by Will Taylor
So had the poor sofa. It was battered and worn, with a dust sheet dumped over one end and big chunks of fabric missing from the cushion running across the seat. The frame was sagging on the left side, which explained why I’d cracked my head crawling under it.
I looked around for any clues about our exact location, but there was only the sofa, the curtains, and a heavy-looking key hanging on a hook beside the door. I turned to Murray.
“Welcome, Maggie Hetzger,” Murray said mysteriously, “to where it all began.” He spread his hands wide. “Welcome to the palace of Versailles.”
I blinked. “The what of the what-now?”
“The palace. Of Versailles.”
“Vair-sigh? That sounds kind of French.”
“It is French.” Murray reached up and pulled off his silver sunglasses. He looked much younger without them. His eyes were hazel with very pale lashes. “Weren’t you wondering why the sun was already up?” He pointed to the window. “We’re nine hours ahead of Seattle, Maggie Hetzger. We’re in France.”
Nine
I gaped at him.
“We are in France?” I pointed at the marble floor. “We are in a palace, in France, right now?”
“Yup,” said Murray. “The world is full of wonders, eh?”
I probably shouldn’t have been so shocked, seeing as I’d just linked up to Alaska a few hours before, but that was somewhere it was technically possible to drive to. Linking across the ocean? That was a whole other pile of pillows.
I stared around the dingy room. A palace? This? I guess it could have been. Not that I’d ever been in one before. Not outside my games, anyway.
“Okay, so why are we here?” I said, but just then a gaggle of grown-up voices rose on the other side of the door, headed our way. Murray’s eyes went wide. He held a finger to his lips. I nodded.
The voices stopped right outside the room. One voice rose above the others, a woman speaking in superfast French. It sounded like she was explaining something, like a tour guide.
The woman switched to English with a heavy French accent, and my suspicions were confirmed.
“So, as before I will repeat for our guests who do not have French. This room is one of the favorite mysteries of Versailles. It is called le Petit Salon, or the Little Room. It was shut and locked nearly three hundred years ago in the time of Louis the Fifteenth and has never been opened since.”
There was a murmur from the crowd, and the door handle wiggled as though the tour guide were trying it out. A burst of panic arced through me, but thankfully she was right about it being locked.
Someone in the group called out something I couldn’t catch.
“No,” said the woman, “no, there is no key. Every key in Versailles has been tried, and it is presumed that the key to this door must have been long ago lost.”
My eyes jumped to the key hanging beside the door. I turned to Murray, my eyebrows raised, and pointed at it. He smiled.
“This room,” the tour guide went on, “is believed to have been the favorite playroom of the young prince who would soon become the young king Louis the Fifteenth. Authorities on the palace history are assuring us there is nothing of value inside and that it is, in fact, likely to be empty. Of course, some are keeping other, more exciting theories. No one is knowing anything for certain, and with the door locked, the mystery must remain unknown as long as the palace of Versailles stands.”
More murmurs from the crowd, some sounding amused, others puzzled. One distinctly American voice bawled out, “So why not just bust the door down?”
Several people tittered. The tour guide coughed meaningfully.
“The people of France, monsieur, are believing there are some mysteries that are worth preserving. But now, on!” She clapped her hands, fell back into rapid-fire French, and led the group of chattering grown-ups away.
I turned to Murray. “Louis the Fifteenth?”
“Louis the Fifteenth,” said Murray. “He became king when he was only five, and this is where he played when he was allowed to be a kid. But what really makes it special is that this is the home of the first-ever linked pillow fort. This sofa”—he pointed—“in this room”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“is the center and source of it all.”
He paused for effect. Dust motes spun and shimmered through a sunbeam above his head. I couldn’t help feeling a little shiver.
“Cool,” I said. “And you know that how, exactly?”
“Research,” said Murray, returning to normal with a grin. “Our records aren’t perfect, but we know that King Louis was nine when he got this sofa as a gift from an unknown ambassador. And before you ask, we don’t know who. That part is still a total mystery.
“Louis liked the sofa, and he had it brought here to use in a pillow fort, because fun, right? Meanwhile his best friend—an eleven-year-old duchess named Yvette—was building a fort of her own under a sofa in the famous Hall of Mirrors. It sounds like they were playing Palaces, which was their version of playing House. Anyway, they swapped pillows as a sort of peace treaty, and next thing you know Louis was falling through a pillow right into Yvette’s fort all the way across Versailles.”
“Okay,” I said, “wait.” My head was starting to feel downright spinny with all these names and places. It was like sitting through Abby’s talk about Camp Cantaloupe again. “Back up. You said you know all this from records. What records? Who has records of what this guy was doing as a kid all those years ago?”
“Museums, universities, top-secret government offices,” said Murray, tapping them off on his fingers. “NAFAFA kids have snuck into most of them over the years. There are tons of historical mysteries that can only be explained by linked-up pillow forts, and we follow any threads we can looking for evidence. And treasure, too, sometimes.
