Fern cocked her dog head. Did he just lose his accent? Did he just say that you’ve got to be yourself in this life?
“But—but,” Howard sputtered. “Where’d your accent go? Aren’t you—”
“Korean, sure, second generation. I grew up in Hackensack. My real name’s Arnold.”
“But why do you talk like that out there? Why do you call yourself Hyun?” Howard asked.
“Oh, that!” He shook his head. “People like it. It makes them feel like I’m a real dream-driven, hardworking immigrant. Would you have believed how wise I am without the accent? You trusted me more because of it. Didn’t you?”
Fern guessed he was right. She’d liked the accent.
“But—but,” Howard said. “You’re telling us to be ourselves when you’re not, and you just helped me turn into this British fop!” Fern could tell that Howard didn’t even know what a fop was. The Britishness had just kicked into overdrive.
“For example, which sounds wiser: A. Don’t be an idiot. Use the brain. That’s why it’s there.” He tapped his head. “Or B. You are temple and the brain is altar. Worship there.”
It was obvious; “B” sounded much wiser. There was no reason even to answer the question.
“Trust me,” Hyun-Arnold said. “Authenticity is really hard to fake. And”—he sighed—“it wears on you.” The phone rang, shaking his little desk. He looked at it wearily and then, resigned to the task, picked it up. “Hyun Dollar Fiesta!” Hyun-Arnold shouted. “I help you!” He kept his eyes on Howard and Fern—the British society man and his fox-hunting dog. Then he covered the phone with one hand, and said, “Don’t be an idiot. Use the brain. That’s why it’s there. You are temple and your mind is altar. Worship there. Okay?”
Howard and Fern both nodded.
“Go now,” Hyun-Arnold said, and gave a small wave—a small, sad wave.
Howard waved back, and Fern lifted her furry paw.
5
THE BRAIN AS ALTAR
WHEN YOU WALK DOWN BUSY CITY STREETS wearing tweed and a monocle, holding a dog and a red apple, people tend to nod to you, quite formally. Some are doing it as a show of respect, others because they’ve been caught staring and want to make up for it. And others are clearly making fun of you. I know this because I’ve tried this disguise, just by chance. (I’ve tried almost every disguise known to man—lounge singer, psychic, phonograph needle installer.)
Howard didn’t like all the attention, good or bad. He didn’t like nodding back. But the newfound British manners in him wouldn’t let him pass anyone by. “Good day!” he found himself saying, despite his best efforts at restraint. “Good day to you!” If his hands hadn’t been full, he’d have tipped his tweed cap.
But he did like sauntering past two police officers talking outside of Jubber’s Pork Rind Juke Joint without them taking any notice.
It was quite a walk back to Willy Fattler’s, and by the time they were heading down Small Change Avenue in the direction they’d come, it was starting to get dark. The wind in her fur, Fern was thinking about what Hyun-Arnold had suggested in his own coded way: Don’t be an idiot. Use the brain. That’s why it’s there. You are temple and the brain is altar. Worship there. He knew a lot, accent or no accent. And Fern was inclined to follow his advice. It also happened to be the only advice available. The problem was that they were trying to use their brains, of course! So what did he mean exactly?
Now that they’d transformed beyond recognition, they could have headed right back to the lobby easily enough, and pretended they were mingling while really they would be searching. However, when they got close, they noticed that Dorathea and the Bone were handing out MISSING flyers, and Howard seized up and looked at Fern.
“We can’t!”
Fern gave a bark that meant sure we can. She jumped out of Howard’s arms and started trotting forward.
“No,” Howard shouted. “Don’t!”
This noisy disturbance got Dorathea and the Bone’s attention.
Fern barked again, but this time it didn’t come out as a bark. It came out as words. “Why do you have to worry so much?” And that is when it struck her that she was no longer completely doglike. She was shaggy still, but her nails were the buds of her own human fingers. She was turning back into herself.
She looked back at Howard. He patted his head. His tweed hat was gone. He blinked his monocle from his eye.
They both ran as fast as they could toward the edge of the building. They heard the Bone shouting, “Fern! Howard! Is that you?”
“Wait!” they heard Dorathea call out.
Luckily the crowd was thick in front of the hotel. Dorathea and the Bone would have a hard time pushing through it.
