Pieces and Players

by Blue Balliett

  “Like, the trustees are meaner to each other and everyone else than barn cats fighting over a newly hatched chick. Like, Eagle Devlin knows his way around that place. He came in late the other day, told the guards in front that he was in a hurry and then looked around as if checking to be sure everything was still there. He even ducked into the empty security room for a moment when the guard in there stepped out for a smoke. But then when he went upstairs, he pretended he’d just arrived. I could hear. It’s the little things, you know — the best berries are under the leaves, hodilly-hum.”

  Zoomy nodded. “Do you think Mrs. Farmer likes Eagle?” he blurted.

  Gam looked up from the book. “I expect she’d have let me know if she didn’t,” she said comfortably. “I think she took kind of a shine to you and me.”

  Zoomy heard that as permission to move ahead with their plan the next night — Gam wouldn’t mind a little trespassing as long as the owner wasn’t bothered.

  Plus, as his grandma had said, Mrs. Farmer liked Eagle. A ghost wouldn’t welcome a slippery guy to her home, would she? Unless, that is, she was fooled by him. And if Eagle could fool a ghost, he could fool Mrs. Sharpe and Ms. Hussey …

  “Everything okay, Zoomy?” Gam asked.

  “Just thinking about people who seem fine but might have a history, like some of the rhymes. An ugly history.”

  Gam nodded. “A snake with a bump in its middle.”

  Zoomy thought again about his friend in the stolen Manet painting, the man who hid part of what he was doing with his hand, even as he waited for Zoomy to understand. Even he had a past, a mysterious past — and was Zoomy right to trust him?

  Of course he was!

  Sitting in Powell’s and thinking about the missing art, especially the piece he had dreamed about, Zoomy was quiet. He’d never known, before this whole adventure began, how alive art really was. He’d never realized that once you communicate with a piece of art, it responds and then you’re a part of its world as well as your own.

  Or, like the Mother Goose alphabet said, once the pie is opened, everyone wants a piece. Once you’ve made friends with someone in a stolen painting and they’re relying on you, there’s no going back.

  You’ll understand this message … Being needed in this way was a new experience for Zoomy, and at that moment he felt a rush of confidence, almost as if the deeps were not quite as deep and he could do anything the other four could do.

  * * *

  Four faces peered into the dark opening behind and beneath the Picasso.

  “Whoa,” Tommy breathed. “Good job, Petra! Look — recent scrape marks, and a place where a huge box could’ve been bolted in, way out of sight. It’s a natural!” He spat on his hand and rubbed it on the metal. “Look, it’s cleaner where something heavy was dragged, like it just happened!”

  “But nothing’s there,” Calder said flatly. “We missed it, whatever it was.”

  “Too bad we can’t ask someone,” Early said.

  “Yeah, like one of the pigeons around here,” Petra said glumly.

  The four turned away, somehow feeling worse for having found a likely spot. A familiar back hurried away from them, across the street.

  Ms. Hussey?

  * * *

  “What? Where —” Ms. Hussey said lamely, looking from face to face. She wasn’t happy to see them, and didn’t seem to know what to say.

  The kids had rushed over and peppered her with questions. She answered with more questions, but mostly ones that didn’t need an answer. After all, the kids were just doing what she’d told them to do.

  “Okay, you guys,” Petra finally said. “Let her catch her breath. Are you headed back to Hyde Park, Ms. Hussey?”

  She nodded yes, then shook her head no. “Going into the bank down the street,” she said. “Doing some business for Mrs. Sharpe.”

  The four were quiet. Weren’t the trustees at Mrs. Sharpe’s house right now?

  “Be careful you’re not the red herring on the hook,” Tommy blurted. Nice, he thought happily. Smooth comment.

  Ms. Hussey glanced quickly around after he’d said this, and looked truly frightened. “Go home,” she said as she backed away. Then she pivoted and hurried around the nearest corner.

  Petra turned on Tommy. “Why did you say that? You made her run away!”

  “Early said it, not me,” he muttered.

  “But not about her. About us,” Early corrected.

  I hate girls, Tommy thought furiously.

