The Mapmaker and the Ghost Page 13

  Now, though, Brains was again starting to have his doubts. He furrowed his eyebrows a bit as he looked around the cavern. No one else seemed to have a care in the world. Lint was sitting in a corner fussing about with his belly button. No-Bone was doing some extremely impressive, though painful-looking, stretching exercises against a corner of the wall, and Spitbubble was sitting on a tan leather armchair that he had brought in from god-knows-where sometime last week. He was rummaging through the green backpack that the Morams had left behind, unceremoniously tossing notebooks and papers aside.

  So far, everything seemed perfectly normal. Except that Snotshot had just flown out of the cavern like she was being chased by rabid dogs. If nothing else, she was a part of the plan, and they needed her. Suddenly, Brains felt like he’d be remiss if he didn’t at least mention something about his worries to Spitbubble.

  He walked over to the armchair.

  Spitbubble was throwing the final bits of paper out of the green backpack. They seemed to be filled with some interesting-looking diagrams. Brains tilted his head to get a closer look when Spitbubble crumpled up all the papers and stuffed them back into the bag. “Nothing interesting or useful here, except probably to that bratty girl,” Spitbubble said calmly. “No-Bone.”

  No-Bone looked up (or would it be down?) from his headstand.

  Spitbubble held the backpack away from him dismissively. “Throw this in the river. If that girl ever comes looking for it, I want to be sure that she never sees it again.”

  No-Bone flipped onto his feet, grabbed the bag from Spitbubble, and walked out of the cavern.

  “Serves her right,” Spitbubble said with a sneer. “Thinking she could outmaneuver me.”

  Brains frowned. That was just the thing; Goldenrod Moram was actually pretty smart. “Spitbubble…,” Brains began.

  Spitbubble leaned back into his armchair. “I know.”

  “You do?” Brains said, somewhat relieved. He was starting to feel like maybe he was just being paranoid for no reason, but if Spitbubble was having some doubts too, then they could definitely convince the other kids …

  “I’m not gonna lie, you do have some reason to ask for this,” Spitbubble said. “You sorta … deserve it.”

  Huh? Brains blinked in confusion.

  “I know that without that crazy brain of yours, we wouldn’t be able to come up with half the stuff we do. And I want you to know that I am grateful. And, yes, after this mission we can work on giving you a slightly higher position. A second-in-command sort of deal, officially.”

  Brains was taken aback. It was the first time Spitbubble had so openly acknowledged his contributions.

  “Now, I don’t want you getting too full of yourself,” Spitbubble said with a smirk.

  Brains shrugged. “It ain’t bragging if you can back it up, right?” he said quietly.

  Spitbubble gave a short, loud snort, which was as close as most of them ever got to hearing him laugh. He rose from the chair and gave Brains a quick pat on the back. “We should get going soon, right?”

  Brains nodded. It was stupid to doubt himself. No one else did. They all relied on him, even Spitbubble, so of course he could do this. They had thought about and rehearsed this plan for so long; everything was going to be completely fine. Morams or no Morams.

  All he had to do now was find Snotshot.

  When Goldenrod saw Meriwether next, he still had the ghostly manacles on his wrists and the wreath of flames around his head, but the fact that he was grinning from ear to ear somewhat ruined the effect.

  “It worked?” she asked him.

  “Indeed!” Meriwether said and pointed to a spot in the clearing that looked freshly dug up. “I made her bury it in case you were not the first person to come in here after her.”

  “Good thinking,” Goldenrod said.

  “I should say the same to you,” Meriwether said with a little bow.

  Goldenrod grinned. “I have just enough time to get the roses out of here before this afternoon, and then tomorrow … What’s wrong?” she asked as suddenly she saw Meriwether’s expression go from elated to apologetic. He was kicking one of his ghostly chains with his toes.

  “Er … right. About that,” Meriwether said. “The thing is, I may not have told you about the entire quest.”

  “What do you mean?” Goldenrod asked.

  “As it so happens, this blue rose is only the twin of another blue rose. And you need the second blue rose to get this one out.” Meriwether smiled at Goldenrod hopefully.

