Free Floors #3: The Field of Wacky Inventions by Patrick Carman Page B

ladder. The ladder extended through the long hole, which they’d all arrived inside of, when the shadow of a head leaned over the opening at the top.
    “Get out of my way — I’m coming back down!” Sheezley screamed.
    And so it was that everyone on the long, twisting ladder climbed back down four or five rungs in order to make room for Miss Sheezley.
    “The top floor of my very own hotel is out there,” Miss Sheezley said, with characteristic awe in her voice. “It would have crushed me!”
    But Leo and Remi only smiled. They’d made it through another portion of the contest, and they were still in it! And if this adventure was anything like all the others, the next stage would be even more dangerous and exciting than the last.

A little while before Miss Sheezley found herself staring up at the roof of her hotel about to land on her head, someone else was making a very important call. It is not known for certain where or who this person was, only that he or she had found their way to a private place long enough to call Ms. Sparks and provide an update.
    “Everything is going as planned. Miss Harrington is already out of the race!”
    “Please tell me that’s not all you’ve managed to rid us of. That Bosco character — now he’s trouble. Have you gotten rid of him yet?”
    There was a pause on the sat phone line.
    “Working on it. He’s a brute.”
    “And you are a fool!” Ms. Sparks roared. She was sitting in her crummy apartment, soaking her feet in a plastic kiddie pool she’d set in her living room. Water was splashing everywhere as she kicked her feet in frustration.
    “Let me remind you — we are nothing with just one hotel. Nothing! Not if those boys or any of the other idiots end up running the whole empire. We could get thrown out on our cans! We must control all the hotels.”
    “I do understand. Really I do.”
    “I repeat: Do not lose track of Leo Fillmore or his intolerable sidekick, Remi. That boy couldn’t open a door properly, let alone run an empire. But together they have Merganzer’s favor. He’s rigging this entire thing so they’ll win! I know it!”
    “That’s not going to happen — I promise. I’m in control. I have them right where I want them.”
    “Stay on them! They’re clever little urchins. They’ll walk away with an empire and leave us with nothing if you’re not careful.”
    “I better get back,” the caller said. “I’ll be missed. Don’t worry — it’s all going as planned.”
    “It better be.”
    Ms. Sparks hung up the phone and sloshed her long feet around in the shallow water of the kiddie pool. She began to smile, because for all her screaming and yelling, she was still in the hunt for the Whippet Hotel empire. She would rule from the shadows. That lunatic Merganzer will never even know! she thought, laughing to herself.
    It was a diabolically brilliant plan … if only her accomplice could stay with those meddling boys.

    E. J. Bosco was traveling exceptionally fast when he entered the Whippet Library for the first time. The tube he slid down turned in many directions on its path to the vast room of books below, and when it launched him out into the open air, he felt sure he’d eaten his last plate of chicken-fried steak (his favorite food, which was a specialty at the Boomtown, Bosco’s hotel). He couldn’t imagine living through a fall at that speed and from such a great height, but Merganzer D. Whippet was not a man who enjoyed seeing people expire inside any of his hotels, especially this hotel, which wasn’t even finished yet. No, Bosco was not to die on that day, but he did find himself landing in a slightly painful and more-than-slightly ungentlemanly way.
    Merganzer had rigged the exit from the tube so that the first thing a person would hit was a trampoline turned at a forty-five-degree angle from the floor of the library. The library was a tall space, forty feet or more, with tall shelves of books everywhere. Bosco belly flopped