The docent looked around wildly, wondering if he was the subject of a hidden-camera show, as the young woman who knew the details of Delacroix’s biography looked no more than four.
“Leigh! Get over here!” called Rose.
“I’m in the middle of something,” she answered.
“I will be in the middle of a nervous breakdown, Leigh, if you don’t come back here right now.”
Leigh begrudgingly toddled over to Rose and Ty and Sage.
Why am I the only one who can behave like a normal person? Rose wondered.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mrs. Lisa Giocondo herself,” said Leigh, her tiny arms crossed coolly over her chest.
“Her name is Mona Lisa,” Rose corrected.
“No, the little one got it right,” the painting said. “My name is Mrs. Lisa Giocondo. Mona means ‘ma’am,’ and yet everyone always calls me Mona. It’s not a name!”
Rose was speechless. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Rose turned to Ty and whispered, “Why is this woman so crabby?”
“I heard that,” said Mona Lisa. “I’m two-dimensional, not deaf.”
“No need to apologize for being crabby,” said Leigh. “You’d be crabby, too, if you were subject to the Byzantine gender politics of the sixteenth-century Florentine upper class. Lisa here was born in the late seventies—fourteen seventies, that is—and when she was fifteen or so—just a couple years older than you, Rose!—she was forced to marry a man in his forties, then proceed to raise six children. Am I right?”
Now the Mona Lisa was speechless. “Go on,” she finally said.
“She wasn’t expected to have any interests of her own, except for cleaning and cooking, and she rarely left the house, except to sit for twelve hours straight in Leonardo Da Vinci’s studio because her husband wanted to have a picture of her.”
“You’re making this worse, Leigh,” said Rose. Rose pulled a pacifier from her pocket and popped it into Leigh’s mouth.
“Take that little plastic giblet out at once!” cried the painting. “This child is the only one who understands me! Please, young soothsayer. Continue.”
Leigh spat out the pacifier and cleared her throat. “I’ve watched all the art criticism about the enigmatic ‘half smile’ of the Mona Lisa on the Art History Channel, but I personally have always thought you were simply trying not to smile. Renaissance portraiture consists exclusively of sour, pious frowns. You were trying your best to maintain a frown, but something in the room tickled you, something—”
“There was something,” the painting said.
“Sage,” Rose whispered. “Get the jar out!”
Sage removed a miniature mason jar of tinted blue glass from the side pocket of his cargo pants and held it near the painting.
“I’m guessing it was something you saw in Leonardo’s studio,” Leigh continued.
“It was the flying machine!” said the painting. Her voice soared in a lilting soprano. “When I was a young girl, living on Daddy’s farm, I was charged with looking after the hens. There were twelve of them, all cooped up in a pen, forced to lay egg after egg, never allowed to roam free. I always wondered why they never tried to fly over the fence. I thought perhaps it was because they were afraid they’d be caught.”
“Are you getting this?” Rose whispered to Sage.
Sage nodded.
“My favorite hen was a red one that I called Lisa. After myself. One night, I snuck into the hen coop and stole Lisa from her cage. I placed her in an open meadow, under the moonlight. ‘Fly away, Lisa!’ I cried. ‘Fly away!’ She tried. But chickens are too large and too clumsy to fly. She only made it a few feet. I had to bring her back to the coop.”
Sage was straining to hold up the jar, which had begun to overflow with a dense, brown paste the consistency of refried beans.
“I think we have enough,” said Sage, spilling paste onto the floor as he fastened the lid on the jar. “Thank you, Lisa.”
“I’m not finished! Open that jar!” Lisa cried. With a nod from Rose, Sage reluctantly opened the jar.
“After that,” the painting continued, “I married Francisco and delivered child after child. I thought of Lisa the chicken, laying egg after egg. Though I loved my children more than life, I yearned for the freedom of the swallow. But I was as clumsy as Lisa the chicken, unable to escape!
“Francisco commissioned a portrait from the great Leonardo Da Vinci. Imagine my shock as I sat down in his studio only to see a noble, perfect flying machine sitting in the corner! He told me to frown as piously as I could, but all I could think of was getting in that flying machine and flying away.”
“I think the paint fumes have gotten to her brain,” whispered Ty.
