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“We won’t have too much time,” she tells the dog still licking his mouth. “If they are where I think they are, we should be able to get back before dinner time.” She stuffs more clothes under her blanket, adjusting the lump on her bed to look more like her. “Hopefully they’ll let me sleep here until then.”
She straps on her backpack and grabs the lamp and the flashlight. “C’mon boy. We need to make a stop first, but we have to be very quiet this time.” The dog bounds up and slips into the duct as she holds the paper open for him.
They pass the utility closet and as they round the first corner, she pockets the flashlight and pulls out the lamp, opening it enough to illuminate the duct around her. She cinches forward, peering through the metal confines of her space into open rooms and crawlspaces that surround her. She jumps as she sees a family of mice scurry through a crawlspace just on the other side of the duct.
She hurries forward, the dog sniffing ahead as though searching for something too. Maybe he already knows what she is looking for. They round another corner, nearly halfway across the building now, when she finds the room she is looking for. She swings the light around to see as much as she can to make sure it is empty.
“I hope this works,” she says opening the lantern further, widening the hole in the duct big enough for her to crawl through. “Stay close to me,” she tells the dog, but he is already by her side as she reaches out her hand and passes through the open space into the neighboring room.
She smiles to herself, feeling elated as though she had just done something no one else in the world had ever done—except the old man of course, and the dog—but still, she is incredibly pleased with herself and feels a shiver of excitement. This makes sneaking around so much easier and so much more fun too!
She dims the light without closing it completely, not wanting it to disappear from view again, and opens the pinhole passing the small beam around the room. She scours a dresser much like her own, spying disheveled boys clothes, and under them magazines on sports cars and another with naked women.
“Eww, gross!” she blurts out, instantly covering her mouth. She sweeps the light over other furniture in the room, discovering little else. At the end of the room is another door, she is about to bring the light around when she sees the dog sniffing intently at the bed. She brings the lamp over it, and finds tucked beneath the mattress a large envelope. Drawing it from the hole she finds crumpled twenties inside with three crumpled half-smoked cigarettes.
“Bingo.” She slips out two twenties, then a third. “That should do it.”
“What are you doing!?”
The voice scares her so much she drops the lamp and the envelope, spilling the bills across the floor. She turns and finds Mustard standing at the door to the adjoining bathroom, his pants hanging around his knees.
“Ohmygod! You scared me.” She looks at the dog now on the floor scratching his ear. “Some guard do you are.”
“How did you get in here? What are you—“ Seeing what dropped to the floor he shouts at her, “Get away from my money!” He charges past her, nearly bowling her over, grabbing the money off the floor with one hand, the other still holding his pants. Maddie quickly scoops the lamp from the floor and scurries away from him all too aware of the threat he presents. She slips the three twenties in her back pocket while he scoops up the rest of the money from the floor.
“That’s not your money, Mustard! You stole it from the school! You should be thankful I didn’t tell anyone about it or you’d be in juvie right now.”
His flashes a look of hate at her. “Are you kidding me!? It’s your fault they want to send me there in the first place.” He rises, crushing the money in his fist. “But I got news for you Maddie, I’m getting out of this place and nobody’s going to tell me what do to or where to go again!”
“That’s stupid. You can just leave next year when you turn eighteen.”
“Screw that! I’m taking charge of my own life from now on. And now you can give me back the money you took, or so help me Maddie, girl or no girl, I’ll kick you ass, so give it back!”
He lunges for her but the dog jumps between them, bounding up on Mustard with its forepaws. Maddie retreats against a wall, fiddling with the lamp, in case she has to use it.
“Get off me!” Mustard and the dog rock back and forth in a clumsy dance before he pushes the animal to the floor and resumes his approach on Maddie. But now the dog is on the other side of him and even if Maddie can back through the wall before Mustard gets her, there’s no way she can get to the dog.
She decides to try reason, “Felix, please…”
“My name is Mustard!!”
“Mustard. Wait. Please. I need this money. Just to borrow. I’ll get it back to you really! And I won’t tell anyone you took it or that you are planning to run away. Just please let me have it for today and I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can, I promise, and then you can run away.”
But Mustard keeps pressing towards her, Maddie pressed against the wall, her hands clutching the lamp, ready to pop it open if he so much as takes a swing at her. Suddenly he stumbles to one side.
“Cut it out you stupid dog.”
The dog has grabbed his still unfastened pants in its mouth, yanking them down to his ankles, tail wagging like it’s all a game.
“Where’d this dog come from anyway?”
Then Maddie remembers, as should he. “You know this dog, Mustard. It’s the one that came with the old man. It’s is his dog, remember! From the Director’s office?”
