Mr. Dumfrey opened his eyes. His gaze traveled slowly over the four of them: Thomas, Sam, Max, and Pippa. Despite the blanket and the heat of the attic, Thomas felt goose bumps pop up all over his arms.
“He was eventually arrested. The children scattered. They were placed in foster homes and orphanages. One of them escaped and spent many years on the street.” Dumfrey’s eyes ticked to Max. “The other three found their way into my care. It was not an accident. I admit I was looking for you—for all of you. I knew you were extraordinary, and I wanted to make sure that Rattigan would never get to you again. Even after Rattigan was locked away, I was scared. I’m still scared.”
There was a long moment of silence. It took Thomas several tries before he could find his voice.
“How?” he croaked out. “How do you know so much about Rattigan?”
Dumfrey let out a heavy sigh. “He’s my brother.”
EPILOGUE
“Next!” Mr. Dumfrey called out, drumming a pen against his clipboard. He made a large X next to an entry labeled “The Amazing Sword-Swallowing Seth.” He turned to Pippa and murmured, “I thought the poor fellow was going to choke on his own blade! Most unconvincing. And what kind of name is Seth for a performer? That’s the name of my dentist!”
It had been two weeks since Thomas had saved Mr. Dumfrey from certain death—two weeks since Pippa and the others had learned of their true origins. For several days afterward, she had not believed that she would ever feel the same, that she would ever get over what had happened and what she had learned.
She was a bona fide freak. They all were.
She didn’t think she would ever look at Dumfrey the same way again, either. Not after what he had told them about his past. At last she had made sense of the two conversations she had overheard. Miss Fitch, Mr. Dumfrey confessed, was the only other person at the museum who knew the truth about Rattigan and his experiments, and Pippa found herself feeling unaccountably affectionate toward the sour-faced seamstress, who had kept their secret all these years. Pippa understood, too, about the telephone call Mr. Dumfrey had received from the police after Rattigan’s escape, which at the time had struck her as so mysterious.
And slowly things did return to normal, or as normal as they ever got at Dumfrey’s Dime Museum. Now she was sitting between Thomas and Mr. Dumfrey in the dark, in the front row of the Odditorium, watching a parade of aspiring performers looking to fill Hugo’s and Phoebe’s places. It was nice to be in the audience for once.
“She calls herself a fat lady?” Phoebe whispered, from the row behind Pippa’s, as the next act toddled onto the stage: Felicia, the Fat Lady of Lansing, Michigan. “I was three hundred pounds before I was a teenager!”
“There, there, Phoebe,” Hugo whispered back. “No one can take your place.”
“It’s insulting,” Phoebe responded. “She’s barely round.”
“Next!” Mr. Dumfrey hollered. “And please, Felicia—consider adding more carbohydrates to your diet. You’re looking a little trim.”
Felicia nodded and stomped off the stage. Mr. Dumfrey sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This is difficult—truly difficult,” he muttered. “So far we’ve seen an incompetent sword swallower, a fat lady who’s too thin, and a thin man who’s too fat. And that so-called giant! Why, Smalls could pick his teeth with him.”
“Don’t worry,” Pippa said, patting Mr. Dumfrey’s hand reassuringly. “You’ll find someone.”
“I hope so,” Mr. Dumfrey said darkly, as the next performer took the stage: Freddy the fire-breather.
The first trick went very well. Freddy lit a long torch and brought it close to his mouth. The flame was extinguished momentarily; then, as he exhaled, a blast of fire roared from his mouth.
“Cool,” said Sam.
“I could do that,” sniffed Max.
Everyone applauded, and even Thomas looked up, closing his book at last. He had been strangely quiet since the explosion. Pippa saw that he had once again been reading a book about probabilities.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered as Freddy the fire-breather, encouraged by the applause, ignited three torches and began to juggle.
“Rattigan,” he admitted.
Pippa kept her eyes on the stage, on the swooping circles of flame, orange and blue, passing inches from the fire-breather’s face. “Do you think he’ll try again?”
“Probably,” Thomas said, his fingers tightening momentarily around the book.
Pippa knew she should be afraid. But sitting there in the dark, in the home she loved, with the people she loved, she wasn’t—not then.