Floors #2: 3 Below (20 page)

“Should we take a look over the edge, just for a moment?” Leo asked. He was overcome with curiosity and didn’t have to wait for an answer. Remi was already running for one of the ledges, where some of the ducks were sitting, looking out at the spinning skyline.

When they leaned over the rail and got a good look at the rest of the hotel, they saw that each of the floors of the hotel was spinning. It was like there was a long pole up the middle of the Whippet, and each of the floors was spinning of its own free will.

“Best hotel
ever
!” Remi shouted.

The levels were spinning in different directions and
at different speeds, and when Leo and Remi’s side came around to where everyone was standing on the grounds, they waved and laughed.

“We better get to work,” Leo said. “I’ll do the zip rope, you put the four Floogers in place!”

“Done!” Remi said, and they both ran off in different directions. Leo kept wondering how and why in the world the Whippet was spinning as it was, but he knew the best chance of getting an answer would be to follow the instructions Merganzer had given him. The faster he could finish, the sooner he would know what Merganzer’s grand plan was.

“Leo, it’s working!” Remi yelled from a far corner of the roof. He’d found a small zigzag-shaped opening on a stone slab and dropped the Flooger inside. “It’s making a weird humming sound, and it’s gone!”

Gone
, Leo thought. The Flooger had vanished into the Whippet Hotel, and it was humming. He wished that Dr. Flart was there to tell them what it meant. The Whippet’s mad scientist would surely have known. Instead Leo stood in the very center of the roof watching the world spin around him. There he found the golden duck.

“And another!” Remi shouted. He was down to only two Floogers, and Leo hadn’t even tied the zip rope to the golden duck. There was a reason for this, one that Remi, in his race to finish his task, hadn’t noticed. Remi
hadn’t looked up, but Leo had an intuition about what was happening. He simply knew, before he turned his eyes up to the night sky, that Merganzer had arrived. A voice filled the air, and Remi finally stopped what he was doing and looked skyward.

“Hello, Leo! Hello, Remi! Such a lovely night, don’t you think?”

Merganzer D. Whippet was leaning out the window of the blimp, waving at them with a smile on his face. The blimp, as before, seemed to blend in with the reflecting colors of night in Manhattan. All the lights and angles appeared to push right through the blimp, like the blimp was a ghost that only existed in Leo’s and Remi’s imaginations.

“I’m afraid we’re running a tad behind schedule,” Merganzer said. “We’ll need to move fast.”

A rope was thrown over and uncoiled until the end hung in front of Leo’s face.

“Tie the zip rope to the golden duck and to the end of this rope, Leo. Quickly now. We really must be getting on with it.”

Merganzer looked at Remi, who had already gone back to inserting Floogers and was down to the last.

“Got it!” Leo shouted, having tied the zip rope as tight as he could around the belly of the golden duck and attached the other end to the rope.

“Perfect!” Merganzer said, and he began to haul the rope up into the sky, arm over arm as the zip rope stretched. “It gets stronger, did Ingrid tell you that?”

“You mean the more it stretches?” Leo yelled up into the sky.

“Yes! But it reaches a point where it won’t stretch any farther. That’s when a zip rope is at its strongest.”

“We got it from Loopa. She’s a monkey,” Remi yelled. He was finished with the Floogers and stood empty-handed next to Leo.

Merganzer had the end of the zip rope in his hand, having stretched it thirty feet into the air, and removed the regular rope.

“She is a good monkey, I can tell. This is a fine zip rope. The best.”

Both boys beamed. They had bad news to share about the hotel, but Merganzer had a way of saying things that made them feel on top of the world, like everything was going to be okay after all.

“You might want to brace yourselves now,” Merganzer said. “Could get a little bumpy.”

Merganzer disappeared into the cab of the blimp.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Remi asked.

“Something important, like pressing buttons and pushing levers. Come on, let’s go to the edge. I have a feeling I know what’s coming next.”

