by Lin Oliver
Marcel stayed behind an extra second so he could squash the man’s top hat under his foot, just like Cooper Starr had smashed my plastic cup. Then he fled with the rest of his friends.
“Tiger, what happened?” Luna called as she ran to me. “Where are the others? Why did you knock this man over?”
What could I say to her? That I had just helped Marcel and his friends rob a man? I felt terrible. I reached out and picked up his flattened top hat. I popped it back out to its original shape and offered it to him. He batted it away.
“Gendarmes!” he called at the top of his voice.
You didn’t have to speak French to know that he was calling for help. My heart started to race. I had no idea what to do.
We heard voices in the distance, followed by whistles and the clatter of hooves. Marcel and his pack darted around the corner and ran past us. Following them were two policemen on horseback.
The street kids swarmed around Luna and me. Grabbing our arms, they swept us up with them. The police galloped after us. Marcel ran next to me.
“Tiger, Américain,” he called.
Then he tossed me the gold watch. I’m a baseball player. You throw me anything, I’m going to catch it. Without thinking, I reached out and caught the watch in midair. Marcel took off in a burst of speed. He and his pals scattered, disappearing into side alleys. Only Luna and I were left on the street. The river was to our left. Buildings to our right.
“We’re trapped!” I shouted.
“Let’s swim for it,” Luna said.
But it was too late.
We were surrounded by the police.
Chapter 6
The policemen carried old-fashioned prison irons in their saddlebags. After they caught us, they got them out and handcuffed us. I felt the thick iron bracelet clamp around my wrist. I heard another one clamp. That was Luna’s. She started to cry. And to be honest, I did, too.
I was still clutching the gold watch in my hand. One of the policemen took it from me. He let it dangle from the chain.
“Ooh-la-la,” the policeman said when the shiny watch caught the sunlight. Like most of the police, he had a complicated mustache. It was as skinny as he was.
His partner, a gray-haired man with a big belly, wagged his finger at me.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk,” he said.
“That’s not mine,” I tried to explain.
He shrugged his shoulders. I pointed to the gentleman who had been robbed.
“Ask him,” I said. “He’ll tell you I didn’t steal his watch. Marcel did it.”
“Tiger, it’s no use trying to explain,” Luna whispered. “They don’t understand you.”
“Can’t you draw a picture for them?” I begged. “You know, like your grandma tells you to.”
“Not with these handcuffs on.” Luna shook her head sadly.
The skinny policeman got right in my face and started firing questions at me in French.
“It’s not mine,” I kept yelling. “I didn’t steal it.”
“Try not to yell at him,” Luna suggested. “My grandma always says it’s not what you say that matters, it’s how you say it.”
“Your grandmother sure has a lot of advice,” I snapped. “Maybe she should give it a rest.”
Luna looked hurt.
“I’m sorry, Luna,” I said with a sigh. “I’m scared. And I don’t like being accused of stuff I didn’t do.”
The policeman kept at it, asking one question after another right into my face. He must have eaten a garlic sandwich for lunch, with a side of garlic. His breath smelled like a three-day-old sausage.
Suddenly, his gray-haired partner put his finger to his lips and looked around.
“Shhhhh,” he said. We all listened. We heard footsteps from across the street.
The older officer ran off in the direction of the footsteps. I was surprised at how fast he could go. He disappeared behind a building. Not more than a minute later, he appeared, pulling a kid by the ear. It was Marcel!
“That’s him!” I shouted to Mr. Garlic Breath. “He’s the thief, not me.”
Marcel stared at me with angry eyes. When the police weren’t looking, he clenched his hand into a fist as if he were going to punch me. I knew what that meant in any language—keep your mouth shut.
The policemen put Marcel in handcuffs, too. Then they chained all three of us to the horses. We had to walk through the narrow lanes of shops to the station. People leaned out from their upstairs windows and shouted at us. Marcel smirked at them and shouted back. Not me. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to sink into a hole and disappear.
“What time is it, Tiger?” Luna whispered.
I wiped a thick layer of mud from my Batman watch. Good thing Batman is so tough. My watch was waterproof, mudproof, and even other dimension–proof. Batman kept going, no matter what.
And that was a problem. The time was 4:35. We had twenty-five minutes to find David and get back to the island.
“We’ll never make it,” Luna said. “We’ll be stuck in here forever. I’ll never see my parents or grandparents again. I’ll never have another horchata. And what’s going to happen to my kitty, Loco? She gets so nervous without me.”
“Silence!” a policeman barked.
“I won’t be quiet!” Luna shouted. “We don’t belong here. We’re from the future. Don’t you know that you’re in a painting? None of this is real!”
But it was real. We were in handcuffs in a foreign country, far from home. Accused of a crime we didn’t do. With no one to help us.
The chains around me were suddenly very heavy, and I felt like I was sinking.
Chapter 7
The prison door clanged shut. And just like that, Luna and I were locked inside.
After marching us through the street to the station, the police put Luna, Marcel, and me into a jail cell. There were about ten other kids in different cells on either side of us. Marcel seemed to know them all.
