6 Let’s Kill Two

Chapter 6 LET'S KILL TWO Mrs. McDonald checked out of the motel while her husband loaded up the RV and consulted his road atlas. Everybody piled in and Dr. McDonald pulled onto I-294 South. Des Plaines is only about half an hour from downtown Chicago. The kids amused themselves in the back while Mrs. McDonald fired up the GPS. Then she reclined her seat a few inches and began to leaf through an Illinois guidebook. "Look, Ben," Mrs. McDonald said, "the grave of Robert Earl Hughes is in Illinois." "Who was he?" Pep asked, not quite sure she wanted to know the answer. "Robert Earl Hughes was the world's heaviest man," her mother explained. "He weighed over a thousand pounds. Poor guy. He was only thirty-two

when he died. They say he was buried in a grand piano." Unfortunately, the grave site of this amazing man was in Benville, over four hours away. It was tempting to go there, but in life you have to set your priorities. Four hours would be a long drive to see a gravestone, even if it was the gravestone of somebody who was buried in a piano. Equally tempting, at least for Mrs. McDonald, would have been a trip to see the world's largest statue of Abraham Lincoln, in Ashmore, Illinois. And then, of course, there was the Grain Elevator Museum in Atlanta, Illinois. But that was 154 miles away, and in the wrong direction. Nobody had the enthusiasm to drive so far. "It's a shame we're going to miss those grain elevators, Mom," Coke said, sharing a silent giggle with his sister. "They sound really cool."

None of the McDonalds was conscious of it, but there was one thing they all wanted to see—a city. Ever since they'd left California a week earlier, they had been driving past deserts, prairies, billboards, cornfields, dairy farms, and lots of small towns. They missed the excitement of a city. Soon, the suburbs gave way to office parks, the office parks gave way to the enormous O'Hare Airport, and from Route 90 East the majestic skyline of Chicago came into view. "The Windy City!" Coke proclaimed. "The City of the Big Shoulders," said Dr. McDonald. "That's how Carl Sandburg described it." "Didn't he play for the Cubs?" asked Coke. "That was Ryne Sandberg," Dr. McDonald corrected him. "Carl Sandburg was a poet." "Ha!" Pep proclaimed to her brother. "You don't know everything!" "Okay, here's today's agenda," Mrs. McDonald announced from the front seat. "First, the International Museum of Surgical Science. They

have antique instruments that doctors used to drill holes in skulls, and they also have some skulls with holes drilled into them. And get this—they've got a copy of the death mask of Napoleon! It will be perfect for Amazing but True." "That place sounds gross, Mom," Pep commented, despite her fascination with morbid things. It was Pep, after all, who'd convinced the family to visit the Donner Party exhibit back in Nevada—which was all about cannibals. "Second, the Museum of Science and Industry," Mrs. McDonald continued. "They have an exhibit called Body Slices. It says here they have male and female cadavers, each cut into half-inch slices and preserved between sheets of glass." "Ugh!" said Pep, despite her obvious fascination. "That is disgusting, Mom. We don't want to look at that stuff!" "Well, the good news is, you don't have to," Mrs. McDonald said cheerfully. "I'm going to look at that stuff." "Where are the rest of us going?" asked Pep.

Dr. McDonald leaned over, pulled three tickets out of the glove compartment, and waved them in the air. "Wrigley Field, baby!" he yelled. "We're going to see the Cubs play?" asked Coke excitedly. "All right!" Dr. McDonald dropped his wife off at the Loop in downtown Chicago and proceeded up North Lake Shore Drive until he found a parking lot that would admit recreational vehicles and wasn't too far from the ballpark. They got out and walked the rest of the way to the corner of North Clark Street and West Addison.

"This is historic ground," Dr. McDonald said, throwing an arm around each of his children. "It's one of the oldest Major League ballparks still standing. Babe Ruth hit his famous 'called shot' home run here back in 1932, you know." "Can we get cotton candy?" asked Pep, no big fan of baseball. "Sure," her dad replied. "As far as I'm concerned, it's still your birthday today." The game had already started, so they rushed inside to find their seats on the third-base side. Dr. McDonald bought cotton candy for both twins and pointed out the distinctive ivy-covered outfield