The Sixty-Eight Rooms

by Marianne Malone

  Ruthie was amazed by how the tables had turned. She wondered why he couldn’t see how important this was to her. She tried to understand how he felt, but mostly she thought he was jealous.

  “Just one more and then I’ll drop the key. I promise,” she said as convincingly as she could.

  “Where is it—the key, I mean?” He sounded panicked.

  Ruthie patted her pocket. “Right here—don’t worry. Okay, now let’s go down the hall.” Ruthie started to walk on the little windowsill-like ledge. In her small state there was plenty of room to walk along without feeling as if she were about to fall off a cliff. However, she came to a gap in the wooden structure that actually measured only half an inch but that presented quite a wide crevasse for her to fall into at her current size. She stopped and looked at Jack, who gazed back at her as if to say, You need my help for this! He gingerly picked her up between his thumb and first finger and set her down again. “Thanks, Jack.” She kept going.

  Finally she arrived at room E12, an English drawing room from the year 1800. (She remembered this from the wall label.) Ruthie was interested in this one because it had some musical instruments in it. She wanted to see if they would really play.

  The room was entered through a side door. Like many of the rooms, this one had a little entry hall that could be only partially seen from the viewing side. She stood in this smaller room while she waited to make sure no one was looking. Under a large black-and-white picture on the wall sat a carved wooden bench, which was right next to the door to the main room. When there was a lull in the voices from the gallery, she walked in.

  The room appeared very different in style from room E17; it was smaller, with a lower ceiling, and the walls were painted white. Straight ahead of her was a bay window with a gold-silk-covered window seat that looked out onto a sunny spring garden. On her left was a marble fireplace with tiny blue and white china pieces on the mantel. Just past the fireplace was a harpsichord, and on the window seat a delicate violin sat in its case. Ruthie was about to take another step when she heard voices. She quickly ducked out of the room and waited again. This would be so much better if the museum were empty, she thought.

  At last the viewers had passed by. This time she made a beeline for the harpsichord. She placed a finger on one of the keys, softly. The key was stiff but she managed to push it all the way down. It played! It sounded tinny and out of tune, but it was a real harpsichord, all right! She tried a chord. Wow! Who could possibly have built this so small?

  She had to work fast—more people would be coming by. She took two steps over to the window seat and picked up the violin. Her class had taken violin lessons for one semester back in third grade, so she knew how to hold it and use the bow. She made a pass. It squeaked! She made two more. Not bad! But then she heard voices coming again. Not enough time to put this back in its case! Run! She sped across the room and out the door just as two elderly women came into view.

  “Mary, did you hear something?” one of the women asked.

  “Sounded like a mouse!” the other answered.

  Ruthie decided she’d better pay more attention to the people in the museum. She walked around to the corridor, where Jack was pacing nervously.

  “Jack, listen to this!” She made a couple of squeaks on the violin.

  “That’s pretty cool but you’re making me nervous. You should put it back and we should get out of here!”

  Ruthie knew he was right. She didn’t want to push her luck. She walked back to the doorway and waited for a good break in the crowd, which was now a serious problem; the museum had filled up fast. When the coast was clear, she placed the violin back in the case, took one last look around and exited.

  “Okay, Jack. You can put me on the floor now,” she said, standing on the ledge and facing Jack in the corridor.

  Again he held out his hand and she climbed into his palm. She noticed, however, that this time his hand was a little bit clammy. He bent down to the floor and she put her feet over the edge of his palm, like she was getting out of bed. Standing on the floor, she took the key out of her pocket and let it drop. The process worked just as it had before, with the same sensations, the same odd tinkling of the key hitting the floor and expanding to full size.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said.

  “Jack!” Ruthie looked at him in disbelief. “Don’t forget the key! You know I can’t carry it!”

  He paused for a moment. Ruthie could tell he was uneasy; but as she stood there, perfectly fine and unhurt, she watched his caution give way to curiosity. He picked the key up and put it in his pocket.

