The Metropolitans Read online

  Joe turned to find Madge standing behind him. She was carrying a large paper bag.

  “Boo yourself,” he said. “I could hear you a mile away. No one ever taught you to walk quietly, did they?”

  “Why would they?” Madge asked.

  “In the Mush Hole, we’d sneak down to the kitchen at night to get food. We’d go barefoot so the teachers wouldn’t hear us.”

  They both looked down at their feet. Joe was wearing the soft leather moccasins that his grandmother had made for him. He’d hidden them outside the school before he went back the last time. They were the only thing he’d taken with him when he ran away. Madge was wearing hard-soled saddle shoes. After he unlocked the door using the key Kiku had found and followed Madge into the museum, he saw that the sound they made came from a loose sole.

  “I could sew that for you,” Joe offered. “I noticed there were some thick needles in the workroom.”

  “That would be swell,” Madge said, and then in a lower voice, “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” Joe said, surprised that brazen Madge would be so hesitant.

  “You’ve been on your own for a while, right?”

  Joe nodded. It had only been a few weeks since he’d left the Mush Hole, but it felt like a lifetime.

  “Well . . . do you get used to it? I mean . . . do you miss having someone waiting for you to get home from school and sewing your buttons on and all that stuff?”

  Joe stared at her, thinking about how a few minutes ago he’d been on the edge of tears just remembering his Tóta’s name. “I think it’s something you could get used to,” he said, thinking of the hard eyes of the tramps he’d met in boxcars and camps, “but I don’t think I’d want to get used to it. And we won’t have to. We’ve got each other now. That’s part of reading the book together—it means we’ll look out for each other.” He poked the hole in her coat where a button had fallen off. “I can sew that for you, too.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” Madge said, blushing. “And I’ve got something for you.” She handed him the paper bag she was carrying. Joe unfolded a thick wool peacoat and a knit cap. “They’re from when my dad was in the navy, but he’s not home to use them. You can’t walk around New York in that thin jacket.”

  Joe thanked her as he put on the coat.

  “What does niá:wen mean?” Madge asked.

  Joe looked at her, puzzled.

  “Niá:wen,” she repeated. “Isn’t that what you just said?”

  “It means thank you,” Joe said, “in Mohawk.”

  * * *

  Kiku looked up when Joe and Madge came into the workroom. They looked like they were sharing a private joke. She saw Walt looking at the two of them with a funny expression on his face; then he burst out laughing. It took Kiku a moment to realize why, but then she saw it. Walt was dressed in the same outfit—dark trousers, black turtleneck, and beret—as Madge.

  “I guess I’m not the only one who’s watched Secret Agent,” Madge said, grinning at Walt. Then she handed Kiku a round box. Kiku opened it and took out a red felt hat with a beaded veil. “For going out,” Madge said. “No one will think you’re a ‘suspicious person of Oriental character’ in that.”

  Kiku went to the mirror in the alcove to try on the hat. She looked like someone else in it, like one of the models in the fashion magazines she’d seen last night at Madge’s. When she turned around, Walt gasped. “No one would recognize you!”

  “We’ve all put on other faces,” Joe said. “Let’s hope that doesn’t make us two-faced.”

  * * *

  The maze of basement corridors seemed even longer and more confusing to Madge in the dark. There were dim emergency lights every twenty feet or so, but some of these had burned out, and Kiku thought it was better if they didn’t use a flashlight in case one of the guards was patrolling the basement.

  “Just stay close to me,” she said. “I know the way.” When they reached the stairs, Kiku whispered to the others that they shouldn’t talk once they were upstairs.

  “We can use hand signals,” Walt suggested.

  “Great idea, Freckles,” Madge said, “only it’s too dark to see anything.”

  “How about birdcalls?” he said. Walt pursed his lips and made a sound like a dying pigeon.

  “That sounds like a mourning dove,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, that’s swell if we were out in the woods,” Madge said.

