The Mystery of Silas Finklebean (2 page)
“I’m cool, little dude. Lucky I didn’t hit my head and mess up my big brain.”
“Yeah, lucky,” said Ziggy as they continued down the windy passageway.
Theodore, who, unlike Wally, had two large computer chips for
his
brain, said, “I calculate that the direction of this tunnel is running north by northeast at precisely forty-five degrees.”
“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Freddy. “That means it’s headed toward the Patty Cakes restaurant.”
Wally rubbed his huge hands together and sniffed the air. “Yummy. I thought I could smell all that grease frying.”
Ziggy grabbed Freddy’s pants leg. “Uh, Freddy, can we get out of here now? It’s sort of, well, spooky down here.”
Wally reached down and picked up the little yellow Fry and put him on his broad shoulders. “Not to worry, little papoosie, nothing’s gonna get you while big Wally’s around.”
Just then they heard a loud squeaking noise from the direction they were headed.
“AAAAAHHHHH!”
Freddy was knocked down and lost the flashlight, which went out, plunging them into darkness.
“Ouch!” cried out Ziggy amid lots of scuffling.
Curly mumbled, “Wouldwhoeveritisplease-getoffme?”
Si said, “Boy, I’ve always wondered what it felt like to be smashed to a pulp.”
“We’re all going to die, and I’m first in line,” yelped Meese.
Freddy finally found the flashlight and turned it back on.
“Wally!” he said in a scolding tone.
The purple Fry had jumped on top of Howie and the other Fries while still holding Ziggy on his shoulders, causing Ziggy to hit his head on the ceiling.
Wally looked sheepish as he climbed down. “I went up there for a better look.”
“Come on, guys,” said Freddy. “We need to see where this passageway goes.”
They cautiously moved along until they reached a doorway.
“Go ahead and open it,” said Si. “I bet there’s a million bucks just waiting on the other side for us to grab.”
“No,” said Meese frantically, “that’s where the monsters are, I’m telling you.”
Theodore was examining the door. “It appears to be locked.”
Freddy pulled a small device from his pocket.
“Is that a new invention?” asked Howie.
Freddy nodded. “The Wriggle-Jiggle. It’ll take care of that lock.” The Wriggle-Jiggle was a coiled piece of copper wire attached to a small power pack. Freddy put it in the lock, turned on the power, and the wire wound in and around the lock tumblers, pushing them to their open position. They heard a loud
click,
and the door swung open.
“Pretty cool, Freddy,” said Si.
“Thanks. I use it to get into my sister’s room and mess things up.”
Carefully making their way through the door, they headed down a short hallway. Here, the passageway seemed to come to a dead end, until Curly pointed up and mumbled, “Lookslikeatrapdoor-intheceiling.”
Freddy stood on Wally’s shoulders and slowly pushed against the door. To his surprise, it opened a few inches. Freddy peered through the crevice and gasped. He was staring directly into the office of Stewie Spanker, the owner of Patty Cakes.
Stewie Spanker was so porky that he could barely fit in the chair behind his enormous desk. He was wearing a pink jumpsuit emblazoned with the Patty Cakes logo, and a plastic hat in the shape of a triple-decker hamburger and huge slice of pink cake — and he didn’t look very happy.
Then Freddy noticed Stewie wasn’t alone. Standing to the side of the desk was Stewie’s son, Adam, who looked like a smaller version of his father.
“I still can’t believe the Funkies won the float competition,” Adam was saying.
“Don’t remind me,” roared Stewie Spanker. “I spent a ton of money having that float built. And we’ve lost lots of customers to those wackos. Who in the world would’ve thought people would actually eat food that was good for them? And
like
it!” He pointed a plump finger at his son. “Now we have to get back at them for that. You’re smart, Adam. You can think of a way, can’t you?”
While not a very bright boy, Adam had a certain talent for coming up with ways to cause trouble. “I’ll think of something, Pop, and when I do” — he smacked a beefy hand into a thick palm — “Whammo! No more Funkhousers to bug us.”
“I knew I raised you right,” said his father, smiling.
“I’ll report back here tomorrow at the same time with my plan,” said Adam. “Hey, what was that?” he said suddenly, looking around.
Ziggy had sneezed and the sound had carried into the office. Freddy quickly lowered the trapdoor and they all held their breath. A long minute passed and then Freddy eased the trapdoor up a fraction of an inch and peered through.
He saw Adam leaving the office. Breathing a sigh of relief, Freddy lowered the door and got off Wally’s shoulders.
“So what’d you hear, Freddio?” asked Si.
Freddy quickly told the gang about the Spankers’ scheme.
“So we simply return tomorrow at the same time and we’ll discern all the details of his nefarious plan,” said Theodore.
“We can’t do that,” said Wally. “We have to be here listening to the yucky stuff they’re going to do to us.”
Ziggy exclaimed, “That’s what he just said, Wally!”
“Okay, guys,” said Freddy, “tomorrow we’ll be back. Once we hear their plan, we’ll be ready to beat them at their own game.”
“Uh, Freddy,” said Howie, “every time we get mixed up with the Spankers, bad things tend to happen. Like, to
us.
”
“Don’t worry,” Freddy said confidently as they walked back through the door. “It’ll be different this time.”
But halfway down the hallway Freddy stopped suddenly.
“I don’t remember there being another door here,” he said, pointing at a small black door across from them.
Freddy tried the doorknob, but it was locked. He pulled out his Wriggle-Jiggle, yet before he could insert it in the lock, the door swung open.
“YEOW!” said Wally as he jumped on top of Theodore, flattening the blue Fry.
