Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Master (3 page)

As if she'd read his mind, Rayne continued. “Civets,” she said, “are nocturnal. They are creepy little animals that come out around midnight to hunt. Also badgers and other animals I can't even describe. And of course, leopards.”

“But you were fine,” Hadley said.

“Until the elephants,” Rayne said.

“Well, the elephants were kind of scary,” Hadley agreed.

“Kind of? They
charged
us! A whole herd of them!”

“But we managed to escape,” Hadley said proudly.

“You got charged by a herd of elephants?” Felix sputtered. “And then what?”

Hadley smiled at Felix.

“And then,” she said, “we found Amy Pickworth.”

911

E
ven though Maisie did not like that her father left, she took comfort in the fact that James Ferocious stayed by her side and followed her up the Grand Staircase, and along the hallway that led to the wall with the special place to press. When the wall magically opened, James Ferocious yelped. Maisie liked that, too. She bent and petted him behind his ears until he closed his eyes in sheer happiness.

“Come on, boy,” she whispered.

James Ferocious groaned a little and pushed his big smelly head against her leg for more petting.

“We've got things to do,” Maisie told the dog. But she still had to tug on his collar to get him to come with her.

The staircase looked small beneath the big dog, who galumphed up it awkwardly, his claws scratching as he kept his balance. James Ferocious was the first one to reach The Treasure Chest, but instead of going inside, he slid to a halt at the door and let out a mournful howl.

Maisie came up right behind him.

She stopped dead in her tracks, too. Though instead of a howl, she gasped.

“Oh no!”

Three pairs of eyes turned toward her.

“Is he . . . ?” Maisie began, unable to say the actual word.

Great-Uncle Thorne was splayed on the floor of The Treasure Chest, his face a ghostly white, his eyes closed, and a thin line of drool coming from his gaping mouth.

Hadley kneeled beside him, her ear pressed to his chest.

From here, Great-Uncle Thorne looked oddly small and very, very old.

“His heart's beating!” Hadley announced, and it seemed to Maisie that everyone and everything gave an enormous sigh of relief. Even James Ferocious. Even The Treasure Chest itself.

“Face pale, raise the tail,” Rayne instructed. She'd been a Girl Scout for exactly two weeks, long enough to earn exactly one merit badge. Luckily it was in first aid.

Felix grabbed a needlepoint pillow from a small footstool. Like everything in The Treasure Chest, that pillow was old. The fabric had faded from white to gray, and the crooked stitching on it was fraying. As Felix slid it beneath Great-Uncle Thorne's head, he noted the date stitched there: 1776.

“Raise the
tail
,” Rayne said.

When Felix looked confused, she said, “His
feet.”

Why she would call feet a tail, Felix didn't know, but he obeyed.

Great-Uncle Thorne's feet seemed to weigh a ton, two heavy deadweights in what he called his house slippers, black velvet things with three interlocked gold
P
s on the tops.

James Ferocious refused to enter The Treasure Chest, but Maisie cautiously walked in. Great-Uncle Thorne might have a heartbeat, but he looked about as awful as a person could look.

Rayne, all serious, stuck two of her fingers beneath Great-Uncle Thorne's nose.

“He's breathing, all right,” she said. “I think the old bugger just fainted, that's all.”

“Shouldn't we
do
something?” Felix asked, not convinced that this wasn't an emergency. “Get smelling salts or call nine-one-one or something?”

Everyone turned to Rayne for her opinion. She considered, then said, “Cold compresses.”

“Could you speak English, please?” Felix grumbled.

“Cold damp facecloths,” she said, sighing.

Felix jumped to his feet and ran out to get them, muttering, “Cold
compresses
,” as he did.

It wasn't until Felix was gone and Maisie stood alone with the prone Great-Uncle Thorne and the Ziff twins that she realized that they—the Ziff twins—were back. And seemingly alive and well.

“Hadley!” she shrieked, and hugged her friend. “Rayne!”

Rayne shook her head. “No hugging during first aid,” she said.

“You're both okay,” Maisie said, another rush of relief washing over her.

“No thanks to you,” Rayne said.

Maisie looked at her, surprised. “We were about to be eaten by lions!” she began.

