Clementine Rose and the Paris Puzzle

by Jacqueline Harvey

  After a while, they emerged, blinking into the sunlight. The group then strolled down the other side of the river, towards the Louvre. By now it was well past midday and the children’s stomachs were grumbling.

  They found a cafe along the river that had an enclosed front veranda, where several people were sitting with their dogs. The man at the front desk didn’t seem to mind that Lavender was more of a pig than a pup and was happy for them to take a table at the end of the restaurant. Lavender caused quite a stir and a few people wandered over to pat her. Clementine got the distinct impression that pigs weren’t a regular sight on the streets of Paris, with one man even offering to buy the tiny creature on the spot.

  After devouring their delicious lunch of lemon-and-sugar crepes, the group made their way to the Louvre. Clementine and her friends raced over to the huge glass pyramid and leaned against the structure, gazing down into the art museum.

  ‘Look, you can see all the people walking inside,’ Will said, pointing at the tops of the tourists’ heads.

  ‘Why is the museum under the ground?’ Clementine asked.

  Sophie shrugged. ‘I’m not sure but there are lots of things under the ground in Paris – like the Métro.’

  ‘Is that the train system?’ Clementine said. She remembered how Drew had pointed out some of the staircases leading down to the stations along the way.

  ‘And the catacombs,’ Jules said, wriggling his eyebrows.

  ‘What’s that?’ Clementine asked as her eyes tracked a lady wearing a large fluffy hat down below.

  ‘Tunnels with skeletons,’ Jules answered in a whispery voice.

  Odette shot her son a warning look. ‘Jules, do not scare the girls.’

  Clementine’s eyes widened. ‘Are they real?’

  Jules checked to see that Odette wasn’t watching before he nodded.

  Clementine felt a thrill of excitement run down her spine. ‘Can we go?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘We can ride on the Métro, but we might give the catacombs a miss,’ Clarissa said firmly. ‘My parents took me when I was little and I had nightmares for months.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have bad dreams,’ Clementine said. There was an old medical skeleton in the attic at Penberthy House that she quite enjoyed playing with. Clementine looked over at the entrance and noticed a few people standing outside with dogs, but none of them were going in. ‘Do we have to leave Lavender outside too?’ she asked.

  Odette bit her lip. ‘Oh, dear me, I ’ad forgotten. There are no pets allowed inside any of the museums or galleries.’

  ‘I can take her,’ Aunt Violet offered. ‘I’ve been to the Louvre more times than I can count and I wouldn’t mind doing a spot of shopping.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Uncle Digby said. ‘It won’t be easy fending off all the admirers you’re likely to encounter along the way.’

  Aunt Violet blushed. ‘I can handle myself perfectly well, Pertwhistle.’

  ‘I meant the hordes who will be admiring Lavender,’ Uncle Digby said.

  The old woman’s blush deepened. ‘I knew that,’ she snapped.

  Clementine passed Lavender’s lead to Uncle Digby and gave the pig a big hug before the trio set off.

  The museum was crowded with an assortment of visitors. There were tour groups and elderly couples, as well as young artistic-looking individuals with flamboyant clothes and oversized sketch pads. Several people had their noses so close to the paintings you’d have thought they were able to smell them, not just see them.

  Clementine craned her neck to catch a glimpse of a small portrait hanging on the wall. It seemed that everyone else in the museum had come to view it too. Just as she was about to weave her way through the forest of legs to get a better look, Drew scooped her up onto his shoulders.

  ‘There you go, Clemmie,’ he said. ‘What can you see?’

  Clementine studied the famous painting. ‘I can see a lady sitting down very quietly,’ she replied. ‘Do you think she has a secret?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Drew said. ‘Many people wonder what she’s smiling about.’

  ‘I think she looks like she’s got wind and she blamed the cat for it,’ Jules said with a snicker.

  Clementine wrinkled her nose. ‘There’s no cat in the painting.’

  Will began to laugh, and the old man standing beside them got a fit of the giggles too.

  ‘What is it with boys and bottoms?’ Odette tutted, shaking her head.

