“Yes, let us, Sir James.”
Thereupon, Jamie held out his arm, Claudia rested the tips of her fingers on the top of his hand, and they descended the stairs. They proved to be as fussy in their selection as Goldilocks. This group was too old; that group, too young; this, too small; that, all girls. But they found a good and proper group in the American wing where they spent a lovely and informative hour and a half learning about the arts and crafts of colonial days. They dined with the group, staying always at the rear of the line, always slightly apart. Both Jamie and Claudia had acquired a talent for being near but never part of a group. (Some people, Saxonberg, never learn to do that all their lives, and some learn it all too well.)
5
THEY HAD BEEN GONE FROM HOME FOR THREE DAYS now. Claudia insisted on a fresh change of underwear every day. That was the way she had been brought up. She insisted for Jamie, too. No question about it; their laundry was becoming a problem. They had to get to a laundromat. That night they removed all their dirty clothes from their instrument cases and stuffed those that would fit into various pockets. Those that didn’t fit, they wore. A double layer of clothes never hurts anyone in winter, as long as the clean ones are worn closest to the skin.
Saturday seemed a good day for housekeeping chores. There would be no school groups for them to join. Claudia suggested that they eat both meals outside the museum. Jamie agreed. Claudia next suggested a real sit-down restaurant with tablecloths on the tables and waiters to serve you. Jamie said “NO” with such force that Claudia didn’t try to persuade him.
From breakfast at the automat they went to laundry at the laundromat. They emptied their pockets of underwear and removed the layer of soiled socks. No one stared. Someone before them had probably done the same thing some time that week. They bought soap from a machine for ten cents and deposited a quarter into the slot in the washer. Through the glass in the door they watched their assorted clothing spill and splash over and over and around and around. Drying cost ten cents for ten minutes, but it took twenty cents worth of minutes to dry everything. When all was done, they were disappointed; all of it looked dismally gray. Very unelegant. Claudia had thought that their white underwear should not have been washed with the red and navy blue socks, but she would not have considered asking for more money for anything as unglamorous as dirty socks.
“Oh, well,” she moaned, “at least they smell clean.”
Jamie said, “Let’s go to the TV department of Bloomingdale’s and watch TV.”
“Not today. We’ve got to work on the mystery of the statue all morning tomorrow, because tomorrow the museum doesn’t open until one o’clock. Today we must learn all about the Renaissance and Michelangelo to prepare ourselves. We’ll do research at the big library at 42nd Street.”
“How about the TV department of Macy’s instead?”
“To the library, Sir James.”
“Gimbels?”
“Library.”
They packed their gray-looking laundry back into their pockets and walked to the door of the laundromat. At the door Claudia turned to Jamie and asked, “Can we …?”
Jamie didn’t let her finish, “No, dear Lady Claudia. We have not the funds for taxis, buses, or subways. “Shall we walk?” He extended his arm. Claudia placed her gloved fingertips on top of Jamie’s mittened ones. Thus they began their long walk to the library.
Once there, they asked the lady at the information booth where they could find books on Michelangelo. She directed them first to the children’s room, but when the librarian there found out what they wanted to know, she advised them to go to the Donnell Branch Library on Fifty-third Street. Jamie hoped this would discourage Claudia, but it didn’t. She didn’t even seem to mind back-tracking up Fifth Avenue. Her determination convinced Jamie that Saturday should be spent just this way. Once at the library, they examined the directory which told what was available where and when the library was open. In the downstairs Art Room the librarian helped them find the books which Claudia selected from the card catalogue. She even brought them some others. Claudia liked that part. She always enjoyed being waited on.
Claudia began her studies never doubting that she could become an authority that morning. She had neither pencil nor paper to make notes. And she knew she wouldn’t have a lot of time to read. So she decided that she would simply remember everything, absolutely everything she read. Her net profit, therefore, would be as great as that of someone who read a great deal but remembered very little.
