The Sixty-Eight Rooms (25 page)

Mr. Bell smiled at Ruthie with a smile brighter and larger than any she’d ever seen. “You’re right, Ruthie. You know, I think she became a pediatrician in order to help children in all kinds of ways.” He thumbed a few more pages of the album and then turned to Jack and said, “I guess I owe a special thanks to you, Jack.”

“To me?” Jack asked, surprised.

“You seem to keep finding things that belong to me,” Mr. Bell said with a twinkle in his eyes. “First my key, and
now the photo album.” Then he raised an eyebrow and added, “Maybe we could put you to work here in the museum; we seem to need a mouse catcher. They’re always setting off the motion detectors, driving security crazy!”

Jack tried to remain poker-faced. Was Mr. Bell referring to the fact that it had actually been the two of them who had set off the detectors the other morning?

Mr. Bell stood up. “I’ve got to get back to work now. Jack, Ruthie, I just can’t thank you enough.” Outside the auditorium he gave them both bear hugs. “I know we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other!”

After Mr. Bell was safely out of earshot Jack grabbed Ruthie’s arm and said, “He knows! The security people must have told him that the lights went on over the weekend. I bet he was trying to see how we would react!”

“I don’t know, Jack; maybe we’re just being paranoid,” Ruthie said, trying to convince herself.

“Should we talk to his daughter? She definitely would believe us, since she experienced the magic herself,” Jack said.

“I don’t think we should say anything. What if she’s convinced herself that it was all her imagination, just like Mrs. McVittie’s sister? Besides, what if we tell them and they think we’re crazy? They’ll send us to psychiatrists!”

“That’s probably true. And if Mr. Bell does think there’s magic involved, he’s probably not going to say anything because people would think
he’s
crazy!” Jack said logically.

The only thing Ruthie was certain of was that Caroline Bell would be happy the photos had been found. She wanted to meet her and talk to her about the magic. Maybe someday they would, but for now Ruthie was happy just to have given the photographs back to Mr. Bell.

Jack looked at his watch. “We better get home and tell my mom before she hears it from Mr. Bell first. We need to convince her of our story.”

They were both quiet as they left the museum. On the walk to Jack’s house, Ruthie remembered her dream from a few days back. She described it to Jack—how it had ended with bells ringing and ringing. “That must have something to do with solving the mystery for Mr. Bell and his daughter,” he said.

“I guess so,” she agreed. “I guess we solved it for Mrs. McVittie too. It feels pretty good.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “It feels cool.”

They arrived at Jack’s house to his mother’s smiling face. Ruthie knew what she was happy about even before she opened her mouth. Lydia told them she had received a phone call from the school a little while ago. She explained about the commission and how excited she was to be offered such a large-scale job. Jack was so relieved he almost forgot to tell her about Edmund Bell’s photos and the visit they had just had with him. Because of all this good news, Lydia barely questioned them about the details of their discovery.

“Really? In Mrs. McVittie’s storage closet?” she asked
after they told her their story. “I guess people find things right under their noses all the time!” She shook her head at the improbability of it all.

“This calls for a celebration!” Lydia said, opening up a bottle of sparkling cider and pouring it into real champagne glasses. As Ruthie lifted her glass, the clink of the crystal reminded her of the sound of the key shrinking and expanding, the key that had unlocked such a great adventure, and she silently toasted the fact that finally something exciting had happened in her life.

R
UTHIE AND JACK HAD ONE
more adventure, one last bit of business to finish. They needed to return Sophie’s journal. After school on Tuesday, they went to the museum. Getting into the rooms would be a great challenge—the museum closed at five o’clock on Tuesdays and they didn’t arrive until after four. And of course they thought Mr. Bell would be there, wondering what they were doing at the museum again. However, when they arrived at the exhibition space, Mr. Bell was not on duty; they were told by another guard that he had taken a few days off.

“He probably felt like celebrating today,” Ruthie said, thinking she would have done the same thing.

“That makes it so much easier,” Jack said. “And so should this.” He took something out of his pocket that looked like a wadded-up clump of yarn with bits of wood. “I made it last night. It’s a rope ladder.” He unrolled a little
of it so she could see it better. Jack had made it out of his mother’s knitting yarn, with toothpicks for the rungs.

“Cool, Jack!” Ruthie was impressed. “You got the scale just right.”

“I knew we might not have time to build the book staircase, and I didn’t want to miss out. This way we can both go into the room,” Jack explained. Ruthie was glad he’d thought of that.

She had Sophie’s journal in the inside pocket of her coat, ready to be put back. But the problem still remained of how to get into the corridor without being noticed. They had two options: they could use the Gallery 11 key to sneak in full size, or they could wait until no one was looking, shrink down in the alcove and slip under the door. Both ways had risks. Jack had a key in each hand, ready. Fortunately, most of the crowds had left the museum for the day.

Ruthie looked at Jack and then at the room around them. “I think we can shrink. Wait just a minute.” A mother and daughter walked off around the corner. There was no one on their side of the exhibition. “Okay, now!”