Just as Fern and Howard turned the corner, they ran into a man in a Triple S blazer. “Where are you two going?” the Somebody asked. “Why not come with me?”
Howard darted around him in one direction, and Fern in the other. But the man grabbed Fern by her sweatshirt—which she was wearing again, all her fur completely gone. Fern pulled back. She looked up to see Howard take off down the side of the hotel.
“C’mon, Fern!”
“Let go!” Fern said. And the man did. He dropped his grip on her now stretched-out pocket. Fern stumbled, caught her footing and then ran on. “See you later!” he said happily.
“This way,” Fern said. There was a row of doors: one marked STORAGE, one marked DROP-OFFS and one marked THIS WAY TO THE BRAIN.
The Brain. It caught her attention. “This one,” she said, wondering if Hyun-Arnold had planted this as a clue all along. She reached out and grabbed the doorknob. It vibrated ever so slightly in her hand. She was ready for it to be locked, barred. She was prepared for more difficulties. She was used to the idea that nothing came easily, that they were in the kind of trouble that just brewed more trouble. That isn’t always the case, you know. Sometimes when you’re in trouble, something can, just accidentally, go your way. As was the case this time: She twisted the knob. The door made a little click and opened wide.
6
THE IVORY KEY
FERN AND HOWARD FOUND THEMSELVES BACK AS themselves—just Fern and Howard—in a dim room. The air held the dustiness of Fern’s old school library, and there was a distant buzzing, the kind that had leaked from the library’s overhead fluorescent lights. But the buzzing wasn’t coming from fluorescent lights. The room was lit by a bare ceiling bulb. The buzz was mysterious.
“Is the apple okay?” Fern asked.
Howard pulled it out of his pocket and twisted it in the air.
“I’ll take it,” she said, taking it and putting it in her sweatshirt pocket.
“Why did you want to come in here?” Howard asked.
The room was filled with shelves, but instead of books, as Fern usually expected of shelves, they held jars and boxes. Fern cruised the stacks and read the labels: GreasiO, Feinman’s Fine Motor Oil, Geller’s High-Q Ticker Tape, and Milton & Sons’ Typewriter Ribbon.
“Hyun-Albert told us to use the brain, to worship there. Didn’t you see the sign on the door? It said ‘This way to the brain’.”
“That’s just weird!” Howard said.
“What if the hotel is a temple and it has a mind, a brain, where we should worship. What if?”
“That’s just weird too,” Howard said.
“I don’t see any way to a brain!” Fern was tired. Her arms and legs felt weak, her head heavy. Transformations were exhausting. But she couldn’t rest. Not now. “What time is it?” she asked Howard.
“Seven thirty,” he said.
Fern was still cruising the shelves, trying to figure out where they were. She was drawn to a box marked FRAGILE in bright red letters. The lid wasn’t sealed, and Fern picked up the flaps and peered inside. She saw at first a small blurry motion, as if something alive were inside of it. The overhead bulb was weak, which made it hard to see. As she looked closer, she saw wide eyes and the outline of a girl’s face staring up at her. Her stomach s
eized. It was her own face inside the box. She gasped.
“What? What is it?” Howard asked.
Fern’s heart pounded in her ears. She looked again, and then she felt silly. “It’s only a box filled with mirrors,” she said. But now Fern was nervous. Just thinking that she could find herself inside a box in a storage room marked THIS WAY TO THE BRAIN in Willy Fattler’s Underground Hotel scared her.
“You shouldn’t be snooping,” Howard said.
“I’m not snooping,” Fern said. “I’m exploring. There’s a difference, you know.” But Fern was looking around much more nervously now, not touching anything.
“Stop exploring then. It only gets us in trouble.”
Fern kept walking and came to three shelves entirely devoted to jars of what looked like honey, but these weren’t labeled. Fern wanted to know what someone would need with grease, oil, typewriter ribbon, ticker tape, mirrors, and jar after jar of honey. “It’s a strange place,” Fern said.
She picked up a jar of honey and walked over to Howard. She sat next to him. Fern said, “Why is there so much honey? Let’s eat some.”
“That’s the first plan that I’ve really liked in a long time,” Howard said.
