The Sixty-Eight Rooms

by Marianne Malone

  “How much longer will you be in Paris?” Monsieur Lesueur asked.

  “We are leaving today,” Jack said.

  “Quel dommage—what a pity,” Sophie said, looking at Jack. “Can you not stay longer?”

  “I wish we could,” Jack said.

  The four of them walked down the path. The roses in the gardens along the side smelled so sweet, and they were so occupied with warning Sophie, that Jack and Ruthie almost forgot their other task. Finally Ruthie remembered what she needed to ask.

  “This is such a beautiful garden. How far does this path go?” They were facing the façade of room E24 and the stairs up to the balcony, which Jack and Ruthie could see plain as day. Monsieur Lesueur answered.

  “It is quite long; one can walk fifteen minutes in any direction. Except that one,” he said, pointing to the balconies. “Beyond that dense grove of sycamore trees is a wall, and then the streets of the city on the other side.”

  “Really!” Ruthie said. “And there are no other buildings over there? Just trees and a wall?”

  “Of course,” Sophie said, laughing at Ruthie. “Can you not see it is only trees?”

  Jack quickly changed the subject. “We have to go meet our father now. Maybe we will come back to Paris sometime.”

  “But surely you can stay a little longer?” Sophie said with big, sad eyes.

  “I’m afraid he’s already waiting for us,” Ruthie said. “We really must be going.”

  “But how will we stay in contact?” Sophie asked.

  Jack thought quickly, remembering what he had told Sophie yesterday. “Send letters to the American embassy. They will get to us eventually.” Then he reached out to shake Monsieur Lesueur’s hand goodbye.

  “It was a great pleasure to meet you. Maybe I will see you in America,” Monsieur Lesueur said. “Sophie, shall we be on our way?”

  “If we must,” she sighed. “Please be safe on the ship!” She gave both of them hugs and kissed their cheeks. Ruthie noticed Jack blush a little. “Au revoir. Bon voyage!” Then she wiped a tear from her eye as they parted. Ruthie felt a lump in her throat.

  The problem facing Ruthie and Jack now was that they weren’t sure how to make their exit. They were pretty sure that if they approached the balcony stairs they would appear to just vanish, and they did not want to confuse Sophie and Monsieur Lesueur. The only thing to do was to go in the opposite direction from Sophie without getting lost. So they did this until Sophie and her tutor were out of sight and then they backtracked, making sure they didn’t bump into either of them.

  When they reached the stairs to the balcony, they saw an old man taking a walk. They waited until he passed, and then climbed the first set of stairs. But when they reached the landing they turned and saw him staring in the direction of the very place at the bottom of the stairs where they had just disappeared. He must have turned around at the very moment they’d become invisible!

  “Zut alors!” the man said, scratching his head in confusion.

  “I guess there’s nothing we can do about that now,” Jack said. “Poor man!”

  “And no one will ever believe him, I’m sure!” They climbed the rest of the stairs, then stood on the balcony for a few minutes, watching him shake his head as he walked off.

  Back inside the room, they looked around, stalling; they knew it was Sunday and the adventure was almost over.

  “You know the museum’s gonna open soon,” Jack said glumly. “There’s still so much we haven’t figured out about all this.”

  Ruthie stood at the desk looking at the beautiful journal that she had opened before. The book in room E1 had been filled with answers and magic. This one seemed to hold no such magic; she wasn’t seeing any special glow or hearing any strange sounds. But something told her to open it. She took the key out of the drawer and unlocked the book’s clasp. While Jack looked around the room one last time, Ruthie lifted the ornate cover.

  She opened the journal to the first page. Like Duchess Christina’s book, this one had very elaborate handwriting and she could barely make out the letters, but slowly her eyes adjusted. She couldn’t read any of it, though, since it was all in French, except …

  “Jack! Look! Does this say what I think it says?” Ruthie nearly started to shake.

  Jack rushed over. He looked at the page, cocking his head to one side, trying to make out what she was so excited about.

  “Is that an L?” he asked.

