Inside, however, the museum was unlike any other in all the world—at least, that’s what was written on the illustrated guide to the museum available for purchase at the ticket desk. (Welcome to Dumfrey’s Dime Museum, the guide said, a Museum Unlike Any Other in All the World, Featuring the Largest Collection of Oddities, the Strangest Assortment of Freaks, and Novel and Astounding Exhibitions Comprising More Than One Thousand Curiosities from Every Portion of the Globe!!! And for those who still doubted it, an enormous banner stretched above the lobby repeated the information.)
In addition to the coat check and refreshment stand—which sold gumdrops, caramel-coated popcorn, and root beer—the first floor housed two exhibition spaces. One was the Odditorium, where the live performances took place. The other was the Hall of Worldwide Wonders, which contained more than one hundred items hand-selected by Mr. Dumfrey, including an Eskimo seal-hunting spear, the headdress of a pygmy witch doctor, and a carved wooden platter used by Polynesian cannibals; and a large, open gallery of glassed-in exhibit cases, containing everything from a tiny doll-like figure floating in a jar of alcohol, said to be a genuine changeling baby from the British Isles, to a mummified cat found in King Tut’s tomb.
Tucked next to the Hall of Worldwide Wonders was a smaller room dedicated to special exhibits; inside it was the staircase that led down to the kitchen in the basement, and a bedroom concealed away behind a false bookshelf where the cook, Mrs. Cobble, slept.
On the second floor was the Gallery of Historical and Scientific Rarities as well as the Hall of Wax, which Pippa tried to avoid. She had never been able to stomach the curious blank look of the modeled faces, all of them fashioned by the famous sculptor Siegfried “Freckles” Eckleberger, whom Pippa had known since she was a baby. She loved Freckles but hated his wax figures; they were too real, and she could never shake the idea that they might come to life at any second and reach for her. In particular, she despised the chamber of horrors, where visitors could see famous crimes reconstructed in wax. Max, on the other hand, immediately declared that the statue of Lizzie Borden clutching an ax was her favorite.
In the tableau of Adam and Eve was a small door concealed behind the Tree of Knowledge; this led to the costume room and Miss Fitch’s quarters, dominated by ancient sewing machines, heaps of fabric, and racks of costumes for performances both past and future.
On the third floor was the Grand Salon of Living Curiosities. Beyond the Authentic Preserved Two-Headed Calf!, whose second head was constantly having to be reattached with adhesive, a small door marked Private gave access to the performers’ staircase and to Mr. Dumfrey’s office. This last room was cluttered with various items removed from or rotating out of the exhibits. It was not uncommon to see Mr. Dumfrey scribbling off a note with the pen that Thomas Jefferson had once used to sign the Declaration of Independence. Then came the attic on the fourth floor, crowded with box springs and wardrobes, creaky beds and overstuffed armchairs, where the performers lived happily among dozens of pieces of stump-legged furniture and cast-off oddities, including, in one corner, a moth-eaten stuffed grizzly bear rearing up on its hind legs.
There had once been many other dime museums in New York City, and across the country—each of them declaring its own collection the most renowned, the weirdest, the most extraordinary.
But times and interests had changed. Money had run thin. People had lost interest in the weird and the wonderful; they preferred the kind of entertainment that was easily enjoyed and just as easily forgotten. Slowly, the other museums had shuttered their doors.
By the time our story begins, Mr. Dumfrey’s Dime Museum of Freaks, Oddities, and Wonders truly did live up to its published promise: it was unlike any other museum in the world. And it was the only place on earth where four extraordinary children like Thomas, Sam, Pippa, and Max could fit in.
The nightly performance began punctually at six thirty. The rain had stopped three quarters of an hour earlier, and either the change in weather or the advertised shrunken head, or both, had worked their magic: there was a crowd of nearly two dozen in the audience to witness Dumfrey’s Living Miracles and Wonders!, as the show was labeled on the distributed handbills. This was more than three times the usual number, and Potts, grumbling the whole time, had to bring up extra folding chairs from the basement.
Pippa always watched the early acts from the wings, safely hidden behind heavy velvet curtains that had been recycled from a funeral parlor. As usual, her collar was pinching her. Pippa hated the dress Miss Fitch forced her to wear. It managed to be as shapeless as a sack and too tight in all the wrong places.
But at least, she thought, it was better than Sam’s costume: frayed khaki shorts and a ripped white undershirt, as though he was the sole survivor of a desert island shipwreck.
“What’s he do?”
Pippa hadn’t heard Max approach. She turned around and saw that Max, too, had been outfitted by Miss Fitch. She was wearing black leggings and leather boots, along with a tasseled leather jacket that had been used at one time for a short-lived cowboy act featuring a two-headed horse.
“He’s the strong man,” Pippa whispered.
Max nearly choked. “Strong man? No way. He couldn’t win a fight with a string bean.”