Story Time (28 page)

Cornelia broke off to laugh at her own joke.

George slipped back through the door, unnoticed. He walked casually through the crowd until he was standing next to Kate.

Kate whispered right away, "That has to be Jack, right?"

"Oh yeah. That's Jack."

Kate was baffled. "So, what happened to Cornelia? She didn't pick up a book. Did she?"

George shook his head and frowned. "No. Cornelia hasn't gone near a book."

"The last thing she did was go to the cooler. She saw the bodies. Right?"

"Right." George looked up at the sky. Then he looked back down at Kate with the answer. "Jack wasn't in a book! He was in Mrs. Hodges!"

Kate was appalled. "But she was dead!"

"So's Jack. He doesn't care. Do you remember when Airs. Hodges fell to the lobby floor? The
Mother Goose
book fell with her. Do you remember who picked it up?"

Kate racked her brain. "No."

George scanned the roof, looking for a possible answer. His gaze stopped at Ashley-Nicole. Kate looked in the same direction. They both gasped. There, on the top shelf of the book cart, was a manila envelope with a distinctive shape inside.

Dr. Austin raced out of the service elevator and looked around. The first thing he saw was his wife dressed in Cornell Whittaker Number Two's wizard robes. He turned to the stairwell and made eye contact with Ashley-Nicole. She patted the manila envelope and smiled at him.

Dr. Austin nodded and jerked his head several times in Cornelia's direction. Then he strolled over toward Agent McCoy and commented loudly, "Look at that, will you? She's wearing a wig. A funny baldness wig!"

Cornelia pointed to him. "We had so hoped that the roof would be ready this summer for a Story Time with phonics. Right, Dr. Austin?"

Dr. Austin nodded yes, rapidly, and smiled his toothy smile at Agent McCoy.

Cornelia thrashed the air angrily with the wand. "But then those three snoopy men, those construction workers, they slipped to their deaths. They delayed Dr. Austin's plans to tell you nice stories with nice phoneme-grapheme combinations." Her frown slowly turned into a smile. "And yet! All is not lost. For I will tell you a story like that today."

Cornelia looked at the First Lady. The First Lady smiled back, but she fidgeted in her seat. Cornelia adjusted her cap theatrically; she pretended to sharpen her wand, like a pool cue. Then she struck a dramatic Story Time pose, with her head back and her arms outstretched.

By now, Dr. Austin had heard enough. He gestured to Ashley-Nicole, pointing at the manila envelope. No one but Kate and George observed as Ashley-Nicole picked up the envelope and carried it over to him.

Cornelia began in a flamboyant tone, reminiscent of Walter Barnes during his first and only Story Time performance. "Today, we are doing the
m
sound. The
m
sound as in
magic
" She flourished the wand, and a plume of blue flame shot out of its tip, causing the audience members to gasp, Agent McCoy to stand up and place his right hand on his revolver.

Cornelia acknowledged the rapt attention of the crowd with a sly smile. "The
m
sound as in
mouse.
" She hunched over and pulled her hands inward, simulating a mouse eating cheese. Her voice got as high as it was able. "I'm a tiny little mouse! Squeak! Squeak!" Some of the children giggled.

Then the little mouse stopped eating. It seemed to expand and grow erect, to double or triple in size. Cornelia's voice dropped down, nearly as deep as her own. "The
m
sound as in
moose.
I'm a great big moooooose."

More of the children laughed. The First Lady, who had been smiling stiffly, turned toward the children and smiled naturally.

Then Cornelia stretched even taller, up toward the sky, like a moose on its back legs. She pantomimed looking for something in the heavens. "Where did it go? Where can it be? Is it too bright to see it? Ah, well, we shall have to make do. For our next
m
sound is the
m
sound in
moon!
"

Cornelia spun 180 degrees, pulled up her wizard's robe, and pulled down her drawers. She let out a high-pitched, demonic cackle while she shook her enormous posterior back and forth ten feet away from the First Lady's face.

Agent McCoy leaped between Cornelia and the First Lady, his revolver drawn. But he quickly lowered his weapon and looked away, completely flustered. He commanded, "Agent Pflaum, see to your charge!"

McCoy yelled to a group of four other agents, "Apprehend her!" The agents hesitated a moment, then threw themselves on top of Cornelia, pinning her to the ground and slapping four sets of handcuffs on her wrists and ankles. One agent managed to pull her robe back down as she cackled, over and over, "Jack and Jill went up the hill!"

