Chapter 6: Mysterious Numbers
"Did you hear a rustling sound before you saw the bag?" Elli asked Rez.
"Yeah," Rez answered. "I thought I was the only one who heard it."
"No, I heard it too. Maybe the Poppy doll was the one who moved the bag."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember the conversation between Mommy and CatNap? Mommy scolded CatNap for not getting rid of the body, and thought someone moved it."
"So that rustling noise…was the Poppy doll dragging the body? From where?"
"The door!" Elli pointed at the door's red light. "I bet that's where the body came from."
"But we don't know what's in there," Rez said.
"Only one way to find out."
Elli grabbed the door handle and turned it. Nothing happened. So she tried turning it again, but the door wouldn't budge.
"Why won't it open?" Elli grumbled. "Mommy came out of it last night."
"Was the light over the door on or off?" Nathan asked.
"It was off, I think," Rez remembered. "Why's that important?"
"Because it probably meant someone was leaving through the door," Nathan guessed. "So if the light is on, someone is inside the door."
"And that causes the door to lock?" When Nathan nodded, Elli was confused. "But why?"
"I don't know," Nathan shrugged. "Could be a way of keeping us from going in."
"Because there's something in that door the workers don't want us to see?"
"Seems likely, if we're to assume the Poppy doll dragged the body from this door."
"Then we need to find out what's really happening here," Rez said. "Why would Mommy lie to us about what happens when we get adopted?"
"And what's the point of those games we play in the Game Station?" Elli added. "They must have something to do with deciding whether we get 'adopted' or not."
"Hi, kids!"
Startled, Elli, Nathan, and Rez looked behind them and saw Miss Delight with an irritated smile on her face.
"What are you doing here?" Miss Delight asked. "Don't you know this area is restricted?"
"Um, we didn't know that," Elli said, answering honestly. "We're sorry."
"If I catch you kids here again, you'll have to answer to Barb." Miss Delight held up a yellow ruler with sharp colored pencils bursting from a ball of twine on top.
"Okay, Miss Delight, we understand," Nathan said. "We were just leaving."
Miss Delight's head turned 180 degrees, following the three as they made their way back to the school. After dinner, Nathan examined the books in the living room while the other kids were watching Smiling Critters on the TV. It featured cartoon versions of the Smiling Critter toys, who all lived together in one house and learned different moral lessons in every episode.
"Find anything?" Elli asked Nathan before they went to bed.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Nathan said. "Just a lot of books for kids and books on the wonders of adoption."
"So there aren't any books about the factory? Or Poppy?"
"Well, I found a book on the history of Playtime. But I'm not sure how useful it'll be."
"Let's read it together, so it'll make us less suspicious."
"Good idea!"
Nathan grabbed a yellow book off the shelf with a blue spine. On the cover was an image of a man who's face was cropped out and only his lower-half was visible. He was holding a red-haired doll in his hands with the title Poppy & Playtime written in cursive red letters.
"That's the doll Rez and I saw!" Elli exclaimed.
"Shh!" Nathan said. "Keep it down. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
"Right. Sorry…"
After the lights went out, Nathan and Elli went to a corner of the bedroom and used a nightlight to read Poppy & Playtime.
"'Elliot Ludwig was smart, very smart. He also loved children, and wanted to bring smiles to them. So he made toys to make them happy,'" Elli recited quietly. "'His first toy was Poppy Playtime, a doll with hair that smelled like poppy flowers.' What are poppy flowers?"
"They're the red ones with the black centers," Nathan said. "Dale also heard somewhere that they're used to make something called 'opium.'"
"Opium? What's that?"
"Don't know. I asked Miss Delight once, and she looked at me with concern. So I never asked her about it again."
Elli then turned the page and recited, "'Poppy could also talk, but not like a normal doll. She talked like a real girl, which made her a very popular toy. After that, Ludwig created Playtime, Co., and continued to make more toys for the kids.'"
From there, the book described other toys Playtime, Co., made such as: Bron, Boxy Boo, Candy Cat, Cat-Bee, PJ Pug-a-Pillar, Huggy Wuggy, Kissy Missy, Mommy Long Legs, Bunzo Bunny, the Smiling Critters, and finally Boogie Bot.
"Boogie Bot wasn't very popular, was he?" Elli said, trying to remember.
"The little kids liked him, but I wasn't a big fan," Nathan said.
"Neither was I." Shutting the book, Elli sighed. "This didn't tell us as much as I hoped."
"Maybe we missed something." Nathan looked through the book a second time.
"Found anything?" Elli asked.
"Quiet! We can't let CatNap know we're still up."
"Okay, geez."
Elli listened for the sound of CatNap's faint footsteps. But she heard nothing except the sounds of snoring kids.
"Hmm," Nathan murmured. "There's some numbers written on the back cover in yellow crayon."
"What are the numbers?" Elli asked.
"3, 7, and 9," Nathan said. "There are also letters attached to each number. 3 has the letter 'B,' 7 has 'A,' and 9 has 'B.'"
"BAB," Elli recited. "What does that mean?"
Nathan shrugged. "It's even more confusing when you combine the numbers with the letters. So it reads: 3B, 7A, and 9B."
"Could it be a message of some kind? Like in code?"
"But if it was a coded message, there would be a way of deciphering it. And I didn't see anything in this book to imply what these numbers and letters could mean in relation to a code."
"Rez might know. He's good at solving puzzles."
"Puzzles aren't the same thing as codes."
Suddenly, CatNap's face emerged from the shadows.
"What are you kids doing here?" CatNap said menacingly. "You should be in bed."
From CatNap's mouth came a thick red smoke. Elli and Nathan coughed as they breathed in the smoke, which smelled intensely strong. Within seconds, they fell asleep.
To be continued…