“Good morning,” I said. “How about we talk in the van?” I thought that would get us away from the onlookers—including Knit Cap, now strumming—who had gathered.
“I would love some tea,” Brigitte said, and walked toward the lobby.
She said hello to Étienne and briefly discussed the bashful personality of his pet turtle. Then he made her a cup of tea and placed a scone from the complimentary breakfast bar on a china plate. She and I sat on a sofa in the lobby. It seemed that everywhere we went, Brigitte was treated like royalty. It’s true: people like people who care for their pets.
Henri joined us with a plate stacked a foot high with scones, muffins, and mini bagels. He was such a boy!
“The book of tricks worked,” he said.
“What book of tricks?” Brigitte asked.
We filled her in on what we’d done while trying to spy on Beef, who sat in a leather armchair with her feet propped on an ottoman, toggling between her watch and her smartphone.
“I bet she’s looking up stuff about the airport,” I said.
“No, thank you. I do not like bets,” Henri said. “Usually someone loses.” I really needed to watch my expressions around him.
Beef put her phone down and whipped a pocketknife out of her fanny pack. She twisted a toothpick out of it and went at her teeth—poking and picking.
I touched the key around my neck and felt each groove and bend. When my fingers felt a small nub at the end, through which the ribbon was looped, I took it off. I rubbed the nub and, squeezing a little, turned it. It twisted like a cap on a tube of toothpaste.
It opened.
“Look,” I quietly said to Brigitte and Henri, but they were already watching. I turned the key upside down, and a tiny piece of rolled paper slid out. I screwed the top back on and unrolled the paper.
“It says: ‘I leap off is written here.’”
I looked at Henri and Brigitte for a reaction but got none. Brigitte shook her head like I don’t know, and Henri shrugged his shoulders.
Henri said, “La bibliothèque?” The library? “Everything is written there.”
“I guess it could be. Or a plaque somewhere?” I suggested.
Neither of them had any idea. I keyed the phrase into the search engine on my phone. Nothing.
“I guess we should go to the library,” I said.
“That is good,” Brigitte said. “I can drop the Cliquots’ pets off at the groomer on the way.”
“I thought you were a groomer too.” We headed out to a beautifully sunny Paris day.
Henri lagged behind.
“Not for this kind of pet,” Brigitte said. Based on the feathers and beak I had a feeling I was going to find some kind of bird in the mobile.
I got into the front seat and turned to look behind me, and I did in fact find a bird. Correction: birds. Blue and orange parrots. Three cages full.
Brigitte hopped into the front seat, buckled up, and checked the rearview, each side mirror, and the rearview again. When Henri came to the mobile, his pockets were stuffed with something. I knew what it was because I had brothers. Food.
He climbed into the backseat and Brigitte asked, “Ready to go?”
Then every bird, all twelve of them, repeated, “Ready to go?” “Ready?” “Go?” “Ready to go?” They weren’t in unison.
Henri jumped back in shock. “They talk?”
“The best kind of feathered friend,” Brigitte said.
“Fantastique,” Henri muttered, but I sensed he meant un-fantastique.
When Brigitte backed out of the parking spot, the petmobile made a Beep! Beep! Beep!
A dozen parrots mimicked, “Beep! Beep! Beep!”
Henri, who was closer to the flock, covered his ears. On his hands’ way to his ears, he popped a mini muffin into his mouth.
“Here we go,” Brigitte said.
“Here we go!” “Here we go!” “Here!” “Go!”
16
Brigitte pulled into a lovely cobblestone alley with creeping ivy and flowers. She honked the Squaaawk! horn to scoot a few stray cats out of her way. She opened the mobile’s back door and carried one cage of four birds through a small door next to a faded sign covered almost entirely by vines. The sign said BAIN D’OISEAU.
“Bird bath,” Henri translated for me.
“Bath?” “BATH?” “Baaaath?” “BAAAATTH?”
The remaining parrots did not like the idea. Brigitte came back, and when she heard them yelling, she asked, “You told them?”
“Not exactly. They kind of overheard us talking. You might want to explain to them that eavesdropping is rude,” I said as she carried in the second cage, which contained four nervous birds yelling about a bath.
“They are freaking out,” Henri said, using one of my expressions.
I agreed, “Yes, they are.”
“They’re freaking out!” “Freaking!” “OUT!” they said. One shouted, “Baath?” and the remaining three started flipping out about the bath all over again.
Once Brigitte brought the last cage inside, the petmobile was filled with beautiful quiet, and I was able to think about “I leap off.” But the quiet didn’t help. I still had no ideas where that might be written.
Brigitte drove to the library via a road that ran parallel to the Seine, the main river flowing through the center of Paris. I watched a tour boat glide down the water.
“I really want to take one of those river tours,” I said.
“Want me to stop at the ticket station?” Brigitte asked.
“No thanks. Winning this contest is more important.”
We arrived at the library. “Wait,” I said when I saw Jean-Luc, Sabine, and Robert parking.
