Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Also by Pam Smallcomb
To my husband, Rick, and my editor, Julie Romeis,
with heartfelt thanks for zuufting all my
big problems into little ones.
And to Alex, Caity, Patrick and Lucas for
ka-poofing into quiet little mice so I could write.
Chapter One
Beezel ran as fast as she could, knowing that if she slowed even for an instant, the big cat would hook her with one of its claws and bring her down.
She tore along the upstairs hallway, her eyes darting back and forth, searching for some place to hide from the enormous creature that was hunting her.
At the end of the hall was an ornate wooden door. Try as she might, Beezel couldn’t turn the doorknob. She slammed her body against the door. Come on! Open! Open!
Beezel heard a deep throaty growl behind her. She slowly turned and faced her pursuer. As she stared up into the eyes of the giant cat, Beezel’s heart beat wildly in her chest. The cat’s mouth quivered slightly. The animal wore a thick leather collar around its neck. Attached to the collar was a silver bell. Beezel heard the bell jingle as the cat inched toward her.
Great blathering Blackstone! she thought as she glanced left and right. I’m trapped!
She shut her eyes and winced. That cat’s going to kill me! Beezel opened one eye to watch in spite of herself. She heard a noise above her and looked up at the beamed ceiling. As she did so, a pair of gigantic hands pulled up the roof of the house, just as if it were the lid on a child’s toy box.
Beezel felt the air move across her face as the cat began its pounce. Ka-poof. Right before her eyes, the giant cat changed into a snail. Even though it had a new physical form, the cat-turned-snail kept moving slowly toward Beezel, leaving a shiny trail behind it on the floor.
An enormous hand reached down and grabbed Beezel, raising her high up into the air. From its tight grip, Beezel could see the rooftops of the houses around her.
She twisted her head to see the owner of the giant hand. A huge face, with short black hair and piercing blue eyes, stuck itself inches from her own furry brown mouse face. Beezel’s whiskers twitched nervously. “Squeak!”
“Beezel, honestly” her sister, Mimi, said crossly. “You do realize you could have been eaten.” She grasped Beezel by her tail and set her down in the center of the shop floor. Mimi pointed her finger at Beezel. Ka-poof. Beezel changed from a mouse back into herself: the eleven-year-old identical twin of her sister, Mimi.
“Holy Houdini’s handkerchief!” Beezel exclaimed. “What took you so long?”
Chapter Two
Beezel stood next to Mimi in the shop and tried to recover from her near-death experience. The cat had almost caught her in the dollhouse! She wondered, not for the first time, if ka-poofing would be the end of her someday.
The day had started quite normally, Beezel thought, looking back on it. Their flight from Baltimore to Amsterdam had been completely uneventful.
“This doesn’t look like Holland to me,” Mimi had said when she stepped off the plane. “It doesn’t look different at all.”
“It’s an airport, Mimi,” Beezel said. “I think they’re pretty much the same everywhere.”
Beezel, Mimi and Hector, the twins’ tutor, found a taxi and headed for Amsterdam.
As they got closer to the center of the city, the differences began to appear. Beezel pointed to the rooftops. “Oh, Mimi, look!”
The unusual types of gables on the houses made a wonderful skyline. Some had stepped edges; others were bell shaped with carved ornaments that looked like wedding cakes.
When they came to a stop, Beezel rolled down the taxi window, and the cold air of a crisp spring day blew across her face. The tangy smell of the canal water, mixed with the rich aroma of coffee and baked goods from an outdoor café across the street, wafted into their car.
They drove down roads lined with narrow row houses on one side and canals on the other. The streets, crowded with people riding bikes, rang with the sounds of car horns and bike bells. That’s when it hit Beezel: she really was in a foreign country, far away from her home with the Trimoni Circus.
“We’re finally here!” Mimi said. “I can’t wait to see the Van Gogh Museum!”
