Beasties, page 11
“Not by ourselves, we can’t go to SGE,” I said. “But with him, maybe we can.”
34No, I didn’t see it. But Kate did, with Mom and Dad. When she described it to me, I nearly fell asleep. But it sounded mushy. And Kate loves mushy.
35See what I mean?
22
“AND A TOP OF the MORNING to you! What a lovely LOVELY day in this FINE CITY!” Buttz boomed. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “How was that, Bestials?”
I cringed.
It was the morning after our encounter with Uncle Chester. All of us Beasties were crammed into a leather shoulder bag in a dressing room at a boutique in SoHo. We’d hardly slept all night, planning for this with Buttz. He showered at a local YMCA and brought back a huge, sturdy plastic bag to carry us in. Dylan fetched a credit card from his pants, in the hiding place where Percy had put our clothes. First thing Buttz did this morning was buy a phone. In the boutique he’d picked out a fancy leather bag for us. And now he was trying on fancy outfits, to prepare for our visit to SGE. He was also rehearsing out loud.
“Dude, this is a changing room,” Mason whispered. “Everyone can hear this guy. And it’s Beasties, not Bestials.”
Now footsteps were heading our way. Someone knocked politely on the door. “Did you need something, sir?”
“HO, HO, HO, why, not at all!” Buttz replied. “Just admiring the fine tailoring of your . . . fine tailoring!”
I waited to hear the person leave. “Sara, tell Buttz he sounds fake,” I whispered. “Like he’s trying too hard.”
“No, he’s fine!” Dylan blurted. “The people who go to SGE, they all sound like that.”
“YOU’RE PERFECT, MR. BUTTZ,” Sara said as softly as she could.
Buttz beamed. “Someday, we will be able to control this . . . transformation business. I would love to become a bear. Would you like to know why?”
“No, we wouldn’t!” Dylan shot back.
“There is a famous stage direction in The Winter’s Tale: ‘Exit, pursued by a bear,’” Buttz droned on. “Why did Shakespeare write that? One of the great mysteries! Imagine actually appearing on the stage . . . as an actual bear! Jolly fun!”
“Jolly idiotic,” Kate said.
“Can we go now?” Dylan whined.
Buttz adjusted his bow tie in the mirror. “I haven’t looked this dapper since I was an extra in the movie Walking Dead of Wall Street Three. Are we ready?”
“What does ‘dapper’ mean?” Mason asked.
“More than just dap,” Dylan replied.36 “Let’s go!”
“I shall conceal you to the best of my abilities,” Buttz announced, securing the top of the leather bag with three snaps. “I shall also adopt a persona, a false identity. This is an actor’s craft! I shall henceforth be known as . . . Lionel!”
He hoisted us to his shoulders with a grunt. A parrot, a hawk, a raccoon, and a rat weigh a lot. The shoulder bag didn’t hide us completely, but the opening was narrow, so you’d really have to look closely to see us.
Already Dylan and Kate were pushing each other around. Dylan was farting every few minutes. Last night I thought our plan was great. But now, huddled in the leather sack, I decided we were out of our minds.
“Oh, this won’t look unusual at all,” Mason drawled sarcastically.
“Keep still!” Buttz warned us.
“REMEMBER, BUTTZ,” Sara said, “I MEAN, LIONEL—FOUR SEVENTY-SEVEN AND A HALF MERCER STREET.”
“Indeed.” Buttz reached into his pocket for the cell phone he’d just purchased. “I shall use the PGS! Now, Four Seventy-Seven and a Half . . . How do you enter fractions in the address finder?”
“IT’S GPS,” Sara said, “BUT YOU DON’T NEED IT! THE PLACE IS ONLY THREE BLOCKS AWAY. JUST KEEP THE PHONE FOR EMERGENCIES!”
“Besides, it’s getting really hot and smelly in this dressing room,” Mason grumbled.
Lionel pocketed the phone and threw open the dressing room door. He strolled toward the cashier, banging a jewel-handled cane loudly on the floor. “Clerk!” he announced. “I must complete my purchase! Here is my card of credit. I shall wear these clothes out of the store, please. And may I say, my dear, your perfume has the lovely scent of ripe bananas!”
“Thank you, Mr.—” the clerk said, squinting at Dylan’s credit card. “How do you pronounce this last name?”
“Uh . . .” Lionel nudged the shoulder bag.
