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Mystery-comedy script. Click here to start at Campfire Creepers Three: Mystery at the Milford Wax Museum (part 1)

Bonita:    What a time to be dressed up as a gorilla.  Poor Mortimer.

Uncle Charlie:  Yes, poor Mortimer.  It seems a sector of the dragnet reached the village of Milford just as trick or treating was in full swing.  Mortimer, I understand, had climbed a tree in order to re-enact the scene in which Mighty Joe Young rescues a child from a burning building.   Afterwards Mort told me he thought the boy he had selected was willingly helping him with the re-enactment by climbing up the tree in front of him so he could be rescued.

Bonita: Was the child trying to help Mortimer with his re-enactment?

Uncle Charlie:  No, the poor thing was frightened out of his wits.  Apparently he had never seen Mighty Joe Young,  he believed Mort was a real gorilla.  The boy  was climbing the tree to  escape.

Bonita:  Oh no.

Uncle Charlie:  Oh no is right, for that is the moment when the search party arrived.

Joan:  Oh no.  Did they –did they–?

Uncle Charlie:  I’m afraid they did.  The trooper, I am told was an expert marksman.  Mortimer went down on the first shot.

Bonita:  Oh, how terrible.

Uncle Charlie:  Yes, and then as the crowd approached his still, silent body, lying on the cold, hard  ground, someone noticed the gap between his costume and his headpiece.  A brave person stepped forward, and to the astonishment and horror of all, removed the mask, revealing the face of poor, dear Mortimer.

Bonita:  How awful.

Uncle Charlie:  I am told several women went into hysterics, and strong men fainted.

Bonita:  Where did they shoot him?

Uncle Charlie:  Just over there, on Hickory Street.

Bonita:  No, I mean where, where did the shot hit him?

Uncle Charlie:  Well, as I said, the Trooper was an expert marksman.  He got Mortimer right in the fleshy part.

Lou:  The fleshy part?

Bonita:  What I think Uncle Charlie means Lou, is the behind.

Uncle Charlie:  That’s right my dear,   you have found the mot juste: the behind.

Lou:  The behind?    Would that be anything like the derriere?

Uncle Charlie:  What’s this Lou?  La Belle Langue?

Lou: No Uncle Charlie, it’s French.  Remember I was telling you I know some French words?

Uncle Charlie:  Oh, French, of course.  My mistake.

Lou:  That’s okay Uncle Charlie, we all make mistakes.  Although I am a little surprised you didn’t know that derriere is  French, what with your bows and all.   I mean, everybody knows derriere, it’s practically the first thing they teach you in French class.

Uncle Charlie:  Practically the first thing, you say? I take it then that you have French as a foreign language class this semester.

Lou:  Me? No.  My friend Lenny is taking French.  He passes the important stuff on to me.

Uncle Charlie:  Your friend Lenny you say?

Lou:  That’s right.

Uncle Charlie:  Some day you must regale me with the full story of this linguistic wizard, but for now, let us resume our tale.

Bonita:   Uncle Charlie, I don’t understand, how did one shot in the fleshy part bring Mortimer down so suddenly?

Uncle Charlie:  Because of course they had dosed the tranquilizer dart for a four hundred pound adult male gorilla, when actually they were firing at  a one hundred and thirty pound teen-aged boy.

Bonita:  Oh, a dart!   Uncle Charlie, I wished you would have made that clear from the beginning.

Uncle Charlie:  Didn’t I child?  My dear, I am sorry.  Of course it was just a dart, and dear old Mortimer was right as rain again in a few days.

Lou:  I bet he gave up on making such real looking costumes after that.

Uncle Charlie:  To the contrary Lou, when Mortimer thought about how so many people had been convinced he was a real gorilla, even trained veterinary professionals and the State Troopers,  he realized he had a special gift.  Mortimer turned his gift into a  trade, and after going away to study chemistry for a few years, started his very own wax museum.

Lou:  Did you say your friend Mort studied chemistry, Uncle Charlie?

Uncle Charlie:  I did.

Lou:  Is he good at it?

Uncle Charlie:  Mort is, I am fairly certain, a genius at chemistry, among other things.

Lou:  Oh boy, maybe I can get him to help me with my homework.  That stuff is hard.

Bonita:  So Uncle Charlie, when you say  a wax museum, do you mean with life- sized figures of famous people?

Uncle Charlie:  That’s the kind.

