The Girl, the Dog, and the Writer in Rome

by Katrina Nannestad

  ‘Grazie,’ sighed Tobias. Although Freja was not sure whether he was thanking Vivi for the compliment, the lemon macaron he held in front of his mouth, or the fact that she had come to visit him in his apartment and was now sitting on his sofa looking like a cherry tree in full bloom.

  ‘I loved your thieves!’ crooned Vivi. ‘Bianca and Antonia were so very smart: discovering the tunnel from the basement to the Vatican; sending their parents on a cruise to get them out of the house while they did their dirty work; collapsing the tunnel once they had committed the robbery; and hiding the jewels on the merry-go-round horses. Brilliant! Fantastico!’

  ‘Fantastico!’ Freja giggled as the Italian word rolled off her tongue.

  ‘Fantastico,’ sighed Tobias, gazing at Vivi’s pretty face.

  ‘Tobias’ other books are wonderful,’ said Freja, ‘but Rome’s Reward is the best. It feels so real. Like it truly could happen!’

  ‘That is because it could!’ cried Vivi. ‘In fact, just before you came to Rome, a crime, not so very different, was committed.’

  ‘Really?’ gasped Freja.

  ‘Really,’ said Vivi. Her chocolatey eyes grew as wide as saucers. Her voice became low and secretive. ‘Some diamonds, very large, very precious, were stolen from the vault of a bank right here in the city. The bank is in a building that, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, was the mansion of a cardinal. That cardinal looked after the Church of Santa Maria.’

  ‘I just drew the Church of Santa Maria!’ cried Freja. ‘This morning. On my map of Rome.’

  Vivi nodded. ‘Yes, you know it, of course. It is beautiful and very unusual. Once, many centuries ago, there was a tunnel from the basement of the cardinal’s mansion to the Church of Santa Maria. The cardinal liked to keep it in good repair so he could slip between his home and his church without going into the smelly, disease-ridden streets of Rome. Now the police suspect the diamond thieves discovered this old tunnel and used it to get to the basement of the bank without being seen.’

  ‘Just like Bianca and Antonia used the tunnel in Rome’s Reward!’ Freja clasped her hands together and felt a tingle of excitement run up and down her spine.

  Vivi nodded again. ‘But when the police looked, the tunnel was collapsed — perhaps it had been that way for years, perhaps it had happened recently with the help of a little dynamite. There was too much damage, too much of the tunnel filled with rock and soil and the crumbs of ancient buildings to tell. Besides, the tunnel led only to the Church of Santa Maria and the priests at the church say their end of the tunnel has been blocked for many years. At least as long as they have been there.’

  ‘So the real crime hasn’t been solved?’ asked Freja.

  ‘No,’ said Vivi. ‘But the investigators do not think the thieves have left Rome with the diamonds. There have been too many eyes watching, waiting, hoping to catch them. They must have a very good hiding spot. For themselves. And for the diamonds.’

  Freja slumped back into her chair. ‘How thrilling,’ she whispered.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be delicious,’ said Vivi, ‘if the diamonds were just like Bianca and Antonia’s jewels on the merry-go-round? Sitting right under our noses all the time.’

  Freja nodded. ‘Right under our noses,’ she echoed.

  ‘Delicious,’ sighed Tobias, and he stared directly into Vivi’s wide, chocolatey eyes.

  Tobias and Freja hung over the balcony and waved as Vivi walked away down the street, her pink shoes clip-clopping on the cobblestones, her cherry-blossom skirt swaying from side to side.

  She turned back one last time and blew them both a kiss. ‘Ciao! Ciao, my beautiful friends!’

  ‘Beautiful,’ sighed Tobias, and he leaned further over the railing to keep Vivi in sight just a little longer.

  As he leaned, a thin length of twine dangled forward from the open collar of his shirt.

  At the end of the twine hung a key.

  Freja stared.

  It was not a normal, everyday key like one would use to open a cottage door or the lock on a suitcase. It was small and solid, its rusty head shaped like a heart, the other end shaped like an elaborate capital E.

  It looked like the type of key that might open something special …

  Something old …

  Something like a little treasure chest …

  CHAPTER 34

  Secrets revealed

  Freja lay in bed, flat on her back, and waited.

