by Nydam, Anne
He crossed back to the door of the room, opened it, and walked through. But the scene on the other side was not the Department of Prints and Rare Books. It was a walled corner of the garden he had seen through the window. He turned around again and went back through. Still no office. He was in the stone room again, just as you might expect would happen when going in and out through a door. His heart gave another lurch.
“Okay,” he told himself, breathing deeply, “Don’t panic. The magic isn’t in the door here in… wherever I am; it’s in the book, right? So I have to go back through the book.”
He felt safer with the stone room’s thick wooden door shut behind him, but he went to stand below the window where the light was a little better.
The magic key was still in his hand, and he opened the book and flipped through the pages. Every page was a door, but which one would return him to the Museum of Art? Not one of the woodcut illustrations resembled a modern office door, but three or four looked as if they wouldn’t be out of place in the oldest wing of the museum. After some indecision, he picked one with a triangular neoclassical pediment that looked promising, fitted the key into the hole in the page, and turned.
Once again he felt the dizzy sensation of looking at the open book and seeing, instead, his hands on a full-sized doorway. He stepped just over the threshold into a large parlor that looked as if it belonged in a palace; there was a fancy gold sculpture on the wide inlaid side table in front of him. But the Cleveland Museum of Art had no furnished period rooms like this.
Chen had time only for a glimpse of damask-upholstered sofas below heavy gilt-framed paintings, when a nearby voice startled him. It was a woman’s voice speaking French, and it was accompanied by the murmur of other voices and the shuffling of many feet. Then the woman came into view, walking backwards and still talking to the crowd just out of sight.
Flustered, Chen frantically jumped back through the door, flattened the page, and fumbled the key from the hole. Not until the book was firmly shut did he let out his breath. But he was still in the dim stone room in the strange garden, and he still had not found the way back to his parents’ office.
He stretched up and glanced out the window again. No sign of anyone else here, at least. But eventually he’d have to go in search of food, or a bathroom, or a telephone to call home. And if the woman behind that other door was speaking French, that meant he could be anywhere in the world right now. Suddenly the long shadows of the shrubs made sense; he must be in a time zone far from Cleveland’s. What if he was in Singapore or Albania or Djibouti - somewhere where he couldn’t even ask his way to the police station?
“Dónde está el baño,” he thought, frantically trying to remember useful foreign phrases.
And then a truly awful thought struck him.
“What if there is no way back? If each page goes only to the door that’s pictured, and there don’t happen to be any pictures of doors in Cleveland, maybe you just can’t get there from here. Maybe the doors are one way only!”
But that gave him an idea. Perhaps the pages did go in both directions, and if that were the case he could return through the same picture he’d come through. It was worth a try. There was only one problem: he couldn’t remember which page had brought him here. He hadn’t really been paying attention to the picture at the time, having simply opened the book at random and stuck in the key. Still, he thought the page had been about a third of the way into the book, so he cautiously opened the cover again and began to flip pages.
When he found a rustic wooden door with a stone frame that seemed likely, he fit the key into the hole, turned it, closed his eyes, and lifted the page the merest fraction of an inch.
Then he opened his eyes and peered through the crack of the door that stood before him.
He leapt back as a blue Vespa motor scooter whizzed past just a foot in front of him, careening down the grimy alley beyond the door as two voices around the corner shouted angrily at each other in Italian. The book fell from Chen’s hands as he stumbled backwards, heart thumping, and he scrambled to seize the book and pull the key from the keyhole so he could slam the covers shut. The reek of motor exhaust mingled now with the mossy smell of the garden room.
“Well, I guess that wasn’t the one,” he muttered to himself, “So how am I supposed to remember the right page?”
He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to picture it, but it was no use. He just couldn’t remember the details, and there must be at least half a dozen pages in the book showing variations of similar stone pillars and pediments. The beginnings of panic weren’t helping his memory, either.
Perhaps he should just start at the beginning of the book and try every page in turn? But that was taking a big risk, too, because he was by now convinced that the doorways might open out anywhere. And eventually something was bound to go horribly wrong. Someone was sure to see him appear, and what if they caught him and pulled him through a doorway? Or came in after him and ended up here – wherever here was? Or grabbed his book away from him? No, he definitely needed to find the specific door he’d come through. He only hoped that when he found it, it would return him to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
One more time Chen stretched up on his toes and peered through the window. He saw no one. Crossing quickly to the door, he opened it a crack and peeked out. Still no one, although now Chen thought he heard a dog barking in the distance. There was no time to waste.
He stepped out the door and turned to look at it closely for the first time: the rough shaping of the stone frame, the scrolled wrought iron grille over the wooden door, the general appearance of great age and much weathering. Then he opened the book and began to flip pages, quickly comparing each picture with the door in front of him.
There was still no match when he heard the dog again, closer now, and a voice presumably calling to the dog, although he couldn’t make out the words. He flipped faster.
There, was that it? No, the decorative grille wasn’t right. This one? No, still not quite. Chen loved dogs, but now he imagined he knew how a dog-loving criminal must feel with the bloodhounds closing in. Now was not a good time for a dog.