“Vlissing,” Dylan hissed.
“VLISSING!” Sara translated.
“Shhhhhh!” Kate said.
The clerk let out a gasp. “Sir? Is there something in that bag?”
“Ahem-hem, oh, do you mean that high-pitched voice?” Buttz said in a falsetto.37 “Er, that was me. A bit of indigestion!” He cleared his throat and dropped his voice to a low rumble. “As I said, it’s Flisking.”
I was so happy when we got out to the sidewalk. I tried not to think of all the foul old clothing some clerk was going to find in the dressing room.
The leather bag was decorated with little brass-rimmed holes I could look through. Buttz strolled along slowly, greeting everyone he passed. It was taking forever. And Dylan’s digestive troubles were stinking up the leather bag. “Good news, guys,” Dylan said. “I feel another big one coming. . . .”
“NO!” Sara shouted.
“No?” Lionel stopped walking. “But it says SGE in the window.”
I peered up. I could see the SGE logo, along with the label 477½ above a heavy, cast-iron door. “YES, THIS IS IT,” Sara said. “THE ‘NO’ WAS FOR DYLAN.”
Brrrrrrruuuutttt . . .
“Ahhhh,” Dylan said with a deep breath, “fresh asparagus with hints of egg and squashed insect!”
I nearly fainted.
Buttz walked quickly through the door, down a hall, and into a small elevator. As it rose, it creaked noisily. Finally the elevator door groaned open, and he strolled out onto an echoey wooden floor.
“Hello, sir!” a voice called out. “Your name?”
“Lionel—er, Roosevelt,” Lionel said.
“Roosevelt?” Dylan squeaked.
The old guy cleared his throat loudly and jammed his elbow into us.
“Wow,” the clerk said with a polite laugh. “Are you related to the presidents?”
“Why, yes, to both Franklin and Freddy,” Lionel said.
“Hm, you’re not on the guest list,” the clerk replied. “But I don’t think Mr. Gould would turn away a Roosevelt. He always invites the best people. Can I take your shoulder bag to the cloakroom—?”
“My bag stays with me!” Lionel snapped. “I mean, thank you, I shall transport it to the cloakroom myself. It’s a . . . Roosevelt tradition. And thence to the rest room?”
“No worries,” the clerk said, sounding worried. “Cloakroom to the left, rest room in the back of the gallery.”
As Lionel began walking, Sara hissed, “IT’S ‘TEDDY,’ NOT ‘FREDDY’!”
“Details,” Lionel said softly. “An actor must think on his feet. Which was why I cleverly used a famous last name to get into an exclusive gathering.”
“You could have used my last name,” Dylan remarked. “Crowds part for Vlissings.”
“Yeah, when they see the clouds of gas,” I replied.
Inside the gallery, conversation buzzed, accompanied by tinkling piano music. The ceiling arched high overhead with steel beams and chandeliers. The air-conditioning felt great against the funky warmth inside our bag. Peering through the brass-lined hole, I saw mostly white-haired people dressed in black, and tons of weird, framed artwork on the walls. Most of it looked like a kindergartner did it. One canvas showed a bunch of squiggles with a brown lump in the middle. The price was twenty-five thousand dollars.
“That’s like robbery!” I blurted.
“Shhhhhh!” Kate shot back.
Lionel was getting nearer the piano, and now I could hear some singing. First a guy in a loud, obnoxious voice: “‘Ohhhh, I will always love . . . the memory of . . .’”
And then, a whole bunch of even more terrible voices joining in: “your faded dead face!”
“Faded dead face? Ew!” Kate said. “Worst. Song. Ever.”
I could see the piano now, old-timey like the one in the Loeser Academy auditorium. To me it looked as long as a school bus. On top was a gigantic painting of a woman with a bored expression, wearing a bonnet and a stiff-looking ruffled collar. She was probably dead, and the painting was faded. So I guess the song was about her.
“Bravo, Silas!” an old man’s voice cried out. “Always loved this song. Even back in our Juilliard days. Your masterpiece!”
Now I was angled enough to see Silas Gould sitting at the piano. He was super skinny. His graying hair was slicked back, his dark blue suit and leather shoes were shiny, and when he grinned, his teeth were whiter than the piano keys. “Thank you. I am obsessed with it,” he said. “The magic of an old painting, captured in song. And I am including it in my upcoming Broadway musical, with the help of my dear, talented Vera.”
