The Puzzler's Mansion (25 page)

They all shouted with surprise, and Amanda's shriek rattled back and forth down the hallway.

“I guess you were looking for me,” said the man. “But I found you first.”

Winston squinted so he could see. The man was tall and heavily built. He was wearing dirty denim shorts that came to his knees and a T-shirt under a zip-up sweatshirt. His ruddy face was unshaven, and a thick thatch of dark hair stuck out from under his baseball cap. The man's voice sounded challenging, even threatening, but Winston saw his eyes were wide with fear.

“Who are you?” Jake asked.

“Shut up,” said the man. “I'm thinking. Just be quiet.”

“Are you
living
down here?” said Amanda.

The man ignored this. He turned his head this way and that like he was trying to figure out where he could go. Winston realized this man was blocking the way back to the house.

Zook realized this, too. “Hey! Let us by. You can't keep us here.”

“Shut
up,
” the man said. “You'll do what I say. You're not supposed to be down here!”

“
You're
not supposed to be here, either,” Zook said. “I'll bet the house on that.”

The man grimaced—he was trying to think, but was having a hard time of it. “All right,” he said. “All right. Keep walking.” He gestured down the hallway with his lantern. Winston's eyes had become
adjusted to this new light source. He could see again, even if the only things to see were this scary new man and the black hallway all around them.

“No,” said Zook. He let go of Amanda's hand and took a step toward the man. Jake stepped to the side to let Zook pass.

“Don't make me hurt you,” said the man, a tightness in his voice. “I'll do it.” But he backed up a step as he said this.

Zook saw that the man was more nervous than any of them. “You're not supposed to be here. I'm going back to tell the others.” He advanced on the man, maybe intending to push him backward, maybe thinking he would just walk around him.

Whatever Zook's plan was, it didn't work. The man was not in favor of others finding out about him. “No!” he yelled, and when Zook tried to run at him, he swung his lamp, connecting with Zook's shoulder and knocking him into the wall. Amanda shrieked again, and Winston flinched as if someone had thrown a punch at him.

The man dropped the lantern—it landed on the ground with a flat
clang!
—and grabbed Zook and threw him back toward the others. Zook tried to keep his footing but failed. He tripped and fell, and rolled along the floor a few yards. He lay there, still.

“No,” the man said again. “I didn't want to do that. I just . . . You can't . . .” The man didn't know what he wanted to say and quit trying. He looked around, breathing hard, his eyes wild with something like panic. He reached down and picked up his lantern. Amanda was crying. Jake and Mal were standing there, awestruck, hypnotized by this stranger. Winston wondered what was supposed to happen next. The man couldn't keep them here forever.

The man came to that same conclusion. “Okay,” he said. “Get him up.” He meant Zook. Jake helped him to his feet. Zook did not look
anything like the authority-challenging teenager he'd been less than a minute ago.

“Get moving,” the man said. He gestured down the hallway again, away from the main house. They could do nothing but agree. With the light behind them, the way ahead looked darker than ever. They had to feel their way along, with the man saying every so often, “Keep walking.”

“Where are we going?” Amanda asked in a shaky voice.

“Not much farther,” the man said.

This turned out to be true. They came to a ladder built into the wall. Winston could see a thin sheen of light coming through some wooden planks above them. The passage continued on, but the man told them to stop.

“Climb,” said the man. “The door pushes up.”

Jake was in the lead, and there was nothing else to do, so he climbed the ladder. At the top, he pushed on the wooden door with one hand. It rose up and lifted out of a square hole.

“Go,” the man called to him. “And don't get cute once you're up there. Don't touch anything, do you understand?”

Jake didn't reply, but he climbed through the hole, his feet disappearing.

“You next,” the man said to Amanda. She peered up, and then back at the man, her face filled with silent pleading. “It's all right,” the man said. “Nobody else is getting hurt. I need to get out of here, and I can't have you in my way. Go up now.”

She climbed, and then the rest of them followed. Winston went right before Zook, and as afraid as he was, he was also curious to find out where this trapdoor led. He stuck his head through the hole and looked around. Jake, Mal, and Amanda were sitting on the floor
of a small, dusty building. In one corner, there were large sacks piled up—seed and fertilizer. In another corner was an air mattress, covered with a dirty sheet and a blanket. Neatly organized shelves were filled with various tools, and blocking the double doors was a large object covered with a great, dirty drop cloth. The only light was the sun coming through a couple of smallish windows. It gave the place the feel of a saloon in a Western. Winston pointed at the doors, but Jake shook his head. “Locked,” he said.

Winston sat next to his friends, and Mal whispered, “It's the toolshed near the garden. Remember? It's locked from the outside with a padlock.”

“Be quiet up there!” the man called from below. Zook's head emerged from the hole, then the rest of him. No sooner was Zook out of the way than the man came up. He looked around to see that his prisoners were behaving and seemed content that they were. “Good,” he said. “Just sit there. Good.”

“I guess you're the gardener,” Winston said, and even as he said this, it seemed obvious. The purple orchids that the brats destroyed—by this morning, they had been fixed, standing as proud as ever. Who would have done that? Only one guy, and he was right here, looking around rather frantically as if he wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next. The gardener. Freddie. Hadn't Richard Overton said his gardener's name was Freddie?

Richard had sent his staff home for the weekend, but it seemed that Freddie the gardener had other ideas. He had decided to stash himself in the toolshed, for reasons Winston could not imagine. And now Winston realized that the signs of this had been there from the start. Hadn't Norma said something about missing appetizers? Winston supposed they had found their way here, and into Freddie's stomach. He had to live on something this weekend, didn't he? And
the extra-warm blanket that Kimberly had wanted, which Norma had been unable to find. Winston glanced at the air mattress again. If Freddie was sleeping out here at night, and it sure seemed like he was, he would want an extra-warm blanket.

