“I heard my parents talking about it. They said it was special, once, but not anything of importance anymore. Aren’t you curious what it is?” Winn had “borrowed” a can of lubricating oil from his father’s shop, and was busy applying it to the latch and hinges.
“I heard it was a storage room of some sort, but Chris says that it’s the door to summer.” Jenny glanced around nervously, but she didn’t leave.
“Hah! As if he even knows what that is.” Winn snorted. He added some more lubricating oil into the mechanism and then worked the handle. The door creaked but opened without too much effort. He reached up and switched on the light affixed to his headband.
“Oh. Wow.”
* * *
—
“You realize that everyone thinks you are nuts,” Jenny said. “No one else our age would want to spend time in a museum.”
Winn thought about that for a moment. He knew his—well, he wouldn’t exactly call it an obsession—“hobbies” were laughed at by most of his friends. “I know. They think I’m weird. But somebody has to look after the stuff, or else the history will be lost.”
“Well I’m going to the movies, and then a bunch of us will be meeting for sodas afterward.” Jenny was popular, and there was no doubt that there would be plenty of boys willing to escort her to both the movie and to the diner. The fact that she appeared to feel something for him was not entirely lost on Winn; after all, she’d been trailing after him for eight years. Unfortunately, he still had more work to do tonight. Otherwise it would be weeks before he could get back to fix these displays.
Winn thought a moment. “I know. I wish I could go, too. But the longer these things stay out without a proper sealed display case, the harder they’ll be to clean.” Sure, it was a lame excuse and would just be more material for insults and teasing by the classmates who didn’t get it. Only Jenny seemed to understand why he wanted to preserve the museum, particularly since the adults didn’t seem to care anymore. The town of Armstrong was suffering, the mine was closed, and it seemed like there was hardly a reason for tourists to come here. They used to come to the museum, but there hadn’t been a curator for at least twenty years. Some of the artifacts were in poor repair, and the displays had more or less fallen apart. Winn had taken it upon himself to try to fix things up, ever since he’d started sneaking in here five years ago and become enthralled with the art and history of the place.
“Okay, suit yourself,” Jenny said. “But if you have time later, why don’t you come by for a soda or milkshake?” Winn wasn’t sure what the look was that she had just given him, but it sure caused a shiver that couldn’t be blamed on the cold workshop. He wasn’t so oblivious that he didn’t realize he really needed to try to meet the others at the diner once their movie was over.
Jenny turned and left the museum, taking care to seal the door that she and Winn had discovered those many years ago playing hide-and-seek. It was their own private entrance to the museum, a service entrance everyone had forgotten. The front door was locked and thermal sealed, with an official-looking sign that read MUSEUM CLOSED over a hand-lettered sign that read PROBABLY FOREVER.
Winn pulled the thermal hood of his parka up and went back to working on the display case. He had found two 70 mm Hasselblads and a Maurer in a broken case surrounded by dust eddies and ice crystals. The pressure seal had probably deteriorated recently while he was working on creating a new catalog of stored exhibits. Winn guiltily figured he needed to replace the case and get the cameras into an inert atmosphere soon, or restoration would be difficult if not impossible.
Fortunately the cold temperatures in the workshop helped with the preservation, even if it did make working in the museum more difficult. He planned to restore all three. He didn’t need two of the 70 mm cameras, but there