  They made their way back down the corridor and around the corner to where the brooms and boxes were kept. Jack held on to the end of his library card, which he’d left sticking out of the doorjamb, and gently pushed on the door, opening it a sliver at first to make sure they wouldn’t be noticed. They both squinted in the light of the museum after the darkness of the corridor. Neither of them spoke. They slipped back out into the public space, somewhat dazed at what had just happened. It was the feeling you sometimes get when leaving the darkness of a theater after a really exciting movie—you notice how the world around you is exactly the same as when you went in, only you feel different.

  “Let’s look a little longer, Jack,” Ruthie suggested. “I don’t want to leave yet.”

  They walked around, and after viewing only a couple of rooms they came face to face with the little girl who had seen Ruthie in the canopy bed. With huge eyes staring, she pointed at Ruthie and shouted to her mom, “That’s the little doll I saw, Mommy! Look! How come she’s big now?”

  Ruthie tried to look innocent. Fortunately, the girl’s mother smiled at Ruthie and, taking her daughter by the hand, patiently explained to her that it was only her imagination; the little things in those rooms couldn’t become life-size. Ruthie and Jack knew better than that—but they had no idea how it was possible!

  MR. BELL

  HERE YOU GO…. CAREFUL—IT’S hot,” Lydia cautioned. She put two steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of warm oatmeal cookies in front of them on the big table in Jack’s loft.

  “Lydia, would you please give my mom the recipe for both of these? They taste so much better when you make them.” It was true—Ruthie’s mom and dad were pretty good cooks but Jack’s mother was stupendous. This hot chocolate tasted like melted chocolate ice cream, only even better.

  “Thanks, Ruthie. I’d be glad to.” She sat next to them and started jotting down the recipes while they ate in silence. “You two are unusually quiet today … how was the museum?”

  “It was okay,” Jack said quickly. “I’m just real hungry.”

  “Not ‘real hungry,’ Jack. The correct way is ‘really hungry.’ Or better yet, ‘very hungry.’ ”

  “We had a great time at the museum, Lydia,” Ruthie said. “We mostly stayed in the Thorne Rooms—I love them.”

  “They are special, aren’t they?” Lydia agreed, continuing to write. “You know what? I think I have the catalogue here somewhere.” She got up from the table and walked over to a long wall of mostly art books, searched for a minute and then pulled out a large volume. “Here it is. Why don’t you borrow it for a while?” She handed the beautiful book to Ruthie. It was filled with photos of every room and told about the history of the woman who had created them.

  “Wow! Thanks, Lydia!”

  “And speaking of the Thorne Rooms, I’ve invited Mr. Bell to dinner tonight.”

  “Mr. Bell, the guard?” Jack asked. Ruthie heard a trace of suspicion in his voice.

  “Yes. It turns out he lives in this neighborhood, so I thought it would be friendly to invite him over.”

  Ruthie looked at Jack. She thought he might be feeling edgy about the whole thing. After all, in the past twenty-four hours he’d stolen an antique key from the museum and watched his best friend shrink down to five inches while holding said key, and now his mother wanted to get to know the museum guard better.

  “Wh
ere does he live?” Ruthie asked, continuing to look over the pages of the catalogue.

  “Just around the corner in that beautiful stone building I love. You know the one, Jack. There,” she said, handing the recipes to Ruthie. “I’ve got to pop out to the grocery store. Ruthie, would you like to stay for dinner?” Jack’s mom was already putting her coat on at the door.

  “Thanks, Lydia. Sure. I’ll call my mom and ask.”

  “We better make a list,” Jack said as soon as his mother had locked the door behind her.

  “What do you mean?” Ruthie asked.

  “Look, we’ve got a lot of questions. Maybe we can get some answers from Mr. Bell.” He was getting a pad of paper and a pencil out of a desk drawer. “I don’t want to forget anything.”

