Nine Lives Last Forever (28 page)

Monty and I stood at the foot of the stairs, struck dumb by what we’d just witnessed.

“Wa . . . wow!” Monty’s stuttered exclamation broke the awed silence. He rotated his head toward me and shrugged his shoulders questioningly.

I had no response for him; I’d never seen anything like it.

“Wrao,” Isabella ordered sternly, her eyes plastered on the stairs. Her tail whipped wildly back and forth, fanning the air above Rupert’s snoozing head.

“Here, Monty,” I said, turning off the flashlight and tucking it into one of the overall’s many pockets. “Help me carry this thing up the stairs.”

Monty grabbed one side of the cart while I latched on to the other. Together we hefted it up the stairwell, our progress closely monitored by Isabella, who switched from side to side to look down at the steps. Rupert rolled back and forth with the shifting equilibrium of the cart, never once opening his tightly shut eyelids.

We rounded the mezzanine and began the second half of the ascent. A croaking murmur, similar to the sound from the substructure, echoed off of the stone walls around us, drowning out the clumsy clunking of my footsteps.

Isabella draped her body over the edge of the cart. Her front legs slid down the outside as she surveyed the floor around us, checking for any straggling frogs that might have been left behind by the larger group.

The frog sounds continued to increase in volume as we reached the first floor, the crescendo resulting in a near deafening chant.

“Wrao,” Isabella called out insistently, urging us on.

I complied with her instructions and pushed the cart forward into a short tunnel-like foyer. A narrow slice of the rotunda could be seen through the opening on the opposite side, shining with a ghostly spectral glow.

Monty walked beside me, his earlier bravado diminished, his top hat trembling in his hands. The slapping of the flat soles of his dress shoes was barely audible over the energetic humming of the frogs.

We stepped out onto the pink marble of the rotunda. The colonnades and balconies above us were showered in moonlight streaming in through the ring of arched windows circling the dome’s false ceiling. The moon’s meager lighting amplified as it reflected off of the polished marble, throwing shadows that enhanced the shapes carved into the stone and plaster, giving darker, more menacing expressions to the frozen faces.

On the floor around us, a myriad of green forms dotted the radial designs spiraling out from the foot of the central staircase. The group of frogs we’d followed up from the basement was but a small fraction of the numbers populating the rotunda, milling on the pink marble, and slowly making their way up the staircase.

MONTY AND I
left the unwieldy cart in the center of the rotunda so that we could continue to follow the trail of frogs up the central staircase.

Isabella leapt out onto the pink marble floor, causing a scattering of frogs in the two feet of space surrounding her front feet. I carefully rolled the sleeping Rupert over and scooped him up into my arms. His mouth stretched open in a sleepy yawn that he cut short when he caught sight of the surrounding sea of frogs.

Familiar brown smudges were beginning to appear on the floor beneath the dome. City Hall, I thought, was going to need an extra cleaning crew in the morning.

Isabella started immediately up the stairs, continuing along the path of the frogs. I took a step forward to follow her, but suddenly stopped, perplexed.

“Monty?” I asked nervously. “Where are the security guards? Even if they weren’t at the front desk when you came in, shouldn’t there be at least one person on patrol in here
somewhere
?”

Monty shrugged, unconcerned. “They probably went out for a doughnut. I imagine it’s a pretty boring post most nights.” He waved his arms across the frog-filled expanse of the rotunda. “But wait until they get a look at this.”

It seemed awfully strange to me that this enormous frog invasion had so far gone unnoticed by anyone responsible for the upkeep or security of City Hall. Apprehensively, I began the climb up the central staircase.

Monty used his top hat to clear a path along the steps, fanning it at the frogs to usher them away from our feet. One slanted-eye look from Isabella was all it took to convince even the largest, most stubborn frog to step aside.

The frog numbers began to thin as we reached the Ceremonial Rotunda at the top of the staircase. Several frogs had gathered around the bronze bust of Harvey Milk as if it were a designated resting spot along their pilgrimage.

Monty paused to investigate the grouping around the bust, but Isabella cut him off with a herding blow to his calf.

