“You Will Prosper in the Field of Wacky Inventions.”
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1 “You will prosper in the 2 3 field of wacky inventions.” 4 5 — Final words of New York business tycoon 6 Walter E. Whippet, spoken to his son, Merganzer 7 8 9 Merganzer Whippet was an impulsive young man of 10 fifteen when he raced into his father’s room just in time 11 to hear these fateful words. Merganzer had just finished 12 his tenth consecutive year of boarding school, during 13 which his father had been busy building a financial 14 empire. Needless to say, the two had never been close. 15 The words were not the sort of thing Merganzer’s 16 father was known for saying. People close to the old 17 man would have expected something like Buy cheap, 18 sell high! And whatever you do, don’t squander the fam- 19 ily fortune. But twelve seconds later, Walter E. Whippet 20 was dead. You will prosper in the field of wacky inven- 21 tions were the only words of advice Merganzer had been 22 given. 23 If only Merganzer had known they were spoken by 24 a man who’d been talking gibberish for weeks. S25 Things might have turned out differently. R26 997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd7569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd 1 1st Pass112/21/102/21/1 0Pages 99:29:35:29:35 AAMM MASTER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25S 26R 1st997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd756 9_Pass01_001-262 _Pagesr0nj.indd 2 112/21/102/21/10 99:29:39:29:39 AAMM MASTER 1 2 3 4 C HAPTER ONE 5 T O THE ROOF! 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Leo Fillmore awoke to the sound of snipping. It was 13 Mr. Phipps, the gardener, trimming and shaping the 14 bushes outside the small window, his ghostly shadow 15 moving across the basement walls. Every Monday at the 16 crack of dawn, Mr. Phipps trimmed outside Leo’s win- 17 dow, the echo of the shears like a voice that seemed to 18 say Wake up, wake up, wake up! 19 Leo sat up in bed and thought first of his mother’s 20 voice; then he thought of ducks and breakfast. After 21 that, he remembered the one thing he’d hoped to for- 22 get in his sleep: Merganzer D. Whippet, the owner and 23 creator of the Whippet Hotel, was gone. He’d been 24 gone a long time — one hundred days and counting — S25 and Leo was beginning to wonder if the man who’d R26 3 997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd7569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd 3 1st Pass112/21/102/21/1 0Pages 99:29:39:29:39 AAMM MASTER 1 built the most extraordinary hotel in the world would 2 ever find his way back. He tried to set this thought 3 aside as he watched Mr. Phipps’s shadow pass by. 4 Leo was a small boy of ten, with a sizable blob of 5 curly hair on top of his head. Were she still alive, his 6 mother would have cut it months ago. Sometimes Mr. 7 Phipps, who was quiet by nature, would look at Leo’s 8 head like a tall green hedge that needed trimming. 9 When Leo’s mother died, he and his father had 10 moved into the basement boiler room from which the 11 two of them took care of the Whippet Hotel. Three years 12 later, it felt like the only home Leo knew. They slept on 13 cots separated by a glugging Whirlpool washer. There 14 was a desk made of cinder blocks with an old door for 15 a top, piled high with tools and manuals and receipts. 16 The basement window let in soft light and shadows. 17 There were other, larger tools and boxes every where, 18 and shelves full of old doorknobs and hotel parts. In the 19 dampest, darkest corner of the basement sat a giant, 20 leaking boiler. 21 It may sound as if the basement of the Whippet 22 Hotel was a shabby sort of place to live, but it was cozy 23 and especially cool in the hot summer months. Leo 24 loved the warm sounds and smells, his threadbare blan- 25S ket, the tiny kitchen that folded down from one of the 26R walls, and the gulping boiler that never seemed to sleep. 