The Metropolitans Read online

  “Go after him!” Madge cried. “Stop Walt!”

  As Joe turned to follow Walt, the clock struck noon, and Mary Read started playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in defiance of the stationmaster’s request. Everyone in the Great Hall stopped in their tracks, turned to the American flag hanging over the entrance to the waiting room, and, with hand over heart, started singing along. For a moment, time seemed to stop. Madge could see Walt. He had reached the man in overalls and already had his hand out to take the bag from him, but at the sound of the anthem, Walt froze.

  He won’t be able to do it, Madge thought. Not with the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air being belted out around him by soldiers and their sweethearts, and porters and little old grannies, and a whole troop of Boy Scouts. Madge found herself singing along as loud as she could as if by doing so, she could keep Walt from taking that bag. And it was almost as if Walt heard her. He turned and their eyes met across the crowded station.

  Then he turned away and took the bag from the man in the overalls. Madge felt the song die in her throat.

  As soon as Walt had the new bag in his hands, he broke into a run, tucking the bag under his arm like a football and sprinting for the tracks like Red Grange the Galloping Ghost going for the goal line. The man in overalls, looking momentarily startled at this turn of events, also turned and ran toward the tracks. Where was Walt going with the bag? Was he getting on a train? It didn’t make any sense! All Madge knew was that she had to catch up with Walt before he did something he would regret forever.

  As she ran by Joe, he turned and followed her, dropping his Gladstone bag. They ran toward Track 24, shouldering past commuters boarding the train. Had Walt gotten on the train already? There was a train idling on either side of the platform—one for Greenwich, Connecticut, and the other for Poughkeepsie. Walt could have gotten on either one.

  “You take Greenwich, I’ll take Poughkeepsie,” Madge shouted. “Check every car!”

  Joe disappeared into the Greenwich train, and Madge hopped on the Poughkeepsie one, dodging past a ticket collector and that same darned fur-coated woman with all the shopping bags. She checked each car, slapping down newspapers held in front of faces and tossing up a beaver coat lying over a sleeping girl in a Vassar sweater, but she didn’t see any sign of Freckles. She hopped out of the last car seconds before the train pulled out—and saw Walt getting out of the last car of the Greenwich train, which was already pulling out of the station. Joe sprang out of the moving train right behind Walt. Walt turned to run back toward the concourse, but then he saw Madge.

  “It’s okay,” Madge said, although she really didn’t think anything was okay. “The important thing is you got the bag. We can stop Mr. January now.”

  “No,” Walt said. “That’s the problem, Madge. We can’t stop him like this. He’s too powerful, he—”

  “What did he offer you?” Joe asked. “Did he say he’d help your family?”

  Walt turned to look at Joe, then his eyes flicked back to Madge. “Anyone would understand if you made a deal with him,” she said. “Anyone would do the same.”

  Something changed in Walt’s face. It was as if all the light went out of it. “Would you?” Walt asked. “If Mr. January offered to help get your brothers out of St. Vincent’s, would you betray your city and country?”

  How did Walt even know her brothers were in St. Vincent’s? She hadn’t told the others. Mr. January must have told him, which made Madge go cold all over. What would she do if Mr. January offered to get them out? She opened her mouth to answer. She had every intention of saying, “Yeah, sure,” but she couldn’t, because she knew it wasn’t true. And Walt, looking into her eyes, would know it wasn’t true.

  “I didn’t think so,” Walt said. He was about to say something else, but the shrill whistle of a train pulling into the next track cut him off. He looked back at Madge and said something to her quietly, as if they were in the whispering gallery and not on a crowded, loud platform.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Then he leapt in front of the approaching train.

  22

  COFFIN OF BONE

  “WALT!” MADGE SCREAMED, bolting toward the track. But Joe caught her before she could jump after Walt and held on to her as the train thundered into the station. He had seen what happened and needed to make Madge hear him.

  “Walt’s okay,” he screamed into her ear. “He made it to the other side.”