  Goldenrod was not amused. “What?”

  “This blue rose,” Meriwether said louder, “is a twin—”

  “No, never mind. I heard you the first time. But what are you talking about? What do you mean twin blue roses?”

  “Um. Well, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that part,” Meriwether said sheepishly.

  “You can’t tell me?”

  “It’s part of the quest, you see. For you to figure out.”

  Goldenrod stared at Meriwether. “You’re saying, you knew this whole time that I wouldn’t be able to take the blue rose out of the forest without this other blue rose.”

  “Right,” Meriwether said.

  “But you chose not to tell me?”

  “Oh, no, no. I didn’t choose not to tell you. I couldn’t tell you. It’s part of the quest—”

  “Oh, forget the quest,” Goldenrod said angrily. “What was the point of this whole thing if I could never even get the rose out of the forest?” She turned on her heel and started to stomp out of the clearing.

  “But Goldenrod, it shouldn’t be so hard for you, really. You have almost a full week to figure out where the other blue rose is. Goldenrod, come back!” Meriwether called in a panic.

  His voice was getting fainter as Goldenrod marched out of the forest, her anger outshining all of her other tangled-up emotions.

  29

  THE PLAN IN ACTION

  It was nearly 4:00 p.m., but the sky was still blazing like it was high noon. No-Bone was sweating again in his leather jacket. Somehow he’d convinced himself it would be good luck to keep it on.

  They were in the back lot of the Pilmilton Science Museum, leaning against the gray building. Lint was holding on to the shopping cart he had taken from the small supermarket across the street. They were all being much quieter than any of them had ever been before. No-Bone could tell they were all at least a little nervous. Not him, though. He lived to perform.

  The museum was closed on Thursdays, so there was no one in the back parking lot—which was strictly reserved for museum visitors—except for one lone purple sedan parked in a corner. No-Bone assumed it belonged to the security guard on duty.

  Still, they all looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching before Brains walked over to the small white box right outside the door and quickly punched in the alarm’s security code he’d spied through his telescope a couple of weeks ago. Then, Spitbubble used the janitor’s keycard No-Bone had gotten hold of to open the back door itself. Once he did, Spitbubble slipped in, followed by Brains, Snotshot, No-Bone, and finally, Lint and the shopping cart, which he carried so that it wouldn’t make any noise. They still hadn’t seen Toe Jam all day, but they’d shrugged it off, since he was never supposed to take part in the day’s plans anyway.

  They made their way quietly through the short hallway that led to the double doors of the museum’s first floor. Brains had a stopwatch in his hand. He checked his wristwatch and then, at a particular moment, set the stopwatch to start.

  Brains had figured out that the museum’s cameras ran on a specific timer. Every ten seconds, five of the cameras would display in the control room where the sole guard was on duty. That meant that every camera had forty seconds where it would be dark. After collecting all of their grids and charts from the entire summer, Brains had figured out where exactly No-Bone would have to be at every second, and No-Bone, of course, had finessed it.

  When Brains motioned for him to go, No-
Bone didn’t just saunter to his first checkpoint. Oh no. He was going to make this a much more exciting experience. He knew that he could do a cartwheel followed by a triple flip in just under nine seconds. So he did.

  He briefly caught the rest of the kids staring with their mouths agape and then Snotshot rolling her eyes. He just smirked. If there was one thing the circus clowns had taught him, it was never to blow a perfect opportunity to show off.

  Brains opened his mouth to say something, but there was no time for him to say it, because in a moment, No-Bone had to be off again, and in fourteen seconds, he was in an entirely different wing.

  The kids couldn’t see him anymore, but that didn’t stop No-Bone from flipping and somersaulting the rest of the thirty-two seconds it took for him to get to his destination. Because if there was one thing the acrobats had taught him, it was never to pass up an opportunity to practice.

  His destination—for the moment—was a pillar by the museum’s technology exhibit. No-Bone stretched and positioned himself so that he was as tall and straight as the column itself, invisible from the angle the camera was shooting. He eyed the motion sensor-controlled dance floor that was on a stage just behind the pillar. Right now, that stage was a serene blue.

