The Adventures of Mademoiselle Mac 2-Book Bundle

by Christopher Ward

  The CAFTA crowd lost interest in the news coverage and returned to the spirit of the party. “The Hacks. The Hacks! Encore!” they shouted.

  The band launched into “Stinkbomb Serenade,” and the place was jumping once again. It all gets a bit blurry for me at this point. Fatigue had finally started to overcome the excitement of the last couple of days. I remember Rudee lifting me up on stage at one point and insisting I play “Transatlantic Train” on the organ. I guess those piano lessons with my dad must have come in handy, because I vaguely remember faking my way through the song. My last clear recollection is of Rudee leading Sashay onto the dancefloor for a blissful romantic moment, at least for him, I’m sure.

  Thirty-One

  When I woke up the next morning in my little room with the curved wooden bed in the Église Russe, I truly had no idea where I was for a minute or so. Rain was rattling the roof of the turret and washing the windows in long streaks that seemed to make the colours of the stained glass run together. As I slowly woke up, I realized that I was going home today. I wasn’t sure when I had acquired the bandage on my throbbing ankle, but I knew where the injury had come from.

  Then I heard laughter from downstairs, and I recognized Rudee’s and Dizzy’s voices. I lay back down and decided to take my time. I didn’t know how I was going to explain my absence on the tour, but I just couldn’t worry about it right away. I looked up at all the tiny carved angels on the bookshelf and the bed and smiled a silent thanks. Somebody had been watching over me in Paris. I finally said goodbye to my hideaway and made my way downstairs to the kitchen, where the two friends greeted me cheerfully. They now felt like old friends.

  “Hey, she’s back. Good morning, little pillowhead.” Rudee grinned.

  “Mac, ça va?” said Dizzy. “Hey, nice work on ‘Transatlantic Train’ last night. Maybe you want to sit in for Rudee if the Hacks go on tour. I think Monsieur Daroo’s going to be too busy to leave town now.”

  He shot Rudee a meaningful glance.

  “Oh, that’s just pork-pie steam, Mac, ignore him. So Sashay wants to see you off. Are you ready to spank the road?”

  I packed up my few things. There was still room for my Sashay scarf from the party and my Tonnage T-shirt. I left the “Lighten Up” beret for Rudee. We said goodbye to Dizzy and rolled through the rainy streets one last time. Rudee pulled up in front of the Scarf Museum, and I noticed that they seemed to be making room for a new display in the window.

  He handed me a tape of Vladimir Ughoman’s “Zamboni Variations,” performed by Vlatislav Ughoman on organ. He also attempted to press a small book of special beet and cabbage recipes on me for my mom. “Thanks, Rudee, but I’m pretty sure she has this one. I’ll enjoy the music, though. Who’s the organist?”

  He sighed and paused before replying. “As long as you don’t start calling me Vlatislav, I’ll tell you. When I arrived in Paris as a child, I thought the immigration man asked where I was staying. He wanted to know my name, I guess. I told him Rue Daru, the little street with the Église Russe on it, and he wrote down Rudee Daroo.”

  He gave me his most sheepish expression and most lovable. “Anyway,” he said brightly, “see you behind the back burner, little Mac.”

  From the curb, I leaned in his window and said, “It’s not au revoir, Rudee, it’s eau de cologne.” It was my best attempt at a Rudeeism, and I did get a laugh from him.

  I hurried in out of the rain, and Sashay was waiting for me in her lavender boudoir. She had the tea service ready and a plate of madeleine cookies.

  After she poured me a cup, she presented me with a tiny silver swan tea set. Perfect, I thought. My gift to Penelope. “So will you go back to the club, now that the Shadows aren’t taking over?” I asked.

  “Mmm, I don’t know, my little one. I have done my dance so many times now.” She gave me the famous pout, but it turned into a smile. “It might be time for something new.”

  We walked arm in arm through the Marais, wrapped in our scarves, tossed like we didn’t care. If anyone thought we were an odd couple, we didn’t notice. As we crossed the river, there was Jerome haggling over the price of a set of miniature books of poetry. I said merci for all his help and asked him to say goodbye to the river rats for me. “I almost forgot, little voyageuse.” He handed me the duck’s head umbrella. Now my backpack was getting a bit full.

