The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (4 page)
Read The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen Online
Authors: M.T. Anderson
“You know, from the horse books. Eddie Wax! I rided Stumpy. In
Stumpy Rides to Glory.
”
Lily nodded, smiling. “Oh, sure. I did a book report on
Stumpy Rides to Glory!”
“Yep. I'm Stumpy's rider. Stumpy is my series.”
Lily looked confused. “I, um, I only remember the first book.”
“Yep, I'm Stumpy's rider.” Eddie nodded and waved his hand in the air, saying, “For that whole series, I was. Yep, she's a good horse. Good, sweet horse.”
“Are you sure there wasâ”
“Gentle as a luna moth and brave as a grizzly in the Coldstream Guards.” Eddie looked upset, and his voice had that weird, embarrassing gluey quality that voices get when we're trying to pretend we're not about to cry. “She's a good horse, Stumpy. Best horse anyone could ask for.”
“Attention!” cried the hotel manager. “We
found one of the Quints' books under the player piano in the hotel library.”
“Read it to us!” an older woman in pearls and a broad straw hat beseeched him. “I do so love a story!”
“Okay, okay. If you'll all sit down for a second, I'll read you the description of the Quints from the beginning of the book. Will that work?”
They all sat down, and waiters walked between them, handing out sandwiches and bottled lemonade.
The hotel manager opened to the first page of
The Hooper Quints on an Oil Derrick; or, The Danger Gang!
and he began to read.
DERRICK!” said Ray Hooper. “Jeepers-to-crow, an oil derrick is the perfectest place to spend our holiday!”
“Yes,” said La Hooper, “I've always wanted to gad about on an oil derrick! If I couldn't have come, I would have broken my fingers! Come, let's run and play dress-up near the extraction pipes!”
“Such larks!” exclaimed Doe Hooper, swaying by one arm from the scaffolding. “I can almost see slag from here! This will be the best holiâ”
“Sid, duckie,” said the woman in the wide straw hat to the hotel manager. “Maybe skip to the next page?”
“Ah yes. Thank you, Mrs. Mandrake.” The manager flipped to the next page. He scanned it, looking for clues of the Hoopers' appearance. “Aha,” he said. “Here's where the Hooper Quints are first described.” He looked around the crowd. “Pay close attention,” he said.
The Hoopers were all quintuplets. They had been born all together! That's why they got along so well. They did everything together! They went on picnics and solved mysteries together. Recently, they had solved a mystery of a big hard old cake in
The Loud Ratcheting Noise (Hooper Quints No. 42).
They also solved mysteries on farms.
They had a nanny! She was a musical nun. She was always there to give them sandwiches and ginger beer when they were hungry. She was a fun nun! Once, when they were very poor, she made them little matching suits out of the living-room curtains. That was great fun! When the curtain pants wore out and the shirts got torn, she cut the linoleum on the kitchen floor into lederhosen.
She also taught them how to sing. She gave each one of them the name of a note. That's where their nicknames came from! Doe! Ray! Mi! And so on all in a row! Would you like to hear them sing?
No, you wouldn't. They were awful! It was kind of a joke that the nun played on them. She told them they had beautiful voices, but they sounded really bad. Theyâ
Sid stopped reading, shut the book, and shook his head. “I can't go on,” he said. “I just can't. Anyway, you get the idea.”
Everyone agreed he shouldn't go on.
“Wow, that was ⦠um â¦,” Lily commented quietly to Jasper. “That explains why no one has read the Hooper Quints' books. I feel really bad for them.”
“Oh, the book wasn't so terrible,” said Jasper. “I liked the plucky high spirits of the narrator. I always enjoy exclamation points.”
The hotel manager passed out paper place mats with a map of the mountain and advertisements
for local businesses. He divided everyone up into search parties. Lily and Jasper, unfortunately, were split up. Jasper looked sad; he had been put in a group with the Manley Boys, who had always made fun of him when babysitting. Lily, meanwhile, ended up in a group with Eddie Wax and a man in a green poplin jumpsuit. She would have felt much better with Jasper around. She was always nervous with new people.
“We could ask to be switched into each other's group,” said Lily.
“No,” said Jasper unhappily. “A good citizen does not ask for special treatment.”