  All across Rome, hundreds of church bells chimed midnight. The last cars and three-wheeled trucks zoomed by in the street below. Two cats started a yowling competition on a nearby rooftop. Finnegan yawned, stretched across the bed and the girl and fell asleep.

  When all had been quiet for some time, Freja squeezed out from beneath the hound, grabbed her scissors from her pencil case and crept from the room. She pressed her ear against Tobias’ bedroom door and listened. All she could hear was a snoring sound, not so very different from the noise Finnegan was making in her own room.

  Turning the handle, she pushed open the door and slipped inside. She tiptoed to the edge of the bed and stared down at the sleeping writer. His quilt and sheets lay in a tangled mess at his feet. His winter pyjamas, patched and frayed, were pushed up to his knees and elbows. And across his body, his pillow and the mattress was a scattering of books, journals and small scraps of paper. His pencil, of course, was still tucked behind his ear.

  A breeze blew in through the open window, and something dangled back and forth from the bed lamp.

  ‘The key,’ whispered Freja. She relaxed a little; she would not be needing the scissors after all. ‘Too easy.’

  Smiling, Freja unhooked the twine from the lamp, slipped it around her neck and crept back to her own room.

  There, she closed the shutters, placed her pillow against the crack at the bottom of the door and turned on the light. Crawling beneath the bed, she dragged out her satchel. From the satchel she took her cherry-red beanie and from the cherry-red beanie she took the battered little treasure chest.

  Her breath caught.

  This was a very important moment. She, Freja Peachtree, was about to release the secrets belonging to Clementine Peachtree and Tobias Appleby.

  ‘All will be revealed,’ she whispered. She smiled because the words sounded important. A little pompous even.

  She carried the treasure chest from the bed to the dressing table — an archbishop bearing a crown towards a new queen. She took the key from around her neck and listened for some kind of fanfare.

  ‘Boof!’ said Finnegan. He sneezed, whimpered and started to snore again. It would have to do.

  She pushed the key into the lock, turned it and opened the lid.

  ‘It worked! It worked!’ She clapped her hands, allowed herself a quiet, little squeal of delight, then delved into the secrets.

  ‘Puffin poop!’

  Freja peered into the treasure chest for the third time, squinting, frowning. Each and every object looked so terribly, terribly normal. Boring. Pathetic even.

  Of course, these were not necessarily treasures. ‘Secrets’, Clementine had called them.

  ‘Clementine,’ whispered Freja. ‘Clementine would tell me to look carefully. To look again. To search for new things no-one else would notice. To make up my own mind about what I’m seeing.’

  Slowly and methodically, Freja pulled out each object, examined it and laid it on the dressing table. There was a tiny white seashell, an acorn grey with age, a smooth, round pebble, a small brown feather, another stone shaped roughly like a heart and a pressed flower. The flower had crumbled and lost most of its petals to the bottom of the treasure chest. Freja wondered if these were Clementine’s secrets, dreams of a future spent amongst the beauty of nature.

  Next, she pulled out the stub of a candle, a mint chocolate (the wrapper faded but still completely intact), a crystal like one might see on a chandelier and a short lock of hair that had been kept together by tying it into a knot.

  Freja held th
e lock of hair in the palm of her hand and peered at it. ‘Oh! There are two lots of hair,’ she whispered. ‘One golden and straight, the other brown and curly. Clementine’s and Tobias’ hair! But why is it knotted together?’ She rubbed it softly against her cheek, then sat it next to the chocolate.

  The crystal caught her eye once more. Holding it up to the ceiling, she turned it around and around in her fingertips. The light danced, sparkled and shattered into a thousand miniature rainbows. ‘Beautiful,’ she sighed.

  Next, she took out a piece of paper, yellowed and covered with the large, crooked writing of a small child. Freja unfolded it and began to read:

  Hero Boy and Reskew Girl

  A really trew story by Grape Smith

  PREPEAR TO BE ASTONISHED AND AMAZED UNTIL YOUR EYEBALLS POP OUT AND EXPLODE

  Once up on a time there was a bewtifool girl. Her name was Anne.

