Mission Unstoppable (16 page)

Chapter 21
A Wrong Turn

N
ow the twins were furious.
The house on the rock!
Coke ripped the sheet of paper out of the pad, crumpled it up into a ball, and tossed it in the trash can next to the picnic table.

“What is this with a house on a rock?” he sputtered. “If they want us to go to this stupid house so badly, why don’t they tell us where it is? Oh no, that would make too much sense!”

“And today is June twenty-third,” Pep said, checking the date on the cell phone. “We only have two days to get there.”

The sound of wheels on gravel made the twins look up and see the family’s RV pulling into the parking lot. It was hard to believe three hours had gone by. Pep slipped her pad back into her backpack so her parents wouldn’t see it.

“What have you kids been doing?” Dr. McDonald said cheerfully as he hopped out of the driver’s seat. The movie must have been a comedy, the twins figured. Any anger their parents felt before they left was gone.

“Nothing exciting,” Coke replied. “Played Frisbee mostly.”

Their parents sat down at the picnic table with leftovers they had brought back from dinner, and gave the food to the kids. They said they had done some thinking about the rest of the trip. Aunt Judy’s wedding would be in Washington on July Fourth, so they had eleven days to drive 1,167 miles. Mrs. McDonald felt there was plenty of time to stop off at interesting spots along the way and gather information for
Amazing but True
. She pulled a Minnesota guidebook out of her purse.

They were an hour and a half from Minneapolis, she told them. With that as a starting point, they could check out the Mall of America. It was one of the biggest malls in the world, and it was right nearby. In Belle Plaine, there was a two-story outhouse that attracts a lot of tourists. But that would be an hour out of the way, a long way to go to see a toilet.

In Rothsay, Minnesota, there was a nine-thousand-pound statue of a chicken. And in Frazee, there was the world’s largest turkey.

In a town called Virginia, they had a giant floating statue of the Minnesota state bird: the loon. But it was more than three hours north. And the Sandpaper Museum, in Two Harbors, Minnesota, was almost as far. Even Mrs. McDonald had second thoughts about driving three hours to look at sandpaper. If they were going to go that far north, they might as well drive a little farther to Hibbing, which was the home of the world’s largest open pit iron ore mine and also the boyhood home of Bob Dylan.

“I could spend a month just in Minnesota,” Mrs. McDonald said wistfully.

“No wonder the state bird is a loon,” Coke remarked.

“Anything in your guidebook about houses on rocks?” Coke asked.

“No,” his mother replied. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

There was no way for the twins to find where the mysterious house on the rock was located. They would just have to wait and hope they received another cipher. In the end, Mrs. McDonald decided to visit just one location in Minneapolis: the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.

Mrs. McDonald read out loud from her guidebook and described this amazing museum that collected two hundred fifty weird contraptions that supposedly used electricity, radio waves, magnets, or vibrations to cure everything from arthritis to acne. A century ago, apparently, bogus scientists spent a lot of time dreaming up fraudulent devices such as the Bio-Electric Shield, the Dynameter, and Boyd’s Battery, which hung around the neck to ward off the earth’s magnetic rays. The Rejuvenator reversed the aging process. The Spectro-Chrome used six colored lights to cure six different diseases if you sat in front of it with no clothes on. The Psychograph was a bowl-shaped sensor that you put on your head to measure the bumps to determine your personality traits.

“Anybody who used one of those things should have his head examined,” Coke remarked.

The next morning, June twenty-fourth, the McDonalds headed for St. Paul. The address for The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, interestingly, turned out to be the same as for the Science Museum of Minnesota.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. McDonald asked a lady at the information desk, “where is The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices?”

“I’m very sorry,” the lady replied, “but that museum is closed.”

“Well, when does it open?”

“Uh, never,” the lady said. “It closed a few years ago.”

“What do you mean it’s
closed
?” Mrs. McDonald put her hands on her hips, and her voice rose.