Claudia showed the executive ability of a corporation president. She assigned to Jamie the task of looking through the books of photographs of Michelangelo’s work to find pictures of Angel. She would do the reading. She glanced through several thick books with thin pages and tiny print. After reading twelve pages, she looked to the end to see how many more pages there were to go: more than two hundred. The book also had footnotes. She read a few more pages and then busied herself with studying some of Jamie’s picture books.
“You’re supposed to do the reading!”
“I’m just using these pictures for relief,” Claudia whispered. “I have to rest my eyes sometime.”
“Well, I don’t see any pictures that look like that statue,” Jamie sighed.
“Keep looking. I’ll do some more reading.”
A few minutes later Jamie interrupted her. “Here he is,” he said.
“That doesn’t look anything like the statue. That’s not even a girl,” Claudia said.
“Of course not. That’s Michelangelo himself.”
Claudia replied, “I knew that.”
“Two minutes ago you didn’t. You thought I was showing you a picture of the statue.”
“Oh, I meant … I meant. Well … there’s his broken nose.” She pointed to the nose in the picture. “He got in a fight and had his nose broken when he was a teenager.”
“Was he a juvenile delinquent? Maybe they do have his fingerprints on file.”
“No, silly,” Claudia said. “He was a hot-tempered genius. Did you know he was famous even when he was alive?”
“Is that so? I thought that artists don’t become famous until after they’re dead. Like mummies.”
They studied a while longer before Jamie’s next interruption. “You know, a lot of his works were lost. They say lost in parentheses under the picture.”
“How can that be? A statue isn’t something like an umbrella that you leave in a taxi and lose. That is, those people who actually ride taxis; something you wouldn’t know about.”
“Well, they weren’t lost in taxis. They were lost track of.”
“What kind of a sentence is that? Lost track of?”
“Oh, boloney! There are whole long books about the lost works of Michelangelo. Picture works and sculptor works that people lost track of.”
Claudia softened. “Is the little angel one of them?”
“What’s the difference between an angel and a cupid?” Jamie inquired.
“Why?” Claudia asked.
“Because there’s a lost cupid for sure.”
“Angels wear clothes and wings and are Christian. Cupids wear bows and arrows; they are naked and pagan.”
“What’s pagan?” Jamie asked. “Boy or girl?”
“How would I know?” Claudia answered.
“You said they are naked.”
“Well, pagan has nothing to do with that. It means worshipping idols instead of God.”
“Oh,” Jamie nodded. “The statue in the museum is an angel. It’s dressed in its altogether. I don’t know yet if an angel was lost …” Then he glanced over at his sister and muttered, “track of.”
Claudia had begun her research confident that a morning’s study would make her completely an expert; but Michelangelo had humbled her, and humility was not an emotion with which she felt comfortable; she was irritable. Jamie ended his research where Claudia had begun: very confident and happy. He felt that his morning had been well spent; he had seen a lot of pictures an
d he had learned about pagan. He leaned back and yawned; he was becoming bored with pictures of David and Moses and the Sistine Ceiling; he wanted to find clues. Already he knew enough to tell if Michelangelo had sculptured the little angel. All he needed was a chance to investigate. Without the guards hurrying him. He would know, but would his opinion be accepted by the experts?
“I think we should find out how the experts decide whether or not the statue belongs to Michelangelo. That will be better than finding out about Michelangelo himself,” Jamie said.
“I know how they find out. They gather evidence like sketches he did and diaries and records of sales. And they examine the statue to see what kind of tools were used and how they were used. Like no one living in the fifteenth century would use an electric drill. How come you didn’t take art appreciation lessons with me?”
“The summer before last?”
“Yes. Before school started.”
“Well, the summer before last, I had just finished the second half of first grade.”
“So what?”
“So boloney! It was all I could do to sound out the name of Dick and Jane’s dog.”
Claudia had no answer for Jamie’s logic. Besides, Jamie agreed with her, “I guess it is better to look for clues. After all, we’re doing something that none of the experts can do.”
