Barnaby was right about one thing–Crunch & Barley was a smelly place. But not a bad kind of smelly. It was more like being inside a big box of Cinnamon Rogers. Not bad at all.<\/p>\n
Fay paused in the shiny tiled corridor to listen for any Barnaby-like footsteps, but only heard swooshing liquids and clinking glassware from a room up ahead. She peeked into the room, but there was no Barnaby–only a lanky man in a white lab coat pouring orange liquid from a flask into a bubbling beaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad,\u201d said Fay. \u201cNice lab you got here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHello,\u201d said Mr. LaFarge. \u201cFay, did you lose your class?\u201d <\/p>\n
A jar on a burner behind him began to spit and smoke. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d said Fay, \u201cI didn\u2019t lose them. I\u2019m looking for Barnaby Hootsman. Mr. Arg sent him to get a mop.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr. LaFarge hastily pushed the spitting jar off its flame, glanced at his watch, said \u201cyikes,\u201d and gave the orange bubbling beaker a hasty stir. A pan on a hotplate began to hiss yellow steam. Mr. LaFarge quickly turned down the heat. <\/p>\n
\u201cDad,\u201d said Fay, \u201cWhere\u2019s the person who helps you?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cGood question,\u201d replied Mr. LaFarge, \u201cMr. Arg has him working on some kind of \u2018special project,\u2019 which must be very important, based on how loud Arg hollered.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more important, the louder?\u201d asked Fay. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo it seems,\u201d said Mr. LaFarge. \u201cHey, there\u2019s a janitors\u2019 closet at the end of the hall. Maybe your friend found it.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThanks Dad, I\u2019ll check,\u201d said Fay ducking out of her father\u2019s flavor lab. <\/p>\n
The janitors\u2019 closet was locked. And Barnaby was nowhere to be seen, unless he was locked inside, which wouldn\u2019t be a bad thing at all. Or maybe he was stuck in the freight elevator at the other end of the hall, which was making loud bing bong<\/em> noises as it stopped first at the basement, then at the roof, then at the basement again, in annoying repetition. <\/p>\n Fay was certain that an elevator would never behave this way if the person riding in it had actual work to do. She suspected foul play, and foul play almost always meant Barnaby Hootsman was involved. <\/p>\n Fay ran to the elevator and punched the call button. A few bings<\/em> and bongs<\/em> later the doors opened, and she was looking at Barnaby\u2019s grinning face. <\/p>\n \u201cWant a ride?\u201d hooted Barnaby. \u201cOnly five bucks!\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s your mop, Hootsman?\u201d asked Fay, leaning against the elevator door to keep it from closing. <\/p>\n \u201cMop department,\u201d called Barnaby, \u201csecond floor, to the left!\u201d He pushed the button marked two. <\/p>\n Fay felt the door closing against her back and she jumped inside the elevator so Barnaby couldn\u2019t get away again. At floor two, the elevator lurched to a halt, and the door sprang open. <\/p>\n \u201cThere better be mops here,\u201d snarled Fay. \u201cYou already lost me my pirate coin…you\u2019re not getting me into any more trouble.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOh the coin, the precious coin,\u201d<\/em> began Barnaby in a singsong lilt. \u201cFay LaFarge has lost her coin!\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMops Hootsman!\u201d demanded Fay. \u201cWhere are the mops?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis-a-way!\u201d squealed Barnaby, taking off down the hall at a run. He slid to a halt in front of a metal door. \u201cRight in there,\u201d he said with a dramatic flourish. <\/p>\n \u201cHootsman,\u201d said Fay, \u201cyou\u2019re going to die young.\u201d She pushed open the door for Barnaby, then followed him through. <\/p>\n The noise was almost deafening. In front of them, a conveyor belt clicked by, carrying large stainless steel pots of a gooey oat mixture which Fay guessed was cereal dough. Pistons thumped noisily up and down to keep the belt moving. <\/p>\n \u201cNo mops Hootsman,\u201d shouted Fay looking around. \u201cBut at least there\u2019s a garbage can so I can lose the stinky baby food.\u201d She pulled Lynette\u2019s squash out of her pocket and tossed it in a lazy arc at the trash can. A lazy arc which was intercepted by Barnaby Hootsman. <\/p>\n \u201cYum yum!\u201d said Barnaby with a grin. \u201cYou throw like a girl! Can\u2019t let nutrition go to waste!\u201d He popped the lid off the squash and emptied the contents into one of the moving stainless steel pots. <\/p>\n Fay merely rolled her eyes in disgust before pulling Barnaby back out into the hallway by his shirt collar. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s swabbing time Hootsman,\u201d she said scanning the hallway. A wooden door across the hall was narrower than most of the others, and Fay felt certain it must be a closet. But it was not a mop Fay saw when she flung the door open with her free hand. It was a chubby man in blue coveralls, furiously stuffing handfuls of trash into the door of an old-fashioned cast-iron furnace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barnaby was right about one thing–Crunch & Barley was a smelly place. But not a bad kind of smelly. It was more like being inside a big box of Cinnamon Rogers. Not bad at all. Fay paused in the shiny tiled corridor to listen for any Barnaby-like footsteps, but only heard swooshing liquids and clinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emilygillespieclement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}