Horten's Incredible Illusions (25 page)
“So did Miss Edie tell you how much she was prepared to pay for the tricks?” asked April.
Stuart hesitated before answering. April and he had been through so much together; he felt that he owed her the truth.
“Enough to make me very, very rich. Enough for limousines and first class on airplanes and months in Disneyland.”
“Oh,” said April, for once lost for words. “Wow. I didn’t realize.”
A silence fell between them, broken only by Charlie growling at Stuart’s shoelace.
“I expect you’d move,” said April,”to somewhere bigger. With a swimming pool and stuff.”
“Well,” said Stuart awkwardly, “it’s too early to say. And I haven’t even found the will yet, have I? And I can’t really ask Elaine to keep breaking into your dad’s builder’s yard, and I don’t suppose he’ll let us just walk in, will he?”
“No.” April smiled ruefully. “He says that’s the last time he’ll ever do us a favor,
ever
. He’s keeping the key until the museum’s got room for the illusions again.”
“And when’s that going to be?”
“When the Roman Beeton exhibition opens on Saturday. Rod Felton rang Dad to say he was going to try and squeeze them into the storeroom, since so many people had signed the
Beech Road Guardian
‘s petition.”
She bridled at Stuart’s amazed expression. “I know you don’t think much of our newspaper,” she said, rather huffily, “but it’s actually read by people as far away as Chestnut Avenue. And May sold the photo of Rod Felton crashing into that reporter to a national newspaper for a two-figure sum. Eleven pounds, to be exact.”
“So you’re going to keep on writing for it?”
“Of course. I’ll be reviewing the exhibition. And while we’re there we should get a chance to look at the tricks again—and maybe by then we’ll have worked out what the clues mean.”
In the days that followed, Stuart was kept occupied with ordinary things—buying supplies and a new uniform for his new school, and visiting his grandparents—but the ordinary things
felt
extraordinary, since the new uniform was two sizes larger than he’d needed at the beginning of the summer, and his grandparents kept going on and on about how much he’d shot up. And all the while, the letters
SWOTIE
seemed to rattle around inside his head, like marbles in a tin.
On the day before the opening he heard a familiar voice from the living room, and he hurried in to look at the TV.
“And that’s
all
from
Midlands Midday”
announced Rowena Allsopp, smiling toothily. “Tomorrow I’m off to the
museum
in the historic town
of Beeton
to sign copies of my autobiography,
Rowena’s Way
, and also to open two brand-new
exhibitions.
“
“And what are those exhibitions about, Rowena?” asked the man in the suit sitting next to her.
“One of them is a
fascinating
display of the
outfits
I’ve worn over the years on this
very
program, and the other one’s about, er, history or something. So see you
tomorrow
!” She waved and then pretended to tidy up her papers.
“Yup,” said Stuart to the television. “See you tomorrow.”
There was a surprisingly large crowd waiting outside the museum the next day, and quite a lot of dissatisfied muttering when Stuart and April and Stuart’s father went straight to the head of the line and were let in by the receptionist.
“How come you’re getting in early?” asked one man, who was holding a black-and-gold autograph book and wearing a badge with a smiling picture of Rowena Allsopp on it.
“I’m a reporter,” said April, holding up her notebook.
“I’m a mini-curator,” said Stuart, pointing to his badge.
“I’m merely the possessor of an ardent and enduring curiosity about the pre-Christian antecedents of contemporary Midland conurbations,” said Stuart’s father.
“Oh,” said the Rowena fan. “Fair enough.”
Rod Felton met them in the foyer. He was wearing a mustard-colored tweed suit and a tie covered in Roman numerals, and he was practically dancing with excitement. “Just wait till you see the centerpiece,” he said. “We have a full-sized ballista, and a replica apodyterium with adjoining balneae with niches for subligaculae!”
“A replica what?” asked April, scribbling frantically.
“And we have a gastraphetes!”
“A gastraphetes?” gasped Stuart’s father, apparently awestruck.
“A replica
what
?” repeated April patiently.
“And an oxybeles!”
“An oxybeles?”
“Excuse me,” said Stuart. “Do you think I could possibly see where you’ve put my great-uncle’s tricks?”
It took a moment or two for Rod Felton to re-focus his attention, and then he waved his arm vaguely toward a door labeled STAFF ONLY. “Down there,” he said. “They’ve only just arrived so I’ve not seen them yet.”
“An oxybeles!” repeated Stuart’s father dreamily.
“
I’ll be with you in five minutes
,” mouthed April. Stuart nodded and slipped through the door.
A flight of concrete steps led down to a basement, lit by a skylight that ran the length of the room. At first glance it looked like an overcrowded junk shop. A large stuffed antelope stood at the bottom of the stairs next to a faded mummy case. There were suits of armor and leather buckets, gas masks, spinning wheels, a red motorcycle, and a black high-wheeled bicycle. There was even the giant fake cart horse that only a few weeks before had been accidentally knocked over and broken. By Stuart. Twice. And crammed into a far corner, right next to the freight elevator, were Great-Uncle Tony’s illusions.
They were huddled together like nervous visitors, and Stuart approached them slowly and with growing dismay.