Claudia’s impatience surfaced. She had to pick a fight with Jamie. “Don’t be silly. They can read all this stuff, too. There’s certainly plenty of it.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that. I mean that we’re living with the statue. You know what they always say: The only two ways to get to know someone are to live with him or play cards with him.”
“Well, at least the little statue can’t cheat at cards like someone else I know.”
“Claudia, dear, I’m no angel. Statue or otherwise.”
Claudia sighed, “O.K. Sir James, let’s go.” And they did.
As they were walking up the steps, Jamie spied a Hershey’s almond bar still in its wrapper lying in the corner of the landing. He picked it up and tore open one corner.
“Was it bitten into?” asked Claudia.
“No,” Jamie smiled. “Want half?”
“You better not touch it,” Claudia warned. “It’s probably poisoned or filled with marijuana, so you’ll eat it and become either dead or a dope addict.”
Jamie was irritated. “Couldn’t it just happen that someone dropped it?”
“I doubt that. Who would drop a whole candy bar and not know it? That’s like leaving a statue in a taxi. Someone put it there on purpose. Someone who pushes dope. I read once that they feed dope in chocolates to little kids, and then the kids become dope addicts, then these people sell them dope at very high prices which they just can’t help but buy because when you’re addicted you have to have your dope. High prices and all. And Jamie, we don’t have that kind of money.”
Jamie said, “Oh, well, bottoms up.” He took a big bite of the candy, chewed and swallowed. Then he closed his eyes, leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. Claudia stood with her mouth open, stunned. She was on the verge of screaming for help when Jamie opened his eyes and smiled. “It’s delicious. Want a bite?”
Claudia not only refused the bite, she also refused to talk to Jamie until they got to the restaurant. Lunch cheered her. She suggested that they play in Central Park for a while, and they did. They bought peanuts, chestnuts, and pretzels from the vendor outside the museum. They knew that since the museum opened late on Sunday, they would accumulate a lot of hunger before they got out. Their bulging pockets were now full of the staples of life: food and clothing.
Jamie entered the men’s room. He had arrived, as was his custom, shortly before the first bell rang, the bell that warned everyone that the museum would close in five minutes. He waited; the bell rang. He got into a booth. First bell, second bell, it was routine just as boarding the school bus had once been routine. After the first day, they had learned that the staff worked from nine A.M. until five P.M., a work schedule just like their father’s. Routine, routine. The wait from nine when the staff came until ten when the public came seemed long. Claudia and Jamie had decided that the washrooms were good for the shorter evening wait when the help left at the same time as the visitors, but the washrooms were less satisfactory for the long morning wait … especially after Jamie’s close call that first morning. So time from eight forty-five until some safe time after ten in the mornings was spent under various beds. They always checked for dust under the bed first. And for once Claudia’s fussiness was not the reason. Reason was the reason. A dustless floor meant that it had been cleaned very recently, and they stood less chance of being caught by a mop.
Jamie stood on the toilet seat waiting. He leaned his head against the wall of the booth and braced himself for what would happen next. The guard would come in and make a quick check of his station. Jamie still felt a ping during that short inspection; that was the only part that still wasn’t quite routine, and that’s why he braced himself. Then the lights would be turned out. Jamie would wait twelve minutes (lag time, Claudia called it) and emerge from hiding.
Except.
Except the guard didn’t come, and Jamie couldn’t relax until after he felt that final ping. And the lights stayed on, stayed on. Jamie checked his watch ten times within five minutes; he shook his arm and held the watch up to his ear. It was ticking slower than his heart and much more softly. What was wrong? They had caught Claudia! Now they would look for him! He’d pretend he didn’t speak English. He wouldn’t answer any questions.
