SCOVILLE MANOR WAS A SHORT BIKE RIDE AWAY FROM Archer’s home. To say that it sat on a hill was quite an understatement. It dominated the hill. It consumed the hill. Even the scraggly, dark trees in its yard refused to grow as tall as the old building’s main spire.
Archer parked his bike at the bottom of the hill. He snapped his fingers twice. “They’re creepy and they’re kooky. They’re absolutely spooky . . .”
No, he thought. The Addams Family would be afraid to live here.
The Victorian mansion looked as if the builders got carried away and forgot where the structure was supposed to end. All dark wood siding, irregularly shaped windows, and dragon-scale shingles—Scoville Manor was a sight to behold. There were three stories, two broad gabled roofs, two tall brick chimneys, some kind of attic sub-roof, and a widow’s walk. Oh, and the spire had a dark, wrought-iron weather vane in the shape of a galloping horse.
Archer trotted up the hill via a set of wide stone stairs. Then six more traditional wooden steps to the front porch. As he expected, they creaked with every step. He pushed the doorbell and heard a melodic chime that reminded of him of something, though he couldn’t quite remember what it was. Besides, the moment the bell sounded, there was an explosion of barks, yaps, and chittering.
“Leapin’ loogies!” Archer exclaimed, taking a step back from the door. “He’s got a zoo in there.” The front door swung open, groaning on its hinges at a consistent, slow speed. And there was no one standing there.
“O-kay,” Archer muttered, stepping backward almost to the point of teetering on the porch’s edge.
There came a shriek, a blur of motion, and a tremendous thud. It was all Archer could do to keep from falling backward down the stairs. There stood Rigby just inside, grinning.
“Got ya!” he shouted. “You should’ve seen the look on your face. Sheesh, Keaton, you’re quite the jumpy one.”
Archer laughed at himself. “Yeah, well, next time you plan on doing that, give me a heads-up so I can bring an extra pair of boxers.”
Rigby smirked. “Come on in,” he said, leading Archer between a staircase and a sitting room and into a kitchen. The interior wasn’t nearly as neo-Gothic-haunted. It was actually quite modern, especially the kitchen, which was all brushed silver appliances, spice racks, and high-end cookware. It looked like something out of that cable cooking show: Master Chef, or The Iron Spatula, or whatever it was called.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Rigby asked. “A snack? You got here pretty fast after school. Can’t imagine you ’ad much time to eat at ’ome.”
“That’s okay,” Archer said, though his stomach was rumbling.
“You sure?” Rigby asked. “My mom left a bunch of those huge gourmet cookies. You know, the thick ones with hunks of chocolate instead of chips?”
Archer changed his tune instantly. “Well, a few of those couldn’t hurt.”
“That’s the spirit,” Rigby said. He went to the refrigerator, which looked to Archer like it could double as a guest room, and took out a gallon of milk. He poured two glasses, set them on the table, and came back with a platter of gigantic cookies.
“Uh,” Archer said, “do we eat these or play catch with them at the beach?”
“I know, right?” Rigby said, digging in.
They munched cookies in relative silence, but it was an awkward thing. They exchanged glances, and Archer thought Rigby had a bit of a scientist-thing going on. Archer felt like he was being analyzed . . . measured. It was unsettling.
“Where are your folks?” Archer asked.
Rigby blinked. “Dad’s out of town. He’s a currency exchange specialist for investors, venture capitalists, that sort of thing.”
“Venture capitalists?”
“Bunch of rich guys who don’t know what to do with their obscenely large piles of money. So they look for poor inventors willing to give up the rights to a great new idea for a bunch of cash.”
“Ah,” Archer said. “And your mom?”
“At the tennis club,” Rigby replied. “As usual.” He drained his glass. “Guess we best get to it then, eh?”
Archer finished his glass and nodded. He wondered how to bring up the knife-flower incident. Maybe not just yet.
The basement stairs emptied into a T-shaped hallway. Rigby led Archer to the right, but Archer couldn’t help glancing to the left. It was a short stub of a path drenched in shadows, with a single formidable-looking door at the end. Archer swallowed and said a silent prayer that there wouldn’t be any animals he needed to take care of behind that door. He shuddered and turned his attention quickly back to following Rigby.
