The Mistaken Masterpiece (25 page)

“Tell her,” says Raf. “Unless you want your dad to use those crazy knives of his on me.”

“All right, all right,” I say.

I don’t tell her
everything
, but I do hit most of the important stuff. Margaret is not happy when I get to the part where Livvy was laughing about how good it felt to clunk me on the head.

“No, really, it’s okay,” I assure her. “We’re cool.”

“Humph.” Clearly, she is not at all convinced that Livvy is worthy of my trust.

“So, how did you figure out where I was, anyway?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

“Simple logic, really,” Margaret says. “It only took me a few phone calls to the other girls on the team for Michelle and me to figure out that no one actually
saw
either you or Livvy leave the building. Since nobody could get in touch with either of you, it made sense that you were together. I also remembered that you mentioned to me that you forgot your math book yesterday. That
is
why you went upstairs in the first place, isn’t it?”

“Right again, Sherlock,” I admit.

“After that, the hard part was convincing Sister Bernadette to meet us at the school. She thought it was some kind of practical joke. I had to put your mom on the phone to convince her.”

Mom raises her glass of soda for a toast. “Thank you—all of you—for finding my Sophie. She is very lucky to have such wonderful friends.”

As the waitress clears away my plate—so clean it looks like Tillie licked it—Margaret puts her arm around my shoulders. “I know you didn’t tell me everything that went on in there,” she says. “But I’m willing to wait for the rest.”

As she’s talking, I reach under the table to give Raf’s hand a squeeze. He locks his fingers into mine, and in two seconds, he warms me up more than the half-pound burger I’ve just devoured.

Mom is right about one thing, at least: I do have wonderful friends. And unless I’m really mistaken about what happened in that elevator, I have one more than I did when the day started.

Even with all the extra attention I get from my parents on Sunday (Dad cooks me all of my favorites and Mom surprises me with a gift certificate to a bookstore on the Upper West Side that specializes in mysteries), Monday comes quickly.

“So, guess what?” Margaret says as we all take our usual seats in the cafeteria before the first-period bell.
“I saw Father Julian after Mass yesterday; he’s really nervous that we’re planning something illegal.”

“Are we?” I’m thinking it might be good to know.

Margaret gives me her don’t-worry grin and a wave of her hand. “It’s kind of a gray area. He’s dying to know what we’re doing, but he doesn’t want to just come out and ask, because he’s afraid to know the truth. I told him about our plan to pay Prunella a visit. He almost had a heart attack when I told him I was thinking about taking Elizabeth with us.”

Three voices in perfect harmony shout: “You said
what
?”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I say. “I love Elizabeth. She’s just … unpredictable. If Pruneface says something crazy—which, let’s face it, is almost guaranteed—Elizabeth might explode or something.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, too,” Margaret admits. “Here’s the situation: Father Julian doesn’t want to confront her about the painting, because he’s afraid that she’ll think that the family is accusing her and Phillip of something—”

“Something that she basically admitted to,” I say.

Margaret nods. “True. But he’s afraid of pushing her into selling it to the Svindahls. If that happens, we’ll never see it again. So we have to do something—and fast. We’re going to
borrow
Prunella’s painting for a while.”

Now it’s Leigh Ann’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Borrow?”

“Exactly,” confirms Margaret. “We get it checked out, and if it’s a fake, we return it unharmed. But if the painting is the real thing, which is likely when you consider that the Svindahls have already made her an offer, it’s totally up to Father Julian to decide what to do. He has the will, which proves who the rightful owner is, and on top of that, there are witnesses who were there back when Phillip swiped and then later returned the painting—although it seems pretty clear he wasn’t returning the original at all. He had replaced it with one he obviously
knew
was forged. Legally, I think Father Julian is on pretty solid ground.”

“Sounds good to me,” says Becca, who does not seem at all concerned with the legality of what we’re planning. “When do we make our move?”

Margaret looks around the table at each of us. “Today. To borrow one of Becca’s favorite expressions, Prunella Scroggins is going
down
.”

“Like a rotten tree in a hurricane,” Becca adds. “I like it.”

“And if it means taking the Svindahls with her, then so be it,” adds Margaret.

“So, do you have a plan worked out for the switch?” I ask.

“Ninety-nine percent.”

“What about the other one percent?”

“We improvise. Even Sherlock Holmes has to deal with unforeseen problems. Part of being a good detective is being able to think on your feet. Problem number
one: we have to get ourselves and the fake painting into Prunella’s apartment.
Legally
, I should add. No break-ins.”

“Why does everyone look at me when she says that?” Rebecca says, suddenly full of mock indignation. She’s plenty proud of her reputation.

“I
wonder,
” I say.

“And then part two: we have to switch the paintings on the wall and get the real one out of her apartment, all without her seeing,” Margaret adds.

“Eh, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Leigh Ann says.

“Unless she has an alarm system,” I warn. “Or a mean dog. These things always have a way of being more complicated than they look. And it seems like I’m the one who always ends up hiding under an altar or locked in a closet.”

