The Sixty-Eight Rooms

by Marianne Malone

  “From an estate sale. I bought a few books and other antiques—some silver, a few old oil paintings. You should come to the shop and see them. I’d love a visit from you.”

  Ruthie hadn’t been in the shop for months but she always liked going there with her father. Mrs. McVittie let Ruthie touch the treasures in her shop; she knew Ruthie wouldn’t break anything.

  “Here, now eat your soup.” Mrs. McVittie set a steaming bowl in front of Ruthie.

  “Aren’t you going to have any?”

  “No, I just had brunch. What will you do today, young lady?”

  Ruthie was nervous about discussing her plans. The less said the better. “In a little while I’m going over to my friend’s house—maybe we’ll go to the museum—and then I’ll spend the night there.”

  Mrs. McVittie spied the Thorne Rooms catalogue on the couch. “This is new.” She seemed to have a mental inventory of every book Ruthie’s family owned.

  “Oh, I borrowed that from a friend,” Ruthie said between spoonfuls of soup. “I saw the Thorne Rooms last week on a school field trip. I love them!”

  “Mmm.” Mrs. McVittie was thumbing through the book. “They are quite convincing, aren’t they? I remember the first time I saw them—it was 1932. They were exhibited at the Chicago Historical Society before they went to the Art Institute. I was only eight years old then.” She looked at several pages quite intensely, taking her time. “They are magic.” Mrs. McVittie looked at her as she spoke. Ruthie tried to hide the jolt she felt in her soup-filled stomach.

  “What do you mean?” She was almost afraid to ask. Could it be that Mrs. McVittie knew something about the rooms and the key?

  “I mean that everyone who looks at them believes, at least for a moment, in the fantasy they represent. Don’t you think so?”

  “Oh.” Ruthie’s heart sank. “Yes, I guess so.” Mrs. McVittie’s statement made Ruthie think she had been imagining everything that had happened with the key. She focused on her soup.

  Mrs. McVittie seemed to sense Ruthie’s disappointment and after a moment added, “Maybe fantasy is the wrong word. It’s the same feeling I get when I come across a rare old book. I believe I’m having a conversation with the person who made the book and the people who owned the book. It’s magic and it’s real—at least to me. Of course, you have to be open to these feelings for the magic to work, and not everyone is.” She put the book down and walked over to her hat and coat. “I’d better be getting along now.” With some difficulty, she slid her old arms into her coat and put on her hat. “I’ll leave this book for your father. Tell him I’ll talk to him next week.”

  “Okay, Mrs. McVittie. And thanks for the soup.”

  “Don’t be a stranger—come visit my shop! And make sure you lock this door behind me.”

  “I will.” Ruthie was left alone again, thinking about what Mrs. McVittie had said about magic and feelings and believing. A week ago those words wouldn’t have been very important to her, but now she couldn’t stop wondering what they really meant. Could it be that she hadn’t been able to shrink at Jack’s house because, for some reason, at that moment she hadn’t believed?

  As planned, Jack picked Ruthie up at her apartment a little before two o’clock. Ruthie wanted to be out the door before Claire returned home, so they hurried. Because they arrived at the museum ahead of schedule they decided to go to the gift shop to kill time. Around four-fifteen they went downstairs; that gave them enough time to first use the restroom—they realized it would be a long night with perhaps no chance for that—and then to sneak into the corridor and wait until the museum closed at five.

  The exhibition was pretty crowded. Ruthie and Jack tried to look casual as they rounded the corner to the alcove. Not one but two guards stood in their way, talking. They walked right past the guards and around another corner.

  “That’s not good, two guards,” Jack said. “We’ll wait five minutes and walk by again.”

  They checked their watches. They didn’t talk. Exactly five minutes passed and they walked by again. Same problem.

  “What if they start making people leave the museum and the guards are still there, Jack?” Ruthie was beginning to feel panicked. If she had to wait more than one hour to try the key again—let alone endure a wait of who knew how long till the next time they had a perfect weekend—she wouldn’t be able to stand it. “It’s almost four-thirty!”

