by Annie Bryant
On Wednesday morning I awoke to the sound of Sophie breathing deeply, clearly sound asleep. I looked at my watch—eight thirty a.m. Late enough that she wouldn’t be too mad at me for waking her up. I shook her shoulder lightly. “Sophie? Sophie,” I whispered, not wanting to startle her.
“Uhhh,” Sophie mumbled, rolling over.
“Sorry. I think we should get up now…we don’t want to waste any time today. Orangina’s out there somewhere, and we just have to find him.”
“Okay,” Sophie answered, yawning and stretching before hopping out of bed.
Sophie and I quickly dressed in jeans and hoodies. Madame asked us to run down to the épicerie to buy fresh eggs for our breakfast crepes. It was drizzling when we left, but by the time we headed back with the eggs, it was beginning to come down hard. We laughed as we hurried along the street trying to dodge raindrops. We dashed inside Sophie’s building, pausing to catch our breath. Sophie looked down and gasped, pointing to a spot behind my feet.
“Charlotte! Voilà. It’s your bag!”
It was my bag. “I can’t believe it! Where did this come from?” I asked, lifting the purple messenger bag high above my head and dancing around the foyer.
“Was it here when we left for the épicerie?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Well, maybe it was…we left quickly. Perhaps we just didn’t notice,” Sophie said with a shrug.
I stuck my head out the door and looked in each direction. There was no one in sight. “The bag is wet,” I said. “Whoever put it here was outside in the rain.”
“It’s been raining for a while, though,” Sophie noted.
“This is incroyable!” I cried. “But who? How could anyone have known where to return the bag? There was absolutely nothing in it that would have led them here.” Completely baffled, I looked at Sophie.
Sophie couldn’t come up with an explanation either. “Je ne sais pas, Charlotte,” she shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know…it seems like a miracle.”
I slung the bag over my shoulder and quickly headed upstairs to the apartment. We dropped off the eggs in the kitchen and did a dance of joy with Madame Morel. Once we were inside Sophie’s bedroom, I unzipped the bag and pawed through the contents.
“Is anything missing?” Sophie asked.
“Let’s see…here’s my passport, and my wallet is right on top!” I opened up the wallet and counted my money—everything was as I had left it. Nothing had been stolen. “And here’s my ski jacket, my running shoes, the jar of peanut butter, the box of crackers…where’s the camera? Oh wait! Here it is!” I held up the disposable camera. “Oh well, I might as well take the last few pictures and get them all developed today. I’m curious to see how the fashion photos came out. Say cheese…,” I said, pointing the camera at Sophie.
“Why fromage?” Sophie asked.
“Not fromage…cheese! It’s what Americans say instead of ‘smile for the camera,’” I told her.
“Oh, I understand. Saying ‘cheese’ makes you smile. Cheese always makes me smile…all I have to do is think of it. In France, we say, ouistiti…remember?” Sophie asked.
“No. What is ouistiti again?” I asked. I had forgotten.
“A very small monkey from South America,” Sophie explained. “Different word. Same result. Watch me. Ouistiti,” she said, giving me a great “cheesy” smile.
I pushed the button down on the top of the camera but nothing happened. I checked the little window on top of the camera and realized that there weren’t any pictures left. “Oh no,” I told Sophie. “I thought there were a few left. At least I have Chelsea’s digital so I can take pictures at the pizza party.” I stuck the camera back into the messenger bag.
After we ate the crepes Madame Morel prepared, Sophie and I went back to her room to get ready for another day of Orangina-searching.
“Sophie, this has been the strangest morning of my life. I just don’t get it. There’s no way anyone could have known where to find me. I guess I should just be happy to have my bag back, and that nothing’s missing. But still…why did it disappear in the first place? And why is everything still in it? This is a complete mystery.”
“Maybe it’s a sign that we’re going to have bonne chance aujourd’hui,” Sophie suggested.
“Here’s to today’s good luck!” I crossed my fingers and Sophie did the same. “Let’s go.”
The rain had now slowed to a drizzle. Our first stop that morning was a one-day photo lab. We’d pick up the pictures at the end of the day. With any luck, we’d have Orangina with us.
