Floors #2: 3 Below (2 page)

And so it was that when Pilar stood, she also waved gently in the direction of a gathering of bushes next to the small pond. Out of the darkness came Captain Rickenbacker and Theodore Bump, two of the Whippet’s long-stay tenants. Captain Rickenbacker lived on the third floor in the Pinball Machine and had long imagined he was a superhero. On this night, he wore a black cape in the style of Batman, and in his hands he held a box covered with an equally black velvet cloth. Theodore Bump had been at the hotel forever and a day. He wrote novels by the dozen and kept mostly to himself, but tonight he was staying close, making sure Captain Rickenbacker didn’t drop whatever it was he was carrying.

“I don’t remember this from the rehearsal,” Remi said, but his mother looked at him in a way Remi knew all too well:
Be patient, you will see.

Captain Rickenbacker walked with an important sort of stride, and when he reached the two carved doves, he set the box on top of the silver tray. Then he stood aside and Mr. Bump removed the black velvet cloth so Leo could see what was underneath.

“It’s a full moon,” Leo’s dad said. “We planned it this way.”

A glass box sat on the silver tray, and inside, a white ghost orchid was quiet and sleeping. It had been his mother’s special flower, the one so hard to grow.

“The moon will wake her up,” said Pilar.

Leo looked at Pilar, who was about to become his new mom. It was very hard to think about replacing his real mother, but she’d already been gone such a long time. There were days when it was hard for Leo to remember what she looked like without taking out her picture. The silver tray was at Leo’s eye level, and as he stepped toward it, the ghost orchid began to bloom in the soft moonlight on the roof of the Whippet Hotel.

“So you know she is always here with us,” Pilar said. “With our family. Is this okay?”

Leo wiped a tear that had found its way to his cheek. He couldn’t take his eyes off the orchid, so peaceful and perfect, just like his mom had been.

“It’s okay,” Leo said, and it was. Pilar was going to be his mom, and it was going to be fine. He smiled wistfully at her and his dad, then looked at the flower once more as it reached out toward them all.

The wedding vows were said and the band roared into gear. There was a lot of dancing and laughing and
cake-eating. After a time, Mr. Phipps took the glass box to the safety of his garden shed, because like a special memory, a ghost orchid is a fragile thing.

When the dancing really got cooking, Leo let Ms. Pompadore return to her room and get Hiney, her yappy little dog. Ms. Pompadore had been paying her way as the concierge since Leo had taken over the hotel. As a former Texas socialite, the task fit her like a glove. If a guest needed tickets to a show or information about a museum, Ms. Pompadore was always there with a snappy answer.

“Just keep Hiney away from the ducks,” Leo said. “You know how they get with each other.”

“I’ll carry my little Hiney, not to worry!” Ms. Pompadore was gone in a flash, leaving Remi and Leo to giggle.

Now and then a very important person doesn’t show up for a wedding, the kind of person who is missed but not mentioned because it makes everyone a little sad to remember they are at a party without that special you-know-who.
Maybe he’s only trying to make a surprise entrance and he will show up after all,
everyone thinks. Such was the case at the Whippet Hotel wedding as a one-of-a-kind blimp secretly drifted between two skyscrapers, its full shape coming into view directly behind
the pond. No one noticed it at first, because the pilot of the blimp was being crafty about his business. And the blimp was special in the way it reflected light, so that it was very hard to see if a person wasn’t looking for it. But then, suddenly, the blimp lit up with a message, written out in bright lights along its curved side:

C
ONGRATULATIONS
, P
ILAR AND
C
LARENCE
!

Everyone on the roof looked up and gasped.

“I had a feeling he might show up unexpectedly.” Captain Rickenbacker smiled.

“I have a great urge to return to my room and write this all down,” said Theodore Bump, but instead he whipped a pen out from behind his ear and began taking notes on a wedding napkin.

Everyone was enchanted, beguiled, overwhelmed with happiness as Merganzer Whippet leaned his head out over the crowd and bowed, a great top hat falling, falling, falling off his head until it landed in Pilar’s outstretched hand.

“Oh dear,” said Merganzer, touching the wild flop of hair on top of his head. “I’ve dropped my hat.”

“Come closer!” yelled Pilar, laughing along with everyone else. “I’ll throw it back to you!”

