Homer knelt and, with a heave, pulled the grate free. Dog started to back away, but Homer grabbed his collar. “It’ll be okay,” he said gently. But would it? Dog stuck his nose into Homer’s sleeve and whined. Homer patted his head. “The killer tortoise is gone. I promise.”
It was a tricky operation. First Homer had to shove Dog into the dark tunnel. Of course, Dog went totally limp and made the whole thing more difficult than it had to be. Then, after tightening his backpack straps, Homer climbed in. As his shoulders brushed the tunnel walls, he remembered Lorelei’s warning from a few months ago. “It’s a long crawl and there’s lots of spiders,” she’d said. Homer grimaced, hoping no spiders would jump onto his head or find their way into his ears.
Even though it was downhill, the going was slow. It’s nearly impossible to gain momentum with a stubborn basset hound blocking the way. It turned out that the best technique to keep Dog moving was a headbutt to his plump rump.
“You’re lucky you can’t smell,” Homer whispered, the dank moldy air filling his nostrils. Thanks to his sister’s hobby, he recognized the sweet scent of decay. Maybe a mouse or two had died in there. Homer shuddered. Maybe twelve or a hundred.
Just as the light from one end of the tunnel faded, light drifted in from the other end. Ten headbutts later, they arrived at the tunnel’s end, where another metal grate was set into a wall. Homer climbed over Dog and peered through the bars.
Everything looked the same. A hallway lit by sconces stretched to the left and to the right. He pushed on the grate, and it swung open. He slid out. As soon as his feet were firmly planted on the museum’s basement floor, he reached back in and grabbed Dog.
Because this wasn’t Homer’s first visit, he didn’t gasp when he came face-to-face with the giant tortoise statue, its reptilian eyes reflecting the hallway light. He didn’t tremble when, after standing on tiptoe and pressing the statue’s left eyeball, a rumbling sounded and the mechanical statue opened its mouth. Wider and wider it opened until a gaping hole had formed in the wall. Homer slid his arms under Dog’s belly, his stomach muscles aching from all the lifting. Once Dog was inside the tortoise mouth, Homer pulled himself in. As soon as his feet had passed through, the mouth began to close quickly, then snapped shut, leaving Homer and Dog in total darkness. But Homer knew what was next, so he was prepared this time. He pulled Dog onto his lap. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll hold on to you.” He scooted forward until the ground gave way, and they slid around and around, down the corkscrew slide, and landed with a thud inside Lorelei’s lair.
Homer cupped a hand over Dog’s muzzle, listening for voices. He expected to hear wicked, satisfied laughter or evil plans being made. But he heard only his heart beating in his ears. “We need to be very quiet,” he whispered as he checked to make sure the leash was securely fastened. “No barking. No howling. Okay?” Dog licked Homer’s hand.
Together, they stepped onto the balcony. The lair’s main room, a vast, cavelike fortress, lay beneath. Homer peeked over the railing. His gaze immediately rested on a head of pink hair. He took a sharp breath, then ducked below the railing. Pulling Dog close, Homer peered through the bars.
Lorelei sat in a red velvet chair that looked a bit like a throne. She still wore the pink FOUND jumpsuit, which perfectly matched her hair. Her rat, Daisy, slept curled in a ball on her lap. She picked up a remote control, then spun the chair around so that she was facing a huge flat-screen monitor on the wall. Her back to Homer, she pushed one of the remote’s buttons. The screen lit up, and Torch and Gertrude Magnum appeared, seated side by side, wearing FOUND jumpsuits.
If there were a television show called Totally Opposite People, these two would have been the perfect guests. Torch was slender; Gertrude was, well, rather hefty. Thick black eyeliner circled Torch’s black eyes. Blue glitter sparkled on Gertrude’s eyelids. Torch’s only accessory was the snake tattoo that wound around her neck. Gertrude dripped in jewels, including a diamond-studded anchor that adorned a doll-sized sailor hat. While everything about Torch spoke to the serious side of life, everything about Gertrude was silly. The way she sparkled, she might have been mistaken for someone’s fairy godmother, but Homer knew better. She was a scorpion disguised as a butterfly.
A ship’s railing could be seen behind the two women. Water shimmered in the background. They were probably on one of Gertrude’s yachts, Homer guessed. He pulled Dog closer, ready to clasp a hand over his muzzle if he started to growl or whine.
