The Curse of the Lion's Heart

by Angella Graff

  I could barely contain my laugh as we hurried down the hall, leaving Misty furious and sputtering. We turned the corner and I finally stopped, doubled over with giggles. “Oh my god,” I gasped. “Did you see her face?”

  He smiled, clearly happy with himself. “Yeah I did. She’s been a right snot, can’t imagine who’d want to be friends with that girl. Honestly.”

  “Do you really not know her name?” I had to ask.

  “Oh I know it,” he said with a small grin, “but it was worth it for the look on her face. Come on, let’s go grab something to eat. I’m starved.”

  Chapter Eight

  Spero Meliora

  Unfortunately for Misty, the news spread about what Jack had said to her in the hall. I wasn’t sure how, since no one was around, but I figured with friends like Misty had, they gossiped. A lot. I realized it worked out in my favor when some of the other kids in class started talking to me instead of staring at me like I was a freak. Jack, who was the mysterious, interesting foreign kid, apparently had a lot of pull on the popular front.

  In fact, the news spread so far that I got a text from Penelope at lunch who demanded to know exactly what happened, and how. I sent her a quick overview, and received a series of LOLOLOL! in response. I had to admit, being friends with Jack had its perks. And he was nice, too, which helped.

  It didn’t stop my suspicions though, because there was just something off about him. He was very quiet, and I don’t mean that he wasn’t chatty either. Several times during the day he appeared out of nowhere, just sort of popping up at my side without any warning. He seemed to enjoy that, too, the surprise on my face, and it left me feeling more curious about him.

  Part way through the day, on my way to PE, I strolled past the eighth grade hallway and saw him walking up to his locker. He started looking around to see if he was being watched, so I ducked behind the wall, and when he was certain he was alone, he grabbed the lock and did a funny little movement with it, and it popped open. No combination, no key, no nothing. He smiled to himself and pulled a folder out, shoving it into his bag. Not wanting to be caught spying, I hurried away, but I couldn’t stop the funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘Their firstborn sons were trained as thieves.’ The words of Kate rang through my head and I made a mental note to investigate him further. There was just something off about Jack Collins, and I needed to find out what it was. Whether he was behind the stolen locket or not, I wanted to figure him out.

  The weekend coming up was my weekend with my dad, and I remembered Jack mentioning that he lived around the corner from the museum. There was a chance that while I was downtown, I could convince Jack to let me into his house. Just to have a peek around. I knew even if he had taken the locket, it probably wouldn’t be at his house, but a little investigation on the inside never hurt. If I could find just a scrap of evidence to move me in one direction or another, it would be better than what I had now. Which, by the way, was zilch.

  I headed into the gym, feeling a little low about Penelope still being out, but with everyone being a little nicer it wasn’t so bad. We ran the mile, which apparently we would be doing every Thursday, and then we were allowed to use the last fifteen minutes to clean up and hang out. No one really wanted to talk to me, but it was better than being stared at and whispered about, so I couldn’t complain. I got ready for Orchestra, Jack still on my mind, and I started mentally preparing to ask him to hang out. I was distracted all through class, even earning a glare from the teacher when I started up the wrong song, and didn’t know until I was several notes in. I did my best to focus after that, but even when I was grabbing my homework from my locker, all I could think about was how I was going to convince Jack to hang out.

  “So tomorrow’s Friday,” Jack said as he caught me walking down the steps of the school. My mom was waiting in the parking roundabout, looking slightly impatient as I took my time. “Big plans for the weekend?”

  I shook my head, trying not to smile too big. This was my in, and I tried my best to sound casual. “Oh nothing special. It’s my weekend at my dad’s so probably be just moping around the musty old museum while he works and ignores me.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop by, yeah?” he said with a smile. “Keep you company?”