  As we approached the Boulevard St. Michel and the place where I was to meet my group, Sashay paused and kissed me twice on each cheek. She whispered that she would see me soon and swept off into the crowd.

  I spotted Mademoiselle Lesage on the sidewalk waving her hands in the midst of a group of eleven girls and eleven backpacks, the bus idling nearby. “Ah, there you are, Mac. Now we are all here.” She looked at my ankle. “I’m glad that you’re getting better, and I’m so sorry you weren’t able to join our walking tour.” Penelope smiled conspiratorially from the group. Mademoiselle Lesage pressed a book of architectural wonders of Paris into my hands. “Well, even if you didn’t get to see them firsthand, you can still learn something.”

  I climbed into the seat beside Penelope. “I know, I owe you big time. I’m really sorry for missing the tour. You must have had a fantastic time.”

  Penelope gave me a sympathetic look. “I can’t believe that you made it to Paris and didn’t see Les Invalides, the Marais, and especially le Bilbouquet, to say nothing of the eye of the beef windows! Was it miserable being with your dad’s cab driver friend? What did you do?”

  “No, no, he was pretty cool. We didn’t do much. Ate, mostly. I should have caught up with you guys, but the days all kind of ran together, and Rudee, my dad’s friend, seemed to need the company. Sorry!”

  Penelope pulled a copy of Le Parisien from her bag and opened it as the bus crossed the Seine. “It’s such a shame that you didn’t join us for Bastille Day. The Champs Élysées was incredible.” Penelope shot me one of her superior looks as she scanned the front page of the paper. I glanced over to see the photo of Magritte presenting me with the Pomme Verte above the story of my exploits on the roof of the cathedral. “Scarves suit you more than I would’ve thought. Here,” she said, handing me the paper. “I’ve already read this.”

  Thirty-Two

  On the way home from the airport, I reconstructed a severely edited version of my week of architectural highlights for my dad. I told him that Rudee had been an excellent tour guide to a whole other side of Paris. Details of the Hacks’ Bastille Day show brought much laughter. “They’re still playing ‘Stinkbomb Serenade’? And Dizzy’s back in the band. Wow! And I can’t believe you met the legendary Sashay. What a week. Did you get any sleep?”

  I was investigating the fridge for non-beet snacks when Dad called out, “Hey, I think that’s your mom.”

  Her car door slammed in the drive, and we went to meet her. “Hi honey, how was Twigs and Roots?” my dad asked, hugging her.

  “Good, very calming. Mac, I want to hear all about Paris — every last detail. Mmmm, you smell like lavender,” she said with her arms around me. “I missed you two.” She looked at my ankle with concern. “And it looks like all that walking didn’t help your little injury.”

  She didn’t look any more blissed out than usual. The phone rang, and my dad headed for his studio. “I don’t want to talk to anybody,” my mom called to him. I could hear him laughing loudly. “I came home a bit early. This afternoon there was going to be a lecture called ‘Paper or Plastic,’ about materialism. I couldn’t do another Triconasana pose if my life depended on it. I want real coffee, now!”

  I grabbed her yoga mat and bag from the car as she picked up the stack of unopened mail. “Hey, you’ll never guess who that was,” my dad said, smiling broadly.

  “I don’t know, the Pope?” offered my mom.

  “Almost as unlikely. Rudee Daroo calling from Paris.”

  I tried to mask the panicky feeling that hit me. Surely, he wouldn’t ...

  “He asked me to say a special hello you,” he
said, looking at me. “Mademoiselle Mac as he called you ... and he and Sashay, the love of his life, are finally getting married! To use his expression, he says he’s happy as pig. I can’t believe it. The wedding’s New Year’s Eve in Paris. How does that sound, honey?”

  He gave my mom that romantic grin I’ve seen many times before, and she gave him one right back. “The invitation’s for the three of us. What do you think, Mac, would you like to return to the city of light?”

