The Mapmaker and the Ghost(16)

He was just about to put the top slice of toast on his imaginary sausage, Swiss, pickle, and barbecue-sauce sandwich when Brains grunted, “We’re here.”

“Here” was another small room off of the main hallway. This one was bare except for some scattered rocks and a flashlight taped to the wall, which Brains switched on.

Brains pointed at the floor. “Sit down. You’re going to stay here. Quietly. Got it?”

Birch nodded and slowly lowered himself.

“Hold on,” Brains said and walked out of the room. A few moments later, he was back with a small pillow. “Here. The ground’s hard.”

“Thanks,” Birch said softly and repositioned himself so that he was sitting on the pillow. The ground was warm and he could hear a very faint gurgling sound coming from underneath it, almost like running water.

Brains then turned to Lint. “You are not to leave that front door. Got it? Not if you get hungry, tired, bored, I don’t care. You don’t leave until someone comes down to take over.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lint said glumly. “How come I get all the cruddy jobs?”

“Guarding this kid’s about the most important job we’ve got right now. Spitbubble should be here soon.”

Brains started up the corridor, and Lint stationed himself in front of the entryway, sitting so that his huge frame took up almost the entire opening. With his back to Birch, he immediately reached into his pocket and took out a pouch. From the pouch, he removed what looked like a large, fuzzy ball. Then, he pushed up his T-shirt and started to poke around in his navel. Birch watched as Lint’s hand finally emerged, holding a surprisingly large collection of belly button lint. With his other hand, Lint reached his pinkie into his ear and gave the finger two and a half strong rotations. The finger resurfaced with a thick glob of earwax. More delicately than Birch had seen him do anything else, Lint proceeded to use the earwax to add the new specimens to his ball.

“No-Bone, I need you to go back to the science museum one more time.” Brains’s voice suddenly came booming out of the very walls.

Birch was startled. The voice was definitely coming from upstairs, but the acoustics of the cavern worked in such a way as to make it sound like a PA system was broadcasting right into his little cell.

“But I already stole the keycard,” he heard No-Bone say.

“I know. And good work. But I need you to finish this camera diagram. I’m pretty sure we’re covered, but I want to be absolutely positive there won’t be any surprises tomorrow.”

There was the sound of rustling paper.

Birch glanced quickly over at Lint, who was still lovingly attending to his lint ball. He didn’t seem to be at all alarmed by the voices, or how clearly Birch could make out every word.

“You have to go,” Snotshot said sarcastically, “because Lint wasn’t able to do his only job today correctly. Shocking, I know.”

At this, Lint jerked his head up and looked toward the staircase. Birch could see an angry grimace on his face. But, moments later, he shook his head. Almost absent-mindedly, he picked up one of the rather large pieces of rock strewn about, and started to do bicep curls with his left arm, while continuing to roll the ball around with his right.

“It won’t take long,” Brains said.

“Okay, fine. I need to do a little shopping anyway,” No-Bone said.

“In case your plan doesn’t work, Brains,” Snotshot started, “I’m going to think of some ways to distract the guard once we’re in.”

“My plan will work,” Brains said coolly.

“Yeah, sure,” Snotshot said. “Still, just in case, I’ve thought of some good scenarios I can act out if we need to. You know, lost and scared little girl, dumb and confused little girl, that sort of thing. I’m good at improvising.”

“Improvising?” No-Bone asked.

“Yes. I used to be in the school plays, you know.”

“When were you ever in school enough to rehearse plays?” came No-Bone’s amused drawl.

“Shut up!”

Birch heard a loud thud that reverberated down the wall and into his whole back. Snotshot must pack a pretty mean punch.

“Ow! You’re crazy!” came No-Bone’s muffled reply.

Lint didn’t look particularly perturbed. He merely switched the arm doing the bicep curls.

From upstairs, Birch heard approaching footsteps and a different voice say, “I’m back.” It was the kid with the curly hair and monkey shirt.

“And I’m leaving,” No-Bone said as the sound of diminishing footsteps came through.

“What did you get, Toe Jam?” asked Brains.

There was silence for a bit. “Great. That should be worth a lot,” Brains said.

“Toulouse claims it’s been in my family for two hundred years,” Toe Jam said.

“Way to get back at the ’rents,” Snotshot’s snarky voice came through.

“Like they’ll notice. They haven’t noticed anything else yet.”

“That’s an astounding amount of neglect. You must be proud,” Snotshot said.

“Well, anyway, Spitbubble will be happy. He’ll probably bring it in to Barnes later,” Brains said.

“Talking about me? Behind my back?” came a new voice, this one much deeper than anyone else’s. The voice rolled around its consonants like heavy boulders, slowly and with great power.