Escape to the World's Fair

by Wendy McClure

  She searched for Jack in the crowd, because she suddenly understood why he had been waving and pointing at the curtain—he’d figured out the significance of “Zogbhi” first! She wondered what else Jack had figured out.

  But when she spotted him again, he wasn’t alone. Edwin Adolphius held him firmly by the forearm.

  “Oh, no!” Frances could barely breathe out the words. “Jack’s caught!” She and Alexander watched helplessly as Jack struggled and tried to yank his arm free. “What should we do?”

  “Shh!” scolded a man standing behind Frances. “The show is starting!”

  Madame Zee was speaking. “Today, I will demonstrate to you the remarkable powers of the constellations and the marvels that manifest themselves when the mind is harnessed to the infinite wisdom of the ancient stars.” She went over to the curtain. “Behold!”

  Frances kept her eyes on Jack and Edwin Adolphius, even as she could hear the curtains part.

  A gasp rose up from the crowd, and Mr. Adolphius turned his head to look at the action on the stage.

  At that moment, Jack wrenched his arm free and darted under the velvet rope. But even he stopped and stared at what the curtains had just revealed.

  What is going on?

  Frances finally turned and saw for herself.

  Just inside the entrance to Madame Zee’s, Harold sat on a wooden chair. It looked like an ordinary chair, except that it was tilted back and balanced on a single chair leg.

  Or rather, a single chair leg that just happened to be balanced on a wooden ball that gently rocked back and forth.

  “Impossible!” someone in the crowd exclaimed.

  Yet Harold sat on top of it all, defying gravity, grinning widely.

  23

  THE AMULET OF THE EASTERN SKY

  “Hi, Jack!” Harold called when he saw Jack standing by the curtains.

  Jack’s mouth was too dry to answer. His arm smarted from where Edwin Adolphius had gripped it while hissing, You’re coming with me. Now Jack’s instincts were screaming, Run, hide, but everything around him was oddly still, almost frozen. A few in the crowd murmured and whispered in amazement at Harold and his teetering chair, but everyone else seemed to be holding their breath. Any disruption, it seemed, would break the illusion.

  But then Madame Zee caught Jack’s eye.

  “Ah, yes,” she said, loud enough for the audience to hear. “And now my four young assistants shall come forward. Please, you will let them through.”

  One by one, Alexander, Eli, and Frances emerged from the crowd and slipped under the velvet rope to the stage area. Jack was grateful for Madame Zee’s quick thinking in calling them “assistants.” Frances even looked the part in her borrowed gypsy dress.

  Madame Zee directed them to stand off to the side near Jack. “My dear assistants,” she said. “You know this little boy, do you not?” She motioned to Harold, who waved.

  The audience remained rapt. Jack could see Edwin Adolphius glowering at him and his friends. But being on stage in plain sight seemed the safest place to be at the moment. As long as the show went on, that is.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jack answered Madame Zee as the others nodded. “We know him.”

  “And does he possess any special powers that you are aware of?” Madame asked.

  Frances appeared to be holding back a grin, but she answered, “No, ma’am.”

  Madame Zee smiled. “So then he is an ordinary child,” she announced to the crowd. “No different than the children right here.”

  “Trouble is what they are!” Mr. Adolphius’s voice rumbled up out of the audience. He shook a fist and pointed indignantly to the stage while the onlookers around him turned to glare at the disruption.

  “HUSH!” scolded a stout woman next to him. More reprimands and shushing came from all around. Mr. Adolphius went silent and pulled his hat lower over his eyes.

  “As I was saying,” Madame Zee continued. “This boy is ordinary. He is no magician, has no unusual abilities. But it is the radiance of the ancient stars, whose invisible powers I have summoned today, that keep him suspended!”

  The front row of the audience leaned in over the velvet rope for a closer look.

  “You must not get too close,” Madame Zee warned. “The field of radiance is very strong. It does not touch the boy, but surrounds him.”

