The Trimoni Twins and the Shrunken Treasure (5 page)

“Mimi, Gumdrop is getting away!” Beezel yelled at her sister. She pointed at the wallaby. Ka-poof. Gumdrop was a tortoise.

“She's just getting a little exercise,” Mimi said. “She can't get much being a ladybug cooped up in that little plastic container.”

Beezel shook her head. She considered reminding Mimi that
she
was the one who had put her in
the plastic container in the first place. But most of the time, it really wasn't worth arguing with Mimi about anything. And especially not about animals. “Listen, Mimi, you've got to figure out something besides that plastic container to keep her in. You can't keep her as a ladybug.”

“You're right,” Mimi answered. “It's time for Operation GAAD to go into action.”

“I know I'm going to regret this,” Beezel said, “but what exactly is Operation GAAD?”

“Gumdrop As A Dog, of course.” Mimi pointed to Gumdrop. Ka-poof. Gumdrop was an adorable white poodle. Mimi reached into her backpack and pulled out a pink dog collar with a silver heart dangling from it.

“You're kidding,” Beezel said.

“I told you I had it all planned out,” Mimi said as she fastened the dog collar around Gumdrop's neck. “And I brought kibble and a chew toy for her. I checked the contract Professor Finkleroy sent us before we left, and it said the Merlin Hotel lets you keep animals in your room if they are part of your act.” She waved her hand at Gumdrop. “Ta da! The Amazing Gumdrop!”

Gumdrop the poodle seemed unimpressed. She yawned and curled up on the stage floor.

“Mimi,” Beezel said, “Hector will be here any minute.”

“Not a problem,” Mimi said. “The contract said all I had to do was find the prop manager, a lady named Enid Something-or-other. It said she'll take care of our animals during the day.” Mimi frowned. “She does charge extra for dog walks, but I'll figure that out later.”

“Wouldn't it have been easier to leave Gumdrop home?” Beezel asked.

“No,” Mimi said. “I just know Gumdrop wanted to come to Amsterdam, too.”

The girls located Enid the prop manager in a small office backstage and introduced her to Gumdrop. They were happy to find out that Enid, like most Amsterdammers, spoke English as well as they did.

“What a cute little doggie,” Enid said as she knelt down to pet Gumdrop. “We're going to have lots of fun!”

Gumdrop stared up at the young woman, opened her mouth and made a peculiar retching sound.

Beezel leaned over to Mimi and whispered in her
ear, “I think she's trying to hiss at her.” Mimi nodded and, noting Enid's horrified expression, said, “She's okay, Enid, she just doesn't bark very well.”

The twins assured her that they would retrieve Gumdrop long before their show started. As they walked away, Beezel turned and saw Enid gingerly pick up the hissing dog and carry it back toward the prop room.

When Hector came down to the theater, the girls did a walk-through of their show. As they practiced their finale, he seemed satisfied.

“How's Uncle Hoogaboom?” Beezel asked as they sat in the back seats of the theater and looked down at the stage. “Is he okay?”

Hector shook his head. “He's absolutely convinced there's a treasure. He said he's very close to finding it, I'm not to worry and everything will make sense in a few days.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Then he went on about something he has to give to me before I leave.”

“Did you talk to Gaidic?” Mimi asked, smiling.

“Just for a minute.” Hector smiled back. “She is nice, isn't she?”

The twins agreed.

“I'm glad you like her,” Hector said. “I've asked her to come sightseeing with us sometime while we're here.”

Beezel nudged Mimi and they giggled. “That's nice, Hector,” Beezel said.

“Oh,” Hector said as he examined his fingernails. “Gaidic had a good idea.”

“What?” asked Mimi.

“She said since Wiliken is visiting, we should ask him to come along as well.”

The twins looked wide-eyed at each other. Wil Riebeeck was going to go sightseeing with them?

“Great wands and rabbits!” Beezel said.

“You can say that again,” Mimi said.

Mimi had never been nervous before on an opening night. Beezel couldn't tell if it was because they were in a foreign country, or because Wil Riebeeck would be sitting in the audience watching them. She found herself in the strange position of trying to get her sister to relax.

“Mimi, we'll do great,” Beezel said as she applied her stage makeup. She outlined her blue eyes with charcoal gray eyeliner, dusted pink blush on her cheeks and then dabbed on some rose-colored lip gloss with her finger. “Just remember, we've done these tricks a million times before.”