“Not today, duck,” Hector said. “I’ve asked the driver to drop us off at my uncle’s house. I want to check in on him. He was so strange on the phone when I talked to him last. After we say hello and see that all is well, we’ll grab another cab to the hotel.”
Hector’s favorite uncle, Mathias Hoogaboom, had called a few weeks earlier and insisted that his nephew come to Amsterdam as soon as possible.
“Uncle Mathias said he has something he wants to give me,” Hector had told the girls after he got off the phone that day. “Something that he simply can’t mail, under any circumstances. Then he went on and on about some crazy treasure hunt.”
Hector looked solemnly at the girls. “Frankly, he didn’t make much sense.” He shook his head worriedly. “Uncle Mathias is getting on in years. He’s always been a tad eccentric. And now, well, I think he might be unraveling … just a little.”
Hector’s uncle Mathias was the eldest brother of Hector’s mother, Anneke De Vries. Mrs. De Vries was billed with the Trimoni Circus as Anneke the Woodland Fairy. She performed amazing acts of winged gymnastics on the high wire.
The twins had met Hector’s uncle once before when he had visited them at the circus. The girls had been five at the time and didn’t remember much about him, other than the intricate set of dollhouse furniture from Holland he had given them.
As Hector made plans to visit his uncle, the girls schemed to go along, too.
“We can use the offer Professor Finkleroy gave us in Baltimore,” Beezel proposed to Hector. “He has a Merlin Hotel in Amsterdam. He said if we perform our magic act there, he’ll pay for our flights and our rooms.”
“Let us come with you, Hector,” Mimi pleaded. “Professor Finkleroy already said it would be great!”
“Well,” Hector said as he reviewed the calendar tacked to the inside of his circus trailer, “your parents are planning on going to Katmandu soon …” He turned and wagged his finger at them. “You’d have to leave the Changing Coin here. Remember what happened with the Great Paparella? The last thing we need is to lose it in a foreign country.”
Beezel thought about the Changing Coin, and how much it meant to her and Mimi. Their good friend Simon Serafin, the Strong Man of the Trimoni Circus, had given the coin and its magic to them before he died. A few months ago, a magician named the Great Paparella had challenged the twins to a Magic Duel in Baltimore. Instead, he had stolen their coin—and almost stolen their magic as well. They had gone through a lot to get it back.
“We’ll leave the coin here,” Mimi said, nodding vigorously. “Safe at home with the circus. Right, Beez?”
“Absolutely!” Beezel agreed.
Even though the twins didn’t need to have the coin with them to use its magic, they could never pass the magic on to someone else without it. In the future, when the time came to pass it on, the
girls would have to touch the Changing Coin, and the person receiving the magic gift would touch it as well. Only then would the twins say the five magic words out loud. The magic would leave Beezel and Mimi and enter the other person.
Hector eyed the twins. “I suppose, if your parents say it’s okay. But you’d have to promise to mind me, keep up with your lessons and not get into any of your ka-poofing messes—”
“We promise!” Beezel interrupted.
Once Mr. and Mrs. Trimoni gave their permission, it was settled. While Hector visited his uncle, the twins would perform their magic act in Amsterdam’s Merlin Hotel for two weekends.
Hector’s uncle lived in the bottom floor of a house nestled next to the Prinsengracht, a canal in the old part of Amsterdam. When Hector and the twins arrived at his house, Beezel noticed two things. The first was a large display window full of doll furniture. The second was a bright red door with a sign on it.
It said HOOGABOOM’S ORIGINELE POPPENHUIZEN.
“I think that means ‘Hoogaboom’s Original Dollhouses.’” Beezel said as she consulted her Dutch pocket dictionary.
“That’s right,” Hector said as he turned to face the twins. “Well, my uncle said he’d be here, so let’s see.” He opened the door and a bell above it jingled. Hector stood in the doorway and called out, “Uncle Hoogaboom! It’s Hector!”