Two trips in a van had chipped and dented them. Paint had flaked, wires were bent, metallic edges curled or blunted. The Pharaoh’s Pyramid had a broken door, the Book of Peril had no door at all, the swords in the Cabinet of Blood were twisted, the silver stems of the Reappearing Rose Bower looked wild and windblown, the Fan of Fantasticality drooped on one side, and the Arch of Mirrors was blotched with black patches where mirrors had dropped off or smashed. They sat dully in the bright morning light, like unloved tin toys.
Stuart felt heavy with guilt; he had found the workshop and used up all the magic, but he had failed to look after its contents. They needed care and skill and love and knowledge and time.
“Stuart!” It was April, calling over the banister. “The opening ceremony’s about to start. Have you found anything?”
He shook his head and followed her up the stairs. “I don’t know where to begin,” he said as they hurried along the corridor.
“We’re missing something obvious,” said April, frowning. “I just
know
we are.”
They emerged into the large central room of the museum.
One end was dominated by the Roman catapult (or
ballista
, as Rod Felton insisted on calling it). It looked a bit like a giant wooden seesaw with—instead of a seat—a saucer-shaped platform for loading boulders onto. The other end of the room had a mini–Roman bath, with a changing room hung with togas, and a round, high-sided pool filled with water. In between was a mosaic floor, and a table with a fake banquet, including piles of plastic grapes and a plateful of cardboard chickens.
The crowd had been ushered in and was standing in a roped-off area to one side of the room. Behind the rows of autograph hunters, Stuart could see his father, and also a gray-haired man with a large black mustache: Maxwell Lacey, Miss Edie’s lawyer, who was looking directly at Stuart.
“Welcome, everybody,” said Rod Felton, stepping onto a small stage at the catapult end of the room, and speaking (much too loudly) into a microphone. “Or should I say,” he added, with the expression of someone about to tell a joke, “
Amici, Romani, Cives
?”
Stuart’s father (and only Stuart’s father) laughed heartily. Everyone turned to look at him.
“As chief curator,” Rod continued, “I’d like to say a few words about all the incredibly hard work and intense research that has gone into mounting this marvelous exhibition, so before I introduce our special—”
There was the clatter of heels as Rowena Allsopp suddenly appeared on the stage. She was wearing a bright orange-colored suit with metal buttons that gleamed like gold coins, and she was waving at the audience.
“Oh,” said Rod, “I was just—”
“Hello,
Beeton
!” called Rowena Allsopp, taking the microphone from him. A camera flashed, and Stuart saw that it belonged to May, who was crouching in front of the stage.
“It’s so
lovely
to see so many of my
wonderful
fans here on this very,
very
special occasion—the unique
chance
to view some of my favorite
outfits
, which are on display in a room just down the
corridor
from this one, followed by an opportunity to purchase
signed
copies of my very own
autobiography
—and there’s an exciting
discount
if you buy more than
three
copies. I just can’t wait to meet you
all
!”
She gave the microphone back to a stunned-looking Rod Felton. He cleared his throat and leaned across to her.
“The Roman Beeton exhibition?” he whispered plaintively.
“Oh yes.” Rowena grabbed the microphone back again. “I now declare this exhibition open,” she announced briskly and unenthusiastically.
May’s camera flashed several times in succession, and Rowena smiled and posed, blinking glassily in the brilliant light.
“That’s enough,” Rowena ordered after a minute or so. “I can’t see a thing,” and she tottered off the stage toward the exit.
“Mind the ballista!” called Rod.
“The whatsit?” said Rowena, looking around irritably and walking straight past a sign that read: CAUTION—DO NOT WALK BEYOND THIS SIGN.
“The
ballista
!” Rod repeated.
“For heaven’s sake, why can’t you speak Eng—?”
The photographs of what happened next ended up on the front page of every newspaper in the country. They resulted in record-breaking numbers of visitors to the Roman Beeton exhibition and eventually led to May getting a special junior prize in the European News Photo-Journalism Action Sequence of the Year awards. They were as follows:
Photo 1: showed Rowena tripping over one of her heels.
Photo 2: showed her sitting down heavily on a saucer-shaped wooden platform.
Photo 3: showed her struggling to get up and grabbing at what looked like a convenient lever.
Photo 4: showed her being catapulted through the air like a giant gold-and-orange firework.
Photo 5: showed her landing, with a massive splash, in the circular Roman bath at the far end of the room.
What the pictures didn’t convey was the disbelieving silence that blanketed the room as Rowena struggled to her feet in the waist-high water. For a moment she seemed too shocked to speak, and simply stood, mouth hanging open, hair like dank seaweed, jacket sodden, buttons half hanging off. And then the silence was broken by one of her golden buttons dropping into the pool with a teeny-tiny splish. Like a coin dropping into a fountain.
“Make a wish,” said someone at the back of the crowd.
There was a smothered giggle, and then Rod Felton rushed forward and everyone started talking and squawking and shrieking at once. Everyone except Stuart, who stood as if rooted; in his head, though, an idea was beginning to grow.
“Throw in a coin and make a wish,” he muttered to himself. “Make a
wish
.” And then his eyes widened, and he turned and grabbed April’s shoulder and said, “I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“Where the will is. Come
on
!” And he turned and ran out of the room and along the hallway and down into the basement, April at his heels.