by Will Taylor
Helene came behind, closing the door after her, and for a moment the four of us stood pressed together in the dark. There was a creak, and a crack of light appeared, Antonia’s silhouette framed against it. Another creak, and she slipped out, carefully angling her wide-hipped dress. We followed, blinking as we emerged.
We were in a library. Enormous bookshelves—like the one we’d just stepped out of—lined three sides, with a grand doorway on our left facing a huge wall of windows to our right. Everything was old-fashioned and lush. There was golden piping where the walls met the ceiling, a seriously expensive-looking woven carpet, intricately carved chairs and sofas, and a chandelier making it all gleam. Yep, we were in a real palace.
And whoa. This had once been someone’s actual home. I wouldn’t have minded moving so much if it could be to someplace like this. Although Samson would be a terror on that fancy carpet.
“Let’s begin our search,” said Antonia. “Everyone please remember your palace protocol.”
And so the great pillow fort hunt started. The searching part was easy, since all we had to do was walk from room to room, casually looking under sofa cushions and tugging pillows off chairs, but I had the hardest time staying focused on our task. The palace was mind-blowingly beautiful. I kept catching myself gawking like a tourist at the impossibly grand rooms, or pressing my nose to the windows to stare at the sun-drenched gardens full of roses and fountains and statues.
There were red velvet ropes blocking most of the doors, but we just sauntered around them. Once or twice guards walked through, looking all official with their hands behind their backs, but Helene gave each of them a smile and a deep formal curtsy, and they smiled and nodded and went right on by.
We searched room after room, pillow after pillow, but there was no sign of a fort, and no sign of a link.
We were inspecting a long gallery lined with little sofas when the first actually exciting thing happened on our mission. A tour was coming through, and the guide, speaking in a language I didn’t understand, brought his group to a stop beside me just as I was leaning over to peer under a cushion. I wheeled around, startled, and instinctively dropped into the world’s worst curtsy. The guide spoke to me. Oh, no.
I gave a weak smile back and looked in panic to the rest of my party along the hall. Joe’s eyes were huge. Helene was making frantic hand gestures I didn’t understand. Thankfully, Antonia came to my rescue.
She swept over and addressed the tour guide in what sounded like his language, then turned to the group and launched into some sort of dramatic story. The crowd smiled, then laughed, then made sad noises. Antonia came over to Helene, Joe, and me in turn, apparently introducing us. I tried to match my expression to Antonia’s sad tone when she reached me, and the crowd all tilted their heads and said “Ohhh!” in a comforting sort of way. Whatever she was doing, they were loving it.
The story went on for a good few minutes, until Antonia wrapped up with a showy flourish of her hands and a perfect curtsy so deep she had to hold on to her wig. The group applauded enthusiastically. The tour guide gave Antonia a very deep bow, and they moved on.
“Whew!” Antonia said, wiping her forehead and taking a seat on one of the sofas. “That was fun!”
“What language were you speaking?” I asked.
“Polish. My grandmother taught me.”
“And what did you tell them?” said Joe. “They looked totally captivated.”
“The guide asked Abby what we were all looking for,” said Antonia, leaning back against the cushions. “So I made up a story to explain. I said there was an old Winter Palace legend of a young down-on-her-luck Russian princess who lost a valuable necklace one night during a ball. The necklace was a treasured family heirloom, and she and her poor widowed father—that’s you, Joe—had nothing else left of value in the world. So she begged two strangers for help, and those strangers”—she indicated herself and Antonia—“were each recently widowed and down on their luck too, and they helped her search. And by the end of the night, they had found not only the necklace, but enough other lost and forgotten treasures to set all four of them up for life. And they all went to live together and formed a new dynasty, and down-on-their-luck Russian girls still dream of losing a necklace at a ball in hopes the same thing might happen to them.”
“You really just made that up?” I said, impressed. That was almost a Maggie-level story! “That’s amazing!”
“Thank you, Abigail.” Antonia got to her feet. “Or should I say thank you, Princess?”