  Mission accomplished. Or, partly anyway, because at least he wanted to hang out. I smiled and nodded. “Yeah I wouldn’t mind the company at all. Maybe I can give you an insider’s tour? Show you all the stuff that never makes it out onto the museum floor. They have like a billion boxes of ancient artifacts that my dad says they’re probably never going to use. Stuff that no person’s laid their eyes on in like centuries.”

  His eyes lit up, which didn’t surprise me at all. I had a feeling he would be interested in things like that. He grinned and said, “Yeah that sounds brilliant. I love that sort of stuff.”

  I heard a loud cough and looked over to see my mom staring with the passenger window down. Before she got the chance to get out of her car and embarrass me in front of Jack and the rest of the school, I dashed down the steps and waved at him as I slammed the door. She had a smirk on her face, which I ignored as she pulled around the parking lot and out into the street.

  “Wasn’t that the boy from the museum?” she asked with that knowing tone in her voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, mom. His name is Jack and please don’t start. He’s just some kid.”

  “He’s cute,” she said, but I ignored her. She was always like this any time Amanda had made a friend who was a ‘cute boy’. I didn’t want to be subjected to the humiliation my sister had when she was at the dating age, or so Jeff called it. I loved my mom but she seriously always put her nose where it didn’t belong. I didn’t say another word in the car, and I could tell my mom was disappointed, but she didn’t push the subject.

  Jeff wasn’t home, and my mom immediately went into her office, getting on the phone and sounding instantly angry at whoever she was talking to. I didn’t have much homework, so I threw my bag on my bed and called Penelope. She didn’t answer, which worried me a little, but I figured if it was something serious, she would have let me know. It wasn’t the curse, I was sure of that, but it didn’t stop me from being a little afraid. The kind of afraid I got late at night when I stayed up watching zombie movies. I knew they weren’t real, but that didn’t stop the irrational fear that I’d look out my window and see the lumbering, green, brain-eating monsters heading for my house.

  I decided to refocus my attention on the case to stop thinking about Penelope and the curse. This one was tougher than I thought it was going to be, and besides Jack, I still had no real leads. It had been easier in the past. There had been suspicious people reported at the museum, and the other ghosts had some clues as to who could have stolen their stuff. More than just a name, anyway.

  This time I was dealing with a dead girl who had no idea what happened to the locket, and to make matters worse, it hadn’t even been officially reported missing yet. Then, something clicked. It hadn’t been reported missing. Surely the people who offered to clean the locket would have noticed when it didn’t arrive, right? I knew if I asked my dad who the museum used to restore their jewelry pieces, he’d get suspicious. I’d been caught in enough compromising positions at his work getting into things I shouldn’t, that when I started asking strange questions, he knew I was up to something. No, I’d have to be clever about it and find the information on my own. Still, it was a lead.

  It was extra convenient that I would be at my dad’s tomorrow. Not only would I have some time to scope out the Jack situation, but considering my dad was probably going to be busy, I’d have free range to snoop around in some of the paperwork. I knew there was a file room where they kept all the info on work they did for museum pieces. Any time something had to leave the museum for any reason, they had to fill out all these forms, and they’d put them in huge file cabinets in a small room on my dad’s office floor. Saturdays were the best days to check it out, too, sin
ce almost no one was there. The museum had shorter hours, so it was usually just Amos and my dad running the show. It wasn’t the best lead, but at least it was something, and I started to feel a little better about the case.

  Dinner was tense, to say the least, but I was used to that by now. Both my mom and Jeff had suffered obvious bad days at the office, so they spent the entire meal glowering at each other, checking their phones, and making little comments under their breath. I hated these awkward meals, but it was a good excuse for me to finish up quick and get to my computer. I had some information to check out before tomorrow, and I wanted to make sure I found out everything I could on my own before snooping around the museum.

  I did a google search on the museum first, to see if I could find who did restorations for them, but the information wasn’t listed. That didn’t surprise me, since a lot of that stuff had to stay confidential, but I figured it was worth a shot. After that I did a search for Ainsworth thieves. Whether Jack was an Ainsworth descendant or not, Elizabeth seemed pretty sure they were the ones who took the locket. I figured the more I knew about them, the better. I typed the name into the google search bar and an old history archive page popped up.