“It was actually a former queen of Miesha’s network who found the ‘how it all began’ story when she borrowed Louis’s diary from the French national archives eighty years ago. She had to do some real secret-agent work to get in there, but it was worth it. Miesha’s network runs the NAFAFA archives now, and they still have her notes if you ever want to read more about it.”
“Oh, I’ve been doing that kind of secret-agent stuff for years,” I said casually. Murray looked very impressed. “Well, you know, mostly in my head,” I admitted. “But that still counts as practice.”
“Well, once you’re in NAFAFA you can give it a try for real!”
I nodded. I still had so many questions.
“So,” I pushed on, “Louis linked from here to the Hall of Mirrors, and then what happened?”
“Right! So obviously he and Yvette were pretty excited about their discovery, and they went ahead and—”
“Tested the cucumber casserole out of it,” I finished, nodding.
Murray laughed. “Ew! But yeah, exactly. And soon they figured out how tokens and everything worked, and they added more forts and formed the first real network. At first it was just within Versailles, but then they started linking to other palaces and castles around France, and things really got going. And that’s how everything we have today began.”
“Wow,” I said. “But hang on. You used a word just now: tokens. What are tokens?”
“Tokens?” said Murray. “Really? They’re the things—socks, books, you know, whatever—taken from a hub fort and put in new forts to make them linkable. The thing that has to stay there. The thing that lets them connect. Tokens.”
My eyes slid out of focus as I digested what Murray was saying. Items from the hub fort, like Fort McForterson, being placed in other forts, like Fort Comfy, made those other forts linkable. So that was what had done it: the postcard I’d sent to Uncle Joe, the denim tassel scarf I’d given to Abby. Oof, it was a good thing I hadn’t been handing out stuff left and right all summer! Who knows where Fort McForterson could’ve gotten linked to without me even knowing?
“So, just to be super, totally clear,” I said, “you’re saying if I take something—anythin
g—from my pillow fort, which is a hub, and put it in another pillow fort, they’ll link up? You’re saying that’s the whole trick?”
“Well, yeah,” said Murray. “Did—did you really not know that yet?”
I shook my head.
“Wow.” Murray rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s really basic. Anyway, ta-da! Now you know how networks get made. But let me finish the story here. It’s almost over.”
I bowed like Bobby. Murray giggled.
“So,” he continued, “little King Louis was happy with his network of palace forts, and he had all sorts of adventures and got into all sorts of trouble, but before too long he grew up and had to start actually acting like a king. On the plus side he got to tell everyone what to do, but on the down side he was trapped in his palaces, since kings aren’t ever allowed to go off and have adventures.
“Louis didn’t like that; he wanted to see the world. So he sent pillows from this sofa out on all his fastest ships.”
“To act as tokens,” I said, feeling very smart.
“Right,” said Murray.
“But wait, why whole pillows? Why not something simpler? You said they could be anything, right?”
“This was early days,” said Murray. “The idea of linking across oceans was almost impossible to even imagine, so Louis sent pillows in case his normal everyday tokens like slippers and candles couldn’t reach that far. His friends on the ships had orders to build pillow forts once they arrived, and when they did, Louis was suddenly able to travel anywhere he wanted. Well, anywhere he could send a ship with a pillow on it.
“He sent all the First Sofa’s pillows out except the seat cushion here, and within a few years he was able to duck into his fort and run all around the globe while his guards and advisers thought he was just hanging out in here playing games.”
“That’s what Abby’s dad always thinks we’re doing!” I said.
Murray nodded. “It’s a long, proud pillow fort tradition. Anyway, eventually it was all just too much for Louis to keep up with. He became a real grown-up, and being king was keeping him super busy, so he locked up the room to keep everything contained until he could figure out a time to come back. But he never did.
“The people in charge of his forts around the world kept them up just in case, and while everyone was looking the other way, their kids started playing in them instead.
“Of course, it turned out that kids were a whole lot better at running a pillow fort kingdom than grown-ups. It was the kids who figured out that each pillow was as powerful as the entire First Sofa itself, and that even a scrap of fabric from one of them could create a new hub. The pillows got divided into smaller and smaller scraps and pieces and spread around the globe, and soon the first major networks came together. Eventually the Continental Alliances and their Councils formed, and that is how,” Murray concluded, back in his tour-guide voice, “we became the legendary society we are today.”
He bowed.
I had to admit, I was deeply impressed. This was up there with the best spy adventure stories I’d ever imagined.
“So my fort,” I said, “and Abby’s fort, and Uncle Joe’s, and your network and NAFAFA, all of it started right here, right where we’re standing?” I eyed the place with a lot more respect than I had before. “And other kids from around the world come here too?”
Murray nodded. “Every Continental Alliance’s hub has a link to this room. Sometimes we bump into each other. If there’s ever a global catastrophe or crisis, everyone’s supposed to meet here and try to solve it, I think.”
“Wait, you think?”
“It’s never been tried. When World War II began, some of the Councils met up, but we don’t have records of them being able to do much more than protect this room.”