We continued our search for another hour, but in the end, after walking up and down way more marble staircases than my feet had been prepared for, Antonia and Helene sadly announced we’d searched every corner of the Winter Palace that was likely to be hiding a pillow fort.
We took a shortcut through the glittering jewel box that was the throne room and emerged back in the library where we’d started. Antonia opened the secret panel in the bookcase, and one by one we stepped into the darkness, appearing a second later in all our tired glory under the blazing sun on the stump amid the trees on the breezy surface of the island.
Twenty-Four
Maggie
The awful hubbub of the rise-and-shine loudspeaker shattered my sleep again the next morning. I sat up, blinking. It felt like five minutes, tops, since Charlene and I got back from our art cabin adventure.
And speaking of Charlene, her bunk was already empty, the sheets and blankets tucked in all neat and crisp. Whoa? Why was she up? Did she change her mind and decide to go tattling on me to Director Haggis? Was I in serious trouble here?
But I was wasting my worries. Charlene stomped in a few minutes later, and I heard her telling the counselor she’d been doing early-morning Litter Patrol. She shot me a disappointed look as she came over.
“I went out to check the moose trap,” she whispered, although there was so much yelling in our cabin in the mornings there was no point. “And nothing. Even with all those new cantaloupes I added!”
“Boo,” I whispered back. “That’s rough. Once we have Abby back, I’ll work up a real plan for you.”
Charlene shrugged grumpily and headed out to brush her teeth.
Roll call took forever. Breakfast took even longer.
Finally, after an unending eternity of scene rehearsal in drama class—though I was sort of having fun playing the king, the lady with the string, and the monster all at once—we were on our way to arts and crafts.
I checked the back of the room as soon as we walked in. Phew! Our forts were still there. Ms. Sabine clapped her hands as we all settled into our seats.
“Attention, please,” she said. “Before we begin today, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to these extraordinary art pieces at the back of the classroom! Will the artists please reveal themselves?”
Charlene and I raised our hands. The other kids looked at each other in surprise.
“I was just blown away when I saw these here this morning,” Ms. Sabine said. “I’d love it if you’d both share your artistic inspiration with the class!”
I glanced over at Charlene. What were we supposed to say? But she was smiling. She gave me a nod that clearly said I got this.
“Well,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It was your whole direction of ‘collage’ that gave us the inspiration, Ms. Sabine. . . .” And she was off. She talked for three whole minutes about our artistic perspective, our reflective intention, and our form-focused interpretive analysis. It was seriously impressive. The more Charlene talked, the more Ms. Sabine lit up, and by the end she was practically clapping with delight.
“Oh, I can’t even tell you! I just . . . I am overwhelmed with excitement!” Ms. Sabine declared, making the glassy-eyed class jump. “And now I would love it if Maggie could share with us the part about the fabulous letters!”
The what? Charlene looked just as confused as me this time.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“The letters!” said Ms. Sabine.
“I took the liberty of examining your art installation just before class, and I discovered the absolutely brilliant meta-narrative you’ve created within the piece. Forget the moon, children, I am over the solar system about these! You must read them out to us.”
She hurried to the back of the room, ducked into my new fort, hurried back . . .
. . . and pressed a handful of large silver envelopes into my hands.
Oh. My. Catastrophe.
Silver envelopes. With my name on them. These were letters from NAFAFA.
And they had all been opened.
“Go on, dear,” urged Ms. Sabine. “We’re waiting! Oh, I just adore letters!”
Every single person in the classroom was looking at me. Ms. Sabine perched herself on her desk and gave an encouraging nod. The silence pressed in; I had no choice. Slowly I pulled the paper from inside the top envelope, but Ms. Sabine stopped me.
“No, dear, no,” she called, flapping a hand. “Not like that. Read them in order, please, starting at the bottom. It’s marvelous how you even thought to include that detail, building the letter pile from the bottom up, like they’d been dropped there one by one!”