  “We’ll figure something out. I’m not passing up this chance! We’d better keep walking around, though.” They heard the first announcement that the museum was about to close. Ruthie looked anxiously at Jack.

  They passed by the same spot about four times; each time, the two guards were still deep in conversation. They overheard them talking about sports, and Ruthie knew those discussions could go on for hours. The crowds were thinning. It was less than ten minutes until the museum closed.

  But then a lucky thing happened. As the guards started making the second announcement that the museum was about to close, a mom pushing a toddler in a stroller stopped right at the entrance to the exhibit. The poor kid had a terrible bloody nose—a real gusher—and she had run out of tissues. The guards had to stop talking and help her. Also, blood had dripped on the carpet and it needed to be cleaned up immediately. As one of them rushed off to the restroom to retrieve more tissues, the other went into the corridor and came out with some cleaning supplies. And he left the door open—perfect!

  Ruthie looked around quickly. Most everyone had left the exhibit. As soon as the guard was on his hands and knees dabbing at the carpet, she grabbed Jack’s sleeve and they were through the door in less than a second. They ran past the brooms and boxes and followed the corridor all the way to the end. Ruthie collapsed on the floor first, in the darkest corner. They looked at each other. Ruthie’s heart was pounding. Jack grinned.

  They sat there for a while in silence. They heard the guard putting back the mop and cleaning supplies at the entrance to the corridor. They heard the door close. The last few muffled sounds of voices from the exhibit dwindled into silence. Ruthie didn’t think she’d ever experienced such silence. She could actually hear the sound coming from the lightbulbs that lit the displays. If she hadn’t been so excited and focused on what she hoped was about to happen she would have been petrified.

  Finally Jack dared to move: he looked at his watch. “Six o’clock. The coast should be clear. Let’s get started.” He was in director mode. “We need to do a test run.”

  Ruthie stood up. She needed to stretch first. Sitting absolutely still for so long was not something she was used to. She took off her coat, emptying the pockets of all the snacks she had brought. Jack added his to the pile. Besides his usual favorite—M&M’s—he had a zip-top bag of pickles and another with a ham sandwich. Then he pulled out the key.

  “Ready?” he asked, holding the sparkling object in front of her.

  Ruthie closed her eyes tightly. “Yes,” she answered. Please, please, let it work, she said to herself.

  Jack handed her the key. He watched with eyes wide open. Ruthie felt the warmth spreading in her hand instantly, and her hair moved in the breeze that surrounded her alone. In no time at all Ruthie was the five-inch version of herself.

  “It worked!” Ruthie’s tiny voice shrieked. She had never been so relieved in her life.

  “Okay. Now let’s check the reverse,” Jack said. “Drop the key.”

  Like someone learning a new skill, she followed directions. No problem. Almost instantly she was full size again.

  “I knew it would work,” Jack exclaimed. “I just knew it! And you feel fine, right?”

  “Perfect, just like before. I’m ready to get started!” She paused for a moment. “Jack, are you gonna be okay out here by yourself?”

  “Yeah, sure. Got my Game Boy,” he said, patting a pocket. “And I’ve got comic books in my coat. Just keep reporting back to me, okay?”

  Ruthie thought about how incredibly nice this was of him. If the tables were t
urned she’d be so jealous. She didn’t feel anything like that from him. Now that he was no longer scared about her shrinking, Ruthie thought, he was the best person to have with her. “I promise,” she vowed.

  Ruthie had planned to visit room E24 first. It was a French room from 1780. She had Jack carry her down the corridor to that room and set her on the ledge behind it. She had chosen it because it was kind of a living room with balconies. She had always wanted a balcony. Rich people in movies always seemed to have them. The room looked out on some kind of beautiful park. It also had a desk with lots of tiny drawers and Ruthie wanted to see if there was anything in them.

  “There you go; come back and tell me what you find!”

  “Thanks, Jack,” Ruthie said.

