by Zondervan
Ophelia couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Should we intervene?”
Quasimodo shook his head and gave an exaggerated shrug.
“Let’s just see what happens,” said Ophelia.
The dancer had a good hold on the princess’s arm, but the regal horsewoman was having none of it. She cocked a booted foot, placed it on the dancer’s chest, and gave a mighty shove. The girl went tumbling head over feet, and the princess galloped off behind the beakers.
The dancer then rolled into a ball and hardened back to her wooden state.
Quasimodo picked her up. “Oh, the poor girl.”
“Is it Esmeralda?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes.”
“I suppose that fight was about Captain Phoebus?” she asked.
“She’s in love with him, isn’t she? She really is.”
“He’ll be her downfall, Quasimodo. Don’t let Esmeralda be yours.”
Ophelia looked for the princess on the worktable, but she and her horse were gone.
fourteen
Thereby Proving That All Scientists Are Mad Scientists
And If You Don’t Like That, Take It Up with the Administration
Dear Linus and Ophelia,
It was good to get your letter telling us that we chose wisely in sending you to visit Aunt Portia and Uncle Augustus. What fun those two old birds can be if you’re in the right frame of mind for their type. And when you’re not, just think of your father and me, and that will help most certainly.
Ophelia snorted at that last part. They have no idea, she thought. She continued reading:
Our work here on Willis is slowgoing, though we expected nothing less. When you’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for this many years, the expectations become more realistic. We do hope you’re heeding our advice to eat well, get plenty of sleep, and keep reading up on butterflies. It will give us something to talk about when we get home in five years.
Ophelia rolled her eyes. Talk about unrealistic expectations.
Nothing but scientific jargon spilled onto the stationery from there on. It was Ophelia’s second time reading the letter from her mother. But she wasn’t reading it for sentimental reasons; she just needed a break from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and Quasi had finally fallen back asleep.
The story was too tragic. Tragic beyond belief. It would be one thing for such sadness to befall a person who’d been given much at birth. But poor Quasi was forced to deal with such misery after life had handed him what amounted to a plate piled high with turnips and rutabagas and cranberry sauce. It was too much to bear.
She knew it was only a novel. And she knew its author, Victor Hugo, employed drama quite masterfully in his writing. He enjoyed turning up the heat, so to speak, by taking an already terrible set of circumstances and throwing in someone who didn’t deserve to deal with them. And while that plot device always makes for a good story, in real life it feels as if something in the universe has been tipped so far out of balance that only a miracle will right things again.
And that Esmeralda! Ophelia could barely read about such an empty-headed girl without wanting to throw the book out the trefoil window and into the rain. Times sure had changed, she realized. Not many readers would take to such a muttonhead (no offense to sheep) traipsing along the pages of a book. She could barely stand it.
“Thank goodness she didn’t come through the circle,” Ophelia muttered.
Quasimodo stirred. Ophelia rubbed his shoulder lightly, and he fell back into a deep slumber. She smiled as she remembered him telling her, just before he fell asleep, that he thought his favorite thing about Real World might be this wonderful mattress. And her, of course.
Having Quasimodo around helped Ophelia to see the many things she’d taken for granted all of her life, including her average face and body. After this experience, she never wanted to be more than what she was, I can assure you. For instance, she never dyed her hair, or plastered on makeup, or spent hours at the gym. Quasimodo taught her that she’d been given so much. He also taught her the beauty of gratitude, good health, and slipping through crowds unnoticed.
Around 4:30 a.m. an exhausted Ophelia opened her eyes for the first time in about ninety-three minutes. The smell of sulfur from a burning match had awakened her. She saw two figures now dominated the attic space—you can probably guess who they were — and they were whispering about how to get Quasimodo out of the building without disturbing the rest of the household.
Ophelia quickly closed her eyes and kept them closed. She hardly dared to breathe in order to hear their faint whispers more clearly.
“I fail to comprehend why we cannot return with Quasimodo right here,” Frollo said.
