The Trimoni Twins and the Shrunken Treasure (2 page)

“Well, I think that's everyone I know from
your
home,” Uncle Hoogaboom said to the girls. “Now let me show you around mine.”

It was a curious little store that they had entered. To Beezel it seemed like a cross between a museum and a parts shop. In front of them was a room lined with honey-colored shelves.

“What
are
these things?” Mimi asked him, pointing to the contents of the shelves.

“Ah,” Hoogaboom said. “This is my own little
afdeling onderdelen
, my accessories department. It's where I sell the things that make my models unique. These tiny things I call my Hoogaboom
details.”

Beezel glanced at Mimi and shrugged. Uncle
Hoogaboom laughed and motioned for them to look around. Hundreds of tiny accessories filled the shelves that lined the walls. Beezel examined the contents stacked neatly on top of one. Miniature table lamps, pianos and credenzas were lined up right next to sofas and teddy bears.

“If it ever existed in a real home, the miniature is on one of my shelves somewhere,” Hoogaboom assured them as he opened a door to his left and went inside. “Come!”

They stepped into a small entry.

“My apartment is down there,” Uncle Hoogaboom said, pointing to the end of the hall. “But before we have our tea, let me show you something else.” He walked past a stairway that led to the upper floors and stopped at a door on the right. He opened the door and switched on the light. “This is where I have my
poppenhuizen
. This is my dollhouse room.”

“Oh, Beezel, look,” Mimi said.

Beezel peeked inside. “They're wonderful.”

“You've been busy, Uncle,” Hector said.

The dollhouse room was filled with enchanting replicas of houses. They rested on wooden cases built to display the models at eye level. Although
they were miniatures of houses, they were quite large.

It seemed to Beezel that the two-story English manor house next to her was at least four feet tall, from its base to the top point of its roof, and more than four feet wide. The two front doors were the size of two paperback novels, placed side by side.

“Everything I make uses the same scale,” Uncle Hoogaboom explained. “It's all just as it would be if everything were one twelfth its normal size.”

Beezel smiled as she peeked inside. They really were charming. No detail had been forgotten in furnishing the models.

Uncle Hoogaboom reached beside the model next to Beezel and pushed a button. The lights inside the house came on, revealing more of the intricate interiors: brocade-covered sofas, gilded mirrors, mosaic tabletops, tiny glass vases filled with flowers.

“Now …” Uncle Hoogaboom turned and placed a hand on each twin's shoulder. “Would you like to look around the shop or have a cup of tea with Hector and me?”

“Look around,” Mimi blurted out.

“If that's okay,” Beezel quickly added.

“That's fine,” Uncle Hoogaboom said. “You girls can look at the dollhouses and then each pick out one of my details to take home with you. My treat.” He smiled warmly at them.

“Great!” Mimi said.

“Thank you,” Beezel said.

“Come along, nephew. I have much to tell you during your stay.” Uncle Hoogaboom pointed skyward and announced, “But first I want to tell you more about the hunt I've been on!” He marched off toward his apartment.

Hector glanced at the girls, shrugged and followed his uncle down the hall. Beezel and Mimi turned their attention to the dollhouses.

“This one is my favorite,” Beezel said as she peered inside the English manor's front window. She saw movement from the corner of her eye. It was as if something had run across the parlor, just out of her vision.

Beezel blinked and rubbed her eyes.
I must be getting tired
. She looked again. This time she swore she saw a tiny man, about six inches tall, run up the stairs at the rear of the parlor.

She tried peeking in the house's front windows, but she couldn't see into the sides or back of the
model. Uncle Hoogaboom had so many dollhouses in the room, pushed right up against each other, that very little space was left between them.

She carefully opened the front double doors of the model and peered inside. She could see the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second story.
That's where he went
, Beezel thought to herself.
Right up those stairs
.

“You have jet lag,” Mimi concluded after Beezel told her she had seen a tiny man inside the model.

“I do not,” Beezel said. “Come on, ka-poof me into a mouse and let me take a look. I know I saw something. I want to go see what it was.”