  Astonishingly, at the very same time there was a plane but powerfool boy called Grape. This was real lucky for Anne because she was in trubble.

  ‘Help! Help!’ she cried. ‘I am in trubble. Dubble trubble some mite say.’

  Grape was in trubble too. But as we alreddy no, he was very powerfool. His trubble was that

  The story ended. Both sides of the paper were full.

  ‘Grape Smith,’ mused Freja. ‘What a weird name. Maybe he was a friend of Tobias’ and Clementine’s . . . And who’s Anne? Someone real or someone pretend?’ She felt a rush of excitement. This might be a proper secret — at last! After all, the story did say that it was ‘really trew’. Then again, it might just be a scrap of paper that got messed up with Clementine’s and Tobias’ secrets. It might have nothing at all to do with their lives. Things like that did happen.

  Freja read through the half-story again, then set it aside. She looked down into the treasure chest. All that was left was a small piece of card. Tucking her fingernails carefully under the edge, she pulled it out.

  ‘Oh!’ Her hand flew to her chest. It was a strip of three tiny black-and-white photos, the sort one took in a booth at a fair. Two children, a girl and boy, sat with their heads pressed together, their eyes twinkling. In the first photo, they were smiling, all teeth and gaps where the tooth fairy had been. In the second photo, they were screwing up their faces and poking out their tongues. And in the last photo, they were laughing, their mouths wide, their eyes turned towards each other.

  A tear slipped down Freja’s cheek. For the photos were, of course, of Tobias and Clementine.

  ‘This is a big, fat secret,’ whispered Freja. ‘Tobias and Clementine have known each other since they were children . . . Maybe forever . . . Maybe they’re brother and sister!’ Her breath caught. ‘And that would make Tobias my uncle, no matter how many times he says he isn’t!’

  Secrets and lies. Lies and secrets. Tobias was so very good with both. But why would he and Clementine keep such a wonderful thing a secret?

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Freja, ‘there is a complicated and mysterious reason why Tobias cannot tell me the truth. It happens in stories, so why not in real life?’

  She smiled. The idea made her heart swell and her spirits soar. ‘I am Tobias Appleby’s secret niece. Tobias Appleby is my secret uncle. One day the world will know, but for now it has to remain a big, fat secret.’

  Pressing the photo to her lips, she kissed girl Clementine and boy Tobias.

  And then, although she knew it was wrong, she slipped the photo between the pages of her scrapbook.

  One by one, Freja placed the other items back in the little treasure chest until all that remained was the crystal. She held it up to the light once more and watched the rainbows dance inside. Bigger rainbows danced across the ceiling and the walls.

  ‘Magic,’ she sighed. ‘Like the crystal chandeliers in the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.’ She smiled. ‘Like the diamonds that were stolen and carried away through the tunnel between the bank and the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.’

  Freja moved the crystal towards the treasure chest and stopped. ‘Two Santa Marias!’ She clasped the crystal in her hand until it bit into her flesh. ‘There are two churches called Santa Maria and Vivi didn’t say which one was connected to the bank by a tunnel. I thought . . . I presumed it was Santa Maria in Trastevere because it was the church I had just drawn on my map. It was the church we had zoomed past on Tobias’ motorcycle just the day before . . . But perhaps . . .’ Her voice dropped to a mere hush. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the church that was connected to the bank by a tunnel is actually the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli . . . The church where Nonna Rosa and I went to pray . . . The church with all the crystal chandeliers . . . The church where one crystal chandelier shines brighter than all the rest . . .’

  She opened her shaking hand and stared at the crystal. ‘Tobias,’ she whispered, then raised her voice to a shout. ‘Tobias!’

  Tossing the crystal into the treasure chest, she ran from her bedroom, yelling at the top of her lungs, ‘Tobby! Tobby! Tobby! We have to go to church!’

  CHAPTER 35

  Mystery solved!

  ‘Are you sure about this, old chap?’ Tobias tugged at his scarf and frowned as Finnegan chased three cats down an alleyway. ‘Church? In the middle of the night?’

  Freja nodded. She grabbed his hand and, together, they walked up the long, steep stairway that led to the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Tobias pushed against the large wooden door, but it would not budge.

