Read The Trimoni Twins and the Shrunken Treasure Online
Authors: Pam Smallcomb
The Trimoni Twins and the Shrunken Treasure
To my husband, Rick, and my editor, Julie Romeis,
with heartfelt thanks for zuufting all my
big problems into little ones
.
And to Alex, Caity, Patrick and Lucas for
ka-poofing into quiet little mice so I could write
.
Beezel ran as fast as she could, knowing that if she slowed even for an instant, the big cat would hook her with one of its claws and bring her down.
She tore along the upstairs hallway, her eyes darting back and forth, searching for some place to hide from the enormous creature that was hunting her.
At the end of the hall was an ornate wooden door. Try as she might, Beezel couldn't turn the doorknob. She slammed her body against the door.
Come on! Open! Open!
Beezel heard a deep throaty growl behind her. She slowly turned and faced her pursuer. As she stared up into the eyes of the giant cat, Beezel's heart beat wildly in her chest. The cat's mouth quivered slightly. The animal wore a thick leather collar around its neck. Attached to the collar was a
silver bell. Beezel heard the bell jingle as the cat inched toward her.
Great blathering Blackstone!
she thought as she glanced left and right.
I'm trapped!
She shut her eyes and winced.
That cat's going to kill me!
Beezel opened one eye to watch in spite of herself. She heard a noise above her and looked up at the beamed ceiling. As she did so, a pair of gigantic hands pulled up the roof of the house, just as if it were the lid on a child's toy box.
Beezel felt the air move across her face as the cat began its pounce. Ka-poof. Right before her eyes, the giant cat changed into a snail. Even though it had a new physical form, the cat-turned-snail kept moving slowly toward Beezel, leaving a shiny trail behind it on the floor.
An enormous hand reached down and grabbed Beezel, raising her high up into the air. From its tight grip, Beezel could see the rooftops of the houses around her.
She twisted her head to see the owner of the giant hand. A huge face, with short black hair and piercing blue eyes, stuck itself inches from her own furry brown mouse face. Beezel's whiskers twitched nervously. “Squeak!”
“Beezel,
honestly”
her sister, Mimi, said crossly. “You
do
realize you could have been eaten.” She grasped Beezel by her tail and set her down in the center of the shop floor. Mimi pointed her finger at Beezel. Ka-poof. Beezel changed from a mouse back into herself: the eleven-year-old identical twin of her sister, Mimi.
“Holy Houdini's handkerchief!” Beezel exclaimed. “What took you so long?”
Beezel stood next to Mimi in the shop and tried to recover from her near-death experience. The cat had almost caught her in the dollhouse! She wondered, not for the first time, if ka-poofing would be the end of her someday.
The day had started quite normally, Beezel thought, looking back on it. Their flight from Baltimore to Amsterdam had been completely uneventful.
“This doesn't look like Holland to me,” Mimi had said when she stepped off the plane. “It doesn't look different at all.”
“It's an
airport
, Mimi,” Beezel said. “I think they're pretty much the same everywhere.”
Beezel, Mimi and Hector, the twins' tutor, found a taxi and headed for Amsterdam.
As they got closer to the center of the city, the differences began to appear. Beezel pointed to the rooftops. “Oh, Mimi, look!”
The unusual types of gables on the houses made a wonderful skyline. Some had stepped edges; others were bell shaped with carved ornaments that looked like wedding cakes.
When they came to a stop, Beezel rolled down the taxi window, and the cold air of a crisp spring day blew across her face. The tangy smell of the canal water, mixed with the rich aroma of coffee and baked goods from an outdoor café across the street, wafted into their car.
They drove down roads lined with narrow row houses on one side and canals on the other. The streets, crowded with people riding bikes, rang with the sounds of car horns and bike bells. That's when it hit Beezel: she really was in a foreign country, far away from her home with the Trimoni Circus.
“We're finally here!” Mimi said. “I can't wait to see the Van Gogh Museum!”
“Not today, duck,” Hector said. “I've asked the driver to drop us off at my uncle's house. I want to check in on him. He was so strange on the phone when I talked to him last. After we say hello and
see that all is well, we'll grab another cab to the hotel.”
Hector's favorite uncle, Mathias Hoogaboom, had called a few weeks earlier and insisted that his nephew come to Amsterdam as soon as possible.
“Uncle Mathias said he has something he wants to give me,” Hector had told the girls after he got off the phone that day. “Something that he simply can't mail, under any circumstances. Then he went on and on about some crazy treasure hunt.”
Hector looked solemnly at the girls. “Frankly, he didn't make much sense.” He shook his head worriedly. “Uncle Mathias is getting on in years. He's always been a tad eccentric. And now, well, I think he might be unraveling ⦠just a little.”
Hector's uncle Mathias was the eldest brother of Hector's mother, Anneke De Vries. Mrs. De Vries was billed with the Trimoni Circus as Anneke the Woodland Fairy. She performed amazing acts of winged gymnastics on the high wire.
The twins had met Hector's uncle once before when he had visited them at the circus. The girls had been five at the time and didn't remember much about him, other than the intricate set of
dollhouse furniture from Holland he had given them.
As Hector made plans to visit his uncle, the girls schemed to go along, too.