I gulped. Deep breath, Maggie. It sounded like Ms. Sabine thought Charlene and I had written these. So long as she kept believing that, we might be able to contain this. I turned the stack upside down and pulled out the first letter.
To: Maggie Hetzger
From: Murray, Captain of the Northern & Arctic Alliance
Timestamp: 8:17 a.m. Hub Time
MAGGIE! Hi!!! How are you? Miesha called a Council meeting this morning and said Kelly slipped HER a note that Ben met with you last night and was keeping it a secret. Ben got all grumpy, but Miesha made him stop, and he told us you’re at camp, and Abby is missing after using the key from le Petit Salon in some sort of treehouse, and she could be anywhere and you’re trying to find her and how are you always SO GOOD at messing up the NAFAFA schedule???
Sounds like you’re up to date about Ben getting the west coast, and Miesha being head of the Council now. But did you know Carolina is also on the Council as head of the east coast? It’s a good group, but Ben’s managed to push through a lot of reforms, like that timestamp dealy at the top here, and some things are pretty different. I don’t know what we’re going to do to help you with the Abby thing, but everyone who’s not Ben agrees we have to do something. Hope I get to see you whatever we end up doing! Hope you’re having fun at camp, too! I mean, considering! Bye!
I looked around at the class. The other campers were staring blankly at me. Ms. Sabine was beaming from her desk. She silent-clapped her paint-stained hands and gestured for me to keep going.
To: Maggie Hetzger
From: Miesha, Head of the Council of NAFAFA and Queen of the United Southern Gulf-Pacific Fortresses
Timestamp: 9:31 a.m. Hub Time
Dear Maggie Hetzger,
Everyone says Abby Hernandez is lost somewhere in some sort of treehouse network. Sorry to hear that. We’ve all been brainstorming ways to help find her. The only thing we know for sure is that the key you used has been hanging in le Petit Salon as far back as our records go. (Until I gave it to you.) So that’s our main clue.
Ben’s got a meeting with a representative of the European sofa fort network in le Petit Salon in half an hour to try and find out any background info that might be useful. Maybe they know something we don’t. I’ll be gathering a team from my network and digging through the Archives for references to the key or Versailles or anything else we can think of. And all the networks are asking their members with treehouses to check them for strange girls named Abby just in case.
Please stay calm and do everything you can to keep your new forts up and running. I hope we have good news for you soon.
I tore the next letter open without looking around. What if they’d found something?
To: Maggie Hetzger
From: Miesha, Head of the Council of NAFAFA and Queen of the United Southern Gulf-Pacific Fortresses
Timestamp: 10:06 a.m. Hub Time
We have a major problem, Maggie Hetzger. Ben just came running back from le Petit Salon with the lost key in his hand. When he stopped laughing and screaming “PRECIOUS!” long enough to talk (seriously) (I know), he told us he found it lying there under the First Sofa. Just hanging out. He also said the sofa looked like it had been pushed around, and some of the pillows were knocked over. He canceled his meeting with the European representative, and now he’s refusing to help with the search for Abby, since all he wanted was the key anyway.
I’ve called another emergency meeting of the Council. If you’re sure Abby Hernandez had the key when she fell through that door, then it looks like it led to le Petit Salon, and for some reason she dropped the key there and left it behind. She’s not in the room now, which obviously means she left through one of the pillows. Six of them lead to the different Continental networks’ Hubs, but the rest lead to King Louis’s original palace network from three hundred years ago. The European Council says those are super off-limits, since some of them lead to dangerous dead ends or big-time tourist attractions (apparently) (weird). So let’s hope she’s not stuck in one of those, because problem.
Although if she is in one of the other Continental networks, I’ve got no idea why they haven’t let her contact us yet. That’s kind of suspicious.
I’ll let you know how the meeting goes.
“Is this, like, a play, or something?” one of the girls from my cabin asked. I looked up. I’d forgotten there were other people in the room.