“Hello, ladies,” Lorelei said. “I think my little press conference went well.”
Torch grunted and folded her arms. “Those reporters didn’t believe you. And they didn’t take us seriously.” Her hawk flew into view and landed on her shoulder.
“It’s because of the name,” Gertrude said. The hawk sidestepped to the edge of Torch’s shoulder and stared at a pearl that dangled from Gertrude’s ear. “We need a better name.”
“FOUND is a great name,” Lorelei said. “And it makes total sense, since I’m trying to defeat L.O.S.T.”
Gertrude leaned forward, her chins quivering. “Yes, but what does it stand for? What does FOUND stand for?”
Torch glared at Gertrude from the corner of her eye. “Fat, Old, Ugly—”
“You are a rude young lady,” Gertrude said as she pinched Torch’s arm. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that, but I’ve always been too polite to do so.” The hawk suddenly lunged at the earring. Gertrude squealed and pushed the bird away. “Keep that filthy creature away from me.”
“So what’s the plan?” Torch asked Lorelei. “I didn’t leave L.O.S.T. so I could sit on this stupid boat with old Gertie here.”
“It’s not a boat,” Gertrude said, scooting her chair away from the hawk. “It’s a yacht. Yachts are much more expensive than boats.”
“Whatever,” Torch snarled. “What’s our next move?”
“We need to cut all the original map pieces from the reptile book, then put them back together,” Lorelei said.
“No problem. I’m good at jigsaw puzzles.” Torch narrowed her eyes. “Where are you? It looks like you’re in some kind of cave.”
For a moment, Homer thought Torch might spot him and Dog seated up on the balcony.
“Never mind where I am,” Lorelei said. “While I’m gathering supplies for the quest, you and Gertrude can piece the map together.”
“Now that’s a plan I can live with,” Torch said with a satisfied smirk.
What? Homer sat up real straight. Lorelei was going to leave the reptile book with those two while she did errands? How could she do such a thing? They’d steal it. No doubt about it.
“I know,” Gertrude said, pointing a painted fingernail in the air. “How about, Finders Of UNtold Discoveries? No, that’s not it. How about, Fortunes Opened and Unearthed… No, that’s not it, either. Followers Of Unified… hmmm. Fabulous Operators UnderNeath… This is very frustrating. Why did you choose such a difficult word?”
“We’re all girls,” Torch said. “FOUND could stand for Females Of UNtold Destiny.”
“I’m not keen on that,” Gertrude said, pursing her red lips.
“How about Fabulous Overlords of UNbelievable Doom,” Torch said.
“You are a very disturbed person,” Gertrude said, patting her blond curls. “Very disturbed. I’m not sure I want to work with you.”
“Well, I ain’t happy about working with you, either,” Torch said. Her hawk flew onto Gertrude’s hat and began pecking at the jeweled anchor. Gertrude screamed and flapped her hands wildly. Torch snickered. Dog started to growl, but Homer clamped his hands around his muzzle just in time.
“Shhhh,” Homer whispered in Dog’s ear.
“I hate you,” Gertrude said as the hawk flew off with her hat.
“I hate you more,” Torch said.
Lorelei groaned. “Ladies, stop arguing. FOUND is what it is. And once we bring back Rumpold Smeller’s treasure, FOUND will forever be known as the winner, and L.O.S.T. wi
ll forever be known as the loser.”
“Well, they are a bunch of losers,” Torch said. “They let that stupid Homer Pudding kid join. And they won’t give me money for my quest to find Atlantis.”
“That’s because it’s your seventh Atlantis quest,” Gertrude said, patting her hair again. “You should have found it by now.”
Torch rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Despite his worries about the map, Homer smiled. The arguing was a good sign. Lorelei’s plan was off to a rocky start. It served her right to get stuck with those two. Maybe the remaining L.O.S.T. members should thank Lorelei for stealing Gertrude and Torch.
Beware the lost and found, Homer thought as The Unpolluter’s words echoed in his mind.
“The reptile book will be delivered to your yacht in one hour,” Lorelei said. “You’ll need scissors and a couple of glue sticks to put the map together. I will join you when I’m done with my errands.” Then she pushed a button on the remote, and the screen went black. She leaned back in her throne and sat in silence for a moment.