After a minute’s wait, an elderly gentleman emerged from a back room and padded his way across the shop toward them. First in Dutch and then in fluent English, Mathias Hoogaboom greeted them warmly and hugged his nephew.
Beezel said, “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Hoogaboom.”
Hector’s uncle frowned. “No, no, that just won’t do.” He scratched his beard and smiled. “You must call me Uncle Hoogaboom.”
Tall and thin, with wispy white hair neatly combed back and a small beard centered on his chin, Uncle Hoogaboom looked more like a scientist than a man who built the tiny worlds that crowded the rooms of his shop.
He wore a long cotton coat with large front pockets. Beezel noticed they were filled with odds and ends. A magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers jutted out of one. String and some sort of wire dangled from the other.
“You must be tired from your flight,” Uncle Hoogaboom said. “Come inside. I’ll make some tea.” He carried in one of their bags and set it on the floor. “It’s so nice to have a visit from my favorite nephew.”
“Uncle, I’m your only nephew,” Hector said as he brought in the rest of their luggage.
“So you are.” Uncle Hoogaboom laughed. “And how is my little sister?”
“Mom? She’s just fine,” Hector said.
Uncle Hoogaboom turned his attention to the twins. “Your parents are well?” The twins nodded. “And you two have come here to perform at the Merlin Hotel.”
“Professor Finkleroy owns the Merlin Hotels,” said Beezel. “He saw our magic show in Baltimore and liked it.”
What Beezel didn’t mention was that she and Mimi used real ka-poofing magic in their show as well as stage magic.
With the magic of the Changing Coin, the girls could change animals and people into other animals by thinking the five magic words in order, imagining the new animal and pointing at the animal they wished to change. Before he died, Simon had asked them to protect the magic of the coin and keep it a secret.
“And how is Mr. Whaffle?” Uncle Hoogaboom asked. “Didn’t Hector tell me he’s gone back to throwing knives?”
“Mr. Whaffle is great,” Beezel said. Mr. Whaffle had been the girls’ tutor before Hector took over, but his first love was his job with the Trimoni Circus as a premier knife thrower. “He’s been throwing perfectly for weeks now.”
Uncle Hoogaboom tapped his chin with his finger. “Who else?” He snapped his fingers. “Meredith the fortune-teller! Is she still with your circus?”
“She had left, but she’s back now,” Mimi said. “Meredith came out of retirement because she’s engaged to Mr. Whaffle.”
Meredith was a clairvoyant. She had not only warned them about the Great Paparella, but had told the twins that there were two other magic coins somewhere in the world as well: the Shrinking Coin and the Mind-Reading Coin.
“Well, I think that’s everyone I know from your home,” Uncle Hoogaboom said to the girls. “Now let me show you around mine.”
It was a curious little store that they had entered. To Beezel it seemed like a cross between a museum and a parts shop. In front of them was a room lined with honey-colored shelves.
“What are these things?” Mimi asked him, pointing to the contents of the shelves.
“Ah,” Hoogaboom said. “This is my own little afdeling onderdelen, my accessories department. It’s where I sell the things that make my models unique. These tiny things I call my Hoogaboom details.”
Beezel glanced at Mimi and shrugged. Uncle Hoogaboom laughed and motioned for them to look around. Hundreds of tiny accessories filled the shelves that lined the walls. Beezel examined the contents stacked neatly on top of one. Miniature table lamps, pianos and credenzas were lined up right next to sofas and teddy bears.
“If it ever existed in a real home, the miniature is on one of my shelves somewhere,” Hoogaboom assured them as he opened a door to his left and went inside. “Come!”
They stepped into a small entry.
“My apartment is down there,” Uncle Hoogaboom said, pointing to the end of the hall. “But before we have our tea, let me show you something else.” He walked past a stairway that led to the upper floors and stopped at a door on the right. He opened the door and switched on the light. “This is where I have my poppenhuizen. This is my dollhouse room.”