The next stop was the houseboat—our very own Point Zéro of the search for Orangina. As we walked along the quay, many of the booksellers from the day before shook their heads as we passed to let us know they still hadn’t seen the missing orange cat.
We slowly made our way down to the very tip of l’Ile St-Louis to le Pont des Arts. There are dozens of bridges that cross la Seine, but le Pont des Arts is my favorite. It is a wood-planked, cast-iron pedestrian bridge. It even has benches so people can sit on the bridge and soak up the beautiful surroundings. During the summer, Dad and I would sometimes eat a picnic supper on the bridge and watch the river at sunset. There’s always a spectacular view, especially when the setting sun reflects off the gold dome of the Institute de France along the left bank of the river. We weren’t often the only ones enjoying the sunset. Other picnickers, fancier than us, unpacked linen napkins, crystal glasses, and bottles of champagne. Maeve would be out of her mind here. She would insist that we have a fancy party in the park, dress up outrageously, and dance around. I wonder if Parisians would know what to do with Maeve?
As Sophie and I walked across the bridge, I could see the Louvre on the other side of the river. It was early and the plaza in front of one the largest art museums in the world was empty at this hour. Isabel would be so excited if she were first in line when the museum opened! There were so many things about Paris that I wanted to share with the BSG…not just with pictures, but in person. As Sophie and I headed away from the Louvre into the narrow streets of the corner of Paris known as the Marais, or the Marsh, I thought about how cool it would be to show the BSG all around Paris someday.
The Marais was the district for serious shoppers. Katani would be in heaven. There were lots of antique stores, as well as toy stores, museum shops, fashion boutiques, and decorator shops. The streets were empty at the moment, and I was too focused on searching for Orangina to spend much time looking in shop windows. My eyes scanned each doorway, each alleyway, searching any possible hiding place for a glimpse of orange. Occasionally, I’d look up, shading my eyes from raindrops. I didn’t want to leave any area unsearched. Suddenly, I saw a cat in an apartment window above. It was orange!
“Sophie, look!” I said, pointing up at the window. But immediately, I realized that the cat’s orange fur was way too light to be Orangina’s. Orangina looked like an orange ball of fire…this cat looked like a creamsicle.
“No, never mind. That’s not him. I should have known better. Orangina would never be cooped up inside like that…this is his prime time for roaming the streets.”
We were on rue St. Paul when suddenly the sky opened up and large pellets of raindrops began spattering the narrow street. Sophie and I ducked inside a doorway to escape the downpour. I was thankful that Paris was a great city for doorways.
“There’s no use looking for Orangina in this weather,” I said to Sophie. “Cats hate to get wet…and Orangina especially hated it. Sometimes when it rained like this he would disappear for days.”
“Look where we are!” Sophie pointed at a sign with a mechanical quill that slowly wrote the word “Entrez” over and over again. The letters would completely disappear and then the quill would write the word again. It looked like something out of a movie. The sign was hanging above a stairway that descended into Le Musée de la Curiosité et de la Magie—The Magic Museum. We took a school field trip there last year, and ever since, it
’s been one of my favorite haunts in Paris.
“Let’s go in while we wait for the rain to slow down,” Sophie suggested.
Dodging the big puddles, we made our way to the magnificent red doors of the museum, which was housed in the basement of a huge stone mansion. The red carpet and well-lit stone walls inside kept it from feeling too dark and scary…but it was just weird enough to make it cool. The Magic Museum had an amazing collection of all the magical stuff you could ever dream of! There were all sorts of stage props. I liked the boxes used for sawing people in half and the ones with false bottoms to make people “disappear.” Sophie loved the distorted mirrors and trick portraits.
We watched a short magic show in the museum theater. Afterwards, I decided to splurge on a new magic wand in the gift shop. I still had a lot to learn, but I was actually a pretty good magician. My friends and I even had a magic act in the school talent show earlier this year.
Over falafel sandwiches at Chez Marianne’s, I told Sophie all about the Abigail Adams Junior High Talent Show and how instead of a traditional rabbit, Avery had pulled Marty out of a hat!
