RARE BEASTS Read Free Page A

ballroom. Hanging from the ceiling was a rusty iron ring anchored to a trap door. Ellen climbed up onto Edgar’s shoulders and pulled it. The trap door swung down with a loud
creak
and a worn set of wooden steps unfolded. The two scampered up to the attic.
    The twins masterminded their most impressive plots in the attic, and it was easy to see why. Crates and tools and dusty birdcages, moldy steamer trunks and broken chandeliers, headless mannequins, dented suits of armor, a couple of rusty wrought-iron beds—the attic was piled high with treasures. Picking through the debris usually helped Edgar and Ellen concoct something wicked.
    They plunged into the stacks of junk, flinging objects about as they searched for inspiration.
    “Aha!” said Ellen, holding up a dented bedpan.
    “Oh, come on, Sister, what could we use
that
for?” scoffed Edgar. He emerged from under a ratty tarp, cradling a collection of dirty test tubes and beakers. “Look what I found! Maybe we could run some
experiments
.”
    Before Ellen could point out that they had nothing to experiment on, she happened to look out the attic’s single round window.
    “Brother! Do you see what I see?” she squealed, dropping the bedpan.
    Edgar came over to look out the window. “Sister, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Edgar. “Come on, let’s take a closer look!”
    They clambered up one last ladder, tucked away in the back corner. Leading the way, Ellen pushed against the ceiling with her shoulder until another trap door creaked open, and the twins entered the highest room in the house.
    Since the attic-above-the-attic provided a remarkable view of the entire neighborhood, Edgar and Ellen used it as an observatory, and it was barren save for a powerful telescope angled through a slot in the roof. Focusing the lens on the neat, tidy houses and lawns below, they saw a wide variety of dogs lounging in front of doghouses, napping or chewing on bones. They saw cats walking on fences and climbing trees. They saw bunnies inside their cages sipping from water bottles, and birds basking in the sun on their perches.

     
    “Look at all of those animals,” whispered Ellen.
    “Right outside our door,” answered Edgar.
    Deep in thought, the two descended to the attic and paced the floor, leaving tracks in the dust.
    They eventually came to a stop by the grimiest corner of the room. Edgar and Ellen contemplated the big moldy cardboard box that held the hundreds of holiday decorations they’d collected over the years, usually nabbed from an unsuspecting neighbor’s front door or the holiday display in the center of town.
    “Glitter and garlands, Brother,” Ellen remarked.
    “Shiny bulbs and colorful dyes, Sister,” added Edgar.
    “Very exotic!” they marveled, arching their eyebrows.
    And just like that, a plan fell into place.

10. Heimertz
     
    Edgar and Ellen chuckled and chortled and whooped. Their new scheme was simple yet ingenious.
    “Brother, I’ve found something wonderful,” Ellen said as she pried open a crate near the box of decorations. Edgar helped wrench off the wooden slats and whispered “Oh!” as he pulled out buckled strips of leather and little wire baskets. The twins put the leashes and muzzles in the box of holiday decorations and dragged it all down to the basement, along with an assortment of dyes, glues, markers, and paints.
    Ellen coiled lengths of rope over her left shoulder, and over her right she draped a large gunnysack that held a number of smaller, empty sacks. Edgar grabbed his special dark canvas satchel, which always held a variety of objects. Spoons, saltshakers, bonnets,twine—the items in Edgar’s bottomless satchel would seem ordinary to most people, but in his hands they were something, well…
not
. He added the muzzles to the contents. Outfitted with the necessary equipment, brother and sister left their house and skulked across the drab garden, anxiously scanning the gnarled overgrowth for any sign