  He checked his digital wristwatch and waited, prechoreographing his moves in his head. In a moment came a very small beep. He immediately ran out to the dance floor. It was time to really go wild.

  No-Bone broke it down. He pop-and-locked, did headspins, leg flares, bellymills, and a couple of flying leaps for good measure. The floor started going crazy in time with his movements. First it turned all sorts of bright colors and then, as No-Bone’s moves started to get more intense, it began to break out into graphics: popping popcorn kernels, shooting rockets, fireworks.

  His watch beeped again and in a flash, he was behind the pillar. Ten seconds later, he was slipping into a height machine that set off a red siren and loudly proclaimed that he was five feet two inches (which, incidentally, was completely wrong. He knew for a fact that he had made it to five feet three a few weeks ago).

  Ten seconds after that, he was at a neighboring exhibit, causing a giant metal ladder sculpture to move back and forth in waves and then a sphere filled with blue plasma to spin madly on its axis. He had just taken his hands off of the sphere when he heard the sound of footsteps rushing down the hall.

  He had time for one more tiny somersault as he rolled himself quickly onto the landing of the museum’s stairs, and then quietly sped up them, leaving the security guard to look for a five-foot-two ghost.

  As soon as the security guard had left his station, Brains slipped in. It took him hardly any time at all to pop in the DVD, and set it up so that the TVs were only playing a recorded version of a perfectly empty science museum on a Thursday afternoon.

  Once that was done, the group quickly took the back stairway and entered the second floor, where No-Bone was waiting for them, right by the Energy Quest exhibit.

  The exhibit was probably every kid’s dream, but it was especially Brains’s. It had turbines—giant fans—that you could set spinning by using a regular old vacuum cleaner on a smaller fan attached to it. It had a wave machine that let you create giant waves in a little blue pool. It had a plasma station where you could move a coil of hot pink light around with the aid of a magnet. And hovering above it all was Brains’s favorite part: a giant Tesla coil that, during demonstrations, would shoot out huge strands of purple lightning. Brains wished he could’ve found a way to work stealing the coil into their plan; it would look fantastic in his lab. But it was way too bulky. They were going to have their work cut out for them as it was.

  Right away, the kids went to the stations they were assigned. Snotshot was unscrewing giant solar panels from the solar energy exhibit, and putting them in her large backpack. No-Bone was dismantling the pump that was the centerpiece of the geothermal exhibit, which demonstrated how you could use steam from the earth itself (as in, say, a hot spring) to make heat and electricity. These were the two stations Brains thought were most important, given the group’s resources in the forest.

  As Lint pushed the shopping cart over to help No-Bone out, he stopped to look at the picture of Nikola Tesla that was hanging underneath his coil.

  “Hey,” Lint said to Brains. “That’s the same guy who’s hanging in your lab.” He bent down to look at the writing underneath the picture. “‘Nikola Tesla spent his life trying to find different sources of energy, often from the earth itself,’” he read slowly and deliberately. “Hey, like you!” Lint looked over at Brains.

  Brains couldn’t help but give a small smile. Getting directly compared to one of your heroes by a friend was no everyday occurrence.

  “It’s great that you’ve chosen to demonstrate your ability to read, Lint,” came Spitbubble’s low voice. “But has it replaced the brain activity reminding you that you have a job to do?”

  Lint shut up and quickly pushed the cart over to No-Bone’s station.

  Brains thought that was a little rich coming from Spitbubble, considering that he had insisted on taking a few minutes during the time Brains was in the control room to show off his own namesake skill to the rest of the group. The giant soap bubble exhibit had probably never seen such an enormous, unbroken sphere in its existence, but still. There was a time and place for everything.