Then he heard the door open. Footsteps. More footsteps than usual. What was happening? The hardest part was that every corpuscle of Jamie’s nine-year-old self was throbbing with readiness to run, and he had to bind up all that energy into a quiet lump. It was like trying to wrap a loose peck of potatoes into a neat four-cornered package. But he managed to freeze. He heard the voices of two men talking over the sound of water running in the sink.
“I guess they expect even more people tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Sundays are always jammed up anyway.”
“It’ll be easier to move the people in and out of the Great Hall.”
“Yeah. Two feet of marble. What do you figure it weighs?”
“I dunno. Whatever it weighs, it has to be handled delicate. Like it was a real angel.”
“C’mon. They probably have the new pedestal ready. We can start.”
“Do you think they’ll have as many people as they had for the Mona Lisa?”
“Naw! The Mona Lisa was here for a short time only. Besides it was the real McCoy.”
“I think this one’s …”
The men left, turning off the lights as they did so. Jamie heard the door close before he melted. Legs first. He sat down on the seat as he allowed the familiar darkness as well as new realization to fill him.
They were moving Angel. Did Claudia know? They wouldn’t have women moving the statue. There would be no one in the ladies’ room washing up. Who would give her the information? He would. By mental telepathy. He would think a message to Claudia. He folded his hands across his forehead and concentrated. “Stay put, Claudia, stay put. Stay put. Stay put. Claudia, stay put.” He thought that Claudia would not approve of the grammar in his mental telegram; she would want him to think stay in place. But he didn’t want to weaken his message by varying it one bit. He continued thinking STAY PUT.
He must have thought STAY PUT exactly hard enough, for Claudia did just that. They never knew exactly why she did, but she did. Perhaps she sensed some sounds that told her that the museum was not yet empty. Maybe she was just too tired from running around in Central Park. Maybe they were not meant to get caught. Maybe they were meant to make the discovery they made.
They waited for miles and miles of time before they came out of hiding. At last they met in their bedroom. Claudia was sorting the laundry when Jamie got there. In the dark, mostly by feel. Although there is no real difference between bo
ys’ stretch socks and girls’, neither ever considered wearing the other’s. Children who have always had separate bedrooms don’t.
Claudia turned when she heard Jamie come up and said, “They moved the statue.”
“How did you know? Did you get my message?”
“Message? I saw the statue on my way here. They have a dim light on it. I guess so that the night guard won’t trip over it.”
Jamie replied, “We’re lucky we didn’t get caught.”
Claudia never thought very hard about the plus-luck she had; she concentrated on the minus-luck. “But they held us up terribly. I planned on our taking baths tonight. I really can’t stand one night more without a bath.”
“I don’t mind,” Jamie said.
“Come along, Sir James. To our bath. Bring your most elegant pajamas. The ones embroidered in gold with silver tassels will do.”
“Where, dear Lady Claudia, dost thou expect to bathe?”
“In the fountain, Sir James. In the fountain.”
Jamie extended his arm, which was draped with his striped flannel pajamas, and said, “Lady Claudia, I knew that sooner or later you would get me to that restaurant.”
(It makes me furious to think that I must explain that restaurant to you, Saxonberg. I’m going to make you take me to lunch in there one day soon. I just this minute became determined to get you into the museum. You’ll see later how I’m going to do it. Now about the restaurant. It is built around a gigantic fountain. Water in the fountain is sprayed from dolphins sculptured in bronze. The dolphins appear to be leaping out of the water. On their backs are figures representing the arts, figures that look like water sprites. It is a joy to sit around that wonderful fountain and to snack petit fours and sip espresso coffee. I’ll bet that you’d even forget your blasted ulcer while you ate there.)
Lady Claudia and Sir James quietly walked to the entrance of the restaurant. They easily climbed under the velvet rope that meant that the restaurant was closed to the public. Of course they were not the public. They shed their clothes and waded into the fountain. Claudia had taken powdered soap from the restroom. She had ground it out into a paper towel that morning. Even though it was freezing cold, she enjoyed her bath. Jamie, too, enjoyed his bath. For a different reason.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Page 5