  The painted diorama for this room was completely closed to the corridor, but there was a space along the side that led Ruthie to the room’s door. It was closed but not locked. As she turned the knob she could feel the stiffness in the hinges, which probably had not moved for many, many years. The room was so fancy; there were soft green walls with lots of gold trim everywhere. Directly across from her was a marble fireplace with a big mirror over the mantel. The ceiling was high, and the windows reached from the floor nearly all the way up to it. There were what the catalogue had called French doors, and they opened right onto the balcony. She walked onto the elaborate needlepoint rug, swiftly looking at all the wonderful objects in the room. She thought about Mrs. McVittie and how she would love these old things.

  Ruthie stood still for a moment. Even though the lights in the rooms were kept on all night, the lights in the museum had been turned off; only the red emergency exit lights glowed dimly from the other side of the glass. It was so quiet with no one in the exhibition space. To her right was the desk she had wanted to investigate. She sat down in the white and gold chair in front of it and breathed deeply. If she hadn’t been wearing jeans, sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt jacket, she would have felt exactly like a girl from the eighteenth century. She even thought she felt a breeze coming in through the open doors to the balcony. She was about to reach for the desk drawers when she realized she heard birds chirping. Then it dawned on her that the breeze she felt was actually rustling the leaves on the trees beyond the balcony.

  JACK’S IDEA

  RUTHIE LEAPT OUT OF THE chair, ran to the doors and stepped out onto the balcony. There, in front of her, was a real world! It was no longer fake trees and a painted backdrop lit with special lightbulbs. It was some sort of park or very large private garden and there were real birds singing and real squirrels running around and real clouds floating in the sky. She was at once excited and frightened. What had she entered into? What if someone saw her? Her first thought was to go back into the room so she wouldn’t be seen. She stood hiding behind the curtains, realizing that this was far more than she had expected. She moved back into the doorway—not all the way out onto the balcony, though—and took a deep breath. That was real fresh air, all right. She turned and ran; she had to tell Jack right away!

  “Jack, Jack!” she called as she raced out of the room. He heard her before he saw her, and jumped up. “It’s real! I mean, it’s really real!” Ruthie blurted, not making herself clear at all.

  “What? What do you mean?” Jack asked.

  “I mean those painted murals outside the rooms, they’re not painted! They actually exist! The trees are real, and the birds and clouds and fresh air! It’s a whole world, Jack!” She was out of breath as she spoke.

  “You’re kidding,” Jack said in disbelief.

  “No, really, Jack.” She tried to explain. “I could walk right out into eighteenth-century France. I’m not kidding!”

  “Wow” was all Jack could say. He thought for a minute. “Wow,” he said again.

  Ruthie paced back and forth on the ledge, goose bumps all over. The magic of shrinking had surprised her, but not nearly as much as this new twist. This was astonishing.

  “I wish you could come out there with me! I’d be afraid to walk out there by myself very far.”

  “Yeah, there’s no telling what could happen. You know, they chopped off people’s heads back then!”

  “Jack!”

  “It’s true—ever hear of the guillotine?” He made a slicing motion with his hand across his neck. “They used it in the French Revolution when the people wanted to overthrow the king. The room you’re in is from that time.” Ruthie suddenly wished she had paid as much attention in history class as Jack.

  “Well, I know one thing—I’m not going to go out there dressed like this! First I’m going to look around the room. Then we’ll think about the next step. I wonder if all the rooms have real worlds outside of them.”

  “Okay—but you have to watch out. Don’t forget to let me know you’re all right. Those people were pretty bloodthirsty during the revolution!” She couldn’t tell if he was truly concerned or just trying to scare her. Probably both, she thought, but he was definitely adding to her nervousness.

  Ruthie returned to the room—more cautiously than before. She sat down at the desk. In front of her lay a large leather-bound book with a lock, like a diary. Its cover was decorated with lots of gold swirls and flower shapes, just like the designs on the walls of the room. The desk had a leather-covered writing surface and a whole bunch of drawers and cubbyholes above it. She reached up to try one of the drawers. It opened surprisingly smoothly. Inside, she found two quill pens and a delicate glass bottle with black ink in it, still liquid. She opened another drawer; this one contained paper, but it didn’t feel anything like normal paper. It was much thicker and not so snowy white.