But wait - here! Yes, this was definitely a picture of the doorway he was looking at right now. He began to let out a breath of relief, and then nearly jumped out of his skin as the large white dog bounded up and let forth a gleeful bark right behind him. He wrenched open the door of the stone room and threw himself in, slamming the door behind him.
On the other side of the door the dog was barking madly, and a man’s voice called, “Alette! Alette!” But Chen was frantically shoving the key into the hole in the book. He turned the key, he lifted the page, he saw beyond the doorway a bright office with tables and cupboards. Behind him the rusty doorknob of the real door rattled, and he jumped through the page of the book as fast as he could go.
The barking shut off abruptly as the covers of the book closed, and Chen finally let out a huge sigh of relief. Now that he was safe he could for the first time actually think about what had just happened. He had just stepped through a magic doorway between the pages of a magic Book, which was clearly impossible. He had just travelled in an instant to some other place, and peeked from there through other doorways into yet other places beyond, which was clearly impossible. He had just been barked at in another language by a dog in another country, which was clearly impossible.
He shook his head in confusion. There must be a logical explanation. Maybe it had all been a dream? Chen looked at his watch and saw that about twenty minutes had passed since his parents had left the office. Another idea struck him and he glanced at the clock on the wall, but it told him the same thing. So time, apparently, wasn’t doing anything wacky even if space was. And besides, he realized with a jolt, the key was still in his hand. He hadn’t dreamt this or merely imagined it. The real, solid key he held had once been printed on the cover of an antique book. Which was clearly impossible.
It occurred to Chen now that, magic
or not, if he couldn’t return the key to the Book’s cover his parents would definitely have something to say about it – something he didn’t want to have to listen to.
Not knowing what else to do, Chen held the Book with the spine facing up, and laid the key in place. Nothing happened. He pushed at it as if to make the metal sink into the leather, and still nothing happened. Then he remembered that the key had been facing the other way, so he flipped it and tried again, setting it in place on the spine. He thought he saw it flicker for a moment, but when he blinked there it still was, lying solid and unattached to the Book.
Still, he had definitely seen something, and, encouraged by the flicker like an optical illusion, he began to slide the key very gently to and fro, up and down on the leather. Again he saw that odd shimmer as if the key were shifting in and out of reality. He closed his eyes and focused all his concentration on the feel of the key, trying to find the spot where it would slide perfectly into the one place that would fit it. Sure enough, after a few moments he felt the metal shaft slip into nothingness beneath his fingers, and when he opened his eyes, there was no longer a key. There was only the worn leather cover of a book with an image of a key stamped in gold on the spine.
So now everything was back as it had been when his parents left for their meeting, and all evidence of magical adventure was gone. Chen sat with a plain old book in the plain modern office where his parents worked, with the ordinary sunshine coming through the ordinary windows. But all the same, Chen was quite sure that an Important Thing had just occurred.
III. Through a Screen Door
At Goggin Antiques, Appraisals, and Auctioneers, Miranda Goggin was very busy. The delivery was unloaded and the truck had driven away, and now the unloading room was full of things that needed to be sorted, arranged, taken stock of, and eventually appraised and auctioned off.
Ms Goggin, an immaculate woman with a well-made-up face and perfectly styled honey-colored hair, stood in the middle of the room with a clipboard in her hand and two people following along behind her as she inspected the new arrivals. The first of these people was Mr Raphael Green, a tall man with lines beginning to show on his warm, dark face, and increasing grey peppered through his short black hair. He was dressed in a dusty coverall and worn work boots, and might have made a startling contrast to Ms Goggin in her immaculate black suit and high-heeled shoes, except that both of them had exactly the same straight, brisk posture and exactly the same gleam of enthusiasm in their eyes. It was the third figure who offered the greatest contrast. Polly Goggin was trailing along behind the other two, scuffing her canvas sneakers against the concrete floor and humming a tuneless little tune under her breath as she poked at drawers and peered into boxes.
“Look, Mom, Raphael, did you see this bronze? Who do you think will win the fight, the lion or the… what is that thing, a bull or a bison or something?”
Ms Goggin, busily writing notes on her clipboard, didn’t answer her daughter, but the man said, “That’s a Cape buffalo, babe. They’re pretty dangerous, I think. That’s a fight that could go either way.”
“Hm. Why would anyone want to look at a couple of wild animals murdering each other on the mantelpiece every day?”
Raphael smiled, but Miranda Goggin glanced over and said impatiently, “It’s about the beauty of the sculpting, Polly. You admire the skill with which the artist modeled the muscles, and he wouldn’t have been able to show off the grace and power of all those straining muscles if the animals were just sitting there. Sometimes it takes a violent scene to show off something’s true beauty.” She turned back to her clipboard and her voice quickened as she said, “Raphael, bring this end table to the back office, please. I’m pretty sure it’s a genuine Tufft piece, and if it is it’ll be big.”
“Sure, Miranda.” The man gently lifted the small wooden table and carried it off across the unloading room, adding, “Should bring us some good attention.”
