Dueling with the Three Musketeers Read online

  the

  Enchanted Attic

  BOOK THREE

  Dueling with the Three Musketeers

  L.L. SAMSON

  For Gwynnie

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  One: As If It Wasn’t Hot Enough, or Let’s Set Up the Major Conflict Right Away, We’d Hate to Bore You From the Beginning

  Two: You Can Put Lipstick on a Pig, but It’s Still a Pig, or Backstory in One Place Isn’t Always Good, but at Least This Backstory Is Interesting

  Three: Good Psychology Makes for a Better Costume, or Let’s Get This Party Started, Shall We?

  Four: Of Course a Man Can Wear Ruffles If He Wants To! or Never Get Caught Underdressed at an Adventure If You Know What’s Good for You

  Five: It Takes a Fire to Create a Community, or Sometimes You Have to Set a Tiger’s Rooms on Fire in Order to Change Its Stripes

  Six: To Die Will Be an Awfully Big Adventure, or We Don’t Think About Death Like That Nowadays

  Seven: Big Dresses Don’t Always Cover a Multitude of Mistakes, or Throwing a Twist into What Might Otherwise Be a Predictable Plot Is Never a Bad Thing

  Eight: When It Rains It Pours, or As If There Weren’t Enough Strange People on Rickshaw Street

  Nine: Even Crabby People Don’t Deserve to Lose Everything They Love, or The Problem Firmly Established, Nobody Yet Has an Idea What to Do

  Ten: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Are Most Likely Infinitely Better than the Best Laid Plans of Ophelia Julia Easterday

  Eleven: If a Villain Can’t Be Well-Developed, She Might As Well Be Well-Dressed

  Twelve: A Summer Breeze, a Flushing Toilet, and a Master Plan

  Thirteen: You Know It’s Bad When Madrigal Pierce Will Stoop to a Plan That Might Actually Be Fun

  Fourteen: Spit Solves a Multitude of Problems, but Only If it Doesn’t Gross You Out

  Fifteen: Never Underestimate the Power of Jewelry, or One Ring to Rule Them All and a Diamond Brooch Can Cause a Lot of Trouble

  Sixteen: Motorcycle Repair and the Art of Haunting Houses

  Seventeen: Egads! Being Forced to Hand Write a Letter! What Is This World Coming To?

  Eighteen: Just When You Thought People Can Change, Someone Comes Along and Destroys Your Faith in Humanity

  Nineteen: Tragedy Is Never Funny, Unless You Produce a Reality Show That’s Been Cancelled, but Other Than That …

  Twenty: Firm Resolve and a Good Meal, Necessary for Any Proper Haunting

  Twenty-One: Boo! A Terrible Haunting, or Corsets, Pulleys, and Loads and Loads of Makeup

  Twenty-Two: Nothing Worse Than a Genius Feeling Sorry for Himself, Except a Brother Who Can’t Take a Hint, or Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

  Twenty-Three: In the Nick of Time Is Much Better Than In the George of Time, Don’t Ask Me How I Know That

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  one

  As If It Wasn’t Hot Enough

  or Let’s Set Up the Major Conflict Right Away, We’d Hate to Bore You From the Beginning

  As twins Linus and Ophelia Easterday slept, the desolate, most middle-of-the-night hour of 4:00 a.m. was not the only thing approaching Rickshaw Street where they lived above a bookstore with their aunt and uncle, Portia and Augustus Sandwich. Oh, the bookstore! A stone face with bay windows on either side of the door, ivy cascading down from its walls, promised all manner of wonderful reading inside it.

  The twins had no idea a figure dressed completely in black silently swung open the black iron garden gate of The Pierce School for Young People next door. The thin, skulking intruder must have been at least six feet five inches tall and didn’t seem to mind that fact at all. He wore his height without shame, his spine straight and stiff. A messenger bag hung from one shoulder and his steps were measured and precise.

  But Linus and Ophelia weren’t awake, so when their good friend Walter came bursting through the secret door in the bathroom that hid a secret passage between the school and Seven Hills Rare and Better Books, they didn’t hear him either.

