The Calder Game

by Blue Balliett

  The post office that morning was a-buzz with jokes and comments:

  “Looks like the Minotaur went a-hunting!”

  “Got to be careful what you wish for …”

  “Yup, hungry and bored.”

  “Maybe those legs got loosened up, and the thing ran off!”

  “But tsk, tsk, the boy. Have you seen his dad? Worried to pieces, he is.”

  “The kid’ll turn up by noon, probably just run off on an overnight scoot. This isn’t a minotaur that’s likely to eat him — other way around, if I know boys that age. Ravenous, that’s what he’ll be. When I was that age, I wandered off to …”

  Woodstock was particularly chatty that morning, but only when the police were busy elsewhere. No one in uniform was surprised — village life in England had never depended entirely on the law.

  Two kinds of fliers were printed up and posted around town. Calder’s face appeared on one, with the words, MISSING: CALDER PILLAY, AMERICAN CITIZEN, AGED 12, LAST SEEN IN BLENHEIM PARK.

  The other had a photograph of the Minotaur, with the words, STOLEN: SCULPTURE BY ALEXANDER CALDER. LAST SEEN IN MARKET SQUARE, WOODSTOCK.

  All morning the police listened and questioned and tromped through the grounds at Blenheim. The Marlborough family, the 11th Duke and his wife, were away and couldn’t be reached. No guests were staying in lodges or cottages. Fifteen workers, however, lived in apartments above garages and behind barns on the property, which included far more land than was open to the public. All of these employees were questioned by the police.

  One gardener had driven by Calder standing alone on the bridge, peering over the side. Another had seen him running into the old walled Kitchen Garden area, probably headed for the maze. Another had seen him walking in the fountains behind the palace. No one had seen him enter a building. No one had seen him speak with anyone.

  Two officers were ordered to walk through every path inside the maze. They had been told that the boy carried a set of yellow plastic puzzle pieces in his pocket; Calder’s dad had drawn pictures of the twelve pentominoes for the police. Maze maps in hand, they agreed to divide the acre, and set out in different directions. Both got lost and passed each other again and again, unable to relate the map to the dizzying channels of green.

  In the embarrassment of not knowing where they were, neither officer spotted a small yellow L, a flat piece of plastic shaped like a boot, sticking out beneath one of the hedges. It was flanked by a Red Hots candy box and a blue ball, the kind used for jacks. There was a fair amount of this-and-that garbage under the bushes; kids were always dropping things. When the maze was closed at the end of the season, every inch of the ground was raked clean. Until then, toys and bits of paper drifted and got buried under leaves or mud.

  The fact that the artist’s last name and the boy’s first name were the same was certainly irritating. The police hoped the boy would turn up shortly, having gotten tired of his adventure or joke or whatever silliness this was, and they could get down to the real business of figuring out who had stolen the sculpture. Although Walter Pillay had given the police the note Calder had written to him, no one who had noticed the boy in town remembered seeing him make friends with anyone. Oddly, Walter Pillay and the mysterious girl in the window seemed to be the only ones who had seen Calder shaking hands with an adult near the sculpture. How was this possible, in the main town square?

  When Calder’s dad told the police about the girl with the camera and pointed to the window, they nodded and frowned. Unfortunately, the window belonged to a clothing store; anyone could have been looking out.

  Meanwhile, the police referred to The Boy and The Artist, dropping the name Calder entirely.

  Neither Petra nor Tommy had left the United States before, and Mrs. Sharpe hadn’t left for over twenty years. Getting the three of them overnight passports, tickets, and enough clean clothing was a sizable job.

  Before Petra and Tommy could truly absorb the news that Calder had vanished and that they were going to England to look for him, they were on the plane, side by side, Mrs. Sharpe across the aisle. It was not a situation that Petra, Tommy, or Mrs. Sharpe had ever imagined.

  Both kids had been horrified when they’d first heard the news about Calder. Petra immediately thought about how dreamy her good friend could be when he was busy thinking through an important pentomino idea, and Tommy thought about how his old buddy didn’t always know what to say to strangers or when to run. They had to believe that Calder had probably decided to take on a project, some kind of rescue mission. While Tommy and Petra didn’t always understand each other, both were sure they understood Calder. They would find him.