But Rayne shook her head again. “Lions? I was kidnapped and almost scalped, chased by a herd of elephants—”

“Saved by the cold compresses,” Hadley said as Felix rushed back in with two jewel-toned, monogrammed facecloths dripping cold water.

“On the forehead,” Rayne ordered.

Felix slapped one on Great-Uncle Thorne's furrowed forehead, causing the old man to practically leap to his feet.

“What in tarnation?” he shouted.

As soon as he sat up, however, he had to lie right back down.

“Dizzy,” he said.

“Stay put,” Rayne told him. “You fainted,” she added.

“I've never fainted in my life,” Great-Uncle Thorne protested weakly.

Water dripped down his face, making him look even more pathetic. But at least his cheeks now had two hot pink spots, one on each, which looked even pinker against the ghastly white.

“Well,” Hadley said, “there's a first time for everything, then. Because you fainted as soon as I said—”

Rayne shushed her sister.

“Let the man recover,” she said.

Then she turned to Felix. “FYI, damp does not mean dripping wet.”

“What did you say?” Maisie asked Hadley.

Hadley leaned in close to Maisie and whispered, “We found her.”

“Her who?”

“Amy Pickworth.”

And even though they were whispering, Great-Uncle Thorne's eyes grew wide and his face lost the pink spots. He lifted his head as if to speak, but instead, once again, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his head dropped with a thud to the floor. Just like that, he fainted for the second time in his life.

With two soggy facecloths on his forehead, Great-Uncle Thorne's eyelids fluttered open.

“Where?” he asked. “What?”

Then his eyes closed again, and this time a strange release of air escaped from his lungs, like the bellows he used to stoke the fire in the Library fireplace.

From the doorway, James Ferocious began to bark and pace back and forth.

Hadley put her ear to Great-Uncle Thorne's chest, and Rayne placed her fingers beneath his nose.

A clock somewhere in The Treasure Chest ticked noisily and then grew quiet.

“His heart,” Hadley said without lifting her head. “It's . . . muffled.”

“I'm not sure he's breathing,” Rayne said. “It might be time to start CPR.”

This last she said with a voice so panicked that James Ferocious barked louder and paced more frantically.

Felix took stock of what he was seeing: Maisie's mouth opened in fear; Hadley's ear pressed against what Great-Uncle Thorne called his dressing gown, a ridiculous moss-green silk thing; Rayne desperately searching for a puff of air from his nostrils; James Ferocious barking and pacing; and Great-Uncle Thorne as white as marble.

That was enough for Felix.

He ran out of The Treasure Chest, down the stairway, down the long carpeted hallway, past the tapestries from the Middle Ages, down the Grand Staircase, past the photo of Great-Aunt Maisie as a young girl with Great-Uncle Thorne poking his head into the picture, slipping and sliding across the shiny polished floor of the foyer, and into the Library, where the ridiculous old-fashioned phone sat.

With trembling fingers, Felix put his finger first into the nine on the dial, and swept it slowly all the way across and back. Then, into the one, which at least was faster, and then swept the one again.

He waited what seemed like forever, but really was no time at all, until a nasally female voice said, “Nine-one-one.”

Felix shouted into the heavy receiver.

He shouted the address of Elm Medona.

He shouted, “I think my great-uncle has had a heart attack or something.”

He shouted, “Come fast!”

From the Cigar Room his mother called, “What's all the shouting?”

The 911 lady said, “Calm down, son. You're doing fine. An ambulance is on its way. Stay on the line until they get there.”

Felix could not calm down.

He kept repeating the address.

“Elm Medona,” he shouted into the heavy receiver. “Maybe you know it?”

“I do,” the 911 lady said.

“What's all the shouting, Felix?” his mother called again.

Now he heard her coming toward the Library, and way off in the distance, a siren.

“I hear it,” he told the 911 lady. “The ambulance.”

“Stay on the line, son,” she said. “You're doing fine.”

The sound of the siren grew closer.

His mother appeared in the doorway, irritated.

“Enough surprises,” she said. “A dog. Your father. I'm trying to get some work done.”

“It's here, I think,” Felix shouted to the 911 lady.

The 911 lady said, “Go open the door, son. Let them in.”

Felix dropped the receiver and pushed past his mother.