Jack dropped the key into her palm while simultaneously wrapping his fingers around her hand. In seconds they were facing the crack under the door. They quickly slipped into the corridor.

“We’ll have to get big to hang the ladder,” Jack said.

They grew to full size again, along with the rope ladder. Jack picked up the key and the two of them hustled down
the corridor to Sophie’s room. Jack hung the tiny rope ladder from the ledge with wire hooks that he’d also brought. He tugged on it to make sure it would be secure. It went all the way to the floor. He stood back and admired his handiwork.

“C’mon, we don’t have a lot of time,” Ruthie said in a hushed voice, reaching out her hand. “Give me the key and hold on!”

Now the ladder that had looked so small a second ago loomed far above them. Ruthie suddenly questioned the wisdom of using it.

“You go first, Jack,” Ruthie suggested, knowing that would give her confidence.

Once she got used to the rhythm of climbing, it wasn’t so bad—and she remembered not to look down. They reached the top just as they heard the announcement from the other side: “The museum will be closing in twenty minutes.”

The two tiny visitors approached the side door of room E24. Ruthie opened the old door slightly and peeked in.

“Anybody there?” Jack asked.

“All clear,” she said. Ruthie walked in first and Jack followed. She looked around the room and then placed the beautiful journal back on the desk, where it belonged. It felt very satisfying. Then they both stepped out onto the balcony; they wanted to get a last look at eighteenth-century Paris.

“I wonder where Sophie is right now,” Jack said.

“Me too.”

“I brought something.”

“What?” Ruthie asked.

Jack reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out his bento box. Opening it, he lifted out a letter in his handwriting. Ruthie looked at him, not understanding.

“I thought maybe we could take this around to the end and leave the box and this letter in the Japanese room. Sort of a note of explanation—in case someone else knows how to get into these rooms, they could know about us. I don’t think anyone will notice that it doesn’t belong if we put it in just the right place.”

“That’s a great idea, Jack. But are you sure you want to leave your bento box? It’s one of the coolest things you own,” Ruthie said.

“Yeah, but it will be even cooler to have something of mine
in
the rooms, you know? Every time I look at it it’ll remind me that I was actually here.”

“What did you write?” she asked.

Jack read the letter out loud. It said:

He had signed and dated it on the bottom, and held out a pen for her to do the same.

“What do you think? Should we leave it?”

Ruthie thought about it for a minute. If she grew up and started to believe that this had all been a fantasy, maybe some young girl could find this letter, locate her and tell her about it. Sort of like an insurance policy. Or like leaving a time capsule buried in the ground.

“Let’s do it,” she answered, signing her name.

They followed the ledge quite a long way, all the way to room E31, the last room on the European side. They entered a small room to the left of the main room and peeked into the larger space. It was very different from the other rooms: the ceilings were low, the floor was covered in mats and the doors were made of rice paper with delicately painted branches of cherry trees blooming across them. The furniture was also low and horizontal; you sat on the floor, not a chair. It felt like a room you would whisper in and only speak what was absolutely necessary to say.

They saw a low black lacquered writing table at the far end of the room, near the opening to a beautiful, serene Zen garden.

“Let’s put it there,” Jack said, pointing to the table. “That would be perfect.”

“Okay, you do it. I’ll wait here,” Ruthie said.

Jack slipped in and placed the bento box softly on the table. He folded the letter, laid it inside the box and put the lid back on. Then he left the room.

From the small side room, they both looked at the new addition to the room to make sure it fit in. Jack was right; it looked like it belonged there and had been sitting on that table for years.

“The museum is now closing,” came the voice from the other side of the glass.

“We’d better hurry, Jack. We don’t want to get locked in the museum!”

They headed back out to the ledge and ran all the way around to the ladder.

“It’s gonna take too long to climb down, Jack. We should jump.” Jack held out his hand to her in agreement. With her other hand she tossed the key down to the ground and stepped into thin air.

“Wow!” he said, full size, picking up the key after the jump. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that!”

“Don’t forget the ladder,” Ruthie instructed.

Jack rolled it up as they walked to the door, knowing they might have to leave separately. But just as they approached the door, they heard a sound that made them freeze in their tracks: someone was putting a key in the lock! Ruthie stifled a gasp and held her breath. But the door never opened; what they heard must have been a guard checking to make sure the door was locked. They could hear voices on the other side.

“What are we gonna do now?” Ruthie whispered. “What if we walk out and there’s a guard right there? We’ve got to get out before the museum is closed.”

“We’ve only got one choice. We’ll have to go under,” Jack said, getting the key out of his pocket again. He grabbed her right hand and dropped the key in the palm of her left. No sooner had her fingers closed around it than they were small again.

With only their tiny heads sticking out from the slim space between the carpet and the door, they watched two guards walk away from the alcove. No one was left in the exhibition space. But the two guards stayed just inside the entrance to Gallery 11, carrying on a conversation. Finally they said good night to each other and walked off. The museum was quiet. Jack and Ruthie crawled out from under the door, grew to full size and, putting on their most innocent faces, walked out into the wide hallway and tiptoed up the broad stairway.