Skavenger's Hunt

by Mike Rich

  The music. The moon.

  He looked into her eyes.

  You can do this, Awnray.

  You got it.

  Come on.

  Henry leaned closer. Mattie did the same. Their lips almost lightly touching—

  “MATEELDA?” Juliet called out. Henry and Mattie sprang apart, both flushing red. The young Frenchwoman and Ernie eased their way through the curtain of dancing couples, neither seeming to notice Henry and Matilda’s sudden embarrassment.

  “We have come to watch you and Henri dance!” Juliet declared. “You cannot hide from us any longer.”

  Ernie still looked as if he might faint from sheer happiness.

  Henry and Mattie shared one last look as Juliet and Ernie began to waltz around them. Jack and Marguerite were sure to follow.

  Their private moment was gone.

  But just as Henry had seen her do so many times, ever since she first tumbled out of Vanderbilt’s tree, Matilda McGillin found the perfect way to seize the moment. She leaned close to whisper in his ear:

  “We made it to France, Henry. Can you believe it?” She pulled back to look into his eyes. “And tomorrow? We’re going to find the next clue in Hunter S. Skavenger’s hunt!”

  EIGHTEEN

  Entrée au Monde

  JACK HAD BEEN asleep during the entire train ride connecting Le Havre with the prize city of Paris, and for good reason. As Henry suspected might happen, the head suspender snapper had rustled everyone else awake that morning—much, much, much earlier than Juliet had said would be necessary.

  The spark that lived in the Parisian woman’s voice the night before was gone when she first awoke, but after several minutes and what looked to be two brutally strong cups of French coffee, it came back. She yawned and delivered an equally strong lecture on the value of those two commodities: time and coffee. Both were essential, in her eyes, to a life well lived.

  Thanks to Jack’s rousing, they’d arrived at the train station an hour and ten minutes earlier than needed. Even so, it was already packed with scores of Paris residents anxious to return home.

  Le Gare Saint-Lazare was the name of their rail line, Henry had quickly discovered. The locomotive huffed steam into the air as it awaited its daily run.

  Once on board, Juliet offered the two window seats to whoever wanted them most, which, not surprisingly, turned out to be Henry and Mattie—last night’s dance still bright in their otherwise sleepy minds.

  The seats would be ideal, Juliet informed the two of them, for seeing the amazing sights of the city once they drew near: the Left Bank and its dazzling architecture, the bridges offering access to the breathtaking collection of elaborate palaces.

  Jack hadn’t argued with the seat assignments in the least. He fell into the first open seat and was dead asleep before the train’s first churn of working steam. Ernie, meanwhile, wanted to sit in one place and one place only: right next to Juliet.

  With Paris now only minutes away, Henry couldn’t resist leaning closely against the window, wanting to be the very first to see “la vision.”

  La Tour Eiffel. La Dame de Fer.

  “The Iron Lady”—that’s what his French lessons had taught him it was called here in France.

  In America, it’s just the good ol’ Eiffel Tower.

  Henry remembered also being taught that it could be seen from pretty much any point in the city. The Empire State Building? The Chrysler? Both were staggering visions, sure, but they were packed in tight with the rest of New York. Even if you were walking the long blocks of Manhattan, you needed to be really close to even see those buildings.

  The Eiffel Tower, though? She stood alone and majestic. A true vision.

  “You look anxious,” Mattie quietly observed from her seat.

  “Uhhh, yeah,” Henry replied. “Aren’t you?”

  “Nope, I’m fine. Because you were the one who figured it out.” She smiled and then nudged Ernie. “How about you, Ernest? Are you nervous?”

  Juliet’s eyes were closed, so it was difficult to tell if she was asleep or listening. Ernie, whom Henry knew was still enchanted, but also practical, leaned closer to the two of them.

  “I’m scared,” he whispered under his breath. “Scared of not finding it, yeah, but I might be even more scared of finding it. That’s when really bad people start lookin’ for you.”

  “Aw, we’ll be fine” Mattie said to Ernie with a dismissive, yet reassuring, wave of her hand. “We haven’t seen anyone since the train. We’re either way out in front of them or way behind.” She winked at Henry. “I vote for ahead.”

