Floors #3: The Field of Wacky Inventions (8 page)

“Merganzer!” Leo cried out. Merganzer stopped making his distinct laughing sound and looked up.

“Well, if it isn’t Leo Fillmore! I thought I heard some burping. Or better yet, some lurping.”

Remi leaned his head over next to Leo’s.

“And Remi! Very glad to see you both safe and sound and still in the hunt.”

“Thanks for the Flart’s Fizz!” Remi shouted. “That was a real pick-me-up.”

“How’s Betty doing?” Leo asked as Alfred hobbled near.

Merganzer looked down at the mother duck and her ducklings and shook his head.

“She’s in a bit of a funk. I can’t figure why. I’ve been giving her animal crackers and taking her for walks. But nothing seems to help.”

“I believe I know what’s bothering her,” Alfred Whitney said. He held Comet carefully in both hands, for Comet wasn’t a flyer just yet. He’d never make it to the bottom on his own. But he did make whatever that sound is that ducklings make, an almost honk.

Looking up, Betty went bonkers.

“I believe this is one of hers,” Alfred said. “That must be why she’s so upset.”

Merganzer D. Whippet looked thoughtfully at the duck in his charge and the duckling way overhead.

“Well, there’s nothing to be done just now. At least I know why Betty’s been so difficult.”

“And you know the first rule of an adventure,” Leo said.

Betty was honking like crazy, but Merganzer didn’t seem to mind.

“Always bring a duck!” Merganzer called out. “And Comet is a very good little duck.” With a nod, he started off, his long walking stick before him, and the rest of Betty’s ducklings followed.

“I enjoyed the burping,” Alfred added. “First class.”

Betty looked up. If it was possible for a duck to have a stern look on its face, this one did. It was hard to say if the last few quacks and the scowl were directed at Alfred (
you better bring my duckling back in one piece
) or Comet (
boy, are you ever gonna get it when you finally get down here
). Either way, she’d said her piece and at least knew her missing duckling was only on an adventure, not captured by a monkey or wandering off for a swim in an electric eel pond.

Lucy had stayed at the picnic all alone, staring at her bottle of Flart’s Fizz. Leo felt sorry for her and became more curious than ever about her story.

“Let’s show them what a
real
burp sounds like,” Leo said, smiling at Lucy as he walked back toward her. Lucy smiled back nervously. She was not one to play it safe, and before Leo knew it, she downed her entire bottle of Flart’s Fizz in five seconds flat, picked up the extra bottle, and downed that one, too.

“Whoa,” Remi said, suddenly in awe of Lucy. He’d never seen a girl drink an entire bottle, let alone two
bottles, of Flart’s Fizz in one shot. Even he hadn’t thought of trying that!

Remi and Albert made their way over to the picnic again as Leo tipped his bottle back and started gulping as fast as he could, hoping he’d be able to match whatever Lucy was about to produce.

Lucy’s burp was, in a word, outstanding. Years later it would take on legendary status as one of the three biggest burps of all time. It was so big it nearly knocked Lucy off her feet. And it went on for twice as long as Remi’s had. It had a long, deep middle that went on for half a minute, followed by a perfectly executed whiz-tail ending that left her with a beaming smile on her face.

“That was one incredible burp,” Remi said. “No, seriously. Epic.”

It was made even more so by the fact that Leo had drank a dud. Leo could muster only the most anemic of burps, a true runt in comparison to Lucy’s masterpiece.

Phil was curious about all the noise, and when he stuck his head out, Lucy poured the last few drops of Flart’s Fizz from her bottle down the dinosaur’s gullet. There are few things in the world more hilarious than a salt-shaker-size dinosaur burping for a really long time.
It sounded like a miniature buzz plane sputtering through the air.

“I think he enjoyed that,” Remi said when Phil was through. “I know I did.”

There was, however, an awkward silence settling over the picnic as everyone but Alfred sat back down.

“If I get that close to the floor again this soon, it will take some work putting me back on my feet. I’ll stand, thank you.”

Remi looked directly at Lucy, and minced no words.

“Are you a spy, sent by our enemies to steal our secrets?”