  Clementine tilted her head to one side and considered the painting for a while longer. ‘I think she might be in love,’ she concluded.

  ‘Yes, that’s a much better idea,’ Drew agreed, chuckling to himself. ‘Now, how about we take a look at the sculptures?’

  Clementine thought about how many more rooms there might be. The museum seemed positively enormous and she was tired. ‘Can we go home?’ she asked. ‘I’m ’sausted.’

  Will, Sophie and Jules all nodded in support.

  ‘I don’t want to look at all those naked bodies again,’ Sophie added. ‘Mama and Papa took us there when we first arrived in Paris and it was so embarrassing.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Odette said to Clarissa. ‘Why don’t I take the children ’ome so you and Drew can ’ave some more time to explore? We might go to the Luxembourg Garden on the way and the children can ’ave a turn sailing boats on the pond.’

  ‘Yes!’ the kids hissed, pumping their fists.

  It was settled. The children headed off with Odette, while Drew and Clarissa wandered towards the sculpture gallery.

  The children charged through the garden gate with renewed energy. ‘Can we go to the pond?’ Jules asked, trying to remember which way it was.

  Clementine’s blue eyes were huge as she took it all in. ‘There’s a palace!’ she exclaimed. ‘Does a princess live there?’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Jules said. ‘There was a big fight and all the royal people in France lost their heads.’

  Clementine’s jaw dropped. ‘Is that true?’ she said.

  Odette nodded. ‘I am afraid it is, but it was a long time ago when the ordinary people were very poor and the royal family was very rich and they didn’t care about their subjects.’

  Clementine scrunched up her face. Mr Smee always told their class that violence never solved anything, and chopping off heads was the worst thing she’d ever heard of.

  ‘The pond is this way,’ Jules shouted. He grabbed Clementine’s hand and they charged off with Will and Sophie close behind.

  They ran to the elderly man and his fleet of little antique model sailboats. Clementine chose a boat with a red sail, while Sophie opted for a blue-and-white one. Jules pointed to a green sail, and Will decided he would have a pirate sail with a skull and crossbones emblazoned across it.

  The man handed them to the children as well as a long stick to launch their sailboats. ‘I would advise you to take them to the other side so the breeze will send them back across,’ he said.

  They did as he suggested. Although the sun was shining, the afternoon air was crisp and the children almost had the duck pond to themselves. They discarded their gloves and, with numb fingers, placed their boats onto the icy water in a neat row.

  ‘On your marks, get set, go!’ Odette called, and the foursome pushed out their sailboats.

  ‘Go, red boat,’ Clementine shouted, urging her vessel on.

  The boats darted across each other’s bows, at the mercy of the breeze. At one point the pirate ship almost crashed into Jules’ green sailboat. The children cheered and raced about all over the place in an effort to follow their vessels, pushing them out again when they veered too close to the edge.

  As she watched the sailboats glide around the pond, Clementine thought about the places they had seen. Paris, she decided, was the most beautiful city in the world. The buildings were all so elegant and the people were too. Some of the boutiques even had guards stationed at their doors. Aunt Violet had said that the clothes in those shops cost a lot more than a car
or even a house. Clementine had started to wonder if many Parisians had jobs, though, as the streets and cafes were always full of people drinking coffee and hot chocolate.

  ‘Who won?’ Odette asked as the last vessel was scooped from the water.

  ‘We all did, except for Sophie,’ Jules said. ‘Her boat kept going around in circles.’

  ‘It was a stupid boat,’ the girl griped.

  The group bade farewell to the old man with the sailboats and headed to the gate on Boulevard Saint-Michel. Odette walked ahead with Jules and Will while Sophie and Clementine straggled behind, stopping to look at something every minute or so.

  Clementine was admiring another pond with a grand fountain when she caught sight of a lady wrapped up in a fur coat and sunglasses striding towards them. She wore bright red lipstick and was holding a large carry bag. The child smiled and waved.

  ‘Bonjour Madame Delacroix,’ she called, running over to her.

  The woman stared at Clementine as if she had just stepped in something unpleasant.

  ‘It’s me, Clementine, from the patisserie,’ the child reminded her.

