The Secret Cellar

by Michael D. Beil

  He starts to hand the bottle of faux wine to me, but I push it right back to him. “You keep it, Mr. Klinger. To remember us not-so-clever girls.”

  He gives us a little smirkle (you know the look: half smile, half smirk) and walks out the door without a word, swinging his walking stick as if he hasn’t a care in the world.

  Lindsay, still shaken up, pulls on her coat and announces to Gordon that she is going home. I suspect, however, that there will be a rather lengthy stop at a pub on the way there.

  As soon as Lindsay is out of sight, Margaret goes to the overstuffed chair in the corner and reaches underneath.

  “How did I do?” Mr. Winterbottom asks.

  Margaret’s smile brightens up the whole room. “Perfect.”

  Busted!

  We promise Gordon that we’ll be in touch, and leave GW Antiques and Curiosities a moment later. Just in case Marcus Klinger is watching from across the street, we tumble out the front door, acting (okay, maybe overacting) as if we’ve been kicked out.

  “Your store stinks, anyway,” I say, shaking my fist at the door.

  “Yeah! And good luck with your rat problem,” adds Leigh Ann.

  As we walk past Dedmann’s house, Shelley opens the front door and steps into the cold winter air without a coat.

  “Well?”

  Margaret gives her a thumbs-up. “We’re good to go. We have some work to do tonight, and then we’ll be back here tomorrow at three-thirty.”

  Shelley clasps her hands together and closes her eyes. “I can’t believe it. It’s actually going to happen.”

  “Let’s not count our chickens yet,” says Margaret. “There’s still a lot that can go wrong, and if we don’t find the real will, it’s not going to matter. To be honest, we need a little luck for all this to work.”

  I know. Totally not fair leaving you hanging like that, right? Well, at least I know you’re paying attention. At the end of the last chapter, Margaret had just announced that whatever was under that chair in Mr. Winterbottom’s shop was perfect. And now it’s time to reveal the secret, the way we completely, thoroughly, and utterly outsmarted Mr. Sturm & Drang himself, Marcus Klinger. (If you already figured out how we did it, well done, my friend!)

  When we get to my apartment, Margaret sets a small yogurt container filled with our homemade Play-Doh on the kitchen table. We surround it, admiring Mr. Winterbottom’s work.

  “You know, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure we could trust him,” I say, “but he was crazy good in there. And this … it’s amazing that he did this while he was back there screaming at that imaginary rat.”

  Mr. Winterbottom’s job, you see, was to make an impression of the walking stick’s tip in the Play-Doh—without anyone realizing it. Margaret had left the yogurt container on the table next to the glass paperweight in which she had feigned interest. Once Gordon had the stick (thanks to the airborne wine bottle), all he had to do was find the yogurt cup, remove the protective rubber end from the walking stick, carefully press the brass tip deep into the Play-Doh, and then remove it without twisting or turning—all of which he performed flawlessly.

  “That is one crazy old dude,” says Becca.

  “I know, right?” I say. “I was just glad that he wasn’t really chasing Humphrey. He would have scared the little guy to death.”

  “Well, I’ll say one thing about him,” says Leigh Ann, grinning coyly. “He certainly knows how to make a first … impression.”

  “Nice,” says Margaret. “Well done, Leigh Ann.”

  Becca disagrees. “That’s baaaad.”

  “Ignore her,” I tell Leigh Ann. “It’s funny. She’s just mad because she didn’t think of it.”

  Margaret takes the two tubes of epoxy from her bag and sets them on a section of newspaper that she has spread out on the table. “Okay, back to work. I mixed up a little sample batch last night to make sure.” She holds up a tiny epoxy “pop” molded in a plastic bottle cap, with a toothpick for a stick. “I smeared the inside of the cap with oil so I could remove the epoxy after it hardened. Check it out—it’s like rock.”

  We take turns squeezing and tapping on the bottle cap, convincing ourselves that Margaret’s plan is going to work.

