by Lin Oliver
This woman was not someone I wanted to argue with. She scared me. It looked like she hadn’t smiled in fifty years.
“On my way, ma’am,” I said. “By the way, that’s a fantastic frame you have there.”
“Indeed it is,” she said. “Now as I was saying, good-bye.”
I turned to leave. To my surprise, Luna stayed back. That girl would talk to anyone.
“Did you do all these paintings?” Luna asked Viola.
Viola Dots nodded her head, which made her dangling jeweled earrings sparkle like the crystal lights on the ceiling.
“You’re a very good painter, Mrs. Dots,” Luna said. “I paint, too, in my magic cave.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” Viola Dots answered.
“I like what you’re wearing,” Luna went on in her friendly, chatty way. “Your headband is cool. And I especially love your earrings. I collect glittery stuff, too, just like you.”
Viola didn’t answer, but that didn’t seem to bother Luna one bit. She chatted right on.
“And I make a lot of beautiful things, like capes and jewelry and costumes.” Luna was talking a mile a minute now. “See this feather hat I made? Want to see it close up?”
Before Viola could say no, Luna walked right up to her.
“I collected these feathers from all over the neighborhood, except some of them my grandma bought at a thrift store. And then I arranged them to look like a bird I saw in my dreams.”
Viola listened impatiently, not smiling, but not exactly frowning either. I looked over at Chives. He was definitely smiling, at least as much as pigs can smile.
“Your creations are indeed lovely, young miss,” he said to Luna.
I still couldn’t believe those words were coming from a talking pig.
“Some of the kids at school make fun of what I wear,” Luna said. “But I don’t care. I like to be original.”
“Yes,” Viola Dots said, taking a step toward one of her paintings. “All art requires originality.”
“Maybe you can come over to my house sometime,” Luna said to Viola. “You like to make art, and so do I. I can show you all my supplies.”
Viola looked surprised.
“Come to your house?” she repeated. “That’s impossible.”
“Madame Dots does not leave the house,” Chives explained. “She hasn’t been outside in over fifty years now. Not since the day her son, David, disappeared.”
“Disappeared? What happened to him?” The question flew out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“I don’t speak of that day,” Viola said. “Never! Now go, and let me be.”
I headed for the door. Luna followed me for a few steps. But then she turned and went back to Viola. She reached out and took Viola’s paint-splattered hands. Viola seemed shocked, but she didn’t pull her hands away.
“My grandma says that everything feels worse when you keep it inside,” Luna said.
“Perhaps the child is right, Madame,” Chives said. “Perhaps it’s time we spoke of it.”
Viola Dots shook her head.
“There are so many memories,” she said. “So many questions. And so few answers.”
She went over to the frame and ran her hand along the carvings. She reached up and touched the tiger, following its stripes with her finger.
“I remember that awful day as if it were yesterday,” she said.
Then Viola Dots took out a handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes, and started to speak.
Chapter 4
“It happened on the day my husband and I brought this frame home,” Viola Dots began. “We had purchased it from an antiques store. The shop owner said the frame was magical. He kept talking nonsense about what he called its ‘hour of power.’ Of course, we just laughed at that. We hung the frame on the wall and placed one of my paintings inside.”
“The tiger one?” Luna asked.
“No. The tiger painting is my latest. I have done hundreds of paintings in my life. I have painted copies of the great masterpieces of art.” She pointed to the paintings around the room.
“Wait. So you didn’t think up this painting yourself?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Viola said. “This is a copy of a very well-known painting by Henri Rousseau. Certainly you’ve heard of him.”
Actually, I hadn’t. Boy, did I feel stupid. But Chives came to my rescue.
“Sir, Rousseau’s original painting is called Surprised!” he whispered in my ear. “It hangs in the National Gallery of London. It is quite famous in art circles.”
“Sorry,” I whispered back. “I’m not much of an art guy.”
Viola continued with her story.
“The painting Charles and I put in the frame that day was one of my originals,” she explained. “It showed a violent storm over a remote castle in England. I called it Trouble in the Kingdom.”
“That’s a cool title,” Luna said, nodding.
“Our son, David, was thirteen at the time,” Viola went on. “That afternoon, David was practicing the piano over there, near the frame. Suddenly, I heard a ripping sound, like the canvas was tearing in two.”
“The painting just ripped apart for no reason?” Luna asked.
“A hole the size of a fist opened up in the painting,” Viola said. “The sound of thunder and pounding rain poured out of it. I saw David being pulled toward the hole. Then there was a bolt of lightning, and suddenly David disappeared inside the painting. Just like that, he was swallowed up, leaving no trace behind.”
“You mean the painting ate him?” I asked.
“We don’t know exactly how any of it happened,” Chives said. “Only that young David vanished into the hole in the painting. In return, I was spit out. I’ve been living here in this house with Mrs. Dots ever since.”
“You were once in a painting?” Luna asked. “So that’s why you’re that awesome shade of orange.”