The dog lets go and licks his hands clutching at his pants. Mustard stands a moment, then slowly raises his pants, remembering. “All right. So what’s he doing here then? What are you doing here?”
“I can’t tell you.”
He fastens his pants and looms over her again. “You sure as heck are going tell me, or you’re going to be in as trouble as me.”
“All right. But you can’t tell anyone Mustard. You have to promise.”
He crosses his arms and waits for her to continue.
“I’m going to save the old man. He was kidnapped right outside of here, just like I said, and it’s all my fault, just like it’s my fault the dog is stuck here all alone. So now I’m going to save him, because I’m the only one who can.”
Mustard’s face bursts in laughter. “Yeah, right. Don’t be so dumb Maddie. You’re just a kid. You’re not going to do anything but give me back my money and get out of my room. And take your stupid dog with you.”
“All right. I’ll leave.” She pats her leg, calling the dog, “C’mon boy.” She inches toward the door to the hall, just to her right, but Mustard swoops over to the door, blocking her way, but giving her more of a clear shot back to the bath room.
“Uh-uh. Money first.” He says, holding his hand out towards her. She now inches away from Mustard and the door, towards the opposite wall. Mustard keeps pace with her until she finds herself once more backed the against by the window.
“Please don’t tell anyone I’m gone, Mustard. I’ll be back, with your money. I promise. Just don’t leave until then, okay?” She holds up the lamp, yanking on the bottom lip.
“What’s tha—“
The room goes white as she opens the lamp. The dog follows her out through the wall. The sound of Mustard’s shouting falls silent suddenly as she closes the lamp and finds herself on the sidewalk outside his room. Her eyes adjust faster this time.
She reaches down to find the dog still by her side. “Good boy! You are such a smart doggie aren’t you?”
The dog sits and pants, then twists around noticing something behind them. She looks up to see Mustard’s face staring at them incredulously through the window.
“C’mon.” she says, grabbing the dog by the collar and rushing around the corner of the building. She looks around to get her bearings. They are on the back side of the building, not far from the Executive’s Director’s window. They have to get as far away as they as quickly as they can before someone sees her or Mustard gets her caught.
She tucks the lamp under her arm, adjusts her backpack and signals the dog. She waits for a car to drive by before running across the quiet street to the building on the other side, hurrying along the brick wall, ducking around the first corner, out of site of Gladstone’s. She catches her breath, not tired, just nervous, more nervous than she thought she would be. As thrilling as escape had always felt inside the walls of Gladstone’s, it had always felt safe and fun, like a game. This time feels different as she crouches at the corner hiding from view. The dog licks her reassuringly and she pats him on the head. “Thanks boy.”
She stands and peers around the corner to see if anyone had seen her and were in pursuit. Nothing. She takes a breath and thinks about what to do next. She continues around the building, back to the main street now a block from Gladstone’s. The bus stops right in front of the Home—she’s taken it on a number of field trips through town—but it is in plain view and unlikely she can catch the bus without being seen. She looks up and down the street searching for other bus stops, when sees a yellow cab parked two blocks up the street in front of a hotel.
Together they race up the street, the lamp clutched tightly in her arms, to keep from dropping it. She approaches the cab, out of breath from running the distance, and stops short when she realizes the car is empty. Undeterred, the dog bounds on to the car, knocking against the open window and startling someone inside. The surprised driver rises from his reclined position, frantically trying to roll up the window as the dog licks him from outside. Maddie rushes to the window. “Wait, mister.”
He pauses, noticing her. “This your dog?” he asks, one hand holding the dog at bay through the half-closed window. “Want to call him down? He’s slobbering up my car.”
“Sorry.” The dog drops before she even reaches for his collar. The driver brings his seat upright. Maddie steps closer to the window. “Uh, can I get a ride somewhere?”
He looks at himself in the mirror, smoothes his hair, and puts on a pair of sunglasses before looking at her again. He looks from her to the dog to her again. “You want a ride?”
“Yeah.”
“What. just you and your dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Where to?”
“Do you go downtown?”
“Uh-huh. And your parents are fine with you taking a cab rides by yourself? Downtown?”
Maddie tries to sound confident, casual. “Sure. They always let me go by myself.”
He looks up and down the street, then points down the street at Gladstone’s. “See that tall brick building right down there. There’s a bus stop right out in front. The D Line can take you downtown if you really want to go.”
Maddie pulls the bills from her back pocket, “I have money. I can pay you.”
He looks at the money, thinking about it. “Look, you seem like a good kid, but frankly you’re a little young to be riding around by yourself, especially downtown.”