  “No! No! It’s an S! S, O, P, H, I, E! It says Sophie … and look: Lacombe! Wasn’t that her last name?”

  “Wow … yeah, it was!”

  “Jack, I was wondering,” she started. “Do you think it would be terrible if we borrowed this journal?”

  “Are you kidding? We have to! We have to find out what happened to her!”

  Ruthie quickly turned to the back of the journal. “I think I remember that it looked unfinished … see?” Sure enough, the writing stopped in the middle of a page, and there were empty pages after that. They looked at each other, neither one willing to mention what they were both thinking: that something terrible might have happened to Sophie.

  Ruthie closed the journal and held it tightly, frustrated by not having the answers. Why wouldn’t this book speak to her like Christina’s and tell her what happened to Sophie? If there was magic in this book surely she would feel something—it would be warm in her hands. Just as that thought occurred to her, she felt a faint but noticeable change in temperature. The journal was definitely warming her skin. But it lasted only long enough for Ruthie to doubt that she’d felt it at all.

  A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

  BACK IN ROOM E22, RUTHIE changed into her own clothes slowly. A dark cloud started to affect her mood. How could she go back to her real life in Chicago? She had so many more questions now; how could she find answers? She hung up the clothes in the wardrobe and then went out and retrieved Jack’s to hang up. He looked miserable too. It was five minutes till ten and the museum was about to open. They didn’t speak until they reached the top of the book stairs.

  “Climb down or jump?” Ruthie asked. “Let’s climb. It’ll take longer,” Jack answered. She knew exactly how he felt.

  With each step down the stairs, her mood sank lower. At the bottom Ruthie reached into her pocket and took out the key. She paused and looked at it, not wanting to go back to full size.

  “You might as well just do it now, Ruthie. We can come back sometime,” Jack said.

  “I guess,” Ruthie responded. They both knew, however, that another chance to spend the night here would not come soon.

  She held on to Jack’s sleeve with her left hand and tossed the key to the floor with her right. The gentle breeze started up, their clothing tightened and adjusted and the space around them seemed to shrink to its normal size as they grew to theirs. “Well, I guess that’s it,” she said, looking at him full size. “Let’s get our stuff together.” He picked up the key and put it in his pocket.

  Ruthie and Jack cleaned up their food wrappers and took the stairway apart, putting the books back in their boxes. They put the bucket and duct tape back where they’d found them. Picking up their coats, they could hear the voices of people in the exhibition. As they were about to leave, Ruthie stopped.

  “Uh-oh, Jack … my sweatshirt jacket! Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. When did you have it on last?”

  “I guess it was last night. I took it off before I went to sleep. It must still be in room E17! I left it on a chair!”

  “You gotta go get it,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing her the key. She took it and soon was being lifted back up to the ledge outside the bedroom.

  “Don’t let anyone see you!” Jack cautioned.

  Ruthie stood outside the doorway to the room and waited for a good minute. When she judged that the coast was clear she entered and saw her sweatshirt jacket right where she’d left it, on the chair next to the big cabinet, looking completely out of place. She walked over to
the chair and started to put the jacket on but almost immediately she saw a head coming into view through the glass front of the room. No time to get out! With barely a thought Ruthie opened one of the doors of the big cabinet and threw herself in. She couldn’t get the door closed all the way, but it didn’t matter since it opened out, toward the viewers. The door itself blocked Ruthie from sight. No one could see her scrunched up inside the cabinet. Whew! That was close!

  But wait a minute … what’s this? In the dim light, Ruthie saw that there was something in this cabinet, something vaguely familiar. She reached over and grabbed one of the straps to pull it closer to her. It was a backpack! No doubt about it. Not a brand that she recognized but obviously not made for the Thorne Rooms. She waited a few minutes for the voices to pass and then made a dash for it.

  “Jack! Jack! Look!” she yelled breathlessly as she ran out to the ledge.

  “I was wondering what took you so—” he started to say, then saw what she was holding. “What …!”