4 1st997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd756 9_Pass01_001-262 _Pagesr0nj.indd 4 112/21/102/21/10 99:29:39:29:39 AAMM MASTER As Mr. Phipps moved on, the sound of snipping 1 growing softer outside the window, Leo tiptoed to the 2 coffee maker and the paint-splattered sink. Soon enough, 3 the coffee pot filled the basement with the rich smell 4 of morning, and Leo’s father started to stir. A few min- 5 utes later, Clarence and Leo Fillmore stood in their 6 pajamas before the call center, taking stock of the day 7 that lay ahead. The call center occupied all the space 8 above the makeshift desk, and it was but one example 9 of the strange and unusual things Mr. Whippet had cre- 10 ated throughout the hotel. There were bells and buzzers 11 and lights on the wall that flashed and spun. There 12 was a horn with brass pipes that twisted all along the 13 ceiling. There were dials, banks of buttons, and meters 14 with water pressure readings and temperatures. And in 15 the very center of it all was a shark’s head, its crooked 16 teeth smiling gleefully. Under the shark’s head was the 17 word Daisy, presumably the shark’s name. Daisy looked 18 as if she had come blasting through the wall and gotten 19 stuck there, forever cursed to deliver messages in the 20 Whippet Hotel basement. 21 “We’ve got about thirty seconds before she wakes up,” 22 said Clarence Fillmore, slurping the coffee and scratch- 23 ing the gray stubble on his chin. Daisy’s eyes were 24 closed as if she were in a dream, chasing a school of ter- S25 rified goldfish. “We’d better get out of these pajamas.” R26 5 997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd7569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd 5 1st Pass112/21/102/21/1 0Pages 99:29:40:29:40 AAMM MASTER 1 Leo knew better than to doubt his dad’s intuition. 2 Clarence Fillmore had an uncanny sense of timing when 3 it came to the Whippet Hotel and its many needs, so 4 Leo had already pulled on his maintenance overalls by 5 the time the first message arrived. 6 Daisy’s eyes opened wide and the sound of a ticker- 7 tape machine filled the basement. Lights blinked yellow 8 and green, a sign that whatever message Daisy was 9 about to deliver was not a catastrophe. If a water main 10 had burst or the air-conditioning had gone on the fritz, 11 there would have been a siren wail and red lights, which 12 were both very unpleasant at the crack of dawn. 13 A thin strip of white paper, like an endless fortune 14 out of a fortune cookie, curled out of Daisy’s mouth. 15 “Ms. Sparks, as I suspected,” Clarence said, ripping 16 the curling paper from the shark’s crooked teeth with 17 his big hand. “It wouldn’t be Monday morning at the 18 Whippet without her.” 19 Leo took one end of the long, curled strip of paper in 20 his hand and looked at it curiously. “I used to think Mr. 21 Whippet was in charge of the orders, even if they came 22 from someone else,” he said. “I guess I was wrong.” 23 Clarence Fillmore looked at his son and felt a little 24 sad for the boy. 25S “You know Mr. Whippet wouldn’t leave for good 26R without the ducks,” Clarence said. “Stay focused, Leo. 6 1st997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd756 9_Pass01_001-262 _Pagesr0nj.indd 6 112/21/102/21/10 99:29:40:29:40 AAMM MASTER It will take your mind off your troubles. And besides, 1 the last thing we need is Ms. Sparks breathing down 2 our necks all day.” 3 Clarence Fillmore was a big, lumbering man, often 4 slow to speak. Like a giant in the basement, he was con- 5 stantly ducking under pipes and ductwork. Leo had 6 long understood that these characteristics of his father’s 7 made some people think Clarence was a simple mainte- 8 nance man without much going on upstairs. Nothing 9 could have been further from the truth. Taking care 10 of a hotel, especially this hotel, required an encyclo- 11 pedic understanding of architecture, machinery, cooling 12 systems, heating systems, plumbing, duck control, and 13 a million other things. Without his dad on the job, Leo 14 suspected, the Whippet Hotel would probably keel 15 over within a week. 16 “A day without Ms. Sparks would be nice,” Leo said. 17 “Sometimes I wish she’d go on vacation and never 18 come back.” 19 Ms. Sparks, who had become more and more demand- 20 ing each day Mr. Whippet did not return, was the desk 21 clerk and general manager of the hotel. She had long 22 fingers for pointing out all the things Leo and his father 23 hadn’t done, and she wore an outrageous beehive hairdo 24 that seemed to say I am in charge here. Don’t cross me. S25 Whenever Ms. Sparks gave a command to the maid or R26 7 997569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd7569_01_001-262_r0nj.indd 7 1st Pass112/21/102/21/1 0Pages 99:29:40:29:40 AAMM MASTER 1 the gardener or anyone else, she leaned forward and 2 gave them the evil eye, her great head of hair teetering 3 over whomever she was ordering around, casting a dark 4 shadow.