Once Upon a Midnight Eerie: Book #2 (Misadventures of Edgar/Allan)

The Misadventures of Edgar & Allan Poe

The Tell-Tale Start

Once Upon a Midnight Eerie

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2014

Text copyright © 2014 by Gordon McAlpine

Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Sam Zuppardi

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

McAlpine, Gordon.

Once upon a midnight eerie / Gordon McAlpine ; illustrations by Sam Zuppardi.

pages cm. — (The misadventures of Edgar and Allan Poe ; book two)

ISBN 978-0-698-13652-6

[1. Brothers—Fiction. 2. Twins—Fiction. 3. Motion pictures—Production and direction—Fiction. 4. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849—Fiction. 5. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction.] I. Zuppardi, Sam, illustrator. II. Title.

PZ7.M11735Onc 2014

[Fic]—dc23

2013014710

To Don Zappia—G.M.

To Dad—S.Z.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is
a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

—Will Rogers

NEW ORLEANS DAILY POST
, Entertainment Section, D-1

Pictured above: Edgar and Allan Poe (inset: the boys’ famous forebear, Edgar Allan Poe, circa. 1835)

NEW ORLEANS, LA. — Fresh from their recent capture of the dangerous criminal S. Pangborn Perry (a.k.a. Professor Marvel), twelve-year-old twins Edgar and Allan Poe have agreed to appear in the new movie,
A Tale of Poe
. The movie, to be directed by famed German director Werner Wender, will shoot scenes here in New Orleans and will revolve around the life of Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth-century American author renowned for his tales of horror and mystery. Young Edgar and Allan, who bear a striking resemblance to the famous author, are Mr. Poe’s actual great-great-great-great grandnephews and will play him as a boy in two scenes.

“We don’t have any previous movie acting experience,” Edgar explained in a phone interview with this newspaper.

“But then we didn’t have any previous experience when it came to apprehending criminals and yet we did okay with Professor Perry and his henchmen,” Allan added.

Police in Kansas describe the boys’ crime-fighting activities two weeks ago at a run-down theme park called the Dorothy Gale Farm and OZitorium as being little short of miraculous.

“And to think they did it all while disguised as flying monkeys!” added police chief John J. Stanley. Nonetheless, the boys have brushed off most of the praise, explaining that their primary intent was just to rescue their cat (named Roderick Usher, in tribute to the character in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”), who had been stolen from their home in Baltimore by the master criminal Professor S. Pangborn Perry. Why a criminal of such dark repute would commit as trivial-seeming a crime as catnapping remains a mystery about which the Poe twins, their guardians, and the authorities offer no comment. As for Professor Perry’s recent escape from Kansas authorities, Edgar and Allan Poe remain unafraid.

“Now that his cover is blown and his hideout has been exposed, he’s on the run, someplace far, far away,” said Edgar.

Interpol and the F.B.I. report recent sightings of Professor Perry in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

ON THE AIR

AT
5:55 in the morning, long before anyone should be out of bed, Edgar and Allan Poe sat on tall swivel chairs three miles apart at the TV studios of New Orleans’s two top morning shows. At WKEU, the makeup artist for
Rise and Shine, New Orleans!
applied layers of greasy gunk onto Edgar’s face. Meanwhile, stagehands across town at the studios of WJRT’s
Wake Up,
New Orleans!
pinched and poked at Allan’s back and shoulders to attach a battery pack and wireless microphone beneath his jacket.

“Five minutes to airtime,” stage managers shouted at each of the stations.

Edgar and Allan watched from the wings as battalions of crew members in each studio put on wireless headsets and took positions behind cameras, lights, microphone booms, or control boards. The two sound stages became even more hectic when the shows’ smiling hosts (at WKEU, a man with good hair; at WJRT, a woman with excellent posture) emerged from their dressing rooms. The hosts made their ways onto their similarly cheerful sets, where each was met like royalty by eager assistants.

