The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (14 page)

Dr. Schmeltzer frowned. “Do you want me to lead you to the cave or not?”

Katie nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“So we go by the way I know.”

“If there's any way—”

“The way I know is entirely using the language of our friends the bats.”

“Yeah. Our friends.”

Dr. Schmeltzer let out another bloodcurdling scream.

This is definitely getting old,
thought Katie.

Eddie Wax huffed like a winded spaniel and shut the door behind him. He turned on the light and sat down on the bed.

“How are you, horsey?” he asked the floor and the lamp. “Were you made by a finer hand than mine to take me to all the great places on the earth?” He went over and stroked the lamp's mane, which it didn't have. He asked the lamp, “Are you going to take me to the pyramids and to Paris, France, Europe? That's,” he said sternly, “what a good horse does.”

Lily heard all this and did not feel any better about being in his room with him.

“Have you been watching Prell?” he asked the lamp. He went over and pulled back the covers
of the bed. There was the weasel head. He said, “You're next, Prell. They ain't gonna keep you all boxed up in here like a saltine cracker. A hairy saltine cracker. Every animal should be free.”

Lily was hiding inside the entertainment center, curled up on the shelf beneath the TV. She may have been in the entertainment center, but she was not entertained. She felt sorry for Eddie—but she was afraid of his lunatic ravings about stuffed animals.

“They say if you love something, set it free,” said Eddie Wax. “But what if you don't love anything?”

Eddie sighed.

“Then,” he said, “you watch the Animal Channel.”

And he walked over to the entertainment center and opened the doors.

Imagine riding in a car that propelled itself by scraping a giant metal squeegee along an endless track of chalkboard. Now imagine going to a NASCAR race where there were eight of these screeching cars competing against each other and maybe a few angry coyotes.

What a horrible, terrible noise. I wouldn't care if that kind of squeegee car had really comfortable seats and a dashboard drink holder big enough for my big four-liter Halt'n'Buy Thunder-Guzzler. I would get out of that squeegee car. I would leave that race and that noise. I would go to a room where there were only sheep, pillows, and macramé. And there I would do mathematical problems until I could breathe normally again.

Well, this is kind of how Katie felt, being led through the rocky passes by a man who screamed constantly.
Constantly.

Her nerves were tired. She felt like people had been drumming all over her skin for hours. She felt like she hadn't slept for days, and she wouldn't sleep for many more.

And he just kept right on striding along, tripping over rocks, yelping, howling, beeping, screeching, ululating, growling, keening, and once, tintinnabulating. This meant that he sang “DING DONG DING DONG. DING DONG DING DONG” in a voice that resembled the doorbell at the mansion of a South American dictator.

“Are we getting close?” she asked.

“Oh, I think we are,” he said.

“Then could you stop screaming?”

“Could you stop looking? Could you stop using your eyes?”

“Would you cut it out?” said Katie, finally being rude to her elders. “My friend is in danger!”

“I cannot cut it out.”

“You're not even blind! You can see perfectly where you're going!”

“No one ever said I was blind. They said I was brilliant.” He explained, “I wear the blacked-out glasses so I don't accidentally rely on my sight.” He opened his lungs really wide.
“AYOO AYOO AYOO AYOO AYOO.”

“Can you please stop that?”

“I cannot. I follow the ways of the bat.”

“We need to find my friend!”

“He is no friend of mine, if he does not appreciate the special qualities of my voice.”

“How could anyone appreciate your voice? It is completely obnoxious.”

“I will have you know,” said Dr. Schmeltzer, “that I am a highly accomplished ventriloquist. I am not simply some hack. I can place my voice anywhere. I can—”

Ventriloquist?
Katie thought… She remembered back to that afternoon on the porch … Something bothered her … She had never actually
seen
the thief… She had, in fact, heard the thief and then she had run right into—

Dr. Schmeltzer let out a hideous scream.

“Okay,” said Katie. “I am really tired of this.”

