That was enough for Felix.
He ran out of The Treasure Chest, down the stairway, down the long carpeted hallway, past the tapestries from the Middle Ages, down the Grand Staircase, past the photo of Great-Aunt Maisie as a young girl with Great-Uncle Thorne poking his head into the picture, slipping and sliding across the shiny polished floor of the foyer, and into the Library, where the ridiculous old-fashioned phone sat.
With trembling fingers, Felix put his finger first into the nine on the dial, and swept it slowly all the way across and back. Then, into the one, which at least was faster, and then swept the one again.
He waited what seemed like forever, but really was no time at all, until a nasally female voice said, “Nine-one-one.”
Felix shouted into the heavy receiver.
He shouted the address of Elm Medona.
He shouted, “I think my great-uncle has had a heart attack or something.”
He shouted, “Come fast!”
From the Cigar Room his mother called, “What’s all the shouting?”
The 911 lady said, “Calm down, son. You’re doing fine. An ambulance is on its way. Stay on the line until they get there.”
Felix could not calm down.
He kept repeating the address.
“Elm Medona,” he shouted into the heavy receiver. “Maybe you know it?”
“I do,” the 911 lady said.
“What’s all the shouting, Felix?” his mother called again.
Now he heard her coming toward the Library, and way off in the distance, a siren.
“I hear it,” he told the 911 lady. “The ambulance.”
“Stay on the line, son,” she said. “You’re doing fine.”
The sound of the siren grew closer.
His mother appeared in the doorway, irritated.
“Enough surprises,” she said. “A dog. Your father. I’m trying to get some work done.”
“It’s here, I think,” Felix shouted to the 911 lady.
The 911 lady said, “Go open the door, son. Let them in.”
Felix dropped the receiver and pushed past his mother.
“Hey!” his mother said.
But Felix didn’t pause.
By now, Great-Uncle Thorne could be dead.
Don’t cry, he told himself. He had too much to do.
Even from all the way down here, he could hear James Ferocious barking incessantly. Felix thought about how dogs—or maybe cats?—could predict earthquakes and deaths in hospitals and all sorts of catastrophes. The word catastrophe almost made him cry again, since, like, an hour ago Great-Uncle Thorne had used it.
But now Felix was at the door, and now he was opening it, and now four men with a stretcher and all kinds of medical equipment were storming into the Grand Foyer.
“Where is he?” one of them asked.
Without answering, Felix began the reverse run up the Grand Staircase, past the photo of young Maisie and Thorne, past the Middle Ages tapestries, down the corridor to the spot where the wall gaped open, up the stairway, past a barking James Ferocious, and into The Treasure Chest.
“I can’t hear his heartbeat,” Hadley said through her tears.
“Sir,” Rayne said, standing as soon as she saw the first EMT, “I did the ABC’s of CPR.”
Her voice quivered. “Airway. Breathing—”
“Out of the way, sweetheart,” the EMT said.
The other three EMTs pushed quickly through the door of The Treasure Chest.
One of them knocked into the desk with the big machine he was carrying.
Phinneas Pickworth’s treasures that were there flew to the floor.
Something shattered.
“Pulse!” an EMT shouted, and then said a bunch of numbers.
“Oxygen!” another one shouted. More numbers.
Great-Uncle Thorne looked worse than before. Not only was his face as white as marble, it seemed like marble—cold and stony and still.
“Get these kids out of here,” an EMT shouted.
Felix, Hadley, and Rayne skittered out, lingering with James Ferocious in the doorway.
Only Maisie couldn’t move. She could only stare as they clapped something onto Great-Uncle Thorne’s arm and something else onto his finger.
“Get that dog out of here,” the same EMT shouted.
Felix grabbed James Ferocious’s collar and tried to pull him away, but the dog wouldn’t budge. Or stop barking.
“On my three,” an EMT said.
The children watched as the EMTs rolled Great-Uncle Thorne onto the stretcher, then lifted the stretcher high.
“What is going on?” Maisie and Felix’s mother said, out of breath.
“Out of our way, ma’am,” the EMTs ordered.
Everyone stepped aside as they carried Great-Uncle Thorne out of The Treasure Chest.
“Uncle Thorne,” their mother cried.
She looked from Great-Uncle Thorne to the EMT vanishing down the staircase to the children and the dog huddled in the doorway of The Treasure Chest.
“What is going on?” she said again, but softly, as if she were asking herself.
“I have a merit badge in first aid,” a tearful Rayne explained. “I even got a perfect score giving CPR to the Annie doll.”