  The trip had been Mrs. Sharpe’s idea. When the calls to Petra and Tommy came through from Walter Pillay, who asked if they had any thoughts about what his son might be up to, they immediately told their old teacher Ms. Hussey, who then called her elderly Hyde Park friend. Mrs. Sharpe had met the three kids during a couple of earlier adventures; they had been to her house for tea, and she had helped them with some detective work. She liked their determination and enjoyed their company — in small doses.

  An hour after Ms. Hussey called, Mrs. Sharpe called Yvette Pillay, who had cracked a disk in her spine and was unable to travel, and then Walter Pillay. Next came Petra’s parents, Frank and Norma Andalee, and Tommy’s mom, Zelda Segovia. As Mrs. Sharpe put it, she could afford to fund the expedition for all three of them, she was familiar with the kids, and she wouldn’t put up with any nonsense. She was the perfect chaperone.

  Everyone agreed: Bringing Calder’s best friends to Woodstock to help the police figure out where he might be was not only sensible, it was the only thing to do.

  Walter Pillay was pleased they were coming, but worried about something else. He had gotten a call from Ms. Hussey.

  She told him what she had whispered to Calder that day in her classroom: “Play the Calder Game in England! And don’t tell anyone what you’re doing.”

  She now felt guilty.

  “But I said Calder Game,” Ms. Hussey had repeated. “Nothing else.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget we’re talking about two Calders here,” Walter Pillay had said quietly. “And that immediately means a number of games.”

  “Yes,” Ms. Hussey had murmured. “Oh, dear.”

  Tommy had his elbow on the armrest, and was wolfing down his macaroni and cheese. He choked, and a chunk of noodle shot sideways and landed on the cover of Petra’s notebook.

  “Eeuw, Tommy! Watch it!” Petra took her napkin and carefully captured the noodle. She had only picked at her food, and was trying to write while Tommy ate. He made such disgusting chewing sounds that it was hard to concentrate. They hadn’t spent any time together since Calder had left, and now Petra remembered why.

  Tommy looked at her, shrugged, and moved on to the butterscotch pudding. By the time he’d finished, Petra had read the same question about five times:

  Is there a game that makes a player seem to disappear even if he or she is not really gone?

  She put down her pen and closed her eyes. There was hide and seek, of course, and the hedge maze. But what about a more complicated game? She had no idea.

  Maybe a mobile would help. She flipped to the back of her notebook, which had many pages of mobile-poems. She drew some lines. Then she added words, slowly, one at a time.

  Tommy glanced sideways and saw:

  Weird, he thought to himself. It looked like a jellyfish with tentacles. He understood it, though — Calder liked all of the things Petra had written down, and they were looking for Calder.

  The next thing Petra knew, Tommy was wrestling a magazine out of the seat-back pocket in front of him, tearing several pages. His elbow jabbed Petra in the side as he settled back into his seat. She scrunched herself as far away from him as possible. He didn’t seem to notice. He was busily rubbing his first finger, which was not clean, back forth under his nose as he turned the pages. At least it was under, she thought to herself, and
not in.

  “Petra!” Tommy squealed suddenly. The finger disappeared into his nose.

  “What?” she asked, hoping her voice revealed what she thought about nose-pickers.

  The finger was out now, and pointing to the magazine. “An article called ‘Old Homes in England,’ with a picture of Blen-hee-ime Palace! Whoa, awesome place! And this is where Calder said he was going.”

  Despite herself, Petra leaned over to see. “It’s pronounced Blen-em — you don’t pay attention to the ‘h’ or ‘i.’”

  “Whatever. I know.”

  Petra now wished she hadn’t corrected him; she didn’t like kids who thought they knew everything. “Whatever,” she agreed.

  The two studied the spread of pictures in front of them. They saw a lake, a river, lawns and gardens that looked larger than their entire neighborhood in Chicago, and a stone house with two-story columns and about a million windows. It was easily the largest house either one had ever seen.

