Chasing Vermeer

by Blue Balliett

  There was no time for talking. Quickly they ran their hands along shelves, looked behind cartons, tried to lift crates. On one side of the room were several old picture frames. Behind them, leaning against the wall, was a small package wrapped neatly in brown paper. It wasn’t as dusty as the others, and was the right size, no doubt about it.

  They heard steps coming down the stairs and Mrs. Trek calling their names. By the time the principal reached the supply room, Petra was alone.

  Petra told Mrs. Trek that Calder had needed the bathroom and had gone back up. As they walked toward the stairs, Petra asked if they could return in the middle of the morning.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be free again until tomorrow.” The principal smiled kindly as she locked the heavy metal door. “Think you can wait?”

  “Sure,” Petra said, her mind racing. “No problem.”

  As soon as she got to the classroom, Petra told Ms. Hussey that Calder had a morning dentist appointment, and slipped into her seat. She tried, but it was just about impossible to pay attention in class. She excused herself to go to the bathroom more than once, tore down to the basement door each time, and knocked softly. There was no sound from inside.

  Calder stayed crouched for what felt like hours. This was the darkest dark he had ever been in. The basement didn’t seem to have any windows. At one point, he heard a scurrying sound. He knew that Gracie Hall, like most old buildings in Hyde Park, had mice. And there were also those hissing cockroaches that had disappeared down a vent. He stood up.

  Holding the painting carefully, he took two steps, then two more. What if there was some monster living in this basement? Someone who had snuck in when the janitor wasn’t looking?

  Humming tunelessly, he felt his way up the stairs. When he got to the landing, he tried the door to the first floor. The handle turned, but the door was bolted. He crept back down, trying not to touch the walls. Better to stay out of sight. Maybe, if he was lucky, someone would come down to get pencils and leave the door open long enough for him to slip out.

  He reminded himself that he was probably holding one of the greatest treasures of the art world. What were a few hours of his life next to all the adventures the Lady must have been through in her three hundred–some years? Besides, now he and Petra would be famous. They’d be interviewed on TV. They’d be in the Chicago Tribune. …

  Groping his way along, he found a chair and sat down slowly. He’d better stop daydreaming. A number of things had to happen before the painting was safe — if it was the painting. To occupy himself, he worked on some puzzles in his head.

  First he made three different twelve-piecers. Then he tried writing to Tommy, but without the code, it was tough.

  Soon Calder felt himself wanting to doze. It was so quiet, and so dark.

  Petra hurried down to the Lower School office at lunchtime.

  “Mrs. Trek isn’t here, dear. She’s gone for the rest of the day.” The secretary looked irritated.

  Petra felt a rush of determination. “The basement — my friend Calder and I need to finish an assignment by today — is there some one who could let me in?”

  “We don’t allow kids down there alone, you know that.”

  “Mrs. Trek said it was fine for us to finish our research, though,” Petra lied. “She said she’d make an exception. Please. Plus, we’re sixth graders.”

  The secretary looked at Petra and sighed. “All right. Just let me get my lunch.”

  While the secretary was gone, Petra looked carefully at the top of her desk. Maybe the keys were inside the drawer. If she found them, should she race down and let Calder out? If the secretary came with her, she’d discover Calder had been there all morning. It’d be better to get blamed for taking the keys.

  She stepped quickly over to the desk, jerked open the drawer, and found — sure enough — the fat ring of master keys. Stuffing them into her pants pocket, she headed toward to the basement entrance as fast as she could go without looking conspicuous.

  She waited outside the basement door, pretending to use the pay phone until there was no one in either direction. Her hands were fumbly and damp. First one key … no. Then another … no. Someone was coming. Petra picked up the phone again, her heart pounding wildly. She felt sure the person walking by would hear it, but they didn’t stop.

  The third key turned easily. Pulling open the basement door, she clicked on the switch and slipped inside.

  “Calder! Calder!” she whispered at the foot of the stairs.

  There was no answer. It was too quiet. Couldn’t he hear her? As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she made out a small figure slumped in a chair. The package was still held tightly in his arms. Her first thought was that he’d died of fright.

  She hurried over and gave him a prod.

  He popped upright. “Jeesh, Petra! I ought to get ten pounds of blue ones for being down here all this time.”

  “I’m glad you’re all right, but hurry up, Calder! I had to steal the keys. Hurry!”

  They were up the stairs, peeking out the door, and in the front hall in seconds. They clicked the basement door shut behind them. Petra grabbed a jacket from the Lost and Found box in the lobby and covered the package with it just as the secretary came around the corner carrying her lunch.

  “Well, hello, you two. I’ll be right back to let you in. It won’t take long, will it?”

  Silent, both shook their heads.

  As soon as she headed off toward the office, Petra looked at Calder in a panic. “Now what? What do we do about her keys?”

  “Leave them in the door to the basement. She’ll think Mrs. Trek left them there.”

  Petra and Calder were too nervous to talk on the walk home from school. They raced up Calder’s front steps and straight to his room.

  Both struggled with the zipper on Calder’s backpack. In the rush at school, he had pulled it closed on the fabric.