  As Jack watched, he suspected there was another reason why Madame Zee didn’t want the crowd to get closer. From where he stood, he could just barely make out a few faint glints above Harold’s chair that he suspected were thin wires. He glanced over at Madame Zee, who winked at him.

  “It is the mystics of Egypt who taught me to channel these ancient powers,” she told the audience. Then she reached into her robe and pulled out a hidden necklace from around her neck.

  It was the medallion! Jack nearly stopped breathing. Or rather, he realized quickly, Madame Zee’s amulet looked just like the medallion in his pocket.

  “This is the Amulet of the Eastern Sky,” Madame Zee announced. “I am using it to direct the radiance.” She turned and held out her amulet in the direction of Harold and his chair. “Much as a lens directs a beam of light.”

  The crowd began to murmur as, slowly but smoothly, Harold’s chair lifted into the air. The one leg it balanced on suddenly floated free, and the wooden ball rolled away. Harold’s eyes popped wider in surprise as the chair gently straightened itself.

  A burst of applause went up from the crowd and Jack could hear words of amazement all around him. “Incredible!” “How does she do it?” “Unbelievable!”

  “Is it true,” called out a man behind Jack, “that you can make that chair fly through the air?”

  “I heard she did it at the World’s Fair in Chicago!” someone else called out. “There was a different boy, of course.”

  Madame Zee turned to face the audience and let the amulet drop back against her chest. “It is true,” she said. “Eleven years ago, I gave this very demonstration with another boy. My son. He knew something of these ancient arts that I practice, and he had in his possession another amulet, the Amulet of the Western Sky. With both amulets, the power of the radiance was twofold!”

  She straightened up and took a deep breath. “Now there is only the one amulet. The other one . . .” Her voice faltered just slightly, but it was enough to make Jack’s heart pound. “It was with my son. But he and his amulet are gone.”

  Was, Madame Zee had said. As if her son were no longer alive. Jack could see it in her face. He knew her look: It was the same one his mother had worn in the weeks after Daniel was gone.

  It was grief.

  Madame Zee touched the amulet around her neck. “These amulets, they have the power to guide us. But they are not strong enough,” she said, “to protect us.”

  Jack’s throat felt tight, even though there were so many things he needed to say. Because now he knew who Madame Zee really was.

  The crowd had fallen silent. Jack glanced up and saw Frances looking at him, her eyes imploring him to speak up! She must have figured it out, too. Jack began to search his pockets. . . .

  The voice that broke the silence came from behind them. “Madame Zee?”

  It was Harold. “Madame Zee,” he said again. “Don’t be sad. Um, I think it protected him. The amulet, that is.”

  Madame Zee turned to stare at Harold. “My child, what do you mean?”

  The medallion—the amulet—was in Jack’s hand. He held it out and stepped toward Madame Zee.

  “Is this the Amulet of the Western Sky?” he asked her.

  She reached out with a shaking hand, and Jack pressed it into her palm.

  For a moment her only response was to nod. She wiped her tearing eyes on the back of her hand. “But how did . . . ?”

  “Philander Zogby gave us this two days ago,” Jack told her.


  “My son!” Madame Zee cried. “He’s alive?”

  At that same moment Harold’s chair dropped to the floor with a thud. The audience gasped.

  But Harold, unhurt, climbed off the chair. He ran and gave Madame Zee a big hug as the crowd broke into applause.

  “Mr. Zogby is nice,” he told Madame Zee. “I’m glad you’re his mother.”

  24

  THE SIGN OF THE BULL AND THE SIGN OF THE SCORPION

  “Mrs. Zogbhi,” Frances began, as the crowd began to disperse. “I mean, Madame Zogbhi—”

  “I insist you still call me Madame Zee. Everyone who knows me does,” the woman said. “Only strangers call me Mrs. McGee.” She motioned behind her to the entrance of the Temple of Palmistry. “And they think I must have a husband who runs this place, so they are always asking for Mr. McGee too.”

  She winked at Frances, who turned red as she remembered that they had originally been looking for a Mr. McGee as well.

  “But never mind that,” Madame Zee told her. “You must tell me everything about my son!”