  “Birds get into the museum all the time,” Kiku said. “We’ll make the cooing sound when we find the lion. If anyone sees a guard coming, whistle like this.” Kiku whistled a tune that was far more elaborate than Walt’s coo.

  “Sure,” Madge said, rolling her eyes. “Then I’ll sing the aria from Madame Butterfly.”

  The long sculpture gallery was slightly better lit than the basement, but that only made the shadows cast by the statues seem spookier. All these Greeks and Romans like to hold up their arms, Madge thought, like they’re trying to hail a cab. It made their shadows stretch out across the polished marble like jagged exclamation marks and made Madge feel uneasy. And why were there so many naked ones? Here was a woman with one breast bared and here was a girl wearing a nightie that didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Even creepier were the statues missing body parts. She passed a woman in a long draped dress who didn’t have a head. It made her think of the dream they’d all had last night of the knight who lost his head but kept on talking. The thought made her feel faint for a moment. She stumbled and put her hand out to brace herself—and touched cold marble.

  Jeepers! She wasn’t supposed to touch the statues. What if it was one of the creepy ones? But this one wasn’t creepy. It was one of those flat ones, like a gravestone, but the statue on it was rounded and lifelike: a little girl holding two doves. She remembered something about doves her mother had told her—that they stood for the spirit, the part of yourself that never died. She reached toward one of the doves and ran her finger along the curve of its rounded breast, remembering the way her mother would cup her face with her hand when she had a fever. No one touched her like that anymore.

  You don’t need anyone to take care of you—you will take care of the others.

  There was that voice again, sounding more and more real inside her head. She took her hand away from the dove and noticed that a bit of the gold dust had come off on the marble. Then she heard a cooing.

  Nerts, it’s Walt, she thought. He’s found the lion. She turned away from the dove girl and hurried after the others. As she ran, she could have sworn she heard the rustle of wings, but it must have just been her imagination.

  She found the other three standing around the crouching lion. It looked even fiercer in real life. Madge could see its ribs under its marble skin and had to remind herself it was just stone.

  “What are you all waiting for?” Madge whispered. “Someone’s got to stick their hand down there and see if the chapter’s there.”

  “Sure,” Walt said, “only . . . what if the superstition is true?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Madge said, “I’ll do it. I’ve got long fingers. My mother always said I could have played the piano if we could afford one, and I was jacks champion in the fourth grade.” Madge wriggled her fingers in the air. They sparkled in the emergency lights. That durned gold paint, she thought, wiping it off on her handkerchief before reaching toward the mouth. The same gold paint that had gotten on the dove a minute ago before she heard the flutter of wings . . .

  It was only paint. It couldn’t bring a statue to life. And besides, the lion only bit off your hand if you were lying and she didn’t plan on telling any lies while sticking her hand in there.

  Only she’d been telling lies of one sort or another since her mother had died. Stories she made up on the spot like the one she had come up with today when they ran into Miss Fishbone in the Great Hall. Stories that turn
ed her into a different girl—tough girl Madge, not little Margaret McGrory from Brooklyn who’d lost her family.

  “Do you think,” Madge asked, fingers inches from the gaping mouth, “it cares if you’ve told lies before you put your hand inside?”

  “That’s not in any of the stories,” Kiku said.

  “And it’s not like you’ve told any really bad lies,” Walt said. “Have you?”

  “No, but . . .” Madge thought of all the things she hadn’t told them. Didn’t the nuns call those lies of omission? “What about the things you haven’t said? Is it lying if you’re keeping something to yourself?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Kiku said, looking worried.

  “I guess if it was something really bad,” Walt said, biting his lip.

  “It might be safest to make a clean slate,” Joe said.