And there was Vera Vlissing, looking at some sheet music through narrow glasses. “We will consider changing the title, darling. ‘Faded Dead Face’ may turn people off.”
“Mummy . . . ?” Dylan’s eyes moistened, and he began climbing to the top of the bag.
“Stay put,” Kate hissed.
But now we were moving toward the piano. “Ho there, may I join you?” Buttz called out. “I auditioned for seventeen Broadway shows!”
“And got rejected from all of them,” Mason whispered.
“I thought he had to go to the bathroom,” Dylan hissed.
“LIONEL,” Sara said as softly as she could manage, “WE HAVE A JOB TO DO! AND YOU HAVE TO PEE!”
Lionel draped his coat over his shoulder, covering the bag so we were completely hidden from sight. We couldn’t see a thing.
But we could hear just fine. Especially the grrrrrr of an angry dog, coming from near the piano.
My blood froze. I understood that sound. Whoever—whatever—this growl belonged to, it smelled dinner.
Meaning, us.
RRRRAWWWWF! RAWFRAWFRARF!
Translation: EAT SLASH KILL SWALLOW THIS IS MAKING ME SO HUNGRY!
Something crashed into Lionel. Hard. A set of jaws was trying to bite through the shoulder bag.
“Oh! Gadzooks!” cried Lionel.
“Stop that, Foofy!” cried Vera Vlissing.
“What’s going on here?” Kate exclaimed.
“YEEEEEEOOOW!” cried Dylan.
Lionel’s coat must have fallen off, because some light filtered in through the holes. I could see Dylan now.
His leg was trapped. It was like the bag itself had somehow clamped on to it. Which made no sense—until I realized it wasn’t the bag. It was something biting down on the other side of the bag.
The jaws of Dylan’s own pet.
36Which is not true. “Dapper” means fancy looking.
37Meaning, high-pitched voice.
23
IF LIONEL HADN’T JUMPED back, Dylan might have been an ex-raccoon.
But the old man fell flat on his butt, loosening the grip of Foofy’s jaws. “Someone take this mangy mutt away!” he cried out. “Do you know how much this shoulder bag cost?”
Foofy was still nipping at the bag, barking hysterically.
“It’s me! It’s me! Foofy, stop, it’s me!” Dylan screamed.
With this racket, any human should have been able to tell there was an animal in the bag. But no one could hear his screeches over all the commotion.
Lionel scrambled to his feet. Dylan cried in pain. Foofy was still barking like mad. Her teeth had left a small gash in the shoulder bag. The leather had protected Dylan’s leg. It wasn’t bleeding, which was good. But he was squirming around, his claws scratching all of us, which was bad.
“Are you OK?” Kate asked.
“I need a doctor!” Dylan moaned. “I need a lawyer! I need an ambulance!”
“Do you need to fart?” Mason asked. “Because if you do, I’m out of here.”
In the room Vera scolded, “Naughty dog! Bad, bad, naughty Foofy!”
Foofy was going nuts. Dylan . . . being hurt . . . but not Dylan . . . raccoon? . . . food . . . eat . . . catch . . . but not. But . . . Dylan! Dylan Dylan Dylan Dylan!
Or something like that. Dog talk is hard to understand.
I could tell people were pulling her back. I could also tell Foofy was confused, afraid, and hungry. Not a great combination for us. We had to get as far away from her as possible.
Luckily Gould slid over to Buttz and gently pulled him away from the piano. He was apologizing for Foofy’s behavior. He was so close I could smell his cologne. We held our breaths, silently hoping he wouldn’t ask about the weirdly bulky bag.38 But as soon as Buttz was far enough away, Gould went back to the piano. I watched him through the bag’s little holes. I also checked the nooks and crannies of the gallery. There had to be some sign of Proteus 2. Did Gould even know about its powers? Would it be on display or hidden away? If it was hidden, how would we find it? Was it even still here?
I had one small hope. I remembered a tingling sensation I felt when we got near Proteus 1. Maybe I’d feel that same tingle near Proteus 2.
At the edge of the gathering, one guy towered over everyone. He looked like an ex-WWE wrestler, with shoulders the size of a sofa cushion, a crooked nose, and sunglasses. His gray suit fit so tight you could practically hear it complaining. His shaved head shone like a light bulb, and a curly wire led from under his collar into his right ear. He muttered something into his wire, then turned to a snooty-looking silver-haired woman. Together they walked to a darkened area in the back. “That guy took a message through his earbud,” I said. “Sara, tell Buttz to follow him but don’t make it obvious.”
