The Metropolitans Page 11

  “Her garter!” Madge cried. “You mean she took it off her leg? Wouldn’t her stockings fall down?”

  “Maybe they used them differently back then,” Kiku said, blushing. “But still, I bet that didn’t make Arthur very happy. Lancelot looks awfully pleased with himself.”

  Lancelot was just about to be named victor of the day when a new knight rode onto the field. He was wearing a helmet shaped like a boar’s head, and indeed his demeanor was much like a boar, as he immediately charged at the company, announcing that he would fight their best knight unto death. Lancelot, always bravely ready to put himself in the way of danger and sure of his right to be called the best knight, gave battle to the stranger and fought valiantly. He offered the boar-faced knight every chance to stand down, but the boar-faced knight taunted him thus: “What gives you the right to be called the best knight in the kingdom when you cannot best me?”

  And then, his pride wounded, Sir Lancelot swung high his sword and cleaved the knight’s head from his neck.

  “Golly!” Madge said. “He’s got a temper on him!”

  But lo! A wondrous strange thing occurred. When Lancelot removed the helmet from the fallen knight, his face came off with it. Beneath it lay a horrible grinning skull that spoke thus: “I lay a curse on this land and its descendants. You will be wiped from the face of the earth, while I will live forever no matter what you do to me.”

  “Is there nothing we can do to evade this fate?” asked the good lady Guinevere, looking first to Arthur. When she saw he had no answer, she looked to Lancelot. But Lancelot was still too angry to speak.

  “There is one way,” spoke the wizard Merlin to King Arthur, “but you must make a great sacrifice. You must travel into the Hewan Wood and, if you survive the terrors of the wood, you will come to the Maiden Castle. The lady of the castle will tell you what you must do to save your land, but it will be at a dire cost.”

  “A dire cost indeed,” spoke the two-headed knight. “Everything you value most will be sorely tested in the Hewan Wood, and if you come to the castle, you will find the dreaded Beast of the Wood, who will tear the flesh from your bones.”

  With those words, the knight closed his eyes and ceased to speak. Lancelot bent to pick up the helmet and found to his surprise that it was empty. Indeed, when they looked, they found that the suit of armor was empty as well. The knight with two faces had vanished without a trace.

  “That’s creepy,” Walt said, shuddering.

  “You said it,” Madge said. “If I were them, I wouldn’t go to the Hewan Wood.”

  “Yes, you would,” Kiku said. “You’d be the first to head straight for the woods. And that’s what they did, right?” She looked at Joe, who was still looking down at the page.

  Arthur stood and spoke to his assembled subjects: “I will go into these woods and save my land, no matter what danger lurks there.”

  “No, my lord,” spoke Lancelot, “as your champion, it is right that I perform this quest.”

  “Leaving me alone and unprotected?” asked Guinevere, looking from Arthur to Lancelot. For truthfully, Guinevere was weary of being left alone in the castle while the men went off to battle. “I would rather go with you.”

  “My lady is too eager to put herself in danger,” spoke Morgaine, “when clearly it is I who ought to go, as I am the only one amongst you who knows sorcery.”

  The four argued thus until the sun went down and the rest of the court, weary of their sparring, returned to their beds. At last Arthur spoke: “Enough! We shall go together or not at all.”

  And so the four set forth for the Hewan Wood. They traveled many days, following fearsome signs: marks of blood on the trunks of trees, bones hanging from branches, cast-off remnants of armor. At last they came to a place where the path was blocked by a fierce lion carved in stone. As they came to a halt, the lion opened its wide gaping mouth and spoke.

  “Beware all who come to the Hewan Wood. Only those true of heart may pass here.”

  “We are all true of heart,” spoke Arthur, “and we have come because an enchanted knight with two faces cursed our land, and the wizard Merlin told us we must come here to save it. Tell us how we may prove ourselves so that we may pass.”

  “You must each place a hand in my mouth and tell the secret you are most afraid of telling. If you lie, by word or omission, you will lose your hand and your chance to proceed.”