“What about me?”
The voice right behind her takes her by surprise. Maddie watches aghast as Mustard walks up to the window. “Can I get a ride downtown?”
The driver checks him out. “You eighteen?”
Mustard nods.
“All right kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Trust me. Eighteen’s a kid. Where you want to go?”
“Downtown.” He answers with irritation in his voice.
The cabbie eyes them both. “What’s the story here kids?”
Maddie jumps in, grabbing Mustard’s hand. “This is my brother. He’s supposed to go with me. We’re going to the museum.”
The driver sighs. “That’s a different story, hon. Can’t take the dog though. No pets.”
“How much is it to the museum?”
He looks at Mustard, “Both of you. Ten bucks.”
Mustard grabs the money still in Maddie’s hand, handing him one of the bills. “I’ll give you twenty.”
The cab shakes his head. Mustard looks at Maddie accusingly and hands him two bills. “Forty.”
“Look I don’t want that dog having an accident in my back seat.”
Mustard looks at the money in his hands, looks at Maddie and the dog once more and holds all three out.
The cabbie looks at the money, looks in his rear view mirror, then takes the bills. “All right, but that dog so much as farts in my cab, I’m bringing you both right back here.”
He starts the engine and they all pile in the back, the dog cushioned between them, sitting up straight and attentive. Mustard gives Maddie one more disapproving look as they speed up the street towards the rise of buildings just ahead.
Ten minutes later driver is dropping them off outside the tall steps to the Museum of Natural Sciences. The three of the climb out the back and are about to climb the stairs when the driver calls Mustard back. Maddie watches with the dog, as the driver hands Mustard something. When the car drives away, she asks what he said.
“He told me to take care of you, and he gave me back forty bucks. What a moron.”
“He’s being nice Mustard. He didn’t have to do that.”
“Whatever. Just be thankful he did. Now you just owe me the other twenty.” He shoves the money in his pocket, then as she starts going up the steps he grabs her by the shoulder and turns her around. “Not so fast. Before we go anywhere, you’re going to tell me what happened back in my room. That light. And how you got out. Is it all because of that thing you’re holding?”
He reaches for it, and she pulls away. “I don’t have time to explain right now Mustard. I’ll tell you later—if you promise not to tell anyone. But right now we have to go in the museum.”
“Why is that? You want to at least tell me that much?”
“Because I think he is in there.”
“Yeah. And what makes you think that?”
“Because the lamp showed me.” She says holding it tight against her chest. “Now come on.”
They run up the steps to the main entrance. People are lined up at a ticket window, others milling around the front doors, a few children running around playing tag while their parents wait in line.
Maddie points out the ticket window to Mustard, “We buy tickets over there.”
Mustard squints his eyes to read the ticket prices listed by the window. “Screw that. I’m not paying ten bucks each. C’mon.” He grabs her by the arm and pulls her with him towards the main door. “Wait here for a minute. You want to get in there, you do what I do. Got it?”
“But we have to pay—“
He thumps her in the shoulder, startling her. “Tag! You’re it.” He shoots into the cluster of other kids running around the line. He waves at her to join him, so she tucks the lamp tightly under her arm and runs into the fray uncertain what this is supposed to accomplish. They chase each other back for a couple of minutes, even the dog joining in the fun, as they run around the other kids.
She can’t believe Mustard wants to play, especially at a time like this. Just then, he grabs her and yanks her to a stop. “C’mon,” he says, suddenly serious. She notices the other kids are all filling into the door with their parents and Mustard leads her in after them. They are just through the door when the person at the ticket window yells to them. “Hold it, you guys!”
Maddie stops while Mustard presses on ahead, egging her on. She puts up her hands and turns around.
“No dogs allowed.”
She looks down and notices the dog still by her side. He looks at the guy in the ticket window then back to Maddie. She kneels down in front of him. “Can you wait for me here? I’ll come back in a little while. I promise.” The dog pants and sits in front of her. “Good boy.” She pats him on the head and runs inside where Mustard is waiting for her.
“Hey, you can’t just leave your dog alone out here…!”
Maddie and Mustard quickly lose themselves amongst other people in the museum, leaving the flustered ticket seller trying to shoo the dog from his ticket window. Maddie waves at him as they disappear from view.
Maddie looks around intently, awed by the size of the museum, the immense displays of animals and their habitats, but she is looking for something more specific and doesn’t have time to admire everything. She turns around to see Mustard having stopped some distance behind her, apparently awestruck by the place. She walks back to him. “I thought you said you’d been here like a dozen times before.”