I squatted behind the prison bars, looking at my Batman watch. Luna yelled and screamed at the guard. Then she got really chatty with him. But nothing was working.
A new guard walked by and nudged me with a baton. He handed me something wrapped up in a dirty piece of cloth. A thick chunk of crunchy bread was inside. He gave one to Luna and Marcel, too, then went on to the next cell block.
I took a bite. Before I could take a second bite, Marcel snatched the bread from me and wolfed it down. I got so angry, I felt like I was going to explode. And I did. I shoved Marcel as hard as I could with both arms.
I didn’t do any damage. Marcel grabbed me by the wrist. I thought he was going to twist my arm, but he didn’t. Instead, he held my wrist to his face. He was looking at my Batman watch. I could tell that he’d never seen anything like it.
He asked me a question in French. What did he want to know? I couldn’t tell. He repeated the question. I shrugged.
“It’s Batman! Everyone knows that.” The answer came from a kid standing on the free side of the bars. “The Caped Crusader of Gotham. He’s the best superhero ever.”
I thought I knew that voice. No, I was sure I knew that voice.
It was David! He was wearing brown pants and a ruffled shirt.
The guard undid David’s irons, slid open the bars, and tossed him into our cell. Luna ran to him and gave him one of her huge hugs—the Luna Special.
“David, you have no idea how good it is to see you,” she cried.
“Although it’d be better to run into each other in a place without bars,” I added.
David laughed out loud, like he wasn’t bothered a bit.
“So it was you I saw getting into the rowboat,” I said. “Why didn’t you answer when I called?”
“I was on a date,” David said. “With Celeste. She’s the most beautiful girl in the whole painting. This life sure beats the jungle, wouldn’t you say?”
The last time we had seen David, he was living in a jungle painting. He was so hairy and dirty then that he looked like half
boy, half animal. This time, he was all cleaned up. One other thing was different about him, too. He could speak French. He must have picked it up from living in all those different French paintings.
“Your mom misses you so much,” Luna said to him. “She wants you to come home.”
“I know,” David said. “I miss her, too, but I’d miss Celeste more.”
He laughed again, and the sound of it filled the whole prison cell.
David looked around and waved hello to the kids in the other cells. He even said bonjour to Marcel, and the two of them talked like they were old pals.
“Marcel says they picked you up for stealing a gold watch,” he said, turning to us. “My mother wouldn’t be happy about that.”
“We didn’t steal anything,” I said. “Marcel set us up. He stole the watch.”
“Marcel will do that,” David said. “He’s a regular in this establishment.”
“He’s a bully and a scoundrel,” I said, remembering that Chives had used those very words to describe Cooper Starr.
“Scoundrel? Nice vocabulary, buddy,” David said, punching me lightly in the arm. “Where’d you learn a fancy word like that?”
“From your mother’s orange pig butler.”
“That sounds like something Mother would have,” he said with a laugh. “Well, you’ve got to understand that Marcel has had a hard life. His parents abandoned him. He’s been on the streets his whole life, or here in prison.”
“Why are you in here?” Luna asked.
“When I was dropping Celeste off at her house, I saw the police taking you in chains. I knew they were bringing you here. I stole a piece of bread so they’d throw me in jail, too. I thought maybe you’d need my help.”
“We need major help,” I said. “Time is running out. If we’re not back at five, we’re stuck here forever.”
“I know,” David said. “The window is closing, and we have to get you out of here fast. I have an idea, but I’m going to need Marcel’s help. That won’t be easy. I happen to know that he hates helping others.”
“Tell him we’re from the twenty-first century,” Luna suggested. “And that we need to get back to the future.”
“I’ve found that that doesn’t usually work,” David answered.
We were wasting time. I was desperate. “Tell him we’ll give him anything. Anything he wants.”
“Now there’s something that could work,” David said.
He went to Marcel and huddled with him. Then he came back to us.
“He’ll help us, but only if you give him your Batman watch,” David said.
“My watch? But it’s special. My uncle Cole gave it to me for my tenth birthday, and he’s my favorite uncle.”
“Then I hope you like bread and water,” David said. “Because that’s what they feed you in French prisons.”
“I think I can get Marcel to help us,” Luna said. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“He doesn’t speak English,” David reminded her.
“That won’t bother her,” I said. “Her grandma taught her to communicate in pictures.”
“She also says that if people look deep in your eyes, they can tell what you’re feeling,” Luna said. “I’m going to look into Marcel’s eyes and let him know I’m sorry he’s had such a hard life. I bet that will soften him up.”
Luna walked over to Marcel, wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a great big hug. She looked him deep in the eyes. He seemed to like it. They walked back over to us, and Marcel said something in French to David.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Luna said. “What did he say?”
“He says thanks for the hug,” David said.
“I knew it!” Luna shouted.
“And that he still wants the watch,” David added.
Luna looked crushed.
“Nice try,” David said to her. “But sometimes a jerk is a jerk, no matter what you do.” Then, turning to me, he said, “Looks like it’s up to you, Tiger. What’s it going to be?”