  “Just like we did!” Walt said. “Hey, I bet that means we’re going to become like them!”

  “I don’t know about that,” Madge said. “So what were their secrets?”

  “It doesn’t say,” Joe answered. “It just says . . .”

  They each did as was asked. It would not be chivalrous to tell the secrets of such august knights and ladies. Suffice it to say that they spoke from their hearts and when they were done, their friendship for each other was stronger than ever.

  “Well,” Madge huffed, “I don’t call that fair. We had to tell our secrets.”

  “But would you want them put into a book for strangers to read?” Kiku asked.

  “I suppose not,” Madge admitted. “What happens next, Joe?”

  Joe turned the page and read.

  When they had told their secrets, the Lion of Truth stepped aside and disclosed a dark and narrow path so entwined and embowered by vines and branches that it might have been a tunnel. Arthur went first, then Guinevere and Morgaine, and Lancelot took the rear. As soon as they had passed, the lion stepped back in front of the path and turned again to stone. There was no going back now and so they went onward into the Hewan Wood.

  “That’s it?” Madge asked when Joe looked up from the page.

  “That’s the end of this chapter,” Joe said, “but there’s something else here—a note in pencil.”

  “That’s Sir Bricklebank’s handwriting,” Kiku said, reading over Joe’s shoulder. “I think it’s the clue to where to find the next chapter.”

  “That can wait,” Walt said. “We’ve got to decode the next part of the message. There are two numbers beside the crown symbol—a six and a five. I bet that means to start with the fifth word on the sixth page. Joe, can you help me make out the letters?”

  While Joe and Walt worked to decode the next part of the letter, Madge went to the alcove to put the kettle on for tea. Kiku followed her. She opened a cabinet and asked Madge if she could reach a tin of cookies on the top shelf. As soon as Madge stepped behind the open cabinet door, Kiku laid a hand on her arm. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Spit it out,” Madge replied, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter. “Something you don’t want the boys to hear?”

  “I don’t want to worry them. It’s just . . . what Walt said about us becoming like the characters in the story. Do you think that’s what will happen to us?”

  Madge laughed. “Walt’s a swell guy, but he’s got a big imagination. He’d love it if this book somehow turned us all into the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table. When I used to read the stories from The Boy’s King Arthur to Frankie, he always wanted to play knights and ladies afterward. Of course he always had to be King Arthur, and the twins would be Lancelot and Gawain—or Perceval or Galahad, whoever’s story we’d read that day. Ma would be the Lady of the Lake and she’d hide the bread knife under the kitchen tablecloth and say it was Excalibur.”

  Madge swiped at her eyes, and Kiku, seeing how much she missed her family, squeezed her hand. After a moment Madge went on again. “But it was just a game and so is this. I certainly don’t think you or I will turn into Lady Guinevere. Sheesh, she can’t even make up her mind who she likes best—Arthur or Lancelot. And neither of us is a witch . . .” She looked at Kiku’s stricken face. “Is that it? You think you’re going to turn into Morgaine?”

  “It’s just that in the stories Morgaine betrays King Ar
thur, and I wouldn’t want . . . I mean, the girls at Spence aren’t very nice and my father never let me go to parties. You three are the first friends I’ve had and I’d never, ever do anything to hurt Walt or Joe or you—”

  “Of course you wouldn’t! No one would think that of you for one minute.”

  “No? Not even of a suspicious person of Oriental character?”

  Madge turned an alarming shade of red. “Now that’s what I call malarkey. I can believe all this magic stuff before I would believe you’d do anything underhanded.”

  “But you just met me!” Kiku whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

  Madge pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed at Kiku’s face. “I don’t think you’re suddenly going to become Morgaine any more than I’m about to become Queen Guinevere or that Freckles over there”—they both looked around the cabinet door at Walt, who was so absorbed in his task that he’d raked his short red hair into peaks like whipped egg whites—“is King Arthur. Now Joe on the other hand . . .” Madge lifted an eyebrow. “Joe makes a pretty good Sir Lancelot. But do you think he and I are going to run off together? Jeepers, we’re only thirteen years old!”