Polly, still gazing at the bronze sculpture, shook her head and muttered under her breath, “Because nothing says true beauty like a dead buffalo. Unless maybe it’ll be a dead lion. I guess we’ll never know.” She moved on, and lifted the lid of a white plastic box and peered inside. It looked like books and papers, with lots of white tissue paper between things.
Ms Goggin said, “That must be the Franklin collection. That should go in the back office to be looked at properly.”
“Franklin collection?” repeated Polly, turning over the top layer of antique-looking printed pamphlets. “As in Benjamin Franklin?”
“That’s right. Rutherford J. Hinkelman collected items connected with Franklin. This is one of the largest private collections of Franklinia in the world, and I’m expecting to get some of the major museums and libraries bidding. This whole Hinkelman estate is the most important commission we’ve ever gotten. Raphael, those boxes can go to the office, too.”
Raphael, coming back across the floor, nodded.
Polly said, “I can carry this one, Mom. Can I sit in the office and unpack it?”
“Okay, but carefully, Polly. Some of those things should be worth a lot. I want everything laid out neatly on the big white table so we can see what we’ve got, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.” Polly hoisted the box while Raphael lifted another.
“Anything look interesting?” he asked as they crossed to the door at the far end of the room.
“I dunno. But it’s pretty cool to have Benjamin Franklin’s stuff. Maybe his kite with the key on it is in here or something. Or maybe something about his mouse, Amos. You remember that book Ben and Me?”
“Sorry, babe, I don’t think I ever read that one. I’m afraid the only thing I read much of as a kid was comic books. Here, let’s put these right here. I’ll be back with the rest.”
Polly perched on the table next to her box, her feet on the seat of the chair. Opening the lid again, she pulled out the pamphlets. They were entitled Poor Richard’s Almanack. Next came a sheaf of letters addressed to “Ben.” She didn’t recognize the name of the writer, and wondered whether he were some important Revolutionary War hero she didn’t know enough to know.
On the whole, the contents of the box were rather disappointing: just a lot of papers. There was no kite, and the only key was part of the cover decoration on one of the old books. The key was stamped in gold leaf on the spine of a book called Extraordinaire livre portes.
Polly remembered from Ben and Me that Franklin had spent a lot of time in France, and she supposed this book must be French. Had Rutherford J. Hinkelman collected this random French book merely because Benjamin Franklin had once owned it? Polly opened the cover and was pleased to find the name B Franklin written across the inside of the front cover in dull ink. It gave her a funny feeling to consider that someone so famous, and so long-ago-dead, had actually written his name right here, in this very book she was holding right now.
The words on the title page were surrounded by a fancy border, at the bottom of which was an image of the same key that was printed on the spine. But the words were in French and Polly turned to the next page. This was all text, and although Polly couldn’t read it, she could see that it was written in the form of a letter. A dedication, perhaps. She flipped past it, and here came upon something much more interesting. The left-hand page was unprinted, but someone had written all down it in dull ink in English. The right-hand page was entirely taken up with a black and white woodcut illustration of a single elaborate doorway.
The handwriting was difficult to read, but Polly had seen enough antique documents to know that a lot of what looked like f’s were really s’s. She made out something about “The greatest work of an innovator in his field” and “fitting guide to the secret” and “Fund for the Advancement of” blah blah blah. She shrugged and turned the next page, which showed her another elaborate door.
Raphael came in with another box, but Polly hardly noticed. The more she looked at the picture of the doorway, the funnier she felt. She felt almost a sort
of tingle, just as she had when she’d discovered the hidden compartment on that grandfather clock. She had the strangest feeling that if she opened this door there would be a secret compartment behind it.
Maybe this was one of those trick books people used for hiding valuables, she thought. She turned the page, half convinced that behind it would be a hollow space, but instead she found another picture of another door, this one with an arched top and elaborate grillwork. Indeed, as she flipped through the rest of the pages she saw that the book consisted entirely of pictures of doors. Written on the back of some of the pictures was a word or sentence in the handwriting that Polly was beginning to recognize as that of Benjamin Franklin. They looked like names or descriptions of some sort, but they meant nothing to Polly.
The first dozen or so doors were all quite monumental, with pillars and pediments fit for castles or palaces, but the doorways later in the book had a wider variety of styles, and quite near the end Polly found one that caught her eye. It was an old-fashioned screen door, like the kind that might belong on a comfortable old farmhouse. It was the sort of door that seemed to go with lemonade and watermelon, and flowers growing by the porch. She stared at it for a while, then turned to the back of the page. There, written in pencil in a different handwriting, was the single name “Frances.”
Raphael came in again, saying, “Scoot over, babe. This is the last Franklin box.”
Polly closed the book of doors and scooted to the wall, pulling her plastic bin up closer beside her.
“Good book?” Raphael asked as he set his box down in the space she’d made.
“Kind of strange,” Polly replied, “It’s just an entire book of nothing but pictures of fancy doors. I wonder why Benjamin Franklin would have it.”
