Whales on Stilts! (3 page)

You can see why, with friends like these, Lily might not think that she led the most adventurous life.

Both Katie and Jasper often told Lily that she was a hero just waiting to happen. They both admired her for many reasons. Lily herself didn't know what those reasons were. She was just happy that Katie and Jasper were her friends.
She felt sure that they would be able to get her out of her terrible predicament.

As soon as she got home from her father's work, Lily called them on the phone. She asked if there was someplace they could meet. She said it was really important. Jasper said they could come over to his place and have a cool sherbet smoothie in his airship snack bar, which had been featured in
Jasper Dash and His Astounding Aero-Bistro.

The Aero-Bistro was a restaurant that floated above the town of Pelt. It was very beautiful in its design, with lots of wrought-iron fixtures and gigantic potted ferns everywhere. The air in the bistro was always warm, and the androids that served the customers all wore bow ties.

A professional ragtime band played just outside the windows, suspended in a helium gazebo.

The three friends sat at a table, and Lily told her story. Katie and Jasper looked very serious while they listened.

“I don't know what to do,” Lily said.
“Maybe this Larry man was just being funny. But he didn't sound like it. I think something very bad is going to happen. And the worst thing is, my dad could be in danger!”

Katie said, “Hmm. Whoa.”

Jasper said, “Dash it all, chums, this sounds a mighty pickle.”

Yup, get used to it, because that's how Jasper always talked.

Lily said, “I thought you two would be able to help. Since you're ... you know.”

Jasper tapped his finger on his chin and looked up thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Katie said to Lily, “You know what I always do when I have a problem?” She sucked on her sherbet. “I always just ignore it for a few days. And after a few days—
voilà!
Guess what happens.” She waved her sherbet spoon in the air. “Whatever I'm having a problem with? It decides it's going to break into my house and kill me, and so it breaks in and I run upstairs screaming, and just in the nick of time—blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah.” She sat back in her chair and snorted. “Let me tell you: It's no way to live.”

Jasper declared, “I think that infiltration may be our game.” His blue eyes were thin and crafty. He held up one finger. “What we need to do is gather some information—and we need to gather it without anyone connecting us to your father and so endangering him. And I know just the thing that might do the trick.”

“What's that?” said Lily.

“Lily,” he said, “by gum, this is just the moment for a photocopier repairman.”

Katie started laughing. Her spoon clanked in her sherbet smoothie. Then she stopped. “Oh,” she said. “You weren't kidding?”

But no, he was not kidding. Jasper Dash had a plan.

About a week later Lily and Katie took a different bus than usual from school. They were going to get off the bus at the Abandoned Warehouse, where they would meet Jasper. Jasper wasn't with them because he didn't go to school. He had already received a PhD in Aegyptology

Katie was looking at her gums in her reflection on the windows. She said, “Wouldn't it be weird if people had no lips? Only gums and teeth?” She looked at Lily. “Huh? What do you think? Would that be weirder, or if people had skis for feet?”

Lily didn't answer.

“What's wrong?” asked Katie. “You're not nervous, are you?”

“I'm a little nervous,” admitted Lily in a whisper. “This is dangerous.”

What is she talking about? Well, my friend, it's simple enough to tell: The previous week Jasper had gone into the Abandoned Warehouse dressed as a photocopy repairman. He had added a special secret addition to the photocopier. Whenever someone made a copy, his special secret addition made another copy and stored it for him.

Now all three of them were going to sneak into the building, disguised as other photocopy repairpeople, and they were going to see what photocopies had been made during the week. Then they would have a better sense of what Larry and his crew were
really
up to.

As you can see, this could be very dangerous.

It was even more dangerous, in fact, than Lily and her friends knew. Why?

I'll tell you.
^*

As Lily and Katie bumped along over
potholes toward the Abandoned Warehouse, Lily's father walked into the photocopy room and found his boss looking kind of strangely at the photocopier.

“Huh,” said Larry. “Was this photocopier always this big?”

The photocopier took up most of the room. There were a huge number of brass pipes running all over the place, and lots of gears and cranks that turned. Sometimes valves would release steam. The whole room vibrated.

“Uh, no,” said Mr. Gefelty over the racket. “The photocopy repair guy came in and added some stuff. You know—little guy, about twelve, thirteen years old? He added a lot of these new parts. For example, it didn't work by mule before.”

Larry walked over to the mule's treadmill. “I knew I didn't recognize the mule. Is this a pushbutton mule?”

“No,” said Mr. Gefelty. “That's a real kind of mule. That's a mule that you could ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on, if you're real careful and balance your fishing rods.”

“Gefelty?” said Larry. “I'm not sure about this. Grand Canyon aside, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't some kind of clever attempt at spying on our organization.”

Gefelty shrugged. “Come on, Larry. Why would anyone want to spy on our organization? I mean, what do we do? Make stilts for whales. What could be wrong with that? Who could complain?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Gefelty. Why don't you go back to your office? Don't come out for a while. Take a vacation, but in your office. I have some ideas about this. Will you excuse me?”

Larry squinted through his grain-sack hood. He walked away briskly to talk to his guards.