  “Here goes then,” Madge said, screwing up her eyes and thrusting her hand into the gaping mouth. “Right before my mother fell down in the kitchen, she was scolding me for burning the oatmeal. Only the oatmeal wasn’t burned, and I was angry, so I said she never trusted me and I . . . I didn’t say it but I thought to myself, I wish I could live by myself. And then she fell over and died. The doctor said it was from a blood clot that flew to her brain, but I’ve always thought maybe it was me wishing her gone.”

  She waited, breath held, eyes screwed shut.

  “We all say terrible things we don’t mean,” Kiku said, laying her hand on top of Madge’s inside the lion’s mouth. “I told my father I wished we weren’t Japanese. That I hated the way people looked at me so much I wished I could disappear.”

  “I told my parents that if they sent me away, I’d never come back,” Walt said, putting his hand on top of the girls’ hands.

  “I left my sister behind in the Mush Hole because I was afraid to stay and face what I’d done to the principal.”

  They stood with their hands lying on top of each other’s inside the lion’s mouth, staring at the fierce face, waiting for it to come alive and chomp off their hands. For a moment Madge thought that the cold marble was growing warm, but then she realized it was only the warmth of her friends’ hands. They were her friends, she thought, because when you tell someone the worst thing about yourself and they still stand by you, that’s how you know.

  “Hey,” Madge said. “I think I feel something.” She wriggled her fingers farther into the mouth and drew out a rolled-up sheaf of paper. Joe looked over her shoulder and read the title out loud: “The Two-Faced Knight; or How Our Heroes Forged the Bond of Friendship in the Mouth of the Lion.”

  12

  KNIGHTS AND LADIES

  “HEY,” WALT SAID, “that’s kind of like what we just did.”

  “That must be why Sir Bricklebank put the first chapter here,” Kiku said. “He knew it was important that we meet at the Lion of Truth just like they did.” She was staring at the lion’s face, which was glowing in the dim emergency lights. As if it’s alive, Kiku thought. Was its mouth stretched wider than before? For a moment when all of their hands were in the lion’s mouth, she had thought she felt the marble grow warm. No, that was just her imagination. She looked nervously around her at the other statues. The disembodied head of a Roman senator glared at her from one of the side galleries.

  “What are we waiting for?” Walt said. “Let’s go back to the workroom and read it!”

  “Yes,” Kiku said, carefully tucking the pages into her skirt pocket. She turned to lead the others back to the stairs, but there was no need to show them the way; there was a trail of gold dust showing where they had come from.

  * * *

  When they got back to the workroom, Kiku laid the pages down on the worktable and they all gathered around in a circle, leaning toward the pages as if warming themselves around a bonfire. On the first page there was a painting of knights and ladies seated in a pavilion, watching a jousting contest. In the front row there was a man wearing a crown.

  “That must be Arthur,” Walt said, “and the lady on his left would be Guinevere.”

  “And that’s Lancelot,” Madge said, pointing to the knight on the field. “The fellow who looks so pleased with himself. His shield has three diagonal stripes across it.”

  “Who is she?” Kiku asked, touching her fingertip to the figure of the lady sitting on Arthur’s right. She was wearing a pendant with a half moon on it and there was a falcon riding on her shoulder.

  “I bet that’s Morgaine, Arthur’s half sister,” Walt said. “She was a witch. There are a lot of different stories about her. Some think she was evil and plotted against Arthur, and others think she helped Arthur and that the real evil one was their other half sister, Belisent. And this boy”—he pointed to a figure in tunic and tights kneeling in front of Arthur—“this must be Arthur’s squire.”

  “He doesn’t look happy,” Madge remarked.

  “Maybe we’ll find out why if we read the chapter,” Kiku suggested, “but I can barely make sense of these letters.”

  “I can,” Joe said. “At least I think I can, but . . .” He paused and looked up. “Should we? Remember what Dr. Bean said about how dangerous it was to read the book? We could just use the chapter to decode the next message. We don’t actually have to read it.”