Ophelia had never heard such a warm voice used in such a cool manner and with very little emotion evident.
That must be what his homilies sound like, she thought. (If you don’t attend a church founded before the 1600s or thereabout, homily is simply a fancy word for “sermon.”)
Frollo was much taller and thinner than Cato Grubbs, a rather corpulent (overweight) man who was even more corpulent up-close. The scientist had clearly gained weight over the years while traveling through the Book World.
Maybe the food tastes better over there, Ophelia thought, then shook herself mentally. Best to listen with a keen ear.
“This particular circle only works at 11:11 p.m. on the eleventh day of the month — coming, that is. Then, sixty hours later at 11:11 a.m., it opens up for the return passage.”
“So limited,” Frollo said with disgust.
“I got you here, didn’t I?” Cato reprimanded as he swept an arm over the painted circle. “Be my guest then.”
Frollo fumed and his breathing grew louder.
Cato looked through the powders. “In any case, we have to get Quasimodo back to the same portal that you and I came through. It’s a better portal, actually. I use this attic just for storage now.”
“And you are certain we can get him back to the exact place and time he disappeared?” Frollo asked.
“Fear not, Deacon Frollo. That won’t be a problem.”
“I’ll be tried for witchcraft otherwise.”
“So you’ve said many times. I’m sure it must have been frightening when that mob turned on you after your charge disappeared like a puff of smoke. It isn’t a good place to be in, is it?”
Frollo seemed to understand Cato’s moral lesson. “My being tried and hung for witchcraft and Quasimodo being jeered at by the crowd are two very different matters,” he hissed.
“Of course they are,” Cato muttered before changing the subject. “Just so we’re clear about the matter—you’ll be able to get Esmeralda’s necklace for me before I return to this world?”
Ophelia felt the distrust in Cato’s voice even from her spot on the sofa. She couldn’t say she blamed him either.
“Yes. I have a very clear plan in place for her to willingly give it over to me.”
I’ll bet, thought Ophelia.
“Ah, here it is!” said Cato.
“So you have the powder?” Frollo asked.
“Here. Take it. You should find it most beneficial in your experiments.”
Frollo said nothing, not even offering the common courtesy of a simple “Thank you.”
“All right. Let’s go to my lab. We’ll come back here early in the morning and watch for them to leave. Then we’ll get Quasimodo and take him back to my house for safekeeping.”
“Why do we not just take him now?” asked Frollo.
Cato chuckled. “Why, look at us, dear deacon. I’m too fat; you’re too skinny. Even between the two of us, we couldn’t get that strong young man down two flights of steps with three teenagers and two adults fighting us as well. And then the priest across the street will surely hear the ensuing ruckus — “
“Quasimodo will obey me.”
Ophelia risked a small peek. Frollo’s eyes blazed.
“After what you did to him? Don’t count on it. At the v
ery least, I’m not counting on it, so what I say goes in this world. Is that understood, Deacon?”
Frollo said nothing and turned to exit the room.
Cato placed another canister, one holding a stash of Dragon-well Lung Ching tea, into his brown leather satchel (small bag with a shoulder strap), muttering, “I need to lose some weight.”
Outside, the rainfall increased. The staccato on the roof now sounded more like running horses than the pitter-patter of little feet. “And let’s hope the weather doesn’t make our return to your world impossible.”
Cato loved keeping current on the weather and such. He’d seen rain like this before. And he was smart enough to know that if it failed to slow down soon, then things might get messy indeed. “Oh, how I wish he hadn’t tagged along after me,” Cato whispered as he passed the sofa and headed out the door. “But now that I’m stuck with him, I might as well use him.”
After the men had left, Ophelia waited five minutes and then ran downstairs to wake up Linus.
She told him what had happened. “And just so you know who we’re dealing with, Cato isn’t a nice man at all, Linus. He’s asked Frollo to give him Esmeralda’s emerald necklace—which is the only thing she has from the mother she never knew—as payment for bringing Frollo across to the Real World. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Why did Frollo have to come?”