“I bet the hotel manager wouldn't mind.”
Jasper shook his head. “I don't want to be one of
those
people.” He pointed over at the pearled and hatted Mrs. Mandrake, who was following the hotel manager around and asking him questions loudly.
“Sid? Will there be bears? One can't stand the shagginess of their muzzles.”
“No bears, Mrs. Mandrake.”
“Will we be late for dinner?”
“I can't say, Mrs. Mandrake.”
“Oh and, Sid? Sid, will the priceless Mandrake Necklace be safe in my room? My late husband gave it to me. I didn't want to wear it outside for fear the dazzle would stupefy the dogs.”
The manager had clearly about had it with Mrs. Mandrake. “Yes, Mrs. Mandrake. It will be fine in your room. You're going with that group,” he said, pointing to Lily, Eddie Wax, and the man in the green poplin jumpsuit. “Does everyone have a map of the mountain? And everyone knows where you're going?”
Everyone said “Yes” or “I guess so.”
“Has everyone gone to the bathroom?”
People shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed. “Go on,” said Sid. “Go on!” Many of them headed inside.
“I'll be back in a tick, Lily,” said Eddie Wax, jerking his thumb toward the lodge. “Right after I done nature's business.”
“See you, horse kid,” said the man in the green poplin jumpsuit. He did some stretches, picking up his knee and clenching it in his arms. “I'm Rick,” he said to Lily. “I don't need the bathroom right now, because I've taught myself the art of self-control.”
“I'm Lily,” she said. “I'm glad you ⦔ She didn't really know how to finish the sentence.
“Yup. Me, I'm staying out here in the sun and the fresh air,” said Rick. “Can't shake your hand because I have my knee in my arms.”
Lily nodded. She did not like small talk very much. She never knew what to say, and that made her feel kind of dull, even though it shouldn't have. People who are really good at small talk are sometimes a little suspicious, because they're so smooth. Especially in a mystery novel.
Rick was not all that good at small talk. “I'm standing on one leg,” he said, “and what's wrong with that?” He bounced up and down. “Let's get going!” he said. “Let's truck! Where's
the horse kid? I want to get a move on! Let's find those Quints!”
“Poor little things,” said Mrs. Mandrake, adjusting her hat.
“I hope they're safe,” said Lily.
Mrs. Mandrake said, “Indeed.”
The Quints, however, were not doing well at all.
“Ow,” said La Hooper.
“Double ow,” said Ray Hooper.
“You're kicking me,” said La.
“I can't see anything,” said Doe. “It's dark.”
And dark, my friends, it was.
“Jeepers-to-crow,” said Ray, “a bandit's cave in the mountainside is the perfectest place to spend our holiday!”
“Doe?” said La. “Kick Ray.”
Doe tried. No luck.
“We could sing to lift our spirits,” one of them suggested.
Believe me, you want me to end the chapter now.
Katie, meanwhile, wandered alone through the corridors of the hotel. She passed identical doors. The knuckles of her hand brushed each doorframe, as if she wanted to knock.
She couldn't go back to her room, 23 C, because her room was inside of someone else's bathroom, and she didn't have the key. She frowned. This was exactly the kind of problem you had to expect when you traveled with Jasper. Something crazy always came up. Katie was tired of crazy things.
She passed a small lounge where some little kids were sitting around an entertainment specialist from the hotel. The entertainment specialist leaned toward the kids and spoke to them
in a breathy, hushy voice. “There's a story,” the entertainment specialist said, “that this hotel is
haunted.
Do you want to hear it?” The kids clapped their hands and shouted.
Katie snorted and walked on.
No more ghosts.
The woman looked after her. “Don't snort at the supernatural,” said the entertainment specialist. “It can hear you snort.”
It can hear me do a lot of things, for what I care,
thought Katie.
I am ignoring ghosts. I am ignoring missing quints. I am going to pretend everything is normal. I am going to go down to the gift shop and buy the new issue of
Snazzy,
and I'm going to sit on the veranda with the sun shining on me and I'm going to read. And no dark shape is going to cover up the sun, and nothing on the veranda is going to drip blood, and the faces of girls in the magazine aren't going to whisper my name and ask for help, and I am just going to have a good, quiet time. So there!