At that moment there was a distant outburst of applause, as if a group of people far off had heard what Howard said and thought it was brilliant. This wasn’t the case, of course. The amphitheater must have been close to the storage room. They both stared toward one of the walls—the direction the applause had come from.
They stuck their fingers into the honey jar and started to lick them clean.
“The speech,” Fern said. “Ubuleen Heet. She’s started. I wish we could find out what she’s up to.”
“She’s hypnotizing the lesser masses,” Howard said. “Remember?”
Again there was a small round of applause. Howard said with a shaky smile, “They love me. What can I say?”
Fern looked around the room, taking it all in. Other than the shelves full of weird supplies, the room had a sad, old wooden chair with uneven legs propped near an unmarked door. There was the door they’d entered from the rear of the hotel, and another that read HOTEL LOBBY.
Since they’d stopped talking, Fern had felt a slight electric tension in the room. She got up and started pacing.
“Where are you going?” Howard asked to a smattering of applause. “Do you hear that buzzing?”
“Yes,” she said. It sounded like static—constant and thrumming.
Howard sat down on the spindly lone chair. “We need another plan, Fern. I mean, are we going to stay here until we’re too old for a military academy? Are we going to be runaways forever? I need a plan that relies on punctuality and strategy. We need to work like a well-oiled machine, Fern.” Howard waited for some applause, but this time none came. He folded his arms across his chest.
With one hand on the wall, Fern followed the vibrations. They seemed strongest in one area. And at that spot in the wall there was a small hole. Fern bent down to look through it and found a bee, crawling out of the hole, picking its way along on its frail insect legs. It opened its wings and flew toward the ceiling.
“A bee,” Fern said. “How strange.”
“I’m allergic to bees!” Howard froze in his chair, his eyes darting around the room. “Whatever part gets stung swells up like a blowfish!”
“I don’t know where the bee went,” Fern said. “I’m sure it isn’t interested in you.” She wondered if it had been lured by the unmarked honey jars.
Just then there were shuffling noises outside the door marked HOTEL LOBBY and two voices talking. Fern and Howard darted behind some shelves just as the door flew open. The room was suddenly bright from the lights in the lobby. Fern and Howard froze.
Willy Fattler strode in, a bulky man in a Triple S blazer at his side.
“The key is key,” the Somebody was saying. “This is just a quick tour of the castle, you know. Ubuleen is a history buff. She’d like to see all that the city has to offer. And you’re the man with connections.” Now Fern knew what the key was to—the castle. Her castle. She shook her head. Don’t give him the key, she thought. Don’t give him the key.
“That’s so. That’s so,” Fattler said. “But I’m not sure I’ll be able to find it.”
“But this is where you keep your safe. I know because I used to work here. It must be in the safe.”
Fattler was anxious. “That’s an interesting speech, isn’t it?” he said.
Fern was breathing as silently as possible, trying not to make the slightest sound.
“Oh, yes. Great to be rid of the big burdens. Great relief to just be ordinary.” He smiled. “You’ll have to hurry here so you don’t miss much more of it. The most important part is still to come!”
“Until I met Ubuleen, I never knew how ordinary I was,” Fattler said. Fern glanced at Howard. Fattler wasn’t ordinary!
“The safe, Mr. Fattler,” the Somebody said. “Let’s not waste time.”
“Ah, yes,” Fattler said. He walked toward Fern and Howard, who shrank back. He got closer and closer, until he was so close that he could have touched them. And then he turned and his eyes caught Fern’s eyes, and then Howard’s. Fern was ready to be ratted out, hauled through the lobby, delivered to the Bone and her grandmother. But Fattler didn’t blink. He didn’t show any sign that he’d seen them. He turned to the Somebody very calmly. “Have you tried our duck sauce recently?”
“Mr. Fattler, there’s no time to discuss duck sauce.”
“Right. Here we go.” Then, as if he hadn’t seen them at all, Fattler put one hand on the wall, and it sprouted a combination and the outline of the door to a safe. He began fiddling with the lock. “Ubuleen Heet would love our blue cream sauce. We call it the blue cream sauce. It’s quite good, uses red wine that turns color in the process.”