  “I guess you’re right,” Kiku conceded. “And Miss Lake wouldn’t have left the clue if she thought it was really dangerous for us to read the book.”

  “Exactly,” Madge said. “So as long as we make sure we always read the book together, we’ll be A-okay.” She turned away to pour boiling water in the teapot, but then Walt shouted so loudly that she nearly dropped the kettle.

  “Holy smokes! You two better get over here. We don’t have much time!”

  13

  THE TENTH OF DECEMBER

  WALT’S HANDS WERE shaking as he held up the notebook. “Listen to this.”

  As you read this, our plan has already been set in motion. Pearl Harbor was just the first step; now we will make the American people tremble in their own beloved city, New York. None will escape the next attack. The tenth of December will be a day even more notorious than the seventh—

  “The tenth of December!” Madge cried. “That’s only two days away.”

  “Does it say what the attack is?” Kiku asked. “Or where it will take place?”

  “No,” said Walt. “It says: We must make sure none but the faithful know where the attack will take place. I have used separate sections of the book to encode the messages below to tell you where, how, and when the attack will be.”

  “That means we have to find the other chapters of the book to read the other messages—and fast!” Kiku said. “Give me the clue Sir Bricklebank wrote at the end of the chapter. I’ll start looking for it right away and try to find them all before you three return in the morning.”

  “Return?” Joe asked, looking up. He’d been studying the pages, running his hands over them as if he were trying to absorb the words into his skin. And he practically had; his hands were covered in flecks of gold paint. “Where do you think we’re going? I’m sure not leaving you here alone.”

  “No way,” Madge said. “It’s pretty creepy here at night with all those statues and coffins upstairs.”

  “And we have to read the book together,” Walt said. “I’m staying here tonight.”

  “Won’t your aunt Sadie worry about you?” Kiku asked Walt.

  Walt shrugged. She would, but how could he leave now when his adopted city was threatened by the very people who had driven his family out of their home? And when he was about to embark on the biggest adventure of his life? He understood what Guinevere said about being tired of always having to stay at the castle while Arthur and Lancelot went off on quests. He wanted to be part of the quest. “I’ll call her and tell her I’m staying at a friend’s house to do a homework assignment.”

  “And I don’t have to worry about Aunt Jean,” Madge said. “She’s gone to Niagara Falls with Tony.”

  “So it’s settled then,” Joe said. “We’ll stay here until we find the remaining three chapters, then we’ll take the information to the police in the morning.” His voice sounds different, Walt thought, as if each word means something else. Maybe it comes from being as big and strong as Joe. Walt wished he felt that strong. But maybe doing this thing—finding the rest of the book and decoding the messages and saving New York—would make him feel that way.

  “What are we waiting for?” Walt asked. “Let’s read the clue.”

  Joe read the clue out loud.

  To find the next chapter

  You must wander through the Hewan Wood

  Cut off from all you love

  Just as our heroes did.

  The trees grow close.

  The thorns spring thick as doubt.

  To find your way, you need a guide

  To rise above the dark and fly free.

  “That’s easy,” Madge said, looking proud of herself. “It’s a bird. Are there any bird statues in the museum?”

  “Hundreds!” Kiku said. “It would take days to check them all out.”

  “There must be a way to narrow it down,” Walt said. “It’s not just a bird, but a bird that rises above the dark. Hey, I think I noticed a lamp shaped like a duck in the Roman gallery.”

  “Hm,” Kiku said, “I’ve got a catalogue of the Roman gallery right here.” She thumbed through the catalogue and then held it up for the others to see. The black-and-white photograph showed a clay sculpture of a fat duck with a hole in its back.

  “It looks kind of small to hold a whole chapter,” Madge said.

  “Sir Bricklebank could have folded the pages up real small,” Walt said.

