Ambush

Like a really lame superhero that performed really mediocre tasks, I jumped into action, leaping across the floor and turning the water off. I then unplugged the sink so the water in the basin could drain down.

  “Wow,” Kate said. “Nice leap.”

  “I felt the moment called for it,” I replied.

  The two of us looked around. Something about the room made me uneasy; it was like looking at a face with no nose, something was off. There was nobody in the bathroom besides us, but it felt like more was here than met the eye. Light from the windows made the room bright enough to see, but filled the corners with shadows. Kate opened the door between the windows, but it was just an empty closet with bare shelves and a musty smell that was very familiar in the manor.

  “So is this the beginning of a mystery?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yeah,” Kate replied. “The mystery of why Thomas forgot to turn off the water after washing his hands.”

  “That gives me goose bumps,” I said sarcastically while pretending to shiver. “But seriously, Thomas doesn’t come up here.”

  “Then Wane,” Kate suggested.

  “Wane doesn’t come up here.”

  “Maybe it was Scott.”

  “Scott doesn’t wash his hands,” I pointed out. “Besides he hardly ever even comes in the house.”

  “Maybe it’s just a loose faucet,” Kate said. “Sometimes the plumbing in old houses can do odd things. I’d have someone look at it. It could flood next time.”

  I looked down at the ground. Luckily we had caught the water in time to prevent any large amounts from building up on the floor. There was just a thin wet path that ran across the length of the bathroom.

  “Well,” Kate said, resigned. “I should probably go.”

  “Okay, then I’ll leave you alone,” I said, motioning to leave the bathroom.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Kate said laughing. “I need to go home. You’re grounded, and I have homework.”

  “Actually, I am grounded, but I also have homework,” I said sadly.

  We both turned around, and I flipped the light switch off. As we stepped back into the hall, something in my mind tumbled, and the thought I had been trying to think finally caught fire.

  I knew what was wrong.

  Chapter 11

  Wanna Know a Secret?

  Every bit of my brain started to flash, letting me know I was onto something. I grabbed Kate’s elbow.

  “Wait a second,” I whispered excitedly. “How can there be a closet door between two windows? There’s no space for the closet to go into.”

  “What?” Kate asked.

  I turned around and walked back into the bathroom. I looked at the two windows and the single door between them. I opened the closet door and started inside. It was just a tall empty closet that seemed to jut out the side of the manor.

  “That’s not a big deal, Beck,” Kate said. “They must have added the closet after they built the place.”

  “So it just sticks out the side of the manor?” I asked. “I’ve seen the outside of this place hundreds of times and I’ve never seen a closet sticking out of any part of the manor.”

  I ran to one of the windows and tried to get it open. Unfortunately, like so many of the windows in the manor, it was swollen shut from time and moisture, and it wouldn’t budge. I pressed my face up against the glass, trying to see to the side where the back of the closet must be sticking out. I could see a large brick chimney running up the side of the manor. One of the many chimneys the manor had. I pulled back and shrugged.

  “It’s a chimney,” I said. “They must have built the closet into part of an old chimney.”

  “Smart,” Kate replied.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I agreed, still feeling as if something were off.

  I went to the closet and opened it back up. It wasn’t very big and there were five bare shelves with thick dust on them. As I was stepping away from the closet my right foot slipped just a bit. I looked down and saw traces of water that had come from the once-running sink. The water ran up to the front of the closet and stopped. I looked back at the sink and then over at the closet once more.

  “What are you doing?” Kate asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “How long do you think that sink was running?”

  “Not that long,” Kate replied. “We didn’t hear it when we came up, and we weren’t up here that long.”

  “Still,” I said thinking. “Shouldn’t there be more water on the floor?”

  “Maybe,” Kate answered.

  “And look,” I said, pointing. “The trail of the water runs right up to the closet and then just stops.”

  There were a lot of things I liked about Kate. She was beautiful, smart, and wickedly funny. Her face was one of my favorite things in the world to look at. I loved how she put me in my place, but still saw something about me worth liking. I loved how she talked, the way she stood, and every motion she made. All those things aside, however, my favorite trait she possessed was her ability to recognize when things were getting interesting and her willingness to jump headfirst into what lay ahead.

  Before I could say anything else, Kate was on her knees looking closely at the floor near the closet. She ran her hand along the doorjamb.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Kate said. “Turn the water back on.”

  I was great at taking orders I liked. I plugged the shallow sink and turned the water on. In less than a minute the basin was full and beginning to spill over the side and down onto the floor. Water slowly began to build and then seep across the tile floor toward the direction of the closet. When the water reached the base of the closet it disappeared.