“He wants to make sure that Quasi reappears in the exact same moment he left Book World so Frollo won’t be tried for witchcraft.”
Linus rubbed his face with the hem of his T-shirt. “Let’s get Walt.”
“Do you know how to sneak over to the school?”
“Yep.”
“Do you know which room is Walter’s?”
“Yep.”
“How come I don’t know?” She felt left out.
“You’ve been doing a lot of reading lately.”
“Oh. Right. Let’s go.”
fifteen
Sometimes Fourteen Years of Life Experience Clearly Has Its Disadvantages
The floors at the Kingscross School for Young People deserved an award for high achievement in squeaking, groaning, and even some vociferous (loud or clamorous) popping noises now and then. One board in particular sounded like a canine’s sad cry. But despite the building’s protests at a pre-dawn invasion by the ruffians next door, Linus and Ophelia made it to Walter’s room without discovery. Perhaps the fact that Madrigal Pierce slept without her hearing aids contributed to their success as well.
In any case, Walter agreed that Quasimodo needed to be moved and quickly. “Do you think they saw us coming out of Father Lou’s?”
“I think so,” Ophelia said. “Cato said he didn’t want to alert the priest across the way, so he must have seen.”
“It’s still safer than the attic,” Linus said.
“Then let’s get him over to Father Lou as soon as the sun is up,” Walter said.
“Shouldn’t we do it now?” asked Linus.
Walter shook his head. “Quasi doesn’t seem to be the kind of person I’d want to wake out of a dead sleep.”
He doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who goes into a dead sleep at all, thought Linus. But he held his tongue. He didn’t realize it then, of course, but had he spoken up, it might have made all the difference. He should have listened to his newfound intuition.
Naturally, the morning’s events failed to go exactly as planned. Uncle Augustus had arisen early, made it to the hardware store by 8:00 a.m., and then enlisted the help of his niece and nephew by 8:30. As they were sitting around the breakfast table, he announced his horrible plans for the day. Dusty, dirty, filthy, disgusting plans.
Uncle Augustus buttered his toast bite-by-bite, while expounding (stating in detail) how to properly rip up carpet—the carpet in the living room, to be precise.
It was terrible carpet, to be sure. It should have been ripped up when Auggie and Portia moved into the building two decades before. Why anybody thought vines and frogs — disgusting dirty, slimy frogs — seemed a delightful motif (a repeated form in a design) for persons to walk across remains a mystery to this day. Thankfully, it is no more.
“So after you’ve removed all of the furniture, you’ll pull up the carpet from the nail strips around the edges of the room. Then take those utility knives” — he pointed to a paper bag sitting on the counter—”and cut the carpet into four-foot wide strips. Roll up the strips and secure them with duct tape, a roll of which can be found, for your convenience, in that same bag. And wear those face masks while you’re working, please. Who knows what’s lurking in all of that dust and dirt?”
I find I cannot even think about that right now. Moving right along …
At 11:11 a.m., even with Walter’s help, and with only twenty-four hours left in Quasimodo’s visit, the twins were still slaving away. Now they were prying up the nail strips with a flathead screwdriver and a hammer. Linus found that part to be quite satisfying.
Ophelia grumbled, “There’s no telling what Cato and Frollo will do. We’ve got to think of something.”
Linus knew this to be true. Heavens, but he knew. Besides, she’d already muttered the exact same thing at least twenty times that morning. And poor Quasi was upstairs in the attic by himself. At least they’d managed to sneak up some cold cereal and a bottle of milk.
When he took a bite of the sugary cereal that Aunt Portia wasn’t savvy (worldly wise) enough to know not to buy for teenagers, a look of amazement crossed his face. “This is delicious!”
“I know!” said Ophelia, who also loves sweets. Right then she realized she would put together a backpack of goodies to send home with him — a care package, if you will. She figured if objects from Book World could make the trip into Real World, then it stood to reason that the opposite was also true.
