Amelia Earhart: Lady Lindy (7 page)

Maisie noticed that many people held maps, which they checked frequently.

“Excuse me,” Maisie said to two women who stood side by side in pale, ruffled dresses, each studying a map. “May I take a look at one of those, please?”

“It is confusing, isn't it?” the woman in the white dress said as she handed Maisie her map. “We're on the Plaza of St. Louis, that I know for sure because there's the statue of St. Louis of France right over there.”

“Uh-huh,” Maisie said, trying to make sense of this information.

Felix pointed to the heading at the top of the map.

“The Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” he read out loud. “We're in Louisiana?”

The woman in the white dress laughed.

“The exposition is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's vision of a continental United States by purchasing the Louisiana Territory.”

Her friend, a confection in pale yellow ruffles, added, “And to honor Lewis and Clark's journey west.”

“Okay,” Maisie said, frustrated. “We're not in the Philippines. We're not in France, even though that statue is of some guy from France. And we're not in Louisiana even though the name of this . . . exposition . . . is the Louisiana Purchase.”

The women laughed.

“Stop teasing us!” the one in yellow scolded playfully. “You know you're in St. Louis, Missouri, at the 1904 World's Fair.”

Maisie and Felix looked at each other, their hearts sinking.

“Missouri?” Felix said. “Not Minnesota?”

“Silly!” the one in yellow laughed.

“Let's go to the Palace of Transportation next, Myrtle,” the other one said.

She glanced down at Maisie and Felix and her map.

“They have all one hundred and forty automobiles that have been driven to the fair under their own power in there,” she told them.

“Under their own power?” Maisie asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means a man got into one of those automobiles and drove it here!” the woman exclaimed.

Maisie and Felix looked at each other.

“Okay,” Maisie said.

“They drove from as far away as Chicago!” the woman said.

When Maisie and Felix didn't look impressed, she added, “And Philadelphia! And Boston!”

“Wow,” Felix said, to be polite.

“Harumph,” the woman said, taking back the map. “Considering that just last year someone drove an automobile all the way across the entire country,
I
find it impressive that all of a sudden men are driving them everywhere.”

With that, she and her friend started down the six-hundred-foot-wide plaza.

Maisie peered at the monument that rose at the other end. One hundred feet high, a winged sculpture sat on top of a big globe. On a hill at that end, people streamed into a building with a giant, gold-leafed dome.

“Let's go down there and see what's going on,” Maisie suggested.

But before Felix could reply, a group of teenagers rushed by them, shouting: “Geronimo! Geronimo!”

One of the boys paused long enough to grab Maisie's arm.

“He's on display in the Ethnology Exhibit!” the boy said excitedly. “Autographs are only ten cents!”

Maisie let herself get swept up in the group of teenagers.

Reluctantly, Felix followed, trying to figure out how Geronimo, the famous Apache war chief, could be on “display.” After Maisie and Felix had met Crazy Horse, Felix had read a lot of books about Native Americans. He knew that Geronimo had led fierce attacks in the West after soldiers killed his mother, wife, and children. Eventually, he'd surrendered and became a prisoner of war for the rest of his life. Were prisoners of war on display here? Felix wondered.

Soon enough, they arrived at a giant tepee. In front of it sat a very old man with a face almost as wrinkled as Penelope Merriweather's. He had on a baggy black suit and a black fedora, but he was posing with a bunch of arrows pressed across his chest. Photographers snapped his picture, but his expression stayed completely stoic, with no hint of emotion. Felix suspected that if this old man was Geronimo, he must feel humiliated to have to sit there like that and have everyone gawk at him and take his picture.

“He doesn't look fierce at all,” one of the teenage girls said, disappointed.

“Well, he's old now,” Felix said.

The girl sighed and got in the line waiting to buy Geronimo's autograph. “I guess I'll get his autograph, anyway,” she said.

“Do you think he's an imposter?” her friend asked.

The girl shrugged. “General Christiaan de Wet was much more impressive,” she said.

“Was he one of the soldiers who made Geronimo surrender?” Felix asked.

The girls laughed.

“Twice a day over in the Anglo-Boer War Concession they reenact major battles from the Second Boer War,” one of them explained. She had fat brown banana curls that bounced when she talked.

Felix made a mental note to look up Anglo-Boer War when he got home. He had no idea what that war was.

“It takes about three hours,” her friend continued, “but it's worth it.”

“They have more than six hundred veterans from both sides doing the reenactments,” the other girl said, growing excited as she talked and sending her banana curls into a frenzy. “But at the very end, Boer General Christiaan de Wet escapes on his horse and leaps into a pool of water from fifty feet high!”

