by the glare of the cameras, Pippa could not immediately identify the source of the commotion. She heard Miss Fitch squeal, then a familiar peal of laughter.
Blinking rapidly, she saw the thick crowd parting. From within them, like two figures carried to shore on a dark wave, came Hugo and Phoebe—flushed, smiling, and holding hands. Thomas let out a cry of surprise, and Pippa gasped.
“Aha.” Mr. Dumfrey’s eyes were twinkling, and Pippa saw that he, for one, was not at all surprised by their reappearance. “There you are. Just in time to pay your respects. And to receive my respects, of course.” Mr. Dumfrey pumped Hugo’s hand as he lumbered onto the stage and helped Phoebe up behind him. Phoebe blushed when Mr. Dumfrey leaned down to kiss her hand. “Congratulations, my dearest Phoebe,” Mr. Dumfrey said. “Or should I say . . . my dearest Mrs. Hugo?”
The Shrunken Head Page 17