A figure appeared from around a corner and raced toward them, engine screaming.
“The hit-and-run driver!” Max shouted. “Out of the way!”
They flattened themselves against the wall.
The hit-and-run driver roared by.
And as he passed, Lucky Bucky broke loose and ran down the corridor in his wake.
“Guards!” Lucky Bucky screeched. “Guards!”
Max, Brattleboro and 99 darted after him.
“Guards!”
A pack of guards appeared from around a corner.
Max, Brattleboro and 99 skidded to a stop, then reversed direction and ran the other way.
“Stop’em!” Lucky Bucky shouted.
“It looks like the running shoes are on the other feet again,” Max commented.
“You and your childish hostility toward poor taste!” Brattleboro complained. “You should have let me shoot him back there in the eating place.”
“You could try shooting him now, you know,” Max replied. “He’d make a perfect target, running along behind us like that.”
“Max! He’s gone!” 99 said.
Max looked back over his shoulder. “No, he isn’t, 99. He’s still right behind us-him and those guards.”
“I mean Brattleboro.”
“You’re right, 99,” Max said, peering all around. “Now, how did he do that?”
“He clouded our minds, Max, and made us think he’s something else.”
Once more, Max looked back over his shoulder. “I wonder. .”
“What, Max?”
“Forget it, 99. But I’ll tell you this: We’re going to feel pretty foolish if Lucky Bucky catches up with us and we find out we’ve been running from V. T. Brattleboro.”
10
Max and 99 darted around corners, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, left-but Lucky Bucky and the guards kept pace with them.
“I wish we could lose them, then bump into them by accident again,” Max said.
“How would that help, Max?”
“It wouldn’t help, but it would be a funny little bit to pass along to the Chief if we ever get out of this alive. He’s collecting anecdotes for a book he’s going to call ‘Espionage Can Be Fun.’ ”
“Max, I don’t know how long I can keep running.”
“Hold out for a couple more minutes, 99. We’re almost safe.”
“We are, Max?”
“See that door up ahead? The one that says ‘Dining Room’ right above it? Well, I happen to know that in old buildings like this castle the dining room usually has a dumbwaiter. We can use it to escape.”
“Max, how can we be sure that the waiter will be dumb enough to help us?”
“It isn’t a person, 99. It’s an apparatus. It’s sort of an elevator for carrying food from the kitchen up to the dining room. It’s called a dumbwaiter because it worked for no pay.”
“What good is it going to do us, Max?”
“I would think you’d be able to figure that out. We’ll get into the dumbwaiter and ride down to the kitchen. Then we’ll leave it there. That way, Lucky Bucky and the guards won’t be able to use it to follow us.”
“Well, it sounds like a good idea, Max. But one thing bothers me-I don’t think this castle even has a dining room. If it does, why does Lucky Bucky always eat in the great hall?”
“Which are you going to trust, 99, your intuition or your eyes? Doesn’t it say ‘Dining Room’ over that doorway?”
“All right, Max. Seeing is believing, I guess. Still-”
They reached the doorway. Max yanked open the door, he and 99 rushed into the room, then Max slammed the door behind them.
The room looked almost exactly like the Squash Room. There were no windows and only the one door. The only difference was a lead pipe that protruded from the ceiling.
“Well, Max?”
“Now, we know why Lucky Bucky eats in the great hall,” Max replied. “The dining room furniture was repossessed.”
“The dumbwaiter too, Max.”
“Yes. I think we better get out of here, 99, before-”
“Ha! Smart!” Lucky Bucky called in to them. “You’ve got a perfect record-you did it again! You’re trapped in the Dieing Room!”
Max grabbed the door knob and tried to turn it. But the door was locked.
“Did you hear what he said, Max?”
“Of course, I heard. He said I have a perfect record.”
“I mean about this being the dieing room.”
“Dining Room, 99.”
“That’s not what he said.”
Max called out through the door. “Lucky Bucky, we have a little controversy going in here,” he said, “and maybe you can settle it for us. Did you refer to this as the dining room or the dieing room?”
“D-i-e-i-n-g.”
“I’m sure I saw d-i-n-i-n-g over the doorway. Explain that, please.”
“The guy what built the castle was only a so-so speller.”
“I see. Then maybe you can explain too why he needed a dieing room.”
“He had a lot of enemies that were too skinny to squash,” Lucky Bucky replied. “He’d squash them, but they’d look the same as before. So he got himself a dieing room.”
“For what, may I ask?”
“What else? For dieing his skinny enemies.”
Max looked up at the ceiling. “I suppose this pipe is in here for some purpose other than spoiling the looks of the room,” he said.
“That’s where the gas comes out,” Lucky Bucky explained. “It shoots out of the pipe and fills the room and after a couple minutes or so, you die.”
Max turned to 99. “Do you suppose that when Brattleboro left us he rushed in here and turned himself into a pipe?” he said.
“I don’t think we can count on it, Max.”
“Then, my guess is that we’re in big trouble, 99.”
“So long, secret agents,” Lucky Bucky called in, “I’m leaving now. Have a nice die.”
“And the same to you!” Max called back.
A moment later, gas began shooting into the room.
“Oh, Max, this is really the end!” 99 wept.
“Not necessarily yet, 99. Quick-climb up on my shoulders!”
“Won’t we look a little strange when they find us, Max?”
“99, don’t argue-I’m trying to save our lives!”
“I’m just thinking about my reputation, Max. When our bodies are found and word leaks out that I was standing on your shoulders, people will say that, at the last minute, I panicked.”
“Then how about this, 99? I’ll stand on your shoulders.”
“Well. . if you don’t care what people say about you.”
With considerable difficulty, Max climbed up onto 99’s shoulders. He then put his hand over the end of the