“But we've always used our own animals before, Beez,” Mimi whispered to her as she twirled her hair around her finger and brought the end into her mouth. “Tonight we have to use Hector and poor Gumdrop.”

Beezel and Mimi had returned to the hotel at three o'clock that day, after visiting the Amsterdams Historisch Museum with Hector. The girls had waited and waited for the petting zoo man, but he had never shown up with his two sheep.

The twins had gotten Hector to agree to be one sheep for the show, and they secretly decided Gumdrop would have to be the other. They told Hector, however, that the other sheep was originally a fly Mimi had caught in their room that morning.

The twins had ka-poofed Hector and Gumdrop separately, and brought them together only after they had both been changed into sheep. The two of them were now quietly grazing on the shredded lettuce Beezel and Mimi had sprinkled on the floor of their dressing room.

Mimi eyed the two sheep nervously. “You know how Gumdrop can be when she's been ka-poofed for too long,” she whispered. Beezel nodded.

Hector had been ka-poofed so many times, Beezel was quite sure he would be fine. But Gumdrop was another matter altogether. The boa appeared to have a one-track mind. All Gumdrop seemed to think about, no matter what animal form she took, was squeezing.

Beezel contemplated the two sheep and sighed. They'd just have to make the best of it.

For the most part, the show went well. The twins could see Wiliken sitting with Uncle Hoogaboom as they made their entrance onto the stage. Wiliken gave them a small wave and smiled. Mimi waved broadly back at him. Beezel smiled quickly and looked away before her heart could start its dance.

The girls flawlessly performed all the magic tricks they did without the animals. Then they did their favorite illusions: the Box of Doom, the Vanishing Twin and the Floating Fireballs. But the time came at last for the grand finale. It was time to use the ka-poofing magic on Hector and Gumdrop.

Beezel and Mimi brought the two sheep to the center of the stage. Then the twins stood in back of them and looked at each other.

“I'm getting a little bored with having sheep, aren't you, Mimi?” Beezel said.

“You're so right, Beezel. We can do better.” Mimi pointed at Gumdrop the sheep. Ka-poof. Gumdrop was a zebra. The crowd gasped.

“Oh, really. I think we can do better than that.” Beezel pointed at Hector. Ka-poof. Hector was a hippopotamus. The crowd cheered.

“Too big, Beezel.” Mimi pointed at Hector. Ka-poof. The hippo was an antelope.

“Well, so is yours.” Beezel pointed at Gumdrop. Ka-poof. The zebra was a peacock.

The girls got a great reaction from the crowd each time they changed the animals. After several exotic animals appeared and changed in front of the audience's eyes, Beezel paused. Hector was now a llama. Gumdrop was a chimpanzee, tightly hugging Mimi around the waist as she held her on her hip.

“And now it's time to say good night.” She pointed to Hector. Ka-poof. Hector changed from a llama into a small brown bunny.

The plan was for Mimi now to change Gumdrop into a bunny as well, and the twins would carry the rabbits off the stage. But Gumdrop had other ideas. Her eyes were riveted on Hector, the little rabbit.

“Uh-oh!” Mimi said as the chimp sprang from her arms and jumped across the stage. Gumdrop the chimp grabbed Hector the rabbit so quickly Beezel didn't have time to react. Gumdrop bounded off the stage and behind the curtain with the poor rabbit locked in her arms.

The crowd, thinking this was part of the act,
laughed and applauded. But Beezel knew what was running through Gumdrop's snakelike mind. Gumdrop had found dinner. Now she would find a nice quiet spot to squeeze the life out of the rabbit and eat it.

“Well, good night! Thank you!” Beezel yelled as she grabbed Mimi's hand and the two bolted from the stage. As they dashed down the backstage steps, the twins could hear the audience calling for an encore. But there would be no curtain calls for the Trimoni Twins tonight.

They had to find Hector before Gumdrop ate him.

Rushing down the cramped corridor behind the stage, the girls quickly peeked inside each of the dressing rooms, searching for Gumdrop and Hector. They managed to irritate several performers, one of whom threw a shoe at Mimi when she looked underneath her dressing table for the snake-turned-chimp.