  “I think Tommy said the right thing,” Calder said. “Why shouldn’t we be warning Ms. Hussey? She looked so jittery, and maybe that’s what she needed to hear.”

  “I was thinking about Eagle, but didn’t have time to say it,” Tommy added. Actually, I just thought of him, but who cares.

  “Yes, you did have time,” Petra said meanly.

  “So did you,” Tommy snapped back, but didn’t really know what he meant.

  “Scaz,” Calder said, as if he could see through his buddy and thought he should be quiet.

  The four walked back to the train station in a stiff silence. Luckily, the return ride was crowded and their seats were separate.

  Petra thought about the lady at the harpsichord and the pull of Xs behind the man’s back … For art, this building. This comfort … Well, they were going to the building, but the plan didn’t feel comfortable. Was it okay that they were being pulled? She wasn’t sure.

  Now a startling question came to mind: The red square on the back of the chair — could that be Mrs. Farmer’s book? What if she’d chosen a red cover to match Vermeer’s red? What if this was a warning, a flag of truth for all who got too close? Everything about Mrs. Farmer had seemed so delightful, but now Petra wondered — was there a darker side to the five of them dreaming about her art?

  Calder thought of how it had felt to roll across that boat in the storm, and the sounds of men screaming. He clutched the back of the seat in front of him.

  Hold tight, he found himself thinking, and remembered the Rembrandt-like face looking steadily out at the black water. If he could stay calm, then I can, too. Calder stirred his pentominoes, relieved that they’d be onboard tomorrow night.

  Early imagined that peaceful room in which the man and the woman waited. She wouldn’t let them down. Good things would come for them all if she could be what she was meant to be. She’d sit on that chair with the red cushion and make herself ready for the right moment.

  She thought back to the delicate loop of pearls in the woman’s hair and the lace around her wrists, the details standing out against — Wait, oh, no! Both figures in the painting were wearing black! Black like the black jackets.

  A flash of irrational panic made Early’s heart pound. Once in that room, how would she get out if she didn’t want to stay? What if she couldn’t figure out what they wanted her to do?

  Tommy thought about the Flinck landscape again and wondered if Chicago had ever looked like that. And if it had, did that mean the art belonged to the soul of this city, and was somewhere nearby? That the landscape was a clue in the theft? But Chicago was so big … that tree was so big … and the opening in the trunk was so dark. For the first time, Tommy wondered if stepping into these paintings had been a lure, like fish dangling before the nose of a cat. He remembered how fast Ratty had snapped at the sardines and wondered if the five of them had all been trapped, like so many cats, into going back to the Farmer. Lured back, and to a building filled with lions …

  When they stepped off the train in Hyde Park, no one looked up at the box behind the Story Wall as they headed south toward everyone’s homes. If they had, they would have seen that the man who had shouted at Tommy was crouched in front of it listening to a cell phone, a black leather jacket draped over one shoulder.

  * * *

  “Hello?” Early never got calls at night. Her family watched her answer the phone.

  “Good idea, will do,” she told the caller. “And that’s okay, it was a long day.”
<
br />   “Ooooh, you talking to a boyyyy?” Jubie squeaked wickedly.

  “None of your business,” Early said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jubie crooned. “Boy, boy!”

  Early sighed. Her parents hadn’t said anything, but the question was in the air. “That was Petra. She suggested that the five of us take a break tomorrow, before we go to Mrs. Sharpe’s for dinner.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Summer said. “You guys have done a lot together this week.”

  “One, two, three, boys in a tree!” sang Jubie. “Little Miss Muffet, sitting on a tuffet!”

  “That’s not very nice, Jubie,” Summer laughed.

  “Please stay away from the spider,” Dash added, looking at his daughter. “And you, my man, are a poet but you don’t know it.”

  “I do!” Jubie shouted. “And I like Mother Goose! Like the girls!”

  “Afraid he does,” Early muttered. “Just watch you don’t trip and break your crown,” she added.

  As Jubie’s arm flew up to cover his head, Summer said, “Early!”

  “Well, if he likes Mother Goose, he’d better get used to how violent it is,” she said. She clapped her book shut, marched into the bathroom, and slammed the door.