  Mac’s Guide to Paris

  All of the architectural wonders described in this book exist in the city of Paris. Oddly enough, the most famous Parisian monument, La Tour Eiffel, or the Eiffel Tower to English speakers, doesn’t figure into the story. But plenty of other beautiful structures feature prominently, from the Gothic masterpiece, the Cathédrale Notre Dame, where the story’s wild climax takes place, to the lesser known Russian church where Rudee, one of the main characters, lives.

  When Mac first arrives in Paris, she meets one of the bouquinistes, the booksellers whose stalls line the river Seine on both sides. While not known for their appearance, the book stalls are a longstanding presence in the city and are great places to find unexpected treasures and meet some truly interesting local characters. Parisians are very proud of their historic city, and Jerome, the bookseller Mac meets, is no exception. He points out the beautiful Pont Neuf, one of thirty-seven bridges that cross the river throughout the city, and remarks upon the fact that the “new bridge,” as the name translates from French, is in fact one of the oldest in the city. Mac is taken with the bridge even in a downpour, and it’s a location she returns to in a very dramatic scene later in the book. If you look at the statue of Henry IV, you’ll see that his horse’s hooves are in the air. Legend has it that this means that the rider died in battle; if the hooves are on the ground, the rider died in bed or perhaps in the middle of a high-calorie feast.

  The first stop on what will prove to be a very eccentric tour of the monuments of Paris is at the Église Russe, the Russian church where Rudee lives and plays the organ. While Rudee and the composers whose music he loves are fictional, the church, located on a quiet street in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, is real and very beautiful. And, yes, Picasso did get married there to a Russian ballerina, Olga Khokhlova!

  Mac’s school group is staying in the 5th arrondissement, in an area known as the Latin Quarter. It’s one of the oldest parts of the city, but home to probably the youngest residents, including the students at the Sorbonne, the city’s most prestigious university. The arrondisements, by the way, are the twenty districts that the city is divided into, and if you look at a map you’ll see that they’re laid out in a spiral, starting with the first arrondisement where the Louvre Museum is located. Allô, Mona Lisa!

  When Mac comes upon the “Lighten Up!” festivities, they’re taking place on the world’s widest boulevard, the fabulous Champs Élysées, in view of the Arc de Triomphe. When you see the arch in photographs, its majestic shape is likely the first thing you notice, and when you read about it, its history as the home to the tomb of the unknown soldier is always mentioned, but to Parisians, the Arc de Triomphe represents something else: one of the worst traffic nightmares in all of Paris! If you’re a local, it’s called l’étoile, which means “the star,” because if you look at it from above, the streets leading to the arch look like a star. The drivers, and especially the taxi drivers, seem to treat this roundabout as an opportunity to drive as fast and furiously as humanly possible so they can get on with the business of pursuing the next café au lait!

  The first of many architecture-related crimes that Mac sees in the story takes place at the domed church at Les Invalides, a vast military museum commissioned by Louis IV, the “Sun King,” that does contain the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, who is buried in six coffins, one inside the other. The golden dome of the church is visible from many places around Paris, and happily, the greatest concern that Parisians have for it is the expense of having it repainted!

  Les Halles is an area of Paris that housed a huge marketplace from about the twelfth century until the early 1970s, when it was torn down. The market did move, but not underground as it does in our story.

  Gargoyles figure prominently in the story and have a long history in France and elsewhere. They are often carvings of mythological creatures found on the edges of buildings and at one time, before drainpipes were common, they served the purpose of diverting water from the sides of the buildings. Gargoyles, like the grotesque-looking ones on the Notre Dame Cathedral, were thought to scare people into attending church!

  The Place de la Bastille is one of the most important landmarks in all of France. It represents the place of origin of the French Revolution. The golden “Spirit of Freedom” statue remains atop the July Column, balanced delicately on one foot. On Bastille Day, celebrations featuring fireworks, parades, and concerts take place all over the country and around the world.

