Stealing Magic (12 page)

“I don’t know—what?”

“Thomas’
Mayflower
! It’s gone!”

“Maybe it’s been moved.”

They looked, but they didn’t see it anywhere.

“First the globe. Now the
Mayflower
,” Ruthie said. “I wonder what else is missing.”

“This just gets weirder and weirder,” Jack said.

A large family moved slowly through the gallery. Finally Ruthie motioned to Jack to walk back to the door. One more quick check around them and then Jack put the metal square in her palm, sandwiching the magic piece of metal between their hands. Ruthie felt the heat against her skin. The breeze came up, and the shrinking started. But she felt somehow different, almost stiff, like on some cold mornings when you’ve just gotten out of bed. She looked up to observe the alcove ceiling zooming way out as though expanding to sky height. And then it stopped!

Jack and Ruthie looked at each other; they were no longer shrinking but still stood about a foot tall, not five inches—far too big to get under the door, and way too
visible! In those couple of seconds only half thoughts could form in Ruthie’s brain, but one thing was clear to her:
We aren’t small enough!

Ruthie was about to do the only thing she could think to do: drop the metal square. But then—like an engine starting up again after a stall—the room began to swirl and continued to grow around them, stopping when they stood five inches tall. They hit the lumpy carpet and darted under the door just as a couple of kids came around the corner.

“Did you see that?” they heard a young boy say. “I saw some kind of really big bug just go under that door!”

“We barely made it,” Jack said. “This thing’s magic doesn’t work as fast as the key’s.”

“Maybe it’s just because it hasn’t been used in a long time,” Ruthie speculated.

“Yeah, maybe. Do you think anyone saw us shrink?”

“I’m not sure—I don’t think so,” Ruthie said, uncertain. “Let’s move down the corridor a ways before we get big again, just in case.”

The miniature Ruthie and Jack traveled along the corridor on their way to E27—Louisa’s room as they now thought of it. They passed two turns, then stopped dead in their tracks when, behind them, they heard the sound of the door being unlocked.

“Run!” Jack whispered. They scurried like frightened mice, hugging the baseboards. They didn’t stop until they
were at the end of the corridor, under the Japanese room. Then they heard footsteps followed by voices. They could just barely make out what was being said.

“Right here, that one up there,” a female voice said.

“That’s Dora’s voice!” Ruthie held her breath reflexively.

“These bulbs are always dying,” a male voice said. “Thanks for pointing it out.”

They heard the sound of some metal clanking and Dora talking to the man, who they judged was a maintenance worker changing a lightbulb.

“Would you mind leaving your stepladder here for a little while?” they heard Dora asking. “I’m taking a few notes and there’s nothing to sit on. This would be perfect.”

“Sure thing, ma’am,” the man agreed. “Just let one of us know when you’re all finished with it.”

“Thank you so much,” she said.

Then came the sound of the door opening and closing again. Ruthie looked at Jack and whispered, “Do you think they’re gone?”

“Let’s look.”

Ruthie tiptoed, even though part of her realized it was silly, since their tiny footsteps would be impossible for anyone to hear. Jack followed. Staying close to the wall, they peeked around each corner because they weren’t sure how far into the corridor Dora had come.

They made the last turn and saw the stepladder. Dora
was nowhere to be seen. They could see the door firmly closed at the end of the corridor. It appeared that she had left, leaving the ladder for another time, perhaps. But they had no idea when that might be: tomorrow, the next day, or in five minutes.

“Let’s go find Louisa,” Jack said without any hesitation.

“But what if Dora comes back?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack replied.

“You’re right.” But Ruthie couldn’t shake the unease. It was something about how Dora had insisted the stepladder be left. She was trying to follow Mrs. McVittie’s instruction about observing, and she told herself to remember this.

They decided it would be quicker to be big again, since Louisa’s room was near the other end of the corridor. Jack took the metal square out of his pocket.

He held out his hand, the square in his palm. Luckily, this time the process seemed faster, with no stopping or slowing in the middle. Perhaps the thing was just getting warmed up.

At E27, Ruthie reached into her bag, lifted out the string ladder, and hung it from the ledge. “I’ve got the clothes in here too.” She pulled out the tightly folded dress for her and the shirt and pants for Jack. They turned their backs to change, not facing each other until they both said, “Ready.”

Ruthie looked at Jack and was surprised at how the 1930s clothing changed him.

Jack looked at Ruthie and said, “Weird!”

“Our shoes are all wrong. I couldn’t fit the vintage ones in my messenger bag,” Ruthie said.

“We’ll just say they’re what everyone in America wears,” Jack advised. “If anyone cares. Let’s get small.”

They held hands, and Jack put the square in her free one. The breeze began, their new “old” clothes adjusted, and they shrank even more smoothly, more like with Christina’s key. The magic in the square seemed fully awakened now.

They scampered up the ladder and climbed onto the ledge. Peering around the framework, they could see the roof garden of the beautiful Parisian library. No one in the gallery was looking at that moment, so they dashed across the room and out the door to the balcony. They flew down and around the spiral staircase, barely making contact with the steps. In no time they were out on the sidewalks of Paris.

Except for their sneakers, Ruthie and Jack looked as if they belonged among the Parisians of 1937. The streets were filled with people, just as they had been the last time, only now the two barely took note, wanting to find Louisa as fast as they could. They made their way quickly to the Jardins du Trocadéro and down the broad steps, and then they took a right turn to find Louisa’s street, rue Le Tasse.

“Do you remember the address?” Jack asked.

“I’m pretty sure it was number seven. And she said it was the second from the end,” Ruthie answered.

They passed eight or nine doorways, each of beautifully carved wood. They were all quite large and most had big, round brass knobs centered right in the middle, nothing like American front doors. Every door was unique; some had fine carvings, others were rather plain. They came to number seven and saw the metal nameplate next to a door buzzer.