Dr. Schmeltzer let out another hideous scream.

“That's it,” she said.

But this time he wasn't screaming to locate himself. He was screaming to warn her of the ten pairs of glowing golden eyes that were staring at them from the woods.

Wolves.

When you read about “eyes glowing yellow in the dark,” you think that it's just a figure of speech. The truth is, however, that wolves' eyes do glow by reflecting back light, and therefore it is terrifying when you see them illuminated at night. Once I had a party where I invited only wolves. It was kind of a tea dance. I was young and didn't have many friends. The wolves wanted the party in the dark; I convinced them to have a single night-light on so I could make my way around the room and see whether they were laughing with me or at me.

Yowza, after about ten minutes of that— their eyes glowing yellow in the dark, the brown
evil light glinting off their fangs and the porcelain teacups, the lace doilies hanging torn from their snaggy teeth—I agreed to turn the light off. It was just better not to see. After that the party improved, and they were real nice. One of them even gave me an extra tool set he had in his car.

So the wolves' eyes, as I was saying, glowed yellow in the dark. The wolves stared at Katie and Dr. Schmeltzer. Dr. Schmeltzer and Katie stared at the wolves, which, in Dr. Schmeltzer's case, meant he screamed continuously.

And then the wolves started running.

Loping, really. They leaped and ran with a long-legged, rangy kind of gait.

Right into the forest.

Away from the screaming man, who terrified them.

Katie shone the light into the pine wood where the wolves had been circling.

There she saw a slouch-shouldered form.

Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut.

She ran forward and he ran forward and she threw her arms around him. He would have thrown his arms around her, except that they were tied behind him. His face was covered with dirt and tracks of dried mucus.

She had never been happier to see a face in her life.

“Oh—Jasper—I'm so glad to see you!”

She turned him around and, putting the flashlight on the ground, began to work at the knots on his wrists.

“It seems a shame,” said Dr. Schmeltzer, watching her, “to undo all that work when someone went to the trouble of tying it. Who's to say that you won't just need to tie him up again?”

Katie shot Dr. Schmeltzer a dirty glance.

Jasper's ropes fell to the ground. He sighed with pleasure and swung his arms in the air. He chafed his wrists.

“Katie,” said Jasper, “I cannot even list the deuced awful things that have happened to me this afternoon.” He took her hands. “Thank you for finding me. Thank you.”

“Well, all's well that ends well,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “Let us now proceed posthaste to the cave. I shall scream loudly and incessantly to guide you.”

Katie was angry now. She said, “It almost seems like you're
trying
to get us caught.”

“Young lady, that is the most—”

But he did not finish his sentence, as he had seen a pair of glowing eyes looking at him out of the woods. The wolves were back, watching carefully, and braver. No scream would deter them now.

The three humans stood stock-still for a moment.

Wind picked up on the mountain, driven with the night. The pines around them surged.

“Let's go, chums!” exclaimed Jasper, and at the same moment, Katie ran forward to grab Dr. Schmeltzer's arm. Katie on one side, Jasper on the other, they began to tug him back toward the lodge. The wolves watched behind them.

Dr. Schmeltzer began his screaming again.

More wolves, alerted by the noise, slipped toward them through the wood.

The pine branches swayed in the wind. Jasper saw gray bodies darting through the hemlocks.

Dr. Schmeltzer yelled.

Jasper pulled the old snotty duct tape off of his knee. He hesitated. Katie saw what Jasper had, grabbed it out of his hand, and shoved it over Dr. Schmeltzer's mouth. Dr. Schmeltzer shook his head and protested. But soon he just mumbled.

“I'm sorry, sir,” said Jasper. “It's for your own safety.” They dragged him along the path. As they stumbled forward, Jasper asked the professor, “Do you have any allergies we should know about? Grass, trees, flowers?” The professor shook his head. “Cats, dogs, mold, dust mites, ragwort, ragweed?
… Do you have any history of asthma in your family? …”

They disappeared down the path.