  The Paris underground, or catacombs, is a maze of hundreds of miles of tunnels, originally mined for the stone that made buildings like the Louvre and the Cathédrale Notre Dame. Right beneath the streets, all sorts of strange wonders are revealed: graffiti from the French Revolution; bunkers that hid everyone from the Nazis to the members of the French Resistance in the Second World War; the leftovers of all-night rave parties; and indeed, stacks of bones from over 1,200 years ago up to the Revolution. You can visit the sewers officially, but most of the underground is forbidden to explore, although many do.

  The Cathédrale Notre Dame is one of the jewels of Paris, a shining example of Gothic architecture, built beginning over eight hundred years ago. Lots of royalty have been married and buried here, and the Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame is set there. One brave fellow walked on a tightrope between the two towers. Not encouraged by the authorities!

  Fun with Names

  Dr. Brouillard: Brouillard is the French word for fog.

  Blag: The word blague in French means “joke.”

  Luc Fiat: A reference to the phrase from the Bible, fiat lux, which means “let there be light.”

  Louche is a French word meaning “shady.”

  Magritte: He’s the easily distracted detective in this book, but his namesake, René Magritte, was a beloved Belgian Surrealist painter known for his whimsical images of raining men and his love of green apples.

  Maurice and Henri Rocquette: Roquette is French for arugula. The brothers’ names refer to the famous Canadian hockey-playing Richard brothers. The elder, Maurice, was known as “The Rocket.”

  Rudee Daroo: The street that the Russian church is located on is Rue Daru.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to the Clows — Anna, Simon & Funmi — for the best of times in Paris, Stephen Stohn, Allister Thompson, Michael Carroll, Courtney Horner, and Marian Hebb.

  Dedication

  To Sarah

  reader, teacher, sister

  Table of Contents

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  One

  Once again, he shifted his aching body within the cramped space of the electrical closet — slowly, very slowly so as not to make a sound. He listened to the last receding footsteps echoing past the medieval moat in the underground section of the former castle. The clatter of visitors’ voices gradually diminished as Monday’s closing time approached, and he was left with the sound of his own breathing and the prickly heat on the skin under his clothes. He waited, aware that one inopportune cough or that sneeze that h
ad been taunting him for hours could derail everything. After a cautious length of time had passed and a tomblike silence settled on the old fortress, he pulled a penlight from his overalls and, careful not to allow any light to escape beneath the door, shone it on the electrical panel inches from his face.

  He knew this panel like it was a musical instrument he had mastered, and probably could have carried out his task in darkness, but he took no chances given what was at stake. The route from the basement to Room 6 of the Denon Wing was as familiar as the layout of his own apartment. He also knew well that, thanks to the strike, a certain looseness prevailed among the substitute staff during the security shift changeover and that the regularity of the previous false alarms had further dulled the response effort. He made his move, disabling alarms, security monitors, and key tracking beams that acted as motion detectors, covering his route to Room 6 on the second floor. He attached the fake beard that instantly aged him and pulled on the cap that made him unrecognizable. Cane in hand, he exited the closet with great relief and made his way swiftly down the darkened hallway, slowing to a hobble as he passed flustered security officers, taking in their pitying glances at the creaky old janitor as they rushed by.

  Taking the stairs past the majestic Winged Victory sculpture, which a few hours ago had been surrounded by noisy crowds of tourists posing and snapping photos they would probably never look at, he approached a cluster of guards, arguing and shining flashlights at each other. Once he had passed by, all but invisible, he unscrewed the top of his cane and pulled out a small fogging device. He smiled as the gunshot sound effects from his phone boomed in the stone stairwell, causing instant panic. Trailing fog, he moved toward Room 6 as everyone else raced to the stairwell and the source of the supposed gunfire. Once inside Room 6, behind a veil of fog, he stopped briefly and glanced at the jewel of the great Louvre Museum, the Mona Lisa. She probably hadn’t been this alone in a century, he mused. He was as familiar with her face as anyone in the art world, so without dwelling further on her mystery, he hastily removed the side of her glass case and carefully extracted the world’s most famous painting. From the shaft of his cane he unrolled her near twin, expertly installed the work, and replaced the glass case before gently rolling up da Vinci’s original and sliding it into the tube nestled inside his cane.