Chapter Thirteen
The Flip of a Switch
“Now, hold on a moment,” Sara said, stalling for time, as she began edging backward. “We should probably just get back to the group. I can see that you’re a very busy woman, and we’ve really taken enough of your valuable time, for which we’re most apologetic.”
“If we were to stick around in order to be punished, why, that would be just plain rude of us, wouldn’t it?” Maria reasoned. “We couldn’t possibly impose any further upon your day. Probably for the best if we just moseyed on back to the hallway, and maybe you could just sort of point us in the direction of that bathroom we were searching for…”
Jasper let loose with a diabolical guffaw that was actually quite bone chilling, all things considered. He had crept up behind the sisters, and they could once more smell the strong aroma of pine-scented cleaning formula, and hear the swishing of the mahogany broom’s bristles upon the floor. He loomed above them, and he looked positively exuberant with the prospect of their impending punishment at the hands of the curator.
With such a thing so close at hand, his face twisted with malicious delight. The combination of his imposing height, girth, and proximity made him as intimidating as ever, despite his bevy of injuries. With his lopsided brand of justice about to be rendered, he seemed to have forgotten all else.
“You’d like to mosey out of here, would you? I don’t think so,” Jasper chuckled. “Things have gone way… too… far… to let you simply traipse out of here, you half-pint meddlers.”
“Jasper!” Evelyn barked. “Enough of your ridiculous pontificating. This is a museum, not a Shakespearean drama. Bring those two closer, at once.”
“Of course,” Jasper growled, stepping nearer.
Maria and Sara felt the bristles of the janitor’s broom prodding their backs, slowly egging them forward. Jasper once more proved to be surprisingly deft with his mahogany broom, and he wasted no time shuttling the sisters toward Evelyn’s desk, despite their resistance. They stepped closer and closer, prodded on by Jasper, until they were standing atop the Persian rug in the center of the office.
“Take it easy, Jasper!” Maria said.
“Lighten up!” Sara added.
“Oh, no!” Jasper retorted. “Not today! Everybody’s always telling ol’ Jasper to lighten up, but not today!”
“Closer!” Evelyn ordered, and she stood from her chair, beckoning them toward her desk.
Jasper continued prodding the sisters with his broom, and he was none too gentle about it.
“Closer!” Evelyn repeated.
The curator was now slowly walking from behind her desk, coming around the edge of it. Soon she stood beside the strange penguin sculpture, and she examined the sisters with her penetrating gaze with such intentness, it seemed as if she might be boring through their very beings with her eyeballs. What on earth did she have in store for them?
“Just a little closer,” Evelyn instructed.
Jasper complied, once more prodding Sara and Maria with his broom. They stepped off of the Persian rug, and they were now almost face-to-face with the curator.
“There!” Evelyn announced. “That will do. Now, Jasper, you should probably back up a bit.”
Chortling with glee, Jasper took a step back from the troublemakers he had so elegantly delivered with a few sweeps of his broom.
“Back up a bit more,” Evelyn ordered. She took her eyes from the sisters and closely examined Jasper’s position. “A bit more. Go on, a bit more.”
“Okay,” Jasper readily agreed, shuffling backward one step at a time with each additional instruction. “But get on with the punishment, won’t you?”
“Just a bit farther,” Evelyn encouraged, motioning with the fingertips of one hand.
Jasper sighed with exasperation and took a giant step backward. If he was at all confused by Evelyn’s odd directions, he was too excited by the prospect of exacting his vengeance upon the two captured Beans to be very concerned. As for Maria and Sara, they could only exchange baffled looks with one another. Would this be their best opportunity to attempt an escape, they wondered?
“Hmm. I’m afraid that’s just a little bit too far,” Evelyn said thoughtfully. “Now, come forward just a bit… just a half step more. Ah, that’s good. And now, a bit to the left… a bit back to the right… there you go. Excellent.”
Jasper did as he was told, and he finally began to sense that something was a bit… off… about the way Evelyn was directing him this way and that. His single eye began to narrow in the dawning of suspicion, and the skin above his patch furrowed.
It was at this moment that he came to the realization that perhaps he had made a critical error in judgment… but by then, it was too late.
Evelyn’s hand had come to rest gently atop the head of the strange penguin sculpture. When next she spoke, her voice was low, and tinged with the faintest touch of regret. “Goodbye, Jasper. I wish things could have been different.”
Jasper opened his mouth, as if to respond, but no words came forth. His narrowed eye opened wide with alarm, but there was nothing to be done for it. He glanced down, and it was then that he belatedly realized that he had positioned himself exactly in the center of the Persian rug – a rather precise location for him to have been directed to.
Evelyn’s hand made a slight motion, depressing some small amount of force down upon the beak of the penguin. As she did so, its head moved subtly, as if nodding in agreement. There was heard, quite clearly, a very audible click – signifying the flipping of a switch hidden inside of the sculpture.
As this was done, the floor beneath Jasper’s feet seemed to disappear. It happened so suddenly, it might have been an illusion. One moment he was standing there, and the next… he was gone.