  ‘It’s this way,’ said Freja. Quietly, carefully, she tiptoed along the terrace, pushed open the smaller door and slipped inside. Tobias followed.

  ‘Oooh.’ Tobias shuddered. ‘Gloomy.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ whispered Freja. ‘It is gloomy at night, but in the daytime, it’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen — bright and sparkling. Like Heaven.’

  ‘Why are we whispering?’ asked Tobias.

  Freja took his hand once more and led him silently up the middle of the church.

  A door banged, and the beam of a torch darted back and forth across the sanctuary. Freja ducked behind a marble pillar, dragging Tobias with her.

  ‘Why are we hiding?’ asked Tobias.

  ‘You’ll see,’ whispered Freja.

  The light was poor, but they could just make out three priests dragging a ladder across the marble floor. They stopped beneath the arch in front of the altar. Two held the base of the ladder while the third climbed up with the torch in his hand. As the beam of light fell upon the chandelier, it burst to life. A thousands bolts of lightning shot out across the walls and ceiling of the church.

  ‘It’s magnificent,’ Tobias said in a hushed tone. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘That,’ whispered Freja, ‘is because chandeliers are usually made of crystals. But this one is special . . . This one is made of diamonds.’

  Tobias did not make a sound.

  Perhaps, thought Freja, he didn’t hear me. She tugged at the edge of his cardigan and whispered, ‘Tobias?’

  ‘Diamonds?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure, old chap?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The torch shone for a moment on the face of the priest at the top of the ladder. He had thick, dark hair, a muscular jaw, hard eyes and a nasty scar running from the middle of his left cheek to his chin.

  ‘Freja!’ gasped Tobias. ‘It’s Padre Paolo! What? How? But . . .’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘It’s astonishing, isn’t it? The three priests — who are not really priests at all — are the diamond thieves. The ones Vivi was telling us about. They’re here because they used the tunnel that leads from this church to the basement of the bank.’

  ‘But that was the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere,’ whispered Tobias. ‘That’s on the other side of the Tiber River.’

  ‘No,’ said Freja. ‘Vivi didn’t say that. I just presumed she was talking about the church in Trastevere. But there are two Santa Marias.’

  ‘Two Santa Marias,’ echoed Tobias, but still he
didn’t seem to understand. Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t been creeping around at night, like Freja had, losing his cherry-red beanie, gathering clues he could not share for fear of being scolded.

  The chandelier rattled as Padre Paolo unhooked it and carefully lowered it down from the arch.

  ‘I think,’ said Freja, ‘they might have blown up the tunnel between this church and the bank’s vault once they had stolen the diamonds. And then they hid the diamonds. Somewhere safe. A place where no-one would look.’

  ‘And what better place,’ said Tobias, his voice slow and deliberate, ‘than hanging from a chandelier in the middle of a church that is full of chandeliers?’

  ‘Right beneath our noses,’ whispered Freja.

  ‘Astonishing!’ gasped Tobias. ‘What a brilliant plan!’

  ‘No more brilliant than Bianca and Antonia’s plan in Rome’s Reward,’ said Freja.

  ‘Aaah,’ sighed Tobias, his mind untangling the mystery of the three angry priests. ‘They think I’ve been taunting them. That I know exactly what they have done because my book tells the same sort of story. And I arrived in Rome just days after they committed the robbery and hid the diamonds. I suppose they think I planned to blackmail them. You know, “Give me some of the diamonds, or I’ll turn you in to the police!”’ Tobias slapped his forehead so hard that the sound echoed through the marble arches.

  ‘Huh?’ Padre Paolo grunted. He shone the torch back and forth across the church, muttering. From what Freja understood, he was blaming the noise on the smelly cats that roamed about at night and slipped, uninvited, in and out of the church.

  ‘Golly,’ said Tobias. The whites of his eyes showed in the dark.

  ‘I don’t know how they got to be in charge of this church,’ said Freja. ‘Maybe they sent the real priest away on a cruise, like Bianca and Antonia did with their parents in Rome’s Reward. Or maybe they did something worse . . .’

  ‘I say, old chap. You’re right! This is all pretty serious. We could be in terrible danger.’

  ‘We can’t leave now,’ Freja pointed out. ‘They might see us.’