  When she placed the paper back inside the drawer, her fingers touched something that she hadn’t seen. What’s this? A pencil? Sure enough, a common yellow number-two lead pencil, the kind she used every day, sat in the drawer. She picked it up and thought about how this modern object could be in this drawer. As she inspected it, she could tell by the uneven shape of the eraser and the dullness of the point that it had been used. Had one of Mrs. Thorne’s craftsmen made this for some other room and left it in this drawer by mistake? And who would have used it? Ruthie thought this very strange, but she didn’t want to stop exploring the desk. She put it back in the drawer and continued to look in the other drawers, making a mental note to ask Jack later what he thought about the pencil.

  The next drawer held letters that had already been opened. She couldn’t wait to read them. She took one out of its envelope. Oh! It’s in French, of course! The handwriting was so elegant. Ruthie carefully put the letter back in its envelope. Another drawer held a gold letter opener. She knew what it was because her father had one on his desk. His was an antique but much plainer than this one. It had come from Mrs. McVittie’s shop.

  The last drawer she opened had two keys in it. What is it about keys? Ruthie wondered. They just want you to find out what they open! She picked them up and inspected them. One fit the desk drawers. The smaller one looked as though it might be just the right size for the diary in front of her. She slid the key into the hole and turned it to the right. She heard a tiny clicking sound and the closure popped open. She lifted the leather cover to find what looked like a diary, written in the most beautiful script. But again, it was all in French. There were many pages—Ruthie was dying to know what they said and who had written them. She turned a few and then noticed that the diary was not completed—the last ten pages or so were blank. She wondered why.

  “Hey, Ruthie! C’mere!” she heard Jack call from the corridor. Ruthie gently closed the diary, locked it and put the key back in the drawer.

  “What is it?” she called back to him as she exited the room.

  “I have an idea,” he said excitedly. “You know how the key only works when you hold it and not me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, your clothes and everything that’s touching you shrinks with you. So what about if I was touching you when you shrink? We haven’t tried that.”

  Ruthie di
dn’t hesitate. “What are we waiting for? Let’s try it! Put me on the floor!”

  After he set her down, she took the key out of her pocket and tossed it in her usual fashion. It had become almost routine for her. Once again she was looking at him eye to eye.

  “Oh, I really hope this works, Jack. It would be so much better if you were in there with me!”

  “I’ll say! I’d like to try on that armor in the castle room! Okay, ready?”

  “Ready!” She grabbed Jack’s hand and then bent down to pick up the key. They didn’t need to wait more than a split second before the breeze started up and Jack felt everything that Ruthie had felt before: the strange awareness of his clothing adjusting, the dizzying sight of the corridor expanding around him. Ruthie watched him look about in disbelief, nearly losing his balance for a second.

  “This is the coolest thing ever! I can’t believe it! Let go of my hand and see what happens.” Ruthie released his hand and they waited. Nothing happened. He stayed small! “Man, oh, man!” Jack exclaimed as he looked around him, adjusting his eyes to the size of the space. He was feeling the sensations that Ruthie had now become used to: an almost sickening dizziness combined with extreme excitement.

  “Uh-oh, Jack,” Ruthie said.

  He looked at her blankly. “What?”

  “Look.” She pointed to the floor. “We’re down here. The rooms are up there.”

  He followed her hand as she pointed up—way up. The ledge around the installation was as tall as a five-story building.

  “Oh … right.” They both stood there staring up for a moment. The ledge was far too small to stand on when they were full size, so they couldn’t shrink while they were up there. They hadn’t brought a rope; even if they’d had one, Ruthie was certain she wouldn’t be able to climb that high and she seriously doubted that Jack could. There was a single chair near the door, but that would get them only halfway up if they stood on it while shrinking. They could take turns; Ruthie could shrink down with Jack, return to normal size and then place him in the room. But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.