“We can use the offer Professor Finkleroy gave us in Baltimore,” Beezel proposed to Hector. “He has a Merlin Hotel in Amsterdam. He said if we perform our magic act there, he'll pay for our flights
and
our rooms.”
“Let us come with you, Hector,” Mimi pleaded. “Professor Finkleroy already said it would be great!”
“Well,” Hector said as he reviewed the calendar tacked to the inside of his circus trailer, “your parents are planning on going to Katmandu soon ⦔ He turned and wagged his finger at them. “You'd have to leave the Changing Coin here. Remember what happened with the Great Paparella? The last thing we need is to lose it in a foreign country.”
Beezel thought about the Changing Coin, and how much it meant to her and Mimi. Their good friend Simon Serafin, the Strong Man of the Trimoni Circus, had given the coin and its magic to them before he died. A few months ago, a
magician named the Great Paparella had challenged the twins to a Magic Duel in Baltimore. Instead, he had stolen their coinâand almost stolen their magic as well. They had gone through a lot to get it back.
“We'll leave the coin here,” Mimi said, nodding vigorously. “Safe at home with the circus. Right, Beez?”
“Absolutely!” Beezel agreed.
Even though the twins didn't need to have the coin with them to use its magic, they could never pass the magic on to someone else without it. In the future, when the time came to pass it on, the girls would have to touch the Changing Coin, and the person receiving the magic gift would touch it as well. Only then would the twins say the five magic words out loud. The magic would leave Beezel and Mimi and enter the other person.
Hector eyed the twins. “I suppose, if your parents say it's okay. But you'd have to promise to mind me, keep up with your lessons and not get into any of your ka-poofing messesâ”
“We promise!” Beezel interrupted.
Once Mr. and Mrs. Trimoni gave their permission, it was settled. While Hector visited his uncle,
the twins would perform their magic act in Amsterdam's Merlin Hotel for two weekends.
Hector's uncle lived in the bottom floor of a house nestled next to the Prinsengracht, a canal in the old part of Amsterdam. When Hector and the twins arrived at his house, Beezel noticed two things. The first was a large display window full of doll furniture. The second was a bright red door with a sign on it.
It said HOOGABOOM'S ORIGINELE POPPENHUIZEN.
“I think that means âHoogaboom's Original Dollhouses.'” Beezel said as she consulted her Dutch pocket dictionary.
“That's right,” Hector said as he turned to face the twins. “Well, my uncle said he'd be here, so let's see.” He opened the door and a bell above it jingled. Hector stood in the doorway and called out, “Uncle Hoogaboom! It's Hector!”
After a minute's wait, an elderly gentleman emerged from a back room and padded his way across the shop toward them. First in Dutch and then in fluent English, Mathias Hoogaboom greeted them warmly and hugged his nephew.
Beezel said, “It's nice to see you again, Mr. Hoogaboom.”
Hector's uncle frowned. “No, no, that just won't do.” He scratched his beard and smiled. “You must call me
Uncle
Hoogaboom.”
Tall and thin, with wispy white hair neatly combed back and a small beard centered on his chin, Uncle Hoogaboom looked more like a scientist than a man who built the tiny worlds that crowded the rooms of his shop.
He wore a long cotton coat with large front pockets. Beezel noticed they were filled with odds and ends. A magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers jutted out of one. String and some sort of wire dangled from the other.
“You must be tired from your flight,” Uncle Hoogaboom said. “Come inside. I'll make some tea.” He carried in one of their bags and set it on the floor. “It's so nice to have a visit from my favorite nephew.”
“Uncle, I'm your
only
nephew,” Hector said as he brought in the rest of their luggage.
“So you are.” Uncle Hoogaboom laughed. “And how is my little sister?”
“Mom? She's just fine,” Hector said.
Uncle Hoogaboom turned his attention to the twins. “Your parents are well?” The twins nodded.
“And you two have come here to perform at the Merlin Hotel.”
“Professor Finkleroy owns the Merlin Hotels,” said Beezel. “He saw our magic show in Baltimore and liked it.”
What Beezel didn't mention was that she and Mimi used
real
ka-poofing magic in their show as well as stage magic.
With the magic of the Changing Coin, the girls could change animals and people into other animals by thinking the five magic words in order, imagining the new animal and pointing at the animal they wished to change. Before he died, Simon had asked them to protect the magic of the coin and keep it a secret.
“And how is Mr. Whaffle?” Uncle Hoogaboom asked. “Didn't Hector tell me he's gone back to throwing knives?”
“Mr. Whaffle is great,” Beezel said. Mr. Whaffle had been the girls' tutor before Hector took over, but his first love was his job with the Trimoni Circus as a premier knife thrower. “He's been throwing perfectly for weeks now.”
Uncle Hoogaboom tapped his chin with his finger. “Who else?” He snapped his fingers.
“Meredith the fortune-teller! Is she still with your circus?”
“She had left, but she's back now,” Mimi said. “Meredith came out of retirement because she's engaged to Mr. Whaffle.”
Meredith was a clairvoyant. She had not only warned them about the Great Paparella, but had told the twins that there were two other magic coins somewhere in the world as well: the Shrinking Coin and the Mind-Reading Coin.