A Wild West Night at the Smithsonian - outlaw - young gun - Billy the Kid

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Larry." Attila called, drawing their attention before he continued in Hun pointing to his helmet.

"Jed and Octavius?" Larry asked.

Attila kept patting to his helmet where they'd been hiding, trying to see if they were still there.

Teddy turned to Larry, "They must have fallen out while we were running."

Larry looked worried as he headed out of the room and back down the hall shouting for their friends. "Jed!"

"Octavius!" Teddy yelled as they left the medieval chamber and reentered the halls.

"Jed!"

Teddy looked around. "Jedediah!"

Nick crouched to look under a display case. "Jed!"

"Octo!" Attila shouted cupping his hands around his mouth.

They turned a corner and saw a small scrap of red fabric blowing where it was stuck in a vent in the floor.

"Oh no."

They rushed forward and Larry bent down and retrieved the red fabric.

"Is that Octavius' cape?" Nicky asked.

"Here." Larry gestured to the vent and Billy and Nick crouched down with him. They pulled it free and looked into the black hole.

"Gigantor!" they faintly heard a shout.

"Jed!" Larry shouted back but there was no response.

"They won't last long in those heating vents Lawrence." Teddy said softly like he was afraid to speak the horror.

"At their size they'll bake like tiny little scarabs in the Sinai." Ahkmenrah added. All eyes turned to him. "Too dark?"

Larry stood up and looked around. When he spotted what he was searching for he rushed over to a panel in the wall. He couldn't get it open without a key so he smashed the glass with his elbow and immediately turned down all the vents.

A mechanic whirring – the kind you didn't pay any attention to until it was suddenly gone, stopped and the hall was silent. They hoped to hear the clanging of tiny feet making their way back through the vent. When no sound appeared Attila crouched down and put his face to the open hole in the floor.

"Jedo! Octo!" he shouted before sitting up and shrugging.

"They could be anywhere between here and the intake vent." Larry said returning and taking Attila's place. Dexter hopped down too looking deeper.

"What do you see Dex?"

"You know he's a monkey Lawrence, he can't talk."

"No but he can fit." Larry said as an idea clearly struck him. "Nicky give me your phone."

"Why?"

"For Dex."

With a dopey grin Lancelot looked to the others, "I don't understand one thing that's going on here."

"I don't either, dad, what's going on?"

Larry got up and grabbed some thin straps of leather from the display case the triceratops had smashed earlier. The rope Billy had would have been too thick for tiny little Dexter's frame.

"I'm sort of, set up to track your phone." Larry admitted.

"You're sort of set up to track my phone? You track my phone?"