  “There’s a crack,” Kate said. “The water’s just dripping down below the closet.”

  “It’s built into an old chimney,” I reminded her. “I mean, the whole house is leaky. It’s probably just . . .”

  “Look at this!” Kate interrupted as she reached into the closet and pressed her palms down against the floor. “It sort of moves.”

  “So it’s poorly built,” I reasoned, hoping it was more than that.

  “Look,” Kate said. “It’s not actually connected to the front wall at all. There’s a crack all the way around. Can you get the shelves out?”

  I shut off the water and then reached over Kate’s head and grabbed hold of one of the closet shelves. I wiggled it, and it popped up just a bit. I tilted the heavy shelf and pulled it out of the closet. Kate stood up and helped me lean the shelf against the toilet.

  “Clear them all out,” Kate said excitedly.

  We lifted and worked out the other four shelves. Each shelf was about four feet deep and five feet wide. We stacked all five shelves next to the toilet and then stood back and looked at the empty closet. Kate and I pushed at each other, fighting to be the first person to step in. We both got into the closet and turned around a few times looking for a trapdoor or a false back. The ceiling of the closet was solid wood, and the floor was carpeted in a red felt-looking material.

  “It’s just a closet,” I said, disappointed.

  “I was hoping it led somewhere,” Kate added.

  I wasn’t in the mood to give up that easily, so I took it upon myself to investigate further by jumping up and down. The entire closet rocked slightly. Kate steadied herself as I bumped against the doorjamb that ran around the door. With my right hand I could feel a slight bump about chest high on the inside doorjamb.

  “Kate,” I whispered. “What’s this?”

  We both touched the small bump and then simultaneously pulled our hands back in surprise.

  “Is that a button?” Kate asked with excitement.

  I looked up at the ceiling of the closet and then down to the floor.

  “It’s an elevator,” I said reverently.

  We both jumped out so that we could properly move around in excitement.

  “Unbelievable,” Kate cheered.

  We closely examined the doorjamb on the
outside of the closet but could find no button of any kind. We stepped back into the closet a little more cautiously this time. We turned around and looked out into the bathroom. We let our eyes rest on the small button on the inside of the closet. After a few moments of quiet reflection, Kate glanced up at me.

  “Push it,” she dared.

  I wanted to. The only problem was that I had no idea what would happen when I did. There was only one single, worn, flat button. There were no arrows or numbers letting you know where we might end up. It looked like we were standing in an elevator, but maybe it was just a trap and the button would blow us up or cause the walls to close in and crush us. Besides, the manor was old; what if the button caused some old cable to release us and we dropped hundreds of feet to a painful death?

  “Are you going to push it?” Kate asked.

  “Heck, yeah.”

  I had never been very good at critical thinking. I jammed my right finger into the button. A metal gate dropped from the top of the door and almost sliced our toes off. I was going to yell for help but Kate pointed out that it was just a gate to keep us safe during the elevator ride.

  “That’s a good sign,” Kate said. “Apparently whoever built this wanted the riders to be safe.”

  I grabbed hold of the metal screen and easily pulled it up a few inches. It was clear that we could open and close it as we pleased. I let go of it, and it snapped closed again.

  “Well, we’re not moving,” I said needlessly.

  “Maybe you have to push the button twice,” Kate suggested.

  I reached out and did just that.

  Once again I was acting out before I had properly thought things through.

  Kate and I held onto each other and screamed as the elevator . . . did nothing. No drop, no movement, nothing.

  Kate stopped screaming first.

  Once I caught on that nothing had happened, we both looked at each other and laughed with embarrassment. I let go of Kate, feeling relieved that I hadn’t actually hopped into her arms like a frightened woman. I was a man, but I wasn’t too proud to use the height and arms of someone else to keep me from harm.

  “Push it again,” Kate said one more time.

  I pushed the button a third time, then a fourth, and a fifth. Nothing happened. We looked for any other button or sign, but there was nothing.

  “Maybe it’s just a cage,” I said.

  Kate and I lifted the metal screen back up. It rolled up into the top of the door frame and clicked into place. Once it was in place you couldn’t tell it was there.

  “It’s probably just broken,” Kate said. “Or maybe it never worked.”

  “It has to work,” I insisted.

  “Just because you want it to doesn’t mean it has to,” Kate said with disappointment.

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket,” I said, not fully understanding the saying myself. “Because wet blankets are cold and uncomfortable,” I tried to explain.

