by Nydam, Anne
“Then the thief must have stolen the Wreath Book from the back office while we were in St Andrews, right?”
“I guess. What does it matter? We’re doomed!”
“You can never be sure. What else can we figure out?”
Polly’s irrational calmness made Chen feel even more panicky. Apparently he was about to die in the company of a girl who was clearly just as crazy as his murderer. “How can we figure out anything?” he squeaked, “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re handcuffed to torture devices in the secret lair of an evil, portal-travelling, strangely nondescript magician-thief!”
Polly raised her eyebrows at him. “Well, Chen, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re right next to the table. Why not at least have a look at this magician-thief’s stuff? Maybe it will tell us something to help us escape.”
“Fine,” Chen replied, not trusting himself to say anything else. He twisted toward the table, one arm stretched out, chained to the lady-sawing device. With his other arm stretched out he could just reach the table and grab a handful of papers.
After a deep breath to steady his voice he reported, “Okay, let’s see… His name is Ammon Blank. At least that’s who these envelopes are addressed to. It looks like he’s planning to compete in a sort of tournament for magicians, which is to be held on September 10th in Las Vegas. He’s billed as The Amazing Ammon, Master of Arcane Mysteries.”
“The Extraordinary Book of Doors is an arcane mystery, all right,” Polly commented, “I guess that’s why he stole it in the first place: to help him do a real magic trick for that tournament. I wonder whether any of the other magic there is real.” She was fiddling with the handcuff around her wrist as she spoke.
“Like she’s going to manage to pick the lock,” Chen thought exasperatedly. “Pointless optimism at a time like this is just plain stupid!” He shuffled one-handedly through more of Mr Blank’s papers, adding to himself, “Like any of this stupid stuff is going to help us, either. Who cares about some magic show in September? It’s not like we’ll be around by then. We’re definitely doomed.”
There was a faint click, and Chen looked over his shoulder to see the handcuff dropping from Polly’s wrist.
“You seriously just picked that lock? Are you kidding me? How did you do that?”
“Of course I didn’t pick it,” Polly replied calmly, “They’re trick handcuffs. Probably designed for some sort of Houdini escape illusion. Here, let me get yours.” After a quick examination, she found the catch on Chen’s handcuff and he was unlocked, too, rubbing his wrist in a daze.
Polly turned to the table and glanced over the papers quickly. “Look, here are some photographs of the Benjamin Franklin clues from my Book,” she remarked. “He must have taken those pictures when he came to the back office over the weekend. So I was right that he was there.”
“Who cares? We’ve got to get out of here before that diabolical maniac comes back to finish us off!” Chen whispered, looking around wildly.
“Well, there is a fire escape leading down from the window,” Polly said, “We could climb out the window and get down that way.”
Chen rushed to the window hopefully, but right away saw several more ways in which they were doomed. “The window’s painted shut. We’d make so much noise opening it that he’d come in before we could get away. Even if we started down the fire escape, we probably wouldn’t get halfway before he was after us. And it’s one of those ones with a drop at the bottom, which would either slow us down even more if we tried to get the ladder down, or break our ankles if we tried to jump. There’s no way we’re sneaking out this way, and if we don’t sneak, we haven’t got a chance. Besides, we need our Books back, or we’ll never get back home.”
Polly nodded. “That seems plausible. So we need to be sneaky. If the fire escape is the first thing we thought of, it’s probably the first thing he’d think of, too; and if it’s the first thing he’d think of, then it’s the last thing we should really do.”
“That’s it!” Chen exclaimed. “If that’s what he expects, we’ll give him what he expects. I still think we’re doomed, of course - there are at least fifteen things that could go disastrously wrong, but… well, at least it’s a plan.”
Chen was hunched up uncomfortably, the metal floor of the box hard beneath his shoulder and no room to shift his hip or legs. Enclosed in the box the odd smell of furniture polish, burnt matches, and musty socks was even stronger. Or maybe it was just that he noticed it more when he was stuck here unable to do anything except wait helplessly. All he could see through the narrow slit in the metal was the corner of the table and the door of Mr Ammon Blank’s study. He heard Polly’s voice, but she was out of sight.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready,” he whispered back.
“Here goes!”
Chen heard a crash of breaking glass, followed by the simultaneous sounds of something clattering down the fire escape and Ammon Blank shouting angrily from the next room. The magician’s footsteps raced to the door, masking the stealthier sound of the hinged hatch opening on the back of another large metal box somewhere near Chen. A key rattled in the lock, then Chen saw the study door flung open and Mr Blank racing across to the window, swearing in fury.
More glass fell from the window onto the fire escape and down into the alley below, while Chen hardly dared to breathe, much less move to relieve the cramp in his thigh. Next he heard a grunt as Mr Blank climbed through the broken window to stand on the landing of the fire escape. Chen imagined he must be peering up and down the escape, left and right along the alley, hoping to catch a glimpse of the escaped children. Although the thief couldn’t have seen anything, after a moment his footsteps rattled down the stairs.