  Using a plastic spoon, Margaret measures out ten spoonfuls of the first component of the epoxy into an empty yogurt cup, and then two of the second component. Then she stirs the two together for several minutes, checking the texture by lifting spoonfuls of the stuff and letting it drip back into the cup.

  “It’s ready,” she says. “I’m really nervous. It has to get into all the little nooks and crannies or this isn’t going to work.”

  “It will work,” I insist. “It’s an amazing plan.”

  Slowly, carefully, she pours the epoxy into the inch-deep hole in the Play-Doh, using a toothpick to help guide it into every crevice, every little notch of the impression. When it is full, she taps the cup on the table a few times, and then pours a little more in and levels it off. As a final step, she presses the head of an inch-long wood screw down into the wet epoxy, leaving the pointy, threaded part sticking straight up.

  “What’s that for?” Becca asks.

  “That’s how we’re going to attach it to this,” she says, lifting up a piece of wooden broomstick. “After the epoxy hardens, we pop it out, screw the tip into the end of the broomstick, and—ta-da!—we have our key. But, for now, we wait. We have to give it a couple of hours, to be safe.”

  “Where did you get the idea for this?” Leigh Ann asks.

  “One of those CSI shows,” Margaret admits. “They’re always making plaster casts of footprints and tire prints. I figured we could do the same thing, but make it tougher, so we can use it as a key. Simple, really.”

  Yeah, if you’re a brainiac.

  Rebecca and Leigh Ann can’t wait around for the unveiling, so two hours later, my mom and I are the only spectators as Margaret grasps the end of the buried wood screw and gives it a good tug.

  The epoxy pops right out, leaving the Play-Doh as good as new. Margaret holds up a nearly perfect replica of the walking stick’s brass tip.

  “Holy smokes,” I say. “It worked. You could even make another one.”

  “Tell me again what this is for,” Mom says. “It’s some kind of key?”

  “Yep. It’s for—”

  But Mom has lost interest, at least temporarily, as she interrupts my story: “Sophie, what is in your pocket?”

  Uh-oh.

  The tale of how Humphrey happens to be living in my pocket has an unexpected ending. Mom listens silently to the whole thing, and then, without warning, stands up and tosses my coat at me. “Put that on right now, young lady.”

  “Wh-what? Why? Where are we going?”

  “We are going to this Coffeeteria place, where you are going to return that young man’s rat and apologize to him.”

  “Mom! You’re not serious. I was going to take him back tomorrow. I swear.”

  “Not good enough,” she says. “I know you, and you were going to just slip him right back into the pocket he came from, weren’t you?”

  “Well, um … yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Sophie! Everything’s wrong with that. If you’re going to run all over town doing these good deeds like some superhero-in-a-red-blazer, your behavior has to be beyond reproach! And don’t tell me that the end justifies the means. Perkatory closing is not the end of the world. Humphrey’s owner probably thinks he’s dead, for goodness’ sake. He goes back tonight.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” says Margaret, pulling on her own coat. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I say glumly.

  Mom walks briskly all the way to Coffeeteria as I struggle to keep up with her.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I grumble under my breath as we go inside.

  Mom grumbles right back, “Well, I can’t believe my daughter is a thief. Now, where is he?”

  “Right here,” I say, patting my pocket.r />
  “Not the rat. Him. The manager him.”

  “Oh. Over there, behind the counter. Jeff.”

  Mom puts her hands on my shoulders and propels me across the room. At least the place isn’t busy: a few of the tables are occupied by the laptop brigade, but most are empty as I pass them on the way to the counter.

  “Can I help you?” asks Jeff.

  I avoid eye contact, focusing instead on the selection of nuts and chocolate right in front of me. “Um, hi. Yeah. I, uh, need to talk to you.”

  “Is there something wrong?” He glances over my head at the half-filled tables. “Is somebody bothering you?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. I just, um, have something that, um, belongs to you.” I point with my eyes at my right blazer pocket, where I am lifting Humphrey high enough to reveal his face and those adorable whiskers.

  Jeff’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “Kirby! Is that you?”