Margaret smiles at the memory of our shared experience under the altar in St. Veronica’s when we were looking for the Ring of Rocamadour.

“So, just how do we get in?” Becca asks.

“Through the front door,” says Margaret. “But you’re not going to have to pick the lock, Rebecca. Prunella’s going to open it for us.”

“Like when we pretended to be reporters for the school paper so we could check out those Russian ladies in the apartment over the violin shop?” Leigh Ann asks.

“Romanian ladies,” Margaret corrects. “But yes, something like that. Something more … original, though. Something truly inspired. Something that will have Miss Prunella eating out of our hands. Our grimy
little Polish/French/Chinese/Dominican American immigrant hands. Hee hee.”

“Uh-oh,” I say, almost feeling a twinge of pity for Prunella. You don’t want to be on the bad side of somebody as smart as Margaret. It is
not
pretty. “What are you thinking, Margaret?”

She starts to unfold a sheet of bright orange paper and motions for us to huddle closely around her. “I
really
don’t want anyone else to see this. It might be hard to explain.”

“Why, Margaret Wrobel,” I say. “I had no idea you were so …”

“Crazy?” suggests Becca. “What are you going to do with this?”

“This,” Margaret says, waving the flyer in Becca’s face, “is like peanut butter in a mousetrap. And Prunella’s the mouse.”

“More like a rat,” Leigh Ann says.

“We knock on her door and shove this in her face, and I guarantee you she’ll invite us in. People like her are dying for somebody to listen to their wacky ranting and raving. I’ll bet she has ideas that will put my made-up ones to shame.”

I have to laugh, because the whole thing is so preposterous. It’s hard to imagine four less likely candidates for an organization like the one Margaret created. Let’s examine the evidence, shall we? Exhibit A: Margaret Wrobel. Born in Poland. Spoke Polish before she spoke
English. Her parents still speak more Polish than English at home. Exhibit B: Rebecca Chen. Second-generation Chinese American. Exhibit C: Leigh Ann Jaimes, who is from the Dominican Republic. And Exhibit D: me. Mother American-born of Welsh/Irish/German ancestry; father born in France (gasp!). Out of eight parents, my mom is the only one with more than two generations under her American belt. Face it, we’re a mini-United Nations. And to somebody like Prunella Scroggins, we
are
the enemy.

“You guys are missing the best part,” says Margaret. “Look at the name of the organization again.”

“ ‘The League of Ordinary and Original New Yorkers for Bold Ideas Now,’ ” reads Leigh Ann. “Is this for real, or did you make it up?”

“LOONYBIN!” I shout, which earns me a puzzled look from Mr. Eliot, who is walking past.

“Patience, Miss St. Pierre,” he says, not missing a beat. “You’ll get there one day.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you there, too!” I say, but darn it, he’s already inside his classroom.

Meanwhile, Becca and Leigh Ann have spotted the acronym.

Becca snickers. “Loony bin. Pretty good, Margaret. Anybody who thinks these are good ideas
belongs
in one, that’s for sure.”

Leigh Ann shakes her head in wonder. “You’re a funny kid, Margaret. How did you think of this?”

Margaret shrugs modestly. “I don’t know; it just
comes to me. I figured the easiest way into her apartment is if she
trusts
us. We already have an in—Father Julian. That should get us up to her door. He’s going to call her today and tell her that we’re friends of his, and when he learned of our interest in, um, politics, he suggested we meet her. When that door opens and we start yakking about how bad immigrants are for the country, she’ll be all over us. She’ll probably get out her checkbook.”

“Back up a second. We’re gonna talk about
what
?” Leigh Ann asks.

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Easy, Leigh Ann. It’s all part of the plan. The end justifies the means, right?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “If she starts talking bad about Dominicans or Jamaicans, I might have to justify her one right on the nose. Oops, sorry, Sophie. Didn’t mean to …”

Almost involuntarily, I touch my nose, pressing on the spot where Livvy broke it until I wince from the pain. “It’s okay—it’s almost healed.”

The first-period bell rings, and Livvy and her Klack-pack (of wolves?) stroll past. I smile to myself at the memory of the giggling fit that we had about my nose, and wonder if she’ll acknowledge me in class. Despite everything we said in that cold, dark elevator, two days is a
lifetime
in the universe of seventh graders.

Anything can happen.

In Mr. Eliot’s class, we’re discussing another short story by Saki, whose real name, I learned, is Hector Hugh Munro. (I don’t know about you, but I
like
the sound of Hector Hugh Munro; I can’t imagine why he felt compelled to use a pen name. That, and I’m generally suspicious of people who go by only one name. It’s entirely too presumptuous.) “The Open Window” is about a young girl who entertains herself by telling one outrageous lie after another to a visitor who is a real nervous Nellie type, and scares the poor guy half to death.

When Mr. Eliot calls on me, I say, “It’s an okay story, but it just doesn’t have that, you know, totally butt-kicking ending of ‘The Interlopers.’ ”

Margaret’s eyebrows rise at my answer. She would throw herself under the wheels of the 6 train before she’d use an adjective like “butt-kicking.”