“Ho-how di-did that ha-hap-pen?” Freddy stammered.
There was a flash of light, and the next thing they knew, they were running for their lives. They raced down the hallway, through the hole, into the basement of the Burger Castle, up the steps, out the front doors, across the drawbridge, and onto the street.
Stopping to catch his breath, Freddy’s mind was whirling so fast he could barely understand what he was thinking. As his head cleared, Freddy was sure of one thing. There had been a man down there, dressed in what looked to be clothes from a very long time ago. He had looked right at Freddy. His mouth was open and he seemed to be trying to say something, but all that came out was one long moan.
And that wasn’t all.
The man had lights flashing all around him. And he had been hovering at least two feet OFF the ground!
THEODORE’S COCONUTDUMDUM
At the slightly run-down Funkhouser farm, Freddy, Howie, and the Fries dashed into one of the old barns far from the old two-story house. Freddy pulled a hidden lever and the floor opened under them, and they all fell about ten feet and landed in a soft pile of hay. They were now in Freddy’s underground lab.
“I need to fix that,” Freddy reminded himself as he pulled hay out of his navel.
“I wif ud ix it tu,” mumbled Howie, spitting hay out of his mouth.
“Stairs might be in order,” pronounced Theodore as he put back on his glasses.
Wally slowly stood and looked sheepish. “Uh-oh,” he moaned. Under him was Ziggy, flat as a pancake.
“Sorry, little papoosie,” he said, prying Ziggy off the ground. “For such a skinny guy, I actually weigh a lot. It must be heavy bones.” As he attempted to help Ziggy up, he accidentally hit the yellow Fry in the back of the head. Ziggy’s arms, legs, and face immediately fell off.
“I hate when it does that,” cried out Meese. “It’s disgusting to have body parts all over the floor.”
“Boy, I wish my face and arms and legs fell off like that,” declared Si.
“Hey, that’s
my
arms and legs you’re talking about too,” said Meese. “And I want them all to stay right where they are.”
Freddy kicked Ziggy in the butt, and all Ziggy’s parts flew back on. “I gotta fix that too,” Freddy reminded himself.
The Fries had set up their living quarters in Freddy’s lab, and so there were five bunk beds on one side of the wall.
Freddy and the gang all gathered around Freddy’s long lab table, which was crammed with equipment and gadgets that he was working on.
“Okay, guys, did you see what I saw in the room?” he asked.
They all looked at each other and then at him, and one by one they slowly shook their heads.
Howie explained, “You were standing in front of me, so I couldn’t see anything that was in that room.”
“Yeah, you started screaming and yelling and took off running, so we just followed you,” said Si.
“That’srightIwasscaredbecauseyouwerescared,” mumbled Curly.
“What did you observe that petrified you so comprehensively?” asked Theodore.
“Maybe he should tell us what scared his pants off first, Teddy,” said Wally.
“THAT’S WHAT HE JUST SAID, YOU BIG PURPLE DOUGHBALL,” cried out Ziggy, who was still obviously upset at being smashed flat.
“Well,” said Freddy, “I saw a man wearing really old clothes. And he was moaning. And that’s not all. He was also
floating
in the air.”
The others stared at him dumbfounded, while Theodore scratched his blue chin. “That is quite a conundrum,” he said.
“I
love
cocunutdumdums,” said Wally excitedly. “With the little marshmallows, and whipped cream. Dee-licious.”
“A conundrum,” explained Theodore, “is a puzzle, a mystery that needs to be solved. It has nothing to do with coconuts, marshmallows, or whipped cream, my fine purple friend.”
Wally looked crestfallen. “Bummer, blue dude.”
They watched as Theodore’s eyes spun in his blue head, a sure sign that he was thinking with maximum computing power. At last he said, “If you saw a man dressed in clothes from a long time ago, and he was floating in the air and moaning, and it wasn’t simply a hallucination, then I think you may have been witness to an apparition of supernatural composition.”
“That would’ve been my guess,” agreed Wally, but then he looked puzzled. “Uh, what exactly did you just say?”
“I exactly said that I believe Freddy saw a ghost.”
“A GHOST!” screamed Wally, jumping up in the air and hitting his head on the ceiling before falling back to the floor and rubbing his noggin.
Theodore nodded. “I have just now made a comprehensive evaluation of my databases and that is the only conclusion that conforms to the evidence now available.”
Wally proudly announced, “I, too, made a com … a compr … uh, a eval … er, vul, uh, a …” He suddenly smiled and restarted with confidence. “I made a constipated evacuation of
my
ductwork and that’s what I think too.”
Theodore said, “I think we need to do some research into the actual history of the Burger Castle.”
“Howie and I can go to the town library tomorrow after school,” replied Freddy.
“But Freddy,” said Howie, “we have to get busy on the science competition. We don’t even have a project picked yet.”
“Howie, if Theodore is right and it was a ghost I saw, that would make a terrific science project. If we could discover its source, we could maybe solve one of the greatest mysteries of all time. We’d be a lock to win the competition.”
As Freddy was going to sleep that night, all he could think about was what he’d seen. Had it been a ghost? If so, whose ghost was it? And why was it at the Burger Castle? It was both scary and exciting.
As he finally drifted off to sleep, Freddy hoped tomorrow brought some answers.
THE MYSTERY OF SILAS FINKLEBEAN
After school the next day, Howie and Freddy rode their bikes to the town library.
“Don’t forget, Freddy, we have to register for the science competition as soon as we’re done here,” reminded Howie.
Inside the library, they passed a big banner that had been hung across one wall. It read:
HAVE A QUESTION? IT’S “ASK A LIBRARIAN” WEEK
.