  Her parents looked at each other and sighed, a ripple of worry crossing the room between them.

  * * *

  “Can you talk?” Petra asked when Calder answered his phone that night.

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “It’s about us five and what we’re doing tomorrow night. I’m worried.”

  There was silence on the other end as Calder dumped his pentominoes onto his desk.

  “I think” — Petra paused during the clatter and then went on — “the reason we got so grumpy today was that maybe we all know this is a pretty bad idea. This trip to the Farmer with Eagle, I mean. And maybe the five of us don’t always have great judgment together, like, oh, opening that can of sardines or Tommy climbing up the bank by the train. Like we egg each other on and also show off for each other.”

  “Huh,” Calder said. “But think how rotten we’d feel if we gave up.” Suddenly he pictured the men onboard that Rembrandt ship, howling with fear.

  “Do you really think we’ll be able to rescue this art?” Petra’s voice was almost teary. “I mean, five goofball thirteen-year-olds like us? Maybe the grown-ups around us think we’re more capable than we really are. Or maybe they’re just using us for some sort of camouflage — except for Ms. Hussey, of course.”

  “That’s silly,” Calder announced.

  “Well, it just felt different when you and I found A Lady Writing a couple of years ago — like we knew what we were doing. We’ve had some definite glories in the past, but what if we’re about to become part of a horrible, five-way joke?”

  “Don’t forget that thirteen is a stronger age than eleven or twelve,” Calder said.

  “Don’t say because it’s a prime.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” The pentominoes clacked some more.

  “So how come I don’t feel more confident?” Petra asked.

  The two were quiet for a beat, thinking of all the things thirteen-year-old friends didn’t necessarily talk about but that made them feel rotten, like zits or treacherous body behavior or cracking voices. Like the boy-girl thing, which always seemed to be lurking in the background.

  “We’ll be fine,” Calder muttered. The pentominoes clacked even more. “T for thirteen. And F for five. T-F equals toward fame.”

  “More likely, toward the farmer,” Petra said with a smile. “Okay, okay.”

  After ending the call, both kids felt a twinge of nostalgia — a longing for a time when the world was easier to decipher, and perhaps a longing for a time when you only chased trouble with one friend, not four others.

  Five might be prime, Petra thought to herself, but it wasn’t as easy as two.

  * * *

  The light the next day was a gentle, opalescent cream, like the light in Vermeer’s paintings, and the wind had died down. The kids felt restless and a bit sad that they had written off a day they could have spent together, but none of the five made a morning call and suggested they change the plan, perhaps afraid that he or she would be the only one. That would look desperate, which was worse than being lonely.

  Petra mooned around her house, remaining shut in her bedroom as much as possible. “Working!” she growled when her younger brothers begged her to play with trucks. Notebook open, she watched out her window for trains and the flash-by of faces in windows, a sight that used to connect her with stories. No words came. She picked up a book but somehow couldn’t pay attention.

  Next she scrutinized the printout of the thirteen stolen pieces, the one Ms. Hussey had given them. If Calder were there, he’d be counting. She went through the five paintings chosen by the five kids, and came up with twenty-two faces. They needed one more to make a prime, and now she found herself looking at the Rembrandt self-portrait. He’d be a perfect one, she mused. He fits. And if he fits, whose dreams has he been in?

  * * *

  Calder watched his mom make soup out of everything in the fridge and sat, elbow on table and cheek on palm, moving his pentominoes around. His brain felt numb. “No, thanks,” he said to everything she asked.

  Once up in his bedroom, he, too, pulled out the pictures of the stolen art and flipped through them. If his pentominoes made him stronger, maybe they’d make the stolen art stronger, too, and easier to find.

  Hey! he thought. What if one or two are already hidden inside the art?