  But Madge wouldn’t take his word for it. She got loose from his hold and ran toward the end of the platform so she could cross over to the other track. Joe followed her, fighting through the mayhem of hysterical travelers who had seen a boy jump in front of a train. When they reached the next track, policemen and conductors were trying to clear the track of civilians, but Madge bulldozed through, screaming that her friend was on the track. A burly policeman tried to hold her back, but Madge kicked him in the shins and ducked around him, and Joe followed in her wake. When they got onto the platform Joe saw Kiku but no Walt. Had he been wrong about what he’d seen? It had seemed incredible that Walt could leap over the width of a train track, but then, Walt wasn’t the same anymore.

  And neither are you. It was the voice he’d been hearing since last night. He was pretty sure now that it was the voice of Lancelot and he had begun to trust in that voice. But there was another voice in his head that he’d heard when he had touched Mr. January’s note last night.

  “Where’s Walt?” Madge demanded of Kiku. “Did you see him clear the track? Is he all right?”

  Kiku nodded, her eyes wide. “He flew across the track like he was Superman and then leapt across the next track and went through that service door.” She pointed to a low door beneath the platform. “I called to him to stop, but he wouldn’t. I’m afraid he’s gone over to Mr. January’s side.”

  “No,” Madge said, shaking her head, tears filling her eyes. Joe hadn’t seen Madge cry before. It was almost as incredible as Walt clearing that track.

  “I’m afraid she’s right,” Joe said, touching Madge’s arm. “Mr. January must have offered Walt a deal when he caught up to him in the park last night.”

  “He’d just found out that the Nazis were rounding up Jews in France,” Kiku said. “If Mr. January offered to help get his family out of France, he might have been tempted.”

  “I’m sure Mr. January can be very convincing,” Joe said, remembering the voice he’d heard last night, urging him to betray his friends and join his side and offering in return to get Jeanette out of the Mush Hole. Joe had had to scream to make the voice stop, but since then he’d heard it lurking in his thoughts, tempting him.

  “Who could blame him if he agreed to take part in the sabotage plot, to save them,” Joe said.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Madge said. “Walt wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Maybe not the Walt who we met two days ago,” Joe said, “but let’s face it: we’ve all changed in these last two days. The book’s changed us. The old Walt wouldn’t have hit me last night, and he couldn’t have leaped across a train track in front of a moving train.”

  “So?” Madge challenged him. “The book’s given him superstrength just like it’s given you the ability to understand languages and Kiku an invisibility cloak.”

  “It’s doing more than that,” Kiku said. “I hear voices inside my head.”

  “Me too,” Joe said. “And those voices aren’t all good. Last night when I touched Mr. January’s letter I heard his voice. He tried to make me betray you all, and he offered to make me strong enough to get my sister out of the Mush Hole.”

  “So you think Walt’s got some evil voice inside his head telling him to do bad things?” Madge demanded.

  “Maybe,” Kiku said. “Last night I heard Morgaine’s voice.”

  Both Joe and Madge stared at her. “And what did Morgaine tell you to do?” M
adge asked.

  “She wanted me to read the third chapter. I-I . . . sort of did.”

  “Sort of?” Madge asked. “But we’re not supposed to—”

  “Do you always do what you’re supposed to?” Kiku challenged.

  “No, but I think I’d stay away from reading a book that’s supposed to make you crazy. . . .”

  “I read the second chapter on my own,” Joe said, inserting himself between the two bickering girls. “The voice told me to. I-I think the voices want us to read it on our own so we’re in the book’s power and they have more power over us.”

  “Well, my voice hasn’t told me to read the book on my own,” Madge said.

  “Your voice?” Kiku echoed. “What has it told you to do?”

  “Mostly it’s told me to pay more attention to you guys.”

  “Oh,” Kiku said, looking a little disappointed. “I guess you got the good voice. I suppose Guinevere always does the right thing.”