  Tommy said aloud what Petra was already thinking: “I can’t imagine Calder in this fancy place. Who could have invited him to do something there? This is too weird!”

  Mrs. Sharpe looked across the aisle. “Stranger things have happened on that piece of land.”

  Couldn’t be much stranger than being on this trip with you, Tommy thought to himself. He knew Mrs. Sharpe was a good person, but she was frightening. The way she spoke, you felt as if you’d done something wrong even if you hadn’t.

  Petra leaned across Tommy. “What kinds of things?” she asked. “I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I know Lewis Carroll lived nearby in Oxford, but that’s about it. I was going to look for a book on Woodstock —”

  “No need, I have one.” Mrs. Sharpe held up a thin, crimson volume with a tattered cover. Her voice didn’t sound like she wanted to lend the book.

  “Can you tell us a few things?” Petra repeated. Tommy sucked in his cheeks and glanced admiringly at her. She was brave, no doubt about it.

  Mrs. Sharpe picked a thread off her skirt. Tommy was relieved to see she wasn’t angry, and watched her gold bracelet disappear into the loose skin that had bunched up on her wrist; the woman was as skinny as a toothpick.

  “Maybe.” She straightened her reading glasses and opened the book again. “The Romans lived on this land, several thousand years ago. Remains of large country houses, or villas, have been excavated on the property, and they’ve found a Roman road, now called Akeman Street, in Blenheim Park. Yes … the ‘Chase’ at Woodstock meant the ‘Park,’ and the name Woodstock itself means a stockaded settlement buried in trees —”

  “Like the stockade in Treasure Island!” Tommy blurted, proud that he could contribute something from a book. He wasn’t much of a reader.

  When Mrs. Sharpe didn’t respond or even look up, Petra mouthed Right to Tommy. She knew Mrs. Sharpe wasn’t big on other people’s feelings.

  “— and most of Oxfordshire was forest, deep forest. In addition to the wooded area known as Woodstock, there was Wychwood, Cornbury, Stowood, and Shotover. The Saxons took over after the Romans, in the fifth century, and the Anglo-Saxons lived and hunted in the area for many hundreds of years. Then came the Norman Conquest, and a manor house was built at Woodstock by Henry II, one of the first Norman kings. That was, oh, 1125 or so. It sat on a hill by the River Glyme, which is the river that still flows into Blenheim Park.”

  Tommy’s mind was wandering, but he heard the place names: chase, ache-man, witch-wood, shot-over, glyme, which sounded just like slime. The place would be spooky, no doubt about it. And the possibilities for an expert scavenger like himself! Imagine several thousand years of things dropped or lost in the dirt. Tommy wriggled with excitement, picturing himself digging up ancient treasure. Maybe that was what Calder was already doing.

  Tommy slipped his hand into his pocket, fingering the blue button he’d never returned to Ms. Button. He’d been waiting for just the right dramatic moment in school to make it reappear, but then had decided yesterday to bring it with him. Who could tell — perhaps it would work as a trophy, a reminder of how capable he was as a finder. Perhaps it would bring good luck.

  Mrs. Sharpe cleared her throat. “So King Henry II had his hunting lodge by the side of the lake, across from what is now Blenheim Palace. Hmm, he had a mistress, Rosamund Clifford, who lived in her own house nearby, apparently protected by a complicated maze that the king built. It was described hundreds of years later as having ‘strange winding walls and turnings.’ There’s a story that Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry’s wife, traveled secretly to Woodstock and followed a piece of yarn attached to his spur as he entered the maze. She supposedly found him with Rosamund and offered her rival either poison or a knife, and Rosamund chose the poison — although other accounts say Henry’s mistress lived to be quite old in a nunnery nearby. There is still a well where the house stood, called Rosamund’s Well, although the old lodge and maze are now gone.”

  Petra elbowed Tommy. Maze, she mouthed, her eyebrows going up.

  Murder, he mouthed back, then frowned. Murder inside a maze was not a happy thought.

