Free Once Upon a Midnight Eerie: Book #2 (Misadventures of Edgar/Allan) by Gordon McAlpine Page B

in a red scarf standing outside the museum.
    “Miss Payne, can you tell us anything about the historical item left behind in the broken glass case?” asked the newsman.
    For someone whose museum had just been invaded, she seemed remarkably happy. “It is the handwritten diary of Pierre Lafitte!”
    The two sets of twins leaned toward the TV.
    “And that diary is financially valuable?” the reporter queried.
    “Oh, yes,” Miss Payne answered brightly. “And, better yet, the diary sheds new historical light on some of the most important figures of the period. For example, we found it open to a page upon which Lafitte confessed in his own hand to the cold-blooded killing of a local couple named . . .” She glanced down at the old leather diary in her hand.
    “Say it, say it. . . .” muttered the Poe twins, anxiously.
    “Let’s see,” Miss Payne continued, her eyes scanning the small, ornate handwriting.
    “Come on!” the Dickinson twins shouted at the TV. “Say their names!”
    “What’s going on here, kids?” Aunt Judith asked.
    “His victims’ name was Du Valier,” the museum curator said at last. “Clarence and Genevieve, whom he murdered in cold blood outside their own pub in 1814.”
    At these words, Edgar, Allan, Em, and Milly looked at each other, then stood and cheered, thrusting their fists in the air, victorious.
    Their guardians watched them as if they were insane.
    “What’s this all about?” Uncle Jack asked.
    Aunt Judith and Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson looked just as confused.
    “Justice!” the four twins answered as one.

WHAT THE POE TWINS DID NOT KNOW  .  .  .
    CELL PHONE TEXT MESSAGES BETWEEN NATASHA PERRY AND CASSANDRA PERRY:

8

    THAT’S A WRAP!
    THAT evening, before leaving the hotel room for
A Tale of Poe
’s wrap party, Allan and Edgar tuned the TV to the Wild Animal Channel, which was broadcasting its annual Bird Week Marathon. While the boys preferred Predator Week, nothing appealed more to Roderick than watching parakeets flutter from branch to branch. He watched it the way gourmets watch the Food Channel. Additionally, Bird Week allowed the cat to perfect his many vocal impressions, which he sometimes used to lure tasty between-meal snacks in the tree branches outside the Poes’ house.
    “Your dish is filled with sparkling water,” Allan told Roderick, who preferred it to still.
    “And your food bowl is over here,” Edgar said, indicating the Cajun tuna tartare they’d ordered up from the room service menu.
    Roderick nodded, though his eyes remained on the TV.
    The Poe twins had felt bad when Cassie informed them that pets were not allowed in the fancy restaurant Mr. Wender had rented for the festivities.
    At first, the boys considered skipping the party.
    But Roderick had curled up on the bed and looked like he could use a quiet night anyway.
    “We ordered special sheets,” Edgar told him.
    “Egyptian cotton with a thread count of a thousand!” Allan added.
    Roderick turned to them and then chirped like a parakeet.
    “So you’ll be OK while we’re out?” the Poe twins inquired.
    Roderick answered by cawing like a crow.
    “Good,” the boys said.
    They closed the window and double-checked the lock on the door after them.

    The wrap party was going strong by the time the Poe family arrived at the restaurant. The Dixieland jazz playing inside, rollicking and free and fun, lured tourists from all over the French Quarter. But five burly security guards saw to it that only invited guests got in.
    “Yes, here you are,” a security guard said to the Poe family as he checked a list at the door. “VIPs.”
    The prop crew had redecorated the restaurant with some of the Poe-oriented props used in the movie. A stuffed raven perched at the end of the bar. Mannequins in medieval masquerade garb stood scattered around the room. A giant silhouette of a black cat served as the backdrop to the band playing on a makeshift stage.
    In the soft red light it all might have