In the midst of this chaos, Dr. Austin circled the squirming pile formed by his wife and the Secret Service agents. He carefully removed
Perrault's Mother Goose
from its envelope. Then he slid it under the pile, directly under his wife's face, and waited.

Almost immediately, her old voice returned. She started bellowing in outrage. "Get off of me! All of you! Get off of me!"

The agents managed to get enough of a grip on Cornelia to raise her three feet off the ground.

Dr. Austin, pretending to help them, yanked the book away and slid it back into its envelope. Then the agents started to carry Cornelia toward the service elevator, like a rescued whale. But Agent Pflaum, in scrambling to do his duty, tripped one of them, and the whole pile went crashing down again.

Kate and George ran to the stairwell. They saw Dr. Austin hand the envelope to Ashley-Nicole with the breathless words, "We got him. He's in here."

Ashley-Nicole replied, "Okeydokey. I'll take this down to the target area. You and Daddy bring the cart when you're ready." She took the envelope and walked quickly to the exit.

Dr. Austin spun around, panting wildly, and beheld the scene on the roof: Four Secret Service agents were struggling to hoist his wife up again and drag her away; Agent Pflaum and Rosetta Turner were forming a human shield around the First Lady; the Lincoln Band members, the Juku Warriors, and the guest families were staring, transfixed, at the epic struggle to subdue Cornelia.

Dr. Austin ran to a spot in front of the First Lady's group. He shouted at the top of his lungs, "I can explain this. All of this has a simple explanation. Here is the simple explanation." Dr. Austin froze in the position of a man about to speak, but no words came from his mouth.

Rosetta Turner brushed past him and marched across the roof on a mission. She announced, to everyone, "I am going to find out what is going on here!" She grasped the lid of the cooler and threw it open. Then she leaned back and gasped, "Oh lordy."

Agent McCoy ran to her side. He took one look and made a command decision. "That does it!" He spun around. "Agent Pflaum, listen to me. Take the First Lady, find a vacant room, and hide her in it! We're getting her out of here."

Rosetta slammed the lid of the cooler. She hurried over to the edge of the rooftop and looked down at the throng of reporters and TV crews. She called out, "Wait a minute. What are you doing?"

Agent McCoy punched at a cell phone. "I'm canceling the rest of this visit. I want the helicopter. Now."

"Hold on. Please. There are fifty reporters down there. We can't give them a big panicky scene to broadcast on the six o'clock news."

Agent McCoy pointed at the First Lady, retreating down the stairwell on the arm of Agent Pflaum. "We're
not
staying on this roof."

Rosetta whispered to him, "I don't know what, in god's name, is going on here. And neither do you. So let's just take a few more minutes to find out. We can't leave here without some answers."

McCoy walked over and glanced down at the swarming press corps. He looked back at Rosetta and tacitly agreed.

Dr. Austin and Bud approached, both smiling. But before either could utter a word, Agent McCoy demanded to know, "Tell me, Doctor, why do you have dead people in a cooler over there?"

"What?" Dr. Austin sputtered. "Oh, that! Why, that is just a mistake. A ghastly mistake. You see, Dr. Cavendar is the county coroner. He keeps bodies here sometimes, as evidence. This is a county building, you know. Those are his bodies."

McCoy pushed past them without another word, followed by Rosetta Turner. They entered the waiting service elevator, closed the doors, and started down.

Dr. Austin spoke through clenched teeth. "Now's our chance, Bud. Let's get downstairs. Ashley-Nicole is waiting." They ran toward the stairwell, toward Kate and George. Dr. Austin yelled, "You two! Quick! Hold that door open!"

Kate and George jumped to the task. The two men picked up either side of the black book cart and carried it carefully down the stairs between them.

While all this was going on, the rest of the people on the roof hadn't moved an inch. June and Mrs. Brennan remained in the seats they had occupied throughout the entire bizarre proceedings. Molly had joined them right after her band performance. William Anderson, to Molly's chagrin, had joined them after Susan Singer-Wright sent him upstairs.

Kate now sprinted over to them, followed by her uncle. She announced with great excitement and with great import, "Let's go! Something big's about to happen! Follow us!"

