The Somebodies Page 9

  “Vermin! Stowaways!” she screamed. “Get ’em!”

  While the wrestler woman screamed and the exploded-bun woman swung her broom around like a bat at Howard, Fern dashed to the desk. She grabbed two jars and shoved them quickly into her sweatshirt pockets. Howard swayed this way and that, until he got a straight shot out of the room. Fern turned to go grab the fishbowl, but there was no time. She jumped onto the cart, rolled across the room, then hopped off. Fern and Howard both ran as fast as they could down the blue then pink then orangey hall.

  PART 3

  THE IVORY KEY

  1

  OH, CONVENTIONS!

  SOMETIMES I FORGET THAT YOU’RE STILL YOUNG. This is because you are such a wise and thoughtful reader. But the fact is, that despite your maturity, you are not a grown-up and you probably do not sell flood insurance or condos in Florida. You probably do not dress up in itchy wool pants, carry a musket and do Civil War reenactments. And you probably do not belong to the High Order of Hairless Persian Cat Breeders. And because you are not shouldering the burdens of grown-up life (as if kid life doesn’t have its own burdens! Ha!), you have probably never been to a convention.

  Conventions can be big, sprawling, ugly ordeals that take place mainly in hotels. Much like any good birthday party, a convention always has a theme, but unlike a good birthday party, it often has little joy (and rarely cake with cursive lettering and candles). Amid meetings and booths (of freebie pencils with slogans printed on them in tiny letters), there’s often a motivational speaker, who sometimes gets so lathered up about the theme (which might be floods, or condos in Boca, or muskets, or hairless cats) that he or she spits when speaking loudly into a microphone.

  Ubuleen Heet was this year’s speaker at the Anybodies convention.

  Fern and Howard ran down flight after flight of stairs. When they got to the bottom, Fern said, “Hand me the book.” She held on to its heavy binding and concentrated. There in the empty stairwell, The Art of Being Anybody shrank and hardened and reddened until it was the size and shape of an apple. Fern shoved it into one of her sweatshirt pockets, which bulged because it now held not only a jar of souls but an apple, too.

  “We can’t have The Art of Being Anybody paraded around in this crowd,” she said.

  “Good thinking. And it was heavy, too. My arms are tired.”

  They took a deep breath and opened the door at the bottom of the stairs to find themselves in a wide corridor, right in front of a life-sized picture of Ubuleen Heet. They both jumped back, and then realized she was only lifelike—not real. It was simply announcing the time of her speech in the amphitheater later that evening.

  To get to the lobby, Fern and Howard had to pass down the wide corridor. It was filled with booths manned by people in smart suits. Fern and Howard had stopped running. Instead they strode along in a purposefully rushed way. Fern knew that if you look purposefully rushed, you don’t have time to answer questions like, Do your parents know you’re walking around loose like this? Do you kids even have a room in this hotel? Could you please show me your key?

  Still breathless from their escape, they took this time to whisper to each other.

  Howard asked, “Do books have souls? Was she dragging the souls out of books and and…?”

  “Leaving the books for dead?”

  “Do you think?”

  Fern nodded.

  “Why?” Howard whispered. “Why would someone do that?”

  “They’re her power source, I think. Dorathea said the Blue Queen needed a power source because she’d been stripped of her powers after the eleven-day rule.”

  “Do you think she could take over again?” Howard asked nervously. “She makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. She’s worse than that elevator ride.”

  “I don’t know,” Fern said. “We’ve got to find Fattler and warn him. She can’t get that key—whatever it is.”

  “How will we find Fattler and tell him what’s going on? I mean, we aren’t even supposed to be here, Fern,” Howard said.

  “We still have to warn him somehow,” Fern said.

  “Let’s just disappear. Slink off. Hide out. It’s safer.”

  “Do you want to head to Gravers? The Drudgers have court orders, you know.”

  “You’re right,” Howard said.

  Fern zipped up, put on her hood and pulled the strings. “And keep an eye out for Dorathea and the Bone. They’ll be looking for us everywhere, I’m sure.”