  He ran into Linus’s bedroom and pulled down the sheets on his friend’s bed. Linus, six feet one inch tall, sat up automatically. “What?!” he cried, raking both sides of his bright blond hair, his blue eyes the size of lemons.

  “Hurry, mate!” Walter yelled, pulling his friend out of his bed. “Someone’s set fire to the school!”

  “Where’s Clarice?” Linus asked about his girlfriend as he was being yanked into the hallway.

  “She decided to spend the night at her grandmother’s house.”

  Ophelia opened the door to her room. “Did I just hear correctly?” She rubbed the corner of her right eye with her index finger. A disgusting glop had settled there, which just goes to show you, even in slumber no one is completely safe from slimy substances. Even our own bodies betray us! Egads!

  “Yes!” cried Walter.

  “Did you call 9-1-1?” she asked.

  Walter shook his head. “What’s that?”

  He isn’t a dullard. He’s just from London.

  “9-9-9,” said Linus.

  Ophelia shot a look at her brother that basically said, How did you know that and I didn’t? “I’ll call. Do not go over there you guys! It’s dangerous.”

  “Right,” said Walter.

  She hurried down the steps to the kitchen.

  “Madge okay?” asked Linus.

  Walter assumed a look of horror. “I didn’t think —”

  “Let’s go.” Linus hurried toward the bathroom.

  Walter followed, they both knelt on the green tile floor and disappeared into the open square next to the bathtub.

  By the time the boys emerged in the cleaning closet on the second floor of the school in the boys’ dormitory wing, the sirens of fire trucks could be heard coming down the street.

  Linus breathed a sigh of relief. If throwing a bucket of water on a little blaze in a trashcan was necessary, well, fine. But he did not relish the thought of becoming a human torch for the sake of a school he couldn’t afford, or Madrigal Pierce, (whom they lovingly referred to as Madge) the headmistress, who constantly snubbed his family.

  Walter, however, was on a mission led by his nose. “It’s down the stairs. Let’s go!” He placed his bottom on the mahogany handrail and slid down in an instant. Linus followed suit. He always liked this place. Imagine a cheerful, clean haunted house and you might get a clear mental picture of The Pierce School for Young People.

  Black smoke snaked out from the back of the house, the private quarters of Madrigal Pierce, not only the headmistress, but owner, fundraiser, math teacher, purchaser, and Jill-of-all trades as well.

  “I didn’t realize it was coming from Madge’s quarters!” Walter ran through the formal entry hall and back to the hallway leading to the prim woman who made herself the nemesis of everyone she came in contact with. “Breathe deep, mate!”

  Linus did.

  “Close your eyes!” Walter pushed open the door and smoke hit their faces.

  They dropped to their knees and crawled toward Madrigal’s bed.

  A word of instruction here, dear readers. Listen to the fire marshal when he comes and gives a talk at your school. He has good things to say and you might end up saving a life, someone else’s or your own. Whatever you do, don’t go back in for your computer. Trust me, a fresh start is never a bad thing, and generally speaking, it’s better than death.

  The headmistress had already passed out from inhaling the smoke that was billowing in from the bathroom.

  They pulled her off the bed. Linus grabbed her wrists, Walter he
r ankles, and, bent double, they slung her from the room and into the main hall. Linus was about to open the door when the firemen kicked their way through.

  “At the back!” shouted Walter, then proceeded into a coughing fit.

  Men in tan suits with bright yellow reflector striping trampled through with a hose.

  Linus, coming out of his coughing fit, leaned down and placed his ear by Madrigal’s mouth. “Breathing. Shallow.”

  “Good.”

  Not thirty seconds later, two paramedics relieved them of their post at Ms. Pierce’s side.

  As they worked to bring her back to consciousness, one of them looked up. “You might have saved her life.”

  The boys nodded and watched as the paramedics got Madrigal into a major coughing fit. Neither could bear to see the proud headmistress in such a state. They left the room.

  “She’ll be okay,” said Linus.

