A Dastardly Plot Read online

  “Skiff!” Molly called. “Wait!”

  “Well, if it isn’t Mittsy,” the boy said, flashing something that was halfway between a sneer and a grin. “Don’t usually see you this time o’ day. Always figgered you was off hangin’ in your cave once the sun went down.”

  “Yeah, bats are nocturnal, so even as insults go, that makes no sense,” Molly replied coolly. “You got any evening editions left?”

  “Few,” Skiff said, scratching his nose and leaving an ink smudge across its tip. “Come back tomorrow morning and we can trade ’em like usual.”

  “Just give me one now,” Molly said.

  “No can do, Mitts. I’ll get busted if I give you anything other than old papers.”

  “I didn’t come empty-handed. Here’s a pickle. Full-sized. Not even a runt.”

  She waggled the pickle before his eyes until he took it and handed her a paper in return. “Fine, Mittsy. But just this once.”

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Skiff.”

  Skiff squinted at her. “You know I call ya Mittsy on account o’ you got big ears like baseball mitts, right?”

  “Yup,” Molly said, heading homeward. “And someday, when you least expect it, I’m gonna pound you for it.”

  Back inside Pepper’s Pickles, Molly found her mother sitting at her worktable with a pile of loose pickles. She crunched loudly into one as Molly entered.

  “Mother, are those the pickles that spilled on the floor?”

  “I was hungry.”

  “Well, slide them aside.” She took a seat beside Cassandra, began flipping pages, and quickly came upon the information they were seeking.

  * * *

  INVENTORS’ GUILD WELCOMES NEWEST MEMBER

  by Sherwin St. Smithens, high society and technology columnist

  NEW YORK—The Inventors’ Guild, pride of New York and the nation, has added another budding young genius to its ranks. Though only 17 years of age and not yet graduated from Buckminster’s Preparatory Academy uptown, Thaddeus Edgerton looked quite at home among the Guild’s luminaries as he addressed reporters from his new office in the grand Guild Hall on Madison Square. “My father [Guild member Byron Edgerton, inventor of Tiny Hats for Fancy Cats™] didn’t want me to join until school was finished,” said the junior Edgerton. “But then I would have missed the chance to fulfill my most recent dream of presenting at the World’s Fair.”

  And just what is this sparkling new talent planning to dazzle us with at the Fair? “You know when you’re at a cocktail party or debutante ball?” said Edgerton. “One of the Astors’ affairs, say, or the Rockefellers’? And you get stuck talking to a sadly unattractive person? Well, I’m working on a pair of special spectacles with fake eyes on the front, so it looks as if you’re paying attention to the hideous beast, while secretly you can glance about for a more appealing conversation partner.”

  This reporter, for one, smells a hit.

  * * *

  Molly slammed her palms onto the table. This was Problem Number Two with the Inventors’ Guild. While many of its members produced work that was actually beneficial to humanity, several were simply rich men who liked to tinker with machines and so bought themselves a place at the world’s most prestigious worktable. Perhaps this was to be expected, since the entire organization was founded by a super-wealthy coal-mining tycoon. But whatever happened to that “new direction” Edison and Bell had promised?

  “I can’t believe I lost my spot to this hoity-toity rich boy,” Cassandra said.

  “No,” Molly said, pacing around the room. “Your spot was stolen by this hoity-toity rich boy! His moneybags father just made him a Guildsman. It’s obvious he’s not even a real inventor!” She waved her arms wildly. “We need to get your spot back! We need to do . . . something! We should . . . should . . . I don’t know! We should . . . break into the Guild Hall and smash Hoity-Toity Boy’s stuff!”

  Molly let herself flop against the wall and slide to the floor, where she took a few slow breaths and waited for her hot cheeks to cool down. It felt good to have let out all that built-up anger and frustration. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, she and her mother would be able to put their heads together and figure out what they could actually do in order to—

  “That’s genius, Molls!” Cassandra said.

  Huh? Molly looked up.

