They stood in a narrow corridor. Other than the elevator, there was only one door, and a sign on it read OFFICE OF CELESTIAL NAVIGATION. Homer knocked, but no one answered. He knocked again and was willing to wait politely, but Lorelei grabbed the knob and pushed it open. Dog squeezed past Lorelei’s legs and pulled Homer inside.

There could be no doubt they’d reached the topmost floor, because the domed ceiling was made of glass panels. A solid square platform had been constructed at the top of the dome. That’s where the enormous globe sat.

Homer took a long look around the room, which seemed to him to be a mapmaker’s dream come true. The room itself was cluttered with rolled parchments. Crowded bookshelves covered the northern wall. A table, laden with all sorts of mapmaking instruments and more rolls of parchment, stretched across the room. The tabletop was painted like a blackboard. Drawings and equations had been scribbled here and there in different-colored chalks. Dust coated the floor except for a trail made by footprints that led from a cot to the table and then to a stepladder and back again. The stepladder led to a porthole where a telescope pointed up at the sky. Seven other portholes were spaced at equal intervals around the dome’s perimeter.

Dog tugged the leash from Homer’s grip, then began to mosey around the room. Homer didn’t go after him, because he’d noticed someone standing at the top of the stepladder. The person’s back was to Homer, but he could tell it was a girl because she had two long red braids and wore a black skirt and a pair of kneesocks. He assumed she was a child because she was very short. She was probably the daughter of whoever worked in this office. Because she was peering into the telescope’s eyepiece, she hadn’t noticed the visitors.

Homer cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Is your mom or dad here?”

The girl turned and glared down at him. A bushy beard and mustache covered most of her face. When she spoke, her voice was deep and grumbly. “Ma maw and ma paw are lang deid.”

Apparently, she wasn’t a she after all, nor was she a child. And because she was a he, the skirt was actually a kilt.

“How did ye git in here?” the small man asked.

“Uh, the door was open,” Homer said.

“Open, ye say? Hmmm. Ah thought ah’d closed it. Well, whit do ye want?”

Lorelei stepped forward. “Do you read celestial maps?”

“Who wants tae know?”

“We do,” Homer answered.

“And who are ye?” There was so much hair on the man’s face, it was difficult to read his expressions. And his accent was thick and tricky to understand.

“Don’t tell him our real names,” Lorelei whispered in Homer’s ear.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Homer told her under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to get arrested for trespassing, and if he told this man his real name, then his parents might be contacted. There’d be a big lecture and maybe some jail time. Mr. Pudding would assign Homer a whole mess of extra chores and Mrs. Pudding would telephone Ajitabh, and everyone would be disappointed and upset.

“We’re students,” Homer said, keeping with the original lie, which was so much easier than inventing a new one. Lies, once they begin to pile up, become very difficult to keep track of. “We have to read a celestial map for a school report and—”

“Ah dinna care nothin’ aboot school reports.” The man turned away and pressed his eye to the telescope’s eyepiece.

“Do you care about subscribers?” Hercules asked. “Homer’s a subscriber to the Map of the Month Club.” Then Hercules took a quick breath and whispered, “Oops, I said your name.”

“Ah dinna care nothin’ aboot subscribers.”

“But you work for the Map of the Month Club,” Lorelei said. “Without the subscribers, you wouldn’t have a job. So you should help us.”

“Ah dinna work for no map club. Ah jist live up here. And ah dinna care nothin’ aboot helpin’ no one. A jist want to be left alone.”

If the kilt-wearing man didn’t work for the map club and he was simply living on the topmost floor, as he said, then he had to know something about L.O.S.T. Otherwise, why would a L.O.S.T. coin be necessary for admittance? Homer reached into his shirt to grab his membership coin, but Lorelei stopped him. She leaned close to his ear again and whispered, “Don’t show him that. We don’t know if we can trust him.”

“But the coin got us in here,” Homer said.

“That’s a good point,” Hercules said, huddling up to the other two as if they were about to play a game of football.

Lorelei rolled her eyes. “Yes, but if he knows about L.O.S.T., then he probably knows about Rumpold’s treasure. We can’t let him figure out we’ve got Rumpold’s map.”

“That’s a really good point,” Hercules said.

Yes, of course it was a really good point. Lorelei was full of good points. Homer sighed and let go of the coin’s chain. Then he looked back up the ladder. “If you can’t read celestial maps, then do you have a book that might help us?”

“Ah never said ah couldna read celestial maps. Ah’m an expert on celestial navigation. But ah dinna care aboot helpin ye. Now, away wi’ ye.”