  Walter couldn’t help himself. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that.”

  They sat at the bottom of the grand staircase in the entry-way, answering questions, wishing they knew more, watching a now conscious Ms. Pierce staunchly refuse to go to the hospital.

  “Let’s check on Ophelia,” said Linus, and they went up the steps.

  They crawled through the passage, only to be met in the bathroom by a rather furious Ophelia who stamped her foot, her dark curls bouncing in time, and pointed at each boy. “You deserved more than looking like chimney sweeps. I was so worried. I’m furious!”

  They both shrugged. After all, a lad’s got to do what a lad’s got to do.

  “Now look at yourself in the mirror and get cleaned up.”

  She turned and left the room.

  “She’ll get over it,” Linus said. He was used to her bossy ways.

  Walter and Linus caught their reflection in the mirror over the sink. Black, sooty faces stared back. Linus’s light blue eyes contrasted with his skin like a patch of sky surrounded by storm clouds. Walter’s warm brown eyes glowed like amber.

  Not that they would have described themselves like that. Heaven’s no! Ophelia told me all about it. She visits me in the English department here at Kingscross University, and, between you and me, she’s still mad they went into that house “with no thought for anybody other than themselves.”

  We’ve all learned not to mention they were trying to save lives if need be. Oh no! She’ll have none of that.

  “Good thing Clarice wasn’t there,” said Walter, turning on the sink faucet.

  “Definitely,” said Linus.

  By the way, Clarice and Linus are official. What that means to fourteen-year-olds I cannot say, for I haven’t an idea, nor do I wish to. Furthermore, I don’t think I ever will.

  two

  You Can Put Lipstick on a Pig, but It’s Still a Pig

  or Backstory in One Place Isn’t Always Good, but at Least This Backstory Is Interesting

  Backstory: What happened before the book began so you can better understand what’s going on in the pages at hand.)

  Oh dear, it had to happen in the most dreadful season, the dog days of summer, as people for years have been calling heat over one hundred degrees lasting for seemingly weeks on end. “The dog days of summer” is a cliché—an overused expression that practically everyone has heard and uses in everyday speech, which is fine, but it’s a no-no for writers—however, I say, if the shoe fits, wear it! (That just never stops being humorous. Oh, you think it does? Well, I’ll forgive you.)

  The month of August entered the town of Kingscross with a vendetta against dry armpits. It sought to drain as much perspiration from as many people as possible. Paris Park’s playground only held children in the early hours of the morning or in the slightly lessened heat of the evening. The public pool enjoyed more popularity than ever but only with people who didn’t have air-conditioning. And the sales of popsicles went up 248 percent according to the Kingscross Daily Herald. How they knew, I cannot say, so don’t ask. Folks everywhere were losing their tans due to the desire to stay inside, sit by the air-conditioning vent, and watch cable television. Hopefully, they forewent those ghastly reality television shows that try to pass for entertainment these days. I’d hate to think of all that gray matter (brain tissue) dying off like good music.

  Of course, Uncle Augustus was too miserly — cheap, parsimonious, or just plain tight with his money—to actually install air-conditioning in the living spaces above the bookstore. Therefore, his great niece and nephew, Ophelia and Linus, left in the care of Augustus and his twin sister Portia, had become the laziest pair of human beings ever to live in the town limits of Kingscross. They lazed about in the leather chairs in the bookshop reading and reading and reading and eating red licorice sticks. Ophelia loved good stories; Linus enjoyed books about scientific things.

  Linus kept a handkerchief on the arm of his chair to wipe his mouth after coughing up soot every so often.

  The twins’ parents had it no better at that time, and I for one smiled at the thought, further cementing my opinion that there is justice to the workings of the universe. You see, the Drs. Easterday, scientists working on their butterfly project on some remote tropical island called Stu, were bowed under by an oppressive heat that made Kingscross feel like Alaska by comparison. They deserve it, the rotters! Imagine your parents leaving you for five years, five years, to study insects. That will give any child a basic inferiority complex—the mistaken belief that one is a lesser human being than others.