  Henry struggled for a smile, not saying a word.

  “Or maybe the hunt’s already over,” Ernie whispered. “Maybe we came all this way for nothing.”

  “Ah . . . Monsieur Skavenger and his amazing hunt,” Juliet said as she cracked open one eye and then the other. “I should have guessed.”

  She’d been awake through the entire conversation—or at least the important part of it. The three of them looked at her, the sparkle in her eyes now sparkling even brighter.

  “S’il vous plaît, my trio of adventurers.” She held up her hands to calm them. “This is your hunt, not mine. I would never, ever do anything to interfere.”

  Her eyebrows, however, sprung up high with budding excitement.

  “Having said that,” Juliet continued, “I read about his grand hunts of last year and the year before.” Her voice seemed to climb an octave. “I was sure he would hold another. You, mes jeuenes amis? You have actually found some of his clues?”

  “We have,” Mattie told her, eliciting a squeal out of Juliet. “Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shhhhhh, quiet,” she had to remind her.

  It was all enough to awaken Jack, Henry had just noticed, right as the slowing train passed through the outskirts of Paris. The River Seine and the Left Bank were now coming into view.

  “Jack, Jack, Jack!” Juliet thumped him on the knee, her voice climbing another octave still. “One of my little determined Skavenger Hunters!”

  Jack sat up in an instant. “You told her?” he threw out the accusation in three different directions.

  “Jaaaack,” Juliet cut him off with a kind, yet scornful look that told him not to worry. “It was an accident. It was no one’s fault. I’m your friend, remember? Ton meilleur ami.”

  She then curled a finger for all four of them to huddle closer. “But how exciting!” she whispered. “Juliet Bonnet of Montmartre shall guide you to your victory!”

  She then sat up prim and proper and clasped her hands in her lap. “So . . . where is it I will be taking you today?”

  The steady puffing of the train was slowing even more, easing Le Gare Saint-Lazare to its imminent stop. Henry took his eyes off Juliet long enough to glance at the others. He picked up a pair of nods from Mattie and Ernie, and a cautious look from Jack.

  “We’re going to the Tower,” he quietly answered Juliet.

  She quietly gasped and clutched her hands close to her chin with delight.

  “The TOWER! Oh my goodness, Henri! Oh, this is incredible! This is remarkable! This is incredibly remarkable!” Then she leaned very, very close to ask him . . .

  “And what tower is that?”

  WOOOSHchuggachugga WOOOSHchuggachugga WOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH . . .

  The sound of the gradually slowing train was the only thing Henry could hear for a long moment.

  What tower? How could she not know what tower?

  It was as if he’d asked someone in Nepal to show him “the mountain” and they’d replied: “And what mountain is that?”

  Henry repeated his question, only this time he did so out loud.

  “What tower?”

  “Oui, what tower?” Juliet nodded, brimming with excitement. “What tower in Paris holds Monsieur Skavenger’s next clue?” She lowered her voice, suddenly aware. “Sorry, am I being too loud?”

  No, you’re not too loud. But, Juliet, there’s only one tower in Paris that means anything. Wh
y are you even . . . ?

  Henry was now beginning to feel the weight of Jack’s and Ernie’s worried looks, Mattie having lowered her eyes with the first twinge of growing concern as well.

  “Well . . . the Eiffel Tower of course,” Henry answered, already fearing what he might hear next.

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

  “Eiffel Tower?” Juliet responded with a confused smile. “But Henry . . . there is no Eiffel Tower.”

  No, no, no. There is, there is, there has to be!

  Mattie worriedly glanced toward Henry before informing Juliet, “Henry told us about the great tower in the middle of Paris.”

  The one you can see from everywhere!

  “But . . . no.” Juliet looked toward Henry, still baffled. “You mean Monsieur Eiffel? Is that who you’re talking about?”

  Henry, though, was back looking out the window. His breath coming in short bursts. The low skyline of Paris was there, but it was blue and barren, La Dame de Fer nowhere to be seen.

