CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Leaving the office, Uchenna, the professor, and Elliot found themselves in a long narrow hallway, with other hallways branching off in various directions. They stopped.

“I think the basement’s this way,” Uchenna whispered, pointing to her left.

“No,” said Elliot. “We need to go right, right, left, downstairs, left, right, then through a big door.”

“What? How do you know that?” Uchenna asked.

“It was right there on the plans!”

Uchenna looked at Professor Fauna. The professor just shrugged and followed Elliot to the right.

The twists and turns of the hallway happened just as Elliot said. Right, right, left, then down a staircase. The group’s footsteps echoed on the linoleum floors. Elliot wished they could move more quietly. Uchenna peeked around corners and into empty rooms, checking for lurking guards. Professor Fauna was pulling his beard nervously and muttering to himself. Jersey was snoring in his backpack. Elliot couldn’t decide who was more useless, Professor Fauna or Jersey.

They reached the basement. Elliot led them left, down a narrow hallway, and then turned right.

At that point, Elliot expected to find the doorway to a giant room containing the herensuge, but instead they entered a cozy library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, overstuffed leather chairs, and a fire roaring in the fireplace.

The room was clearly decorated by someone with expensive taste and too much money. On the mantel was a candelabra with seven white candles. On the far wall, a giant painting of an old man glowered at them with cold, glittering eyes. He looked like a king—or at least like he behaved like one. He had one hand resting on a globe, while the other held a cigar. The gold nameplate on the ornate frame simply read: SCHMOKE.

The room was deserted, but two tiny glasses on the table—half full of pale yellow liquid—indicated that someone had been there quite recently.

“This can’t be right!” whispered Elliot. “The map said this would be a big room with incredibly robust fire safety.”

“Are you sure you remembered the right route?” Uchenna wondered. “Maybe it was right, left, right downstairs, right, left? Or right, left, downstairs, left, right, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Elliot. “I can picture the map in my mind. There should be a big door exactly—HMPH!”

Just then, Professor Fauna grabbed both children, smothering their mouths with his big hands, and yanked them against a wall. They tried to struggle, but he kept their heads pinned to his chest. Uchenna grabbed his arm and tried to pull it away, but he was too strong. Elliot shimmied to the left and right, but the professor held him tight.

This was it.

They had flown in an airplane with a weird social studies teacher to the Basque Country, without telling their parents, gone with him into the basement of an empty pharmaceutical plant, and now this was the end. Of course it was.

Elliot began to whimper.

“¡Mala palabra!” Professor Fauna hissed. “Be quiet, children! And stay still!” He yanked them behind a piece of mahogany furniture and shoved them to the ground.

As they hit the plush carpet, the children saw the fireplace sliding sideways and heard voices echoing . . . from inside the fireplace.