  “Right,” Kate said. “That’s why they say that.”

  “All I know is that they wouldn’t put in an elevator just to look at,” I debated. “There has to be a purpose to this thing.”

  “As much as I wish you were right, you might be wrong,” Kate said. “Think about it. We found a train in a cave, dragons in the garden, and slides behind the walls. Some of it makes sense, but most of it just points clearly to the fact that your family is nuts. This might be the nuttiest thing of all—an elevator in a closet? This house has more stairs in it than any place I’ve ever seen. Why would they build an elevator and then hide it in a bathroom?”

  “Maybe one of my relatives was like Batman,” I suggested. “All secretive and stuff. They’d run in here, take the elevator down to a secret hideout, and then save the world.”

  “Your relatives might have run in here, but it was more likely to use the toilet than save the world.”

  “My heritage is offended,” I told her.

  “Your heritage has more to worry about than what I’m saying.”

  “That’s true. So let’s go look at the chimneys outside,” I suggested. “And check the other floors beneath this to see if there are crazy closets and openings there.”

  “Okay, but I have to hurry,” she said. “My parents will go crazy if I’m too late.”

  The two of us put the shelves back into place and closed the closet door. We then ran down to the next floor and found the bathroom directly beneath the one we had just been in. There was no closet. We checked the next three floors. Those two had no closets and no openings that connected to the shaft. We couldn’t check the basement because it was filled with dirt.

  “So there’s an elevator that doesn’t go anywhere?” Kate asked.

  “It could go up,” I suggested.

  “But there’s only two floors above it,” Kate pointed out. “And it doesn’t go to the dome because it’s not in line with it.”

  “It could go to the basement,” I reminded her. “There’s just no way we can know for sure.”

  I held Kate’s hand and led her outside and around the west end of the manor. Following the brick path, we made it to the side of the manor where the brick chimney that housed the elevator was. The chimney looked just like all the others on the manor. I could see three others on the west side alone. I never would have thought that there was an elevator inside any of them. The chimney ran from the ground all the way to the very top of the manor where it stuck up about ten feet above the

  seventh-floor balcony. We examined the part of the chimney shaft we could reach, but it was nothing but solid brick.

  “Someday they’re going to write books about this house,” Kate said.

  “We could go to the roof and check out the chimney from the top,” I suggested.

  “I have homework,” Kate complained. “Tomorrow after school.”

  I agreed.

  “Promise?” Kate asked, wanting reassurance. “Don’t go exploring it without me. I want to be here when you figure this out.”

  “I promise,” I replied.

  I walked Kate down to the bottom floor and down our long driveway to the gate at the front of the property. I kissed her as the sunset waned and she slipped off like a star of her own. I had homework to do, but more important than that, I had a promise to break. Kate would understand.

  I ran all the way back to the manor.

  Chapter 12

  Please, Please Me

  I was running back up the drive when I heard Wane calling my name from the courtyard near the fountain. She didn’t sound mad, so I decided to find out what she wanted. I dashed around the fountain and over to her. She was standing near the blue Mercedes with keys in her hand and a half smile on her face. It was the kind of face she made whenever she had news to deliver that she wasn’t sure I would like.

  I should have pretended to not hear her.

  “There you are,” she said. “Your father has asked me to bring you to see him.”

  I was torn.

  I wanted to see my father, that wasn’t what was tearing at me. I hadn’t seen him for days, and even though he was sick and a bit confused lately, I loved him. Our visits were always short but important to me. The reason I was torn was because I knew I was in trouble. I had destroyed property and been incarcerated since we had last spoken, and whereas it might be fun to catch up, it would be painful to fill him in on those occurrences. My father was not a man to be trifled with, and I felt very much that I had been caught trifling.

  I skidded to a stop five feet in front of Wane. “He wants to see me now?”

  “Now,” Wane said.

  “It’s kinda getting late,” I said, looking at the slowly dimming sky. “Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow?”

  “He’s insisting that he see you now.”

  Wane opened the passenger-side car door, and I climbed in. She then got in her side and started up the car.

  As we made the almost hour-long drive to the hospital, Wane lectured me and tried to teach me things—taking adv
antage of a captive audience like most adults do. By the time we reached the hospital, I felt so preached at that I thought it was Sunday.

  The hospital was in a beautiful, old building near the west end of Kingsplot. The building was made out of wood and stucco, and I could see the top of the large glass atrium in the center of the roof.

  Wane stopped the car in front of the hospital and instructed me to go in.

  “I’ll be waiting out here for you,” she said.