“Wrao,” Isabella meowed sharply at him before setting off down the second floor hallway. Her tail waved in the air like a flag as she followed the dwindling numbers of frogs—the few who still had the fortitude to plod onward to their unknown destination.

“She’s even more eager than I am to find this stash of gold,” Monty said, glancing back at me.

I nodded grimly and wrapped my arms tighter around Rupert. I hadn’t yet voiced my concerns to Monty, but I had the sneaking suspicion that something else entirely might be waiting for us at the end of this odyssey.

I looked out over the railing to the open space of the rotunda as we continued around the second floor hallway. More and more frogs were coming up from the basement. The first floor seemed to be alive, thousands of individual movements coalescing into the single pulse of a massive green beast.

All along the hallway, we continued to pass frog after weary but determined frog. Some irresistible inner force seemed to be driving them forward.

At the opposite end of the second floor, just past the turnoff for the Mayor’s office suite, we trailed an exhausted but resolute frog to a side staircase leading to the third floor. Isabella crept up a few feet behind the frog as it hopped along the marble.

Once the frog entered the stairway, Isabella leapt past it and began trotting up to the third floor. Monty’s dress shoes skipped along behind her as I brought up the rear, still carrying Rupert in my arms. The group of us continued on, traveling ever higher within the upper reaches of the rotunda.

By the time Rupert and I stepped out onto the third floor corridor, Isabella and Monty had already keyed in on yet another pilgriming frog. This one was resting in front of a door marked “No Entry.”

The lock on the barred passage had been released. The door was cracked open a couple of inches, ample space for a frog’s width.

The frog scooted through the narrow opening as we approached. Isabella nosed at the crack, trying to wedge her head into the frog-sized space. Monty stepped up behind her, grabbed onto the handle, and swung the door wide.

Inside, a narrow stairway scaled skyward, lit only by an occasional bare lightbulb mounted onto the sides of rough stone walls.

“Up again,” Monty called out as Isabella hiked the stairs ahead, leaving the panting frog bested in a corner of the steps.

The already slim width of the staircase shrank further as the steps began to spiral in the ascent. The cramped walls of this off-limits section of City Hall were far less polished than the creamy stone balusters below. Dusty wooden panels and beams began to replace the marble siding.

There was only one possible direction for the path to take from here. Isabella hurdled up the steps, her pace now unhindered by frog escort. Monty huffed after her, struggling to keep her in sight.

Rupert and I trailed behind, the cumbersome bulk of Harold’s oversized construction boots and Sam’s rolled-up overalls slowing my navigation of the steps. But I couldn’t blame all of my slow pace on the burdensome clothes. A gnawing nervousness was growing in the pit of my stomach as we grew nearer to the end of the frog trail.

Several turns up from the third floor entrance, I passed the first firmly shut door I’d seen since the hallways in the basement. A sign mounted on the wall identified this locked passage as the entrance to the Whispering Gallery, the highest balcony visible from the floor of the rotunda.

I thought back to the wooden model of the dome in the ground floor display area and the spindly steps that stretched up into the dome-topping spire. We would soon be passing above the dome’s faux drop ceiling; the spire’s attic seemed our inevitable destination.

The spiral of the stairs tightened again as I continued to climb, the passageway constricting down into a throttling two-foot width. The lightbulbs were interspersed now at greater distances, so that the already dim lighting disappeared on the farthest corners of each turn. The stale, musty air trapped within the tubular staircase did nothing to diminish the sweat beading across my forehead.

I hadn’t seen Monty and Isabella for several minutes now. Even the dull thud of Monty’s footsteps had vanished into the stuffy atmosphere of this elevated hideaway. It was deadly quiet in the isolated upper heights of the dome.

Rupert dug his claws into the front fabric of the overalls as a
slap
,
slap
,
slap
accelerated toward us, signaling Monty’s return. His lanky body popped suddenly out from around the spiraled corner of the staircase, his hands awkwardly wrapped around Isabella’s middle as he held her at arm’s length to avoid her scratching claws. All four of Isabella’s feet stabbed out in protest as Monty descended the steps toward me.