The smell hit Archer first. It was a combination of dry straw, mulch, dog food, and stale poop. When Rigby turned a corner, the yips, yelps, barks, and cries began again. “Yes, yes,” Rigby said, “we’ve come to feed you. You can calm down now.”
When Archer turned the corner, he stopped walking and found himself staring down the first of several aisles of cages, pens, hutches, and other pet enclosures. “Snot rockets!” Archer exclaimed. “You have a pet store down here.”
“It was a passion of my late Uncle Scovy,” Rigby said. “He collected rare and exotic pets for quite some time. We didn’t have the heart to get rid of them. Come see.”
Archer strolled down the aisle and gaped at almost every cage. A huge pair of golden brown eyes stared up at Archer from a network of branches and leaves. The eyes belonged to a fist-sized clump of fur with floppy triangular ears, a tiny peach-colored nose, and skinny knob-knuckled fingers. “What on earth is this thing?”
“Ha. Actually, it’s not found on earth,” Rigby said, retracing his steps. “Well, not many of them, anyway. This is a pygmy tarsier, quite rare, actually. We call him Herby. Now, take a look at his neighbor.”
The next pen held a cross between a mop and a gray wig . . . with really dark eyes and a twitching nose. “Is . . . is this a rabbit?” Archer asked.
“Angora rabbit,” Rigby said. “Folks in some countries make hats out of them. But not old Flops here.”
The tour continued, revealing a squat creature with a tapered snout. Its shell was covered in a mixture of yellow and rose-colored scales. It scurried when it saw Archer and began burying itself in the thick straw of the crate.
“A pink fairy armadillo,” Rigby said. “But you can call him Tex.”
“Oh, man! Kaylie would love this thing!” Archer said.
“Who’s Kaylie?” Rigby asked.
“My little sister. She is completely nuts over animals, especially cute ones.”
“You should bring her with you tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Sure,” he said. “Most of these beasties crave attention, well, except Tex there. He’s shy.”
Even in a zoo, Archer had never seen so many strange and interesting animals. In the Dream, sure, but never in the waking world. Rigby’s family had a lemur, a tapir, a fennec fox, a sand cat, and even a red panda. There were dozens of animals, some quite cute and others, not so much.
“You sure you want to do this?” Rigby asked. “Now that you’ve seen how many there are?”
“Bet’s a bet,” Archer said. “So how do I take care of them all?”
Rigby grinned. “You have no idea what a relief it will be to not have to do this for a few days.” He patted the top of a hutch, and the two gray ferrets that had been tangling inside instantly separated and darted away to hide. “Okay then, the one thing they all have in common is that they need water . . .”
So began an intensive half hour of curious creature care. Aside from the universal water need, these animals had completely peculiar diets: everything from premanufactured food pellets to tiny frozen mice to bamboo leaves. And, of course, there was the matter of cleaning out the cages.
Some of the pens had little trays that slid out from under to allow relatively easy dumping of critter poop, but others were much more complicated. A few required Archer to physically climb into a pen to get at the offensive animal droppings. Once, a lemur named Sherlock got hold of Archer’s dark red hair and started to chew on it. That had been mildly alarming, but a sweet-natured female barn owl made up for it by perching on Archer’s shoulder. She seemed perfectly content to ride there while Archer did his rounds.
“Whoa, Doctor Who really likes you,” Rigby said. “She’s normally pretty shy.”
“Reminds me of Razz,” Archer muttered half to himself as he admired the beautiful bird.
“Who’s Razz?”
“Uh . . . just an old pet of mine.”
Rigby raised an eyebrow. “What kind of pet?”
Archer didn’t know what kind of creature she was. She was just Razz. But Rigby was waiting for an answer, and it would seem odd not to know. “Kind of a flying squirrel,” Archer said.
“Really? Well, that’s one creature we’ve never had here.” He paused thoughtfully for a few moments. “I suppose that’s pretty much it. You good? I’ve got a bit of running around to do. You don’t have to lock the door when you go.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, why?” Rigby asked. “You’re okay down here, right?”