  The first hint of sadness moved into Juliet’s eyes.

  “Henri, I’m sorry,” she softly said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Monsieur Eiffel has never built a tower. He has built many wonderful things, oui, but not that.”

  Something’s wrong. Something has gotta be wrong. I need to . . .

  The train lurched to a stop and Henry bolted from his seat, wanting to get outside to see for himself. The French porter, a young man wearing a round blue-brimmed hat, grasped for him and yelled . . .

  “SÉJOUR POSÉ, JEUNE HOMME!”

  But Henry was already through the door and had jumped down to the boarding platform, his head spinning.

  You can’t have been that stupid! The Eiffel Tower’s been here forever. FOREVER! This is France! Everything’s been here forever!

  “HÉ!” the porter yelled again from the lowest step on the train. “ÊTES-VOUS FOU! SAUTER COMME ÇA?!”

  They’re wrong, it’s here. They must call it something else.

  Henry surveyed the short, mostly equal-in-height buildings adorning the view of the already legendary city.

  The vision. The visionary. Where are you?!

  Except there was no vision. Nothing towering to the eye. He looked wildly in every direction, seeing nothing more than . . .

  Thwamp!

  The ground under his nose.

  Henry struck his forehead hard, rolling over to see a furious Jack hovering over him.

  “No tower! NO TOWER!!” he howled. His fist cracked wickedly against Henry’s jaw. Ernie and Juliet lunged at Jack, trying to hold him back; but Mattie was already there, trying to also hold back a quick surge of her own tears at the same time.

  “WE TRUSTED YOU!!!” Jack screamed at Henry. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS!! WE WERE THIS CLOSE!!”

  Ernie somehow found a way to pry Jack away, enough that Mattie and Juliet were able to help Henry to his feet, his cheek already growing red. The Frenchwoman yanked a kerchief out of her pocket, licked it, and dabbed it at his face.

  “It’s okay.” Henry brushed her hand aside, still shaken.

  “Okay?” Jack lunged at him again, but Mattie stepped in between the two of them with a fierce look on her face.

  “STOP IT, JACK!” she yelled. “Stop it right now!”

  “No.” Henry held up his hand. “He’s right. I was wrong. I was wrong about everything.”

  “Oh, you were wrong, all right! ’Bout as wrong as anyone could ever get!” Jack shouted over Mattie’s head.

  “Would you please PIPE DOWN, JACK?!” Ernie joined in, seemingly having reached the end of his own rope. “We just got here. We’ll find it.”

  “We’re not finding anything,” Jack seethed. “Because of him, right there.” The train station security agents were headed their way now, while a good many of the disembarking travelers were watching and murmuring among themselves.

  Mattie turned again on Jack, pointing an angry finger into his face. “All right, give up then! Just quit, Jack! But I’M NOT! We can still finish this!”

  Henry could see that her words were having no effect. The only thing Jack wanted to do was take another couple good swings at him. Mattie wiped away a tear, took in a deep breath, and tried one more time.

  “Let’s find the visionary, Jack,” she calmly urged him. “We find the visionary, maybe we find the vision.”

  A summer rain shower soaked Paris that afternoon, and it didn’t really stop until an hour after nightfall. The lingering mist had left Mattie a little chilled, but Henry, who was walking alongside her, was numb for a much different reason.

  They’d broken into two teams shortly after the Le Gare Saint-Lazare incident: Jack, Ernie, and Juliet in one group, Henry and Mattie in the other. The decision was made for two very practical reasons: number one being the risk that Jack might still coldcock Henry at any given moment; number two being that both teams needed someone who could speak French.

  With that settled—or as settled as things could be—they’d taken off in search of one Gustave Eiffel, agreeing to meet back at the train station every three hours to report on their progress.

  Progress, though, had been in short supply. Juliet had warned them all that Monsieur Eiffel had a reputation for valuing his privacy, to the point that it often proved difficult to even find him. If they were fortunate enough to track him down, chances were good he might not be in a mood to talk.

  So far, her words had proved prophetic.