“Calm down, Bridge,” Dr. McDonald said.

“I’m very sorry,” the lady behind the desk said. “But that museum no longer exists.”

“Do you know who I am?” Mrs. McDonald shouted. “I run a very popular website called
Amazing but True
. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Mom,” Pep said.

“No, I haven’t heard of your website,” the lady said, looking around for a guard. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“My family and I drove all the way from California!” Mrs. McDonald shouted. “We want to see The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices!”

“Bridge, you’re making a scene.”

It wasn’t exactly true that they drove all the way from California just to see the museum. But it gave more weight to Mrs. McDonald’s indignation.

“We do have a few of the devices from that museum on display in a room here,” the lady said apologetically. “But that’s all.”

“This is not right!” Mrs. McDonald shouted. “The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices was in the guidebook!”

“You must have an old guidebook, ma’am.”

“I’m going to talk to the manager!” Mrs. McDonald said, and then she stormed off in a huff.

“Well,
that
was embarrassing,” Coke said to his sister after their mother was gone.

“Do museums even
have
managers?” asked Pep.

While Mrs. McDonald was looking for a place to lodge a complaint, Dr. McDonald went to sit down on a bench. The twins wandered around the lobby. Lining the wall was a rack filled with maps and dozens of sightseeing brochures. The twins strolled over to look at them.

There were colorful brochures advertising other nearby museums, amusement parks, theme restaurants, underground caves, and stores selling everything from Christmas ornaments to gourmet popcorn.

Suddenly, Pep gasped and sank to her knees.

“What is it?” Coke asked, putting an arm around his sister. “Are you okay? Do you need some water or something?”

She just pointed at the bottom of the rack. Coke bent down to see the brochure she was pointing at. It looked like this.

Chapter 22
A Magical Night

T
he House on the Rock! There actually
was
such a place! Who knew?

The brochure showed a photo of a Japanese-style house high up on top of, what else—a rock.

The twins read the first lines together.

“
As glacial seas receded, they left a towering spindle of rock. . . . Then came a man filled with grand dreams and soaring visions. When Alex Jordan first climbed that rocky pinnacle, his imagination took flight. The result is the attraction known worldwide as The House on the Rock—a one-of-a-kind adventure and treasure trove of some of the world’s most unique architecture and eclectic collections filled with the exotic, the whimsical, and the unexpected.
”

Coke’s first reaction was anger—at himself. If he had simply done a Google search after they’d received the first cipher, The House on the Rock would have turned up. But it had never even crossed his mind that The House on the Rock was the name of a real place, an actual destination that thousands of people visited every year. He just thought it was some regular house on a rock somewhere.

Even so, he should have known about it, he told himself. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, he must have seen, heard, or read
something
about The House on the Rock.

The brochure went on to describe a sort of Willy Wonka-ish magical museum filled with gigantic sea creatures, dolls, mechanical music machines, jewels, weapons, the largest carousel in the world, and hundreds of strange objects of all kinds.

“That guy Alex Jordan who built The House on the Rock must be a piece of work,” Pep said.

While they were looking over the brochure, Mrs. McDonald returned, and Dr. McDonald came over from the bench where he had been sitting.

“Let’s blow this pop stand,” their mother told the twins. “The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices closed a long time ago. I’ll take the blame for this one. My guidebook was out of date.”

“It’s okay, Bridge,” Dr. McDonald said. “It’s all part of the cross-country experience.”

“We found someplace even
better
where we want to go,” Pep said.

“Where?”

“The House on the Rock,” the twins said together, showing their parents the brochure.

“This place looks like a tourist trap,” Dr. McDonald said after examining the brochure.

“We
like
tourist traps, Dad,” Pep argued.

“The House on the Rock sounds way cool,” Coke said. “They’ve got the largest carousel in the world there, Mom. You can write about it for
Amazing but True
. They’ve got all kinds of historical stuff, too, Dad. It will be educational. We really
have
to go.”