“Come on,” he urged breathlessly. “You’re almost there.”

“What did you find?” I asked, observing the irritated expression on Isabella’s face.

“The attic,” Monty replied in a hoarse whisper. “Filled with, well, you’ll see.” He made an up-and-down motion with Isabella, as if he were trying to make a silencing signal. “But keep it quiet.”

Sucking in my breath, I hurried up the remaining steps. Rupert squirmed nervously in my arms as we cleared the last turn of the stairs. The climb terminated in a flat, open room at the base of a steepled spire—the building’s uppermost feature, situated above the crest of the dome.

A cool evening breeze filtered in through the many decorative arches and windows that ringed the gilded structure. Protective screens prevented a mass of pigeons on the surrounding circular balcony from entering the room. But the coolant of the fresh air and the stunning vastness of the city view could not draw my attention away from the oddity of the interior.

The room was cluttered with twenty or thirty glass aquariums. Each one had been plumbed so that it received a light trickle of water to feed the aquatic plants living inside. Resting under and alongside the plants was a nirvana of hundreds, if not thousands, of frogs.

The roof of each of the aquariums had been removed, facilitating easy access for the inhabitants. Every so often, a frog hopped up into the air, transferring itself from one tank to another.

Several burlap bags lined the floor beneath the tanks, each one filled with an assortment of frog-keeping paraphernalia. On the far side of the room, near one of the larger screened windows to the outside balcony, a narrow cot had been unfolded. An unrolled sleeping bag stretched out along the cot’s length.

A couple of books lay on a bench positioned next to the entrance. Three of the texts related to frog caretaking and maintenance. The fourth had a familiar shiny green cover; it was a collection of Mark Twain essays.

But the room’s most intriguing feature was seated right in front of us at a card table.

A redheaded man wearing dingy gray-striped overalls sat on one side of the table, carefully studying an array of cards fanned out in his hand. He appeared to be carrying on an animated conversation with the unoccupied seat across from him. The seat was empty except for a collection of cards, turned facedown, and a feathery orange mustache.

SAM SEEMED OBLIVIOUS
to our arrival; his eyes were fixed on his cards. His grubby fingers strummed the surface of the card table as he considered his options. At long last, he ran his tongue across his top lip and laid down a card faceup on the deck stacked in the middle of the table.

“Ha!” he cried out to the empty seat and the orange mustache. “I’ve got you now.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned broadly to his invisible opponent. “Let’s see you wiggle out of this one.”

Monty raised an eyebrow at me as he bent down to set Isabella on the floor. She quickly stepped away from him, snapping her tail into the air to communicate her offense at the undignified manner in which she’d been carried.

Monty cleared his throat and rapped his knuckles on the threshold of the entry, trying to draw Sam’s attention.

Sam glanced over at us, his expression welcoming and disturbingly unsurprised. “Hey there, Mr. Montgomery and, uh . . .” His face clouded, as if he were struggling to remember my name. He shrugged good-naturedly. “. . . and Monty’s friend. Nice to see you both.”

Sam laid his cards down on the table and pointed at Isabella, who was sniffing the aquariums, and Rupert, who I had shifted in my arms to try to block the “Sam” nametag on my overalls. “You know, cats aren’t allowed inside of City Hall.”

But frogs, apparently, were perfectly acceptable, I thought to myself.

Monty appeared to have had the same idea. He struggled to straighten a smirk from his face. “Please don’t tell on us, Sam,” he pleaded. “We brought them in for an after-hours tour, when no one else would see them.” The honest tenor of his voice was almost convincing. “They’re very well behaved, for cats.”

Isabella hopped up on one of the counters holding the aquariums and stuck her head inside the nearest tank. Monty looked at me beseechingly to intervene, but I motioned at Rupert, who I was afraid to put down lest I reveal the “Sam” nametag on my overalls. Monty replied with a sour look, threw his hands up in the air, and rushed over to grab Isabella. He received an annoyed “wrao” in return.