  “First we saw Mr. Zogby in a motorcar!” Harold began. “And the car was stuck in the mud—”

  “Harold, not now,” Frances broke in. She looked at Madame Zee. “We have plenty to tell you, but right now there’s someone looking for us.”

  “I see that,” Madame Zee said as Edwin Adolphius stepped over the velvet rope and strode toward them.

  “There they are!” Mr. Adolphius cried. Behind him was a young man with a curled mustache whose badge read JEFFERSON GUARD—OFFICIAL SECURITY—LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION.

  Frances instinctively reached for Harold, while Jack and the other boys turned in every direction, searching for a possible escape. But she could see it was useless to run now.

  “Very well, Mr. Adolphius,” the guard replied. “I’ll whistle for more guards to help round them up.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Madame Zee said. “I’ve already sent for the police.”

  What? Frances couldn’t believe it, and she could see the shock on Jack’s face, too. What was Madame Zee doing?

  The fortune-teller had stepped closer to Mr. Adolphius, and she gave him a cool smile. “You are Edwin Adolphius, the great industrialist, yes?” she asked. “You have many factories. You command many steamboats.”

  Mr. Adolphius smiled and stroked his beard, clearly flattered. “Why, yes. Well, I don’t command the steamboats, but I do own them.”

  “And you are in a charge of all that happens on them?”

  “Of course!” he said proudly.

  Just then two uniformed men approached their group. Frances swallowed hard at the sight of them—St. Louis police officers!

  “Thank you for coming, Sergeant,” Madame Zee said to the older one as both officers tipped their caps politely.

  “Ordinarily I don’t have jurisdiction here at the World’s Fair, but this is a special case. You said you had something important to show us, Mrs. McGee?” the sergeant asked.

  “Indeed,” Madame Zee said, as she pulled out an object from her robe.

  Frances recognized it right away. The gin bottle!

  “That’s stolen property!” Mr. Adolphius said. “These children stole it from the Addie Dauphin!”

  “Is that so?” the police sergeant said. “Well, we checked the cargo manifest on your steamboat when it came in today, and we sure didn’t see any shipments of gin listed.”

  “I don’t see what any of that has to do with the matter at hand!” Mr. Adolphius raged. “These children are thieves, and that bottle is proof!”

  The younger officer shrugged. “That’s not why Mrs. McGee called us today. Seems she’d seen a bottle like this before.”

  Frances looked over at Jack, who raised an eyebrow in surprise. Madame Zee didn’t take the gin bottle to use against them—she was using it against Mr. Adolphius!

  Madame Zee turned to face Edwin Adolphius. “My son, he worked on your steamboats. Before he went missing, he was working on the Rochelle.”

  Mr. Adolphius waggled a finger. “There now, I’ll have you know I sold that steamboat a full month before—”

  “Before it caught fire and sank?” the sergeant broke in. “Those were very mysterious circumstances, Mr. Adolphius. The Rochelle was being used to smuggle untaxed liquor and fruit all up and down the Mississippi.”

  “And we have reason to believe the same thing has been happening on the Addie Dauphin,” the younger officer added. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. McGee?”

  Madame Zee nodded and motioned toward Harold. “That’s what this little boy told me,” she said.

  “I told her how the gin was hidden inside the cotton on the boat,” Harold said. “And those barrels of rum, too. And they didn’t want us to see them!”

  “This is outrageous!” Mr. Adolphius fumed. “You have no proof!”

  “You said that last time, when we were questioning you about the sinking of the Rochelle,” the sergeant said. “But this time”—he held up the gin bottle—“we’ve got evidence. And witnesses. We’ve got officers talking to other passengers on the Addie Dauphin right now.”

  Alexander leaned over to Frances. “Are you following this conversation?” he whispered.

  Frances nodded. “I think Edwin Adolphius is a smuggler. And the police have been trying to catch him in the act. . . .”

  Jack leaned in. “And now they’ve got him!”

  “Yes,” Frances murmured in amazement. “They’ve got him all right.”

