The Unbelievable Oliver and the Sawed-in-Half Dads Page 5

“Do you hear that?” Teenie whispered. “Someone’s talking on the other side of this shelf. There must be a secret room!”

  “Another one?” said Bea skeptically.

  “The other one was a secret staircase. The room part wasn’t secret.”

  As the twins argued, Oliver noticed something wrong with the eyes of a painting, the painting with the rabbit fur stole.

  What was wrong was that the eyes were gone.

  Oliver gulped. “Maybe that’s why it looked like the eyes were watching us before! Someone really was watching us!”

  Teenie and Bea had been to enough museums with their fathers to know that you never touch the art. So, even though the portrait was suspicious, they didn’t want to touch it. Oliver’s mother had no time to take him to museums. He pushed on the frame without hesitation. Or none beyond his usual fear of the unknown.

  As the painting turned on a hinge, a voice rang out from the other side:

  “Simon, do you promise to be kind to Miguel even when you’re hungry and your blood sugar is low?”

  The voice was addressing their missing father. They’d solved the case in record time.

  Smiling, the kids pushed through the painting and entered a new, even creepier room.

  The walls were lined with animal heads, including one jackalope that looked very much like Benny would look if you stuck a pair of stag’s horns on him. Oliver was glad Benny wasn’t there to see it.

  A second door opened into a large marble bathroom. In front of the mirror stood their aunt Margie. Pushing up her colorful reading glasses, she read from her notebook.

  “And do you, Miguel, promise to stand by Simon even when the line for a theme park ride is three hours long?”

  “Aunt Margie,” Teenie said. “Where are you hiding Dad?”

  “I’m not hiding him. Is he hidden?”

  “But you were just talking to him.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m just practicing for the ceremony.”

  She showed Bea her notebook, in which she’d written her script for the wedding. The notebook was gilded leather and quite elegant. Bea decided to ask for a matching notebook for Winter Solstice to go with the quill pen.

  “How’d you find this room?” Teenie asked.

  “Oh, it’s in this brochure,” their aunt Margie said. “Everyone should follow their own path, but they should also check a map.”

  Sure enough, when they looked at the brochure, they saw a map of the mansion. Each secret spot was marked with a spyglass.

  All three kids agreed that exploring the mansion’s secrets was the absolute best use of their time.

  Behind the Hall of Portraits was a Hall of Secrets: secret passages and stairways that maids and butlers had used to navigate the mansion.

  “Someone could have stolen Dad and dragged him anywhere!” said Bea as she climbed a spiral stairway to the seventh master bedroom.

  Popping out of false walls and wardrobes, they investigated nearly every one of the house’s forty rooms before finally arriving on the fourth-floor balcony.

  Teenie brushed aside a “DO NOT TOUCH!” sign on a knight in once-shining armor.

  “Just to see if it’s heavy,” said Teenie, grimacing at the weight. “It’s not!”

  As she lifted the armored arm, a ladder dropped to the ground. She’d found yet another hidden trapdoor.

  It was a lot of fun, yes, but after visiting every secret passage, closet, and hiding place, they hadn’t found any grooms. Or even any ghosts.

  Worse yet, from the circular window in the mansion’s highest tower, they could see that most of the guests had already arrived.

  Miguel, meanwhile, was perched on a ladder, hanging lights from a tree. They waved, but he couldn’t see them.

  The wedding was getting closer, and they were no closer to finding Simon.

  Guests and Guesses

  When they joined the crowd gathering for the wedding, Oliver was surprised to find Benny curled up in his mother’s lap.

  He never lets me hug him like that, Oliver thought.

  Oliver wasn’t so sure he wanted to hug Benny, but it would have been nice to have the option.

  “I found Benny!” Oliver’s mother said, nuzzling the rabbit. “The gardener was chasing you because you’re a bad bunny, aren’t you? Yes, you are.”

  She tickled Benny, who erupted in giggles. “Stop!” he begged.