  Thankfully, the twins had each other, and if you guessed their parents didn’t really pay all that much attention to them anyway, you guessed correctly. They had always relied on each other, those two, and they still did that sweaty afternoon where one felt sorry for animals because of all that fur. Furthermore, they always would.

  Now those two may have their problems, but one can never fault them for being lousy siblings. Though they are twins, there’s nothing between them that might foster competition. No rivalry existed between Linus’s math skills and Ophelia’s literary interests. They both had a little trouble tripping over their own feet, but who wants to be better at that?

  Do they ever annoy one another, you ask?

  Of course not. They’re flawless human beings. They love doing their chores too and getting out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to go running. The longer their school assignments are the better as far as Linus is concerned, and Ophelia loves nothing better than to get grades over 100 percent because of all the extra credit she completes! They’re perfect teenagers, and you should pray your hardest that you behave just like them.

  That, my dears, is called sarcasm. In other words, you mean exactly the opposite of what is being said, which is usually revealed in one’s tone of voice.

  While sarcasm is a form of irony, the best irony says exactly what it means, but the comparison and contrast is fully expressed. You would do well to know the difference between the two. So when an ambulance runs you over, or a digestive pill makes you regurgitate (throw up), you can say “How ironic!” And everyone will laugh at your misfortune. Get the picture?

  In short, not only are the twins not remotely perfect, there’s nothing really special about the pair. Perhaps you wish Linus and Ophelia had magical powers at their disposal, could grow a hair suit when the moon is at the full, or actually were dead but walking around looking for live humans to consume, but they are, in and of themselves, as boring as you are, perhaps even more boring.

  Ah, but where they live is far from the usual abode, and that is how they differ from the rest of society. It is not the fact that they live over a bookstore that sells only old books, a dark place that smells of old paper, mildewed leather, and the remnants of the flash flood that ripped through the town two months before. Or even that their aunt and uncle are, to put it kindly, eccentric oddballs. Their place on Rickshaw Street has a personality all its own, the brain of it housed all the way up under the eaves of the attic, which is exactly where the twins were lazing about on the tenth of August.
Sweating profusely.

  After a month of reading, they were ready for a change of scenery. They were ready for another adventure.

  Linus decided sitting by the river would be cooler than spending the hottest part of the day up in the attic, as interesting as Cato Grubbs’s lab equipment could be. The thought of firing up a Bunsen burner seemed as appealing as dipping one’s feet in a slime-covered pond. Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you. Heavens no!

  The twins slipped out of the bookshop, crossed Rickshaw Street, and walked between the stone pillars that flanked the entry to Paris Park, a beautiful place of lawns and trees that bordered the Bard River. They sat on a bench near the river, under the shade of a large Dutch Elm tree.

  Kids from the Bard River Camp for Kids floated by them on a canoe ride, all of them waving, including the counselors who invited the twins and Walter to the weekly bonfires.

  Linus would refuse the invite tonight, he could tell you that!

  They waved back.

  “I sure hope there’s no bonfire,” said Ophelia.

  Walter bounded up in a pressed shirt and khaki shorts. He shamed Linus and Ophelia in appearance, but don’t tell them I told you that. “Hi, guys.”

  He was getting the vernacular (local way of speaking) down. Walter wasn’t one to stick out. He was naturally cool. Linus would never be cool, but he didn’t mind.

  Walter sat down next to them on the park bench. “Roasting, eh?”

  “Tell me about it,” said Ophelia.

  “News?” asked Linus, lifting the hem of his T-shirt and wiping his face. His exposed ribs gleamed white in the shade of the elm tree that splayed its branches over the pathway.

  “Definitely arson. Someone put lighter fluid in the dustbin and set it under the curtains in her loo.”

  They put the trashcan under the curtains in Madge’s bathroom. So much for speaking American English. In his defense, he’d only been in Kingscross for two months.

  “Who could have done it?” Ophelia tapped her chin. “Do you know of anybody that has anything against Madge?”

  “I don’t know of a single person that actually likes her,” said Walter. “But not to that extreme.”