  Henry had politely asked dozens of Parisians if they knew where they might find the noted designer, but he and Mattie were met with either indifferent shrugs, or even worse, arrogant comments along the lines of “Personne ne sait où Monsieur Eiffel dessine ses conceptions.”

  “What’s that mean, Henry?” Mattie had asked him. “It means we should mind our own business,” Henry had answered.

  She hadn’t bothered asking for more translations after that.

  They walked along the Trocadéro, site of the Palais de Chaillot, with barely a word between them for the longest of stretches. Henry could tell she was worried. Worried and disappointed that their remarkable run of skill may have officially dried up.

  She’d yet to say anything even close to hurtful, and Henry was hopeful the night before had something to do with that. But the one thing he couldn’t overlook was the simple fact he’d promised Mattie a tower in Paris—and it was a tower that didn’t exist.

  Mattie’s stride slowed a bit as she nodded toward the Palais du Trocadéro. It was an immense and elaborate palace graced by high, elegant arches and protected by brilliantly sculpted horses. Even now, after everything that had happened that day, it was impossible to resist gawking at it.

  The gardens were sprawling and fragrant. The center structure looked similar to the Colosseum in Rome yet was flanked by two skyscraping towers, and all of this drew the gaze of a gigantic elephant statue in front. An African elephant, Henry could tell, same as the one in the Natural History Museum back home.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Mattie quietly noted.

  “Yep . . . it sure is,” Henry agreed.

  The most recent Parisian they’d talked with had been nice enough to give them a short history of the Palais. It was surprisingly new, the man had told them, built only a few years ago and designed by the well-regarded French architect Gabriel Davioud—best known for the spectacular Fontaine Saint-Michel.

  “It’s a big fountain,” Henry had whisper-translated for Mattie.

  The Parisian man complimented Henry on his fine command of the language, and was off to finish his nightly stroll.

  The two of them once again walked in silence for a bit.

  “Can I ask you something, Henry?” Mattie finally turned to look at him.

  “Sure you can.”

  She scrunched the collar of her wrinkled coat up higher around her neck. It was Marguerite’s coat, actually. The cape had been gone for a while now—Mattie having ditched it a few days before arriving in France.

 
; “Never mind.” She apparently decided not to ask. Instead, she tipped her head toward the bridge straight ahead of them, the one that spanned the Seine toward the Left Bank.

  “What did that man say the name of this was again?” she asked. “Pont duh-what?”

  “Pont d’Lena.” Henry smiled. “It crosses over the water to where I thought the tower was going to be.”

  It’ll be there one day, Mattie. I promise. A tower so amazing that people all over the world will come to see it. Bright lights at nighttime . . . sparkling.

  Tonight, though, the only thing the Pont d’Lena led to was a dark and empty night sky. They walked across the bridge, Henry deep in his own thoughts, until Mattie walked to the middle overlook and looked as if she wanted to ask her question after all.

  “How did you make that mistake, Henry?” she gently asked as she stared at the river below. “All this time, the whole entire hunt, ever since I met you . . . you’ve known so much. Where to look, where we should go . . .”

  He didn’t answer at first, waiting for one last couple walking across the bridge to move past them. Mattie patiently waited too, until they disappeared into the darkness.

  Henry sighed and told her the only thing he could think to tell her:

  “I just thought I knew.”

  He waited a bit longer before continuing. “I don’t know . . . maybe it was something I read about Eiffel wanting to build a tower, and he hadn’t started it yet.”

  “Henry, there’s a big difference between wanting to build something and actually building it.” It was as close as she’d ever come to giving him a tongue-lashing.

  “I know there is,” he quietly admitted, knowing he deserved it. “I’m sorry, Mattie. Really.”

  She turned to look at him, the twinkle in her eye already thinking about returning. “Well, Henry Babbitt,” she announced, “whatever newspaper you read that in, I give you full permission not to use anything from that paper ever again. Agreed?”

  “Agr—”

  Scrrrrr-whump.

  A silent hand grabbed the scruff of Mattie’s collar from behind, the other hand quickly covering her mouth. Any scream she might have considered was smothered before she even had a chance to breathe.