  The Ainsworth family were noted thieves for several centuries of British history. Once married into royalty, the Ainsworth family secret was revealed when Lord Hamish Ainsworth was caught attempting to steal the crown jewels. Tried and executed for treason, the entire Ainsworth family was interrogated, and four subsequent executions took place in the following months.

  Little to no record of the events exist today, and only one portrait of young Hamish Ainsworth exists in any archives. (See Image Below) The rumor is, every male heir is taught the art of thievery and it is believed that the Ainsworth family have been stealing from the Royal Family since the monarchy began. To date, the Ainsworth descendants are spread all across the world, but the legend still stands, along with their family motto. Spero Meliora, which means, I aspire to greater things.

  I scrolled down to the picture of Hamish Ainsworth and immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. There, in the painting, was Jack. Well, not Jack himself, but could have been identical twin. Right down to the dark eyes and the floppy hair. There was no way I was wrong, the coincidence was just too strong. Jack was obviously part of this family, and now I had to wonder, was he actually the thief I was searching for?

  Chapter Nine

  Suspicions

  When I walked into the commons the next morning, I was beyond relieved to see Penelope standing there waiting for me. She still looked kind of pale and sick, but perky in her black mini-skirt, cheetah-print leggings, and black mesh top. She was tapping a bright, neon-pink sneaker on the floor as I made my way up, and she grinned when I was finally in earshot.

  “Hey! Miss me?” she asked.

  “You have no idea,” I said, and glanced around for any sign of Jack. He was nowhere to be seen, but now that I knew who he was, and what he might be, I was nervous. He was great at being sneaky and if he had the thief’s training, he could be anywhere. “You know where we can go to talk?” I asked quietly. “Somewhere where no one could possibly overhear us?”

  Penelope’s smile dropped and she looked very serious. “Yeah, I do. Why?”

  “I have something to show you,” I said. In my bag I had the picture of the Ainsworth family Coat of Arms, the name written on the paper that Elizabeth had given me, and the printed out picture of Hamish Ainsworth I’d made before bed.

  With a firm hand on my arm, Penelope led me up the stairs and down the art hall. Just when I thought we were heading out the doors to the bus bay, she grabbed the handle on a door marked ‘Staff Only’ and pulled. It opened to a long, narrow, echoing hallway lit with only two pale yellow bulbs near the end. It was creepy, and I was nervous we were going to get caught, but I followed her anyway.

  Our sneakers made light tapping sounds on the tile as she rushed all the way to the end of the hall and opened another door into a nearly pitch black room. There were small, miniature lights on the floor, like a pathway, and she pulled me down until we were kneeling beside a very high wall. The room was huge, but it was so dark I couldn’t make anything out, and I was feeling a little freaked out.

  “Where are we?” I hissed.

  “The auditorium stage,” she whispered. “That hall is what the drama kids use to get back stage without anyone seeing them. I used to sneak in here all the time when I was little and had to come with my mom to work. No one ever comes in here unless they’re rehearsing for a play, so we’re totally safe. What’s up?”

  “Do you have a light on your phone?” I asked. “I need to show you something.”

  I heard her fumbling into her backpack and a few second later she pulled out her incredibly bright cell phone screen. “That work?”

  I used it to look in my bag for the folded up pieces of paper which had crammed themselves all the way at the bottom, squashed between my math and science books. “So I found out some stuff last night, and I’m a little freaked out,” I said. I was ready to let her in on everything and not do this alone. I knew that if I was going to catch Jack, or whoever was behind this, I was going to need help, and Penelope was the only person I currently trusted.

