“Thank you.” The director stood and ushered the cellist toward the door. “Feel free to reach out if you need anything, and I’ll be happy to connect you with Miss Julia and the girls. And now, I believe it’s almost time for that concert of yours. I think I’ll come down to hear you play.”
“But what about the robbery?” Maddie asked.
The director waited until the cellist was out of the office and then gave Maddie his not-so-patient smile. “If there was a robbery in this museum, you can rest assured I’d be the first to hear about it.”
“But—”
The director talked right over Maddie. “And if you think you see a crime, the best thing to do is to tell a security guard or a bobby about it. What if he’d been a real thief? What would you have done if you’d caught him?” the director asked.
“Pinned him to the ground and called for help!” Lulu announced.
Miss Julia shot her a warning look. “We’ll be more careful in the future, won’t we, girls?”
“Yes,” they each said in turn.
The word felt bitter in Maddie’s mouth. It wasn’t fair that no one was listening to her when she’d only been trying to help. She shouldn’t have been running—she knew that—but if she’d caught the thief, no one would be worried about the running, would they? They’d just be grateful she’d stopped the robbery. And of all the paintings, it had to be “Sun-Splattered Afternoon.” It was such a beautiful painting, one that stood out from all the rest. Now it might be lost forever. The thought made her stomach twist up in knots all over again.
“It’s time to go, girls. We should let the director get to the concert,” Miss Julia said. “Thank you again for your help, sir.”
“Anytime,” he said. “It looks to me like the girls have learned their lesson.”
“We have,” Mia said, and elbowed Maddie.
Maddie nodded but didn’t say anything. She knew the moment she opened her mouth, she’d start explaining herself all over again. No matter how much she said, it was clear no one would listen to her about the thief. If she wanted to stop him, it appeared she was on her own.
FOURTEEN
Just as they reentered the main hall, the conductor clicked his baton against the music stand, and the musicians all played a few notes to ensure they were in tune. Maddie listened for the cello—would it be off-key?
“Cello sounds fine to me,” Mia said.
“I hope it is,” Maddie said. “I feel awful about knocking it over. I never would have done that on purpose.”
“In my opinion, she kind of overreacted,” Mia said. “She could have been a little more understanding.”
“I don’t understand why no one knows about the painting yet. I mean, there’s a gap on the wall where it used to hang. Anyone walking by would see that it’s missing, wouldn’t they?” Maddie asked.
Miss Julia guided them through the crowd and toward the front doors, away from the concert.
Mia’s face lit up. “I know! We should go look for ourselves. Maybe the man wasn’t a thief at all. If the painting is back on the wall, we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Do you think we could?” Maddie asked.
“Miss Julia, can we go upstairs and look at Maddie’s painting before we go?”
Miss Julia checked her watch. “With all of this running around, it’s already six o’clock. Your mom’s concert is in an hour. We need to get you back to the hotel and change clothes. And we need to eat dinner. I’m sure we’ll be late as it is.”
“Please, can’t we just go look? Quickly?” Mia asked. “Maddie is really worried.”
Miss Julia looked as though she was considering allowing them, but then she shook her head. “Girls, like the director said, this isn’t your problem to solve. If a painting is truly missing, we need to let the museum deal with the situation. Anyway, I’m pretty sure there are alarms and other ways for the staff to know if a painting goes missing. You must have misunderstood what you saw.”
Mia put an arm around Maddie and gave her a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry, Maddie. I tried.”
“Can I have a bologna sandwich for dinner?” Lulu asked, bouncing up and down on her toes.
“We’ll see what’s on the room service menu,” Miss Julia said.
Maddie dragged her feet the whole way out of the museum. Down the steps they went, and out into the wind-blown square. Flags snapped overhead.
A swift blast of wind caught Miss Julia’s hat and blew it halfway into the square. They chased after it as it skittered along just out of reach.
“Wow, this wind!” Miss Julia said, after she’d jammed the hat back onto her head.
“Come on, Maddie, don’t be upset.” Mia gave Maddie another concerned look. “The cello will be fine.”
Maddie opened her mouth to argue that the cello wasn’t the point, the painting was, when something caught her eye. Rather, someone.
She squinted, her heartbeat speeding up. “I think . . .”
“What?” Mia asked.
“The thief! He was wearing a brown jacket with elbow patches, and he had gray streaks in his hair near his ears. And he wore glasses, the kind with the thin rims, right?”
“Yes . . .” Mia said.
“Well, I think that’s him!” Maddie said, pointing. “And he has a package under his arm. A package the size of a painting. Look, Mia!”
Mia stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over people’s heads. “I don’t see him.”
“Over there, just past the lion, leaving the square.” Maddie was practically shouting now, willing Mia to see what she was seeing.
“I don’t—” Mia began.
Maddie took off running, not waiting to hear the rest.
“Maddie Glimmer!” Miss Julia shouted, using the kind of voice that makes a person stop in her tracks.
Maddie stopped, but only after battling with herself about whether she should. She’d lost sight of the man. And even if she did spot him, like the director said, what would she do if she caught him, anyway?