There was a screech of rusty metal which must be the sound of the last flight of the fire escape being lowered. When Chen heard Mr Blank climbing down that, he finally moved. Puffing awkwardly in the confined space, he managed to push up the metal sheet that covered his half of the box for sawing a lady in half. Now he could see Polly climbing out of the steel sword-trick coffin and coming over to help him pull up the metal plate.
“It’s a shame I had to throw that nice crystal ball down the fire escape,” Polly remarked as she helped Chen crawl out. “I feel terrible about breaking it.”
“Forget about the crystal ball! Let’s get out of here!” Chen urged as Polly paused at the table to grab a few of Ammon Blank’s papers. He rushed out of the study and into a larger room where he made a beeline to the two antique Books on the dining table.
“What about his copy of the Book?” asked Polly, as she buckled her hip pouch back around her waist, “We need to take that, too. And let’s find that rediscovered treasure thingy from the chapel, and figure out the fourth clue!”
But despite a frantic and hurried search, there was no sign of the third copy of The Extraordinary Book of Doors or of anything that looked like it might be a ceremonial church mace.
“They’re not here,” Chen said, “He must have put them somewhere safer. But we can’t take any more time. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Polly agreed reluctantly. “Open up your Book and let’s go.”
It was as he lifted the worn leather cover that Chen paused again, stricken. “Which door?” he asked. “Plate Thirty-two to the Wreath Book will either keep us right here, where your Book is, or send us back where we came from to St Salvator’s Chapel in the middle of a police investigation. And because we went through another door in between, Plate Ten to and from St Salvator’s will probably do the same thing!”
“So pick another door!”
Chen hesitated an instant longer, all the dangers of strange and unknown magical doorways returning to him. But the sound of a very real, solid door slamming down below galvanized him into action. Flinging his Book open at random, he jabbed his key into the keyhole and turned. In a moment he and Polly were through the intricately carved doorway and slamming the Dragon Book shut behind them.
The first thing they heard was the soft splashing of a fountain at the center of the small courtyard in which they now stood. All around them were arches covered with wooden screens carved into filigree, and the floor was tiled in a cool mosaic of blue and white.
“This is beautiful!” exclaimed Polly, “I wonder where we are!”
“Yeah,” Chen replied, “And I wonder what sort of trouble we’ll be in if we’re caught here. It looks like somewhere we aren’t supposed to be. Do you think we should try hiding in here? Or try going out through that door over there and see if we can find somewhere less conspicuous to hide?”
Polly shrugged. “We probably don’t have long before Mr Blank gets his copy of the Book and comes after us. Let’s call his the Ornate Book. All he’ll have to do is come through the page for either of our Books, and he’ll be here. We should keep moving.”
“Then what does it matter whether we move or not? It’s not like we can get ahead of him. No matter how many different places we go, he’ll always be able to come straight to us because the Books are directly connected. There’s got to be a way to keep him from coming straight to us all the time.”
Polly frowned, thinking hard. “How about if we overnight express mail the Wreath Book to my mom. Then when it arrives in Wellesley we’ll be able to get home through the portal from your Book.”
“A, we don’t have any money to pay for overnight express mail. B, what if Ammon Blank portaled to the Wreath Book while it was in the mail truck and stole it. C, while we waited for it to arrive in Wellesley, we’d still have Blank able to come straight through to us any time through the Dragon Book door. D, even if it all worked and we got to Wellesley, I still wouldn’t be able to get back to Cleveland Heights.”
“Okay, we can think of something else. What if we locked the Books in the trunk of a car in a big parking garage. If Mr Blank came through the portals he’d be surrounded by hundreds of cars. He’d have no way of knowing which one had the Books, and he wouldn’t be able to get at them anyway. And there’d be plenty of places for us to hide until he gave up looking.”
“Yeah,” Chen snapped, “Too bad I don’t have my car keys with me… Or my car… Or my parking garage…”
“At least I’m trying to come up with ideas instead of just shooting them all down.” Polly scowled for a moment before brightening up again. “Well, if we can’t think of any way to get home, why don’t we go ahead and check out Benjamin Franklin’s fifth clue. There’s nothing to be gained by avoiding it.”
She unfolded her sheet of graph paper, but Chen hesitated. He wasn’t sure there was anything to be gained by following the clues, either. They didn’t understand the second clue, the fourth clue had been stolen by Ammon Blank, and it seemed unlikely that following more clues was going to get them home, which was all he really wanted at this point. But on the other hand, what else were they going to do, wandering lost through a maze of magical doorways?
“Fine,” he said reluctantly, “Which door is it?”
Polly opened her Book to Plate VI. “This one. Let’s see where it takes us!” She put her key into the hole in the page and turned, but stood there, frowning at the space in front of her.
“What’s the matter?” Chen asked.
“The door won’t open. It’s like I can feel the portal right here under my hands, but I can’t get the door open. Like it’s wedged shut or something.”
“Did you unlock it properly?”
Polly jiggled the key in the Book, nodding her head. “I felt that click, and the tingle, you know what I mean? The door is here; it just won’t open.” She pulled the key back out and peered at it, puzzled. Then she flipped the page over, and smoothed it back to Plate VI again. “Wait a minute…” She held the book up to the warm, golden light in the courtyard. “Look at this picture. See how the paper’s kind of crumpled and torn here? Part of the door hinge has been rubbed away. Maybe the door can’t open because the hinge is broken.”