Then, without turning around, she said, “Hello, Homer. I’ve been expecting you.”
Madame la Directeur had spent most of her jail days sitting on her cot in her tiny concrete cell thinking about how much she hated Homer Pudding and about how much she wanted revenge. She imagined feeding him to her tortoise. She imagined pushing him into a hole filled with venomous cobras or dumping a bag of pinching scorpions into his bed. But these fantasies did not soothe her. Each day, her hatred grew. Each night, she screamed his name in her sleep. “Homer Pudding, I’m going to get you!” This nocturnal meltdown, naturally, disturbed the other prisoners.
“I wish that Pudding kid had never been born,” Prisoner #75 complained. “Then at least I’d be able to get some sleep.”
Hatred is a strange and powerful thing. It does not exist in nature as air and water or people and trees do. It must be created. But because it can be created, it can also be destroyed. All it takes is a bit of positive thinking. Madame la Directeur didn’t realize this, however, and so hatred filled her body like sand filling a vase, until there was no room for anything else. “I hate you, Homer Pudding!”
“That Homer Pudding kid sounds like a real brat,” Prisoner #82 told Prisoner #83.
Prisoner #83 yawned. “It’s so rude of him to keep waking us up.”
In the mornings, when Madame put on her daytime prison pajamas, she remembered how she used to wear expensive designer suits made of silk and virgin wool. As she sat on a bench in the cold prison cafeteria, she remembered how she’d once owned a glorious lair. As she ate her lumpy prison porridge, she thought about how she used to eat Belgian chocolate mousse and pomegranate parfaits.
Things were supposed to be different. Fame and fortune had been so close. But the Pudding kid and that homeless girl had ruined everything. They’d turned her in to the police with proof that she’d been stealing gemstones from the Museum of Natural History.
The sands of hatred filled Madame to the brim.
And so it was that she decided to escape. She’d made sure that Homer’s precious map was taken from him, but she wanted more. She wanted to be there to see the look on his face when the treasure was found—by someone else! She laughed wickedly as she imagined this moment. Then he’d know how it felt to have all his hopes and dreams ripped from his heart and shredded.
How can I get out of here? she thought as she stirred a particularly lumpy bowl of porridge. Soupwater Prison, her current address, was set deep in the swamps of Soupwater County, a region thick with alligators and water snakes. Tall concrete walls surrounded the prison, and the entrance was heavily guarded.
But Madame knew that escape was always possible. Rumpold Smeller had proven this when he’d been trapped in the Pit of Eternity. He fell in while exploring a deserted island. The tribe that once ruled the island had built the pit to capture intruders. The large pile of skeletons at the bottom would have dashed the hopes of most, but not Rumpold. He knew that whoever had dug the pit would have created a way to get himself out.
As Rumpold sat there, contemplating his escape, a mouse scurried through a tiny hole in the wall. After clearing the hole of the mouse’s nest, Rumpold found a release mechanism that opened one of the walls. He was free.
Escape is always possible, Madame told herself. Not even the Pit of Eternity. Not even Soupwater Prison.
I need to explore every room in this place, she thought. She took her porridge bowl to the dishwashing station. “How did you get this job?” Madame asked the prisoner who was washing dishes.
“I volunteered,” Prisoner #41 replied.
“Volunteered?” Madame wasn’t familiar with the term.
“Yeah. It means you work but you don’t get paid.”
“Why would anyone work and not get paid?” Madame asked.
“ ’Cause it’s better than sitting on my cot all day,” Prisoner #41 said with a shrug. “There’s a list of jobs over there on the bulletin board.”
Madame read the list: POTATO PEELER (KITCHEN), TOILET SCRUBBER (MAIN FLOOR), GARBAGE SORTER (BASEMENT), HALLWAY SWEEPER (SECOND FLOOR), and TOWEL WASHER (LAUNDRY ROOM). By volunteering, she’d be able to explore every inch of the prison. She grabbed the pen that hung from a chain and signed her name to each job: PRISONER #90. Surely one of these places would become her escape route.
Homer W. Pudding, I’m coming to get you.
Lorelei swung the chair around and looked up at where Homer and Dog sat on the balcony. She smiled. It wasn’t the evil smile of a villain. It wasn’t the satisfied smile of someone who’d just won a game of hide-and-seek. She smiled as if she was looking at a long-lost friend.