  “I don’t think it’s Guinevere,” Madge said, “but look, we don’t have time to argue about who’s who. We have to find Walt and find out what’s in that bag.”

  “Walt might have gotten the bag,” Joe said, “but we’ve still got the rest of the spy’s message. It might tell us enough about the attack for us to stop it—and Walt.”

  “But we still need the fourth chapter of the Kelmsbury to decode it,” Madge said, “and even Kiku hasn’t been able to figure it out.”

  Kiku took the folded page out of her pocket. “Madge is right. I don’t understand it. Maybe you’ll have better luck, Joe.” She handed the page to him.

  Joe unfolded the paper and read the lines aloud:

  The last adventure is buried in a coffin of bone

  Protected by knights brave and ladies fair.

  But first you must cross a bridge of stone

  And enter the lion’s lair.

  “Coffin of bone,” Madge repeated with a shudder. “What the heck does that mean? Sir Peanut Brittle must have really lost his marbles.”

  I know what it means, the voice inside Joe’s head said. It wasn’t Mr. January’s voice, it was the other voice that had come when he read the second chapter by himself. Lancelot’s voice. It’s a box. I’ve seen it. Joe closed his eyes, and a crowd of images flooded his brain—soldiers, a castle, a hunter spearing a unicorn, a knight battling a lion . . . and then he wasn’t just looking at the pictures, he was part of them. He was the knight battling the lion and he was the lion; he was the unicorn pierced by the spear, he was the knight storming the castle and the knight standing on the battlements. . . .

  “Joe!” He came to with Madge holding him by the arms and shaking him. “Are you all right?”

  “I-I think so,” he stammered. “Wh-what happened?”

  “You were saying all these words in some foreign language and then you passed out.”

  “I saw this box. . . .” He described the scenes on the box as if he’d only seen them, not lived them.

  “I think I know the box you’re talking about,” Kiku said. “It’s an ivory casket in the medieval collection. It has scenes from Arthurian romances carved on it. That must be why Sir Bricklebank hid the last chapter in it.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Madge said. “Let’s get back to the museum and find this box.”

  “It’s not in the Metropolitan anymore,” Kiku said. “It was moved last year.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s on loan to some place in Detroit!” Madge cried.

  “Not as bad as that. It was moved to the Metropolitan’s medieval museum, the Cloisters.”

  “I don’t suppose you have keys to that museum,” Joe said.

  “No, and the Cloisters closes at three today.” Kiku looked at the slim watch on her wrist. “Which only gives us a few hours to get up there and find it, and I’m afraid it’s way uptown.”

  “Then we’d better get a move on,” Madge said. “Where is this place, the Bronx?”

  “Almost,” Kiku said. “It’s at the northern tip of Manhattan, in Washington Heights.”

  “No problem,” Madge said. “We can take the shuttle to Times Square and transfer to the uptown IRT.”

  “Thank goodness for Madge,” Kiku said to Joe as they followed her to the subway entrance. “If I’d told her the Cloisters were in Camelot, I think she’d have gone and found us a train there.”

  “Yeah, thank goodness for Madge,” Joe said, not meeting Kiku’s eyes because if he did, he might be tempted to tell her that he’d just been to Camelot. He’d been one of the knights standing on the battlements defending the castle against an invading horde. Morgaine had been there, and Arthur and Guinevere.

  He couldn’t tell her because then he’d have to tell her that he’d watched them all die.

  23

  THE CLOISTERS

  MADGE FOUND THEM all seats on the shuttle, but when Kiku sat down, the woman sitting next to her got up and moved. Kiku put down the veil of her hat and looked miserable. When they got on the IRT she vanished altogether.

  “What the Sam Hill—” Madge began, but Joe put his finger to his lips and motioned at a couple of tough-looking guys jostling each other and talking about “killing Japs.”

  “Oh,” Madge said. “But where do you think she went?”

  Joe shrugged. “Let’s hope she sticks close and gets off when we do.”

  They found two seats together that were, unfortunately, directly across from where the loudmouths had sat down.