  Howard hunched up his shoulders and looked around. “Court orders,” he muttered. “Court orders.”

  They shuffled quickly through the brisk crowd. It seemed like a good spot to be, lost in all the people. They listened to bits of conversation:

  “Target market,” she heard.

  And, “Tom Hanks was at the bagel table.”

  “In full animation?” someone else asked.

  Fern wanted to see Tom Hanks, fully animated or not. She didn’t hear the answer. The people bustled by.

  Another group was talking about the motivational speaker: “She’s going to teach us to embrace our inner something. I can’t remember. But isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I don’t want her telling me to embrace anything,” Howard said. His eyes darted all over the lobby, taking everything in.

  “You like it here, don’t you?” Fern asked.

  “Of course not,” Howard said.

  A woman idling by a booth offering Peace and Tranquility—“a soap that works right into your skin, transforming you to a place of pure calm”—caught Fern’s eye and gave a wink. And because it’s a natural instinct for an Anybody to wink back at an Anybody who’s winked at them, Fern felt her eye snap shut for a split second. The woman was wearing a smoking jacket, with fancy overlapped letters stitched onto its chest pocket. Fern didn’t like the woman, and she stuck closer to Howard because of her.

  One young woman was selling Anybody Water supplies. “You just buy the bottle, fill it with tap water, and it will instantly transform into fresh mountain spring water from the Alps.” There were bankers claiming they could transform stock portfolios. Marriage counselors, beauty consultants, body coaches, dentists—all with transforming products.

  Most people were gathered around one booth. Howard pulled Fern toward the crowd.

  “What do you think they’re selling?” he said.

  The salesman seemed like he had no need of any of the other booths, or like he’d already benefited from what they had to offer. He looked smiley, fit, beautiful, in love, rich and well hydrated. He said, “This is revolutionary! It’s proven to be completely effective! The Correct-O-Cure spray. When sprayed liberally on a person or object that has been transformed, it destabilizes and returns the person or object to its original state, fixing any wrongs incurred during the period of change. In other words, transformations are reversed!”

  “That can’t be right,” Fern said.

  “Yes it can,” Howard said. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard of. It gives you a break, at least, from all that crazy Anybody behavior! A break! That’s the product for me!” Howard waddled through the crowd and got two small sample spray bottles.

  “It’s probably a scam. It can’t work!” Fern said, keeping an eye on the salesman.

  “You never know.” Howard shoved the minibottles into his pocket.

  The salesman winked at Fern with a crooked smile. Fern winked back, of course. She had no choice. She noticed that the salesman had the same looping letters stitched onto his blazer. Fern stared at them more closely while he went on with his spiel, all sugary, do-good and fake. Fern stared until the letters became distinct from one another: SSS.

  “The Secret Society of Somebodies,” Fern whispered, backing away.

  “What?” Howard said.

  “C’mon,” Fern said. “Let’s keep going.”

  They pushed their way through the crowd and found themselves on a golden-railed landing with two sets of turning staircases on either side.

>   “The lobby,” she said. “The grand lobby of Willy Fattler’s Underground Hotel.”

  2

  WILLY FATTLER’S GRAND LOBBY—FLYING MONKEYS AND ALL!

  WHEN HOWARD AND FERN HAD REACHED THE middle of the bustling lobby, they stopped and let it all swirl around them: the massive glittering chandelier; the small orchestra in one corner playing something antique and lilting; the fountain bubbling in the middle of the floor; plush golden overstuffed chairs beneath huge paintings of men and women in white wigs, holding pug-faced doggies; a row of revolving doors in constant twirl at the front; a fleet of elevators binging wildly on one wall; a bank of fast-talking clerks—they were wearing powdered wigs too, as were the flying monkeys. (The wrestler woman had been telling the truth about them after all.) The monkeys scooped up suitcases in their clawed feet and flapped overhead and up the large spiral staircases.