He turns away from what has his attention, to look at Maddie for a brief moment before turning back to the spectacle around him. “So what. Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. I can still be impressed.”
“Well, let’s keep moving.”
He falls in step behind her, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Wait, you said you knew where he was.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t…”
“I swear Maddie. This better not be a wild goose chase.”
They move through different rooms, traveling through different eons in time: the Jurrasic, the Triassic, through different geographies: deserts, tundras and oceans, finding themselves finally back in the present space and time at the front of the museum where they had began nearly thirty minutes earlier.
Mustard stands with his hands on his hips scowling at Maddie. “Nice museum. I’m glad I wasted twenty bucks and risked my neck to come here and see it.”
“Shut up Mustard. I didn’t ask you to come. I would have been fine all by myself.”
“No you wouldn’t. Besides there’s no way I was going to let you run around throwing away my money.”
Maddie grips her backpack, getting angrier with him by the minute. Maybe letting him come had been a mistake. “Fine. Whatever. You have your money so now you can go back.”
“Yeah right, like I’m ever going back to Gladstone’s. I told you I’m done with that place.”
“Yeah? So where are you going to live then, Mustard? You going to move in here?”
He stares at her belligerently. “No. This place isn’t far enough away from you.”
“Well, where ever it is, maybe you should just go there now!”
“Good idea. Good luck getting back to the Home for Losers, all by yourself Maddie. I’m out of here!”
He pushes past her, towards the main doors, leaving Maddie in the of the vast space of the lobby, her eyes blurring with tears. She looks down at the floor, feeling completely defeated and alone. Nothing is going right. Not today. Not yesterday, not last year or any year since her family left her at the Home. Why did they do it? What was so wrong with her that no one wanted her? Not even someone as rotten and horrible as Felix Mustard?
She wishes she had a tree to climb, a tree tall enough to take her away from all of this. She looks up at the tall ceiling and stares for a moment at the sight above her, the giant skeleton of the whale suspended from the ceiling, and behind it, the dark windows set high on the wall.
Her voice cracks and she shouts out: “Felix, Felix!!”
She turns to sees him by the door looking back at her. She points up and as he sees what she sees, she yells to him across the lobby, “He’s up there!”
He takes her outside, where they are greeted by the dog who had been obediently waiting. He nuzzles both of them as they sit on the steps. Maddie grasps the thick folds of his fur and buries her face in his neck. When she finally comes up for air, she asks, “Why did we leave Mustard? He’s inside and if we are going to help him we have to--.“
”If we are going to get him, if everything is like you say it is, which I still don’t totally believe by the way, then we have to think this through before we go charging around looking for a bunch of kidnappers.”
“Two kidnappers.” Maddie corrects him.
“Whatever. The point is, they’re probably dangerous. And we’re—“
“Kids?” Maddie interrupts, getting another look of irritation from him. But he doesn’t finish his thought. He looks down at the dog happily nestling between them. “All right, So what was your plan anyway Maddie? How did you think you were going to save him all by yourself?”
She looks at him smiling, “With this,” she says, bringing the lamp forward.
“What is that thing? You keep carrying it around like it’s a baby or something.”
She pulls it back to herself, feeling protective. “It’s a lantern for your information. A very special one. And it’s going to help us save the old man.”
Mustard looks at it suspiciously, maybe with even a touch of fear. “All right, you want to tell me what it does then?”
“I’ll do better. I’ll show you. Tonight. I have a plan.”
“Oh, now you have a plan.”
“That’s right. I do. And the first part is we eat.” She digs into her pack pulling out the foil wrapped sausage, bacon and toast from breakfast. The dog licks his mouth.
“And what about you getting back before they find out you’re missing?”
She looks at him intently, handing him the food. “I made it this far. I’m not going back until I save him.”
He shrugs and grabs some cold bacon.
At nightfall, they round the corner to the Museum, having tried as much as possible to stay out of sight, and scurry up the stairs to the front entrance. Even closed the exterior is still so brightly lit there is little place to hide. They crouch in a shadowed crevice by the gift shop.
Now Maddie is calm and Mustard is nervous. “All right. What’s your plan. Let’s do whatever we are going to do before the cops bust us.
“You sure you want to do this Mustard?”
He nods, his hands thrust deep in his pockets because of the cold. Maddie pulls the lamp out of the coat he had given her to stay warm. “Okay. I need you to trust me now. When I turn on the lamp, I want you to take my hand and follow me in.”
“What do you mean, ‘follow you in’? You think you have a key or something?”
Maddie smiles, “Yes. Don’t I Argus?”
