“Not really,” whispered Wil as they arrived near the lightning catcher exhibit. “He’s a lot less predictable on Mondays.”
As they approached, one of the small, spherical objects whizzed past their heads, followed by a tiny will-o’-the-wisp that made a giggling sound as it chased down the sphere.
“Hey, what are these little circles flying around the hallways?” Lucy asked Mr. Dinsdale as they caught up to his position. “They look like little spaceships.”
“Oh, those?” replied Dinsdale in a matter-of-fact manner that suggested he barely noticed them these days. “Those are some of John Keely’s old toys. They levitate using the electromagnetic forces contained within their atomic structure. At least, that’s what the manual says. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have levity in them.”
“And what about the wispy things?” asked Wil. “Are they part of the exhibit?”
“Oh, those aren’t part of an exhibit. We don’t know what they are. But they seem to like the little flying spheres so we let them come and go as they please.” Dinsdale turned his attention to the green bottle on the shelf next to him. “Lucy, I really think you’d like this exhibit. It’s a lightning catcher, you know.”
A small tornado seemed to flash through the green glass, which only served to heighten the incredible atmosphere at this end of the museum. As Lucy stared into the green glass, Wil stared, mesmerized, at the look of wonderment on her face. Could it really be that he had not viewed this incredible exhibit properly on his previous visit? He thought back to a phrase he’d heard his mother repeat so many times before: Your eyes only see what your mind lets you believe. Perhaps this concept had finally come full circle, and he was seeing the truth of the world that had previously been hiding in front of his eyes, all because he simply now believed it. Things were going to be a lot different around here—that much was certain.
Dinsdale began to lead them both away along the hall connecting to the temporal exhibit. “I’m going to level with you, Wil: I have been testing you. The recovery of the Levity box was a precursor to a much more important task. Put simply: I need your help. I need a crack detective on the case.”
“On what case?”
“We’ll get to that. First things first: are you up for the task?”
“I don’t know what it is!” Wil fussed. “How can I be up for anything if I’m planted on my backside before I’ve even started?”
“Haven’t you learned anything this week?” said Dinsdale, doing a poor job of containing his annoyance. “Good things happen if you do them out of order. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“It’s tired. And also very confused. It would like to take a vacation in Hawaii and have pina coladas delivered on the hour, every hour.”
“But Wil—”
“He accepts,” interjected Lucy, abruptly. “And so do I.”
Wil looked at Lucy with astonishment, only to be met with a not-so-innocent smile. “Whatever we’re accepting,” she said, “it’s better than wondering about what it would have been if we’d said no. I hate it when that happens.”
“I believe you would be a valuable asset in this endeavor, Lucy. Thank you.” Dinsdale looked expectantly at Wil. Wil looked at Dinsdale, and then back at Lucy, incredulous. He looked at the wooden crates: no help at all. He looked at Mary Gold, who smacked her gum, loudly. Surely, he was not about to agree to this, was he?
“I’m a very wealthy man, Wil,” said Mr. Dinsdale. “The fact is, I personally invented more than half of the useful little products we find in our homes today, like bathing cream and shelf studs. Marcus James, on the other hand, simply sells other people’s ideas. But you know how it goes—everyone loves a middleman.”
“They do?”
“Quite possibly. Think about the week you’ve had: has it led you to places you would otherwise not have visited? And would you have preferred to be sitting in the Castle Towers having visited none of those places, Wil?”
Wil looked at Lucy, the beautiful girl he had met in a side street store he would never have visited but for Mr. Dinsdale’s box of Levity. No, he decided; he would not have preferred that at all.
“Your eyes now see what your mind is allowing you to believe. I need your help, and I need it now. What do your instincts say?”
“Run like hell.”
“Those are your father’s instincts. Look underneath, just as I have been training you to do all week. What is the exact opposite of what you have been taught to think?”