“My painting was called Orange Pig with Tie,” Chives said proudly. “It hung in the great hall at Foxley Castle next to a portrait of a hunting dog with a rabbit in its mouth. It hung there for hundreds of years until one day, a violent storm hit the castle.”
“Oh,” I whispered, almost to myself. “Trouble in the kingdom.”
“You have a clever mind, young sir,” Chives said. “The next thing I knew, the windows in the great hall had blown open, and a boy of thirteen flew in on a tremendous gust of wind.”
“Was it David?” Luna asked.
“It must have been. I reached for him, but the wind was so strong it knocked my painting off the wall. I felt myself tumbling round and round, falling through a dark tunnel. I saw an opening at the end, a light with a hand reaching through it. I sped toward it.”
“And then you popped out here, in Mrs. Dots’s living room,” Luna said.
Chives nodded.
“The hole in the painting closed up,” he added softly, “leaving me with no way to go home.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he stood up straight, adjusted his bow tie, and put on a cheerful smile. “But we have made the best of it, haven’t we, Madame?”
Mrs. Dots just shook her head.
“For over fifty years now,” she said with a sigh, “David has been gone. And I am left with a pig for a butler.”
She dabbed at her eyes again. She didn’t look quite so mean anymore—just sad.
“You must miss your son very much,” Luna said.
“My husband has spent every day since then traveling the world,” she said. “He has searched everywhere for David. And I have devoted these years to painting copies of the great masterworks of art. Each new painting goes into that frame. Each time, I hope that David will appear in one of them, that he will come back.”
“Wow,” Luna said. “He’d be pretty old by now.”
“
The world of art is timeless,” Viola said. “The people we see in paintings live on forever, unchanged.”
While Viola and Luna talked, I wandered over to the frame to have a closer look. There had to be some way to figure out what had happened to David. If there’s one thing I know about science, even Tiger Brooks–style science, it’s that there’s a reason for everything. Paintings don’t just gobble people up without some explanation.
Handing my helicopter to Chives, I knelt down in front of the clock. I noticed that the little hand, the one on the number five, was bent out of shape. I adjusted it until it was perfectly straight. That was enough to get it to move. I twirled it around so the clock now said four o’clock. I checked my Batman watch. Yup, it was four o’clock.
“All fixed,” I said to Chives.
“Well done, sir,” he answered, handing me back my helicopter.
As soon as I took my hand off the clock, a loud boom of thunder echoed throughout the living room. It was immediately followed by the whistling of wind and then the plunking of heavy raindrops. Where were those sounds coming from? Definitely not from outside.
I looked across the room and saw Mrs. Dots staring at the painting. Her mouth was open and her eyes looked wild.
“It can’t be!” she screamed.
But it was. I put my ear up to the painting. The storm was coming from inside.
Then I heard the rip, like paper being torn in two pieces. A small hole opened up in the painting, right next to where the tiger was crouching.
“The hole!” I yelled, my voice full of panic. “I can see it!”
“Tiger!” Luna called. “What’s going on?”
In no time, the hole had become as large as my fist. The storm was raging now, the wind blowing fiercely. It swept me off my feet and pulled me closer and closer to the hole in the painting.
“Help!” I shouted. “Someone please help me!”
“Grab on to something,” Viola cried. “Hold on tight!”
She started across the room, but she was old and moved slowly. Chives was nearby and reached one of his stubby arms out to help me. His hoof was pointy and sharp, and I couldn’t hold on.
By then, Luna was at my side. Still clutching my helicopter in one hand, too afraid to let go, I held out my other hand to her.
“Pull me back!” I called to her. “I’m scared.”
“Me too!” she cried.
She grabbed my hand and tugged as hard as she could. The power of the storm was too much for even the two of us. Screaming at the top of our lungs, we were sucked into the hole in the painting.
“I’m coming with you,” I could hear Viola Dots yell.
“No, Madame,” I heard Chives answer. “You will not survive.”
As the living room disappeared before our eyes, the last thing we saw was Viola’s hand reaching through the painting.
I could hear her crying, “David! My David! Come home!”
And then I could no longer hear her or any sounds from the real world. Luna and I were tumbling down a long flight of stairs into a darkness far below. The wind roared and the rain pounded.
Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard a tiger roar.
Chapter 5
We landed with a thud. Darkness was all around. Above me, I saw thousands of stairs, climbing steeply up to nowhere. In front of me, I could barely make out what looked like dark blue–black leaves. The ground felt soggy and wet beneath me.
“Tiger, where are we?” Luna asked.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
I tucked my helicopter into the pocket of my shorts so I could put both arms out in front of me. The air was hot. Heavy silver raindrops fell all around us. As we took a few steps forward, the light grew bright enough for us to see that we were in the middle of a jungle. Tall trees with vines wrapped around their trunks surrounded us on all sides.