“Do you think they found ‘I leap off’?” Brigitte asked.
“Let’s watch them for a second,” I said. “Stay still and they won’t even know we’re here.”
“I’ll just back into this spot behind the bushes,” Brigitte said. She put the petmobile in reverse and Beep! Beep! Beep!
Jean-Luc, Robert, and Sabine looked over and had a good hearty laugh at the van’s new ensemble. They cupped their hands by their noses like beaks and hooted.
“Owls hoot,” Brigitte explained to us. “Not parrots. They are so stupid.”
“Let’s just get in there and find the book where ‘I leap off’ is written before they do,” I said.
On my way out, my foot stepped on a paper on the petmobile floor. It was the place mat that Brigitte and Henri had played hangman on.
It’s a game.
Puzzle.
Misdirection.
“Hang on,” I said. “I don’t think ‘I leap off’ is written in a book. Well, maybe it is, but that’s not the clue.”
Brigitte said, “But it says—”
“We’ve been thinking about this wrong. Each clue needs to be solved, like a puzzle.” I wrote, I leap off is written here on a blank section of the place mat. “Do you know what anagrams are?”
“Letters that are like . . .” Henri pantomimed stirring something in a bowl.
“Mixed up,” I said. “Letters have to be rearranged. Maybe if we rearrange these, they will reveal the real clue.”
I played with the letters:
At top.
Irish.
Brigitte added:
Pet Fifi.
White leaf.
“That’s the idea,” I said. “We just have to make them into a location.”
“I can,” Henri said as though it took no effort at all.
“You can. What?”
“You cannot see it?” he asked.
I looked at the letters. “No! What is it?”
“I will give you hints and you figure it out,” he said.
Jean-Luc, Sabine, and Robert ran out of the l
ibrary and to their car.
“No!” I yelled, louder than I meant. “Maybe they’ve figured it out. We are in a huge hurry! Just tell us what it is.”
He looked disappointed with my anger.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just really want these tickets.”
“D’accord,” he said. “It’s the Eiffel Tower. You have a few letters left over, but it’s pretty close.”
“Very close. Too close to be wrong. Let’s go!”
Brigitte skipped the triple mirror check and recheck and pulled out with a lot more power this time. The power of a sloth!
“First place, here we come!” I called.
17
Brigitte passed one side of the Eiffel Tower. We couldn’t park on that street, so she made several turns until we came up on the other side. Under one of the iron lattice archways a girl in a royal blue shirt—different from the last one—was waiting, stretching her gum out of her mouth with one hand and scrolling on her phone with the other.
Brigitte couldn’t park here either, so Henri and I jumped out and sprinted toward the girl.
When Blue Shirt looked up from her phone, we were in her face.
“Whoa,” she said, startled. “Where did you come from?”
“We ran,” I gasped.
She reached into a box and took out a royal blue gift bag. I peeked into the box. There were nine others.
We were first!
“Where is Murielle duPluie?” This was my chance to redeem myself to the world. After all, I was representing the USA! “Does she want to interview us?”
“Nope. She’s chasing another story today.”
“Maybe we could give you a statement or something to send to the TV news,” I suggested. I really wanted public attention for this achievement.
“Nah. That’s okay.” She went back to her phone. “Good luck,” she added without looking up.
“What is the clue?” Henri asked, but I was still thinking about my missed moment in the spotlight. If Murielle duPluie wasn’t going to report on us, then I had to take matters into my own hands. Isn’t that what social media is for?
I logged onto Twister.com and typed in a post: Hello! Can’t tell you where we are or where we’re headed, but this team is . . . wait for it . . . in first place!
That was a good start, but I still wanted the shout-out on TV!
“Come here. Hold up the bag—we’re gonna do a selfie.” I snapped a pic of me, Henri, and the bag without getting the Eiffel Tower in the background. The longer we could maintain a lead, the better.
Back in the petmobile we opened the bag.
I keep the torch lit for all to see,
The apple of their eye,
Tall and strong for liberty,
I watch the birds and planes fly by.
48-51-0/2-16-47
A surge of excitement flowed through my veins. “OMG! I know this! I know the answer to this clue!”
“So fast?” Henri asked.
“Yes. It’s the Statue of Liberty! She has a torch and she’s the symbol of liberty. And the part about the apple—that’s what we call New York City, the Big Apple, and that’s where she is. She stands on an island where she can watch birds and planes fly by.”
“That sounds like the right answer, but we cannot go to New York for the next clue,” Brigitte said.
“True,” I agreed. “Do you have something like a Statue of Liberty here?”
Henri laughed. “Actually, we have three.”
18
“There are three Statues of Liberty in Paris?” I asked. Wow, the one in New York Harbor had suddenly become less special. “At least we’re in the lead, so we’ll have time to go to all of them.”
“We don’t have to,” Brigitte said.
“We do!” I agreed. “We have to be first. We’re gonna beat Beef.”