  Ruthie could see how nervous he was about Mr. Bell coming to dinner and she knew that making a list was his way of keeping things from spinning out of control. It was beginning to dawn on Ruthie that she had done something that she couldn’t talk to anyone about—except Jack, of course—and it was making her feel extraordinarily special and somewhat removed from everyday life. Ruthie’s instinct was to close her eyes and relive a wonderful experience. Jack, on the other hand, was moving into a practical, problem-solving mode.

  “Okay … question number one: How does the key work?” he said, writing it down.

  “Question two: Why did it only work when I held it?” Ruthie chimed in.

  “Question three: Does the key open something?”

  “Question four: Are there any other magic things in the rooms?”

  “Question five: Does anyone else know about this, and was the magic created by the people who made the rooms?” He stopped writing and looked at her. “I was wondering about that violin, Ruthie. I don’t believe someone could make a miniature that sounds so much like a real one. That had to be part of the magic.”

  “You’re probably right—it seemed so normal to me when I was that small.”

  “Anything else?”

  Ruthie thought for a minute and then said, “Question six: Does the key work anywhere else?”

  Jack stopped and looked at her. He hadn’t thought of that one. “I guess that would be easy to answer….” They were both silent. Somehow the idea that this magic might work outside of that corridor seemed a little overwhelming. Did she want to possess such power?

  Before they could go any further with that line of thought, Ruthie’s cell phone rang. The ID showed it was her mom calling. “Hi, Mom,” Ruthie said, trying to sound as natural as possible. Her mom asked where she was, if she’d had a good time at the museum and if she’d eaten enough lunch. Ruthie answered all those questions and asked if she could stay at Jack’s for dinner. Her mom said yes, if she was certain that she was invited. Then she added, “Are you feeling all right, sweetheart? You sound a little funny.” Somehow Ruthie’s mother always heard tones in her voice that gave her away when she was trying to cover something up. Talk about magic powers!

  “I’m my normal self, Mom,” Ruthie said truthfully.

  While she had been on the phone, Jack had gotten up and gone to his room, which was actually a small two-story “house” that had been built into the big loft. He had a living room downstairs with his computer desk, a small couch and a window that looked out into the loft. His bed was upstairs in a sleeping loft. On the blue, green and orange walls hung all kinds of objects: artwork by his mother and her friends, things Jack had found, photos and drawings he’d made when he was little. Ruthie thought it was the coolest room she’d ever seen. And he had so much privacy compared to her. Then the possibility of Lydia not having enough money to pay the rent intruded into her brain. She tried to put that terrible thought out of her mind.

  “We’re gonna have to get back in there,” Jack said, coming out of his room.

  “We can go anytime we want.”

  “I mean back in the corridor.” Ruthie realized that Jack had overcome his unease with the whole situation. “We gotta have a plan. Ruthie, we were totally lucky that the door was unlocked! This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I forgot about that part,” she said. She was definitely coming back to reality.

  “We need to be able to spend more time there after the museum is closed so we can answer these questions,” he said seriously. “We need to spend the night!”

  “Jack! We can’t do that!” Ruthie was now back to her role of being the cautious one.

  “It’s the only way to get enough time. No one will be there—there’ll be no interruptions like little kids noticing you. Think about it!”

  All that was true. She couldn’t find out anything about that key in thirty-second runs in and out of the rooms. Also, the idea of spending time in the rooms again was irresistible. Imagine sleeping in one of those beds, sitting at one of those grand tables, walking in one of those spring gardens….

  “Jack, how can we? We’d be missed if we were gone all night.”

  “Not if we plan it right.”

  “But you even said there’s probably no chance of the door being unlocked again,” she said. What he was proposing seemed impossible.

  “I know, I know. But I also know we found a magic key; that doesn’t happen every day!”

  Ruthie couldn’t argue with that. They both sat silently, thinking almost the same thoughts. Their moods had changed and blended together. The decision had been made.