  Spitbubble never came with them on their normal missions, but this one was so big that apparently even he’d felt the need to be there. Not that he did much. Currently, he was leaning on the long rod that led to the Tesla coil and watching the rest of the kids like a hawk, waiting to criticize or bark orders depending on whichever needs arose. Sometimes, Brains didn’t like the older boy very much. But then he would remind himself of all he had done for the Gross-Out Gang, of all he still planned to do in giving them a permanent home, and he would shoo those thoughts out of his head.

  Brains didn’t have time for thoughts outside of science now, anyway. He was examining the wave machine. He hadn’t planned on taking it, but maybe it would be possible to somehow use it with the stream that ran by his lab. And maybe, he thought as he eyed the giant fans, it might be possible to harness some wind power too. After all, they could use all the energy they could generate.

  “Lint, when you’re done over there, come help me take this apart too,” Brains said, as he walked over to the hydropower station and started to figure out how to disassemble the wave machine.

  Just as he was about to turn the first screw with his screwdriver, he heard what sounded like a giant, inhuman sneeze.

  Everyone froze. A few seconds later, there came another one.

  And then another.

  “It’s the exhibit next door,” Brains finally said, and they all sighed a little in relief.

  “But why is it going off?” No-Bone asked.

  “I don’t know,” Brains said, eyebrows furrowed.

  “Snotshot,” Spitbubble said, “go investigate.”

  Snotshot nodded and started to quietly make her way over to the bacteria exhibit down the hall.

  30

  AN A-HA AND AH-CHOO MOMENT

  The hardest part of Goldenrod and Birch’s plan came right at the very beginning, when they had to find a way to get into the museum on the heels of the Gross-Out Gang. Goldenrod took the lead there, using her stealth skills to hide behind the corner of the building. Then, as soon as Lint had passed through the door, she quietly sprinted so that before the door could fully close, she had reached it and put a large piece of duct tape over the lock mechanism. When she closed the door seconds later, it looked shut—but it wasn’t locked.

  Their next step was to go sit by the front of the museum and wait. According to Toe Jam’s instructions, they would be clear to enter once the red lights on the cameras were off. That would mean that Brains had gotten into the control room and started the looped DVD and that no one would see them go into the closed museum.

  Less than ten minutes later, Birch said, “The
y’re off. Let’s go.” He led the way around the building to the back door and the Morams slipped in, with Goldenrod peeling off the duct tape before closing the door again. After all, a good explorer never left any evidence behind when dealing with secret operations.

  The museum was peaceful and quiet. Goldenrod had been there before quite a number of times with her family, and it was a little odd to see all of the experiment stations lying still, and all of the lab coats and goggles hung up and in their places. As she passed by the cooking experiment station, she specifically recollected the last time she had been there and how excited her dad had been that there was a new exhibit demonstrating two of his favorite hobbies: science and cooking. If there was only a way the curators could have fit home repair in there, the family might have never seen Mr. Moram again.

  Goldenrod knew they had to head to the back double doors to get to the stairs and up to Energy Quest, but she took a little detour first. One, because she knew the Gross-Out Gang had distracted the guard with an exhibit that was close by and she wanted to make sure that he was gone. (After all, it wouldn’t be very adventurous if the Morams simply tattled on Spitbubble’s crew to the authorities … without having a little fun with them first.) And two, because Goldenrod couldn’t help but pay a visit to her favorite exhibit. As long as she was there and all.

  Her exhibit was tucked into a front corner. It was a small but loving tribute to the most famous explorers to ever grace their area—so far, anyway: Mr. Meriwether Lewis and Mr. William Clark. The little section had a moss green carpet, and there were a few dioramas under glass showing plastic versions of some of the animals Lewis and Clark had discovered, including Meriwether’s—and Cassandra’s and Toe Jam’s—woodpecker. There was a station where kids could identify five different types of plants based on their characteristics, and there was a nice portrait of Meriwether, maroon overcoat and all. The sight of the familiar overcoat gave Goldenrod a little pang of remorse at how she had behaved the last time she’d seen the ghost. It hadn’t been very scientific or rational of her to storm out on him like that. Once she’d had time to think it through, she’d realized that it really hadn’t been his fault that she couldn’t complete the quest. She hoped she could go back and apologize once this whole thing was over.