  Madame Delacroix pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. ‘Oh, yes, how could I forget? The cake destroyer. But where is your cochon?’ she asked.

  ‘Lavender had to go home because museums don’t like pigs,’ Clementine said. ‘It’s silly because I know she would have loved all the paintings.’

  ‘But you will bring her to my show?’ the woman asked with concern. ‘I have the television people coming and they are going to do a huge story on me and my puppets. Little Lavender will be a great help to me.’

  Clementine grinned and nodded. ‘Lavender is like that. She helps me with my homework all the time and she loves to listen when I tell her poems.’ Her eyes drifted to the woman’s bag and she noticed a timber cross and some strings poking out of it. ‘Is that a puppet in there?’ she asked.

  Madame Delacroix’s lips pursed. ‘She is broken, and without her my show simply cannot go on.’

  ‘Is it Capucine?’ Clementine asked, trying to take a peek.

  The woman clutched the bag closer. ‘Oui, but I must go. Bring your cochon to my show on Friday morning and do not be late,’ she demanded, then stormed away down the path.

  Clementine hurried over to the gate where the group was waiting.

  ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Odette asked. She bent down and straightened Clementine’s beret.

  ‘Madame Delacroix,’ Clementine replied. ‘She owns the puppet theatre.’

  She thought about Madame Joubert and her many puppets, and decided to pay her another visit. Maybe she had a spare piggy she could lend to Madame Delacroix.

  The next day the family and friends visited another art gallery, which Clementine thought had much lovelier paintings than the Louvre. Her favourites were by a man whose name she had forgotten and she admired the scenes of his garden and the three ladies in a boat. The one she liked best of all was of a lady holding a parasol and standing with a boy in a field of red poppies. It was beautiful.

  ‘Are we ever going to the Eiffel Tower?’ Clementine sighed as they left the gallery.

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to wait and see,’ Drew said as the family set off once again.

  It wasn’t long until Clementine looked up and the structure was looming over them. ‘We’re here!’ she squealed, jumping up and down on the spot. ‘And it’s enormous!’

  The children raced around the bottom of the tower while the adults queued for the elevator. Once inside, Clementine pressed her face against the glass, not wanting to miss a thing. The lift sped to the first level, where they changed to another lift that would take them all the way to the top. The view was just as spectacular as Clementine had hoped. She and Will spent quite a while pointing out all the different landmarks until their teeth chattered so much they could no longer speak.

  Back on the ground, Clementine spotted a clown and wove her way through the crowd to stand right in front of the man. He wore a striped shirt and yellow pants with blue polka dots. His giant shoes were the largest Clementine had ever seen and she loved the way his rainbow-coloured hair stuck out in tufts from under his funny pork-pie hat. His red nose glowed as he produced another nose from his top pocket and handed it to Clementine. She giggled and put it on.

  The clown then pulled a balloon from his ear and put it up to his mouth. He puffed and puffed but nothing happened. He waved at the crowd to help him. Clementine laughed as grown men and women puffed out their cheeks and mimed along with the clown. The crowd clapped and cheered until, finally, the clown blew his balloon into a long cylinder. Clementine watched as he twisted and pulled and, in no time at all, had created a balloon sausage dog.

  ‘It’s just like Lulu!’ she exclaimed, as the clown passed her the creature.

  Clementine turned around to show Sophie and was met with a sea of unfamiliar faces. Her breath caught in her throat and her heartbeat quickened when, all of a sudden, Aunt Violet surged through the crowd.

  ‘Oh, thank heavens you’re here!’ the old woman said, grabbing Clementine in a bear hug. ‘I thought we’d lost you.’

  ‘I wasn’t lost, Aunt Violet,’ Clementine said. ‘I knew exactly where I was, and I remembered what Mummy told me to do if I ever found myself on my own. I should stay in one spot until someone came, and here you are.’ Clementine held up her gifts. ‘The lovely clown made me a sausage dog and he gave me a red nose.’

  Aunt Violet thanked the clown and threw some money into the man’s open violin case. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw how much she’d given him. The clown quickly set about making Aunt Violet a bouquet of balloon flowers, which he promptly delivered with a sweeping bow.