“And so I smiled fancifully the whole time that Leonardo painted as I dreamed of flight.”
“Thank you!” said Sage, fastening the lid once more. “What a tale! Let’s go, guys. This thing weighs more than Leigh does.”
Rose and her brothers began to back away from the painting, jar and Leigh in tow.
“Stay!” she cried. “Stay and hear about the time I accidentally broke my leg as I attempted to fly from the roof of my porch!”
“Another time!” yelled Rose as she hurried her siblings out of the Louvre. “Not bad, Leigh,” she whispered, thankful that her brothers and sister had been there to help.
By the time Rose and Ty made it back to their kitchen in the Hôtel de Ville expo center, the baking hour was already under way.
“We’ve lost six minutes, Ty!” Rose huffed. “We have to hurry!”
Rose scurried to the pantry to pick out her ingredients, visualizing the particular look of Balthazar’s calligraphy as she remembered the measurements for the pumpkin cookies and blood orange frosting.
The hour of competition flew by as Rose and Ty mixed the pumpkin cookie dough in one bowl and the tart blood orange frosting in another. They added a scant teaspoon of the Mona Lisa’s secret to the frosting, which made the bowl levitate and spin like Leonardo’s flying machine. Rose and Ty managed to pounce on the bowl and hold it down on the table before anyone could notice the momentary breach in the laws of physics.
When Rose and Ty pulled the cookies from the oven, they had just one minute to smear frosting onto each pair. Rose was so busy that she forgot all about Lily until after the wall timer had rung and Jean-Pierre Jeanpierre was approaching.
Rose looked around the room as if for the first time that day.
The kitchens from the ten contestants eliminated the day before had been dusted in mounds of flower and lay barren and white, like villages covered in volcanic ash. Across the room, Lily had placed her Sourpatch Pie on her kitchen table. Steam rose from the perfectly browned pie in little waves, like an illustration in a children’s book. Lily glanced at Rose’s whoopie pies and smirked, as if Rose were offering up cans of cat food.
Rose hated to admit it, but Lily’s pie looked perfect. She stared down at her own creation, each of which was the shape of a tennis ball and the color of a bad prom dress. It wasn’t the most sophisticated-looking dessert, but it contained the secrets of the Mona Lisa.
Whatever happens, she thought, I know I couldn’t have tried any harder.
Marco wielded his long silver cart as he pranced down the black-and-white aisle, loading the ten remaining contestants’ desserts onto the tray and delivering them to Jean-Pierre’s judge’s table on the stage at the front of the room.
Flaurabelle escorted Jean-Pierre to his seat. “After I taste these ten desserts, only five contestants will remain. Bonne chance.”
Jean-Pierre tasted plate after plate, nodding in obvious approval or disgust. He seemed to enjoy Rohit Mansikhani’s Tart Blackberry Tart so much that he nearly fell back in his chair. He winked at Lily after eating a slice of her Sourpatch Pie. He smiled after eating Dag Ferskjold’s Lemon Panna Cotta, he rubbed his belly after sipping Wen Wei’s Bitter Chocolate Mousse, and he winced in horror after taking a bite of Miriam and Muriel Desjardins
’s Key Lime Cupcakes.
“Vile,” he whispered, after which the twins threw their arms around each other and each sobbed on a shoulder pad of the other’s chic blue blazer.
The last plate in Jean-Pierre’s line was Rose’s Double Orange Whoopie Pie.
“Is this . . . real?” He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes, then put the glasses back on. “Yes, it appears it is! Someone has made an orange ball. At the Gala des Gâteaux Grands. What do you call this thing, young lady?”
“It’s a Double Orange Whoopie Pie.”
Jean-Pierre turned to Flaurabelle. “Remind me to put a limit on the age of our entrants next year. No one under thirty.” Jean-Pierre lifted a whoopie pie, eyed it doubtfully, and then took a bite. His eyes went wide. He shoved the entire thing into his mouth and gulped.
“It’s . . . I don’t know what it is . . . ,” he said. “There’s an ineffable quality, an elusive something or other. It holds a secret. Perfectly sweet and perfectly sour at the same time. It makes me feel . . . confused. In the best way. I like this whoopie pie very much.”