“My Book should have the same door six,” said Chen. “We can go through that instead.”
Polly nodded, but when Chen found Plate VI in his Book, he saw that the page looked much more worn than most of the other pages. “Strange,” he muttered, but he took his key from the pocket of his shorts and turned it in the lock. Just as before, he felt the click behind his eyes and felt the stone frame of the doorway beneath his hands. But although he tried to turn the page and open the door, it was clearly stuck. He removed his key and looked back at Polly.
“Well, I guess that’s that. We’re never going to be able to get all the clues and find this fund.”
“Yes we are,” Polly retorted, “Hang on.” She rummaged around in her hip pouch and pulled out a mechanical pencil. Kneeling down with the Wreath Book on the tiled floor in front of her, she very carefully drew in the damaged lines so that the torn hinge matched the other ones in the picture. She surveyed her work critically, darkened one of her lines carefully, and then grinned. “There. That ought to work. Let’s go!”
XII. Into the Fire
Polly fitted her key into the hole in Plate VI once again and turned. This time Chen could see the door opening before them, but as he stepped through, his breath was knocked out of him. He felt as if he were slammed backward by a tremendous force. All was a blur of whirling greyness. Then suddenly he found himself sitting on the ground, gasping and dizzy as if he had just been blown twenty feet by some silent invisible explosion. Polly sat next to him, her hair tousled as if she’d been in a hurricane.
They were sprawled on a dirty sidewalk in a city with tall grey buildings along the street. Cars were parked along the curb, and people hurrying past scowled at the children as they stepped around them. It was drizzling lightly. Chen staggered to his feet, ears ringing hollowly. His chest felt sore and he stretched cautiously before offering his hand to Polly to haul her up. They backed up against a black iron railing to get out of the way of the passers-by before looking around, dazed.
“What just happened?” Chen asked.
Polly shrugged, pushing her heavy bangs out of her eyes and smoothing down her paisley tank top. “It’s like we got thrown out of the building where the door should have taken us.”
“What’s the clue anyway?”
Polly looked it up and read out, “Describe the fruits on the chimneypiece to know the fifth of my name, for tho’ the clue is not easy, all that is worth having is worth such labor.”
“Well, that’s that then. We can’t solve the clue if we can’t get into the building to look at some fruit! So where should we go now?”
Polly didn’t answer. She kept looking back and forth between the clue and the street around them, as if she could will herself to see what Benjamin Franklin wanted her to see.
“Polly…”
“I’m not giving up!” she blurted fiercely, “Raphael needs this money!”
“Polly, it’s really nice of you to want to help him, but if we can’t find the clues then that’s all there is to it. And Raphael’s no worse off than he was before.”
“You don’t understand! If Raphael can’t get his degree my mom won’t make him a partner. And if she doesn’t make him a partner, he might leave! And if he leaves, then…” She turned away angrily.
Chen stood awkwardly, wondering what to do. Was Polly crying? Should he pretend nothing was wrong? Or should he say something comforting? And if so, what?
Luckily he was saved the decision because Polly suddenly gasped, “Holy cow, that’s him!”
“Ammon Blank? Where?” squawked Chen, clutching the Dragon Book to his chest.
“No, Benjamin Franklin. Look!” Polly pointed across the street and up, to a medallion placed between two windows on the second story of one of the pale grey buildings. She darted forward, dodged back from an oncoming car which honked with an unfamiliar-sounding horn, ran across the road, and looked up eagerly at the medallion. Chen followed, taking the time to look both ways before crossing the street.
It was a
bas-relief portrait bust, and it was Benjamin Franklin all right, wearing his ridiculous famous fur hat. Chen joined Polly beside a plaque that hung at street level below it.
Polly’s shoulders slumped. “We’re in Paris. This is the site of a chateau belonging to a friend of Benjamin Franklin’s,” she said, “It’s where Benjamin Franklin lived when he was in Paris. And the building was torn down in 1909. It’s gone.”
“That totally makes sense! That’s why the pages in our Books are damaged, get it? Destroying the building broke the portal, too. And when you tried to fix the door, it let us in, but then there wasn’t anywhere on the other side to get to, so it sort of threw us back out again!”
“That seems plausible,” Polly agreed, but she didn’t sound very happy about the explanation.
“Come on, Polly, cheer up. Maybe we can figure out the clue without really going into the building. Maybe we can do some research, look it up on the computer, and find out what the chateau used to be like inside. What sort of fruit Benjamin Franklin ate in Paris or whatever. If I had an iPhone we could look it up on the internet right now.”
That at least got a grin out of Polly. “You and your iPhone.”
“Me and my lack of iPhone, you mean,” replied Chen, but seeing Polly’s smile made him feel good. Until the smile suddenly dropped off her face.
“There he is again!” she cried.
“Benjamin Franklin? Where?”
“No, Ammon Blank! Look, he’s right behind that car, talking on his cell phone. Do you think he’s seen us?”
“How come the Ornate Book didn’t fling him on the ground like it did us?” Chen wondered.