  “Oh,” Kiku said, feeling a great swell of disappointment. “You’re right, you know, only . . .” She looked up at the others and saw the same glow of excitement in their eyes. They all want to read it, the voice said inside her head. “Dr. Bean only said that about the book being dangerous because he didn’t believe we were the knights and clearly we are the knights. We found the chapter when Dr. Bean and Miss Lake couldn’t. That must mean we’re the ones who are supposed to read it. And I think that if we read it together, it will be safe.”

  Madge nodded. “I think Kiku is right.”

  “Well, I know that I want to read it,” Walt said. “Heck, it’s a story about King Arthur I haven’t read before!”

  “All right,” Joe said. “We’re agreed. But we’ll only read the chapters together.” He spread his hands over the pages to smooth them flat. A bit of gold paint got on his hands, Kiku noticed, and as he spoke, his voice sounded different. As if someone else were speaking through him.

  He drew the pages toward him but left them flat on the table so the others could see the pictures as he read.

  THE TWO-FACED KNIGHT; OR HOW OUR HEROES FORGED THE BOND OF FRIENDSHIP IN THE MOUTH OF THE LION

  Many are the adventures of King Arthur and his brave knights that have been told elsewhere by bards more skillful than I, but none have told this tale, for it was sworn between the king and his three companions who accompanied him on this adventure never to speak a word of it. It is not a tale meant for any but the four destined to take up the battle in their names. Before you read further, ask yourself if you are true of heart and if you are in the company of friends.

  Joe’s voice grew hoarse at the last words. He paused and looked up from the page and met Kiku’s eyes.

  “I think that’s all been settled,” Kiku said. Madge and Walt nodded, and Joe bent his head back to the page and, after a moment, began reading again.

  It began on a spring day in the early years of King Arthur’s reign. Arthur had newly come to power and united the warring tribes of Britain. There were still many dangers to face—invading Saxons and Northmen, and rivalries still festering in the hearts of chieftains and petty kings and queens—but Arthur, with his gifts of kingship, had been able to draw them all together to swear allegiance and celebrate their alliance. A feast was given and a tournament held, which Arthur watched with his beautiful and loyal lady Guinevere on one side and his sister Morgaine on the other—

  “It is Morgaine,” Kiku said.

  Morgaine was known throughout the kingdom as a wise and clever sorceress. She was feared by some, but she had pledged her fealty to Arthur. His olde
r half sister Belisent had also come—

  “That must be the dame with the sour puss,” Madge said, pointing at a lady dressed in green wearing a hat that looked like a dunce’s cap and scowling at Arthur. “What’s her beef with Arthur?”

  “Well, if you’d let me go on,” Joe said.

  “No one’s stopping you, sport,” Madge replied.

  . . . although it was whispered that she was angry that Arthur had been crowned king and not one of her sons. Belisent bore for Arthur the grudge of the displaced sister and aggrieved daughter. She believed that Arthur’s father was responsible for her own father’s death. That hatred rankled in her breast as a serpent bites its own tail until, it was whispered, she had through spiteful witchcraft become that horrible monster—the lizard with two heads.

  “Look,” Kiku said, pointing at the picture, “you can see a lizard tail peeping out from underneath her dress.”

  “Yech,” said Madge. “Why did Arthur even let her come to the party?”

  “I guess he didn’t want her any angrier,” Joe said.

  In appeasement, King Arthur offered to make her youngest son his squire, but when Mordred begged King Arthur to allow him to take part in the tournament, the king said he was too young—

  “That must be the kid with the unhappy mug,” Madge said.

  And Mordred went away with rancor in his heart, because youth does not like to sit idly by.

  “I’d be sore too,” Walt said, “if I wasn’t allowed to joust.”

  Joe turned the page to a series of three pictures. In each, a knight in brilliant armor was shown dueling, jousting, and in the last, receiving a prize from the queen.

  In all the contests, Lancelot prevailed as the bravest and most skilled knight. His only fault was his habit of boasting, which only grew greater when Queen Guinevere bestowed upon him her garter—