  Edwin Adolphius’s face had turned deep red with rage as the younger police officer locked brass handcuffs onto his wrists. With his black and white beard, his face seemed to become a garish mask that Frances would have found terrifying if she hadn’t been so relieved.

  “Send for my lawyers!” Mr. Adolphius told the curly-mustached Jefferson Guard. “And my motorcar!”

  “And take all those reward posters down,” the police sergeant said to the guard, adding, “Adolphius, maybe you were able to pay the fools at the Fair to do your bidding, but you’ll get nowhere with me.”

  Then Edwin Adolphius was led away down the Pike in handcuffs, the two police officers at his sides. The five children and Madame Zee watched them walk all the way past the amusements—the Water Chutes, the Pop Corn Palace, the Battle Abbey—until they disappeared around a corner.

  Frances knew there were amazing things to see at the World’s Fair, but as far as she was concerned, that was the best sight of all.

  Jack turned to Madame Zee.

  “You said I reminded you of someone you knew long ago,” he said. “Was that someone your son?”

  Jack thought he had figured it out. Mr. Zogby had reminded him a lot of his brother, Daniel, so maybe Madame Zee had seen a resemblance in Jack, too.

  Madame Zee nodded. “Yes, my boy. All five of you children remind me of Philander in different ways, but you and he have the same look,” she said. “You are restless, I think. My son is, too. That is why he got caught up with the bad men.” She shook her head. “I warned him to stay away from them, but he liked the money.”

  The others were also listening to Madame Zee.

  “Why did you think he was dead?” Alexander asked her.

  She sighed. “My Philander, he told a policeman about the smuggling on Adolphius’s steamboats. But he was still working on the boats, too. Of course this was very dangerous. What if Mr. Adolphius discovered my son was betraying him? That would be very bad.

  “And then one night, there was a fire on the Rochelle. My son, he was on board.”

  Madame Zee put her hand to her chest, as if she were hearing the news for the first time. “I hear rumors. They say Mr. Adolphius set the fire. But I did not know what happened. All I knew was that Philander didn’t come home.”

  “Maybe he’s had to stay away,” Frances s
uggested.

  “Right,” Eli said. “Maybe he hasn’t come home because he doesn’t want Mr. Adolphius to find him.”

  Madame Zee looked down at her hands. “I do not know. I think perhaps he decided to just forget about home. Maybe that is easier for him. At least now I know he is alive.”

  Jack remembered something just then. “Can I see the Amulet of the Western Sky again? Just for a moment?”

  Madame Zee handed it to him.

  He found the strange symbol that looked like a loop and showed it to her. “What does this symbol mean?” he asked. “And this one?” He pointed to the symbol that looked like an M with an arrow at the end of it. He told her how he had seen them carved into a trunk on the Addie Dauphin.

  Madame Zee’s hand flew up to her face in surprise. “One of those is the sign of the bull. That is the constellation Philander was born under. And the other sign . . .” She took a deep breath and her eyes shone with tears. “That is the sign of the scorpion. It is my sign.”

  “He was thinking of you,” Frances said softly. Next to her, Harold nodded in agreement.

  “He didn’t want to forget you at all,” Jack added. “And he gave us the amulet to give to you, so that you would know he was okay.”

  “Yes,” Madame Zee said. “I think you are right.” She wiped her eyes again. “You know, I am a widow two times—the first Mr. Zogby is gone, and then Mr. McGee. But it is hardest of all when you believe your son is lost forever.”

  It came to Jack suddenly—a memory from New York, in the days after his brother died. How he’d overheard his parents talking not about Daniel, but about him.

  I don’t want to lose him, too, his mother had said.

  And so they had sent him on the orphan train so that he could live.

  Jack looked around at Frances and Harold, Eli and Alexander. Then he looked down at the amulet in his hands. So many times in the past few days he had looked at it, hoping it could tell him something.

  Now, it seemed, it had.

  25

  THE REWARD

  They were still gathered in front of the Temple of Palmistry when they heard a voice.