Archer frowned. “Well yeah, sure. Doctor Who and I can handle things.”
“Right, then,” Rigby said. “See you tomorrow in school.”
“Uh . . . hey, Rigby?”
“Yeah?”
“The other day, during the fight,” Archer said, “I saw you do something.”
Rigby’s smile vanished for a split second, but then it was back. “Oh, oh, that’s Krav Maga,” he said. “It’s Israeli martial arts, actually a combination of all kinds of—”
“Not your fighting style,” Archer said. “Not really. Some of the strikes were the fastest I’ve seen, but I’m talking about what you did to the knife.”
That took care of the smile. “I didn’t do anything to the knife,” he said. “I never touched it, and Mr. Booring or whatever his name is took it.”
“How’d you do it?” Archer asked. “How’d you turn the knife into flowers like that?”
Rigby laughed. Hard. “Look, Archer, I don’t know what you think you saw . . .” His voice trailed off. His eyes flicked back and forth, and he frowned. Then, the smile was back. “Listen, I’ve got to get going, but . . . ah, tell ya what. I’ve got a club going here at school. That’s where I’m headin’ now. Maybe you could come sometime, and maybe we could talk about what you think you saw.” He didn’t wait for Archer to answer. He turned and walked away.
Archer listened to Rigby’s retreating footsteps in the hall, on the stairs, and then somewhere overhead. After that, other than the nonstop chattering of the animal kingdom, Rigby’s house was silent.
Club? What did Rigby mean by that? Then, Archer laughed as a new thought occurred to him. Son of a gun, he’s starting a magic trick club. That’s how he did it. Man, he’s fast. It made sense now. Given how quick Rigby could throw a punch or strike, it was clear that he’d used that speed to switch the flowers with the knife.
No, Archer thought. Part of his mind wasn’t ready to let that slide. I’m not buying that. It’s not like Rigby was carrying flowers around all day just in case he could switch them with someone.
There wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment, so Archer set to work. It gave him time to think about something besides Rigby Thames. So many variables paraded through his mind: the puzzle box, Bezeal, the confession to Master Gabriel, Kara Windchil’s most recent attitude changes, the ever-increasing number of breaches in the Dream, the missing Dreamtreaders, the mysterious Windmaiden, and more. Even Amy Pitsitakas made a suprise visit to Archer’s thoughts. What was that about?
Through steady efforts, Archer finally finished his new chore routine. It really wasn’t all that bad, actually. Well, the fecal disposal really was all that bad. But other than doodie duty, Archer enjoyed working with the animals. They seemed to accept him, especially Doctor Who. He had a hard time putting her back into her cage just before he left.
He bid the animals farewell and made his way back up the long hallway to the stairs. But at the stairs, he paused a moment. There was something about the door at the other end of the hall. Archer glanced up to the first floor, listened intently for a few ticks, and then slipped around the corner into the darkness.
With just a few steps, Archer stood directly in front of the door. It was metal, some kind of thick metal with riveted panels. There was a vertical handle and a digital keypad. It was obviously locked, but Archer tried a gentle push anyway.
It didn’t budge. Not a centimeter. The handle had a slight vibration to it, and Archer took his hand away. What on earth is behind this door? It certainly wasn’t normal. Rich people did have a reputation for being eccentric, but what was it? A bomb shelter? An international spy center? A hidden crypt full of vampires?
Okay, Archer thought. Where did the vampire thing come from? He quietly laughed at himself. He was about to leave when an absurd idea entered his mind. He crept closer to the door. Then, ever so slowly, he leaned his head close. Closer. Now his ear actually touched the cold metal of the door.
The whole basement seemed to go silent. Archer pressed his ear flat against the metal and squinted. He thought there was nothing at first, but then he heard it. It was a faint pulse of air, kind of a shooshing sound. But there was something else too, a quiet, steady beeping.
For no reason that Archer could explain, he felt suddenly very afraid. He pulled his head away from the door and took to the stairs. He left Rigby’s home, hopped on his bike, and didn’t look back. There was something behind that door in the basement. Archer felt certain that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.