Pep pulled out her cell phone to double-check the date. June twenty-fourth. They had to be in The Infinity Room at The House on the Rock at one o’clock the next afternoon.

“Please, please, please, please!” she pleaded. “It will be our birthday tomorrow!”

“Where
is
this place?” Dr. McDonald said grumpily.

The twins could tell he was bending.

The little map on the back of the brochure said The House on the Rock was in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The distances from a bunch of cities were listed, and it was 275 miles from Minneapolis.

“We could drive there today and visit The House on the Rock tomorrow,” Pep suggested. “Like, just before one o’clock in the afternoon.”

“It’s still early,” Mrs. McDonald said. “I suppose we might even be able to get there before it closes today.”

The twins looked at each other. Today was no good. They had to be there on June twenty-fifth.

“It will take hours to see the whole place,” Coke said. “It would be better to go tomorrow and get an early start.”

“Yeah,” Pep agreed. “Going to The House on the Rock would make a great birthday present. Please, please, please?”

Mrs. McDonald opened her laptop and went to Google Maps to see which direction Spring Green, Wisconsin, was in relation to Minneapolis/St. Paul.

“It’s east of here, Ben,” she said. “We could stop there on our way to Washington.”

Dr. McDonald sighed.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Yippee!”

They headed out of Minneapolis on Interstate 94 East. There were so many other attractions in Minnesota that Mrs. McDonald would have liked to see. She really wanted to go to the town of Preston and visit JailHouse Inn, an 1869 jail that had been converted into a bed-and-breakfast. Two Minnesota towns—Rochester and Olivia—claim to have the world’s largest ear of corn. She would have liked to settle the argument once and for all. But no, all the kids wanted to see was The House on the Rock.

Just twenty-five miles out of St. Paul, they crossed the Mississippi River. On the other side of the bridge was a sign . . .

“Woo-hoo!”
Coke hollered. “Home of the cheese-heads! Did you know that in Wisconsin, water fountains are called bubblers?”

“Did you know that in every state of the Union you’re obnoxious?” Pep replied.

Oh, it was tempting to make a bunch of stops in Wisconsin. The Hamburger Hall of Fame was in Seymour, and the Mustard Museum was in Mount Horeb. (They have five thousand different kinds of mustard from all over the world.) There was a museum devoted to spinning tops in Burlington, and one devoted to the circus in Baraboo, which was the home of Ringling Brothers. And in Neillsville, Wisconsin, they had the world’s largest cheese. That may have been the toughest thing to pass up.

“Don’t even think about it, Mom,” Coke said. “We need to get to The House on the Rock tomorrow.”

“What’s the big rush to get to this place?” Dr. McDonald asked.

“We’re kids, remember?” Coke replied. “We’re incapable of delaying our gratification.”

“We have to have everything
now
,” Pep added.

“Oh yeah.”

After a long drive past countless rolling hills and dairy farms, Dr. McDonald pulled into a campground a few miles outside the town of Wisconsin Dells to stop for the night. It was about an hour from Spring Green. They would be able to get an early start in the morning and spend as much time as they liked at The House on the Rock.

There was a little store at the campground, and Mrs. McDonald stocked up on supplies. Coke did a dump at the septic tank and didn’t spill a drop on anybody. The family had a leisurely dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. Afterward, the twins toasted marshmallows and spread out a blanket on the grass to gaze up at the stars. Dr. and Mrs. McDonald sang “Happy Birthday.” They kept saying how hard it was to believe that Coke and Pep were about to turn thirteen. Teenagers! Everyone reminisced and laughed over old memories.

All four of the McDonalds were in a good mood for a change. It was one of those magical nights. To the twins, everything seemed right in the world. There were no secret messages left on the windshield or lipsticked on the bathroom mirror. No evil health teachers or mysterious dudes in bowler hats creeping around and causing trouble.

The next day, of course, it might be a different story. They had a meeting with someone who wanted to see them very badly at The House on the Rock.