“Remi, come on,” Leo said, laughing nervously. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Then answer me this,” he went on, taking Blop out of his jacket pocket and setting him in front of Lucy so he could help with the interrogation. “How come she’s got overalls, just like you? And a tiny dinosaur in her pocket?
And
she burps like a county-fair champion! The only thing that could make her more appealing is if she were a ninja robot!”

Blop took this as a compliment and said as much. Remi had made a pretty good point: If Lucy were a spy, she’d attack at their weaknesses with her overalls, dinosaur, and championship burping.

“You guys are weird,” she concluded, taking Phil out of her pocket and standing him in front of the cracker bowl. Blop was less alarmed than curious.

“
Tyrannosaurus rex
,” he said. “Making one this small would require both DNA and an unrivaled knowledge of nanotechnology. Also microbiology.”

Blop began to ramble, as was his habit, while Phil attacked the crackers. Lucy took a deep breath and told everyone assembled the truth of the matter.

“I used to live two blocks down and one block over from the Rochester Hotel in an apartment building.”

She stopped there, not exactly sure how to proceed.

“You mean the hotel owned by Miss Harrington?” Alfred asked. Comet peeked out of his hiding spot in Alfred’s jacket and saw Phil. Comet tried to fly out of Alfred’s pocket, flopping and spinning, and landed badly next to the plate of crackers.

“Do dinosaurs and ducks get along?” Leo asked.

“I think dinosaurs
eat
ducks,” Remi said. “Or they would have if there had been ducks, you know, a bunch of millions of years ago.”

Phil stopped eating and turned his head to the side, like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Comet. The duckling was bigger than Phil, but not by too much.
Comet righted himself with some effort, shook his head very fast, and stood toe-to-toe with a T. rex.

Then he quacked.

Phil looked at Lucy as if to say,
What kind of wacky creature is this thing? Will it try to eat me?

“Go on and play,” Lucy said. “He’s harmless.”

Phil was very pleased with this answer, and the two small creatures began yapping at each other, as if they were carrying on a conversation. Then they both stood in the middle of the cracker plate and started eating.

“Okay, that didn’t go as expected,” Remi said. Blop rolled over next to them and began to explain the difference between birds and dinosaurs. Disaster averted, Lucy went on with her story.

“Anyway, the Cranstons, who run the crummy apartment building, are lazy. They watch a lot of TV. They took me in only because my previous foster home said I had a reputation for being handy. Which is true. I’m handy. Also, I’m a ninja.”

“No way!” Remi said.

Lucy smiled, hiccupped, and burped in the space of one second.

“No, not really. But I do have ninja pajama pants.”

“Cool,” Remi said, nodding his approval.

“But where are your parents?” Leo asked.

“That’s just it,” Lucy said. “I don’t have parents. At least I don’t think I do. I’ve been in the New York City foster care system forever and ever. I’ve bounced around a little bit.”

“And how did you come to find yourself inside a secret floor at a Whippet hotel?” Alfred asked.

“I guess I’m what you might call a stowaway,” Lucy admitted sheepishly. “Sometimes, when there were things that needed fixing at the Rochester, the Cranstons would hire me out. Because I’m really handy.”

“So you’ve said,” Remi commented. He still thought she might be a spy, but even he was softening.

“It was kind of miserable, living in the basement with the Cranstons, but I loved the Rochester.”

“I live in the basement of my hotel, too,” Leo said. “And I do maintenance work. With my dad. Ever fixed an air-conditioning unit?”

“Sure I have. Lots of times.”

Leo beamed. Remi never wanted to talk about fixing hotel stuff, but Leo loved this part of his life. He could have sat there and talked with Lucy about boilers, pipes, wiring, and old doorknobs for hours.

“Let’s get back on track here,” Remi said. “How did you end up inside that crazy dinosaur floor?”

“Well, I was fixing the elevator, which kept getting stuck between floor number seven and floor number
eight. There were some wiring problems, that was for sure. And while I was digging around on top of the elevator, I looked up. There was an extra door, way at the top, that didn’t belong.”

“So you climbed up and found a secret entrance?” Alfred asked. He was more than a little impressed with her resourcefulness.

“Pretty much, yeah. The only problem was that once I got in I couldn’t get back out. The door shut behind me and I could never get it back open. That was two months ago.”

“Two months!” Remi said. “What did you eat?”

Lucy shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out a handful of dino treats, which looked quite a bit like Whoppers. Remi grabbed two and tossed them in his mouth, crunching them into little bits.