“Maybe not fifty feet,” her friend said. “But very, very high.” She sighed. “It's very dramatic.”

Felix stood on tiptoe, trying to catch a glimpse of Maisie. There she was, right at the front of the line, talking to Geronimo.

When she turned to leave, she scanned the crowd until her eyes settled on Felix. Maisie waved a piece of paper and pushed her way to her brother.

“I got his autograph,” she said proudly.

The two girls Felix had been talking with asked to look at it, but Felix thought the whole spectacle was terrible.

“Honestly, Maisie,” he said. “How could you? The poor man is being treated like an animal in the zoo. Just like those people in that Philippine Village.”

“No,” Maisie said. “He's making lots of money selling autographs and photographs.”

She pointed at a teenage boy walking by, smug beneath a black hat just like Geronimo's.

“He even sells his hats,” she said. “He's getting rich!”

“I bet they don't even let him keep the money,” Felix said.

“Who's they?” Maisie asked, tucking the autograph into her pocket.

“The US government!” Felix said. “He's a prisoner of war!”

Maisie glanced over at Geronimo carefully signing his name for someone.

“He doesn't look like a prisoner of war,” she said.

“Well, he is!” Felix insisted.

“Fine!” Maisie said, exasperated. “Let's go see something else.”

“Maybe Charles Lindbergh is in that fancy building over there,” Felix said, trying to be hopeful.

“Is Missouri anywhere near Minnesota?” Maisie asked, wishing yet again that she'd paid more attention in social studies class. All those
M
states mixed her up.

“I don't think so,” Felix said. He tried to picture the map of the United States, but the middle was just a big blank to him.

By the time they reached what turned out to be Festival Hall, the crowd had entered and the massive doors had been shut. But the sounds of a band made their way outside.

A man in a bowler hat grinned.

“Why, that's the March King himself playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,'” the man said to no one in particular.

“Who's the March King?” Maisie asked him.

The man seemed surprised someone had heard him.

“Oh, pardon me for marveling out loud. But I can't help myself. It's all so . . . so marvelous!”

He held out two cold bottles of Dr Pepper.

“Have you had this yet?” he asked Maisie and Felix.

And even though their mother warned them to never ever take something from a stranger, the heat of the day and the fact that they'd had nothing to eat or drink in almost forever made them both eagerly accept the cold sodas.

“Isn't it delicious?” the man asked, awestruck. “Cherry soda! It goes especially well with hot dogs. I'd read about hot dogs, of course, but here there are hot dogs everywhere!”

“There are?” Maisie asked, glancing around hungrily.

“Why, you haven't tasted one yet?” the man said. “We must remedy that. Right over there that cart is selling hot dogs!”

Maisie and Felix followed the man and happily let him buy them each a hot dog. Somehow, Felix thought, this man was going to lead them to Charles Lindbergh.

“Yesterday,” the man continued as if Maisie and Felix were old friends, “I heard Scott Joplin play ‘The Entertainer' in there. And now, today, John Philip Sousa. It was worth every penny to come here. Every single penny.”

He added under his breath, “Despite what my father-in-law had to say about it.”

“Did you come here from Minnesota?” Felix asked.

But the man shook his head. “Atchison, Kansas,” he said. “You two?”

“Newport, Rhode Island,” Felix told him, half expecting a reaction to this information.

The man let out a low, impressed whistle, and Felix brightened. Now the connection to Lindbergh might somehow become clear.

But all the man said was, “That's quite far!”

After she finished her hot dog in three quick bites, Maisie stopped paying attention to the man. The sight of cascading water across from Festival Hall had caught her interest and she began to walk toward it, Felix hurrying to catch up with her.

“It's beautiful,” Maisie murmured as she stared out at a lagoon filled with gondolas, swan boats, and dragon boats all decked out with flowers and flags.

“The Grand Basin,” the man said.

Why in the world had he followed them over here? Maisie wondered.

“At night it's lit with more than twenty thousand lights,” he continued, his voice filled with awe.

“You aren't Mr. Lindbergh by any chance,” Felix blurted. “Are you?”

The man shook his head. “You're looking for this Lindbergh fellow, are you?”

“I think so,” Felix said.

“If he's performing—” the man began, but he got interrupted by a woman rushing up to him.

“Well, there you are,” the woman scolded.

Maisie looked up into a vaguely familiar face. Where had she seen this woman before?

“Daddy,” a little girl eating an enormous cone of cotton candy said. “Taste this!”

That little girl, Maisie realized, was the freckle-faced kid from before, the one with the ice-cream cone.

