Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson Page A

Guillaudeu could not bear to do that.
    “Yes, I’d best get back.”
    “Invite Thomas Willoughby to go down with you. He looks so forlorn over there by himself.”
    “All right. For you.” Guillaudeu gave her a little bow and said good-bye.
    Thomas Willoughby appeared to appreciate the gesture and followed Guillaudeu into the stairwell with barely a word. But on the landing outside the door to the fifth-floor galleries, the pianist stopped.
    “What’s in there?”
    “That door is usually locked,” Guillaudeu replied. His mind was already on the final positioning of the short-eared owl. It would complete his collection of Old World owls, and he was restless to place this one among them.
    When he bought the collection, Barnum had closed the fifth floor to the public, and rumors were circulating among the staff about what he was building. William the ticket-man was certain it would be a jungle. People would open the door, he said, only to be engulfed by vines. Birds would live in the branches of huge living trees, and a tiny river would coast through the galleries operated by a system of pumps and drains. Guillaudeu had tried to keep away from the rumors; refusing to participate in the speculations was his one small protest against Barnum’s new regime. But now the door’s padlock hung open on its latch.
    “What is that sound?” Thomas leaned toward the door. “What
is
that?”
    “What sound? I don’t hear anything.”
    “Listen.” Thomas held up his hand.
    There was a small hammer tapping, and a louder creak, like an old door, and then a quick pull of saw teeth zipping wood grain. A very small saw, maybe.
    “Somebody’s building something in there,” Thomas whispered.
    “I don’t think so. Oh, yes, now I hear it.” From inside came a series of snapping clicks and a whistling sigh that slid down the musical scale.
    “I want to see what’s making that sound,” Thomas said. “Itsounds … 
strange.”
He pushed open the door, and Guillaudeu followed him into a vast open space.
    “Dear God,” Guillaudeu whispered. “He’s knocked out the gallery walls.”
    Barnum had removed half of the interior walls that had originally divided the fifth floor into six galleries. Guillaudeu now stood in an open space the size of three galleries. He turned in a circle, absorbing the new dimensions of a space he had known so well over the years. There were the two groups of three high windows, and new yellow stripes along the floor where the walls used to be. Scudder had displayed geological models on this floor: the eruption of Vesuvius, a diorama of the Noachian flood. The largest specimens had been up here, too: the polar bear, the cameleopard. Now there was a new wall that bisected the floor, a pile of tools in one corner, a ladder leaning against the wall, and a single tipped-over chair.
    “He just went ahead and did it. He destroyed it.” Guillaudeu’s eyes glazed for a moment. His rage did not overwhelm him, but he was conscious of its searing flame licking up out of the crevices of his mind. He remained as composed as possible.
    As he took a few more steps into the room, Guillaudeu finally comprehended the single structure in the middle of it: a cylinder, at least forty feet in diameter and seven feet high, with a Portland cement base and wide wooden staves bound by metal rims. It appeared to be a gigantic barrel.
    Thomas was now standing with his ear to this structure. “Are they building something inside of there? Hello?” They heard the sawing sound again. A series of mechanical clicks and a high-pitched creak came from the barrel, then the tapping hammer. Thomas closed his eyes as Guillaudeu approached the tank. Listening. Clicks; a yawning yap, another disappointed whistle descending the scale. A whoosh of breath.
    “It’s full of water,” Thomas whispered. “It sounds like horn players clearing their instruments.” The pianist opened hiseyes. “Let’s see what it is.” They heard a whirring