Leo had been right. Merganzer D. Whippet
was
pressing buttons and pushing levers. The four Floogers began to glow hot and blue where they were trapped. Four thick bands of blue light appeared, one from each Flooger, rising over the roof and into the sky above. They met at the bottom of the blimp, like four thick ropes of light that held the hotel level with their weird energy.

The blimp began to move up, up, and away as the zip rope stretched farther and farther. Leo was sure it was about to finally snap in two, but the zip rope held, stretching into the air.

The Whippet Hotel began to slow, and then it stopped spinning altogether.

“I see you up there, Leo Fillmore!” Ms. Sparks screamed up at the head poking over the edge of the roof. “Say good-bye to your hotel!”

She waved the letter from the governor that gave her the power to auction off the Whippet, laughing up at the two boys.

Leo had a moment of deep sorrow. He had lost the Whippet. He was sure of it. No matter what happened now, he would never walk the halls of the wackiest hotel in the world again as its owner. Ms. Sparks would ruin it — maybe even tear it down, a tragedy Leo could hardly bring himself to believe.

And then, just as all hope seemed lost, the Whippet Hotel began to move again. Only this time, it was the roof that moved and nothing else. The rest of the hotel had stopped, quiet and still, as if watching for something secret and rare about to take place.

“Leo,” Remi said. “Did you feel that?”

“I did,” Leo answered. “I think we’re about to go for a ride.”

The top floor of the Whippet Hotel, which included the roof and the library, lifted free.

“A very good monkey!” Merganzer yelled out the window. “It’s holding beautifully!”

The blimp began to rise faster, like it had finally pulled itself free from stakes tied to the ground, and the top floor of the Whippet rose with it.

Five feet, then ten, then fifty feet into the air. It wobbled softly, but there was magic or science or both at work on the roof of the Whippet Hotel that night, and it stayed almost completely level.

“There must be something about the Floogers that keeps it steady,” Remi said, laughing. He couldn’t
stop
laughing. It was just so perfect; a breathtaking event he had helped set in motion. Unimaginable, and yet it was happening!

“Here he comes!” Leo shouted, pointing up into the sky where the buildings were flying past as the blimp
rose higher still. Merganzer D. Whippet was sliding down the zip rope like it was a fire-engine pole. He slowed on his final approach, then touched down in his long jacket and perfectly shined shoes.

“Don’t try that without gloves.” He smiled. “A zip rope will give you the king of all rug burns.”

Remi was laughing, smiling, hopping up and down with enthusiasm. But Leo couldn’t join in the excitement. He stared at the ground on the verge of tears. He simply couldn’t bring himself to tell Merganzer he’d failed to pay the taxes. The Whippet Hotel was lost, or at least most of it.

Merganzer winked at Remi, then knelt down next to Leo and touched the underside of his chin, lifting Leo’s head. He looked into Leo’s eyes.

“Dear boy, don’t cry.”

And that did it. Leo did cry, just one tear that rolled down his cheek. Merganzer flicked the tear away with his gloved finger and smiled.

“But you don’t understand,” Leo said. “I lost the hotel. It’s gone.”

“You see there,” Merganzer said, glancing at Remi. “I always knew I picked the right man for the job.”

“I don’t understand.” Leo sniffed, frustrated that Merganzer wouldn’t listen. “I lost the hotel. Ms. Sparks owns it now. Don’t you see?”

“No, that’s not true. You only think it’s true.”

Leo felt butterflies in his chest.

Could it be?

Was it possible Merganzer had a plan Leo didn’t know about?

Merganzer D. Whippet looked at his watch, then pulled a key card out of his jacket pocket. Only it wasn’t a key card.

“All is well, I assume?” Merganzer said, talking into the card like it was a phone.

“All is well,” came a voice Leo and Remi knew. “And you? Dr. Flart and Ingrid will want to know — how are the Floogers and the zip rope working?”

“Very well, thank you. Please give them my best. And thank you, Karl, you’ve done well.”

“Anytime, sir. Anytime at all.”

“Better finish things up, the clock has struck twelve,” Merganzer said.

He put the key card back in his jacket and stood, staring down at the two boys.

They were speechless, and as Merganzer clapped his hands twice, the rope ladder unfurled out of the blimp.

