by Shae Hutto
Claire held his hand as she selected the lobby button.
“Here,” said Amanda as she handed the Queen’s gaudy golden crown to a surprised Roger. “Hold on to this for me, would you?” Her expression was daring him to say something about it. He took it without comment and put it in his bag.
They started rehearsing their stories as they resigned themselves to the normalcy that was setting about them like cement. The tale they decided to go with was that they had taken refuge in the basement of the library during the ‘terrorist attack’ and had been afraid to come out. They had fallen asleep and had been locked in and had no cell phone service down there. Stan seemed willing to not blow their story. Who would believe him, anyway? He called Paul, who agreed to come get him after some understandable reluctance.
Their story still seemed flimsy, especially because they couldn’t easily explain Nick’s presence. At least he had some spare clothes in his backpack and was able to change out of his midshipman uniform. Despite the threadbare story, Claire knew that people would believe just about anything if they wanted to badly enough. Look at how an attack by a massive dragon, visible to countless people, had morphed into something less fantastic; evil, but more believable in a world where elevators go to the same place as the stairs. Claire had to assume there were numerous cell phone videos of the incident and wasn’t sure how that could be covered up, but she was certain some explanation would be dreamed up by rational minds incapable of accepting the reality of a fire-breathing dragon.
To help distract adults from their flimsy story, they had wounds. Amanda was having a difficult time standing up straight with what she figured was at least two broken ribs and she still had bruises all over. Breathing was a little painful, but she didn’t think she had a punctured lung or anything. Her hunched posture and angry expression of pain made her look a little threatening. Nick’s bloody gash on his chest and the purple knot on his forehead from where the flat of the halberd had hit him were sufficiently alarming on their own to forestall most questions. Claire hade gotten off relatively easy this time, but she didn’t know how she was going to explain one red eye to go with the other purple one.
Amanda and Claire changed into their school clothes, filthy and damaged as they were. They were much easier to explain than an antique red silk dress and a blue and orange riding outfit. To make their story hang together better, they kicked in the door to the basement. Claire made a quick trip into the museum side of the building and when she came back, she grabbed Roger and kissed him in a weird mix of sadness and love and a desperate need to feel that something good had come from their recent experiences. He kissed her back and they shared a melancholy of the soul that was at least better than feeling it alone. Everyone understood that things had changed; Roger and Claire most keenly. No words were needed. Even Amanda curbed her normally wicked sense of humor and kept her jokes to herself. Emotions slowly morphed into anticipation of familiar and happy surroundings when Claire and Amanda made the necessary phone calls.
The gang dispersed with promises to meet again soon. Teary, joy-filled parents were called, their story told and children hauled home. Claire gave both her parents joyous embraces and found herself stumbling over her prepared statements in her haste to get them all out in a rush. Nick clung to his mother longer than Claire expected him to. With every second, his sophistication seemed to slip further and further away, discarded like the abiding darkness that he had eluded. He didn’t add much to the story; just nodded along with Claire except when he claimed to have ridden a school bus to the library just like every day, but had to run a couple of blocks when the bus was stopped at the police cordon. They didn’t even let him finish his story, his mother was holding him so possessively. Claire could almost see the doors slamming in his mind as he rejected the life of adventure that had been so painful for him. Claire supposed it was only fair that the kid should get to be a kid for a little longer; even if it meant relearning fractions.
Claire was surprised to see Amanda be almost as emotional with her family as Nick was with theirs. Amanda had never seemed like an overly loveable person, even before her involvement with the elevator. Despite this, she hugged her parents and her two younger sisters with what looked like sincere affection. She even held the little girls’ hands as they told about their (fake) adventures evading terrorists in a stolen school bus and hiding in the basement. Amanda’s contributions seemed forced. The adults all decided that the police should be called to notify them the missing children had been found, but to avoid having them show up if possible. It seemed anticlimactic as Amanda and her family headed off to their mini-van in the deserted and damaged parking lot. Amanda perked up enough to glance back at Claire and give her a conspiratorial wink. Claire smiled back and showed a thumbs up. Despite this interplay, Claire noticed that Amanda seemed even more subdued and less engaged than the rest of them. It was like she had come down from a peak level of performance that she just couldn’t maintain and was operating at a much lower level, physically and emotionally. Claire thought she looked depressed.
After Claire left with her family, Roger came out of the bathroom with Weenie and walked a couple of miles across town and used Claire’s key to her uncle’s apartment to let himself in. Clark wouldn’t mind. Roger found himself smiling in spite of the lonely, musty apartment. Things could be worse. He wasn’t shot this time, he was probably going to be rich, and he just might be in love. And of course, he had Weenie. Weenie went with Roger because he gave out better treats. Roger thought he needed to get one of those cell phone thingies, as he closed the door to the apartment and found out when he tried to switch on the lights that Clark hadn’t paid his electric bill.
“Bloody wonderful,” he said.
“Woof,” agreed Weenie.
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In a darkened room of the museum located on the same floor as the lobby to the library, sat a lonely, dusty glass case next to a mannequin wearing a very authentic British naval uniform from the Napoleonic Era. Hand prints in the dust on the glass case showed clearly where someone had recently opened the lid. The lock showed no sign of the magic that had prized it open. Inside was an assortment of old musical instruments, including an exquisite saxophone that looked like it was made of solid gold. The tarnished silver flute, the ragged old electric guitar and the worn and faded trumpet all had labels identifying precisely which semi-famous musician had owned it at one time. The sax did not. Traumatic events had left a few dents and dings in the bell and one key was missing its bone inlay, but it was still a gorgeous instrument. It wasn’t glowing any more, but if you looked at it hard enough, you knew it was waiting. Waiting for what? For someone to play it, of course.