Sophie giggled. “I can’t wait to meet all of your Beacon Street Girls someday.”
“We might as well find something else to do inside until the rain stops,” Sophie said after lunch. It wasn’t as bad as it had been earlier, but there was still a steady drizzle.
“I promised Isabel I’d visit the Picasso Museum. It’s in this area, isn’t it?”
“Oui, not too far away,” she pointed in the right direction. We walked through the rain, linking arms under the umbrella Sophie had brought. I scanned the streets right and left, hoping to spot Orangina curled up in a doorway or hiding beneath a downspout. I was beginning to think that Orangina didn’t want to be rescued.
When we arrived at the museum the sky opened up again, drenching us to the bone before we could make it indoors. Whatever happened to the City of Light?
The Picasso Museum was located in the “heart of historic Paris” in an old building—an old hotel, really. The brochure said the hotel was built in 1656 for a general named General Aubert de Fontenay. I guess he wanted all his friends to be able to stay with him. The museum had more than 203 paintings, 191 sculptures, eighty-five ceramics, and more than three thousand other works of art. Some of them were really weird looking, like people with split faces made out of cubes. Sophie thought it was amazing that Picasso created so many drawings and paintings in his life.
It was interesting going up the stairs to the second floor and looking at the sprawling black-and-white tiled foyer below. It actually made my head spin for a minute. We saw the works from Picasso’s Rose Period and Blue Period. My favorite section, though, was a special exhibition on Picasso’s circus paintings.
“Oh, Isabel would love this place,” I told Sophie. “I’ll have to find her a souvenir in the gift shop.”
“Is she the fashion designer?” Sophie asked as we wandered through the museum shop.
“Some of them were really weird looking, like people with split faces made out of cubes.”
~ pg. 122
“No, the artist,” I told her. “Isabel is really talented. You should see her room. She makes papier-mâché birds, and some of them are hanging from her bedroom ceiling…they’re beautiful! She also draws cartoons for the school newspaper.”
In no time at all, I found the perfect gift for Isabel. It was a calendar and each month featured a different Picasso painting. She would love it. Before heading to the cash register, another calendar caught my eye—” Parisian Movie Favorites.” I flipped through it and smiled…it was so Maeve. I loved finding the perfect presents. I liked to give my friends things that showed how well I knew them. It made the present really meaningful, and the giving part more fun.
When we left the Picasso Museum, we headed back toward the river.
“Wait, let’s stop here,” Sophie called after we’d walked for a little while. She pointed to a fancy jewelry shop with diamond, pearl, gold, silver, and platinum jewelry glittering in the windows.
“Why do you want to go there?” I asked in amusement. “There’s no way either of us can afford this fancy bling. Even the tiniest little thing must cost hundreds of euros. I think we should window shop.”
“Bling.” Sophie laughed. “You are so American now!” She squeezed my hand. “We’re not going to buy anything today, Charlotte. But what if we were ever to suddenly become riche and célèbre? We must be prepared to be rich and famous.” Sophie grinned.
Without another word, Sophie marched confidently into the store and I followed behind.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” Sophie said smoothly to the man behind the counter. “I would like to try on that pearl bracelet, please.”
The man looked sternly at Sophie but unlocked the counter and pulled out the bracelet she pointed to. He unhooked the delicate clasp and re-attached it around Sophie’s wrist.
“Oh, it’s just perfect. Isn’t it? It will look génial with my new black gown!” Sophie exclaimed.
“Uh…yeah. It’s beautiful.” I tried unsuccessfully to smother a laugh.
“May I help you, miss?” the man behind the counter asked me.
“Oh, no, merci beaucoup,” I replied quickly.
Sophie looked appalled. “Nonsense, mon amie, you must try on that sapphire ring. Your father said he would buy you anything you wanted for your thirteenth birthday.” Sophie caught my eye and I stifled another giggle.
The man behind the counter suddenly seemed more interested in helping us. He pulled out an enormous sapphire ring and slipped it on my left ring finger.
