Stealing Magic (16 page)

“And we saw from your video how good she is at stealing.”

Ruthie and Jack sat looking at the city reflected on the curving surface of the massive silver sculpture in front of them, watching the crowds enjoying the stainless-steel Bean, endlessly fascinated by their distorted images. The rounded, mirrored surface pulled the sky so low you could touch it, and made you feel both on the ground and in the clouds. And it mirrored how Ruthie felt: unsure of what was up and what was down.

Ruthie suddenly straightened. “I just thought of something—we know Dora takes things from the rooms. Right?”

“Right.”

“And without the
Mayflower
in the room, the world outside is dead, right?”

“Right.”

“Jack—what if she takes something from Louisa’s room, the thing that animates it? What if we can’t get back to 1937 Paris to warn Louisa?”

“That would be a disaster! She hasn’t done it—yet. And there are sixty-seven other rooms for her to steal from,” Jack replied.

“But she might,” Ruthie said. “We have to get to Louisa first!”

“Gracious! What’s the matter?” Mrs. McVittie asked as they tumbled into her shop. Their faces left little doubt something had happened at Ruthie’s drawing lesson. She turned the Open sign over to Closed.

They were out of breath, but Jack managed to get out one phrase: “Dora’s the thief!”

“I thought we already understood that,” Mrs. McVittie said.

“Not just the key. She’s the art thief!” Jack declared.

“How do you know? What happened?”

“Oh, Mrs. McVittie, it was horrible,” Ruthie said, and recounted everything that had led them to that conclusion. “I saw the green apples in her big bag. I’m sure it’s her. But … why?” Ruthie paced back and forth.

“That poor, innocent man sitting in jail,” Mrs. McVittie said, shaking her head. “But the issue at hand is what to do with this information.”

“The apples alone won’t prove anything!” Jack asserted. “And we can’t tell the police we know she’s the thief because she stole Christina of Milan’s magic key, or that she took a tiny globe that grew to full size!”

“Jack is right,” Mrs. McVittie agreed.

The midday sunlight didn’t penetrate far into the shop; the yellow glow of the reading lamp encircled them instead. Ruthie felt safe in it. “We’ll have to catch her red-handed,” she said, not at all happy about the prospect of a confrontation. “And we have to do it fast, before
she has the chance to steal something else, especially from E27!”

Jack lit up. “I got it! My camera! We can record her stealing, just like we did in my room.”

“But how? Where? It’s not like we know who she’s going to steal from next,” Ruthie said.

“A minor detail.” He looked at Mrs. McVittie. “How about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you hire her to redo your apartment? We can catch her stealing something.”

Mrs. McVittie didn’t look thrilled with the idea. “I would do it to catch a criminal, if it were absolutely necessary.…”

“I know!” Ruthie said suddenly. “Dr. Bell! I bet she’ll help us!” After all, she explained, Caroline Bell already believed in the magic of the Thorne Rooms. Dr. Bell understood that it had to be kept a secret and—once they filled her in—would want the rooms to be protected from Dora Pommeroy.

“But what if she doesn’t have anything Dora wants to steal?” Jack asked.

“I think she does,” Ruthie said with confidence.

“
C
OME IN!” DR. BELL GREETED
them at her front door late Friday afternoon. “I just got home from work.” Dr. Bell had returned their phone call almost immediately when they’d called the day before and she’d eagerly agreed to help. So much rested on solving this problem and solving it fast, before Dora could steal anything else. And there was no room for error in their plan.

It turned out that Dr. Bell’s house needed redecorating anyway. It reminded Ruthie of her own family’s apartment: comfortable but not a place where artists live. Dr. Bell was a very busy pediatrician who didn’t spend much time on her house. However, unlike Ruthie’s home, there were lots of interesting objects about. Dr. Bell’s father had given her works of art, but she’d never figured out how to display them properly. Her collection wasn’t nearly as
extensive as his, but she had a few paintings and small sculptures, including some African art, and of course Edmund Bell’s photographs. They not only graced the walls but leaned up against them, waiting to be hung.

“I can never decide on the best place for anything. I just don’t have the knack for it,” she explained to Ruthie and Jack as they looked around her living room. “And look at this,” she said, picking up a small bronze geometric sculpture from a shelf. “I know it’s a lovely piece, but I don’t have the faintest idea where to put it.” She held up another interesting object: a small African statue covered in petite white shells. “Or this. Should these two things stand next to each other like this?”

“I like your house the way it is,” Ruthie offered. “It looks like you live here.”

“Thank you. It does look that way, for sure.” She smiled. “So tell me how you’re going to work this.”

Ruthie reached into her messenger bag and pulled out the silver box that Dr. Bell had given her earlier in the week, the one that belonged in room E10.

Dr. Bell’s eyebrows rose when she saw it. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes. We haven’t had a chance to put it back yet.” In fact, the last time Ruthie and Jack had visited the museum, they hadn’t brought it because without Christina’s key they weren’t even sure they’d be able to shrink. “I think this box will be useful now,” Ruthie answered.

“Try it next to those two statues,” Jack suggested.

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Ruthie set the three objects on a small table next to the sofa. She arranged them a few times, and stood back to look at their appearance until she was satisfied with the placement.