  Mrs. Sharpe looked over. “The laws about hunting on royal land became ferocious with the English kings. People were cruelly punished for disobeying. The distance between the rich and the poor was huge. By the 1200s, there were 137 houses of some kind in the area that is now the old town of Woodstock, where we’ll be staying. These were people who served the monarchy’s needs, and their last names usually said what they did — Henry le Yronmongare, someone who worked with iron, and John le Deyere, a man who worked with dyes, or John le Wymplere, someone who made wimples, which were hats that the medieval women wore.”

  Petra giggled. Mrs. Sharpe looked at her as if to say, I didn’t think you would laugh about this.

  “Just thinking: Calder the Math Whiz, Tommy the Finder, Petra the Scribbler. And you, Mrs. Sharpe —” Petra paused. “Maybe you had relatives who worked with sharp tools or something. I mean …”

  “Yes, how fitting,” Mrs. Sharpe said, and almost smiled.

  She touched the corner of her mouth with her little finger, as if removing a crumb, and continued brusquely: “Lots of murder and quarreling on this land. Hmm, yes, people hung and poisoned … and Elizabeth Tudor, great-umpteenth grandmother of the current Queen Elizabeth, was imprisoned at Woodstock in the 1500s for several months, before she came to the throne. Later, the land was given to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, by Queen Anne, as a thank-you for winning a big battle against Louis XIV in Europe. This was a giant honor, to be given land that had been used by English kings and queens for over six centuries. Like giving away a piece of the heart of England.

  “Blenheim Palace was built between 1705 and 1722, and each of the various dukes added something to the property. Let’s see … the high stone wall of Woodstock Park is thought to have been the first park wall in England, and it was already old when the first duke took over. It runs for such a distance that it took over thirty years to repair it.

  “Here’s something quite extraordinary: The fourth duke added a waterfall now known as the Grand Cascade, in the 1760s. In order to impress his guests, he installed a surprise. He’d stroll with them along the bank above the falls until they reached a huge boulder in the middle of the path, a boulder blocking their view. As his visitors murmured their disappointment, the duke would step forward and press a hidden lever or spring. Magically, the boulder then rumbled to one side and the group found themselves stepping onto a protected platform next to the water. From there, guests could admire the view and also keep their fancy clothes dry. Predictably, that didn’t last. The falls have tumbled into a more natural state.”

  “Sounds pretty modern,” murmured Petra.

  Tommy nodded.

  Mrs. Sharpe paused, yawned daintily through an almost-closed mouth, and without even a glance at Petra and Tommy to see if they wanted to hear more, continued, “Each one of the dukes has added to the hundreds of acres
of formal gardens, and the ninth duke planted almost half a million trees. Winston Churchill, the great leader in World War II, was a member of the family and was born at Blenheim in 1874. Several wings of the palace and some of the grounds were opened to the public in the mid-twentieth century to help pay for the costs of keeping such a massive piece of property. Gracious, it’s 11,400 acres.”

  Mrs. Sharpe read on to herself, and seemed to have forgotten about Petra and Tommy.

  “Amazing, the idea of a family living in one place for so many generations,” Petra said after several moments of quiet.

  “Petra?” Tommy’s voice was low. “Do you really think Calder’s okay?”

  “We talked about it at home — of course I do! We’ll find him. He’s probably on an investigation that’s important, and just doesn’t realize all the adults are worried.”

  “All those gruesome names, and that bloody history …” Tommy mumbled, picking some black dirt from under his fingernail.

  “Just remember the Button. I’m sure he decided to have a fantastic adventure because of what we have to live with at school this year. Hey, isn’t that the perfect name for her? Her relatives made buttons, and now she is one!”

  They giggled, and Tommy pulled the large, blue button out of his pocket. Petra looked delighted and gave him a thumbs-up, but as they settled down in their seats, both seemed troubled — more so than they had at the beginning of the trip. The hugeness of going across the Atlantic Ocean to England, to a strange and once-violent place where Calder had vanished, was beginning to sink in.