“Okay, but don't take too long,” Mimi said as she peeked down Uncle Hoogaboom's hallway. “If Hector finds out we did this, he'll get really mad.”

“I'll be quick.”

That's when Beezel's day had stopped being normal. Mimi had ka-poofed Beezel into a small brown mouse and placed her inside the front doors of the English manor dollhouse.

“I'll go watch for Hector,” Mimi then said to her sister.

Beezel had scurried across the parlor, up the
stairs and through the open door at the top, intent on searching the unseen rooms in the back for the little person she thought she had seen. She had scampered across a library and was halfway down a hall when she heard a metallic tinkle.

When she ran back to the library to find out what the noise was, the cat had spotted her and given chase.

Of course, if Beezel had known that Uncle Hoogaboom had a cat that would follow her through the dollhouse front doors, she wouldn't have asked Mimi to ka-poof her in the first place.

As Beezel stood next to Mimi in the dollhouse room, she knew she was lucky to have come out of the experience in one piece—because Beezel had no ka-poofing power while she was changed into a mouse. No, she was sure that if Mimi hadn't ka-poofed the cat, it would have had her for dinner.

“I had to climb up on Uncle Hoogaboom's display table to get you. And it's a good thing I figured out that the roof of this house swings up,” Mimi said as she lowered it back into place. “Look what else I found out.” She pulled on the front right edge of the house. The entire front of the house pulled away as a hinged door, revealing the interior rooms.

“Well, I'll be Mandrake's monkey!” Beezel said. “I wish I'd known about that
before
you ka-poofed me.” She was amazed at the craftsmanship. When the hinged door on the front of the dollhouse was closed, you could hardly tell it was there.

“Oops, I'd better fix the kitty.” Mimi inspected the snail she held in her other hand. “She must have crept in while I was looking down the hall.” Mimi looked at Beezel accusingly. “But
you're
the one who left the doors to the dollhouse open.”

Beezel thought about reminding her sister that she was a
mouse
when she had gone through the front doors of the dollhouse, but she decided it wasn't worth the effort.

“So if
I
hadn't heard her little bell, she would have gotten you for sure.” Mimi gave a self-satisfied smile. “I ka-poofed her in midleap.”

“Thanks.” Beezel watched as Mimi set the snail down on the floor and ka-poofed it back into a cat. Now that she was her normal self again, Uncle Hoogaboom's cat appeared to be a rather small and highly confused house cat, instead of the fierce monster Beezel had just faced.

“Well? Did you see the little person? Was he dressed in green and wearing a pointed hat?” Mimi
teased as she reached down and scratched the cat's ears.

“No, all I saw was that …
creature”
Beezel brushed her hair back with both hands. She was still out of breath from running away from that darn cat. How Mimi could be so chummy with something that had been seconds away from eating her own sister was beyond her.

After they had admired the rest of Uncle Hoogaboom's dollhouses, they walked back to the detail room. Beezel opened the door. She saw Hector standing stock-still just inside.

He must have finished having tea with his uncle
, she thought to herself.
But what in the world is wrong with him?

“What's up, Hector?” Mimi asked.

Beezel looked at him. They were almost the same height. The twins, having grown over the last year, were now just an inch or so taller than their tutor. One lock of Hector's thick white hair fell across his eyes. She reached over and brushed it aside. She waved her hand in front of his face.

“Hector? You okay?”

“Huh?” Hector seemed dazed.

The twins eyed each other and shrugged.

Beezel turned and followed his gaze. About twenty feet away, in the far corner of the room, a woman was talking to a man. Nothing astounding about that. But she knew what had stopped Hector dead in his tracks.

The woman looked exactly like him.
Well, it's not
that she looks like him so much
, Beezel corrected herself.
It's that she's small like he is
. The two actually were quite different from each other. Hector had brilliant white hair, even though he was only in his midforties. But his most interesting feature was his eyes. They were a pale pink. Beezel had always thought they were lovely.