They both stop and look at each other. “Argus?” he asks. Maddie looks back at the dog, smiling up at her attentively. “Yes, I just now remembered. That’s his name. That’s what the old man called him in my room.” She smiles, pleased with herself for remembering, then looks around the street one last time before twisting the base of the lantern, letting the light spill out all around them. “Now,” she says to him, “take my hand and follow me.”
They are inside, the dog sniffing ahead, but for some reason Mustard keeps dragging behind her and she has to constantly tug him forward. She looks back and sees him even more stunned then when they first came in.
“C’mon,” she whispers, trying to take them away from the exposure of the front windows. They settle to another shadowed nook near the bathroom doors, Mustard turned around fixating on the way they came.
“But, =this can’t be—How did we—How did we— “
She hears the footfalls of the one of the guards she saw lock up museum and she yanks him again, this time dragging through the locked bathroom door.
The guard’s feet echo through the door, growing louder, then quieter, Maddie watching him through the illuminated hole in the door as he continues his rounds. Maddie sighs a breath of relief, patting Argus, always at her feet. She looks around for Mustard, not seeing him anywhere.
“Mustard!” She whispers as loudly as she dares. “Where are you?” She hears a moan from behind a closed stall door.
“I—I think I’m going to be sick.”
She shines the light in front of the stall, shining a hole revealing him crouched on the toilet nearly doubled over, shaking. “Hey--!” he yells, seeing her through the sudden opening.
She backs away, lowering the light. “Keep it down.” She warns him, turning around to see Argus guarding the bathroom door.
“What just happened Maddie? I mean—how did we get here? This isn’t possible—“
“Duh. Of course it’s not possible. But it’s happening all the same, so just please try to deal with it all right. Otherwise we’ll never find him.” Then she remembers her first experience with the lamp, when she was pushed through the wall, and how Nurse Mary had tried to calm her down. She changes her tone, trying to sound as reassuring as the nurse had. “Okay, just take a deep breath and try to relax Mustard. Take your time.” Time isn’t something they really have, but she leaves him alone all the same, listening to him breath loudly and slowly.
He finally speaks from his stall. “Okay, I think I’m better.” She hears the rustle of toilet paper and suddenly the toilet flushes, the sound echoing off the tiled floors and wall like an explosion.
“Mustard!” she screams as he comes out buttoning his pants.
“What?” he asks, perturbed but suddenly remembering, “Oh, crap.”
Maggie widens the light of the lamp and grabs his hand again and pulls them towards the back wall.
Covering his face with his other arm, he shouts, “Not again!”
“Stop being such a baby!”
They pass through one wall, then another, then through dark spaces, crammed with pipes and panels of wires before finally come out in a dark cement hall. She is about to push them through the next wall when she notices a lit sign over a door. “There,” she says, pointing the ‘Stairs’ sign out to Mustard.
He is shaking when he opens his eyes. “This is really freaking me out.”
She rushes up to the door, shining the light through it to see a stair well on the other side. “These might take us to that high room behind the whale. C’mon Argus.” The dog bolts through but Mustard takes a step back.
“I can’t do it Maddie. Not again.”
She groans to herself, considering leaving him behind. At this rate its going to be easier to do this on her own. But she doesn’t want to leave him alone hear in the dark, anymore than she wants to proceed alone. She looks at the door, trying to figure how she can convince him to just go through when she gets the idea. “Oh, all right.” She focuses the light to a smaller hole, reaching through it to unlock the door from her side. She leans against the door holding it open for Mustard. “Okay, now come on. We have to hurry!”
He looks at her dizzily for a moment, then pushes past her, climbing the stairs after the dog.
They take the stairs to the last flight, a door reading ‘Authorized Personal Only’, with a small sensor next to it. Mustard leans against the wall while Maddie shines her light through it. She turns to Mustard in muted excitement. “This is it! The room I saw him in”, she whispers to him.
He collects himself and presses against her to peer into the room with her. “Where is he,” he whispers.
“I don’t know. It looks empty.”
She moves the light around, covering as much as the room as she can from their vantage point in the stair well. It’s empty as near as they can tell. Then again she thought his room had been empty too.
Mustard steps back, bracing himself on the stair rail. “You sure about this Maddie? Sure you want to go through with this?”
She looks at him, nods, then shrugs. “Not alone,” she says, feeling nervous now herself.
He nods, as though as much to himself as to her.
“Here,” she says, reaching into the door, “I’ll unlock it for you.”
He grabs her arm, pulling it back inside. “No, don’t. It might have an alarm.” He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment. “I can do this. I don’t know how. But I got it this time. Hold the light up for me.”
She raises the lantern and watches him slip into the room first. She and Argus follow right behind.
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