Free Floors #2: 3 Below by Patrick Carman Page B

gone.
    “Remember, no leaving the hotel,” Mr. Carp said, and then he closed his eyes. Leo didn’t move for a full minute, during which Mr. Carp began to snore lightly and Claudius coughed up a hairball that landed with a wet sound on the concrete floor.
    “Pssssst!”
    Remi had entered the basement and stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding his nose. Loopa was sitting on Remi’s shoulder, digging a monkey finger into Remi’s ear.
    “Shhhh,” Leo whispered as quietly as he could. He walked to his bed, got down on his knees, and fished his hand around in search of Blop. A moment later, he and Remi were standing together at the door, the little robot safely deposited in Remi’s red jacket.

    “That monkey is going to be trouble,” Leo said as he watched it run up and down the entire length of Remi’s body.
    “Yeah, she definitely woke up,” Remi said. “At least she’s quiet.”
    Loopa was an especially quiet monkey, but as Leo watched her leap off of Remi’s shoulder and land on the floor, he could see it was going to be difficult to control her.
    “Who’s the smelly dude?” Remi whispered as he picked up Loopa and put her back in his pocket. He had Blop, who was still sleeping, in one pocket, and Loopa in the other. Leo rolled his eyes and started up the stairs, grabbing Remi by the arm and dragging him out of the room. In seconds they were near the lobby, which Ms. Sparks appeared to have left.
    “Yeah, she’s in my mom’s old room,” Remi said, unable to hide his loathing. “I hope she’s not pulling down all the decorations.”
    “Come on, I have an idea,” Leo said. He ran through the lobby with Remi close behind. On the other side was the Puzzle Room, where piles of puzzle pieces lay on a long wooden table. There were eight hundred thousand pieces. Mr. Phipps and Captain Rickenbacker were fond of trying to put it together, but had never gotten very far.

    “I wish you could have seen it when Merganzer made the pieces fly everywhere,” Leo told Remi, smiling at the memory. “That was something else.”
    He took a black key card out of one of the side pockets of his maintenance overalls. He knew how to work the card so the piles of puzzle pieces would fly into the air and miraculously settle into the finished picture they were meant to be. Merganzer had showed him how to do it.
    “Only to be used when the time is right,” Leo said out loud. “Remember what I told you Merganzer said about the puzzle being double-sided?”
    “Two sides,” Remi said. “I remember.”
    After Merganzer had left last time, Leo had taken the puzzle apart again, leaving it in piles on the table. Putting it back together was an almost impossible task without the black key card.
    “Should I do it?” Leo asked, his thumb hovering over the card, ready to swipe back and forth in the way that would send the pieces flying. He could put it together, build it so they could see the other side, a side they’d never seen before.
    “I don’t know — does it seem like the right time?” Remi asked.
    Leo couldn’t be sure, but there was one thing he was sure of: He would know when the time was right.

    He put the key card away and shrugged. “I don’t think it’s time,” he said.
    Remi was having some trouble keeping Loopa in his pocket. He kept having to hold her head down while her arms snaked out in a desperate attempt to free herself.
    Just then, out of nowhere, the sound of a gigantic burp echoed through the lobby and into the Puzzle Room. It lasted a full ten seconds.
    “Remi,” Leo said, concern rising in his voice.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Where’s that bottle of Flart’s Fizz?”
    Blop’s mechanical eyes began to flutter. The little robot was waking up. He was sitting in the jacket pocket where the bottle had been.
    “I left it in the duck elevator,” Remi said. “I thought it would be safe there.”
    “Lovely day, don’t you think?” Blop said, and Leo knew it was only the very beginning of a