  “Okay, okay!” Diane said. Then she looked at her son in alarm. “Oliver, did Benny just say Stop?”

  “No, that was me,” Oliver said. “He doesn’t like to be tickled or hugged or even held. He does like carrots, though.”

  “Well, you know him better than I do. Here, take him back.” Diane handed over the disappointed rabbit.

  By mutual agreement, Benny didn’t stay in Oliver’s arms; he went right back to his perch atop Oliver’s head.

  “Can we ask you a few questions?” Bea asked Oliver’s mother, pulling out her notebook.

  “For our wedding video,” Teenie specified.

  “As a parent, I wish I could take more naps!” said Diane. “Are you sure you don’t want to hear about the time I first met your fathers?”

  “We’re sure,” said Teenie. She turned off the camera. “Okay, that’s a wrap.”

  The kids regrouped under the still-less-than-sturdy-but-nonetheless-stylish chuppah.

  “Bea, we need a better game plan,” said Teenie. “That was fine for Oliver’s mom, but we can’t let anyone know Dad is missing. We could cause a panic. Or even tip off the gardener or the parent-napper!”

  Teenie thought for a moment. “We should ask something more subtle, like . . . ‘Tell us about the first time you ever saw our dad. Now tell us about the last time you saw him.’”

  “We also need a motive,” Bea pointed out.

  “‘Why’d you steal our dad?’”

  “How about, ‘Tell us your fondest memory of our dad and your deepest grudge.’”

  The twins tried these questions on every arriving guest. Nearly everyone said something suspicious. Many of their fathers’ friends went all the way back to college and they had some very specific axes to grind.

  Then there was the entire third-grade class.

  The rule at Nowonder Elementary was that if an invitation went out to one student in a class, it went out to every student in the class. As soon as Bea and Teenie invited Oliver, the wedding became a class field trip to Hauntington Gardens.

  “Maybe it was Maddox and his goons again,” said Bea, watching their classmate sneak a second or possibly third donut. After all, the only crime they’d ever investigated before had been committed by Maddox and his three friends.

  “Right!” exclaimed Teenie. “They started with petty theft and now they’re on to parent-napping!”

  Teenie swung the camera around to find the class bullies, Maddox, Memphis, Joe, and Jayden, pulling at their dress clothes.

  “Is there anything you want to say to Simon and Miguel?” Bea asked.

  “Our dads. This is their wedding.”

  “This is a wedding? Gross.” Memphis seemed truly surprised. “I’ve been to four of my mom’s and dad’s weddings. They’re all boring.”

  “What kind of phone is that?” Jayden asked. “Does it do 4K video?”

  Joe nodded to a llama piñata that was sitting under a tree. “When can I start hitting that piñata?”

  “You have to wait for them to put it up,” said Teenie from behind the camera.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Joe, slugging his own hand with his fist. “Why?”

  “Say, were we supposed to bring a gift or is our presence a present?” Maddox asked, smirking.

  Bea, Teenie, and Oliver didn’t trust these jokers, but they had to move on. They still had seventy suspects left to interview.

  The
rest of their class was a complete bust.

  Their friend Rose couldn’t talk even for a second. She’d seen Miguel working feverishly to hang the string lights over the dance floor and was now holding his ladder.

  “Thank you, Rose. At least someone’s helping.” Miguel climbed down to see his daughters and Oliver making the wedding video, but nowhere near ready for the wedding.

  “Girls!” he shouted, dropping string lights to the ground. “Have you seen your dad? Not only did he leave me to set up this entire wedding, he missed our couple’s portrait session! Why get married if you’re not going to take pictures?”

  “You could always take pictures without him,” Teenie suggested.

  “I tried. But I kept feeling like there was something missing.

  “Anyway, you’ve got to get ready!” Miguel said to his daughters. “The wedding is in . . .”

  Rose checked her digital-pet watch, which she used even though the tiny computer gave her an allergic rash.

