Polly Shulman - The Grimm Legacy

“So there is a time machine?” That was crazy. “What else is in there?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, lots of things. That’s really Aaron’s department. You should ask him about it if you’re interested. He’s kind of a science-fiction expert.”

Like Aaron would tell me anything! “Okay, but what’s the collection all about? Is it stuff that inspired famous science-fiction books?”

“Yes, exactly! That kind of thing.”

“Why’s it called the Wells Bequest? Did the objects used to belong to H. G. Wells?”

“A few of them, but there are other things too.”

“Like what?”

“Shrink rays and miniature rockets and so forth.”

That had to be a joke. “Do they work?” I asked, playing along.

“Well, the rockets work. It’s not hard to make a miniature rocket. I made one myself last year, for the science fair.”

“What about the shrink rays?”

“What do you think?”

“What else is down there?”

“Where, the Dungeon? Well, there’s the Garden of Seasons. And the Gibson Chrestomathy and the Lovecraft Corpus. They’re both fairly recent additions.”

Marc came over to our station. “You’re telling her about that?” he said to Anjali. He sounded alarmed.

“It’s okay, Merritt—Doc already told her about the Grimm Collection.”

“Did she get her key yet?”

Anjali raised her eyebrows at me inquiringly.

“What key?” I asked.

“Anjali!” said Marc.

“It’s okay,” said Anjali. “She’s one of the good ones. I have a sense for these things—I recognized you, didn’t I?”

“If you say so,” said Marc dubiously.

“What key?” I asked again.

“You’ll find out soon enough, if Anjali’s right,” said Marc.

“So what’s in the Gibson Crestothingy and the Lovecraft Corpus? And the Garden of Seasons?” I asked.

“The Gibson Chrestomathy is mostly software and computer technology,” said Anjali.

“Really? I thought all that was on Stack 5, Tools.”

“Most of it is. They keep the . . . special stuff downstairs.”

“What kinds of things are in the Gibson thingy, then?”

“The Chrestomathy? Artificial intelligence, interesting computer viruses, that kind of thing.”

“And the Garden of Seasons?”

“I’m not sure,” said Marc. “I’ve never been in there. It’s supposed to be as amazing as the Tiffany windows.”

I made a mental note to check out the garden if I ever could. “And what about the Lovecraft Corpus, what’s that?” I asked.

“Don’t talk about that! You shouldn’t even be thinking about it,” Marc said. “Anjali shouldn’t have mentioned it. Don’t go down there.”

“Why? What’s in it?”

“I’m serious. Stay out of the Lovecraft Corpus! That place is bad news.”

I really had to get down to the Dungeon soon, I decided. Even if Anjali and Marc were pulling my leg about some of these things, it sounded like all the really fascinating—and maybe dangerous—stuff was in the Special Collections, and I wanted to see it.

The next Saturday, Ms. Callender sent me down to Stack 2 with a hand truck of returns from the City Opera costume department. I had spent an hour packing sequined gowns in muslin dust bags and telling myself that at least it was more glamorous than putting away my own laundry, when a high, insistent voice interrupted me. I looked up and saw a little boy.

He looked like somebody, for a joke, had made an exact copy of Marc Merritt in miniature. He was dressed just like Marc, in jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and bright white sneakers. He had the same big brown eyes and the same long, curly eyelashes. His cheeks were rounder, his skin a deeper brown, and his arms and legs proportionally shorter, but he had the same firm chin and the same determined frown.

“I gotta go,” he said.

“Go where? Where’d you come from?” I asked.

A crazy thought crossed my mind. Maybe there really was a shrink ray in the Wells Bequest, and Marc had gotten caught in it. Maybe this was Marc.

“I gotta go, ” said mini-Marc again. “Gonna have a accident.” He danced back and forth from one foot to the other.

“Oh! You mean the bathroom?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Okay, hang in there. This way.” If finger acid was bad for the collection, I could only imagine what urine would do to it. I hurried him down the hall to the ladies’ room.

Unfortunately, there was an icon of a person in a triangular skirt on the door. “That’s the girls’ room,” he objected.

“Yeah, but I can’t take you into the boys’ room—I’m a girl. It’s okay; they have toilets in here too. Come on.” I held the door open.

He hesitated, then followed me in.

“You want me to help you?” I asked. He nodded. Feeling ridiculous for even entertaining the thought, I really, really hoped this wasn’t Marc. How embarrassing would that be?

Of course, a shrink ray might make a guy smaller, but it wouldn’t turn him into a three-year-old. I found that comforting at first, until it occurred to me that a time machine might.

Don’t be silly, I told myself.

“All done,” said mini-Marc.

I buttoned him up. “Let’s wash your hands,” I said, lifting him up so he could reach the faucet. Then he wanted to use the hand dryer for longer than seemed entirely necessary.

“Come on, buddy, I’ve got to get back to work, and your mom’s going to wonder what happened to you,” I told him.

He reluctantly let me lead him out into the hall. Once there, he started charging down it. I ran to catch up. “Hey! Where are you going?”

“I gotta find my butter.”

“Okay, kid, hold your horses. Where’s your mom? Maybe we should take you to Ms. Callender.”

“I gotta find my butter ! Butter! Butter!”

“Hey, calm down, sweetie. What is it? Are you hungry?” I knelt and took him by the shoulders. He shook me off and started stomping his feet.

“Where’s my butter? I want my butter!”

“Andre? Andre, where are you?” Marc Merritt appeared as if by magic at the end of the hall. He was full size. I felt a wave of embarrassment for having imagined that he’d been tampered with by a shrink ray.

The kid—Andre—ran to him, his little feet thudding like pneums, and threw himself against Marc’s legs, crying, “Butter!”

Marc knelt down and hugged him. “Brother yourself! Where’d you go to? Didn’t I tell you to stay put? You scared me! Don’t ever do that, okay?”

“Sorry, Butter. I hadda go, ” explained Andre. “The girl taked me.”

Marc looked up as if noticing me for the first time. The look was not altogether friendly. He often looked arrogant, but this time I felt as if he was accusing me of something.

“I took him to the bathroom,” I said. “He said he was going to have an accident. So he’s your brother?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s Andre. Thanks,” he said, thawing a little. “Say thank you to Elizabeth, Andre.”

“Thank you, Libbet,” said Andre.

“Did you wash your hands?” asked Marc.

“Yeah, I like the wind thing. It goes fffffffffff, fffffffffff, fffffffffff . It’s the girls’ room. They have toilets there too.”

Marc swung him to his shoulder as lightly as if he were lifting a kitten, not a solidly built three-year-old. “Okay, bro, let’s get you to day care. Say bye to Elizabeth.”