“Well…,” said Wil, hesitantly, and then warming to the moment, “I guess I could stand to get out of the centrifuge and give things a whirl by myself for a change—”
With a squeal of delight, Lucy Price leaped forward and planted a passionate kiss directly on Wil’s grateful-yet-surprised lips. “Wil!” she exclaimed. “I love this! This is gonna be epic!”
Wil stared down at the floor, just to check on his vertigo. The floor didn’t appear to be moving. He was safe for now, though understandably wary of all things epic.
“Follow me, both of you,” said Mr. Dinsdale as he moved away toward the center of the museum. “We only have a few hours left.”
“Before what?”
“Before the Museum of Curioddity is closed down for good.”
* * *
WIL, LUCY, and Dinsdale moved together along the wide hallway toward the temporal exhibit. As usual, Mr. Dinsdale had thrown Wil for a total loop. He remained quiet for a moment, sensing the old man needed time to gather his thoughts and elaborate on his last statement. Lucy moved along quietly, holding his hand, a worried look on her face. His heart skipped a couple of beats as he surveyed the various looks of amazement she was unable to contain whenever she encountered various exhibits set into alcoves in the wall.
Those very same walls seemed to close in a little as the group proceeded, which gave a very skewed sense of perspective—it somehow seemed as if the hall continually grew in length, suggesting that it somehow expanded to as long as one might need it to be, depending on how long one’s conversation was going to last while traversing it. No surprise, Wil realized, that it led to the Temporal Exhibit. The hallway itself was probably one of the exhibits.
While Wil pondered this matter, the group passed the featureless room where he had first encountered Lucy in ghostly form. Lucy stopped dead in her tracks. Wil already knew why.
“Are you okay?” he asked, knowing approximately half of the answer.
“I don’t know,” she replied, puzzled. “It’s like I just had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Has that ever happened to you?”
“I’ve been fending it off pretty much all week but we’re definitely going to have a few words once Monday rolls around.” Wil turned to address Mr. Dinsdale. “I think the museum’s connection to Lucy’s Magic Locker sent me in the direction of the Levity box, Mr. Dinsdale. I was connecting to her all along; we just didn’t know it. Lucy’s the ghost you’ve been seeing in that room. That’s how she was able to reach out and pick the Levity box off one of your shelves.”
“Why, Wil!” exclaimed the old man, excitedly. “I’m genuinely impressed. Now where would a mere insurance claims detective get such an outlandish idea about the fabric of space-time?”
“I read about it in a magazine my mom gave me when I was a kid.” Wil looked at his feet. He felt a dam of emotions about to burst, realizing how much he missed Melinda Morgan, and the way he used to be.
Dinsdale examined Lucy up and down. He placed a hand over one eye, bent double at the waist, and examined her upside down, much to her obvious amusement. “My goodness,” he bellowed. “I think you’re right, Wil!”
“Right about what?” said Lucy in an attempt to play along.
“Right about now,” replied Dinsdale. “He’s right about now! You’re the person we’ve been haunting! I knew it had to be true!”
Mr. Dinsdale produced a small flashlight from his pocket and pointed it toward Lucy’s eyes. “Are you—or have you ever been—a
member of the Federal Brotherhood of Theosophy?”
“Um. No. I don’t even know what that is.”
“You can never be too careful. Have you been visited by space aliens? Specifically, the gray ones. The green ones don’t count—they’re everywhere.”
“Not that I remember.”
“Interesting. Are you afraid of cheese?”
“How did you know—?”
“It’s not important. Finally, do you imagine things that appear out of the corner of your eye and subsequently disappear? Especially breakfast cereal?”
Lucy seemed stunned into silence.
“I’m afraid this confirms my suspicions,” said Mr. Dinsdale, ominously. “For reasons as-yet unknown, the museum has been trying to forge a connection with you, Lucy. I do hope you’ll forgive my associates and I for intruding in your life. If I’m not mistaken, we’re the ones who’ve been haunting you.”