  “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Miguel.”

  “What’s the point of getting ready?” Bea asked as they headed back to the mansion. “We haven’t found Dad.”

  “Maybe Dad is just getting ready somewhere else,” Teenie said hopefully.

  “But we’ve looked everywhere!”

  “What about the kitchen?” Benny whispered in Oliver’s ear. “The chef in there, I hear she chops up animals for stew.”

  Oliver looked at the line of caterers exiting the kitchen with trays of hard-to-identify meats.

  He shuddered as a caterer offered him chopped liver. The girls grabbed chicken fingers.

  “You’re looking all over, but what if he’s all over?” Benny speculated morbidly. “What if they’re serving Simon everywhere?”

  Oliver grabbed the appetizers out of his friends’ hands.

  “No time to eat! We’ve got to get ready.”

  Getting Ready (to Call It Off)

  The video crew reconvened in the family suite, where their outfits were hanging on a rack. The twins’ dresses matched the lining of Simon’s suit, which was a nice detail but made little sense, as no one would see the lining except them.

  Teenie really didn’t want to wear a dress, but she’d agreed to it as long as the dress had a sash for her flower sword. A flower assassin needs a flower sword. It wasn’t sharp, but it would knock the petals off a flower if she swung hard enough.

  “WAIT!” Bea pointed to her father’s suit hanging from the top of a tall closet door. “Dad’s suit. What if there’s another clue inside it?”

  The suit was too high up for any one of them to reach. But Teenie insisted it would be possible if the others climbed on her shoulders. Oliver thought this was a terrifying idea, but he agreed to take the highest position because he was the smallest and lightest.

  Lifted to more than twice his height, Oliver could see dust on the shelves and cobwebs on the ceiling, but no kidnapping-related clues. He grabbed Simon’s jacket and handed the pants down to the girls.

  “Check to see if he’s got any cash in there,” Benny suggested.

  “I’m not stealing!”

  “Of course not,” said the wise rabbit. “It’s just . . . ransom money.”

  Oliver swung the jacket around, checking the interior pockets and sleeves for ransom money. He had his arms all the way through the jacket when he heard Miguel exclaim:

  “Oh, there you are!”

  Teenie jumped in surprise. Oliver was certain they were about to fall, but she steadied herself, and they all hid behind Simon’s suit.

  “Well, Simon?” Miguel continued. “Where have you been and where did you get that ridiculous top hat? Bad enough the girls are making us wear Halloween ties.”

  “Oh no,” Oliver whispered to Benny. “He thinks we’re Simon! If he finds out Simon is really gone, they’ll call off the wedding.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Benny whispered back.

  The rabbit cleared his throat. “We’re not supposed to see each other before the wedding!” he declared loudly. “It’s bad luck.”

  He sounded exactly like Simon! Oliver was astonished, until he remembered that Benny had done impressions on the Vegas stage.

  “I thought we weren’t bothering with that, but if you insist . . .” Miguel turned around, so he was no longer facing Simon’s suit. “What are you doing up here, Simon?”

  “I’m just, um, writing my vows.”

  “Ugh! We vowed no vows!” Miguel threw his hands up. “Now that’s one more thing I’ve got to do! The wedding’s in ten minutes, Simon. And we still need to take pictures. You really know how to create a scene, don’t you?”

  Miguel stormed off, stomping loudly down the stairs.

  Once the coast was clear, the twins helped Oliver to the ground. Well, Bea wobbled, and everyone fell.

  “I didn’t know you could do impressions!” Bea exclaimed.

  “Yeah, that was way better than your magic,” Teenie said. “No offense.”

  Oliver looked at Benny, who’d crushed his tail during the fall. The rabbit cursed and hopped with his hat toward the exit.

  “For a second, I thought it was your rabbit talking,” said Bea.

  “HA!” said Oliver, a little too loud. “Benny talking. That’s funny.”