“Hey!” his mother said.

But Felix didn't pause.

By now, Great-Uncle Thorne could be dead.

Don't cry
, he told himself. He had too much to do.

Even from all the way down here, he could hear James Ferocious barking incessantly. Felix thought about how dogs—or maybe cats?—could predict earthquakes and deaths in hospitals and all sorts of catastrophes. The word
catastrophe
almost made him cry again, since, like, an hour ago Great-Uncle Thorne had used it.

But now Felix was at the door, and now he was opening it, and now four men with a stretcher and all kinds of medical equipment were storming into the Grand Foyer.

“Where is he?” one of them asked.

Without answering, Felix began the reverse run up the Grand Staircase, past the photo of young Maisie and Thorne, past the Middle Ages tapestries, down the corridor to the spot where the wall gaped open, up the stairway, past a barking James Ferocious, and into The Treasure Chest.

“I can't hear his heartbeat,” Hadley said through her tears.

“Sir,” Rayne said, standing as soon as she saw the first EMT, “I did the ABC's of CPR.”

Her voice quivered. “Airway. Breathing—”

“Out of the way, sweetheart,” the EMT said.

The other three EMTs pushed quickly through the door of The Treasure Chest.

One of them knocked into the desk with the big machine he was carrying.

Phinneas Pickworth's treasures that were there flew to the floor.

Something shattered.

“Pulse!” an EMT shouted, and then said a bunch of numbers.

“Oxygen!” another one shouted. More numbers.

Great-Uncle Thorne looked worse than before. Not only was his face as white as marble, it seemed like marble—cold and stony and still.

“Get these kids out of here,” an EMT shouted.

Felix, Hadley, and Rayne skittered out, lingering with James Ferocious in the doorway.

Only Maisie couldn't move. She could only stare as they clapped something onto Great-Uncle Thorne's arm and something else onto his finger.

“Get that dog out of here,” the same EMT shouted.

Felix grabbed James Ferocious's collar and tried to pull him away, but the dog wouldn't budge. Or stop barking.

“On my three,” an EMT said.

The children watched as the EMTs rolled Great-Uncle Thorne onto the stretcher, then lifted the stretcher high.

“What is going on?” Maisie and Felix's mother said, out of breath.

“Out of our way, ma'am,” the EMTs ordered.

Everyone stepped aside as they carried Great-Uncle Thorne out of The Treasure Chest.

“Uncle Thorne,” their mother cried.

She looked from Great-Uncle Thorne to the EMT vanishing down the staircase to the children and the dog huddled in the doorway of The Treasure Chest.

“What is going on?” she said again, but softly, as if she were asking herself.

“I have a merit badge in first aid,” a tearful Rayne explained. “I even got a perfect score giving CPR to the Annie doll.”

“He fainted,” Hadley said, her voice full of wonder.

He
had
fainted, she told herself. The first time anyway, as soon as he heard her say that she met Amy Pickworth. So if Great-Uncle Thorne died, then it was all her fault. With this realization, Hadley, too, began to cry.

At the sight of his mother standing in the doorway, Felix also burst into tears.

His mother patted Rayne on the back, touched Hadley's shoulder, and smoothed Felix's hair as she moved across the threshold and into The Treasure Chest, where Maisie sat sobbing on the floor in the same spot Great-Uncle Thorne had lain. Behind her, broken glass glittered like diamonds in the dying light.

“Mom,” Maisie said, but that was all, because what was there to say?

Her mother looked at Maisie.

Then she looked up at the stained-glass window sending the day's last breath of light across the room. She looked at the window with the same expression she wore when she did a jigsaw puzzle. The expression seemed to say,
Ah! I see now how it all fits together.

Her gaze drifted from the window to The Treasure Chest itself.

Like everybody who walks into The Treasure Chest for the first time, she could not take it all in. Her eyes flitted from test tubes to talismans to hunks of quartz and amethyst to the shelves groaning with objects; the cluttered desk; the tabletops obscured by stuff.

“What?” she began. But she couldn't articulate what she wanted to say.

She swallowed, took a breath, looked at Maisie.

“What is this room?” she finally managed to ask.

Maisie lifted her tearstained face to her mother.

“The Treasure Chest,” she said.