“Then answer me this.” Pippa crossed her arms. “How come he had one hundred dollars in his pocket this morning, huh? Where’d he get it?”
To this, Thomas had no answer. Everyone at the museum was paid a wage, even the children, although Mr. Dumfrey kept the majority of their wages in a strongbox for when they were older. But no one at the museum, not even Mr. Dumfrey, was paid more than ten dollars a week.
“Even if he did take it,” Max jumped in, “I still don’t see what that’s got to do with us.”
“Oh? And I guess you don’t care if the museum shuts down and all of us end up on the street?” Pippa said icily.
“I been on the street before,” Max said, lifting her chin.
“And you’re so eager to go back?” Pippa said.
Max hesitated. As much as she pretended to be hard, the truth was that she found living on the street practically unbearable. There was the stink and the noise, the clots of flies in summer, the driving rains in fall, and the icy grip of winter, like a small death. There was running from police and hiding in churches and getting chased out of stores. There was hunger, a foul taste in the mouth, an aching that filled you from nose to toes.
She had spent most of her life on the streets of New York City—performing knife tricks for coins, pickpocketing when she had to—and another three in Chicago before that, and in all that time she had thought of practically nothing but a roof and a fire when she needed one and a safe place to sleep where she had no fear of getting poked, moved, or chased off.
The museum was that, and more. In her short time there, she knew she had already started to love it: the soft whistles and creaks of the building, the constant jabbering of the other performers, the glass-enclosed exhibits, the hallways smelling of vinegar and perfume. The sunlight filtering through the window, wrapping everything in a golden haze. And then there was the way Mr. Dumfrey had looked at her—as though he’d been expecting her, almost. No one had ever expected her anywhere or cared whether she showed up.
“I thought not,” Pippa said, when Max didn’t speak. “Look. Mr. Dumfrey took a chance on us. On all of us. Plenty of other people wouldn’t have. We’re freaks, remember? Thomas has a spine like a rubber band. I can read minds. Well, almost,” she clarified quickly. “And Sam—poor Sam. He can’t even go a day without breaking something. And you . . .” She turned to Max, frowning. “Well, who knows what’s wrong with you. You’re violent.”
“I am not—”
“My point is,” Pippa said, cutting her off, “we have no one else.” She turned to the others. “Well?”
For a second, there was silence.
“Go on, Pippa,” Sam said. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”
Thomas should have known that when Pippa said she had a plan, what she meant was that she had a plan for him—which is why he now found himself squeezed into a shoebox-size space between an air duct and a nest of rusted iron pipes.
It was hot, airless, and cramped; he was fighting a sneeze that had begun as a tickle in his nose but now seemed to have him by the throat. Carefully, he extended one hand through the network of pipes and found purchase on an old iron knob. Holding his breath, flattening his lungs, trying to picture himself as a pancake, he pulled himself through a narrow gap between pipes, and at last found himself pressed against the iron grille, roughly level with the floor, looking out over the forbidden, the absolutely off-limits, chambers of Potts.
The performers all lived together in the attic, their respective sleeping spaces separated by a complex network of old junk that had drifted there over the years, like an upward-falling snow. Plaster statues, old desks, folding screens, and upturned mattresses—all were arranged for privacy in a labyrinthine formation bewildering to anyone who was a stranger to the museum.
Only Mrs. Cobble, Miss Fitch, Potts, and Dumfrey had their own quarters. Mrs. Cobble slept on the first floor, in a room accessible from the Special Exhibits Hall and directly above the kitchen, from which she claimed to be able to keep track of the larder even while asleep (a claim disproved by frequent midnight raids on the kitchen). Miss Fitch slept in the props and costume department on the second floor, in a bed allegedly once owned by a famous murderess and still sporting a bloodstain on its wood frame. Mr. Dumfrey maintained his bedroom behind his office on the third floor.
And Potts—the miserable, evil-smelling, bad-tempered Potts—had chosen to make his home in the basement. No one ever dared to disturb him down here, and Potts even kept his door locked, as if to double-guarantee against snoops and intruders.