The woman Hector was staring at was even shorter than he was, with curly brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She seemed to be about Hector's age, or maybe a little younger.

She was talking to an older man, tall with dark hair, graying at the temples. The man leaned over her as he spoke, as if he were questioning her about something. Beezel couldn't make out what they were talking about, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because they were speaking in Dutch.

The small woman shook her head, turned away from him with an irritated expression and began to stock a shelf.

The tall man pushed passed them and into the hallway that led to Uncle Hoogaboom's apartment and went up the stairs without a word.

Mimi nudged Hector. “Let's get closer to her,” she whispered.

Beezel grabbed Hector's frozen arm and pulled him toward the woman.

“Stop,” Hector whispered in protest. “What do I say to her?”

“Say hello,” Beezel whispered. “Say good afternoon.”

Mimi sauntered over to the woman and inspected the items on the shelf she was stocking.

The woman glanced up and smiled at Mimi.
“Goedemiddag.”

Beezel thought she had a nice face. Her nose was slightly turned up at the end, and she had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Her smile was genuine, and her hazel eyes were warm and friendly.

“Excuse me,” Mimi said. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Do you work here?” Mimi asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I'm Mr. Hoogaboom's assistant. I run the shop for him. So if there is something particular you are interested in, just let me know. My name is Gaidic.”

“I'm Beezel.” Beezel shook Gaidic's hand.

“And I'm Mimi,” Mimi said. “And um, well, I
thought you should know, there's a cat in the dollhouse room.”

“Oh, that's Fieffie, Mr. Hoogaboom's cat,” Gaidic said. “He had a hard time finding such a tiny cat. We needed one that was light on her feet and could move around the details in the shop without damaging anything. The mice nibble the furniture. Our little Fieffie hunts the mice for us.”

“No kidding,” Beezel muttered to herself.

Mimi picked up a strand of her hair from the side of her face and twirled it. “Urn, this is my good friend Hector.” She pointed to the frozen Hector standing behind Beezel. “He's Uncle Hoogaboom's nephew. He wants to meet you.”

Beezel winced. Subtlety was not Mimi's specialty.

The woman looked behind Beezel to Hector, and a surprised smile lit up her face.

“Well, hallo!” She put out her hand and Hector shook it. “It's nice to see a kindred spirit. I'm Gaidic.”

“I'm … I'm … Hector,” he said. Gaidic and Hector chatted briefly in Dutch, but then Hector put up his hand like a stop sign. “I'm afraid I'm a slow translator,” he said.

“And I'm being rude to leave out these girls,”
Gaidic said, smiling at the twins. “I was saying how very nice it is for your uncle to have family come.” Gaidic glanced toward the door that led to Uncle Hoogaboom's apartment. “I've worked for your uncle for five years now.” She looked at each of them, as if trying to decide if she should or should not say something. “And I think Mathias … needs you here now.”

“Needs
me?” Hector asked.

“Yes,” Gaidic said, “for a couple of reasons. That man who was just in here? He's been pestering your poor uncle for days. Maybe he'll leave him alone now that you're here.”

“Is he one of Uncle Hoogaboom's friends?” asked Beezel.

“Edwin? Goodness, no,” Gaidic said. “He's a cousin of Pieter's. Do you know about Pieter? Mathias's best friend who died?”

“He just now told me about him,” Hector said.

“He was a nice man.” Gaidic looked out the window and then turned her attention back to them. “Edwin came to visit not long after Pieter died. He's been staying upstairs.” She pointed to the ceiling. “I think he was hoping to inherit something … I don't know. It's always questions, questions … and
too much nosing about with him. It's not my business, I'm sure, it's just that I'm very fond of Mathias.”

“I'll keep an eye on him while I'm here,” Hector reassured her.

“And perhaps, the other thing … I shouldn't be telling you,” Gaidic said. Her cheeks reddened slightly. “But I've been worried about Mathias.”

“Why?” asked Beezel.

“He's been talking to himself more and more,” Gaidic whispered.