From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Claudia told him that she fully expected to check out at 4: 30. They would then leave the museum by the front door and within five minutes would re-enter from the back, through the door that leads from the parking lot to the Children’s Museum. After all, didn’t that solve all their problems? (1) They would be seen leaving the museum. (2) They would be free of their baggage while they scouted around for a place to spend the night. And (3) it was free.

  Claudia checked her coat as well as her packages. Jamie was condemned to walking around in his ski jacket. When the jacket was on and zippered, it covered up that exposed strip of skin. Besides, the orlon plush lining did a great deal to muffle his twenty-four-dollar rattle. Claudia would never have permitted herself to become so overheated, but Jamie liked perspiration, a little bit of dirt, and complications.

  Right now, however, he wanted lunch. Claudia wished to eat in the restaurant on the main floor, but Jamie wished to eat in the snack bar downstairs; he thought it would be less glamorous, but cheaper, and as chancellor of the exchequer, as holder of the veto power, and as tightwad of the year, he got his wish. Claudia didn’t really mind too much when she saw the snack bar. It was plain but clean.

  James was dismayed at the prices. They had $28.61 when they went into the cafeteria, and only $27.11 when they came out still feeling hungry. “Claudia,” he demanded, “did you know food would cost so much? Now, aren’t you glad that we didn’t take a bus?”

  Claudia was no such thing. She was not glad that they hadn’t taken a bus. She was merely furious that her parents, and Jamie’s too, had been so stingy that she had been away from home for less than one whole day and was already worried about survival money. She chose not to answer Jamie. Jamie didn’t notice; he was completely wrapped up in problems of finance.

  “Do you think I could get one of the guards to play me a game of war?” he asked.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Claudia said.

  “Why? I brought my cards along. A whole deck.”

  Claudia said, “Inconspicuous is exactly the opposite of that. Even a guard at the Metropolitan who sees thousands of people every day would remember a boy who played him a game of cards.”

  Jamie’s pride was involved. “I cheated Bruce through all second grade and through all third grade so far, and he still isn’t wise.”

  “Jamie! Is that how you knew you’d win?”

  Jamie bowed his head and answered, “Well, yeah. Besides, Brucie has trouble keeping straight the jacks, queens, and kings. He gets mixed up.”

  “Why do you cheat your best friend?”

  “I sure don’t know. I guess I like complications.”

  “Well, quit worrying about money now. Worry about where we’re going to hide while they’re locking up this place.”

  They took a map from the information stand for free. Claudia selected where they would hide during that dangerous time immediately after the museum was closed to the public and before all the guards and helpers left. She decided that she would go to the ladies’ room, and Jamie would go to the men’s room just before the museum closed. “Go to the one near the restaurant on the main floor,” she told Jamie.

  “I’m not spending a night in a men’s room. All that tile. It’s cold. And, besides, men’s rooms make noises sound louder. And I rattle enough now.”

  Claudia explained to Jamie that he was to enter a booth in the men’s room. “And then stand on it,” she continued.

  “Stand on it? Stand on what?” Jamie demanded.

  “You know,” Claudia insisted. “Stand on it!”

  “You mean stand on the toilet?” Jamie needed everything spelled out.

  “Well, what else would I mean? What else is there in a booth in the men’s room? And keep your head down. And keep the door to the booth very slightly open,” Claudia finished.

  “Feet up. Head down. Door open. Why?”

  “Because I’m certain that when they check the ladies’ room and the men’s room, they peek under the door and check only to see if there are feet. We must stay there until we’re sure all the people and guards have gone home.”

  “How about the night watchman?” Jamie asked.

  Claudia displayed a lot more confidence than she really felt. “Oh! there’ll be a night watchman, I’m sure. But he mostly walks around the roof trying to keep people from breaking in. We’ll already be in. They call what he walks, a cat walk. We’ll learn his habits soon enough. They must mostly use burglar alarms in the inside. We’ll just never touch a window, a door, or a valuable painting. Now, let’s find a place to spend the night.”

  They wandered back to the rooms of fine French and English furniture. It was here Claudia knew for sure that she had chosen the most elegant place in the world to hide. She wanted to sit on the lounge chair that had been made for Marie Antoinette or at least sit at her writing table. But signs everywhere said not to step on the platform. And some of the chairs had silken ropes strung across the arms to keep you from even trying to sit down. She would have to wait until after lights out to be Marie Antoinette.

  At last she found a bed that she considered perfectly wonderful, and she told Jamie that they would spend the night there. The bed had a tall canopy, supported by an ornately carved headboard at one end and by two gigantic posts at the other. (I’m familiar with that bed, Saxonberg. It is as enormous and fussy as mine. And it dates from the sixteenth century like mine. I once considered donating my bed to the museum, but Mr. Untermyer gave them this one first. I was somewhat relieved when he did. Now I can enjoy my bed without feeling guilty because the museum doesn’t have one. Besides, I’m not that fond of donating things.)