  “It’s someone’s backpack! It was in a cabinet—I had to jump in to avoid being seen and I found it!”

  “C’mon,” Jack said, holding up his hand for her to climb in.

  As soon as she had returned to full size with the backpack they wasted no time finding out what was in it.

  “Wow,” was all Jack could say as Ruthie pulled out the contents. Besides a number of school-related items—a math book, a notebook, a pencil case—there was one object that stunned them both: a photo album.

  “Jack, look at this,” Ruthie whispered, opening the arithmetic book. She read the name on the inside cover: Caroline Bell. They looked at each other, astonished.

  “Then I bet I know what’s in that photo album!” Jack said. They both understood immediately how important this find was.

  Ruthie opened it as though it were the most delicate treasure. Inside were page after page of black-and-white photographs, almost all of them of a beautiful young mother and a baby. As they turned the pages, the baby grew to a toddler, then a small child, then a schoolgirl—wearing a barrette in her hair! Ruthie didn’t know much about art or photography, but she knew these looked a whole lot better than her family’s snapshots. At the back was an envelope filled with negatives.

  “These are Mr. Bell’s lost photos! The ones he said he would give anything to have again!” Ruthie said. “Jack, we found them!”

  They found places in their coat pockets for everything that had been in the backpack. Ruthie held Sophie’s journal inside her coat. Jack put the flattened backpack and the photo album under his coat and zipped up.

  Getting out of the corridor took some time. The first few times they opened the door there were too many people in view. They kept the door open just a crack to watch for the right moment. When it came, Ruthie slipped out first. She went over to ask a question of the weekend guard while Jack made his exit. The door locked behind him with a click.

  They left the museum and rode the bus back to their neighborhood; it was an odd sensation to be among twenty-first-century people again. Everything looked strange. Besides the smell of the city, the air felt indescribably different. Ruthie called Claire to check in and tell her that she would stay and have brunch at Jack’s. No problem there. Ruthie and Jack agreed that they wouldn’t say anything to Jack’s mom about the photos just yet. They wanted to find out a few things first, about Caroline Bell and how the backpack had ended up in that cabinet. And they had no idea what they’d tell Lydia about where they’d found it.

  “Hello, you two!” she greeted them at the elevator door. “I was just about to call your house, Ruthie, to see if you wanted to come here for Sunday brunch.” She kissed Jack on the forehead, saying, “I was getting lonely!”

  “Thanks, Lydia.” Ruthie smiled. “I’ll just put my stuff down in your room, Jack,” she said, wanting to get Sophie’s journal in a safe place.

  “How do waffles sound?”

  “Great, Mom! Make a lot—I’m really hungry!” Jack said emphatically as he followed Ruthie into his room.

  “Did you two get any sleep last night?” Lydia called into Jack’s room. “You both look like you stayed up all night.”

  “Not all night,” Jack called back to her truthfully. He took the precious journal from Ruthie and placed it in one of his clothes drawers under some T-shirts. They put the pink barrette in the backpack. Even though Edmund Bell’s photos were black-and-white, they had no doubt that the barrette belonged to Caroline. They decided to leave the backpack under Jack’s bed, in his sleeping loft. His mother hardly ever went up there. Anyway, it was all temporary.

  “These are the best waffles I’ve ever had, Lydia. Thanks!” Ruthie said, finishing off her third. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so hungry in her life.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have let you have this sleepover. You both look so tired.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. We did our homework on Friday,” Jack said.

  “Well, that was a good idea!” Lydia said, looking somewhat surprised.

  “It was Ruthie’s,” he admitted.

  “Thank you, Ruthie,” she said. Lydia refilled Ruthie’s mug of hot chocolate. Then the phone rang. Lydia checked the caller ID and a happy expression came across her face.

  The call turned out to be from a gallery owner. From what Ruthie heard it sounded as though Lydia had been working hard on the phone for the past few days, trying to convince some art dealers in the city to put together an exhibition of Mr. Bell’s old work. Ruthie and Jack listened as she spoke. Clearly she was receiving good news. They looked at each other, aware that she didn’t know the half of the good news that was about to come Edmund Bell’s way.