  “Would he, though?” Joe asked. “It would ruin them. The old paint on the pages cracks and falls off—especially the gold.”

  “Yes!” Madge said. “We all have a bit of it on our hands. Have any of you noticed anything odd about your hands? Like when you touch things?”

  Walt frowned and looked down at his hands. “No. What do you mean?”

  Madge shook her head and picked up another catalogue. “Nothing. Hey, this place is full of birds. What about this one? It looks big enough to hold a chapter.”

  “That’s an Egyptian falcon sarcophagus,” Kiku said, consulting the caption under the picture.

  “A sarcophagus?” Joe said. “I thought those were the big coffins.”

  “It’s any kind of coffin,” Kiku said. “This statue probably held the remains of a prized hunting bird, the favorite of some king who wanted it buried with him.” Kiku shuddered. “The pages could fit in there, but it doesn’t fit the poem.”

  “Sure it does,” Joe said. “Rise above the dark could mean surviving after death.” He ran his finger along the realistically carved feathers on the picture. “The man who carved this statue and put the bones of that bird in it must have thought he was giving a kind of eternal life to it.”

  “Huh,” Madge said, leafing through the catalogues. She picked up one with a picture of a copper dove covered with beautiful enamel work. “This is like the dove that hangs over the altar in our church. My mother told me once that it’s supposed to stand for the Holy Spirit, the part of yourself that lives forever . . .” Madge’s voice faltered, and Walt took the catalogue from her.

  “It’s called a Eucharistic dove,” he said, reading from the catalogue. “This one’s from the thirteenth century. Madge is right, it could be any of these three.”

  “Or this one.” Kiku touched her finger to the picture of a black crow, its head tilted at a quizzical angle. “It’s a Japanese okimono from the Edo period. My father told me that they were sometimes hollow inside so you could burn incense as an offering to your ancestors. That’s like ‘rising above the dark’”

  “So we have four birds,” Joe said. “And there are four of us. We can each go find one and bring it back here to examine.”

  “Do you think we should move them?” Madge asked. “I m
ean, won’t we set off an alarm or something?”

  “The individual cases aren’t alarmed,” Kiku said. “And I don’t think we should stand around trying to figure out how to open them. I’ve got all the keys to the display cases.” She spread out the keys that they’d found in Dr. Bean’s desk. “I can give you each the key you need.”

  “Okay, then,” Walt said. “We can each grab one of these birds and meet back here.”

  “Are you sure we should split up?” Madge asked, her voice sounding nervous. “I thought we were supposed to do this together.”

  “We’re supposed to read the book together,” Kiku said, “but we really ought to split up to save time. But if you’re scared of being alone in the museum . . .”

  “What, me?” Madge said. “Afraid of some statues and mummies? Nah. It’s not like they’re gonna come alive or anything!”

  14

  BIRDS OF A FEATHER

  WALT VOLUNTEERED TO get the duck lamp. It might be small, but he wouldn’t put it past Sir Bricklebank to stuff a chapter inside it. Next to Arms and Armor, the Greek and Roman galleries were his favorite rooms in the museum. He liked the statues of athletes and heroes and the vases that told stories from Greek mythology. He especially liked a big marble sarcophagus that had scenes from the adventures of Theseus on it. There was Ariadne giving Theseus the thread that would lead him out of the labyrinth, and Theseus slaying the Minotaur.

  Walt would have been embarrassed to admit it, but he liked to imagine himself as the Greek hero who had saved all the boys and girls sent to be killed by the Minotaur. In his daydreams, he was no longer a skinny, noodle-armed weakling but a muscular hero brave enough to face the fierce monster. Instead of hiding in the wardrobe when the Nazis came, he burst into the Goldblatts’ apartment and knocked all the soldiers to the floor. Then, instead of getting on the train to safety with a bunch of crying kids, he led all his friends and family onto the train, and they all got out of Germany together, just like Theseus leading the Athenian youths to safety.