“He’s so rude,” Lorelei grumbled. “Keep him distracted while Hercules and I go look on the bookshelves.” She motioned for Hercules to follow, and they tiptoed over to the shelves.

A chewing sound caught Homer’s attention. “Uh-oh.” He whipped around. “Dog?”

For reasons Homer had yet to figure out, Dog loved paper. It didn’t matter if the paper came in the form of a magazine or a library book. It didn’t matter if it was a brochure on goat grooming or a school report on Tasmanian wombats. The paper could be colored, lined, or plain white. It might have wrapped a birthday present or it might have wrapped lamb chops from the butcher. Dog loved paper in all its shapes and forms, and that is why he stood on the topmost floor eating one of the rolls of parchment. Homer hurried to Dog’s side and yanked the parchment from his mouth. It was a map. “How many times do I have to tell you not to eat other people’s maps?” Homer scolded, though he was more embarrassed than angry. Being angry at such a great dog was nearly impossible.

“Urrrr.” Dog wagged his tail apologetically, a shred of paper stuck to his chin.

“How can you be hungry already?” Homer shook his head in wonder. Dog had eaten a bunch of vending-machine snacks in Lorelei’s lair. For a creature who exerted such little energy, he needed a surprising amount of refueling. “I’ll get you something when we’re done here.”

Clunking footsteps sounded as the red-haired man stomped down the ladder. Homer hid the ruined map behind his back, certain that the man was going to start hollering about the destruction of his property. After the man stepped onto the floor, he walked over to Dog. His eyebrows were as bushy as his beard. He was shorter than Homer had first thought, standing at about three and a half feet tall, and some of that height was provided by his wild red hair. He picked the shred of paper from Dog’s chin.

“I’m sorry he ate your map,” Homer said. “I hope it wasn’t an important map.”

“Is yon a wee basset hound?”

“Yes,” Homer said. No one had ever described Dog as “wee.” And Homer certainly wouldn’t have chosen that word, not after carrying Dog through that revolving door.

“Ah’d a wee basset hound when ah was a lad. Ah loved yon wee hound.” Was that a tear sparkling at the corner of the man’s eye? “Ah’ve a soft spot in ma heart for bassets. Can ye guess why?” He looked up at Homer.

“Because you had one when you were…” Homer almost said the word little but was afraid that word might insult the man. “When you were… a lad?”

“Aye, but there’s another reason.” The man crouched and scratched beneath Dog’s chin. “We both hae the genetic markers of dwarfism. That’s why we both hae these short legs.”

Homer nodded. When he’d first met Zelda, she’d explained that while Dog had a condition that kept him from growing, she had a condition that’d made her grow very fast—hence her eight-foot-two-inch status. “Genetic markers,” Homer repeated.

“I’ve often wondered if I have some sort of genetic marker that makes me afraid of things,” Hercules called from the bookcase. “I have lots of phobias.”

The man stopped scratching Dog and stood. “Whit sorts of things are ye afraid of?” he asked.

“All sorts of things. Germs, bullies, feather pillows, random objects falling on my head, forgetting to take my vitamins—”

“Why do you live up here if you don’t work for the Map of the Month Club?” Lorelei interrupted. She made a new path on the dusty floor as she walked along the bookcase.

“Ah dinna like people,” the man grumbled. “Ah’m a hermit.”

“Really?” Hercules asked. “Then you might have anthrophobia. Many hermits do. That’s fear of people. I don’t have anthrophobia, but I am afraid of my brothers and sister. They’re sports-playing meatheads. I’m also afraid of poisonous snakes. That’s called ophidiophobia. I’m afraid of the yellow bits of popcorn that get stuck in your throat, but I don’t know what that’s called. The one thing I’m not afraid of is skydiving.”

“Hello? Can we get back to the map?” Lorelei asked irritably. She walked up to Homer and whispered, “There are a million books over there. I don’t know where to begin. We need his help.”

Homer smiled nicely at the man. “Could you please help us read our map? It’s definitely a star chart, but I don’t know how to read it.”

“I can pay you,” Lorelei said. “I’ve got lots of money.”

“Ah dinna care aboot money, lassie. Ah told ye, ah dinna like people.”

Dog, as if on cue, licked the man’s hand. Then he turned his sad eyes up and whined. It was an expression that only the coldhearted could ignore. The man’s beard and mustache rustled. “Ah’ll make an exception, but only because ye have yon wee hound.” From the sweetened tone in the man’s voice, Homer assumed that a smile was hiding under all that hair. “Come away wi’ ye. O’er here to ma table.”