Curioddity by Paul Jenkins Read Free Book Online Page B

some repute, this had to be either an optical illusion or he was having another of his missing time experiences. He broke into a run, calling out to his quarry ahead just as Mr. Dinsdale turned a corner. By the time Wil reached the corner, some five or six seconds later, Mr. Dinsdale was now a hundred yards ahead on the same street. And yet the little man seemed to be puttering along at a speed that seemed in keeping with a person of his advanced years—in other words, at a pace equivalent to a crippled turtle.
    Wil looked at his watch: two minutes to eleven. If he stopped now he could get back to the office in time to avoid two or three phone calls and perhaps share a conversation with Mr. Whatley about politics and/or cleaning products. He’d spend the afternoon fretting about the imminent arrival of his father and then have the living daylights scared out of him at exactly six minutes after three. Finally, he’d go home after a fruitless day of nothing in particular and run the gauntlet of his rusty old landlady and her moth-eaten cats. He decided to keep up his pursuit.
    Running as fast as he could, Wil got within ten yards of Mr. Dinsdale just as the old man turned left onto the main artery of the one-way system. “Stop!” he cried. “Mr. Dinsdale!”
    Wil barreled around the corner, half-expecting Dinsdale to now be a full half mile ahead. Much to his surprise, he ran full bore into the little man, and he barely managed to grab at Dinsdale’s mustard-yellow coat lapels before the two of them went clattering to the ground. Wil heard a honking sound: most of the people traversing the complicated one-way system in their cars seemed to now be staring in their direction as they passed. Mr. Dinsdale furrowed his chin again. Wil felt nothing if not mildly ridiculous.
    â€œWhat on Earth are you doing?” asked Dinsdale. “Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” replied Wil as he tried to catch his breath. “I tried … catch up … back there … too fast!”
    Mr. Dinsdale extricated himself from the embrace, stood up, and dusted himself off. “I can see it was too fast.” He sniffed. “You’d better slow down before you do yourself a mischief.”
    â€œSlow down? Slow down ? You come plowing into my office like a crazy person, you show me Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Unfinished Whatever while I’m pumped full of caffeine, and then you speed off like a clown car without any brakes … and I’m supposed to slow down?”
    â€œCouldn’t have put it better myself. Come on, it’s this way.” Mr. Dinsdale narrowed his eyes to peer at something on the road ahead before striking out in its general direction. This kind of erratic behavior really seemed to be Dinsdale’s thing, thought Wil, as he jumped to his feet and gave chase, determined not to lose the old man in the now-thickening fog.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œThe Curioddity Museum, of course. It’s just up ahead.”
    â€œUp ahead? Waitaminnit … where exactly is this museum?”
    â€œOh, we’re situated on Upside-Down Street right across from the abandoned cinema,” said Mr. Dinsdale, cheerily.
    Wil knew for a fact that no museum could possibly exist for at least two miles in the direction Dinsdale was now headed. This was the way he walked home from his office every single day—following the flow of the one-way traffic, naturally—and he would most definitely have seen something as obvious as a museum on his travels, not to mention an abandoned movie theater. Up ahead lay a particular stretch that led cars and pedestrians alike along a featureless causeway lined by enormous banking buildings. This in turn led to a second old railway bridge that rivaled the first for its ability to rattle one’s fillings. Wil was just beginning to come to terms with the