  “Stupid thing!” Calder grabbed scissors from his desk and cut open the backpack.

  They pulled off the tape wrapped around and around the brown paper. The edges of a dark wooden frame emerged, and then an old backing. They turned it over.

  Someone with an eager, pear-shaped head and a green bun sat writing at a table. Her one visible ear was graced with what looked like a dangling Ping-Pong ball. There was an orange moon behind her, and a melting castle. The painting might have been done by a second grader, a second grader who was now a grandparent.

  It was not the Lady they’d been looking for.

  Calder was home with a cold the following day, and Petra walked home from school by herself.

  It was early December, and patches of ice alternated with drifts of brown leaves. Petra scuffed along, thinking about Charles Fort. He wouldn’t be feeling discouraged. He’d have his eyes wide open. With that in mind, she picked up a scrap of graph paper off the ground and read,

  corn oil

  butter

  tea bags

  onions

  green grapes

  bacon

  She popped it into her pocket. Was there poetry here, in these accidental combinations of words? Would Fort have seen an interesting pattern or a secret of the universe in grocery lists?

  Hey — this might be something they could get into with Ms. Hussey one day: accidental combinations of sounds and ideas. Why did some words seem more elegant, more graceful than others? Why were some words peanut butter and jelly sounds, and others caviar? What made the words “onion” or “tea bag” so plain? Why did a word like “ice” or “exquisite” sound so lacy?

  Inspired by the idea, Petra spotted another piece of paper. It was tucked into a thorny hedge near Mrs. Sharpe’s house, and torn along the bottom. Folded in four, it looked worn.

  She opened it carefully and began to read:

  Dear Friend,

  I would like your help in identifying a crime that is now centuries old….

  Petra ran straight over to Calder’s house.

  “Did anyone see y
ou pick it up?”

  “I looked around — only one person crossing the street.”

  Calder blew his nose vigorously. “Do you think it’s the same letter you started to read, the one that blew away?”

  “How could it be? Maybe there’s a fourth letter.” Petra groaned.

  Calder reached for his pentominoes. “It’s creepy to think of someone sticking that letter carefully in Mrs. Sharpe’s bushes.”

  “Do we tell the police? It’ll make it harder for us to keep looking.”

  “Good thinking. But neither one of us should walk around here on our own. We could end up like that Frog kid.”

  They refolded the letter, placed it neatly inside a sandwich bag, and tucked it into the Geographer’s box.

  They each ate a blue one. Then they each ate two more.

  Calder was holding the P pentomino. “P for pray,” he said, trying to grin.

  Petra looked horrified. “Prey?” she said. “Us? You mean we’re being hunted?”

  “No, I meant pray, as in hoping to stay safe,” Calder said.

  “Maybe it’s pray we’re not prey,” Petra added, scaring them both.

  The next day, more news broke. A book appeared in the stores that morning called The Vermeer Dilemma: What Happens Now? Easily a fifty-dollar art book, it was being sold for an unusually affordable $1.50. This was less than the price of a Big Mac. An anonymous gift had made it possible for “everyone with an interest in Vermeer and in this painful situation” to buy the book. Written by a respected art historian, it included an excellent color plate of every painting attributed to Vermeer.

  Thousands of copies changed hands across the United States on the first day, and countries around the world reported similar sales.

  The book was about all the positive things that had come out of this terrible crime. People were looking at and talking about paintings as they never had before. They were comparing furniture, tile work, the structure of a leaded glass window, the folds in a satin skirt. They were comparing details, like the way light struck a fingernail or a wrist bone, the look of a woven basket handle or a curl of hair. They were examining works of art with a toughness and intensity usually seen only in the buyers of new cars or electronics. Groups of people pointing and arguing energetically in front of a Vermeer had become a common sight. Museums were busier and livelier places.

  It was the first time that many “untrained” people had felt that they could say something of value about a work of art, something that might make a difference. It was the first time that many people had realized how murky and changeable the waters of history can be. When an artist leaves behind no personal papers, when hundreds of years go by, who is to say that followers or forgers didn’t use his or her name to make some money? And, of course, the idea of correcting a centuries-old mistake, of pointing out that the experts in museums and universities weren’t really as expert as they’d thought they were, was irresistible.

  Children were thinking about Vermeer, too. They were comparing, writing, and visiting museums with friends. Many said that they hadn’t realized how cool old pictures could be. They also hadn’t realized that the art in museums can be mysterious, that grown-ups don’t always know what it means or where it came from.

  The author talked about how this uproar was probably also good for art historians and museum curators. It was forcing them to question views that had been accepted for decades, to look carefully at what they had been taught. Was the thief right? Was the public right? Why didn’t the so-called “early” and “late” Vermeers have that luminous, haunting touch?

  The book ended by stating firmly that while what the thief had done to get the attention of the art world was wrong, the public’s relationship to Vermeer and to other great masters had, as a result, changed drastically. People around the world had developed a comfort with great art that they had never had before. The theft was a gift.

  The last page carried a message to the thief. Whether or not museums chose to change the wall labels next to some of Vermeer’s paintings, the public had done an amazing job of spotlighting any possible fraud. Everyone was now looking. It was only a matter of time, the author suggested, before museums would respond to the public’s thinking. In the meantime, A Lady Writing should be returned. The thief could consider his mission to have been successful.