Lou:  People like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?

Uncle Charlie:  Yes.

Bonita:  And Julius Caesar and Cleopatra?

Uncle Charlie: Yes.

Huntz:  And Louis Armstrong ?

Joan: And Amelia Earhart?

Uncle Charlie:  That’s it, exactly.

Huntz:  Oh boy, I would love to see that.  It’s too bad your friend Mort moved away.

Uncle Charlie:  Who said anything about Mortimer moving away?

Huntz:  Didn’t you just tell us he started his own wax museum with all those live-sized replicas of famous people?

Uncle Charlie:  Yes I did.

Huntz:  Well then he must have moved away;  there was never anything like that around here.

Uncle Charlie:  Of course there was, and is, Huntz.  Haven’t you ever heard of the Milford Wax Museum?

Huntz:  Milford Wax Museum?   I never heard of such a place.  Where is this wax museum?

Uncle Charlie:  It’s right over there, across Main Street.

Huntz:  I don’t  remember ever seeing a wax museum on Main Street.

Uncle Charlie:  You’re not alone, Huntz.  The fact is, most people don’t know of its existence either.  Besides his talent as an artist with make-up and wax, Mortimer is also possessed of a very peculiar gift — a gift of camouflage, or, illusion.

Joan:  Illusion?

Uncle Charlie:  Yes, Mortimer somehow manages to make his wax museum seem invisible to the casual passer-by.

Lou:  Invisible?  You mean like the Invisible Man?  How does he do that?

Uncle Charlie:  That’s a mystery, Lou.  I only know that he does.  Many is the time I’ve caught myself walking right past Morts wax museum without even seeing it.  I sometimes  get a chill wondering how he does it.  Very mysterious.

Huntz:  Uncle Charlie, you have to show us this place.

Lou:  Are you kidding, Huntz ?  That place sound creepy.

Joan:  And eerie.

Uncle Charlie:  Does it to you?  But of course you’ve never been there.  I have been through Mort’s wax museum many times, and I find it neither creepy, nor eerie, just mysterious.

Lou:  I’ll take mysterious and leave it alone.

Uncle Charlie: You mean you are not interested in seeing the Milford Wax Museum?

Lou:  What, a place that disappears right here on Main Street?  You bet I’m not interested.   What if it disappears when we’re inside?

Uncle Charlie:  It doesn’t disappear Lou.  Like I said a moment ago, it simply seems invisible, but it’s right there the whole time.  We’ll all be perfectly safe.

Lou:   Sure, sure, perfectly safe in an invisible wax museum.  And  another thing I just thought of:  I bet he even has a chamber of horrors in there.  All those wax museums have a chamber of horrors.

Uncle Charlie:  You mean with wax figures of those monsters?

Lou:  Yeah, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolf-man, and Dracula.

Uncle Charlie:  I must be truthful with you Lou, he has all of those, and more.

Lou:   You’re not getting me into any wax museum with guys like the Frankenstein monster and the Wolf-man and Dracula inside.

Uncle Charlie:  But then you will miss seeing the Bride of Frankenstein that Mort completed just last year, she is stunning, and life-like,  if that term applies in this case, to the finest detail.  I am told that in the right light, and if a person is the least bit imaginative, Mort’s figures  actually appear to move.

Lou:  To move?

Uncle Charlie:  Yes, to move.  One friend told me that as he walked past the figure of the Wolf-man he could have sworn he felt a hairy hand, or a paw upon his shoulder.  Another friend said that once, as he was looking at  Dracula, he could  feel the vampire’s eyes boring in to his own, then, as he hurried away, he could feel the flutter of bats wings practically bush his face in the darkness.

Lou:  That does it!  Chemistry homework or no chemistry homework, I’m not going into any wax museum that has hairy hands that grab you, and vampire eyes, and bats and who knows what else!

Uncle Charlie:  But Lou, wait until you hear this:  Last time I saw Mort he was working  on a new project for the gallery, but he was keeping it’s identity a secret.  Don’t you want to find out what it is?

Lou:  No thank you, I’ve had enough.  Between the strange things going on at the Little Theatre, and Halloween just around the corner, I don’t need any life-like monsters to help  keep me  awake at night.  I’m doing that right now all by myself.

Uncle Charlie: Suit yourself Lou, but you’ll be missing out on a great experience.

 

To be continued. . .

 

Copyright  2017 r.k.morris