But he vanished once more inside the cab, blasting a shot of hot air into the blimp to hold it steady. Mr.
Powell, Merganzer’s oldest and dearest friend, emerged for a split second and waved, yelling hello. And then he, too, was gone.

“The blimp is passing over,” said Pilar. She was a sad bride, which is one of the saddest things in all the world. “I wish he could stay.”

“Wish granted!” Merganzer shouted, throwing a long rope ladder down one side of the cab. Mr. Powell did the same from the other side, and soon the ropes were secured and two figures were climbing down to join the party. Betty waited at the bottom of Merganzer’s rope ladder, honking excitedly.

“Oh my, you’ve gone and had ducklings again,” said Merganzer, kneeling down to Betty and putting his long hand out toward her. The ducklings gathered around and nudged against his legs, for they knew a lover of ducks when they saw one. Merganzer laughed, pointing his tremendously long nose up into the air, and the music, which had stopped, began playing again.

“May I?” Merganzer asked, looking at Clarence Fillmore for permission to dance with his new wife.

“By all means, dance all night if you want!”

Pilar tried to return his hat but he told her to keep it, so she put it gamely on her own head and began teaching Merganzer how to cha-cha.

Mr. Powell was not a dancer, so he stood with Leo and Remi near the gift table.

“Where have you been all this time?” Leo asked, because the two of them hadn’t been seen in almost a year.

“Near enough to know we weren’t needed,” said Mr. Powell. “You’re doing a fine job with the hotel, a fine job indeed. If there’s one thing Merganzer knows how to do, it’s get out of the way when he’s no longer needed.”

“Isn’t it enough that we miss him?” Remi asked. He took Blop out of his pocket and set him on the gift table, where the robot could whirl around and examine the packages.

“I’m afraid being missed isn’t enough,” said Mr. Powell. “He’s very busy. Many important things to do.”

“Busy doing what?” Leo asked. “And where?”

Mr. Powell looked at Leo as if he’d gone mad.

“Making things in the field of wacky inventions, of course! What else would he be doing?”

This was an exciting idea for Leo, and he thought seriously about scaling the rope ladder while no one was watching so that he could stow away to the field of wacky inventions and see what was going on there.

“What sorts of things is he making?” asked Remi, gazing up at Mr. Powell with big, round eyes.

“Secret things.”

“But those are the best kind!” complained Remi. “And besides, we can keep a secret. Can’t we, Leo? Tell us just one thing he’s working on, won’t you?”

Leo wasn’t going to beg. If Remi wanted to, that was fine. But Leo would sooner dance the cha-cha than grovel for information. George Powell asked about the finances and the guests and the state of things at the hotel, but he would say no more about wacky inventions.

When the dance ended, Merganzer hugged Pilar and walked around the roof, taking a moment to talk to each and every guest. The blimp seemed to be pulling harder in the wind as Merganzer tapped a special key card and blasted more hot air inside to hold it steady. Everyone gasped with delight when the blimp lit up. They all wished he would stay, but it was becoming clear he would be leaving them again, and soon.

Leo and Remi left Mr. Powell with Blop and joined Merganzer at the rope ladders.

“Can I look inside?” asked Remi. The cab was way up in the air and Remi was short and round, so seeing inside would take some effort. Merganzer studied the boy carefully.

“I think maybe not,” he said. “There are complicated controls in there. This is no ordinary blimp.”

“How so?” asked Leo. He pretended as if he only cared a little.

“Can’t say, too perilous,” Merganzer replied. Leo loved the way Merganzer always made everything sound
dangerous
.

“You have to go again, don’t you?” Leo asked. He was feeling sorry for himself as he thought about all the fun he and Merganzer had shared in the past.

“I’m afraid so,” said Merganzer, crouching down beside Leo and Remi. “Very important work to do, can’t wait. Tonight will have to be enough for now.”

“For now?” asked Leo, a rise in his voice at the idea that maybe a day was coming when they might be together on an adventure again.

Merganzer only smiled, but the smile was enough to cheer the hearts of the two boys. It told them all they needed to know: Someday they would spend entire days with Merganzer D. Whippet.

“I may have a need or two,” said Merganzer, standing up and staring down at Leo and Remi. “Rather soon, in fact.”

“We’re ready now!” said Remi.