  Petra and Calder talked about the book on the way to school the next morning.

  “All these questions being asked by people around the world,” Petra said, still excited by what she’d read. “It does make the theft seem partly good.”

  “Yeah, but what if the thief turns out not to be as moral as he sounds — what if he’s a real sicko?”

  “Someone on the radio was talking about that this morning.” Petra looked sideways at Calder. “But don’t you think I would sort of know if the Lady had been hurt?”

  They walked several steps in silence. Calder kicked at a snowbank. “Maybe. And maybe not — I wish she’d say something else to you. Like, ‘Down this street, up those steps, in this cupboard, and presto’!”

  They were laughing when they turned the corner near Mrs. Sharpe’s house. To their horror, they found themselves facing the flashing lights of an ambulance. The children stood, mouths open, as a stretcher appeared at Mrs. Sharpe’s door. The old woman was neatly strapped in under a mound of blankets. She looked tiny and pale. Two policemen followed the emergency technicians.

  “Mrs. Sharpe! Are you okay?” blurted Petra.

  Calder called out, “What happened?”

  At the sound of their voices, the old woman turned her head. “Oh good. It’s you two. Close your mouths before your tongues freeze.” Mrs. Sharpe struggled to get her hand out from under the blankets. “Stop, you carriers! I want to speak with the children. I know them.” Mrs. Sharpe’s imperious tone brought everyone to a standstill.

  “I slipped and cracked something in one leg — very stupid of me, I must say. Never broken anything in my life. I was planning to take this letter to the post office today. I could have someone in the hospital mail it, but I would prefer giving it to the two of you.”

  “No problem.” Calder reached for the letter in Mrs. Sharpe’s hand. She watched with something of her old fierceness while Calder put away the letter.

  “Now, don’t forget and don’t lose it, boy.” Mrs. Sharpe was eyeing the duct tape on Calder’s backpack. “The two of you can visit me at the hospital later if you’d like. I’m sure by then I’ll be stuck in some dreadful room.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Sharpe. We’ll mail your letter. Want us to bring you books or anything?” Petra asked.

  “No, no … oh, the pain of this darn leg! Stupid, stupid!” Mrs. Sharpe collapsed back on the stretcher.

  “All set, ma’am?” one of the EMTs asked her politely.

  “Well, yes. Does it look like we’re sunbathing on the Riviera here?” Mrs. Sharpe’s voice trailed off into the freezing air as she was loaded into the ambulance.

  They watched it drive away. “Poor thing. I guess we won’t be having tea with her anytime soon,” Petra said.

  “I wonder who this letter is for.” Calder reached into his backpack and pulled it out. It was addressed, in neat handwriting, to Ms. Isabel Hussey.

  They held the letter up to a bright light in school. The envelope was impossible to see through. Giving it directly to Ms. Hussey was tempting, but they had made a promise to Mrs. Sharpe. It was hard to know who to be loyal to, or what the consequences of either decision might be.

  After school, they crunched through the snow to the post office on campus.

  “Maybe we could steam it open,” Calder suggested.

  “Maybe she’s just sympathizing. Maybe we’re just suspicious,” Petra said.

  “Hey! What if we rip open the envelope and then put the letter in a fresh one? We’ll just rewrite the address!”

  In their excitement, they stopped and gave each other a high five.

  Petra suddenly looked unhappy.
“But aren’t we getting pretty two-faced here? We go there for tea, we act like nice kids, and then we betray her. How would we like it if someone we trusted read our mail? This is probably how people turn into criminals. They just do something a little bit wrong, and then something a little bit worse —”

  “It’s not like we won’t mail it afterward. We’re keeping our promise. It’s an emergency situation, remember? We’re on a mission to rescue Ms. Hussey, the Lady, Mrs. Sharpe, and ourselves — we may be in danger, too, now that we’ve got the third letter.”

  “So this is to protect everyone.”

  “Right. We’re just doing a little much-needed detective work.”

  They were now inside, standing next to one of the slits in the wall that read: STAMPED MAIL.

  “We could buy an envelope and readdress it here.” Calder dug in his pockets for change.

  Petra still looked worried. “What will Mrs. Sharpe do to us if she finds out? And what if Ms. Hussey recognizes our handwriting?”

  “This is foolproof. We’re going to put the letter in the mail the minute we’ve read it. Mrs. Sharpe will never know, and I’m sure Ms. Hussey will throw away the envelope.”

  Just then someone jostled Calder’s arm, and the letter fell. Calder reached for it, and his backpack swung off his shoulder, knocking both him and Petra sideways. The letter was now under a man’s leather boot.

  “Ach! So sorry! Zis is going in ze mail, too?” The man then swooped the letter up in a large red paw and stuffed it into the slit along with his mail.

  “I don’t believe it!” hissed Calder.

  Petra gave Calder a weak smile. “I guess we’ve been saved from a life of crime.”

  When they arrived at the hospital, Mrs. Sharpe was lying flat in bed. One leg was heavily bandaged.