  “If young Master Edgerton’s awful Eyeglasses-for-Stinkards are destroyed, his exhibition spot will be useless to him,” Cassandra said gleefully. “Then I, the rightful owner of that spot, can take it back.”

  “Um,” Molly began.

  “It’s a perfect plan,” Cassandra continued. “Let’s hop to it!” Before Molly could respond, Cassandra picked up a crowbar and marched out into the night.

  4

  Entering and Breaking

  MOLLY WAS HAVING second thoughts about this “genius” idea of hers.

  What they were doing was illegal, but she reminded herself they were doing it to right a terrible wrong. She tried to imagine herself as a Robin Hood type, a hero who wasn’t afraid to break a few rules in the name of fighting injustice.

  She was pretty sure, though, that Robin Hood never found himself flopped over a second-story windowsill with his legs flailing in the night air like spaghetti noodles in a hurricane.

  “If we’re to succeed, Molls,” her mother called from below, “you should probably be more inside the building.”

  “I can’t make it over the sill,” Molly whispered between clenched teeth. “The buttons on my dress are stuck. Buttons are evil.”

  To be honest, she had enjoyed their little adventure up until this point: skulking through a lamplit labyrinth of cobblestone streets, ducking into the shadowy alley between the majestic Inventors’ Guild Hall and the ominously dark Madison Square Theatre, stacking empty crates so Cassandra could boost Molly up to an open window. It was all rather like something out of an adventure novel.

  Until she got stuck.

  “Don’t move,” said Cassandra.

  “Not a problem,” Molly replied.

  With her crowbar, Cassandra reached up and shoved the soles of her daughter’s boots. Molly slid chin-first to the hardwood floor, each successive button snagging the windowsill along the way. Molly cursed every one of them: evil, evil, evil, evil, evil, evil, evil . . . The feminine wardrobe, she thought as she struggled to her feet, was not designed for burglary either.

  But her clothing troubles were forgotten soon enough. Molly Pepper was now standing in the hallowed halls of the Inventors’ Guild. For as long as she could remember, she’d been mesmerized by the Guild Hall’s towering columns, its golden laurels, its front door sized for giants. When she was younger, she used to think that if New York had gods like ancient Greece, they would live at the Inventors’ Guild.

  The hall was no less stunning from the inside, even with only the dim glow of moonbeams to illuminate its wonders: flowered wallpaper that recalled a fairy garden, stained-glass lamps that looked to have been constructed from shattered rainbows, doors with gilded nameplates that probably cost more than Pepper’s Pickles earned in a year. Molly felt almost as if she hadn’t broken into an office building, but a magical fortress ripped from one of her storybooks.

  “Molls?”

  Molly poked her head back out. “Hush! Someone will hear!”

  “Who?” Cassandra said. She was still balanced on the stack of crates below the window. “It’s well past ten. The Guild ends business at seven. And the theater is dark on Tuesdays—no chance of your Sergio Vittorini popping out the stage door and catching us. Although . . . Ooh, we should come back sometime when we’re not committing a crime and get his autograph. But enough dilly-dallying, Molls! You’re in, now let’s get me in. Throw down some rope!”

  Molly blinked. “What rope?”

  Cassandra snapped her fingers. “Rope would have been a good thing to bring. No worries. One of these supposed inventors must have rope in their workshops.”

  “You didn�
��t happen to bring a lockpick, I suppose?” said Molly.

  “Next best thing.” Cassandra handed up the crowbar.

  Molly tested the weight of the heavy iron tool in her hands. “I suppose this would do the trick.”

  “You look concerned,” Cassandra said. She held out her arms. “Hop down and boost me up. We’ll trade places. I’ll find some rope in there and come back for you.”

  Molly looked out. Her mother was twice her size and wearing a dress that, thanks to the corset underneath, was even stiffer than her own. Even if Molly somehow mustered the strength to heft her mother to the window, there was zero chance of getting her over the sill.

  “It’s okay,” Molly said. “I’ll do it.”

  “I am your mother, young lady,” Cassandra replied sternly. “It is my job to keep you safe. Now jump out that window.”