Keeping half an eye on the five kids, Freddie pawed through the tools on the various shelves. He found what he wanted—a little plastic case full of metal fasteners of some kind. He grabbed an electric screwdriver as well, and then as an afterthought he tossed three different saws down the hole. They clattered against the ground. What on earth was he doing?

Freddie picked up a small bag near his air mattress. He turned to his five prisoners and said, “Okay. Phones.” None of them moved. “Phones! Hand them over. I'm sorry, I can't let you keep them. Give them now!” This last was shouted with real panic and fear, and it got Zook and Amanda moving fast. They both brought out high-tech cell phones. Freddie grabbed them and shoved them into his bag.

Winston, Jake, and Mal didn't have cell phones, and it took some convincing for Freddie to believe it. He thought every kid had a cell phone these days. But Jake stood up and offered to be searched, and maybe something about the way he said it made Freddie say, “Okay. Okay. You better not be lying.” Freddie nodded like he was trying to convince himself that everything was fine.

He looked around one more time. Then he began to climb back down the hole.

“Where are you going?” Jake said, sounding alarmed.

“I gotta get out of here,” Freddie said.

“You can't just leave us in here!” Amanda yelled.

Freddie said, “Someone will find you. It'll be a while. Yell, and someone will hear you. I just need time to get away.” He grabbed the wooden trapdoor and pulled it over himself.

They were all on their feet instantly. Amanda tried to open a window, but there was no way to do this. She banged on it instead. “Help!” she yelled. “Hey! We're in here! Help!”

“Shut up!” Freddie called from below, sounding somewhat panicked. He was still on the ladder—he had not yet begun to run. Winston stood over the trapdoor and tried to see through the narrow wooden slats. All he could tell was that Freddie was still at the top of the ladder, doing something. There was a motorized whirring sound—Freddie was using that electric screwdriver.

“He's locking us in,” Jake said. He stomped on the trapdoor in anger.

“Hey!” yelled Freddie. “Don't make me come back up there!” He continued working.

“That's why he threw the saws down there,” said Mal. “So we can't cut our way out.”

Winston looked out one of the windows. The lawn stretched out in front of them, and in the distance was the house. The windows of this toolshed were too small to climb through, and even if they smashed them and screamed their lungs out, nobody in the house would hear them. Not unless they were listening for it, and why would they be?

Zook tested the other walls. This place was solid and secure. It wasn't a cheap tin toolshed bought at a cut-rate department store. Freddie could have lived here forever if he didn't care about comfort. Zook punched a wall with fury. Winston saw that one elbow was scraped raw from his fall on the concrete, and his pants were ripped at the knees. Or had the pants been ripped to begin with? Winston couldn't remember. Anyway, one knee was bleeding, and now Zook spied a first-aid kit and began rooting through it.

“He's gone,” Jake reported. He was standing over the trapdoor,
peering down. “He's gone,” he said again. He bent down and tried to lift the wooden door. It budged a little but wouldn't come up.

“We have to get out of here,” Winston said.

“We can light a fire,” Zook said. He was sitting on the floor treating his wounds.

Mal gawked at him. “Are you crazy?”

“What?”

Jake said, “Light a fire while we're locked in here? I want to get out of here
alive,
not charred to a crisp.”

“Well, then,
you
come up with something.”

Jake looked around. “Let's break the windows.”

“Great,” said Zook, sarcastically. “What will that do? You want to throw screws and bolts at the house?”

Amanda had squeezed her way past the whatever-it-was blocking the exit so she could push on the doors. They waggled somewhat on their hinges, but the padlock didn't allow for much more than that. She gave a panicked squawk and shoved herself against the doors repeatedly, shouting, “Hey, we're in here!” This didn't help at all, and she soon stopped.

They continued exploring the shed, trying to find anything that would help them escape. Amanda climbed back around the thing blocking the doors.

“What is that, anyway?” Mal asked her.

“I don't know,” she said, and tugged on the drop cloth. It was heavier than it looked, so she dug in with two hands and dragged it away.

Underneath was a giant ride-on lawn mower.

THE LAWN MOWER
was canary yellow, and Winston was surprised to see that it had headlights. Did people really mow their lawns in the dark?

Mal oohed like some impressive fireworks had just gone off, and he hopped into the seat for a closer look. The others gathered around as well, hope beginning to dawn among them.

“What do you think? Can we bust through the door with this?” Jake said.

“Oh, baby,” said Mal. “The key's in the ignition and everything.” He reached for it.

Zook grabbed his arm. “Don't turn that on, you idiot!”

Mal was startled. “What? Why?”

“We're in a closed-in shed. You don't want to be charred in a fire? Well, I don't want to suffocate from exhaust fumes.”

Mal said in a small voice, “Oh.”

Winston said, “We're going to have to turn it on if we want to get through the doors with it.”

“Yeah,” said Zook, looking around. “We have to get these windows open after all. Get some air in here. Even then, we better break the door down fast.”

They ransacked the tool bench and finally dug up some hammers. Jake and Zook claimed them and began swinging at the windows. The panes were made of some kind of heavy plastic, and the first couple of blows did nothing at all. Zook swung his hammer like a home-run slugger with a comically small bat, bellowing pent-up rage with each blow. His window was the first to fracture into a spiderweb of cracks.