“There it is—‘Meyer, fourth floor,’ ” Ruthie read. Jack lifted his finger to push, but Ruthie grabbed his arm. “Wait—we haven’t even planned what we’re going to say to them.”

Jack shrugged. “Easy. We’ll say our dad is a businessman—”

“What kind of businessman?” Ruthie interrupted. “Import-export,” he said off the top of his head.

“What’s that?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like; buying and selling stuff from different countries. I’m sure it will work. Anyway, we’ll tell them our dad talks to important businesspeople all over the world. We’ll say that when we told him we met Louisa in the park the other day, he said he hoped they weren’t planning on staying in Paris, that Jewish people need to go to England or the United States as soon as they can to be safe from the Nazis. Simple.”

“What if they don’t believe us?”

“If we don’t ring this doorbell, we’ll never find out if they believe us or not.” He pushed the button.

They waited. Jack pushed the button once more. No
answer. And then a third time. Neither one of them had considered the possibility that no one would be home.

Just then, a woman leaned out of the ground-floor window right next to where they were standing. She was a rough-looking woman, her weathered face a stark contrast to the white lace curtains and red geraniums in the window boxes that framed her.

“Vous cherchez quelqu’un?”
the woman said brusquely. Ruthie froze as Jack looked at her for a response.

“Répétez, s’il vous plaît.”
Ruthie figured asking the woman to repeat herself would at least buy her some time.

The woman said it again, barely any slower but definitely louder. Ruthie’s brain kicked in and she smiled.

“Nous cherchons la famille Meyer, s’il vous plaît.”
Turning to Jack, she translated, “We’re looking for the Meyer family.”

“La famille Meyer n’est pas ici!”
the woman said harshly.

“They’re not here?” Ruthie repeated in English. Then she quickly tried to ask in French where they were.
“Où sont-ils?”

“À la campagne. Ils reviendront vendredi.”

“What’d she say?” Jack asked.

“They’re in the country. And something about Friday, I think.” Ruthie really wasn’t certain.
“Vendredi?”
she asked the woman again.

“Oui! J’ai dit vendredi,”
the woman said, and blew air through her lips as she shooed them away like flies.

“You don’t have to know French to figure out she
wasn’t being friendly,” Jack commented when the woman had disappeared behind the curtains. They heard the sound of a radio coming from inside, getting louder as if telling them to leave. “So what do you think she said?”

“I’m pretty sure—but not positive—she said the Meyer family has gone to the country and will be back Friday.” Ruthie let out a big sigh.

This mission was weighing on her. It felt like such a huge responsibility, and she wanted to know that she had done her job and that Louisa would be safe.

“Hey, we’ll just come back Saturday, then,” he said, eternally optimistic. “We’re going to that big gala thing with my mom. We can sneak in then.”

“But are we sure it will be Saturday here?” Ruthie questioned.

“When we went back to visit Sophie, the time had passed the same as our time. Remember?” Jack reasoned.

“True.”

“Besides, we don’t have any other choice, do we?”

J
ACK CHECKED HIS WATCH. “MY
mom isn’t expecting us until dinner. We’ve still got plenty of time to check out the South Carolina room to see if the handbag really comes from there.”

“While we’re on the American side, let’s go see if we can find out anything about where Thomas’
Mayflower
might be. You know, like Mrs. McVittie told us to do—look again and find clues,” Ruthie suggested.

As they retraced their steps along the streets of Paris, Ruthie observed that many of the windows had well-tended flower boxes. Shops had beautifully lettered signs with pictures describing what kind of business it was: bakery signs showed cakes, others displayed paintings of yummy-looking cheese, or elegant shoes and hats. Paris seemed like a wonderful place to live, with all the people strolling on the broad sidewalks and enjoying themselves in
sidewalk cafés and restaurants. She thought how awful it must have felt when the Nazis occupied the city and how horrible it would have been if they’d never been driven out. Could something like that ever happen in her life, in Chicago? She couldn’t imagine it; it was unthinkable.

They hiked up the spiral staircase and in no time were back in the corridor and leaping from the ledge. At their full size, they rolled up the ladder and stuffed it in Ruthie’s bag. They found their clothes right where they had left them and changed again before heading toward the duct-tape climbing strip.

The strip allowed them to reach the air vent leading to the duct that ran above the ceiling, over the viewing space. They could pass through it to get to the access corridor for the American rooms. The vent measured roughly two feet wide by ten inches tall, so they had to be small to fit. It was also about eight feet from the ground, which didn’t seem so high when they were full-sized. But when they were small, the scale change was daunting—it was like climbing a nine-story building. Ruthie marveled with pride at her creation, with its two strips of tape securing the middle one, which had the adhesive side out. At the base of the strip, Jack held Ruthie’s hand, the metal square between their palms, and they shrank. The climb was incredibly long, but it was the only way.

Ruthie shifted her messenger bag so that it sat squarely on her back, and she started climbing by pressing her hands to the sticky path. Then she lifted her toes to the
strip. She hadn’t forgotten how to do it: release only one hand or foot at a time for stability. Left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot, over and over. Jack followed behind her. She was surprised at how well they both clambered up the wall, as if they did it every day.

The climbing strip was still in good condition, but it had picked up a layer of dust, which to their tiny hands felt pretty chunky, like bread crumbs. Hand over hand they neared the top. When they were just about at the air vent, they heard the distinct sound of the key in the lock.

“Quick, into the vent!” Jack directed. Ruthie was already doing just that. They lay flat on their stomachs, peering over the edge into the immense space below. They saw two men in maintenance clothes, one carrying a toolbox, walking in their direction. The two climbers knew they were in trouble.