  Edmund Bell turned out to be one of the most interesting people Ruthie had ever met. But there was a sadness about him too. While Lydia cooked and Jack and Ruthie chopped tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad, Mr. Bell recounted some of his life story. Lydia was the kind of person to whom people told their life stories. Ruthie observed her, trying to figure out how she made everyone so comfortable. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was something like what Jack had: a kind of magic.

  How funny, she thought. Magic. That word had suddenly become very important to her. And funny how the other kind of magic—the kind that was connected to the key—worked only for her. Was there something special about her that made the magic work? Before the discovery of the key, Ruthie hadn’t even believed in magic. But now she felt its very real existence.

  It turned out that Jack’s mother had been right about Mr. Bell’s past. His early career had been very successful and he’d sold his photographs in art galleries around the country. He had won awards and his work had been written about in magazines and books.

  “So, Edmund, why did you stop?” Lydia asked. By this point in the story, Ruthie couldn’t wait to hear the answer. She couldn’t guess what he was going to say.

  Edmund Bell paused before answering. “I guess when my wife got sick and died, I lost the will. And it hasn’t come back.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Ruthie was surprised by Mr. Bell’s answer, but it explained the expression she saw on his face. She had thought his eyes looked tired, but now she knew it was more serious. Jack broke the silence.

  “Do you like working in the museum? Have you always been in charge of the Thorne Rooms?”

  “Yes, I like working there very much. I get to be around art and people, and of course it’s been a very steady job, which I needed to support my little girl.”

  “Tell me about her,” Lydia said.

  “Well, she’s not so little anymore; she’s nearly thirty. She’s a pediatrician in Evanston but she’s still my little girl: Dr. Caroline Bell.” His dark eyes shone when he spoke of her. “She was only seven years old when her mother died, and when I found I was unable to make a living as an artist anymore, this job was perfect for me. And for her. She could come with me on days off from school. My oh my, she liked those rooms—just like you two!” He smiled at them. The transformation in his face surprised Ruthie; the deep weariness morphed into an electric sparkle.

  “You said she used to do homework back in the corridor, right?” Jack asked.

  “You do pay close attention, don’t you, Jack?” Mr. Bell
laughed.

  “Tell me, Edmund, what happened to all your work? Surely you must still have it,” Lydia asked.

  “My early work—the work you probably remember—is all in boxes. Lots of them. Over the years people have asked me if I would exhibit again, but I just don’t want to look at it.”

  Ruthie couldn’t stand it. She jumped in. “Why not?”

  “Most of my favorites were lost—photos of my wife and daughter. I had about a hundred in an album—negatives and all—that were going to be in an exhibit. I don’t know if they were stolen or not but they simply vanished into thin air one day. I have very few photos now of our first years together, when Caroline was a baby. As far as I’m concerned, those photos were my best work. Those were the photos I wanted people to know me for.” He was quiet again, then sighed heavily. “That work meant everything to me. I’d give anything to have them back.”

  Ruthie thought that was one of the saddest things she’d ever heard. Her mother had always been organized about keeping the family photo albums up-to-date, and one of Ruthie’s favorite things to do on a rainy day was look at them. She could spend hours studying photos of her parents before she and her sister were born, pictures of their grandparents and snapshots of family trips.

  “We could help you look through all those boxes for the album,” Ruthie suggested.

  “Thank you. Believe me, they’ve been searched through so many times, I can’t count,” Mr. Bell said.

  “I’d love to see your other photos, the ones in the boxes, if you ever want to show them to anyone,” Lydia offered. Ruthie could tell Lydia seemed to think Mr. Bell was wasting his talent, hiding in the museum like that.

  “Maybe someday I’ll take you up on that.” He smiled at Lydia.

  “Great! Now then, Jack, will you clear off the table? Here, Ruthie, you can set,” Lydia said, handing silverware to Ruthie.

  The long table was such a catchall in the loft; school-books, backpacks and mail all tended to pile up at one end. Even Mr. Bell’s coat had been laid on top of the coats that Ruthie and Jack had deposited there earlier in the day.