Blue cream? Fern thought. Didn’t he just emphasize the words “blue cream”? He knows. He knows that Ubuleen Heet is the Blue Queen. He’s giving us a clue, Fern thought. He’s letting us know that he knows.
“It’s written up in Willy Fattler’s Underground Hotel Cookbook,” Fattler said. “It’s available for twenty-four ninety-nine, wherever Anybody books are sold.”
“I’ll let her know,” the Somebody said.
The door to the safe opened and Fattler sighed, reaching in and rummaging. “It’s a real mess in here.” And then he jumped back. “Heavens!” A mouse jumped onto Fattler’s lapel and scurried down his pants. The mouse darted down the row, past Howard and Fern. It was white with big long teeth that shone brightly. It was a strange mouse, really.
“Was that a mouse? What kind of a place are you running here?” the Somebody asked.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Fattler said. “Here,” he said, holding up the key. “I’ve got it right here!” Fattler held up a shiny ivory key—sharp, long and white. It was connected to a small metal ring, and Fattler jingled it. “I’ve never really had a handle on this place. I’ve really come to rely on the Brain and the Brainkeeper, and I owe that to Ubuleen. She’s taught me many things.”
Fern glanced at Howard. The Brain! And the Brainkeeper? Howard shrugged. He wasn’t following either. Had Ubuleen already hypnotized Fattler? But wasn’t he trying to tell her something?
“Excellent,” said the Somebody, slipping the key into his breast pocket. “Let’s get back to the speech. I’d hate for you to miss out.”
“I’ll just hide out in the back,” Fattler said. “I don’t want to interrupt her. I’ll find a hiding place and stick with it. Now let’s hurry!” He looked at Fern and Howard one more time, a knowing gaze, and he repeated himself. “Just find a hiding place.” And then he walked out of the room with the Somebody.
Once they were gone, Howard let out a giant sigh and then panted a bit. “I was holding my breath. I almost passed out,” he said. “We got lucky. He didn’t tell on us.”
“I wonder why he didn’t,” Fern said. She stood up and walked to the back of the aisle.
“What are you looking for?” Howard asked.
“That strange mouse,” she said. “That very strange mouse.”
“Why?” Howard asked. “Just let it go. I don’t like mice.”
“Willy Fattler is a genius. This magnificent hotel. Ever-changing. It’s amazing,” Fern said. “And we all have gifts. You have gifts, Howard, that aren’t at all ordinary! That’s what’s wrong with being ordinary! It doesn’t exist!” (Since I went to the Alton School for the Remarkably Giftless as a child, I often wonder about this. Were my teachers wrong, telling all the students there that we didn’t have any gifts, that we couldn’t create a gift of our own even if we rubbed two gifts together? The more I get to know Fern, the more I’m sure that they were wrong. And the more I get to know people in the world—readers, you know, like you, who sometimes write me letters about your own amazing lives, sometimes quiet lives, sometimes rowdy lives, but always full, complicated lives—I start to think that nobody is truly ordinary, like Fern said. Not if you look hard enough. I’ve come to believe that we all have our own gifts—strange and lovely and true.)
“Wasn’t it strange that he didn’t tell on us,” Fern said. “That he mentioned the blue cream sauce, and that when he reached for the key, a mouse darted out of the safe. How would a mouse get into a safe? He then talked about a hiding place and said to hurry, and then he looked at us. At us! Like he was trying to tell us something.”
Fern saw the mouse now, squatting by a honey jar. Howard walked up beside her. “It is strange,” he said. “And why does that mouse only have one giant tooth in the front, huh? See it?”
Fern did see it now: one long white shiny tooth. “Looks like ivory,” Fern said. “Like the key that Fattler gave that guy.”
“It does,” Howard said.
“What if it is the key?” Fern said. “What if he grabbed the key and transformed it into this mouse and then transformed something else into the fake key that he handed over?”
“Could he do that?”
“He’s a genius,” Fern said. She knelt down and held out her hand. The mouse skittered toward her. It sniffed her hand and then clamored up into her palm. Fern petted its fur. Once, twice, and then on the third pet, the mouse grew harder, stiffer. Its fur disappeared, and its long singular front tooth thickened, and lengthened, until it took over the mouse’s entire body. The mouse was gone and Fern was holding the key—the key to the castle.