Who Broke Lincoln's Thumb? (5 page)

“Shut up, Ralphie. No one will believe it was an accident,” Stub whined.

“Yeah, especially since you sent a ransom note for a hundred thousand bucks!” Marshall blurted out. “Was
that
an accident, too?”

Stub grinned. “We figured we might as well make some money.” He chuckled. “Why shouldn't we get a reward for
returning the famous Lincoln thumb?”

“You don't deserve any reward!” KC said, steaming. “You should've told the truth about what happened, not tried to cheat the government!”

“Besides, where is the thumb?” Marshall added. “How do we know you really have it?”

“Oh, we have it, all right,” Stub said. He walked over to the wall, picked up one of the buckets, and brought it over to where the others were sitting. Then he dumped the bucket's contents onto the sofa.

What fell out was Lincoln's thumb.

KC and Marshall just stared. The marble thumb was long, smooth, and nearly white. The thumbnail was almost as big as KC's fist. The other end, where the
thumb had broken, was jagged.

“What are you going to do with it?” KC asked.

Stub put the thumb back in the bucket. “First, we're gonna collect our money,” he said, winking at Ralphie. “Then we'll disappear. They'll be so happy to get the thumb back, they won't even look for us.”

“What about us?” Marshall asked.

The two men walked toward the door. “You'll be fine,” Stub said. “The crew comes back Monday morning. You two can watch TV till then.”

“Monday!” Marshall yelled. “You can't leave us till then! We'll starve!”

Ralphie pointed to his potato chips. “You can finish those,” he said, unlocking the door. Both men walked out. Then KC and Marshall heard the lock click.

KC jumped up and tried to open the door, but it was solidly shut. She rattled the handle and tugged, but nothing happened.

KC took out her Swiss Army knife. She opened the sharpest blade and began hacking at the wood around the lock.

“It's no use,” Marshall told her. “It will take you hours. And even if we get out of this room, we'll still be locked in the building!”

“You're right,” KC admitted. She put her knife back in her pocket and flopped down on the sofa. “They're gonna get the money, and maybe they won't even leave the thumb!”

Marshall sat next to KC and picked up the bag of chips. He popped a few into his mouth. “Why aren't there any windows in
this stupid building?” he mumbled.

“There are, but they're too high up,” KC said. She pointed to the small windows right under the ceiling. They were about twenty feet off the floor.

Marshall looked up and nearly choked on his chips. “Ladders!” he yelled. “There are about a million of them hanging on that rack!”

Both kids flew off the sofa and ran over to the button that controlled the rack. KC pushed it, and the rack began to lower, making a terrible clatter all the way down.

“We need the tallest ladder,” Marshall said.

“That one!” KC said, pointing to an aluminum ladder that looked about ten feet long. The yellow label said TWENTY FEET WHEN FULLY EXTENDED.

But when they tried to get the ladder off the rack, they couldn't budge it even an inch.

“It's too heavy,” Marshall said. “We'll never get it down.”

KC kicked the wall. “This is so stupid!” she shouted. “We're locked in a room full of ladders, but we can't use them!”

She reached for the button to send the ladder rack back up to the ceiling.

“Wait a sec,” Marshall said. He stared at the windows high up on the wall. “I have an idea. Climb one of these ladders to the top of the rack and lie flat. I'll push the button, then climb up there with you. The rack will—”

“Take us up to the windows!” KC interrupted. “Marshall Li, you are a genius!”

Marshall blushed.

KC climbed one of the ladders until she reached the top of the rack. She got down on her stomach. The ladder ends poked into her, like rocks under a beach blanket. “Okay, now you come up,” she said to Marshall.

Marshall pushed the button to raise the rack, then stopped it.

“Why'd you do that?” KC asked, gazing down at Marshall.

“We might need this,” Marshall said, grabbing a small shovel off the wall. Then he mashed the button again and started climbing a ladder.

The rack clattered as it took KC and Marshall toward the ceiling of the maintenance building. Both kids were on their stomachs.

“If this thing goes too high, we're
gonna get smushed against the ceiling!” KC said. She turned her head to look up. The ceiling was only a few feet above her back, and the rack was still rising!