  He picked up the rabbit and pretended to pet him as he closed his hand over the rabbit’s mouth. Oliver felt the nip of two very large, sharp incisors. “Ow!”

  Free again, Benny jumped from Oliver’s hands onto a shelf that held two flower bouquets and two baskets of petals. The flowers looked delicious.

  “Benny!” Bea shouted. “Don’t eat their flowers!”

  Oliver tried to grab Benny, but just as his hand reached the rabbit’s fur, Benny, the flowers, and the entire shelf disappeared. An ancient pulley system was revealed in the open wall.

  “Another trapdoor!” Teenie exclaimed.

  “That’s a dumbwaiter,” Bea explained.

  “Don’t say dumb. It’s rude.”

  “No, that’s its name. Old houses have them. It probably goes to the kitchen. I bet that’s where Benny winds up.”

  “Oh, good,” said Teenie. “He’ll be safe, then.”

  Oliver ran from the room before the twins could say another word.

  “Don’t forget the flowers!” they shouted after him.

  As Teenie swung the sash and sword around her waist, something was knocked out of her pocket. It was the envelope with their names scrawled across it.

  “If we can’t find Dad, there won’t be a wedding,” said Bea, picking up the envelope. “We might as well open this now.”

  Since there was only one envelope to open, the twins naturally had to open it together. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  The envelope ripped apart along with a puff of smoke.

  Inside was a single page with a collaged request.

  “It’s got the cool letters!” exclaimed Teenie. “Just like I wanted!”

  “Yep, it’s a real ransom note,” said Bea, reading carefully. “How are we going to get three or even two hundred dollars? What are we—millionaires?”

  Rabbit Down the Hole

  Having spent so many years in show business, Benny had seen worse elevators than this dumbwaiter. Still, he was worried. As a rule, he avoided kitchens. And the Hauntington kitchen was, according to the rat, notorious.

  Benny hid in the basket of petals. If someone saw him, he’d be camouflaged—as an Easter Bunny. He gagged at the thought. Easter Bunny?! Never get him started on the Easter Bunny.

  It wasn’t long before the dumbwaiter landed with a thud and Benny could see into the bustling kitchen.

  In the center of the room stood the chef, a tough-looking woman in stiff chef’s whites, holding a cleaver high above her head.

  Uh-oh.

 
The cleaver slammed down on the counter.

  Then Benny saw it: the largest bowl of salad he’d ever encountered. It had everything: carrots, cherry tomatoes, water chestnuts, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy. He was in heaven. Or fifteen feet away. He just had to get across the kitchen without being noticed.

  “AAAAHHH!” a caterer screamed. “There’s a rat in the dumbwaiter.”

  Benny thought about correcting him. In his line of work, the worst thing you could be called was a rat. However, explaining would likely make it worse.

  He hopped over to the salad. If he was going down as a rat, he’d eat like a rat first.

  The catering staff was so scared of this giant, elevator-riding rat that they all ran away. But not the chef. And she was fully capable of making rabbit stew all by herself.

  The chef pointed her cleaver at Benny. “Don’t even try it.”

  Just as the chef was about to pounce on the rabbit, Oliver threw himself between them and pulled Benny away from the salad bowl.

  And Benny didn’t get a single bite of bok choy.

  Worse yet, he had to suffer another hug.

  “Everyone gets so emotional at weddings,” Benny complained.

  Oliver was just glad to have his bunny back.

  The chef put down the cleaver and clapped her hands to get Oliver’s attention.

  “You! What are you doing in my kitchen? And why are you hugging that rat?”

  “Aaack! A rat?” Oliver jumped back and scanned the room.

  “Psst, she’s talking about me, dummy,” Benny whispered.

  “Oh, you mean Benny,” Oliver said, relieved. “My bunny.”

  “Well, he scared my crew half to death,” the chef said. “Now I’ve got to go collect those big babies. Don’t touch anything! Especially not the cake. I know how you kids love cake.”