Miss Julia took Maddie’s hand with a firm grip. “Maddie, you know better than to run off. You all do. I realize you’re excited, but I need for you—all of you—to make better choices.”
“Did I make good choices today?” Lulu asked.
“Mostly,” Miss Julia said, raising a stern eyebrow before relenting and breaking into a smile.
“If there had been a thief, I bet we could have caught him,” Lulu said. “Remember how fast I ran across the square today?”
“Fast or slow, there will be no more running today,” Miss Julia said. “We’ve had our fair share of running.”
“Do you think the cellist will make the director call Mom?” Mia’s voice was laced with worry.
“I think after she cools down, and especially if it turns out that her cello is okay, she’ll let it go.”
“Her cello sounded fine to me,” Mia said.
“To me too,” Miss Julia answered. “It’s not doing us any good to worry.”
“I don’t think we should worry about the painting, either,” Mia said. “I mean, don’t you think the museum director would know if a painting vanished off the wall?”
“But I just saw the thief walking away with a painting,” Maddie insisted.
“We don’t know he’s a thief,” Mia said.
“We saw him,” Maddie said. “You know we did.”
“I’m just saying we shouldn’t worry. Miss Julia is right. Nothing seems to be wrong at the museum.”
“Everything is wrong.” Tears pricked at the corners of Maddie’s eyes.
“You know what?” Miss Julia said. “I think we need a breather. Let’s hail a cab and get some dinner into all of those hungry stomachs. And try not to be any later for the concert than we already are, okay?”
“Okay,” Mia said.
“We’re sorry, Miss Julia,” Lulu said, taking Miss Julia’s hand.
Maddie couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all, not during the walk or the cab rid
e, not while they put on their concert dresses, not even while they ate dinner—her favorite, mac and cheese.
Miss Julia snapped a couple pictures of their concert outfits for the travelogue. Then they were off again, on their way to the concert hall.
FIFTEEN
Now, go in quietly, girls,” Miss Julia warned, holding the door open.
Of course, at that moment, Mom had just walked up to the microphone to start a new song. The crowd had fallen silent.
Into the silence, Lulu shouted, “Hi, Mommy!”
Mom looked over at the girls—actually, everyone in the entire hall looked their way. Maddie cringed, feeling all those eyes focusing in on them. Behind her, she felt Miss Julia tensing up too.
“Glad you could join us,” Mom said, smiling wide.
Maddie let out the breath she was holding and smiled back.
“Come on up here to your spot, girls,” Mom said, waving them to the front.
Lulu led the way, waving to the crowd as she went. Maddie stuck close to Mia, relieved to have her sister right there by her side. Sometimes, Maddie wondered how Mom could stand it, being up on stage with all those people—strangers, most of them—watching her perform for hours. Maddie occasionally liked putting on a costume and acting, but that was different. That wasn’t being yourself up on stage. When Maddie had to play concert recitals, her hands would shake like leaves in a windstorm while she sat in the audience waiting for her turn. Each time she’d be convinced she’d never be able to play. In the end, she’d calm down as soon as she put her fingers on the keys. But the walk up to the stage, out there in front of everyone, was very, very hard for her. This walk down the aisle wasn’t quite so bad. Soon, they were in their usual spot, up close to the stage where they could almost reach out and touch Mom.
Mom nodded at Dad, who began to play, and the rest of the band joined in. “We’re not here for me,” Mom said, and then pointed to her band, “We’re not here for them, either. We’re here to give glory to God.”
Maddie closed her eyes as Mom began to sing, letting the music and the words wrap around her, warm and soft and secure. She felt a tug on her arm.
“Maddie, someone over there is crying,” Lulu whispered.
Maddie looked over and saw it was true. In fact, a couple people were blinking away tears. One woman, though, had tears streaming down her face.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Lulu asked.
Mia put an arm around Lulu and said, “Mom always has such a way of reaching people with her music.”
Lulu shook her head. “But I don’t like it when they cry.”
“Those aren’t sad tears,” Maddie said. “Remember when Mom cried when she sang us our song for the first time, when she was tucking us into bed? Hearing that song and watching her made me cry a little too.”
The song rose to its climax, and then Mom sang a few more pieces. Finally, it was time for “When I Leave the Room,” the song Mom had written just for them.
“I wrote this song for my little girls,” Mom said. “It talks about all the wonderful, difficult, sorrowful parts of life, how God gives us people to hold and say I love you to, and people who say it back to us.”
By the time the final notes played, Maddie’s eyes had filled with tears, the way they always did when Mom sang this song. It didn’t matter how many times Maddie heard it. She blinked hard and fast.
“Now, girls,” Mom said, “it’s time for you to go to the hotel, put on your pjs, and brush your teeth. I have just a few more songs to sing, but I’ll see you in time to tuck you in.”
This was the way it happened every time they came to listen. Maddie loved the tradition of it, the way she could count on Mom to say just these words the exact moment Lulu’s eyes started to droop. Now, they’d go home and curl up under the covers of the big bed that she and Mia were sharing and read, and talk with Miss Julia about their day. Soon, Mom and Dad would be home. Everyone would pile into the same bed and Dad would tell them a story. She could tell her parents about what had happened, about the thief, and about what she suspected. They would help her know what she should do, and then, maybe everything that had gone wrong today would finally be okay.