  Clementine couldn’t stop smiling.

  ‘So, was the Eiffel Tower as good as you’d hoped?’ Aunt Violet asked.

  Clementine grinned. ‘It was even better.’

  On Wednesday afternoon the group made their way through the streets of Paris back to the hotel. They had spent the whole day at the Palace of Versailles, just outside the city. Lavender had stayed behind with Madame Crabbe as there were no pigs allowed at the palace, but she didn’t seem to mind in the least. Lavender and Lulu were completely besotted with one another.

  ‘Why didn’t the king let the poor people live in the palace too?’ Clementine asked her mother as they tripped along the street. ‘There’s plenty of room.’

  ‘They were called peasants, Clemmie,’ Aunt Violet interjected. ‘I can hardly imagine that the king would have wanted his palace overrun with them. Could you imagine the smell?’

  ‘But Mr Smee always tells us that it’s better to share,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Will agreed.

  ‘I think the king was being greedy and, anyway, they could have had a bath. There were plenty of bathrooms too,’ Clementine said.

  Drew and Clarissa looked at one another and laughed. ‘It’s nice to see the children have a well-developed sense of social justice,’ Drew said with a grin.

  ‘It was different back then,’ Aunt Violet insisted. ‘People were born to a particular class and you didn’t get much choice about it.’

  ‘Mummy says people can be anything they want to be, and France is probably a much better place since the peasants decided to eat cake,’ Clementine said.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about now, Clemmie?’ Aunt Violet said, shaking her head. ‘Queen Marie Antoinette famously said, “Let them eat cake”, but she had no idea that the peasants couldn’t afford it. She was being obnoxious.’

  ‘Now everyone in Paris eats cake,’ Clementine said. ‘Look how busy Pierre is all the time. So it’s much better these days.’

  ‘We can have cake when we get home,’ Jules said, nodding.

  The children were looking forward to having a sleepover at the Rousseau residence that night. Drew had planned a special evening with Clarissa, including a surprise dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tow
er.

  Once they arrived back at the hotel, Clementine waited in the foyer while her mother packed an overnight bag for her and Will. The others had gone ahead to the Rousseaus’ to escape the cold.

  ‘How did you enjoy the palace?’ Monsieur Crabbe asked Clementine.

  ‘It was very grand,’ she replied, ‘and there was lots of gold and mirrors everywhere. They must have really liked looking at themselves back then.’

  Clementine went on to regale Monsieur Crabbe with her assessment of the French royal family and what she thought they should have done to prevent the revolution.

  The man laughed heartily and nodded his head. ‘Perhaps if we had Queen Clementine back then, we would not have had such terrible trouble.’

  Clementine giggled as she imagined herself living in that enormous palace. ‘I think being the queen might be a bit boring.’

  Monsieur Crabbe agreed, and their conversation turned to what else Clementine had seen in the city.

  It wasn’t long before Lady Clarissa reappeared with a small suitcase, just as Madame Crabbe trotted into the hotel foyer with Lulu and Lavender.

  ‘I am sorry but we have had so many admirers on our walk,’ Camille puffed, passing Lavender’s lead to Clementine. ‘I tell you, this little one will soon be the most beloved cochon in all of Paris.’

  Clementine nodded. ‘Madame Delacroix said Lavender will be on television when we take her to the puppet show.’

  ‘Well, then you will have to fight off the fans with a stick,’ the woman said.

  ‘Lavender won’t mind one bit,’ Clementine said, picking up the little pig, who snuggled into her coat.

  Odette cooked a delicious roast chicken dinner, complete with vegetables and gravy while Pierre had brought home a magnificent gateau for their dessert. Monsieur Rousseau joined them too, and he and Pierre talked a little about the patisserie. Pierre’s father even said he would try to visit the shop for a few hours each day, which Clementine thought was a very good sign.

  Meanwhile, Lavender had made herself at home in Hortense’s basket by the range, which had seen the grumpy cat immediately decamp to a hiding spot somewhere else in the house. Lavender had no idea why Hortense didn’t want to be her friend.