  I could see the shadow of her head nod eagerly, and with that, I launched into the story of what I’d found. I told her about the locket being sent out for cleaning, the room at the museum with all of the records, what I’d found out about the Ainsworth family, and my suspicions about Jack. “Just look at this,” I said when I finished, handing her the picture of Hamish Ainsworth. “Doesn’t that look exactly like him?”

  She was silent for a long time before she finally whispered, “Yeah, it really does.”

  “So what do you think?” Despite her claims to believe me, I was still a little nervous about involving her. What if she changed her mind and decided I was nuts? What if she decided it was too dangerous to do investigating on our own and told one of the adults? I held my breath, waiting for her answer with a fierce hope she was on the same side as me.

  “I think we have suspect number one,” Penelope said as she examined the two other papers I’d brought with me. “I think we need to investigate Jack a little more closely.” I let out a breath of relief, feeling like we could be a team and I wasn’t in on this alone anymore.

  “I’m inclined to agree with your strangely dressed friend,” came an ethereal voice from my right, startling me. My head whipped over and I saw Elizabeth standing there. The funny thing about ghosts was, they didn’t quite glow, but you could see them in the dark. Plain as day. She was standing there just like the last time I’d seen her, with her hair down, wearing a less frilly dress. “I believe that the boy is in the network of thieves.”

  Elizabeth’s conformation of my suspicions about Jack made me almost completely forget Penelope couldn’t see or hear the ghost. I tapped the picture as I asked Elizabeth, “Do you think he has your locket, though?”

  “What?” Penelope asked at the exact same time as Elizabeth said, “I can’t be sure.”

  “Uh…” I stuttered, looking over at Penelope who was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Are you talking to her?” Penelope asked.

  “Yeah she’s um… she’s in here with us,” I stammered, feeling a little ridiculous. I could only imagine what it looked like to Penelope, me sitting here having a one-sided conversation with thin air. It was a little embarrassing, but I couldn’t just ignore Elizabeth now. “She’s saying she agrees that Jack is probably an Ainsworth, but she doesn’t know if he’s the one who took the locket.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Elizabeth interrupted, snapping her fingers in my face to get my attention. I rolled my eyes back over to her, irritated at her rudeness. “You do realize you’re running out of time. I can’t sense the locket, which is a growing concern. I’m worried that it might have left the city by now, and if that happens, the curse is sure to spread. Quickly.”

  “Well I don’t
know what you want me to do about that,” I snapped, feeling a little put out that Elizabeth just expected me to snap my fingers and make it appear. I could see ghosts, but I didn’t have magic. It took a lot of time and effort to get the items back for the previous ghosts, and this one was ten times harder than those cases had ever been. “I’m twelve-years old. I can’t exactly go on some nation-wide man-hunt for this thing. If you had some clue besides this name, we might be able to make progress.” I realized my tone was a little tight, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t a miracle worker. Half the stuff I needed to do could get me arrested and sent to juvy, and that’s the last thing I needed on my record.

  Elizabeth huffed and crossed her arms. “I don’t understand why this is taking you so long. You were recommended as the best.”

  “As far as I know, I’m the only,” I corrected her. “I’m getting done as fast as I can, and snapping at me and complaining isn’t helping me get the job done any faster.”

  Apparently that answer wasn’t very helpful because with her fierce glare in my direction, the air around us got very hot. Then, without saying another word, she vanished.

  Penelope sounded a little shaken up when she said, “Woah, that was crazy.”

  “Sorry,” I said, afraid I’d freaked her out. The very last thing I needed was for my new friend to get scared off her very first ghost job.

  “No, it’s cool. I mean, that was really cool. I wish I could see her.”

  “Uhg, no you don’t,” I muttered as I shoved the things back into my bag. As we stood, the pair of us heard the faint chiming of the first bell and we groaned in unison. We would have to wait until the crowd in the hall disappeared before we could leave, which meant we were going to be late. That was the last thing I needed, to walk in late in front of everyone. But, we didn’t have a choice, and I wasn’t exactly surprised that event set up the mood for my entire day.