STUFF LITTLE STEPHANIE IN THE INCINERATOR

BY SPYTH

[ part 10 ]

It was two days later when the will finally got read. Stephanie, in a fresh school uniform, and Gregg, were they only ones in the mansion’s salon besides Mr. Howell, the lawyer.

“It’s a good thing you showed up when you did,” remarked Gregg. “Or our goose would have been cooked.”

“When I heard about the girl missing from the school and learned her name was Stephanie, I put two and two together,” the lawyer replied. “I’m glad I brought the police with me. No offense, but I didn’t like the look of some of your relatives.”

“Well,” said Gregg, “they won’t ever bother us again. Maude and Susan should have never tried to shoot their way out. As for Ted, well he shouldn’t have resisted arrest. That really annoyed the cops. Now he’s in that hospital, a vegetable for life.”

“A few hundred blows to the skull with a police batons will do that to you,” agreeded Howell. “Now as to the will. Stephanie, of course, gets everything. However, it wasn’t hard to convince the court that you, Gregg, as her only living relative - and given that you were willing to sacrifice your life to save hers - should be her guardian.”

They signed the necessary papers and Howell closed his briefcase. “What are you two going to do now?”

“Well, Miss Prudence’s Academy is in summer recess, so Stephanie and I will stay at the mansion here and she will go back to continue the her education in the fall,” said Gregg. “It will give us the summer to go through the place and decide what we want to do about it.”

“I want to turn it into a museum to preserve my grandfather’s work,” declared Stephanie.

“A museum?,” said Howell. “Well you may certainly have something here that will bring in the tourist dollar. That’s for sure. Well, good luck, you two.”

After he was gone they sat in the salon. Stephanie climbed into Gregg lap and snuggled up to him like a kitten. “If we are going to turn this place into a museum, you have better get busy, “ she said with a giggle. “You are going to have to go through all of my grandfather’s machines here and determine how they work and what needs to be fixed-“

“Stephanie, there are hundreds of them. Besides I’d need somebody to test them on…”

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek, “Silly, that’s what you have me for! And for the machines I’m too big for, Miss Prudence will lend us one of her first graders for the summer to use for testing. She has a lovely red-haired thing named Lindsey. The girls from Miss Prudence’s academy will get some benefit from this too. I want this to be a living museum were things actually work. I want the girls from the Academy to have a place to come whenever they needed some extra-special discipline.”

She put her arms around his neck and pressed her tiny face close into his neck. “I was thinking about starting this afternoon. I found this interesting little machine on the fourth floor. Maybe we should see what it does.”

Gregg tilted her head back and looked into her soft, brown eyes. “Stephanie are you sure you want to do this? We don’t know all that much about these machines. It could be dangerous.”

She gave him a kiss. “Of course! That’s what make it fun. Just promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If there is an accident and something goes wrong, don’t stuff me in the incinerator.”

He laughed. “It’s a deal.”