  At the sound of his voice, Humphrey/Kirby clambers up my arm and I manage to hand him off to Jeff, who tucks him safely away before everyone in the place gets an eyeful of rat.

  “Where did you find him?” he asks.

  I take a deep breath, and then another.

  “Yeah. About that. I kind of … took him. From your pocket.”

  “You took my pet rat? Why?”

  “It’s a crazy story. See, I was mad because you guys opened right across from Perkatory, which is my favorite place, and then they closed because the inspector saw a rat, but I was convinced that you were involved because my boyfriend, well, he’s really not my boyfriend, he’s actually just a really, really good friend who is a boy, and well, anyway, he was in here one day and saw that you had a pet rat that you kept in your pocket, so I figured you planted him in Perkatory so the inspector would be sure to find him”—another breath—“and so I kidnapped him but then I forgot to send the ransom note because I have a lot of stuff going on right now, and then I found out that Perkatory is going to open tomorrow, anyway, so I knew I had to return him to you, and I took really good care of him except for that one time I kind of lost him, but we found him, and everything is fine, and he’s back and safe and I’m really, really sorry.” Huge breath.

  He stares at me for a while, shaking his head. “I think I remember you. You were in here right after we opened. You kept talking about how great Perkatory was. Sorry, is.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” I admit.

  He looks toward the door. “Is that your mom back there?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  “She making you do this?”

  I nod. “But I was going to bring him back to you tomorrow, I swear. I would have just snuck him back into your pocket.”

  “I guess the important thing is that Kirby’s okay,” he says. “Serves me right for bringing him to work. I rescued him from a lab at school. They were going to use him for … Well, you don’t want to know. You really thought I planted him to shut down Perkatory?”

  I nod sheepishly. “Sort of.”

  “It’s not a bad idea. Maybe if I had thought of it, they wouldn’t be reopening so soon.”

  “So we’re, you know, cool?”

  He shrugs. “Just tell me one thing. What is so great about Perkatory? I’ve been in there, and, I’m sorry, but the coffee is terrible. The hot chocolate comes from an envelope. The pastries are usually stale. And on top of that, the place is a dump.”

  “Yeah, but it’s my dump, you know what I mean?”

  He smiles. “I think I do, kid. Well, look, when you get tired of their crappy food and lousy coffee, give us another try.” He turns around, and I start to walk away, thinking we’re done.

  “Wait a second,” he says, squirting four-inch-high caps of whipped cream onto two cups of hot chocolate. “These are on the house. Tell your mom I said thanks. What’s your name, anyway, kid?”

  “Sophie. Sophie St. Pierre.”

  “Well, Sophie St. Pierre, I’ll bet life is never dull when you’re around.”

  “Thanks,” I say, smiling because that’s the second time I’ve heard that in two days. “I try.”

  All right, so maybe it was closer to half a gazillion

  As I lay awake in bed, hopped up on the caffeine from Coffeeteria’s amazing hot chocolate, I realize (a little reluctantly) that Mom had been right. Again. In my head, I had been justifying my actions, but deep down, I’m pretty sure I knew they were wrong. I hope so, anyway.

  The next thing I know, I’m sitting outside a café in Paris, a bottle of Orangina and my just-barely-held-together-by-tape copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on the table before me. Behind me, I hear a scooter’s engine revving and turn my head, fully expecting to see Raf’s million-dollar smile. The sun is in my eyes, and as I hold up a hand to block the glare, the driver of the scooter removes his helmet. Slowly, he turns enough for me to see his face, and I almost fall off my chair.

  “Mr. Winterbottom?”

  But he’s not looking at me; his eyes land on a woman sitting a few tables away. As I slip my dark sunglasses on so I can stare at her without being too obvious, she turns toward the waiter, tossing her head and laughing at something he says.

  “Winnie?”

  If she hears me, she doesn’t show it, refocusing her attention on the glossy gossip magazine resting on her lap. Still straddling his scooter, Gordon revs the engine again, watches her for a few seconds longer, and then disappears into the Paris traffic.