Jean-Pierre looked straight into Rose’s eyes. “I look forward to seeing what you’ll create tomorrow. Yes, everyone, Rose Bliss survives to cook another day, along with Chefs Lily Le Fay, Wen Wei, Dag Ferskjold, and our winner, Roshni Mansukhani. The rest of you may return to your sad little lives.”
Rose blushed as Ty did a gyrating victory dance, then glanced over at Lily, who was smiling tersely. Unlike Mona Lisa, who tried to frown but couldn’t help smiling, Lily tried to smile but couldn’t help fuming.
That afternoon, Albert took the whole family out for victory omelets at a small, dark café. Rose hadn’t won. But neither, unexpectedly, had Lily.
Rose sat at one end of the long, rectangular table, flanked by Ty and Sage and Leigh, while Albert and Purdy and Balthazar sat at the other end of the table.
Albert cleared his throat, stood, and clanged his knife against his water glass.
“Everyone did a great job today,” he said. “But we need to start preparing for the rest of the week immediately. Your mother and I will collect ingredients from the top of the list—that’s PUFFED, PHYLLO, CHEESY, and CHOCOLATE—and the kids will collect ingredients from the bottom—that’s AIRY, SUGARLESS, FLAKY, and ROLLED.”
“I already translated the recipes for all the kids’ categories but one,” said Balthazar. “Since I work my way from the bottom and all. They’re back at the hotel.”
“I suggest we start collecting now. We have limited time, and some of these ingredients are very hard to come by,” Purdy said.
In the hotel suite, Balthazar handed Rose three sheets of paper, each printed with a different magical recipe. Albert and Purdy left to collect the magical ingredient in the Nectar-of-Joy Cream Puffs in case Jean-Pierre announced the PUFFED category the following morning.
Rose sat on the couch with Ty and Sage and Leigh, holding the stack of three recipes. She examined the first of the stack, the AIRY recipe for Angel’s Breath Food Cake.
Angel’s Breath Food Cake, for the Appearance of a Dessert when really there is none.
It was in 1322, in the Japanese fishing village of Hamamura, that Chef Hiroshi Bliss did manage to cure the portly councilman Aki Mayuchi of his dangerous addiction to white cake. Councilman Mayuchi did eat vanilla cake on no less than fourteen occasions per day, which made him larger than the town’s largest sumo wrestler. Chef Bliss did create this Angel’s Breath Food Cake, which did look like an exact replica of Councilman Mayuchi’s beloved white cake, but did contain 90 percent air instead. Councilman Mayuchi continued to eat fourteen of the cakes per day, but he did return to his normal size, unaware that the cakes were made of air.
Chef Bliss did combine two-and-one-half fists of fine white flour, two fists of sugar, the whites of six chicken’s eggs, and a single ghostly gust.
The recipe went on to spell out the baking time and temperature, but Rose couldn’t get past that final ingredient.
“A ghostly gust?” said Rose, pacing over to Balthazar’s room. “Balthazar? What’s a ghostly gust?”
“I’m busy translating!” he grunted, shutting the door. “Ask the cat. He knows all about gusts.”
“What are you implying?” Gus snapped back. Then the cat dashed out from Balthazar’s room just before the door slammed shut and hopped up onto the couch. “A ghostly gust? Why, a ghostly gust is simply a wish.”
“That’s easy enough,” Sage said. “I’ve got tons of wishes.”
“I wasn’t finished.” Gus flicked his tail. “It’s the wish . . . of a ghost.”
“A ghost?” Rose gasped. “Wait. Ghosts are real?”
“Oh, certainly!” Gus replied. “And there’s nothing airier than a ghostly gust.”
Leigh yawned heavily. “I shan’t concern myself with such foolishness. I am going to take a break from the tedium of the world in the hairy arms of Morpheus!”
“What is she talking about?” said Ty.
“That was Leigh’s pretentious way of saying that she is going to take a nap,” Gus said. “Even I thought it was pretentious, and that’s saying a lot.”
As Leigh toddled off to her bedroom, Gus began again. “As I was saying, ghosts are quite real.”
“How do you know?” asked Sage. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“Oh, several times,” the cat said, his tail stretched high in the air like the pole at the back of a bumper car. “Ghosts often come to Mexico to unwind.”