SIXTEEN
Maddie snuggled into the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin. The mattress felt soft enough to swallow her whole—she almost wished it could. She wanted today to be done so she could start over tomorrow. Even Mia had decided they hadn’t seen a robbery, in spite of the fact that they absolutely, definitely saw one with their own eyes. Why had Mia changed her mind? The unfairness of it made Maddie want to throw pillows across the room.
“Let’s add notes to our travelogue,” Lulu said.
Miss Julia scrolled through pictures on her phone, from the bus to the lions to the gallery, to their dresses and the picture of the three of them posed outside the concert hall. They had stopped to take that one even though they were late. Lulu had insisted. Mia and Lulu chattered about perfect captions for each picture, and Miss Julia typed them in.
“We should take some photos of Maddie’s sketches to add to the travelogue,” Mia said, clearly trying to draw her into the project.
Maddie tried to smile, even though she was pretty sure she wasn’t convincing anyone. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Mom and Dad’s voices drifted through the doorway. Soon they were in the room, full of energy the way they always were after a concert. Mom kicked off her stage heels. Mia and Lulu burst out, talking over each other.
“You’ll never believe what happened today,” Mia said.
“We saw a robbery!” Lulu stood up and bounced on the bed, singing what had become her theme song. “Glimmer girls to the rescue!”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down.” Mom caught Lulu and cuddled into bed with the girls. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
“Good night, all,” Miss Julia said, heading for the door. “I’ll let the girls tell you about today, Gloria, but if you want to talk about it later, I’m all yours.”
“Thanks, Julia. See you in a bit.”
Lulu bounced while Dad joined them and everyone settled deeper into the bed.
“Okay, tell me,” Mom said to Lulu.
“Maddie found this painting that she loved so much she wanted to look at it twice, but when we went back to look at it the second time, we saw someone steal it,” Lulu said.
“We don’t know he was stealing it for sure,” Mia pointed out.
“And then Maddie ran after him and we ran after her and we all crashed into an orchestra,” Lulu added.
“He was stealing the painting,” Maddie insisted, more quietly than her sisters.
“I don’t understand,” Mom said. “Are you girls joking? You saw someone steal a painting?”
“I haven’t heard any news about a stolen painting,” Dad said.
“And you really knocked into an orchestra? Is everyone all right?” Mom said.
“Well, the cellist thinks her cello might not be all right, but no one could see any dents,” Mia said.
“You knocked over a cello?” Mom asked, looking at each girl in turn. “You know how expensive and special instruments are, girls.”
“And you know better than to be running in a museum,” Dad added.
“But we saw a thief!” Maddie’s cheeks burned. “No one listened to us about him. After we met with the museum director and Miss Julia gave him our information in case the cello was hurt, we left the museum and I saw him again—the thief. He was walking away with the painting, right down the street, and no one believed me.”
“I know you saw someone who looked like a thief.” Mia used air quotes around the last word, making Maddie’s cheeks burn even hotter. “It’s just that he couldn’t have been an actual thief. Like I’ve been saying, there would have been alarms or something.”
“The museum director wasn’t worried,” Lulu piped up.
“People don’t just take paintings off the walls in museums and walk down the street with them,” Maddie said. “
Not as part of their ordinary job. He had to have been a thief.”
“He was really far away, Maddie,” Mia said. “Maybe he was someone else entirely. And how do you know the exact size of the package he was carrying? Could you really tell from so far away? Plus, it was windy, and it was hard to see anything with all the coats whipping and dust blowing around. Maybe it was just a trick of your eyes.”
“It was pretty windy,” Lulu said.
“See, Maddie? It’s like that bobby told us yesterday. The first thing to do when you think you see a crime is to consider all the possibilities. What makes the most sense is that we saw something that looked like a robbery, but wasn’t, since no one freaked out.”
The longer Mia talked, the more Maddie’s eyes filled with tears. She tried to blink them back, but they started running down her cheeks.
Mom looked from Maddie to Mia and back to Maddie again.
“Why’s Maddie crying?” Lulu asked.
“You know what,” Dad said. “I was thinking I’d tell you all a story.”
“Great idea, Dad,” Mom said. “Why don’t you tell Mia and Lulu a story? Maddie and I will be right back.”
Maddie climbed over Lulu and followed Mom out of the room, silently wiping the tears away. She knew she shouldn’t be arguing with her sisters, but no one was listening to her or taking her seriously. Plus, she felt responsible for the painting, responsible for helping it find its way back to the purple room wall, where it should be. Even though she knew she might be overreacting, she couldn’t stop herself.
“Come on over and sit down, Maddie,” Mom said gently.
SEVENTEEN
Mom moved pillows on the couch to make a little nest for them and then found a box of tissues. Maddie took one and pressed it against one eye and then the other, soaking up her tears. Mom pulled her close.
“Now, what’s all this, sweet girl?” Mom asked.
“No one will listen to me,” Maddie said. “I want to talk about how important this is and no one is taking me seriously.”
London Art Chase Page 6