“I do like your enthusiasm. Await my instructions; it won’t be long now.”

Mr. Powell was already climbing up one of the rope ladders, like he was late for an important meeting.
He was unexpectedly swift for an older man with a potbelly.

“Come along, Merganzer,” he yelled down from the cab. “The wind has shifted to our advantage. It’s time to go.”

Merganzer took one last look around, tapped Betty on the head, and raced up the ladder with alarming speed and efficiency. Just before he reached the top, he turned once more to the crowd.

“It’s the loveliest wedding I’ve ever seen. You’ve done the Whippet proud.”

“Merganzer, we really must be off,” said Powell, reaching down toward his companion of so many years.

When Merganzer D. Whippet was in the cab, the rope ladders were released and the blimp began to rise. Against all matters of science and nature, it moved against the wind, but it didn’t surprise Leo or Remi one bit.

“He can go wherever he pleases in that thing,” said Leo. “He’s not fooling me.”

“Me neither,” said Remi, folding his arms across his chest. He paused a moment, glancing at Leo out of the corner of his eye. “When do you think he’ll need us?”

Leo shrugged. He had no idea.
Soon
could mean hours, days, years. One never knew with Merganzer D. Whippet.

Merganzer leaned out of the cab as it sailed away, and yelled one more thing to Pilar.

“Look inside the hat!”

He waved and was gone, the blimp passing behind a building and up into the night sky on its way to secret places only Merganzer and Mr. Powell knew.

“Maybe it’s taped to the inside,” Leo heard his dad say. They were having trouble finding a gift inside the top hat.

“I think you’re right!” Pilar said, reaching her arm way down inside (it was a very tall hat) and taking hold of a black envelope. When she pulled, the hat collapsed in on itself, flattening out like a pancake.

“Weird hat,” Captain Rickenbacker said, standing at the ready just in case it was part of an evil plot designed to strip him of his superpowers.

Leo divided his attention between the stacks on the gift table and the people gathered around the hat shouting, “What is it? What is it?” The gift table was long, and Blop was at one end along the edge, rolling around as Leo picked up different boxes and shook them.

“It’s a letter,” Leo heard Pilar say, which got his attention. Merganzer’s letters always led to something interesting. Looking up at Clarence, Pilar held out the black envelope. Merganzer D. Whippet had wild handwriting that could be difficult to read, but Clarence
Fillmore knew it well. He’d been reading Merganzer’s maintenance notes for years.

While Clarence opened the letter and everyone waited breathlessly for what was inside, Blop discovered something unexpected on the gift table.

“This one isn’t for the bride and groom,” he said. The robot had come across a brown, leathery-looking envelope with a red wax seal. “It has your name on it,” Blop told Leo, but Leo wasn’t listening. “And Remi’s, too.”

Blop talked so much that most people chose to tune him out. He was like background noise in a coffee shop. Which was why Leo hadn’t heard about the brown leathery envelope with the red wax seal. He was, instead, listening to his dad as he read the letter from Merganzer D. Whippet.

“‘Go to the south side of the roof and look down. Your carriage awaits.’”

Every single wedding guest ran to the south side of the building and leaned out, searching the grounds for whatever the letter might be referring to. Leo couldn’t be sure, but it almost felt like the top of the hotel bent down toward the ground as everyone crushed to one side. Was that even possible? He was reminded once more of the many ways the Whippet Hotel could surprise him.

“Sir, did you hear what I said?” Blop had rolled back down the long gift table and was now staring up at Leo, trying to get his attention, but Clarence had arrived at the side of the building with everyone else as they caught their breath and pleaded with him to keep reading. Below, at the entrance to the Whippet Hotel, were two large horses and a carriage sparkling with thousands of white lights.

“Um . . . okay . . .” Clarence said, looking again at the letter. He’d already read it to himself and, taking Pilar’s hand, he read it out loud so everyone could hear.

“‘It’s time Pilar showed you her part of the world in style. A seven-day cruise through the Mexican Riviera should do it. All the plans are in order, everything is paid for. Leave the kids behind, as they’ll be busy running the hotel in your absence. Your flight leaves tonight! Away to your packing!’”

Remi had arrived alongside Leo, and the two of them glanced at each other with a mischievous grin. No parents for a whole week and the entire hotel to explore? It was exactly what they both wanted to hear.