Suddenly the rack shook, made a final clatter, and shuddered to a stop. The kids rolled over onto their backs. Their faces were only inches from the ceiling.

Both kids had sweat dripping from their hair into their faces. “It must be two hundred degrees up here!” Marshall said. He used his T-shirt to wipe his eyes.

“Look,” KC said, letting out the breath she'd been holding. Two feet away from where they perched on the rack was a small window. It was covered with soot and spiderwebs. Dead flies hung in the webs.

“Cool!” Marshall said. “I wonder where the spider is.”

“Marsh, we've got a little situation here,” KC said. “Can you think about spiders
after
we get out of here?”

“No problem,” Marshall said. He handed KC the shovel he'd brought up, then reached over and tried to push the window out. It didn't move. Then he tried to pull the window up, but that didn't work, either.

“It's totally stuck,” Marshall said. “It won't open.”

“Oh yeah?” KC said. Swinging the shovel handle like a baseball bat, she smashed the blade into the filthy glass. She and Marshall covered their eyes as the window shattered and a cool breeze blew into their faces.

“Awesome!” Marshall said. He took the shovel from KC and tapped out small shards of glass still in the window's frame. When there were no more sharp edges, he leaned over and stuck out his head.

“What do you see?” KC asked.

“We're about a million miles up,” Marshall said. “And that's the good news.”

“What's the bad news?” KC asked.

“There's no roof under the window,” Marshall said. “We can't climb out because there's nothing to stand on!”

KC just stared at Marshall. Then she wriggled to the edge of the rack and stuck
her head out the window. She saw the Washington Monument in the distance. She saw the roofs of buildings and looked into the branches of trees.

And she saw tourists walking among those trees, as small as action figures.

KC took a deep breath and started screaming. “HELP! WE'RE UP HERE! LOOK, WE'RE UP HERE!”

A few of the tiny tourists stopped and looked up. KC waved down at them.

“CALL THE POLICE!” KC yelled.

One of the tourists pulled out a phone.

KC, her mother, and Marshall watched President Thornton climb the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Hundreds of people stood or sat on the lawn.

The president smiled as he stepped up
to the podium. Behind him, Abraham Lincoln sat on his giant chair. He seemed to be listening, too.

And he had both thumbs.

An hour after KC and Marshall had been rescued from the maintenance building, Stub and Ralphie were arrested. They had the hundred thousand dollars with them, as well as the thumb.

“So how did they get the thumb back on Lincoln's hand so fast?” Marshall whispered to KC. “Superglue?”

“No, superwire,” KC said. “They have it tied on until they can get a marble expert to fasten it on permanently.”

“…   Daniel Chester French will long be remembered for this monumental achievement,” the president said. “But I'm guessing he also liked to have fun. If he
were here, he'd want the party to begin!”

The crowd whistled and clapped. Red, white, and blue balloons were released and soared into the air. The United States Marine Band began playing a march.

“Let's eat!” Marshall said, grabbing KC by the arm.

Tables of food had been set up along one side of the Reflecting Pool. Marshall headed for the cake. It was about ten feet long. Blue-frosting stars decorated the corners. The rest of the cake had huge pictures of the Lincoln statue and Daniel Chester French in thick frosting.

A woman stood behind the table with a knife in her hand. “Can I cut you a piece of cake?” she asked, smiling at Marshall.

Marshall nudged KC. “Yes please,” he said. “Cut me off Lincoln's left thumb!”

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was the tallest president? He was six feet, four inches tall. He had an ax scar on his thumb, a mole on his cheek, and another scar over his right eye. He was the first president to have a beard while in office. He grew it because an eleven-year-old girl suggested it.

Lincoln had four sons. Sadly, three of them died when they were still boys.

The statue in the Lincoln Memorial was originally supposed to be made of bronze and twelve feet high. But the planners thought that was too small for the building. So Daniel Chester French and his workers
built a much larger statue. It is nineteen feet high and carved from twenty-eight blocks of white marble. The statue weighs 120 tons—that's 240,000 pounds! It took four years to complete.

On the statue, Lincoln's hands seem to form the sign-language letters
A
for
Abraham
and
L
for
Lincoln
. No one is sure whether French did that on purpose.