  Some very elegant Anybodies sipped wine by the fountain, picking at the food display—chocolate-shellacked fruit, plus candies and grapes and cheeses. Other Anybodies, tourists, clutched cameras and gaped. A few were whispering and pointing at a man with dark hair, shuffling through the lobby with some children in tow. One of the kids was complaining about an itchy tag, and so the man stopped. He pulled the kid’s tag out of his shirt. His hands suddenly turned into a complicated instrument filled with sharp pointy knives and scissory things. He quickly snipped the child’s shirt tag. His hand went back to normal. A tourist waved to him excitedly, and a purple top hat appeared on the man’s head. He tipped it. The purple hat disappeared, and he scurried out of the lobby with his kids.

  “That was Johnny Depp,” Fern whispered to Howard.

  “Johnny who?”

  “The famous actor!”

  “Don’t know him!”

  Fern didn’t take the time to explain. There was too much to see. Fern was drawn to the huge map on the wall opposite the food display. The map was multilayered: New York City above, and the city beneath the city below. Fern spotted the castle right off. It was located beneath an open field at Central Park. She touched the spire and the spot in Central Park where, at this very moment, Fern thought, a family might have just spread out a blanket for a picnic.

  “I’m hungry,” Howard said, pulling Fern toward the heaps of delicacies. “Look at it all!”

  Fern hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She and Howard stood there for a moment, just taking in the beautiful colors, the scents—everything polished in either sugar or chocolate or a colored glaze. Even the ham was chocolate frosted.

  Fern looked closely, taking a deep breath.

  Howard grabbed a plate and started filling it. “One for you, two for me.” He was scooping as many chocolate-covered things as possible from the enormous mountain of goodies.

  Just as Fern was about to take a bite, a couple leaned in close to her. “Oh, hello! So great to see you here,” the woman whispered.

  “Yes, looking forward to your joining,” the man said.

  They were a well-groomed couple who smelled particularly sweet and fruity. They had tidy haircuts and broad smiles.

  “You know not to go to the speech, don’t you?” the woman said. “It’s for the others. The lesser masses.”

  “The lesser masses?”

  The woman flitted her hand in the air. “You know, those who are clearly not Somebodies. Let them be hypnotized to think less of themselves! Not us. We’re ready to go up! Aren’t we?” The woman nodded her tidy haircut at Howard, who was standing nearby, trying to pretend he wasn’t paying attention. Fern now saw both the Triple S logos on their blazers.

  “Up?” Fern asked.

  “Yes, yes! Straight up!” She pointed to the ceiling.

  “Congratulations on your selection into the society!” the man said, his smile aglow. “Ubuleen is pleased, I’m sure of it! You’ll be a Somebody soon. Like us!”

  A Somebody? She thought back to Lucess Brine in Mrs. Fluggery’s class, and how she used to call her a nobody, saying, Don’t you wish you were a somebody? Fern had wanted to be a somebody—how happy she’d been about the invitation! But now, she didn’t want to be a somebody—not like these Somebodies. What was the Triple S exactly, and did they really know Ubuleen Heet? Did they know she was the Blue Queen? And what could they possibly mean by We’re ready to go up? Fern wanted to tell the couple that they might think they were friends with Ubuleen Heet, but she didn’t have friends. She didn’t believe in it. Or were they just as evil as she was? Fern decided not to ask any questions, though. She didn’t want to align herself with the Triple S and Ubuleen Heet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, trying to sound polite.

  The couple nodded. “That’s right,” the woman said. “Of course not!”

  “Hush, hush,” said the man, laughing as if Fern had told a joke, and they waltzed off into a group of Somebodies in Triple S blazers.

  “Do you know them?” Howard asked.

  “The Secret Society,” Fern muttered, as one of the women at the front desk nodded at her knowingly, the “S’s” on her blazer shrunken to a small emblem that was hardly visible. “They’re after me.”

  Just then the chandelier overhead flickered. All the chattering Anybodies hushed, overly ripe with joy. Two more women with Triple S blazers raised their fingers to their lips and shushed right at Fern, wearing their smiles. Even the orchestra fell silent—was the clarinetist wearing a Triple S blazer? Fern felt panicked. Was she just imagining that Somebodies were everywhere now?