  “As much as I’d love to test your daughter-catching skills, I can handle this,” Molly said.

  She crept down the dim corridor, scanning the names on the doors—GEORGE EASTMAN, NIKOLA TESLA, LEVI STRAUSS. Hmm . . . If she couldn’t find Edgerton’s office, maybe she could sabotage Levi Strauss instead—all he did was make pants.

  The hallway grew dimmer and dimmer the farther she moved from the window. She squinted in the darkness. JOHN WESLEY HYATT. GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE. THADDEUS EDGERTON. Found it! She hoisted her crowbar, then paused. There had to be a better way. Something less . . . destructive.

  She started back toward the window. She would tell her mother the offices were simply impenetrable and they would have to give up and go home. But as soon as she stepped back into the moonlit end of the corridor, she noticed a bronze plaque on the wall.

  THE NATIONAL INVENTORS’ GUILD, A PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY FOR GENTLEMEN OF CREATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC BRAIN

  For gentlemen. The fury was back. She marched straight to Edgerton’s office and lodged her crowbar into the narrow space between the door and the jamb. She leaned on the tool with all of her weight until she heard a splintering crack. She grunted and pushed even harder. Prepare yourself for the wrath of Molly Pepper, Mr. . . . Thomas Edison? Her breath caught in her throat. She leaned in so close that her eyelashes brushed the gold nameplate.

  THOMAS EDISON

  Thomas Edison? Thomas Edison! She could have sworn it had said Edgerton! Flaming flapjacks, it was the wrong door. She couldn’t break into Thomas “King of the World” Edison’s office. Molly yanked her crowbar free. With a splintering snap, the tool flew off into the darkness and Molly stumbled backward into the door across the hall—a door that swung easily open when she hit it.

  Well, this is unexpected, she thought as she caught her balance. I don’t suppose I’d be so lucky as for this one to be Edgerton’s office. . . . She looked at the nameplate.

  ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

  Wonderful. She’d broken into the offices of both the Guild’s leaders. But how was she able to read Bell’s nameplate so easily? Then she saw the light. It was stark and bright, radiating from an open doorway behind Bell’s big, cedar desk: electric light.

  She stepped cautiously through Bell’s office, into the workroom. Long tables were littered with coils of wire and scattered tools; gears were stacked willy-nilly; long, rolled papers jutted from barrels and boxes in every corner. There was a glorious chaos to it all—still a storybook world, but less Cinderella’s castle and more Geppetto’s Workshop.

  Molly edged along the workbench to the lamp. Its bare bulb was like a tiny sun captured in a bottle. It hurt her eyes to stare. But it was so hard not to. She’d never seen one up close. Or felt one. Whoa! Hot!

  Did Bell leave this lamp on all night? That seemed dangerous. Maybe if they waited long enough, a fire would break out and—presto!—the entire World’s Fair would belong to Cassandra Pepper.

  Molly glanced at the half-constructed contraptions that lay around. Would any of them become something as miraculous as Bell’s telephone? She and her mother had joked about how they’d never need a telephone, because there would never be a time when the two of them didn’t live in the same room. But they wondered what it would be like to talk through one just the same. They even tried to fashion one of their own by stringing a wire between two cans. It didn’t work very well, but Cassandra was convinced that with the right tools and materials, she could create a communication device even better than Bell’s. Because hers wouldn’t need wires.

  A rolled paper sat on a table before Molly. She took a deep breath. She was never going to get an opportunity like this again. She carefully rolled back the corner and saw the word “WORLD’S” by the beginning of a diagram.

  She let the paper curl up again. The World’s Fair! These were the plans for whatever Alexander Graham Bell was going to present at the Fair. They had to be valuable. She grabbed the roll. They could hold Bell’s plans for ransom, tell him to let Cassandra Pepper into the Fair or they’d destroy his papers. No, publish them! They could threaten to sell Bell’s plans to the Sun. That’s the last thing any inventor would want.

  She took a step away from the table.