  Claudia had always known that she was meant for such fine things. Jamie, on the other hand, thought that running away from home to sleep in just another bed was really no challenge at all. He, James, would rather sleep on the bathroom floor, after all. Claudia then pulled him around to the foot of the bed and told him to read what the card said.

  Jamie read, “Please do not step on the platform.”

  Claudia knew that he was being difficult on purpose; therefore, she read for him, “State bed—scene of the alleged murder of Amy Robsart, first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, later Earl of …”

  Jamie couldn’t control his smile. He said, “You know, Claude, for a sister and a fussbudget, you’re not too bad.”

  Claudia replied, “You know, Jamie, for a brother and a cheapskate, you’re not too bad.”

  Something happened at precisely that moment. Both Claudia and Jamie tried to explain to me about it, but they couldn’t quite. I know what happened, though I never told them. Having words and explanations for everything is too modern. I especially wouldn’t tell Claudia. She has too many explanations already.

  What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they had acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn’t mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would appear to be the same because feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time—especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other.

  They followed their plan: checked out of the museum and re-entered through a back door. When the guard at that entrance told them to check their instrument cases, Claudia told him that they were just passing through on their way to meet their mother. The guard let them go, knowing that if they went very far, some other guard would stop them again. However, they managed to avoid other guards for the remaining minutes until the bell rang. The bell meant that the museum was closing in five minutes. They then entered the booths of the rest rooms.

  They waited in the booths until five-thirty, when they felt certain that everyone
had gone. Then they came out and met. Five-thirty in winter is dark, but nowhere seems as dark as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ceilings are so high that they fill up with a lot of darkness. It seemed to Jamie and Claudia that they walked through miles of corridors. Fortunately, the corridors were wide, and they were spared bumping into things.

  At last they came to the hall of the English Renaissance. Jamie quickly threw himself upon the bed forgetting that it was only about six o’clock and thinking that he would be so exhausted that he would immediately fall asleep. He didn’t. He was hungry. That was one reason he didn’t fall asleep immediately. He was uncomfortable, too. So he got up from bed, changed into his pajamas and got back into bed. He felt a little better. Claudia had already changed into her pajamas. She, too, was hungry, and she, too, was uncomfortable. How could so elegant and romantic a bed smell so musty? She would have liked to wash everything in a good, strong, sweet-smelling detergent.

  As Jamie got into bed, he still felt uneasy, and it wasn’t because he was worried about being caught. Claudia had planned everything so well that he didn’t concern himself about that. The strange way he felt had little to do with the strange place in which they were sleeping. Claudia felt it, too. Jamie lay there thinking. Finally, realization came.

  “You know, Claude,” he whispered, “I didn’t brush my teeth.”

  Claudia answered, “Well, Jamie, you can’t always brush after every meal.” They both laughed very quietly. “Tomorrow,” Claudia reassured him, “we’ll be even better organized.”

  It was much earlier than her bedtime at home, but still Claudia felt tired. She thought she might have an iron deficiency anemia: tired blood. Perhaps, the pressures of everyday stress and strain had gotten her down. Maybe she was light-headed from hunger; her brain cells were being robbed of vitally needed oxygen for good growth and, and … yawn.

  She shouldn’t have worried. It had been an unusually busy day. A busy and unusual day. So she lay there in the great quiet of the museum next to the warm quiet of her brother and allowed the soft stillness to settle around them: a comforter of quiet. The silence seeped from their heads to their soles and into their souls. They stretched out and relaxed. Instead of oxygen and stress, Claudia thought now of hushed and quiet words: glide, fur, banana, peace. Even the footsteps of the night watchman added only an accented quarter-note to the silence that had become a hum, a lullaby.

  They lay perfectly still even long after he passed.

  Then they whispered good night to each other and fell asleep. They were quiet sleepers and hidden by the heaviness of the dark, they were easily not discovered.

  (Of course, Saxonberg, the draperies of that bed helped, too.)

  4

  CLAUDIA AND JAMIE AWOKE VERY EARLY THE NEXT morning. It was still dark. Their stomachs felt like tubes of toothpaste that had been all squeezed out. Giant economy-sized tubes. They had to be out of bed and out of sight before the museum staff came on duty. Neither was accustomed to getting up so early, to feeling so unwashed, or feeling so hungry.

  They dressed in silence. Each felt that peculiar chill that comes from getting up in the early morning. The chill that must come from one’s own bloodstream, for it comes in summer as well as winter, from some inside part of you that knows it is early morning. Claudia always dreaded that brief moment when her pajamas were shed and her underwear was not yet on. Even before she began undressing, she always had her underwear laid out on the bed in the right direction, right for getting into as quickly as possible. She did this now, too. But she hurried less pulling her petticoat down over her head. She took good long whiffs of the wonderful essence of detergent and clean dacron-cotton which floated down with the petticoat. Next to any kind of elegance, Claudia loved good clean smells.

  After they were dressed, Claudia whispered to Jamie, “Let’s stash our book bags and instrument cases before we man our stations.”