What a grandiose production
, Edgar thought.

Across town in the other studio, Allan agreed with his brother.
Grandiose is just the half of it,
he observed.
You’d think this was the opening ceremony of the Olympics, instead of just a show for people to watch while they eat their cornflakes.

Across town, Edgar chuckled under his breath.
Or if not cornflakes, strawberry pancakes,
he added to the psychic conversation.

Strawberry pancakes were the boys’ favorite.

Yum . . .
Allan murmured ravenously.

They hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.

“Two minutes to airtime! Places, everybody!”

“You ready to put on a good show, Edgar?” a production assistant at WKEU asked.

“All set to brighten up New Orleans, Allan?” asked a WJRT assistant.

“Sure, why not?” the boys answered, identically and with perfect synchronization. (Of course, no one knew this except the Poe twins, who remained in one another’s minds at all times, even when they were physically apart.)

Yes, even for identical twins, Edgar and Allan were unusual.

The boys’ uncle and aunt, Jack and Judith Poe—who had remained back at the hotel to watch the broadcasts, having bundled their nephews off when the limousines from the TV stations arrived—thought of them simply as clever boys with overactive imaginations and a taste for mischief.

But that wasn’t the whole story.

The boys’ friends back in Baltimore thought Edgar and Allan were not only the smartest and oddest pair in school, but also the most valuable when it came to livening things up with pranks.

That wasn’t the whole story, either.

Ironically, the most astute description of the boys might have come from Professor S. Pangborn Perry, their archnemesis. Professor Perry had been observing Edgar and Allan since they were born—first, he’d observed as a legitimate researcher, and then, when the boys’ parents forbade him from seeing them, as a spy tracking their every movement.

Professor Perry knew this:

Edgar and Allan Poe were so alike that not only was it impossible for others to tell them apart, but even the twins didn’t see themselves as separate boys. One moment one was Edgar, the next he was Allan. Whatever one knew, the other also knew; whatever one saw, the other saw simultaneously. The boys could not explain how their two brains worked as one or how such perfect coordination had come to be.

Regardless, this connection ensured that the twins’ deductive and imaginative powers exceeded even the high expectations placed on them as descendants and namesakes of one of America’s most brilliant nineteenth-century writers.

It also meant that Professor Perry—who theorized that their connection had something to do with quantum physics—wanted to kidnap them, killing one and keeping the other captive to use as a channel of communication from this world to the world of the dead.

At six a.m., a red light glowed atop a TV camera in each of the two studios. Recorded theme music blared and big, electronic signs overhead snapped to life, reading:

Moments later, the host at WKEU announced: “
Rise and Shine, New Orleans!
It’s another beautiful day in the Crescent City. And here’s our first guest, Edgar Poe.”

“
Wake Up, New Orleans!
” cried the hostess at WJRT. “Have you got your café au lait? It’s my pleasure to introduce Allan Poe.”

The boys walked onto their respective sets, taking their seats.

“Young Edgar here is the great-great-great-great grandnephew of that creepy author Edgar Allan Poe,” the TV host said. . . .

Creepy?

While simultaneously, the other host said to her morning audience, “Young Allan here is a descendant of Poe, the writer who many thought was crazy. . . .”

Crazy?

The twins didn’t tolerate insults to their famous ancestor.

So, in the blink of an eye, they concocted a plan.

“Welcome to the show, Edgar,” said the host at WKEU, his fake grin half a foot wide. “It’s exciting news about the movie you and your brother will be shooting here. Tell our audience who’s directing the film. I think they’ll be quite impressed.”

Edgar nodded. “A delicious little crawfish in spicy gumbo.”

This is how the host responded: “What?”

What neither the host nor the confused WKEU audience could know was that seconds before, across town at WJRT, the hostess had said to Allan:

“Being a native of New Orleans and quite proud of our famous restaurants, I always like to start interviews by asking folks what they ate last night for dinner.”