I looked at my Batman watch, with its cool light-up face. It was my favorite thing that I owned. I’d probably be fifty before I’d ever get another one.
Then I looked at Luna. She was biting her lower lip, waiting for my decision. It was a hard choice, one that I wished I didn’t have to make.
Chapter 8
“Decision time, buddy,” David said, tapping his foot. “We’re wasting time here.”
I thought about the day my uncle Cole gave me the Batman watch. He’s a huge Batman fan, too. We were at a Dodgers game, and he pulled the box out of his backpack and handed it to me, all wrapped up in comic-book wrapping paper. I was so excited. Afterward, we ate hot dogs with chili. That was a great day.
I sighed, knowing what I had to do. I took one last look at my Batman watch and unfastened the strap.
“So long, Batman,” I said, handing the watch to Marcel. “You’ll just have to fight crime without me.”
“That was a good decision,” David said as Marcel strapped on the watch and danced around the cell.
“Thanks, Tiger,” Luna said. “If we get home … I mean … when we get home, I’ll make you something special to replace that. I know how to make this cool friendship bracelet out of leather and seashells.”
David laughed.
“Now there’s a reason to hurry home,” he said. “Come on, let’s get to work.”
Quickly, he described his plan to us.
“It’s risky,” he said, “but it’s our best shot. Let me just tell Marcel what to do.”
He spoke quickly to Marcel, who listened and nodded without ever looking up from the watch on his wrist.
“Okay,” David said. “Are you guys ready?”
“Just one question,” I said to him. “If it works and we get out of jail, you are coming back with us, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged.
“But you have to,” Luna said.
“I don’t have to do anything,” David answered. “That’s why I like it here in the world of art. I’m not just a thirteen-year-old kid. I’m free. No bedtime. No piano practice. No math homework.”
“But what about your mom?” Luna said. “Do you know she does a new painting every week, hoping that you’ll be in it?”
“All right, Luna, I’ll think about it.” David glanced over at my watch on Marcel’s arm. “Look, it’s already 4:45. We’ve got to move.”
David gave Marcel a hand signal. Marcel nodded, cracked his knuckles, and then suddenly charged David. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought they really hated each other. They were fighting like real enemies. Throwing punches, taking punches, pulling hair, hitting low. David even let Marcel give him a bloody nose so everything would look real.
The kids in the cells around us started hooting and hollering and rattling the bars. The guard on duty came running. He swung open the bars and barged into our cell to break up the fight.
“Run!” David yelled to us.
Luna and I ran out to freedom. Marcel and David bolted, too, just a step behind us. David swung the bars closed, locking the guard in the cell. Marcel showed us that he had pickpocketed the guard’s key.
“Au revoir, les Américains!” Marcel called out, then hurried to let his friends out of the other cells.
The three of us crept down the hall. Quietly, we snuck out the back door of the station. We were halfway down the alley when we finally heard an alarm bell go off.
“They’ll be coming after us now,” David said.
“Which way is the river?” I whispered.
“That way.” David pointed. “Time is really tight.”
“Then we’ll run like the wind,” Luna said.
“We need something faster than wind,” I said. “The fastest things they have here are horses.”
“There’s one over there,” David said. It was a police horse, drinking at a trough by the station. “I can ride any horse. My mother made me take lessons.”
“We can�
��t get all three of us on one horse,” Luna said.
If I could get my brain to work, maybe I could come up with an invention that would help us get to the river as fast as possible.
Think, Tiger. Be a science guy. Imagine you’re Thomas Edison. Or Alexander Graham Bell. Or Henry Ford.
I looked around desperately and spotted an old wooden fruit cart on the side of the alley. It was basically a wheelbarrow with a lot of cherry pits and banana peels in it. It had only one wheel. But maybe I could rig something up and tie it to the horse.
“You get the horse,” I called to David. “I’ll make a chariot.”
David dashed to the horse and leaped on its back in one move.
Meanwhile, Luna helped me shove the broken-down cart into the street. It was very rickety. It was made to haul around fruit, not two ten-year-olds. But our only hope was to try it.
I looked around for rope to make the rigging. We had nothing. Luna was starting to panic, but I stayed calm. I think best in tight spots, and besides, the answer was staring right at me.
Underpants!
Right next to us, there was a clothesline with a row of men’s underpants drying on the line. I felt bad for the poor guy who’d have to wear damp undies for a while, but not bad enough to stop me from yanking them off the line.
I pulled down the clothesline. It gave me more than enough rope. Quickly, I tied the rope around the fruit cart’s handles—with a bowline knot, in case you care about knots. David brought the horse over to us, and I tossed the rope to him. He tied his end around the saddle. Luna and I jumped in the cart.
The horse reared up on its hind legs. The cart almost tipped completely over.
“We’re falling out!” Luna cried.
David dug his heels into the horse’s sides. The horse reared one more time, and then took off.
“Try to hang on,” I called to Luna.
“I don’t think I can!” she screamed.
There was no time to answer her. We were already flying down the alley, speeding on one shaky wheel across the bumpy streets of Paris.