I let out a gasp but covered it up with a cough when Sophie poked me in the side. The ring was outrageous…a huge, sparkling blue stone. I’d never worn anything so expensive in my entire life.
“Ah! Look at the time.” Sophie pointed to a clock on the wall. “We must be going. Thank you so much for your help, monsieur,” she said, holding out her wrist so he could unclasp the bracelet. I took off the ring and put it back in the box.
“We will have to think about it and come back another day,” Sophie told the man, smiling and waving as she hurried out the door.
“Merci,” I said to the man, who looked quite annoyed, and followed Sophie.
We hurried around the corner before collapsing into a fit of giggles.
“Sophie, I can’t believe you…have you done that before?” I asked. I was impressed with her boldness and felt that I had to learn to be a little more bold. After all, world travelers can’t be shy.
“A few times,” she admitted. “But it was the most fun with you here. Viens, Charlotte. It really is time to go.”
All day long it had rained steadily, and the gutters were filled with water rushing toward the Seine. I looked back a few times, unable to shake the creepy feeling that we were being followed. Sometimes I saw nothing; other times I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of a brown raincoat. On such a rainy day, there were many men walking around in brown raincoats. Maybe it wasn’t the same man you saw before, I told myself. Perhaps I am just being paranoid.
There were lights on in the houseboat when we returned to the docks, but the curtains were shut, so we couldn’t see in. We picked up my pictures at the photo lab and headed back to Sophie’s apartment. We were soaked to the bone and exhausted from our long, unsuccessful day of Orangina-hunting.
Even though the day had been fun, I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling I had in my stomach. What if it rained like this tomorrow? And on Friday? I might never find Orangina! I had come so far. I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing my orange friend again.
11
La Découverte
THE DISCOVERY
By the time we got home, both Sophie and I were chilled. I looked like a major fashion disaster—my hair was stringy, my pants were baggy, and my nose was running. Sophie, on the other hand, looked like a chic ad for a raincoat. How did she manage this?
When Madame Morel saw us
, she rushed us into the bedroom to change our clothes. After dinner, Sophie settled in to do some homework and I opened up the pictures we’d picked up at the photo lab. They were a little dark, but I could still make out most of them, except the last picture, which didn’t turn out too well. It was the darkest of the group—with a blurry band across the middle. There was an artistic quality about it that reminded me of some of the paintings at the Picasso museum. It was so interesting that I decided to save the strange photo to show Isabel when I got home. She would definitely appreciate my accidental artwork.
Now that we were back at Sophie’s, I was anxious to e-mail the BSG. I was sure that they would love to hear all about the wonderful museums, our adventure at the jewelry store, and my missing bag. But as soon as I started writing, I felt guilty that I had been enjoying Paris too much. Suddenly, it dawned on me that my stay in Paris was more than half over and there was still no sign of Orangina. This wasn’t really a vacation. It was supposed to be a quest, and even though I was having fun I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough. What if I never even got a glimpse of Orangina? I was about to ask Sophie again if she was sure she really saw Orangina, but I saw her head bent over her homework.
Everyone complained about the homework at Abigail Adams Junior High, but going to school in Paris was much worse—in France, kids had almost twice the amount of homework. I tried to be quiet while Sophie worked, since I knew how much she had to do. I wrote in my journal for a while and then looked at the calendar I’d bought for Isabel. I couldn’t wait to tell her everything I’d learned about Picasso at the museum that day.
That reminded me…for the first time since I left Boston, I got out the coloring book Isabel had given me. As I opened it, I noticed there was a loose picture inserted in the middle of the pages. Encased in a stiff, old mat, it looked out of place amidst the other shiny photos in the book. How odd! Where did this come from? I wondered why I’d never noticed it before.
The picture looked so familiar to me. I examined it more carefully. It was a sketch of a woman, beautifully depicted with bright shapes and colors. Had I seen it at the Picasso museum that day? I really wanted to interrupt Sophie to ask her, but her head was bent over her notebook and she was scribbling away. I looked through Isabel’s Picasso calendar again to see if I could find it, but it wasn’t there.