Friend?
It’s perfectly normal for friends to argue and have hurt feelings. Buddies disagree about all sorts of things and then apologize, and life goes back to normal. But even if Lorelei were to apologize for stealing the reptile book, Homer wasn’t going to forgive her. He’d forgiven her for stealing Dog the first time. He’d forgiven her for taking his uncle’s membership coin and lying to L.O.S.T. about it. He’d forgiven her for stealing Dog the second time. But there’d be no forgiveness this time. She was no friend of his.
He scrambled to his feet and stomped down the stairs. “I want my map,” he said when he reached the bottom step. “And I won’t leave until I get it.”
Daisy the rat, who’d been sleeping on Lorelei’s lap, stretched and yawned. She twitched her black nose at Homer, then slid off. Her stomach brushed along the floor as she waddled to a wall of vending machines. Daisy’s normally sleek body looked totally different, like a stuffed gray sock. Standing on her hind legs, she reached up and pushed a button on one of the vending machines. A whirring noise sounded and then plop. She reached into the bin and removed a bag of chips. Then she tore the bag open and feasted. She’s been eating too much junk food, Homer guessed.
“I changed a lot of stuff,” Lorelei said as she clomped over to another vending machine. “Remember how Madame la Directeur kept mice in here?” Homer nodded. One of the machines used to spit out white mice—food for Madame’s cobra. “I put in all my favorite snacks instead.” She pressed a button, and a bag of Dinookies tumbled into the bin. “Want one?”
Homer glared at her. He wasn’t about to accept treats from his mortal enemy, even if they were delicious dinosaur-shaped cookies. “I want my map.”
Lorelei waved the bag at Dog, who was still sitting on the top step. Who could blame him for not wanting to venture into the lair? His last visit had been hair-raising. “Dog? You want some?” She shook the bag. The sound of tumbling cookies proved to be more powerful than terror-filled memories. A dog’s stomach has a mind of its own. Lorelei shook the bag again.
“Urrrr.” Dog’s long body and short legs were not designed for stairs, so it took him a while to get down.
Homer eyed the bags of corn snacks, barbecue twists, and red licorice vines, but he had other things on his mind. “We’re not eating yo
ur food,” he said, blocking Dog’s path.
“But it’s polite to offer guests something to eat.”
“This isn’t a tea party,” Homer snapped. “Give me the map!”
Lorelei frowned. “I’m sorry I had to take it.”
“Sorry?” Homer’s voice cracked. He clenched his fists and stomped toward her. “Sorry? I heard you talking to Gertrude and Torch. You’re not one bit sorry. You’re trying to ruin L.O.S.T.”
“Homer,” she said as she opened the bag of Dinookies and turned it upside down. Dog charged, slurping up each cookie as soon as it hit the floor. “There are some things you understand and some things you don’t understand. Not everything is as it seems.”
“Stop talking in riddles, Lorelei. Just give me the map.”
She tossed the empty bag into a trash can. “You shouldn’t be so mad at me,” she said, flaring her nostrils. “Your sister gave me the map.”
“Yeah, well, what were you doing at my house, anyway?”
Lorelei folded her arms. “I chartered a plane to Milkydale because… because… well, I wanted to say hi. Your sister was sitting on the porch reading Rare Reptiles I Caught and Stuffed.”
Homer clenched his jaw. “She wasn’t supposed to have that book. I never gave it to her.”
“I asked her where she got the book. She said she’d found it under your bed. Really, Homer? Under your bed? That’s the most obvious hiding place in the world.”
Her smirk was almost too much to bear. “Yeah, well, sometimes the most obvious hiding place is the best,” Homer said. That wasn’t the real reason he’d chosen the hiding place, but it sounded brilliant when he said it.
“I asked her if it was a good book, and she said that you’d ruined it by pasting bits of your maps on most of the pages.” Lorelei raised her eyebrows. “I couldn’t believe my luck. She had no idea she was holding the hiding place of Rumpold Smeller’s map. So we traded. I gave her a harmonic crystal. Those crystals have come in superhandy. I sold a bunch of them to collectors. Want to see what I bought with all the money?” She spread her arms wide and smiled. “I got some real cool stuff.”