  They agreed to scatter their belongings. Thus, if the museum officials found one thing, they wouldn’t necessarily find all. While still at home they had removed all identification on their cases as well as their clothing. Any child who has watched only one month’s worth of television knows to do that much.

  Claudia hid her violin case in a sarcophagus that had no lid. It was well above eye level, and Jamie helped hoist her up so that she could reach it. It was a beautifully carved Roman marble sarcophagus. She hid her book bag behind a tapestry screen in the rooms of French furniture. Jamie wanted to hide his things in a mummy case, but Claudia said that that would be unnecessarily complicated. The Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan was too far away from their bedroom; for the number of risks involved, it might as well be in Egypt. So the trumpet case was hidden inside a huge urn and Jamie’s book bag was neatly tucked behind a drape that was behind a statue from the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the museum people had fastened all the drawers of their furniture so that they couldn’t be opened. They had never given a thought to the convenience of Jamie Kincaid.

  “Manning their stations” meant climbing back into the booths and waiting during the perilous time when the museum was open to the staff but not to visitors. They washed up, combed their hair, and even brushed their teeth. Then began those long moments. That first morning they weren’t quite sure when the staff would arrive, so they hid good and early. While Claudia stood crouched down waiting, the emptiness and the hollowness of all the museum corridors filled her stomach. She was starved. She spent her time trying not to remember delicious things to eat.

  Jamie made one slight error that morning. It was almost enough to be caught. When he heard the sound of running water, he assumed that some male visitor was using the men’s room to wash up. He checked his watch and saw that it was five past ten; he knew that the museum officially opened at ten o’clock, so he stepped down to walk out of his booth. It was not, however, a museum visitor who had turned on the water tap. It was a janitor filling his bucket. He was leaning down in the act of wringing out his mop when he saw Jamie’s legs appear from nowhere and then saw Jamie emerge.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  Jamie smiled and nodded. “Mother always says that I came from Heaven.” He bowed politely and walked out, delighted with his brush with danger. He could hardly wait to tell Claudia. Claudia chose not to be amused on so empty a stomach.

  The museum restaurant wouldn’t open until eleven thirty and the snack bar wouldn’t open until after that, so they left the museum to get breakfast. They went to the automat and used up a dollar’s worth of Bruce’s nickels. Jamie allotted ten nickels to Claudia and kept ten for himself. Jamie bought a cheese sandwich and coffee. After eating these he still felt hungry and told Claudia she could have twenty-five cents more for pie if she wished. Claudia, who had eaten cereal and drunk pineapple juice, scolded him about the need to eat properly. Breakfast food for breakfast, and lunch food for lunch. Jamie countered with complaints about Claudia’s narrow-mindedness.

  They were better organized that second day. Knowing that they could not afford more than two meals a day, they stopped at a grocery and bought small packages of peanut butter crackers for the night; they hid them in various pockets in their clothing. They decided to join a school group for lunch at the snack bar. There were certainly enough to choose from. That way their faces would always be just part of the crowd.

  Upon their return to the museum, Claudia informed Jamie that they should take advantage of the wonderful opportunity they had to learn and to study. No other children in all the world since the world began had had such an opportunity. So she set forth for herself and for her brother the task of learning everything about the museum. One thing at a time. (Claudia probably didn’t realize that the museum has over 365,000 works of art. Even if she had, she could not have been convinced that learning everything about everything was not possible; her ambitions were as enormous and as multi-directional as the museum itself.) Every day they would pick a different gallery about which they would learn everything.
He could pick first. She would pick second; he, third; and so on. Just like the television schedule at home. Jamie considered learning something every day outrageous. It was not only outrageous; it was unnecessary. Claudia simply did not know how to escape. He thought he would put a quick end to this part of their runaway career. He chose the galleries of the Italian Renaissance. He didn’t even know what the Renaissance was except that it sounded important and there seemed to be an awful lot of it. He figured that Claudia would soon give up in despair.

  When she gave Jamie first pick, Claudia had been certain that he would choose Arms and Armor. She herself found these interesting. There was probably two days’ worth of learning there. Perhaps, she might even choose the same on the second day.

  Claudia was surprised at Jamie’s choice. But she thought she knew why he chose the Italian Renaissance. She thought she knew because along with tennis, ballet, and diving lessons at the “Y”, she had taken art appreciation lessons last year. Her art teacher had said that the Renaissance was a period of glorification of the human form; as best she could figure out, that meant bare bodies. Many painters of the Italian Renaissance had painted huge billowy, bosomy naked ladies. She was amazed at Jamie; she thought he was too young for that. He was. She never even considered the possibility that he wanted her to be bored. She had given him first choice, and she was stuck with it. So she marched with him toward the long wide stairway straight in from the main entrance, which leads directly to the Hall of the Italian Renaissance.

  If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it. That day was no exception. There were at least a thousand people waiting in line to see things in the Hall of the Italian Renaissance.