“Something like that,” Charlene said. She was watching me intently, her eyes as big as Litter Patrol badges. She knew we didn’t write these letters. She knew every word of them was true.
“So are we not doing collages today?” said a boy at the back of the room, his half-raised arm dangling over his head. Ms. Sabine waved her hands for quiet.
“Just keep listening, children,” she said. “We’re almost done. I hope you’re all getting inspired by the scope of this project!”
There were two letters left.
To: Maggie Hetzger
From: Carolina, Director of the Forts of the Eastern Seaboard
Timestamp: 11:22 p.m. Hub Time
Maggie Hetzger. We have another serious problem. Miesha had her dog, Sprinkles, visiting for the meeting today, and your friend Kelly got very excited and decided to bring Abby Hernandez’s cat in to meet him. Sprinkles really loves cats, but it seems like not all cats love him, and anyway now they’re both in hiding.
Miesha has barricaded herself in the Archives to avoid the cat hair. She is VERY unhappy Kelly let him into the Hub, and has ordered us to have the cat found and gone as soon as possible, since he could do real damage if he gets lost in the networks. So far no one’s having any luck. It’s hard to find a cat in this place.
We may end up needing your help on this.
Finally, the last one.
Maggie! It’s Murray. (I couldn’t find the right form. I’m not sure what time it is.) I’m writing because HONESTLY HOW DO YOU DO THIS? As far as anyone knows you and Abby aren’t even HERE, but you’ve got us all running in circles.
Obviously we need to meet in person: please be in your fort at the same time tonight—
I stopped dead. Why did I just read that part out loud? I scanned the room nervously, but most of the kids were looking out the windows or scratching paint off the tabletops, clearly bored out of their minds. A flash of prickly outrage shot through me. This was important, top-secret stuff! Who did these kids think they were to just be zoning it out?
—or as close as possible to the same time, so we can get you back into the Hub and join forces to find all the missing cats and people you keep sending into the networks.
And of course it’ll be awesome to see you anyway! I’m on Snack Committee today. I hope you like gummy bears!
There was total silence in the cabin as I finished, but my brain was roaring with everything I’d ju
st learned. The trapdoor had led to le Petit Salon! Ben had the Oak Key! Samson was loose in the networks!
“Oh, wasn’t that wonderful?” Ms. Sabine trilled. She was on her feet, hands clasped together. “I just adore how you two managed to turn your fear over your missing friend into such a multifaceted epistolary project. Class . . .” She addressed the entire room. “I’ve made a decision. We will finish work on our collages today, and tomorrow Maggie and Charlene will direct us all in starting letter-and-fort projects of our own. Homework for tonight: think of some issue or obstacle you want to address creatively, and at the end of the week we’ll share and read our letters aloud. Yes? But for now, please continue giving your collage masterpieces your all. Remember, art is how you feel!”
There was a general round of grumbling. Ms. Sabine swept over to Charlene and me.
“Goodness, you two,” she said, putting an arm around each of us. She was wearing all orange today, and up close she smelled like construction paper and Earl Grey tea. “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never seen such a fiercely independent project. I’m guessing you snuck in here before breakfast and ‘delivered’ the letters so you could activate the meta-narrative of the project by ‘receiving’ them in class? Genius!”
Charlene and I kept catching each other’s eyes and looking away quickly, but Ms. Sabine was too excited to notice.
“I wonder, dears, if you’d be willing to share this divine project with more than just your classmates?”
I looked at her warily. “What do you mean?”
“Well, many of our younger campers are having a hard time with homesickness this year. To be honest, I’ve never seen so many bad cases; it’s like a plague! And I think this might be the perfect solution. I mean, take you for instance, dear.” She beamed at me. “This is your first year, isn’t it? I’m sure you’re feeling homesick. Plus you’ve got the stress of everyone hating you for destroying the Shipwreck Treehouse, and your best friend is lost and missing somewhere in the woods! If anyone has the right to feel terrible, it’s you!”