“Wouldn’t it be more of a sure bet,” Rose whispered, “to just try to sneak into Lily’s suite again? Ghosts don’t sound very reliable, and we need the Booke back. There’s too much at stake.”
“I want to meet a ghost! Let’s bust out of here and find one!” Sage swept Gus off the ground and planted the cat on his lap. “Ah . . . where are we busting to?”
“I can’t help you there,” Gus said, an ear tacked to either side of his head. “My second wife, Reiko, is a ghost, but she currently resides in Japan.”
Ty swiveled away from the mirror above the couch, where he was fixing the front-most spike of his red hair. “Can’t we just go to a haunted house or something?”
“That’s not the way it works,” said Gus, rolling over onto his back. “A ghost chooses whether he or she wants to be seen. You’ve got to know where a ghost lives, pay a visit, ring the bell, bring a gift. It’s like going to someone’s apartment. But I don’t know the address of any French ghosts.”
“I bet Jacques does!” Sage cried. “He’s from Paris; maybe he had a mouse friend who’s now a ghost or something.”
Rose sat on the couch with her hands folded politely over her jeans. “I don’t think Jacques likes us much. Plus, our brilliant feline friend Gus told him never to come back.”
Gus flopped onto the floor and commenced licking his thigh. “I was only following the code set down in the Book of the Scottish Fold.”
“Maybe, but right now we need Jacques to come back,” said Rose. “So I’m asking you politely to stop cleaning your thigh and undo your warning.”
Gus began nipping at the bottom of one of his hind feet. “I might consider it,” he said between bites, “if I knew where he was lurking.”
Rose bounded into her room and crouched under the antique writing desk where Jacques lived. She could hear the faint sound of flute music. “Jacques? Did you hear all that?” she whispered.
The music stopped. “Mais oui” came a pathetic voice.
“I’m so sorry about dropping you when we were up on the Fantasy Floor,” Rose said. “I promise that will never happen again. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course I can,” said the quiet little voice. “I am usually not one for adventure. I am but a humble musician. Yet you have inspired me. I do, indeed, know a ghost, and I can take you to him. But first, the fanged one must rescind his warning.”
“It’s your lucky day, Gus,” Rose said. “I found Jacques! Now get over here and rescind your warning.”
Holding his head high and his puffy tail higher, Gus made his way across the Persian rug to the baseboard underneath the antique writing desk in Rose’s room. Looking away from the hole, he stiffly said, “As much as it pains me to say this, I formally rescind my warning. You may enter.”
Jacques stepped out of the hole holding his silver flute. He held the flute at one end, like a rapier, and pressed the other end to the tip of Gus’s nose. “I formally accept your rescinding,” the little mouse said, “on the condition that you never tell any of my relatives how foolishly I am acting by entering this suite again.”
“I won’t tell yours if you won’t tell mine,” Gus murmured. The two creatures looked each other in the eye, then the mouse nodded and lowered his flute. The cat extended one of his claws and presented it to Jacques, who grasped the claw with both of his paws and shook it up and down once.
“Great,” said Rose, tapping on her watch. “Now, where’s that ghost friend of yours, Jacques?”
“I will take you to him. We will need to bring a cake, and candles.”
Ty shined a flashlight down the dank, narrow staircase of the Catacombs of Paris.
“Be careful,” said Jacques. He was nestled comfortably in the pocket of Rose’s hooded sweatshirt, which was just big enough to fit the body of a tiny mouse. “The stones in these steps are very old and very slick, from the countless hordes of people who have trod upon them over the centuries.”
Rose kept one hand on her brother’s shoulder and followed Ty to the bottom of the dark stairs. Rose was carrying a mini chocolate cake and a carton of birthday candles and a box of matches. Sage was right behind her, carrying Gus.
Rose shivered. The hallway before them was narrow and the ceilings were low. Water dribbled down the walls and puddled on the floor. The Catacombs were about as warm as the walk-in refrigerator at the Bliss Bakery. Rose pulled her sweatshirt tighter against her. She had never even liked aboveground graveyards, so she had been less than thrilled to hear that Jacques’s ghost friend lived in a graveyard beneath the streets.
A Dash of Magic: A Bliss Novel Page 8