  Ten minutes later, Calder had found Vs all over the Vermeer (mostly on skirts and sleeves), as well as a P and a Z (both on the chair), an L, and of course the three Xs on the floor. The W popped right out of the clouds above Rembrandt’s ship as the T became the mast. In the Flinck, the obelisk was an obvious I and the bridge looked like a curved U. And in the Manet, wasn’t that a Z in the glass of wine and a Y by the man’s right shoulder? Rembrandt’s Lady and Gentleman were harder, but there was a T on the floor, an L on the stairs, and what might be a bunch of Ns on that ruffled collar. And look — an F hiding in the man’s dangling glove! And if you allowed a thirteenth pentomino, say an M, there was a perfect one shining from the ribbon in Vermeer’s harpsichord player’s hair.

  Calder sat back, satisfied that the pentominoes were already helping.

  * * *

  Early picked up their family copy of The Annotated Mother Goose and looked for the alphabet that Zoomy had described to the others by phone yesterday afternoon. And what was that about him finding Mrs. Farmer’s red book in the kids’ section? There were so many weird pieces that didn’t fit — why weren’t she and the others together this morning, sharing their ideas instead of working on this separately? Didn’t the others realize that people always get irritated with each other when they’re frightened? Next week they’d all be back in school and sorry they hadn’t been together today, but she’d never be the one to point that out.

  * * *

  Tommy and Goldman peered out the window. A dog went by, and then a couple of kids, talking together. Why did we get so stupid with one another yesterday? he wondered. He didn’t feel the tiniest bit mad now.

  He was too proud to call, but maybe he’d just stop by Zoomy’s place and see if he wanted to take a walk. And if they took a walk, maybe they’d go by Mr. Cracken’s house. The penguin butler with the knife had sure sounded interesting yesterday — and why should the girls get all the thrills? Plus, what if the stolen paintings really were inside, and he and Zoomy were the ones to crack this mystery? They’d be stars, and then — then he’d be even with Calder and Petra, who had found that other Vermeer when he hadn’t been around.

  When Tommy knocked on Zoomy’s door, his new friend and Gam had just finished their third game of cards and looked pleased to see him. Ten minutes later, he and Zoomy stood quietly across the street from the spooky, crimson house on Blackstone.

  The blinds wer
e closed and there was no sign of life inside.

  “Let’s check the garbage,” Zoomy said.

  “Huh?” Tommy replied. “Why?”

  “Maybe the wrappings for all that art will be in there, and then we’ll know it’s inside — or maybe we’ll see a name or a company. Some clue.”

  The boys crept around to the back of the house, but no trash cans stood in the alley. “Scaz,” muttered Tommy. “It’s not pick-up day.”

  Zoomy was still for a moment, his head on one side, then walked slowly away from his friend. He paused outside the closest garage door.

  “Where’re you going, man?” Tommy asked, hurrying into the alley after him.

  “I hear a crunching-paper sound coming from inside,” Zoomy whispered. “Listen!”

  Tommy didn’t hear a thing, but right then a side door to the garage burst open, and a man in a black-and-white uniform popped out, his arms filled with a neatly folded stack of brown paper.

  Realizing it was a now-or-never moment and that Zoomy probably couldn’t see what the man was carrying, Tommy said, “Wait! Sir! We’re looking for paper for our school science project! This is perfect — can we use that bundle you’re carrying?”

  Zoomy stood motionless by Tommy’s side as the man hesitated, looking from one boy to the other. “I was just going to tuck it into our recycling,” he muttered.

  “I don’t see too well, so I do a lot of spilling,” Zoomy said, sounding younger than he was. “I need that extra paper, or my teacher might not let me do this with the other kids. My buddy’s trying to help.”

  Tommy sucked in his cheeks, admiring Zoomy’s lie.

  “I see.” The man was silent for a second or two, then muttered, “Why not, why not?” He thrust the paper at Tommy, who thanked him with such enthusiasm that the man frowned. He watched as the boys walked quickly away.

  When Zoomy and Tommy fist-bumped at the end of the alley, the man wondered, Was that little kid with the thick glasses faking an eye problem? Nah. Kids! They were just excited they’d gotten something for free. Must be nice to be that young and innocent.

  He shrugged and headed back inside the Cracken garage.

  The boys rushed the stack of paper around the corner to Bixler Park, where they spread the sheets out on the grass under a tree, carefully flipping and turning them.