Lucy thought on this for an abnormally long moment. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Groovy,” she said. “And also creepy.”
“What do we do?” asked Wil. “What does it mean?”
“It means we needed Lucy all along. Come on.”
* * *
MR. DINSDALE moved again toward the end of the hall, and the temporal exhibit. The hallway politely seemed to extend itself a few yards in order to accommodate the old man’s explanation.
“For many years,” began Dinsdale, “I have been struggling with a certain Mr. Marcus James and his over-whitened teeth. I find the man to be a reprehensible toad.”
“That’s unfair to toads,” said Wil.
“Indeed. The man has been picking away at my prototypes and patents for as long as I can remember. If I file one, he files something just close enough and just far enough away to prevent me from stopping him. And then he puts it up quickly on his television show, and my product is drained of potential before I ever have a chance to turn on the faucet. He’s a master of ambiguity. No matter how many times I try to defend myself, he tends to beat me with sheer volume.”
“Sounds ugly,” said Lucy.
“It’s worse than ugly. It’s utterly bland and thoroughly banal. Marcus James knows people will look the other way if something isn’t memorable enough to affect their lives. His products are cheap and instantly forgettable, his television pitch shows are meaningless and repetitive, and his personality is on a par with a shellfish. But this is how he gets away with double- and triple-billing people for the same product: it’s difficult to remember something you probably didn’t want in the first place, especially if it costs you more to return than it does to throw in your basement somewhere.”
“But that’s not fair! You can’t just steal people’s ideas, and then sell an inferior version of them!”
“Marcus James can, and does. The devil is in the details—or in his case, the costs of shipping, handling, and those infernal micropurchases. The more money he earns from his exploits, the more he steals and the worse his products become. I’m afraid we have become a society that gives in to automated telephone answering services and accidental overcharges on our bank accounts. Who has the time to fight the system when the system is smarter and richer than we are?”
Wil was beginning to understand the problem: Mr. Dinsdale represented a particular threat to Marcus James, primarily because his museum took a stance against conventional thinking, and the slow death of intellect that comes with mediocrity. “So he’s squeezing you out?” he asked. “This has to do with the repossession?”
“Yes. Without a copy of the original bill from the electric company, we can’t tell if the surcharge was ever paid, or if it was fair, or if it even existed.” Mr. Dinsdale began to flap his hands again, like an emotional swan. “We all know that life isn’t fair. But life should at least come with a printed copy in large type in case of misunderstandings and overbilling.”
“I’m probably going to kick myself for this,” said Wil, cautiously, “but where do Lucy and I fit in to all of this?”
“You’re going to break into Marcus James’s offices and steal the original electric bill back for me!”
* * *
IT WAS at this very moment that the hallway suddenly ended, and Wil, Lucy, and Mr. Dinsdale emerged into the temporal exhibit. For a moment, Wil was slightly less dumbstruck by the request Mr. Dinsdale had just made, and slightly more dumbstruck by the astonishing sight of the various displays behaving as they had always been intended to. Sparks played across the reverse periscope. A humming noise emanated from Einstein’s answering machine. And over at the far wall, one of the Roberts was steadily banging away at the Levity box’s shelf with a large hammer.
“So we’re going to break into some guy’s office and steal some old records that belong to you?” said Lucy, fixing Mr. Dinsdale with her best even gaze.
“Yes.”
“And we could get arrested?”
“I’m afraid so, yes. Assuming you were to get inside his offices in the first place. I think I can help you on that count: please know that you will have any and all exhibits in this museum at your disposal, should you so choose. And with crack detective Wil Morgan on the case—”
“—not to mention his beautiful and groovy partner!”
“Not to mention his beautiful and groovy partner—”
“—and her trained cat!”
“Let’s not overburden the logic here. With crack detectives Wil and Lucy on the case, failure is not an option. Which is a good thing because we only have until midday tomorrow before the bank turns over the original deed to the museum in lieu of proof of payment of the original electricity bill.”