“I can see you’re confused, as I suspected you might be,” Merganzer said. “Let’s get aboard the blimp, then I’ll tell you everything. Right-o?”

“Who’s driving?” Remi asked.

“George, of course,” Merganzer said. George Powell, his oldest and dearest friend, waved down from above as Merganzer went on. “It’s very good to have a wingman, don’t you think?”

Remi nodded, putting his arm around Leo. “It’s the best.”

Bewildered by the wonder of it all, Leo and Remi started climbing while things took shape on the ground below.

Ms. Sparks and Mr. Yancey, overcome with the sight of what was happening to the Whippet Hotel, had let the clock tick past midnight without completing their transaction. They’d marveled as the levels turned around and around, wondering what it could possibly mean. Then they’d seen the top of the Whippet Hotel rise into the air, carried away in the night sky.

An argument between two greedy people had then broken out.

“It’s worth a little less now, don’t you think?” Mr. Yancey had asked. “I mean, with the missing floor and all. What will we do if it rains? There’s no roof. And there must be some structural damage after all that . . .
spinning
.”

“Taxes are taxes, you buffoon,” Ms. Sparks had said. “We were going to rip it down anyway. Now it will be easier.”

“Still, it is one less floor,” Mr. Yancey persisted. He was a slave to his real estate sensibilities. “Has to count for something, one would think.”

“Are you deliberately ignoring me?” Ms. Sparks asked. “We’re going to knock it over anyway! Now we’ll have less rubble to deal with. It’s a bonus.”

Mr. Yancey had begun to dial his phone in search of his lawyer when Jane Yancey came running over with Loopa, the monkey. She’d placed the monkey in a toy stroller and dressed her in doll clothes.

“Daddy! This pet is sick. All it wants to do is sleep.”

Loopa had eaten twelve cupcakes, given to her by Jane Yancey, so she did have a stomachache.

“I’m busy right now, Jane. This will have to wait.”

“But it won’t wait! This is important!”

While Jane Yancey threw a fit, the long-stay guests — Captain Rickenbacker, LillyAnn Pompadore, and Theodore Bump — moved a little closer. So did Nancy Yancey and Mr. Phipps, who had been listening but acting as though they were not. They’d all come streaming out of the hotel as they figured out it was spinning in circles, and the gathering crowd did not suit Ms. Sparks one bit.

“Mr. Yancey!” she shouted. “Let us complete our transaction, shall we?”

Mr. Yancey, sensing the opportunity slipping from his hands, looked at his wife. She nodded —
Get on with it!
— and he took a sealed envelope from the jacket of his three-thousand-dollar suit.

Jane Yancey was stomping around her toy stroller yelling, “Sick monkey! Sick monkey!” over and over again with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.

“It’s a floor short of a hotel, but all right. My sealed bid is in the envelope,” Mr. Yancey said.

Ms. Sparks was beaming. She lifted her long fingers out toward the prize, thinking of a wrecking ball swinging through the air toward the Whippet Hotel.

“That won’t be necessary,” someone said. As fast as lightning — or so it seemed — a receipt was placed in Ms. Sparks’s outstretched hand.

“Mr. Carp?” Ms. Sparks said. He was flanked on one side by Dr. Flart and the other by Ingrid. Dr. Flart hadn’t been out of the dungeon in years. He was as pale as a ghost and wearing his mad scientist white jacket. Ingrid’s eyes zeroed in on Jane Yancey, who had gone suddenly quiet. And Mr. Carp, who had given Ms. Sparks the receipt, was covered in grease from his thick mustache all the way down to his grimy shoes,
like he’d been fixing gears for hours, which in fact he had been.

“Give me back my monkey,” Ingrid said. She was shorter than Jane Yancey, but no one stood between Ingrid and one of her animals. Jane was too terrified to speak and backpedaled into her mother’s arms. When Ingrid had Loopa in her arms, she smiled down at her, then turned on Jane Yancey.

“Never dress a monkey. Or give it treats. Understood?”

Jane nodded fast, leaning into her mother, who was mortified.