  But was this who she wanted to be? An extortionist? Blackmailing a man whose work she respected? She turned to put the paper back and heard a voice.

  “Stop!”

  5

  An Alarming Coincidence

  “I SUGGEST YOU drop those plans and make a hasty retreat before I am forced to take drastic measures.” The stranger’s voice cracked on the word “drastic” and he winced, red-cheeked.

  He was just a boy, Molly realized, no older than she. A skinny boy in a white undershirt and suspenders. He looked Chinese, maybe. And just as disappointed to see Molly as she was to see him.

  “Drastic measures, huh?” Molly asked, both testing and taunting the boy. “That sounds pretty serious. What’re you gonna do?”

  The boy paused long enough for Molly to know he had no plan. “I’ll shout for the police,” he finally said, trying to keep his eyes locked with hers.

  Molly stared right back. “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “You’re a burglar. You don’t want the police here any more than I do.”

  “I am not a burglar.” The boy sounded offended.

  “So you’re supposed to be here?”

  The boy said nothing.

  “You’re a burglar,” Molly taunted. “You’re here to burgle. Burgle, burgle, burgle. Why else would a kid be skulking around the Guild Hall after hours?”

  “Just because you’re a burglar doesn’t mean—”

  “I’m not a burglar,” Molly said. It was her turn to be offended. “I’m a . . .” What was she? “I’m a saboteur,” she said. “That’s someone who—”

  “I know what a saboteur is. And it’s not any better! You broke in here to tamper with Mr. Bell’s work? Who sent you? One of the other Guildsmen? Mr. Bell is always paranoid about someone finding his— Hey!”

  Molly darted for the door, the rolled paper under her arm. If someone was going to steal those plans anyway, it might as well be her.

  “I’m serious,” the boy said, taking the opposite path around the table to block the workshop door. “Give me those.” He lurched for the roll, but Molly took a quick hop out of reach.

  “A thousand nifty thingamajigs to steal and you’re hung up on one silly paper,” Molly said, climbing onto a table, the bustle of her dress knocking a shower of loose screws to the floor. “Go burgle something else. That rolling chair looks like a lark and a half.”

  “For the last time,” the boy said, cautiously joining her on the tabletop, “I am not a burglar.”

  “Then why are you here?” Molly asked, shuffling backward and scattering tools. “Are you an inventor?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” the boy replied, stepping with care among the gadgetry at his feet. “Assistant to one, anyway.”

  “Well, gee willikers. You and I have so much in common.”

  “I seriously doubt that.” He took another swipe, slipped on a screwdriv
er, and crashed to the tabletop. Molly hopped off the table and was surprised to land on a pile of blankets.

  She dashed out past Bell’s desk into the hallway. But the boy caught up and got his hands around the paper roll. He and Molly faced off in the corridor, caught in a tug-of-war with the parchment.

  “Do you understand who Alexander Graham Bell is?” the boy said impatiently. “The plans you’re trying to pilfer could change the world.”

  “That’s why I can’t let you burgle them!”

  “But you’re burgling them!”

  “For the greater good!” Molly shot back. “Like Robin of Locksley!”

  “You’re comparing yourself to Robin Hood?” The boy raised an eyebrow.

  “How do you know Robin Hood’s real name?”

  “I read.”

  Molly eased up and the boy responded with a sudden yank. The paper ripped in half. Molly stumbled backward and slammed into Thomas Edison’s already damaged office door. It burst inward, and Molly went tumbling. The next thing she knew, there was a wire tangled around her left ankle, her right foot was jammed in a wastebasket, and her elbow had flattened a half-eaten pastrami sandwich. Glass tubes shattered, a globe was sent rolling, an ink bottle spilled across Edison’s desk, and a veritable snowstorm of papers was launched into the air.

  Then came the bells.

  “What’s that ringing?” the boy asked, running into Edison’s office. “What did you do?”

  Molly looked up. There were round, brass bells clanging ceaselessly in every corner of the room. “I guess Edison invented an electric burglar alarm,” she said. “Impressive.”