In the meantime Jack had pulled a bunch of electronics equipment out of his backpack and was busy sorting through it all. “Let’s see,” he said, walking to a bookcase just across from the sofa. “This will be a good spot.” From the pile of gear he picked up the small camera that had been set up over the doorway of his bedroom. He placed it with precision and removed every enticing object nearby, leaving it surrounded by paperback novels. “Let’s put all your art on that side of the room.”

Dr. Bell and Ruthie followed his directions while he returned to his backpack, took out his laptop and let it boot up. They finished their task and then looked on with him. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and a view of the room appeared on the screen.

“Voilà!” he said.

“Very impressive,” Dr. Bell said.

“Let me make a few adjustments.” Jack got up to change the tilt of the camera and typed a few more commands to affect the width of the angle so that the camera’s view would incorporate as much of the room as possible. “There. That should do it!”

“But what about the computer?” Dr. Bell asked.

“Where’s the nearest closet?” he asked.

“There’s the closet in my office, right through there.” Dr. Bell pointed to a room off the living room.

“That should be good.” Jack carried his laptop through the doorway, disappearing into her office closet and closing the door. In less than a minute he called out, “It works! I’ve got a strong signal. Wave or something. Walk around.”

Ruthie and Dr. Bell moved about the living room, posing for the camera from different corners. Jack reappeared. “It’s all good. I can pretty much get the entire room.”

“What time did she say she’d be here?”

“Around ten,” Dr. Bell answered.

“Okay. We’ll get here by nine.” Ruthie wondered how her frayed nerves would make it till then.

That night Ruthie lay in bed attempting to focus on positive things and trying to picture everything going right tomorrow. She thought about tomorrow night’s gala and what she would wear. Then she rehearsed what she and Jack could say to Louisa when they had the chance. Ruthie didn’t allow herself to think it wouldn’t happen. It had to happen!

She put on the French tapes and luxuriated in being alone in Mrs. McVittie’s guest room as she repeated the words aloud:
enchanté
(enchanted),
s’il vous plaît
(please),
la maison
(the house),
le chien
(the dog),
une pomme
(an apple). She drifted off to sleep.

Ruthie slept fitfully, dreaming that she was tiny, her
five-inch self stumbling over something she couldn’t quite make out. Huge but indistinct shapes loomed around her. The atmosphere was foggy and out of focus. The ground beneath her was lumpy and soft, but not a nice kind of soft. She came to an edge and jumped, hoping to land on a stable surface. But just as her feet hit firmer ground the thing she had been traversing suddenly came alive and opened up as if to swallow her, like the mouth of a big black whale. And then the dark cavity came into focus; she could see it was a huge leather handbag opening menacingly in front of her. She wanted to run, but her legs felt as if they were filled with lead and wouldn’t lift an inch. All at once, she heard a rumble and saw an avalanche of giant apples tumbling out of the sack, about to bury her where she stood. She raised her hands to her face in a futile attempt at self-defense.

But then, as the first apple was nearly on top of her, it shrank—they all shrank! Pounds and pounds of apples spilled out at her feet until she was standing in the middle of the pile. She picked one up, but it disappeared into thin air. She tried another, and it too vanished. These apples were not for eating, she surmised.

Ruthie wasn’t sure what to do next, but the question was answered for her by a bell-like sound. It was quite faint at first but then grew loud enough for her to realize it was coming from the depths of the enormous bag. With her legs now able to move, she took a step into its blackness, the magical sound making her brave. The sound led her
to Christina’s key, which lay deep inside, emitting its silver-gold beacon of light. Ruthie picked it up and walked backward until she was out again. And then the gaping bag closed itself, deflating right in front of her until it was nothing but a harmless carryall.

The foggy haze that surrounded her began to clear. She still couldn’t recognize much, but finally something appeared in front of her and she reached out to touch it. It was a bed—her own bed, actually, soft and comforting. It smelled of freshly washed linen. She climbed onto it and went to sleep, this time peacefully, the key safely in her hand.

Ruthie and Jack rode the bus to Dr. Bell’s house in the morning, nervously checking the time because the traffic was unusually bad. They arrived at her house a little after nine, enough time to get set up. By nine forty-five they were crouched in the closet of Dr. Bell’s home office, waiting to hear the doorbell ring. Ruthie could feel the cold moistness of her palms even though the closet felt airless and warm. Her muscles tightened in odd places, like her throat and her temples. She was sure her thumping heart could be heard throughout the house.
And why is it
, she thought,
that when the last thing you should do is sneeze or cough, that’s exactly what you feel like doing?

“I bet you she’ll be here at ten on the dot,” Ruthie predicted. She was right. The moment the clock on the computer displayed ten o’clock, the doorbell rang.

They heard Dr. Bell’s footsteps across the floor, and
then her voice saying, “Ms. Pommeroy! Thank you so much for coming.”

“Please, call me Dora.” Dora’s buoyant voice sounded through the closet door. “I’m so pleased you asked me. It’s not every day that the daughter of Edmund Bell calls for advice.”

“Come this way, to the living room. I think this is where I need help the most,” Dr. Bell began.

The light from Jack’s computer screen glowed in their faces as they watched the two women entering the camera shot. They talked mostly about the furniture in the room, the artwork, the color of the walls. Dora wanted to look at every Edmund Bell photograph and Dr. Bell seemed to enjoy telling her about them. Ruthie couldn’t get over how relaxed and poised Dr. Bell appeared—Dora would never suspect that she was setting a trap!