“Protect it? From what?”
“Invaders. Grown-ups. Anyone who might want to break in. France was occupied during the war, and Versailles was full of foreign commanders and soldiers who were super curious about le Petit Salon and not as interested in preserving French mysteries as the locals.”
“How did the kids protect it?” I asked, enthralled.
“Standing guard, mostly. There were kids stationed here twenty-four hours a day. Whenever anyone came near the door they would cry, or laugh, or clap their hands and sing counting games in off-key voices.”
“And the invading soldiers would just run away?”
“Kids can be very creepy when they want to be,” said Murray, putting his sunglasses back on.
I looked around the room, my imagination going into overdrive, and pictured myself standing guard all night in the darkness and dust. How boring. I would have run things much better if this were one of my games. Didn’t kids back then have any sense of daring? “They really should’ve set a trap,” I said. “And then lured the soldiers in one by one and captured them.”
“Ah, well, they couldn’t have done that.”
“Why not? Not enough kids?”
“No, because they couldn’t open the door,” said Murray. “No one can. Not without smashing it down like your fellow American out there suggested.”
I blinked. I looked at the door. I looked at the key hanging right beside it. I looked back at Murray.
I felt like there was some important point I was missing.
“But, okay,” I said slowly. “We’re inside the room, and the key’s right there. . . .”
Murray gave me a long look from behind his sunglasses. “Unlock it, then,” he said.
“What?”
“Unlock the door. Seriously. Maybe it’s time.”
Flecks of dust sparkled through the air between us.
“You mean it?” I said. “Really?”
“Really.”
Slowly, with more than one glance back at Murray to see if he was kidding, I crossed to the door and lifted down the key. It was beautiful up close: a dull silver decorated with oak leaves around a radiating golden sun. It was surprisingly heavy.
“Go on,” breathed Murray.
I took a deep, slow breath, thinking in a flash of the kind of summer I’d been having only a few days before: waiting by the mailbox for Abby’s postcards, moping around in my lonely pillow fort, staring out at the world from my spot up on the roof . . . Things sure had changed. I exhaled hard and slipped the key into the lock that hadn’t been opened in three hundred years. It fit.
I turned it.
The key didn’t budge.
I tried harder.
Nothing.
I scrunched up my face and twisted my fingers back and forth until sweat broke out on my palms, but the lock refused to open. My hands fell to my sides.
“So, now you know,” said Murray quietly.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded. “What is this?”
“The real mystery of le Petit Salon,” answered Murray. “That key’s been there forever, but so far as we know it’s never worked in that door.”
“Well what’s it for, then?”
“There are two theories,” Murray said. “The first is that the key will only unlock the door for a certain person, a chosen one who will uncover the secrets of the origins of the First Sofa and bring about a golden age for the world of pillow forts.”
I snorted. “Pass.”
“I completely agree,” said Murray. “It’s way too Sword in the Stone. But some people really believe it. I know for a fact Ben comes in here every now and then to try the key again. He probably hopes he’ll become the chosen one if he just keeps at it. I think he’s wasting his time, though. I follow the second theory, which makes more sense but is much more frustrating.”
“What is it?”
“That the key doesn’t go to this door at all. That it goes to another lock entirely.”
“Where?”
“That’s the frustrating part,” said Murray. He retrieved the key and hung it back on the wall. It swung gently, the edges gleaming in the light. “It’s been three hundred years, and we still haven’t got a clu
e.”
Ten
Murray pulled the velvet curtains shut, then led the way back through the ancient sofa to the Hall of Records. The golden lights and shining mirrors were dazzling after the dusty sunbeams of le Petit Salon.
“Hang on a second,” I said, swatting cobwebs off my pajamas as Murray reset the pillow. “How does a group that’s only kids afford all this?”
“All what?”
“All this!” I flapped a hand at the mirrors and lamps and columns of glossy marble. “I get that it’s been built up over hundreds of years, but this place must be pretty expensive to maintain.”
“You’re good at spotting problems, aren’t you?” Murray said. “The answer’s pretty simple. Have you ever sat down on a sofa with change in your pocket?”
“Yeah.”
“And have you ever stood up and realized it was gone?”
“Yeah . . .”
“And have you ever searched the cushions and not been able to find it?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, guess where a lot of it ends up.”
The strange metallic clinking coming from behind the garage-door-size wall pillow danced through my mind.
“Here?”
“Here. I’ll show you the collection fort later if there’s time. Come on, we’d better get back.”
“But how does—”
“Later, really. We have to go.”
As we walked up the hall, familiar names on the plaques kept catching my eye: Frida Kahlo, Leonard Nimoy, Emily Dickinson, Alex Trebek.
“Alex Trebek?” I said, stopping at a blue-and-white pillow with Peter Rabbit hopping across it.
Murray looked over. “What about him?”
“Isn’t he the one from that TV show?”
“Yup. He came through here when he was our age, and now he’s one of the most famous Canadians ever.”
“Alex Trebek is Canadian?”