“Where could she have gone?” Mimi huffed as they turned the corner and jogged toward the prop room. “She couldn't open the door into the hotel without dropping Hector first, could she?”

“I don't think …” Beezel was interrupted by a woman's bloodcurdling scream coming from the other side of the stage door that led into the hotel itself.

“Gumdrop!” the twins said together as they
pushed open the door and darted down the hotel hall.

“There!” Beezel pointed to a woman standing petrified at the other end of the hall. Sitting on the floor in front of the woman, holding a squirming brown bunny, was Gumdrop.

“Make it go away!” the woman sobbed as she pointed a shaky hand at the chimp.

“Keep still!” Mimi yelled at her. She pointed at the chimp. Ka-poof. Gumdrop changed from a chimp into a small white poodle. Hector tumbled to the floor and hopped quickly to the girls' side.

Mimi pointed at the brown bunny. Ka-poof. Hector was Hector again.

“I've never been so afraid in all my life!” Hector's face, although always extremely pale, seemed to have gone a light shade of gray. “I thought that chimp was going to strangle me for sure.” He put his hands to his neck as if checking to make sure it was still there.

The woman at the end of the hall was beside herself with fear. She pointed at the twins now with the same shaky hand. “You … you …
changed
… it!” She backed up as she spoke. “That horrible monkey …” She gawked at Gumdrop. “It's a dog now … I saw you!”

Gumdrop the poodle gazed intently at the woman and made a sound that came out as something between a growl and a hiss. The woman squealed in panic.

Beezel sighed and turned to her sister. “Better get your watch.” Mimi's amazing ability to hypnotize people had come in handy more than once before.

Mimi pulled Grandpa Trimoni's pocket watch from her sleeve and talked in a calming voice as she edged toward the hysterical woman. “You're fine,” she said sweetly. “You're just fine.” She continued to talk to the woman in soothing tones. As soon as the woman seemed to settle down, Mimi waved the watch in front of her face.

“You're getting sleepy,” Mimi said.

“Sleepy?” the woman answered, as if not yet convinced.

“Yes,” Mimi said. “Very, very, sleepy.”

“Yes.”

“You did not see anything in the hall tonight.”

“Nothing in the hall,” she murmured.

“You're tired and you'll get a good night's sleep.”

“Umm.” The woman smiled, eyes closed.

“
After
you go to your room,” Mimi quickly added. “When I count to three, you will wake up. You
won't remember anything that happened in the hall. You'll just want to go to bed and rest. One, two, three.”

The woman opened her eyes and evaluated the scene in front of her.

Beezel stood next to Hector. The small white dog wove herself in and out of Mimi's legs.

“I hope you have permission to have that dog in the hotel,” the woman announced as she gave them all a wide berth. “I will be speaking to the manager about this.” Then she yawned and headed down the hall.

“Old bat,” Mimi muttered.

“Come on, Hector,” Beezel said. “You probably need to have a nice warm bath.”

“And a nice warm drink,” Hector said shakily. “I've never seen an animal with a look like the one that chimp had in her eyes. What did you say she was before you ka-poofed her? A fly?” He shook his head and eyed the dog. “Are you sure? No fly ever looked like that. That animal was going to eat me, bunny tail and all.”

Beezel put her arm around Hector and glanced over her shoulder at Mimi. She watched as Mimi pointed at Gumdrop. Ka-poof. Gumdrop was a tiny
gray mouse. Mimi quickly picked the mouse up by the tail and slipped it inside her front pocket.

No sooner had Beezel turned back around than she saw Wiliken Riebeeck running full tilt down the hall.

“They're right behind me!” Wiliken yelled as he got closer. “Which way is the exit?”

“Who?” Beezel asked, but then she saw them. A pack of paparazzi, cameras flashing, had turned the hallway corner and was headed their way.

The sight of the stampeding reporters brought Hector around. He shook his fist at them. “Dangblasted press! Never there when you need ‘em, always there when you don't!” Hector pushed Wiliken behind him. “Don't you worry, young man, I'll get rid of them,” he said. “You girls take Wil backstage and hide him. I'll come tell you when the coast is clear.”

Beezel grabbed Wiliken's hand. “Come on!”

Mimi pulled the stage door open. “Run!”

As they ran past the dressing rooms to the back of the stage, Beezel could hear Hector shouting at the reporters, “Stop right there! Only performers past this point! Security, over here!”