  When I turn back around, the seat across the table from me is occupied: naturally, it’s the face of the woman I’ve come to know as St. Veronica, and she’s wearing a strange expression.

  “It’s up to you, Sophie. The answer is in the stars.”

  Friday, the last day of school before Christmas vacation, has finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. I love St. V’s, but even I need a break every now and then. In two days, I’ll be getting on a plane with Mom and Dad and heading to France to see Dad’s side of the family—and I can’t wait.

  “You won’t believe the dream I had last night,” I tell Margaret on the way to school. “I don’t know if it was that crazy hot chocolate, or feeling guilty about that whole thing with Humphrey, or what, but Gordon and Winnie were in my dream, in Paris.”

  “Wow. That’s scary. What were they doing?” she asks, cringing at what she’s afraid I might say.

  I tell her about the scooter, and Winnie, and St. Veronica’s observation about the stars, and then ask, “What do you think it means? What is up to me? The answer to what is in the stars?”

  “Somehow, the Winterbottoms’ fate and yours have gotten … intertwined. Maybe it’s because it’s the winter solstice, but there is definitely some weird, cosmic stuff going on. Very Scrooge and Marley; it’s like the universe is leveling everything out. First Livvy Klack saves your neck, and then Gordon Winterbottom totally pulls off the performance of the year to help us out. Bizarre. But it’s like I said—anybody can see that Gordon and Winnie belong together. Apparently, somebody out there has decided that it’s your job to make it happen.”

  “Okay, then … how? Help me.”

  “Start with Elizabeth. Call her. I’ll bet she’ll have some ideas. After all, she must know Winnie as well as anyone. Remember how she interrogated us the first time we met? I guarantee she did that to Winnie, too.”

  “Hey, that’s a good idea,” I say.

  Margaret holds the school door open for me. “It’s funny. After all these years, you still sound surprised when you say that.”

  At the morning assembly, our production of Mr. Eliot’s play, The Merry Gentlemen, is sandwiched between the two halves of the choir concert: the somber first part and the everybody-sing-along-at-the-top-of-your-lungs finale.

  And somehow, despite all Mr. Eliot’s last-minute changes and incessant worrying, we pull it off. After the final bow, the students in his honors English class drag Mr. Eliot onto the stage and hand him a wrapped package, which we insist that he open in front of everyone. He tears of
f the paper and holds up a leather-bound edition of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, one of his favorite books.

  “It’s beautiful,” he says as he leafs through the pages, his eyes turning moist.

  “You like it?” Margaret asks.

  “Love it,” he says. “You really shouldn’t have.… Thank you—all of you. I’m going to reread it over the break.”

  Margaret pulls Livvy front and center by the arm. “Livvy found it,” she says. “We looked all over, but couldn’t find anything good. Livvy saw this online, but it was only available in England. Lucky for you, her parents just happen to be in London, and she had them send it here.”

  “Well, it’s perfect. You chose wisely, Livvy.”

  As we scamper off the stage, Livvy beams, glowing with the satisfaction of her good deed. “Are you and your friends going to be at your usual table at lunch today?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just want to make sure I see you before you leave for vacation,” she says, and then runs off to sit with some of her old friends.

  • • •

  An hour later, over red-and-green cupcakes and cartons of milk, we hold the first annual RBGGE (Red Blazer Girls Gift Exchange). Back in November, after much debate, we made a historic decision: we would draw names and buy only one gift, “secret Santa” style. The idea, of course, was that instead of spending a gazillion dollars, we would spend only a third of a gazillion.

  So, how did that work out? you ask.

  Well, smarty-pants, just see for yourself.

  When we’ve cleared away our mess, we set the four wrapped packages on the table.

  “How do we decide who goes first?” I ask.

  Margaret slides her package across the table to me. “How about you? Go ahead, get it started, Soph.”

  I’m not about to wait for someone to protest. I yank the paper off the red cardboard box and look inside, where I find a beautiful leather journal (the same one Margaret had seen me admiring), a bottle of ink (red, of course), and my very own fountain pen!