Finally, around noon, they’d stripped the living room floor bare. Uncle Augustus sidled into the room to have a look. “Well done! Take the rest of the day off.”
They all sat back on their heels and sighed in relief.
“Oh, and the town’s engineers think the dam is going to hold just fine. Good news that, eh? Take a look outside!”
Linus pulled back the curtain to reveal not exactly a sunny day, but the rain had finally stopped.
“See you later, Uncle Auggie,” Ophelia said as she hurried from the room.
“Nothing like a clear in the weather to raise your spirits!” Uncle Augustus cried to their backs.
Walter headed over to Kingscross School to shower and change clothes. Meanwhile, the twins hurried up the steps to the attic, only to find that Quasimodo was gone!
“Cato knew I was awake!” Ophelia fumed. She’d been duped, deceived, and felt more gullible than the nerdy girl who’s suddenly taken under the wing of the cool group in one of those awful teen movies.
She did not care for this feeling one bit.
Clearly, I was happy not to be Cato Grubbs at that particular point in time. You would have been as well.
sixteen
Sometimes Fourteen Years Is Plenty of Time to Accumulate the Necessary Brain Function to Figure Out How to Proceed
Linus fetched Walter as Ophelia, still angry but trying her best to remain calm, searched the room for a clue as to where the other, and obviously new and improved, enchanted circle might be found. Surely Cato would take their friend there. She hoped they could get to Quasi before it was too late. Quasi simply couldn’t go back to Book World under those circumstances—right back into the stocks. It would be too cruel!
Ophelia looked under and around the scientific equipment, on the bookshelves, and then finally began rummaging through an old dresser. Just then, the little wooden carving of the dove came to life. At this point Ophelia wasn’t surprised, but she was certainly surprised that she wasn’t surprised! The dove alighted on a shoebox full of receipts that sat tucked in the top dresser drawer, then flew away to sit on the edge of an empty beaker.
Well, whatever, thought Ophelia as she began
searching through the box.
Most of the receipts were from the hardware store or the grocery store, the usual electronically printed curls of paper. One, however, was a handwritten receipt from a shoe repair shop: Clean up and re-stitch red spangled party shoes—twenty dollars.
Cato stole Dorothy’s ruby slippers! Ophelia couldn’t believe it; but then again, yes she could. If she could travel into a book, she’d definitely abscond (steal and run) with those shoes. She might even try to bring back that little picnic basket in which to carry the little dog she hoped to own one day. (No dog yet, by the way. Aunt Portia is severely allergic.)
According to the address on the receipt, the shoe repair shop was located about three blocks away, not far from that street where college students go to drink coffee and feel—what do they say now? — hip.
Ophelia went downstairs and showed the receipt to the boys. She said, “It isn’t much to go on, but at least it’s something.”
In ten minutes time, the three stood before Mr. Pine’s Shoe Repair, 56 Scout Alley. An old brass bell clanged against the door as they entered, and a man looked up from the worktable at the back of the shop. He pulled off his half eyes (reading glasses that rest on the end, not the bridge, of the nose) and squinted at them. His pale blue eyes reminded Linus of a Siberian Husky. And his facial hair, dark sideburns leading into a white beard, helped the overall sled dog image as well. The man quickly stood to his feet—he was Ophelia’s height.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Mr. Pine?” asked Ophelia.
“No. Mr. Pine was the original owner. I bought the place several years ago and just kept the name. I’m Jack.”
“We’re trying to find the man who brought these shoes to you.” She handed Jack the receipt. “He used to live where we live now. Yesterday we brought up a bunch of stuff from our basement — just in case it flooded—and a lot of the stuff is his.”
Nicely done, Ophelia! Not a lie to be found. Of course, her stated intent was hardly on the up and up, so you must decide whether or not what she did was wrong. I’m not one to make that kind of judgment in a situation so dire. They simply had to find Quasimodo, you see, because less than twenty-four hours remained for him to get back inside the enchanted circle or end up like the Wicked Witch of the West.
