Driving Doctor Mayhem

[29] The Curtain Rises

Doc was waiting for the both of us. Skipping what he'd often call 'the unnecessary and time consuming' tradition of kicking a conversation off with a greeting, he opened instead with, "Have you two been wondering about the dinosaur toys?"

"Not at all," I huffed, earning me a dubious glare.

I actually had been wondering, but I didn't like it when Doc was right.

Everything Doc did was so obviously choreographed, and he was so pleased with his own brilliance for it that he couldn't stand it when I didn't play into his hand. Doc, unlike Cricket, was no stranger to theatrics, I had learned. This made sense; there was no such thing as a laid-back super villain, as far as I knew.

Gideon shrugged noncommittally.

"Neither of you?" he gasped, "they're everywhere! Where's your thirst for knowledge?"

"I like to think I have a thirst for knowledge for things that matter," I pointed out.

"I just thought you liked dinosaurs," Gideon added. "I didn't really question... it." He slowed down as Doc stared at both of us, slack jawed. A short pause ensued.

"Okay," I droned, after it was clear that Doc wasn't going to continue without an adequate response. "I have, indeed, been wondering about the dinosaurs."

Doc snapped his fingers happily. "Of course you have! Follow!"

We were led into his back office, the one I had always sort of assumed was a bedroom. The walls were pitch black, just like the rest of the house, but this was the only room that wasn't cluttered; it was pristine, in fact. The whole place was set up like a laboratory you'd see on television, filled with beakers and shiny tables and microscopes and a bunch of other scientific instruments that I had no hope of identifying.

For Doc, this was still fairly normal. At least, it could be worse.

The only strange thing was that there were drink coolers stacked everywhere, overflowing with ice--and when I say everywhere, I mean there were probably about twenty coolers total in a room that was not that big. I shivered.

"So, what about the dinosaur toys?" Gideon murmured.

"The plastic in the dinosaurs melts really easily," Doc explained. "I spent all of last night heating them in the kitchen oven. As a side note, I would refrain from using the oven until it's been properly cleaned."

"Right," I said, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to hear.

"As I was saying, I melted them town, poured them into a cast, let it cool, and voila!" He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a gun that looked a lot like a bigger version the egg ray gun. It was even the same color of dinosaur toy blue.

I should've noticed.

"It's going to be a freeze ray!"

"What?"

"I'm building a freeze ray!"

Gideon continued to eye the stacks suspiciously, tapping one with the toe of his boot. "These better not be radioactive or something," he chuckled, only halfway joking.

"Oh no, you got me," Doc snorted with a half-smile, trying and failing to be deadpan. "That doesn't seem excessive or ridiculous."

I rolled my eyes. "Please, you practically live off of ridiculousness. You made an egg ray gun just to pass time on a weekday."

"He did what?" Gideon asked.

"I'm guessing," I said, pacing around the room and peeking under the lids of a few coolers, if only for dramatic effect, "uh, I'm guessing this has something to do with Collodi, too."

Doc gave in and grinned fully at that. "Now we're getting somewhere!"