“Tastes like dog food.”

“I think so, too,” Lucy said, tossing a couple in her own mouth and smiling as she chomped.

“You two are totally gross,” Leo said.

“And then yesterday the floor began to move,” Lucy continued. “I didn’t know what to think. After that, you all showed up. And here I am. That’s all there is to tell.”

“That, young lady, is a remarkable story,” Alfred said. “I wonder if the Cranstons are worried about you.”

“I highly doubt that. And I don’t think they’d let me keep Phil.”

Lucy scratched under Phil’s long neck, and the little guy made a sort of gurgling sound.

“He purrs like a cat,” Remi said. “Nice.”

“I know, right?” Lucy agreed, glancing back at the ladder leading down into the tiny dino floor. “I’d rather stay down there with Phil than go back and live with the Cranstons.”

“I don’t think it’s going to come to that,” Alfred encouraged her. “But you’re in the middle of a competition you can’t win. I’m afraid it’s rather exclusive.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. “You have to manage a hotel to get in.”

“Whoa,” Lucy said. “That
is
exclusive. What if I just tag along? I bet I could be useful.”

“We believe you,” Leo agreed. “And I don’t see the harm in it as long as no one else does.”

“We can use all the help we can get,” Remi chimed in. “And we can’t break up Blop, Comet, and Phil. They’re like a team now. Let’s do this thing.”

Albert thought about it. He was the adult among them, and everyone looked at him for confirmation.

“I suppose I could arrange to have you dismissed back into the foster care system. In any case, the Cranstons
need to be told. I’ll see that it’s taken care of just as soon as our little adventure is over.”

“Cool!” Remi said. He’d been completely bowled over by Lucy. “Three musketeers!”

“Make that four,” Alfred said.

“I’m coming over!” Miss Sheezley yelled from the ladder where she stood. She’d been quiet for a while, but all this secretive talk had finally made her curious enough to walk out under the building hovering overhead. Before she reached the picnic, a voice carried across the roof.

“Hello, everyone — how are we doing?”

It was Mr. Pilf, who hadn’t been seen since he’d taken a ladder down the side of the library. He’d gained a hat in his absence, a floppy sort of number that made him look like a Frenchman with his long, thin beard.

“What do
you
want?” Miss Sheezley asked, arriving at the blanket and snatching up a stack of little sandwiches Alfred had carefully put together. “I thought you were out of the competition.”

“No, no — not out,” Mr. Pilf said as his feet landed on the roof and he began walking toward them. He peered up at the building nervously, watching it sway slowly back and forth like a piano about to drop on his
head. Lucy picked up Phil and hid him in a pocket before Pilf could see him.

“Who’s this?” he asked as he arrived at the picnic. He was staring at Lucy, but it was Leo who answered.

“That’s a friend of Merganzer’s — Lucy is her name. She’s along to help us. And she’s handy.”

“Unexpected,” Mr. Pilf concluded, though he was more concerned with being let back into the competition than the unforeseen addition of another child in the mix.

Just as Mr. Pilf said this, and before Miss Sheezley could protest his entry back into the game, the floor above them began to move down.

“Look there,” Alfred said, pointing his cane skyward. “I think the picnic is over.”

A moment later the floor overhead wasn’t just moving, it was
dropping
.

“To the ladder!” Miss Sheezley yelled, throwing her sandwiches over her head. Had she been a linebacker she would almost certainly have blocked anyone else racing toward the ladder so that she could get there first, but as it was, no one else was making a run for it. “Come on, you fools! You’ll be crushed!”

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Leo asked the remaining group.

Even Pilf could see the way in, and he nodded with all the rest.

“Look up, Miss Sheezley!” Pilf yelled, but he didn’t have to. A way into the falling floor of Miss Sheezley’s Foxtrot Hotel appeared before her.

“Looks like six spots,” Leo said. “Let’s spread out.”

Six egg-shaped holes had opened up on the white bottom of the hotel floor above, and out of each egg-shaped hole, a beam of light shot down onto the roof where they stood. Six spotlights, six places to stand, and six people who could take up positions under each. Miss Sheezley ran right past the one she’d arrived nearest to and started down the ladder. She watched as all the other people on the roof spread out and stood under different spots.