“It’s the jungle in the painting,” Luna said. “It’s exactly the same.”
“Do you think we’re actually inside it?” I asked.
Luna didn’t answer. She just shivered with fear. That said it all.
“See those red flowers over there?” she said. “They were in the painting, next to the tiger.”
The tiger! If we were truly in the painting, there would be a tiger. Where was he?
A sudden bolt of lightning flashed across the sky and lit up the face of the tiger. He was crouched behind a group of ferns, at exactly the same spot where he was in the painting. His yellow eyes were glowing. His mouth was open. He looked hungry.
“Is he real?” Luna said.
The tiger sniffed the air. His yellow eyes followed even my slightest movement.
“Oh yeah, he’s real, all right,” I whispered. “We need to get out of here now.”
I grabbed Luna’s hand, and we took off running. The jungle was thick with trees and vines, ferns and flowers. The wind blew the rain into our faces. I had no idea where we were going. I glanced behind. The tiger was following us across the jungle floor, breathing hard and showing his sharp teeth!
One thing I know for sure . . . you can’t outrun a tiger. They can run up to thirty-five miles per hour. If we were going to escape him, we had to think of something else. Luna knew that, too.
“Over there,” she called out, pointing to a tall tree. “Let’s climb to the top.”
“No good,” I panted. I could barely talk because I was running so fast. “Tigers are cats. They climb trees.”
Up ahead we saw a patch of waist-high thick grass. We ducked behind it to catch our breath. It was quiet for the moment. There was no sound except the plop of the raindrops hitting the soggy ground.
“I think he’s gone,” Luna whispered, peering out from behind the tangle of tall grasses. “Maybe we lost him.”
A large striped paw suddenly shot through the thicket. Its long claws swiped at the air right next to our faces.
“No!” I screamed.
Without a word, Luna grabbed my hand and we bolted out of the grass, deeper into the dark jungle. I didn’t dare to look behind me. I knew the tiger was there. He was so close I could hear him breathing. I didn’t want to imagine his big black nostrils going in and out with each breath.
“Look! A river!” Luna cried. “I can see it beyond those trees.”
“We can make it there. Just put your head down and run.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she called. “I can run like the wind.”
And she did, her feathered hat flying in the air.
The tiger was still close behind when we reached the banks of the river. Luna and I jumped into the water without a second thought. There could have been a million crocodiles in there, but we didn’t care. We just wanted to escape the jaws of that tiger.
When he saw us in the river, the tiger let out an angry roar. I started to shake—not from the cold, but just from being scared.
“It’s okay,” Luna whispered to me. “We’re safe. At least for now.”
Not true. The tiger waded into the river and started paddling his way toward us.
“I didn’t know they could swim,” I cried. “What do we do now?”
“Swim faster!” a voice called out.
“I could have thought of that,” I said to Luna.
“Thought of what? I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t just tell me to swim faster?”
“Nope.”
I looked around to see whose voice I had heard, but I didn’t see anyone. Was that voice coming from high in the treetops? Or was it coming from under the water? Or was I imagining it? I couldn’t tell.
“Find the cave,” the voice said. I turned to Luna to see if she had heard it, too, but she was already swimming toward the other side. I put my head into the water and took off after her. With that
tiger closing in on us, we had no choice. We had to swim for our lives.
Chapter 6
Luna and I never stopped to take a breath. We swam frantically toward the opposite bank. When we got to shore, we crawled out into the thick mud. I scanned the area in front of us. All I saw was a grove of trees. There was nothing that looked like a cave.
“We can’t just stay here looking around,” Luna said. “We have to move on.”
I could see the tiger splashing in the river, getting dangerously near the bank. Suddenly, something caught my eye—it was running through the trees ahead of us. It went by too fast for me to see what it was. All I could see was that it was hairy and running on two feet.
“Do you think it’s a gorilla?” Luna asked.
“Too small,” I answered.
“A chimpanzee?”
I shook my head. “Too big.”
“Well, I say we follow it,” she said. “Maybe it knows something we don’t know.”
We took off after the creature. Somewhere in the grove of trees, we lost sight of it. We kept going anyway. On the other side of the grove, we hit a wall of rocks with giant boulders in front. There was no sign of the creature. I examined the rocks quickly.
“Over there,” I said, pointing to a narrow, low opening between two boulders. “Maybe that’s the mouth of a cave.”
We ran to the opening. It was really small. Luna dropped to the ground. Crawling on her hands and knees, she squeezed her head and shoulders through the boulders into the tight space.
“It is a cave,” she called out, her legs disappearing from my sight. “Follow me inside, Tiger.”
“I can’t fit through there. No way.”
“Neither can the tiger,” she said. “You have to try.”
I turned around to check on the tiger. He was no more than ten feet away. He was crouched on his hind legs, his claws extended all the way out. I knew that gesture. It’s what cats do when they’re about to pounce on a mouse. The tiger was getting ready to attack.