Meanwhile, back out on the streets of Pelt, Lily was getting anxious on the bus. She was a quiet girl, and not used to risk and danger.

Katie put her arm around Lily's shoulders and talked gently to her. She said reassuringly, “Don't worry about anything. Just concentrate
on the plan. It'll be fine. We're going to have dinner at the Burger Meister until work lets out. Okay? Nothing difficult there. Eating. Chew the food, swallow. You've got that covered? Then we're going to go into the bathroom. Okay? And we're going to change into our photocopy-repair disguises. Okay so far? You've changed clothes before?” She bumped her friend with her elbow and smiled. Lily smiled back at her. Katie said, “So far so good? Then we're just going to walk down the street to the Abandoned Warehouse. You've walked down streets before? Just checking. And then, just when they're about to close down for the night, we're going to ask if we can go in to recall a part of the photocopier. Then we go in, take apart Jasper's whole special part of the photocopier, pick up the microfilm that has all the secret copies on it, and carry it all out past the armed guards while pretending we're like thirty-five-year-old professionals.” Katie realized that the last part of the description didn't sound as easy as the first part.

She cleared her throat.

She and Lily looked at each other. Then they looked away from each other.

Katie cleared her throat again. Then she looked into the window at her gums. She said, “To change the subject, do you think I could tell if I had gingivitis?”

“Somehow this doesn't seem like a good idea,” said Lily. “But probably that's just because I don't have any experience with this kind of thing. You know—adventure. Actually doing anything.”

“Lily,” said Katie, “would you stop that? You read about all kinds of amazing things. You have all sorts of amazing dreams. And you're the one who realized that this place was a mad scientist's headquarters in the first place!”

“We don't even know for sure if it is,” Lily muttered. She hoped that she wasn't just leading them on a wild-goose chase.

Katie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Hello? Who else starts a small business in an abandoned warehouse?”

Lily leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her hair hid her eyes.

The bus rattled through the streets of Pelt and down to Smogascoggin Bay. It went past muffler repair stores and bagel bakeries. It went under a lot of phone lines. Finally, it reached the abandoned warehouse district. Lily and Katie picked up their backpacks and got off.

Jasper was there waiting. He was already in his photocopier repairman disguise. Unfortunately, Jasper was sort of out of touch and didn't really know what a photocopier repairman would look like, so he had just taken his best shot at it, which meant a sparkly brown jumpsuit with big rings around his shoulders and elbows, and a helmet with an antenna and fins. He wore a utility belt with a screwdriver, wrenches, and a ray gun. There was a logo on his back that said:
Glorux Velp—Ace Photocopier Repairman—Venus Colony.

“Jasper,” said Katie, squeezing his padded shoulders, “it's good that we love you. Because
otherwise, we'd never be seen with you anywhere.”

“I am cleverly disguised,” he explained, “as the photocopier repairman of the future, when man, through his ingenuity, will conquer even the farthest reaches of space, and need to make duplicates of things.”

Lily and Katie stared at him. He looked sheepishly down at his moon boots and said, “Look, chums, I got into the building wearing this last week.”

Katie looked at her watch. “It's only three thirty,” she said. “Let's go hang out for an hour or so before we come back to the warehouse and try to get in.”

They walked down the street to the Burger Meister. The pavement was cracked. All around them were ruined mills and warehouses.

They sat at the Burger Meister for a while and ate fries. They talked about school and kids they knew.

Jasper began to notice that people in the
booths around them were snickering at his outfit. He tried not to take it personally. He forgave them immediately. He figured they just needed time to get used to the clothes of the future. He held his head in various noble attitudes, as if he were gazing up at three pink moons while the sonic winds of X-terra blew across his chin. Other kids kept pointing at him. Finally, he took his helmet off and put it on his knees.

He crouched in toward the fries and tried to be inconspicuous. That was made harder by his glittery brown jumpsuit.

Katie and Lily were talking about the Abandoned Warehouse.

Lily was saying, “Officially, the company, it's called Deltamax. I tried calling them on the telephone the other day and asking what their business was. Whoever answered their phone just told me that it was very complicated.”

“How long has your dad worked there?” Katie asked.

“Two years.” Lily sipped her soda. “I asked
him what he knew about his boss, Larry—the one who wears the sack over his head?”

“Yeah?” said Katie. “What'd he say?”

“He doesn't really know much. Larry never talks about his family or anything. Nobody knows where Larry's from, or anyplace else he's worked. No one knows how old he is.”

“But has anybody even seen his face?” Katie asked.

“Nope,” said Lily. “That's the thing. Nobody even knows what he looks like. He could be some famous master criminal, and nobody would even know it.”

“Great Scott!” cried Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, slamming his fist down on the table. “Will these cads never cease mocking my jumpsuit?”

“Jasper,” said Katie, “I think you're going to have to let this one go.”

Jasper frowned deeply and fiddled with the ketchup.

Lily looked at her two friends. She felt proud
to be with them—especially because Jasper wasn't afraid to dress stupidly in public. Lily never wanted to have the kind of friends who refused to eat fries in a sparkly brown jumpsuit. She smiled, softly, under all of her hair.