  The next few days were challenging. First of all, they had to go to school. Ruthie and Jack tried to pay attention in math, Spanish grammar, geography and a history unit on the Civil War. But all they wanted to think about was the very real history that had fallen into their laps. Ruthie nearly flunked the geography test on Tuesday, and Jack was a complete washout in both math and Spanish. Ms. Biddle asked them both to see her for a few minutes before they went to lunch on Wednesday. She wasn’t smiling.

  “Frankly, I’m surprised! You’re two of my best students. Your work has been slipping for over a week now. These last three days have been the worst for both of you. Do you have any explanations?” she asked. Ruthie had never experienced a teacher speaking to her in such a disapproving tone.

  Jack answered first. “I guess I’ve just gotten sidetracked, Ms. Biddle. I’ve been reading a lot about the French Revolution.”

  “The French Revolution?” she said, bemused. “Why?”

  Jack began truthfully. “Ruthie got really interested in the Thorne Rooms after our field trip, and my mom gave her the catalogue, which she read about forty times cover to cover. Then we went back and looked at the rooms again and found all kinds of interesting stuff that we wanted to know more about, and then—”

  “Whoa—you’re involved in this too, Ruthie?”

  “I think the rooms have kind of become an obsession, Ms. Biddle,” she answered. That was true too.

  “But why the French Revolution? Was there something special about that period?”

  Ruthie liked Ms. Biddle so much that she really wanted to tell her everything. She tried to give a believable, honest answer. “I’m not sure why I picked that period. It all felt so real in that room.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Ms. Biddle started, still seeming somewhat baffled. (Ruthie was pretty sure Ms. Biddle had never had two kids say they were hooked on the French Revolution.) “I’ll erase the bad grades you’ve both earned in the last week if you’ll write a research paper for me.” This didn’t sound so good to them; they wanted less schoolwork, not more. But then she added, “I have a good friend who works in the museum archives and I think, as a special favor to me, we might be able to get you two in there once or twice. You define the paper, but I want it to be something about the Thorne Rooms. How does that sound?”

>   They looked at each other. They’d thought they would be getting punished and instead they were receiving just the help they needed! Maybe, Ruthie thought, the archives would hold the information they sought. As they left the classroom for lunch Ruthie stopped and turned back to her teacher. “Thanks, Ms. Biddle.” She received a smile in return.

  DETECTIVE WORK

  AND RINGING BELLS

  NOW THEY HAD THREE TASKS: the research paper, finding someone to translate Sophie’s journal and, most importantly, figuring out what to do with Mr. Bell’s album. The research paper seemed as though it would be the easiest of the tasks; Ms. Biddle made appointments for them to work in the Art Institute archives after school on Friday and on Saturday, accompanied by a parent. Ruthie’s dad was only too willing to go along with them.

  “You’re going to love doing research!” he said to her over dinner on Thursday night. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was a special case; she probably wouldn’t love doing research if not for the fact that she had actually met living and breathing people in history. “Doing the research makes history come alive!” he exclaimed. She smiled at him. If only he knew!

  Getting Sophie’s journal translated seemed to be a problem at first. She couldn’t ask her mom, who, being a French teacher, could easily translate it. She would have too many questions about where it had come from.

  But then Ruthie remembered something useful. When she finally got around to telling her father about the book Mrs. McVittie had brought for him to look at, it dawned on her: Mrs. McVittie spoke French. She was just the person they needed. Ruthie and Jack immediately planned a visit to her shop on Sunday.

  The last and most important job would have to wait until Monday. Luckily, this being February, Monday was Presidents’ Day, a school holiday. They decided that would be the day to get the album back to Mr. Bell. Just how they would present it to him they weren’t sure. They talked about bringing it first to his daughter, Caroline Bell. But that idea seemed a little risky to them. After all, they’d never met her and couldn’t predict what her reaction would be.