“I mean we only have to go to one of the statues,” Brigitte said. “The correct one.”
“How will I know which one is correct?” I asked.
Brigitte pointed to the numbers. “I use these kinds of numbers all the time to find my customers’ homes.”
“Like a cell phone number?” I asked.
“No. They are coordinates for a GPS,” she said. “They are the exact location of the next clue.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Allons-y!” I said. “Let’s go!”
Brigitte took a gadget out of the glove box and punched in the numbers from the clue. Instantly, a voice told us in French to turn right. Brigitte, hands clenched on the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions on the wheel, did as the voice said.
We were only a few blocks away from our destination when an alarm sounded from Brigitte’s watch. She pushed a little button to make it stop. She swung the petmobile into a U-turn.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It is time to pick up the birds from their baths.”
“But the statue?” I whined.
“Work first,” she sang as if I would totally understand.
Fine, I understood, but there was a lot at stake here besides a few wet birds.
She maneuvered through the steep winding streets of Montmartre, past street-side painters and people sitting outdoors sipping cappuccino.
Each of the three of us grabbed a birdcage from the bain d’oiseau and put the flock in the back of the minivan. The birds smelled good, like soap and flowers. “Here we go, guys,” Brigitte called back to them. “To the Île aux Cygnes to get the next clue.”
“Clue!” “Cygnes.” “Guys.” “Go!” The gang sounded less energetic than they had on the way to their bath this morning.
“Usually they nap after their—” She whispered “bath” very softly, so they wouldn’t hear the word. “If you’re quiet, they’ll probably fall asleep.”
We were ready to go, but Henri was nowhere to be found. I looked around the busy street until I saw the back of his head. He was at a small table-like wagon on the side of the road, paying a man. I joined him to see the table layered with rows of croissants. Henri held a bag open for me. “Croissant?”
While I was a stranger to the croissant, I had never met a pastry that I didn’t like. So I took one and bit into it, and was pleasantly surprised by a warm, sweet glob of chocolate hiding inside the flaky, buttery roll.
“It is good, non?” Henri asked.
“Non. I mean, oui. It’s very good.”
Back in the petmobile the three of us rode in croissant-induced silence. Other cars whizzed around us. We passed the Eiffel Tower and drove onto a bridge that crossed the Seine. Brigitte pointed off the side of the bridge to a small protrusion of land, but I was already looking at it. It was an exact replica of our Statue of Liberty. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like her twin, her smaller twin.
“Pull over,” I said. “I think we’re first!”
“First!” “First!” “First!”
“Shhh,” Brigitte said. “You woke them up. They get cranky if they don’t get a nap. And you would not like them when they are grouchy.”
“Sorry. But this is a race! Can you just pull over and let me out?”
“I cannot stop here,” Brigitte said. “I will park ahead. We will have to walk.” She eased into a parking space, painfully slowly.
“Or run,” Henri said. “Race you!” He took off toward the statue.
I chased him. This time I ran as fast as I could, but I couldn’t catch up. I wasn’t trying to be girly; I seriously couldn’t keep up. Was I getting slower? It was one thing to pretend to be slow; it was another to actually become slow.
Henri stopped at the Shock Value rep. It was the same girl from the Louvre.
“Bonjour,” Henri said.
“Hi,” I gasped. “Are we first?”
“Yes, you are. You really are a comeback sto
ry,” she said.
“Where is Murielle duPluie?”
“On another story,” she said. “Here is the last clue. Don’t get too comfy with first place; this one is really hard.”
“Jeez, can’t Murielle duPluie send someone else?” I groaned. “This is major music news.”
Brigitte caught up with us. Totally out of breath, she asked, “What does the clue say?”
I read:
“XX marks the spot. Number eighty-three is the place. In the Garden of Names.”
I looked at them. “Do you guys have any ideas?”
They both shook their heads.
I looked off in the distance. I could see the Eiffel Tower, and dark clouds starting to roll in. They looked nasty.
Brigitte saw them too. “Let’s get the birds home,” she said.
We hustled to the petmobile, where our feathered friends were still snoozing. We closed the doors as quietly as we could.
I read the clue out loud again. “‘XX marks the spot. Number eighty-three is the place. In the Garden of Names.’” Still no one had any ideas.
One of the birds said, “Eighty-three! In the garden!” in its sleep.
Another answered, “Okay, Sammy,” in its sleep. “Deliver the flowers.”
“They talk in their sleep?”
“Yeah. They say some funny things sometimes. Stuff they’ve overheard. Their owner is a florist. So they say stuff they hear from the store or the cart.”
“What cart?”
“The owner has a flower cart. The birds who are well behaved get to hang out on it on nice days. They love it,” she said.
The rest of the afternoon we spent my lunch money on crepes smothered in Nutella and took the birds around the city. As the afternoon turned into evening, we planned to take the tired flock home.
Brigitte drove at her usual glacial speed that I was starting to get used to when rain started hitting the windshield hard.
Lost in Paris Page 6