June, William, Molly, and Mrs. Brennan hopped to their feet, not at all sure of what Kate had said, but sure that they wanted to follow her. The six of them hurried across the black cinders toward an aluminum mushroom cap.

Kate bent back the top of the mushroom cap. She, George, Molly, and William dived quickly onto the ladder rungs, like rabbits down a hole. Mrs. Brennan hesitated. Kate called from the bottom, "Hurry, before they get here!"

Mrs. Brennan looked fearfully at June. June said, "I'll go ahead of you, Mrs. Brennan. You stay one rung behind me. That way I can steady you all the way."

Mrs. Brennan nodded to June and struggled onto the ladder after her. They descended the eight rungs in tandem and stepped off into Kate's welcoming grasp.

The three then entered through the rotating door and joined George, William, and Molly, crouching behind the low bookcase.

The first thing Kate noticed was the new plastic shield. It curved from their bookcase to the other side of the room, a see-through semicircle eight feet high and four inches thick. "Uncle George," she whispered. "What is that thing?"

"That's the protective shield they were talking about. It's some space-age NASA plastic. Sorry, that's redundant."

Kate's eyes then fell on the opened trunk and the long blond hair piled around it. "Look! Over there!"

They all craned forward to see the piles of hair, but then froze in place at a sharp sound. The door to Cornell Whittaker Number Two's office had just opened. Kate hissed, "Everybody down."

The six intruders crouched behind the bookcase. Only Kate dared to lean to her left and peer out.

The door to the secret room opened shortly after, held by Dr. Austin, and Ashley-Nicole wheeled the black cart inside. The manila envelope sat on the top of the cart. She was followed by Bud Wright, who panted after her in a voice filled with fear, "You be careful there, honeybun."

Ashley-Nicole answered without a care. "Oh, Daddy!" She steered the cart around the shield and parked it in front of the antique desk.

Then she cinched a piece of white twine to the base of the cart and backed away slowly, unrolling the twine as she went. She backed all the way around the shield and halted at its far end, directly in front of the Laser Cannon.

Ashley-Nicole turned a handle on the Laser Cannon. The weapon rose up, like a submarine periscope, until the muzzle of the cannon cleared the top of the shield. Then she flipped a switch and the silver-and-black weapon hummed to life.

She told her father and Dr. Austin, "It only takes thirty seconds to warm up. But remember, it takes a full ten minutes to cool down."

Dr. Austin repeated her words, as if trying to memorize them. "Ten minutes to cool down."

Ashley-Nicole smiled. "Okay, Dr. Austin, let's activate your son's tracking device."

Dr. Austin seemed genuinely puzzled. "What?"

"Didn't your son, Whit, install the tracker in the Laser Cannon?"

"No. Not at all. His mother got the Technon people to install it and put his name on it."

Now it was Ashley-Nicole's turn to look puzzled.

Dr. Austin explained simply, "He's no
you,
Ashley-Nicole. He's not even a
me.
"

Kate stole an angry glance at George.

Dr. Austin said, "All I care about now is that this weapon works. Do you think it works?"

"If Technon invented it, it should work."

"But it didn't work at the science fair."

"Oh, I know why. I recalibrated the tracking mechanism. They weren't off by much." Ashley-Nicole flipped open the protective metal box that housed the red button. She asked her father, "Would
you
like to push it, Daddy?"

Bud stammered, "No. No, let's get this crazy thing over with. This is plumb loco."

Dr. Austin agreed. "Yes, please, Ashley-Nicole. If you can make this work, we may have time to save the day. The First Lady's still in the building. She's scheduled to be here for another hour. Please, hit that button."

Ashley-Nicole smiled her brightest smile, said, "Okeydokey," and pressed it.

The Laser Cannon's tracker rotated slowly toward the antique desk. Ashley-Nicole picked up the white twine, waited for the right moment, and tugged it, causing a sudden movement of the black book cart.

The Laser Cannon whined softly and emitted a thin red light. The light landed on the manila envelope. It vaporized the thick paper immediately, in a puff of black smoke, leaving the book laid bare on the cart.

Dr. Austin leaned forward, breathless, and stared at the book:
Perrault's Mother Goose,
first London edition, estimated value $50,000.

Three seconds later, the book ignited, too. It seemed about to disintegrate, just like the envelope, but before it could, something within it stirred. Something within it was alive and was trying desperately to get out.