  “I say we toss the lot o’ them in jail,” one said. “The ones down in Chinatown, too.”

  “Charlie, we’re not at war with China,” his friend said.

  “Yeah, but you can’t tell those gooks apart, and the Japs could be hiding out—hey!” Charlie’s cap flew off his head. “Why’dya do that, Fred?”

  “Whaddaya talking about?” Fred complained. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Ya knocked my hat off!” Charlie leaned over to pick up his hat, but it rolled out of reach. Madge clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling. Charlie followed his hat down the aisle, stooped over, but every time he almost had it, the hat rolled out of reach. Then it flew up and landed on the head of a nun.

  “What the—”

  The nun glared at Charlie. “Do you think this is an appropriate time for hijinks and shenanigans, young man?” she asked, removing the cap from her head.

  “No, Sister, I—”

  “Then keep your hat and your opinions to yourself. The last thing we need at a time like this is to sow hate and suspicion.”

  “Yes, Sister,” Charlie said, taking his hat and returning meekly to his seat, where he sat mutely clutching his errant hat in his meaty fists until he and his friend got off at 175th Street.

  Joe and Madge got off at 190th Street. As they came out of the station, Kiku appeared at their side. “You sure showed those fellas,” Madge said, clapping Kiku on the shoulder.

  “I have to admit I enjoyed it,” she said with a smile that evaporated too quickly. Poor Kiku, Madge thought. It must be awful to hear everyone bad-mouthing the place your family came from. Madge hated it when she heard people saying all Irish people were drunks. “Here, we can cut through Fort Tryon Park to get to the Cloisters.”

  Kiku led the way through tall gates and past a garden of low shrubbery, explaining that she’d often visited the park with her parents. “My mother loves when the heather blooms in the spring,” she said, “but I guess she won’t be here this spring.”

  Now there were only dead bushes covered in frost, and a man in ragged clothing huddled on a bench.

  Give alms before a battle, the voice in her head said.

  “Wait,” Madge said. She walked over to the tramp, who was eyeing her suspiciously. “Here—” She handed him the buffalo nickel she’d been saving for Frankie. “I’m sorry I
don’t have more, but maybe it will bring you luck.”

  The tramp looked up at her with surprisingly clear eyes. “Thank you, my lord. I will hope to be of service to you someday when you are in need.”

  “Sure, fella, whatever you say.” Madge walked away shaking her head.

  “Why’d you do that?” Kiku asked.

  “I don’t know,” Madge said. “It just felt right . . . like what Walt would do. At least what the old Walt would do.”

  “Yeah,” Joe and Kiku said at the same time. Kiku led them through the gardens to a stone bridge.

  “Just like in Sir Peanut Brittle’s clue,” Madge said. As they came to the end of the bridge, Madge stopped and gasped. In front of them, a castle rose above the trees.

  “Gosh, a real castle! Frankie would flip over this. It looks like something out of a picture book. Or like someone plucked it out of England or France and dropped it here in New York City.”

  “That’s pretty much what Mr. Rockefeller did,” Kiku said. “Except he brought a half a dozen different pieces of old abbeys and reassembled them here.”

  They walked across a lawn to an arched entranceway. It looked like the entrance to the Maiden Castle in the book. They stood in front of the castle, looking up at the tower, the stones golden in the afternoon sunlight.

  “It doesn’t feel right being here without Walt,” Madge said at last.

  “No,” Joe agreed. “But Walt—the old Walt—would want us to keep going.”

  Madge nodded. “We have to do this for Walt,” she said. “If Mr. January forces him to hurt anyone, he’ll never be the same.”

  “No,” Kiku said, “how could he live with himself?” And then, blinking in the sun, she held out her hand. “For Walt.” Joe laid his hand on top of hers, and Madge placed hers on top of Joe’s. She felt a pulse of energy, a warmth that spread up her arm and through her whole body. She could tell the others felt it too by the way Kiku’s eyes widened and Joe’s face glowed.