Pippa couldn’t believe that only two days ago, Mr. Dumfrey had nearly danced a jig when he descended midmorning and—seeing the visitors lined up outside the museum doors—crowed that they would all be rich.
Life without the museum would be a form of imprisonment: dull and hard and lonely. The museum was everything to her, as familiar as breathing, as close and comforting as the dented space in her mattress that fitted her body exactly. She had no memories of life before the museum, except for strange, shadowy images of a vast dark hallway and nightmare figures that sometimes came to her, stretching their skinny fingers between the bars of their cages.
She finally drifted to sleep when the moon had already started descending toward the horizon, and woke with the sun shining aggressively. She was alone. Confused, she got up and shoved her feet in the lambskin slippers Mr. Dumfrey had given all the children for Christmas last year, then padded to the stairwell. Why hadn’t Mrs. Cobble woken everyone for breakfast, as she usually did? Why hadn’t Potts come stomping through the attic, grunting, “Grub’s on. Hurry up or miss out”?
Her stomach knotted up. Something terrible must have happened.
She practically flew down the stairs, slippers slapping loudly against the wood. She could hear voices, and she followed them down the hall, down the steep flight of stairs that led to the cellar, and burst into the kitchen.
Several dozen faces looked up at her in surprise. Caroline and Quinn were enjoying a rare moment of peace, seated side by side and dressed identically, sharing a single cup of coffee. Smalls was holding a vast dusty volume called Collected Romantic Poetry, his place marked with a massive finger. Sam, Thomas, and Max were sitting at the table, along with various other residents of the museum, many of them still in their pajamas, blinking sleep from their eyes or patting down hair that seemed to have been electrified overnight. Potts was glowering at Thomas from his usual spot in the corner.
Dumfrey was missing.
“Where’s Mr. Dumfrey?” Pippa asked breathlessly, almost fearing to hear the answer.
“Went out to get the paper,” Thomas said, yawning.
“Where’s Mrs. Cobble?” Pippa asked, noticing that she, too, was missing.
“Up and left,” Potts spat out.
“Traitor!” Miss Fitch shook her head. The children could always tell what kind of mood Miss Fitch was in by the severity of her part. Today her hair looked as if it had been raked and pulled with unusual ferocity. “Treacherous, two-faced traitor. As soon as Mr. Dumfrey suggested a reduction in wages . . .”
“She took her spoons and sailed out the door,” Danny finished for her, waddling out from behind the table. He was wearing Mrs. Cobble’s old pink apron, which reached all the way to his toes.
He began whisking eggs so vigorously, half of them ended up on the floor. “It’s a damn shame. . . .”
“Language, Daniel!” Miss Fitch said.
“But it is. After all Mr. Dumfrey did for her. Did for all of us! I’d like to kick her in the shins. I’ll do it, too, if I ever see that snaggletoothed hound again.”
“We’ll just have to make do without her, Danny,” Betty said soothingly, reaching over and removing the eggs from him before he could whisk them into nonexistence.
In Mrs. Cobble’s absence, everyone pitched in to help get breakfast on the table. And though Quinn complained the eggs were too runny and Caroline complained they were too hard and Goldini burned the toast while attempting to make it vanish and reappear and Betty lost several beard hairs in the porridge, by the time they sat down to eat, Pippa was so hungry she thought it was the best breakfast she’d ever had.
She was trying to prevent Max from licking her bowl, when the door opened and Mr. Dumfrey appeared on the stairs, a newspaper tucked under one arm.
He seemed to have aged a decade overnight. His face was the gray of wet paper pulp. He wasn’t smiling.
“Pippa,” he said in a tone so sharp it made her chest constrict with fear. “Thomas. Samuel. Max. My office. Now.”
The kitchen went silent. Pippa stood up from the table, conscious of the loud grating of the bench against the floor. Max, Sam, and Thomas stood, too. Together, they followed Mr. Dumfrey as he stomped up the performers’ staircase ahead of them. Pippa felt as if she were on her way to the guillotine.
“What’s got his panties in a pinch?” Max whispered.
“Shut up, Max,” Pippa said. She had never seen Mr. Dumfrey so upset.
When they reached Mr. Dumfrey’s office, Mr. Dumfrey ushered them inside without a word, closing the door firmly behind them.