In a moment, Buttz was obediently heading after the goon. The big guy led the woman behind a thick navy-blue curtain. Following there would be too obvious, so Buttz hesitated, next to a sculpture that looked like a car fender destroyed in a crash. He was bouncing from foot to foot. “I really do need to—”
A moment later, I heard the big guy singing from behind that curtain. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.
“He’s singing that terrible song again,” Kate said. “‘Dead Faded Face.’”
“‘Faded Dead Face,’” Dylan corrected her. “He has a nice voice, though.”
A few seconds later, the big guy reappeared from behind the curtain, all alone.
“Wait, what happened to the woman?” Mason asked.
“MR. BUTTZ, THAT BALD GUY WENT BEHIND THE CURTAIN WITH A CLIENT, THEN CAME BACK WITHOUT HER,” Sara said.
“Perhaps he led her to the restroom. Exactly where I would like to go right now.” Buttz pulled back the curtain and peeked into a dark, dimly lit corridor. About ten feet down the hallway was a solid metal door with a small black grid just above the doorknob.
“Hullooo, is there a looo back here?” Buttz said with a giggle. “Heh, heh. I crack myself up.”
Now we were getting somewhere. That guy looked like a guard. The woman looked rich. If he had to talk to someone over the earbud before letting her through that door, there had to be a reason. Like, he had to get some kind of special permission.
“I think there might be a room behind that door with some really valuable stuff,” I said. “Maybe some things that Gould only lets people see with an invitation.”
“Like Proteus Two?” Kate asked.
“Just a guess,” I said. “The woman looked rich. And rich people buy things rich people like.”
“How would you know anything about rich people?” Dylan drawled.
“LIONEL, WE THINK THAT DOOR MIGHT LEAD TO PROTEUS TWO,” Sara said. “AND, ER, MAYBE A RESTROOM, TOO. YOU HAVE TO GET US IN.”
“Aha! The game is afoot!” Buttz exclaimed. He marched toward the door and turned the knob. “Just as I suspected! It is locked!”
I looked carefully at the grid above the knob:
“What is Lionel supposed to do with this panel?” Mason asked.
“Maybe press the right sequence of squares,” Kate guessed. “Like Wheel of Fortune.”
“GREAT, WE’LL BE HERE FOR DAYS,” Sara remarked.
“Days?” Buttz’s face was getting redder by the minute.
“It’s got to be some biometric thing,” Mason said. “Facial recognition, handprint, or fingerprint.”
“Let’s wait till Dwayne Johnson comes back,” Dylan said, “and then Kate flies at him and his face smashes into the panel, and the door opens!”
I had a different hunch about this. “You’re all forgetting . . . when the bald guy came back here with that lady, he sang.”
“So?” Mason said. “Lots of people sing. Especially in this crowd.”
“It was Silas Gould’s song,” I replied. “The song he’s obsessed with. Why would anyone sing something so terrible, unless . . .”
“Unless he had to!” Kate said.
“Exactly,” I replied, staring at the panel. “Maybe that thing is tune recognition, not facial. If it hears the right song, the door opens.”
“Bestials,” Buttz pleaded, “do let me know what you’re—”
“MR. B.,” Sara blurted out, “DO YOU REMEMBER SILAS’S SONG? AND IF YOU DO, CAN YOU SING IT INTO THE PANEL? THAT MIGHT OPEN THE DOOR. LIKE A SOUND CODE.”
Buttz looked nervously over his shoulder. “Well, the Mount Pisgah Gazette once called my voice a great example of—”
“JUST DO IT!” Sara squawked. “SORRY.”
Clearing his throat, Buttz began to sing. His first note cracked. His second note broke into pieces. He complained that he needed tea with lemon. He tried again, but the tune sounded suspiciously like “Jingle Bells.”
“I wish I had ears, so I could cover them,” Mason said. “This is painful.”
“‘Faaaaaaded dead faaaaaaace . . . !’” Buttz tried the knob three times, but it was shut tight. “I’m afraid I’m not remembering the tune accurately. If I had the sheet music, I could sight-read the notes.”
“Tell him to go back and steal the sheet music,” Mason suggested.