Hence, Edgar’s answer at the other TV station.

And Allan’s answer to the question about what he ate for dinner: “Mr. Werner Wender, award-winning filmmaker.”

The hostess’s posture slipped a little, as the host’s smile had dimmed. But being professionals, they gathered their composure and carried on.

“OK,” the host at WKEU continued, glancing down at his notes. “Let’s move on to another subject, Edgar. Why don’t you tell our audience what you and your brother did to that criminal you captured up in Kansas.”

Edgar smiled warmly. “We rolled him over and rubbed his belly until he purred,” he said.

“You
what
?” the host exclaimed.

Moments before, across town, this had been the question:

“You and your brother rescued your cat recently,” the hostess at WJRT said. “That must have felt good. I’m a cat lover, too. Tell me, what did you do with your kitty when you finally got him back, safe and sound?”

“Oh, we knocked him unconscious and then had him arrested and tossed into prison,” Allan answered.

The hostess’s face went pale.

The twins fought back identical smiles.

“OK, Edgar,” said the WKEU host, in desperation, “let’s try something a little more straightforward. You’re the great-great-great-great grandnephew of the author Edgar Allan Poe, and I know you’re a big fan of his writing. Tell our audience which of his characters you find the most terrifying.”

“Actually, three come to mind,” Edgar said thoughtfully. “Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Donald Duck.”

The host gritted his perfect teeth, not knowing that a moment before at WJRT the hostess had asked:

“Do you have any role models, Allan?”

“Sure,” Allan said, his eyes gleaming. “It’s that guy who commits a murder and hides the body under the floor, only to start hearing his victim’s heartbeat grow louder and louder until he finally goes insane and confesses to his crime. You know, from our great-great-great-great granduncle’s story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’”

The hostess looked truly alarmed. “Well, um . . . That’s enough questions, I guess. More than enough, actually. Thank you for the interview, Allan.”

“I’m Edgar,” he told her.

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were Allan.”

He shrugged. “Yes, him, too.”

She shook her head, confused.

While across town, the host had also come to the end of his rope.
Donald Duck, a terrifying character? My butt!
he thought, tossing his notes aside. “Let’s go to a commercial,” he said to the camera.

The boys kept their laughter to themselves.

The two limousines from WKEU and WJRT entered the narrow streets of New Orleans’s famous French Quarter from opposite directions, but they arrived at the same time outside the Pepper Tree Inn. The little hotel had entertained its first guests in the mid-1800s and now served as the temporary home for the cast and crew of
A Tale of Poe.
The French Quarter was quiet this early in the morning, its sidewalks empty except for Aunt Judith and Uncle Jack, who stood waiting for their nephews outside the hotel with their arms folded tightly across their chests.

Naturally, they had tuned in to the simultaneous TV interviews—Aunt Judith watching WKEU in their hotel room, Uncle Jack watching WJRT in the boys’ empty, adjacent room. Each had thought it was pure gibberish.

This was not the first time the twins had tested Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith’s patience.

Edgar climbed out of one limousine.

Allan climbed out of the other.

The limos pulled away in opposite directions.

“Well, what do you boys have to say?” Uncle Jack asked sternly.

The boys looked at each other, then turned to their uncle. “Good morning?” they offered sheepishly.

Uncle Jack shook his head. “You think that’s what I want to hear?”

“Well,” Edgar answered, drawing patterns on the sidewalk with the tip of one shoe. “It’s a little early in the day to say ‘good afternoon,’ don’t you think, Uncle Jack?”

“Yeah,” Allan added, shielding his eyes from the rising sunlight. “And saying ‘good night’ at this hour would be downright crazy!”

“And even though we’re in New Orleans, saying ‘
bonjour
’ seems a little pretentious,” Edgar finished.

Aunt Judith rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers, as if she had a headache. She sighed. “Where were your minds this morning?” she asked.

Their minds had been in one another’s heads. As usual.