Lucy pondered this for a moment, then grasped Wil’s hand firmly and stared deeply into his eyes. “If you say no,” she said, “I’ll hit you over the head with War and Peace again. This is going to be awesome.”
Mr. Dinsdale fixed Wil with a steely—if somewhat watery—gaze. “Will you do it, Wil?” he asked. “If not for me, then for the sake of those at the mercy of automated answering systems and micropurchases everywhere?”
Wil lowered his gaze. This stood for everything his father had always taught him to avoid and, quite frankly, a few things his mother might have been a bit leery of as well. He was about to break into the offices—alarmed and brimming with security forces, no doubt—of a very nasty little man with a very nasty temper, and teeth that could not be trusted. He and Lucy might possibly be arrested or shot at; worse, he might provide his dad with enough ammunition to scupper Thanksgiving dinner conversation for the next thirty years.
Wil noticed that Einstein’s answering machine was blinking, incessantly, suggesting someone had left a new message from the future since the last time he’d been here. On a whim, he reached out and pressed the Play button.
“Wil!” came Lucy’s voice from some point in the not-too-distant future. “We’re inside Marcus James’s offices! There’s no time to explain! Whatever you do, make sure you bring SARA’s charging cord so that you can plug her in. You’ll understand this later.”
The machine’s message ended as quickly as it had begun. And Wil found two pairs of eyes staring at him, not to mention the rapt attention of a few nearby wooden crates, and Robert, who had stopped banging and was anxiously hanging on every word.
* * *
“WELL,” SAID Wil, without missing a beat. “I guess that answers that question.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT FIRST glance, the small, triangular device Mr. Dinsdale now held in his palm appeared to be in the running for the least useful item in history. Indeed, Wil surmised after allowing himself a second glance, if there were a national referendum imminent on the subject of futility, this particular item would stand a great chance of finishing in the top spot against, say, a half-eaten banana, a polka-dotted cummerbund, and a medium-sized sock with a hole in the toe.
The small device beeped at random intervals, accompanied by a little LED light that arbitrarily illuminated one of its sides. The beep was
never the same tone twice. The device had a yellowish tinge to its underside that may or may not have been intentional, depending on whether or not the stains were composed of paint or bacteria.
“What is it?” asked Wil, eyeing the thing suspiciously.
“That’s right!” replied, Mr. Dinsdale, proudly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your powers of deduction are remarkable, Wil. You’re spot on the nose: it’s a Whatsit. A really good one, too—not one of those Lithuanian knockoffs.”
“Which makes it…?”
“Very expensive. And quite possibly highly contagious, depending on the operator. I want you to take it with you to Marcus James’s offices. It will prove crucial to your efforts.”
Wil tried to muster all of the patience he could, and failed. He found himself wondering about the exact meaning of the word “muster,” and postulating on whether or not “muster” was even a real word. As was typical when he stood inside the museum, he was allowing himself to get distracted again. “Mr. Dinsdale,” Wil said in an attempt to muster something, “I have a headache. I’m not sure any of this is legal, I’m not sure what I’ve accidentally agreed to, and I’m not sure how this Whatsit of yours can be invaluable if I don’t know how it works.”
“How it functions depends on you, Wil. The Whatsit taps into a person’s innermost desires on a fundamental level. It will predict your suppositions, and it is programmed to adjust accordingly. In other words, it’ll probably do whatever you want it to do as long as you don’t think of what you need directly. When operating a Whatsit you must remember to concentrate on relaxing. It’s a little like driving a bicycle on the Autobahn, blindfolded. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’m a little fuzzy on the details.”
Dinsdale handed the Whatsit to Wil, who scowled at the device, just to make it clear who was in charge around here, before thrusting it into his pocket.
“You know, Mr. Dinsdale, this all sounds delightfully bananas but I’m kinda monkeyed out this week. You’re asking me—”