“Oh, Beezel, look,” Mimi said.
Beezel peeked inside. “They’re wonderful.”
“You’ve been busy, Uncle,” Hector said.
The dollhouse room was filled with enchanting replicas of houses. They rested on wooden cases built to display the models at eye level. Although they were miniatures of houses, they were quite large.
It seemed to Beezel that the two-story English manor house next to her was at least four feet tall, from its base to the top point of its roof, and more than four feet wide. The two front doors were the size of two paperback novels, placed side by side.
“Everything I make uses the same scale,” Uncle Hoogaboom explained. “It’s all just as it would be if everything were one twelfth its normal size.”
Beezel smiled as she peeked inside. They really were charming. No detail had been forgotten in furnishing the models.
Uncle Hoogaboom reached beside the model next to Beezel and pushed a button. The lights inside the house came on, revealing more of the intricate interiors: brocade-covered sofas, gilded mirrors, mosaic tabletops, tiny glass vases filled with flowers.
“Now …” Uncle Hoogaboom turned and placed a hand on each twin’s shoulder. “Would you like to look around the shop or have a cup of tea with Hector and me?”
“Look around,” Mimi blurted out.
“If that’s okay,” Beezel quickly added.
“That’s fine,” Uncle Hoogaboom said. “You girls can look at the dollhouses and then each pick out one of my details to take home with you. My treat.” He smiled warmly at them.
“Great!” Mimi said.
“Thank you,” Beezel said.
“Come along, nephew. I have much to tell you during your stay.” Uncle Hoogaboom pointed skyward and announced, “But first I want to tell you more about the hunt I’ve been on!” He marched off toward his apartment.
Hector glanced at the girls, shrugged and followed his uncle down the hall. Beezel and Mimi turned their attention to the dollhouses.
“This one is my favorite,” Beezel said as she peered inside the English manor’s front window. She saw movement from the corner of her eye. It was as if something had run across the parlor, just out of her vision.
Beezel blinked and rubbed her eyes. I must be getting tired. She looked again. This time s
he swore she saw a tiny man, about six inches tall, run up the stairs at the rear of the parlor.
She tried peeking in the house’s front windows, but she couldn’t see into the sides or back of the model. Uncle Hoogaboom had so many dollhouses in the room, pushed right up against each other, that very little space was left between them.
She carefully opened the front double doors of the model and peered inside. She could see the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second story. That’s where he went, Beezel thought to herself. Right up those stairs.
Chapter Three
“You have jet lag,” Mimi concluded after Beezel told her she had seen a tiny man inside the model.
“I do not,” Beezel said. “Come on, ka-poof me into a mouse and let me take a look. I know I saw something. I want to go see what it was.”
“Okay, but don’t take too long,” Mimi said as she peeked down Uncle Hoogaboom’s hallway. “If Hector finds out we did this, he’ll get really mad.”
“I’ll be quick.”
That’s when Beezel’s day had stopped being normal. Mimi had ka-poofed Beezel into a small brown mouse and placed her inside the front doors of the English manor dollhouse.
“I’ll go watch for Hector,” Mimi then said to her sister.
Beezel had scurried across the parlor, up the stairs and through the open door at the top, intent on searching the unseen rooms in the back for the little person she thought she had seen. She had scampered across a library and was halfway down a hall when she heard a metallic tinkle.
When she ran back to the library to find out what the noise was, the cat had spotted her and given chase.
Of course, if Beezel had known that Uncle Hoogaboom had a cat that would follow her through the dollhouse front doors, she wouldn’t have asked Mimi to ka-poof her in the first place.
As Beezel stood next to Mimi in the dollhouse room, she knew she was lucky to have come out of the experience in one piece—because Beezel had no ka-poofing power while she was changed into a mouse. No, she was sure that if Mimi hadn’t ka-poofed the cat, it would have had her for dinner.
The Trimoni Twins and the Shrunken Treasure Page 1
