Journey to an 800 Number by E.L. Konigsburg Read Free Book Online Page A

have to check with Lilly.”
    “I think you ought to come. These people pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars rent to put on displays for your pleasure and education. I’ll introduce you to the dwarf who is playing a leprechaun.”
    “Okay, we’ll be there. But don’t count on me for lunch.”
    “The exhibits come down at two.”
    “See you tomorrow,” she said.
    I hung up and made my way back to the door into the exhibition floor, and the guard stopped me. I had left my badge pinned on my burnoose, and he would not allow me back in without it. I protested. I told him who I was, and he would not give in. I told him that I knew the names of the men at Mideast Airlines, that I knew the name of the camel-keeper and the name of the camel, but he would not give in.
    Then I saw Maurice, one of the men in black tights who wore the dragon costume for Cathay Airlines. He was on his way out of the exhibit hall for a smoke. I asked him to please ask Father to bring me my burnoose with my badge. He said he would. Maurice tucked his cigarettes in his jersey sleeve and headed back inside the exhibition hall. Maurice was nice, but he had the look of someone who is doing something he doesn’t want to do and who has been doing it a long time. The ninth-grade English teacher at Fortnum had more of that look than anyone else I’ve ever met. Maurice was a dancer by profession,and he said that he does gigs at conventions to earn his bread. A gig is a job, and he said he did gigs for the bread.
    I had also talked to the chicken soup lady at El Al. Her name was Arabella Simpson. She told me that she was a pastry chef but what with everyone in the world worried about cholesterol, she had to give up on pastries and go into chicken soup. Jake Stone, the man who built the model of the Eiffel Tower, had started out his life as a sculptor. And Brumba, the African Safaritours man, was an actor who also did gigs at conventions to earn his daily bread. Only Scotty Devlin, the leprechaun, always worked conventions or side shows.
    Father came to the door with my burnoose and my badge, and the guard let me in.
    “Did you get Sabrina on the phone?” he asked.
    “She’ll stop by sometime tomorrow,” I replied.
    Father never asked why Sabrina had not stopped by, and I was glad he didn’t. I didn’t want him to get the notion that Lilly might want Sabrina to chaperone her when he was around. Of course, I’m not sure Father would get that notion, but I didn’t want him to think it, and I wasn’t sure why.
    Ahmed emptied his bowels once while Father went out for our supper. I scooped it up, and circled around the room so that I could walk by the door where the guard who would not let me back in before was posted. As I passed him, I said, “The badge is under lumps one and two,” and I walked on by. Icarried it to the men’s room and flushed it down, and I didn’t even mention to Father about how helpful I’d been or about the shortcut I had discovered.
    We were more tired that second night than we were after the first when we had done much more. Father said that it was always that way. That as far as he could tell, newness was the best vitamin pill in the world. We went to bed immediately after settling Ahmed.
    The following morning I told Scotty Devlin that I had a friend who wanted to meet him. I told him even before I put on my burnoose. I twice approached the seven-foot man at the Air India Booth, but I didn’t bother to introduce myself. Seven feet isn’t so unusual. Not as unusual as three feet ten. To a basketball team, seven feet is almost basic. Besides, the man in the Air India Booth did not look at all talkative like Maurice or Scotty or Brumba. From where I stood he didn’t even look friendly.
    About a quarter to two Scotty, the Leprechaun, came over to our booth and said, “Where’s your friend, Max?”
    “She must have gotten detained,” I answered.
    “Well,” Scotty said, “they paid me, so I’ll be making my way out