  The silver fork in Howard’s hand disappeared, and the mountain of goodies shrank into a row of blue plates. On each plate was a small dollop of some orange meat with a zigzag of white sauce on top.

  “Oooh! Ahhh!” the Anybodies sighed joyfully.

  “What happened?” Fern asked.

  “The food shrank!” Howard said, staring at his plate.

  “Oh, how very modern!” a woman next to them shrieked.

  Fern and Howard looked around the lobby. Fern didn’t have time to look for Triple S blazers for the moment, because everything was changing, twisting, churning, paling and brightening, too. The change was sweeping in waves from one side of the room to the other. The food and lighting went in the first wave. The chandelier became a sculpture of fluorescent tubing.

  “This is what I’ve read about!” Fern said. “This is Fattler’s genius—an ever-changing hotel! Isn’t it…amazing!”

  Across the room a man shouted. A woman screamed and pointed. Fern looked at the spot of the commotion. She saw the miniature pony in full-speed gallop, hurtling in their direction.

  “Look!” Fern said. “He’s back!”

  Because of the pony, Fern and Howard weren’t prepared for the wave that followed—the flooring, from marble to metallic tiles. The Anybodies all seemed to know to step over the new flooring as it washed past. Even the pony leaped at the right moment. Fern was trying to reach for the pony, though, and Howard was trying to balance his food. They were pitched up into the air by the new flooring. They fell hard. Fern and Howard exchanged a look of pure astonishment. They both glanced over their shoulders, but the pony was gone. Fern patted her pockets. The apples and the jars of egg-souls were safe. The next wave was coming. They could feel it in the air. They scrambled quickly to their feet.

  This wave turned the paintings of people in wigs holding pugs into rows of white canvases, each entitled Pink Canvas. The orchestra was replaced by a performance artist—a woman cutting the hair off a Barbie doll. The flying monkeys no longer had white wigs. They had spiked Mohawks. A final wave whittled the overstuffed chairs into sleek cushioned planks, and the fountain disappeared completely. In its place was a spotlight on nothing.

  Fern was stunned. “It’s all changed!” she said. “Transformed!”

  “Into what?” Howard said, looking down at the squares of orange meat. “Can they change it back?”

  Howard popped a bunch of the orange meat squares into his mouth, even though it was clearly the kind of thing
you weren’t supposed to eat in bulk. “Not bad,” he said. “I mean, it’s not chocolate-covered ham, but it’s not bad.”

  “Pretty good, I’d say.” It was a man wearing a pair of bifocals, and a Triple S blazer. “Hello there, Fern,” he whispered, and then sauntered off.

  “Do you know him?” Howard asked.

  Fern shook her head.

  As the commotion from the lobby’s transformation settled, there was a new commotion on the second floor, where the two winding staircases met in the middle. Everyone was suddenly twisting to get a look.

  “Good day!” The voice boomed like it was being blasted out of department store speakers throughout the lobby. But actually, it came from one spot, a large mouth—big as the kind you’d find on a grouper, which is a kind of fish. The mouth was located just below a waxy blond moustache and a bobble of a nose—a nose that on this large flushed face seemed more decorative than something you’d actually use for breathing. The man was rosy and jolly and jowly and robust. He was all these things at once; he was a perfect example of a rosejolly-jowlybust. Or almost. There was something skittish in his eyes, a watery, nearly teary nervousness. But he still spoke with great force. “So wonderful to see you all here today at Willy Fattler’s Underground Hotel!”

  Fern knew, straightaway, that he was Willy Fattler. She’d seen pictures of him in The Art of Being Anybody, Chapter 16. There were photos of him and his father, also named Willy Fattler, and his grandfather, also named Willy Fattler, and his great-grandfather, also named, you guessed it, Willy Fattler. He was just as Fern had pictured him: big and bellowing, in the center of it all.

  “Welcome to the grand extravaganza! Where you will find that you can please everyone, if you offer enough choices!” He turned then with a majestic flourish. “May I introduce Ubuleen Heet. The hottest new motivational speaker! She will, no doubt, change our lives!”