The girl's mother recognized Maisie, too.

“Let's go see Lincoln's log cabin, Sam,” she said to her husband. “The girls have been asking all afternoon.”

Her husband let some cotton candy dissolve on his tongue, his eyes rolling heavenward as he did and a small moan of pleasure escaped his lips.

“What is this sugary delight?” he asked.

“Cotton candy,” Felix told him.

“Cotton? Candy?” the man said, obviously displeased by the name.

Meelie scowled at Felix.

“No it isn't,” she said with a small stomp of her foot. “It's fairy floss, Daddy.”

Her father grinned. “Yes! Yes, it
is
fairy floss.”

“Sam?” his wife said impatiently. “Lincoln's log cabin?”

“Of course,” Sam said affably.

He glanced at Maisie and Felix.

“Have you two seen it yet? The log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born? They brought it here all the way from Kentucky!”

“No, we—” Maisie began.

“I'm sure their parents will take them at some point,” the woman interrupted.

She gathered her own two little girls and nudged them forward. As Felix watched her acting so motherly, he ached for his own mother. But Maisie only noticed how oddly the little girls were dressed. Instead of the froufrou the other little girls here wore, these two had on strange, navy-blue, one-piece bloomers that reminded Maisie of the uniforms some schools made girls wear for gym class.

“What weirdos,” she whispered.

The one called Meelie turned around, her face sticky with cotton candy.

“Fairy floss,” she said, sounding triumphant.

Maisie and Felix watched the family get swallowed up by the crowd.

“Now what?” Felix asked, dispirited.

“Lame demon?” Maisie suggested.

“Stars and Stripes Forever” played its final notes. A bell in the Floral Clock tolled.

And Felix sighed.

“Lame demon,” he said.

STARGAZING

M
aisie gazed up at an inky sky filled with twinkling stars. She had landed on soft grass and, from what she could tell, in someone's backyard. To her right stood a white house, to her left a shed, and, all around everything, a picket fence.

Crickets chirped. From somewhere nearby came the quiet laughter of children followed by deeper, adult tones. Even though she couldn't see anything clearly, this place felt homey and familiar.

Felix's voice cut through the warm night air.

“I feel like we've landed smack in the middle of America,” he said.

Squinting, Maisie could see that the lump across the lawn was actually her brother.

“Me, too,” she said. “It feels nice here.”

The children grew excited, and Maisie stood and moved toward the shed, Felix close behind her.

“Up there,” Maisie whispered, pointing to the roof.

Two girls sat perched on the roof with their parents, all of them gazing at the starry sky.

“Are you sure we'll see one?” one of the girls demanded.

“If you're patient and keep still,” her mother said.

“Just don't fall off the roof, Meelie,” her father said, and the other little girl laughed.

“It's not funny!” the girl called Meelie said.

“Your sister was inspired by that roller coaster in St. Louis,” the father said.

“St. Louis!” Maisie blurted.

Felix clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her.

“I applaud your spirit of adventure, Meelie,” the mother said kindly. “You know that.”

“I do, too,” the other girl said. “You built that ramp all by yourself, and you were brave enough to get in that wooden box and ride it right off the roof—and you didn't even kill yourself!”

“Not bad for such an exhilarating experience,” their father said.

Meelie sighed. “It felt just like flying,” she said wistfully.

Felix tugged at Maisie's arm and pulled her around the corner of the shed.

“That's the same family we saw at the World's Fair!” he whispered.

“What? You mean that bratty kid with the cotton candy?”

“Yes. I remember her name was Meelie because that's such a funny name. And the sister is called Pidge,” Felix said.

Maisie nodded. “That's right.”

They both turned their gaze upward.

“That means one of those kids is who we need to give the compass to,” Felix said, disappointed.

“No, Charles Lindbergh,” Maisie agreed. “Or any of my aviatrixes for that matter.”

“There's nobody named Pidge or Meelie in Mom's room, is there?” Felix asked.

“Not that I know of.”

Meelie and Pidge began to shout.

“Look! Look!”

Maisie and Felix stepped away from the shed to get a better view of the sky. Something bright white appeared in the sky, and just like the fireworks on the Fourth of July it seemed to explode and then fall toward them.

“Oh no!” Felix shouted. “Is it a meteor? Is it crashing?”

He ducked his head and covered it with his arms, as if that might actually protect him. Hadn't a meteor destroyed all of the dinosaurs?

With all of the excitement, the family on the roof didn't seem to hear him. They were all too busy shouting and jumping up and down.

Maisie grabbed Felix's arms and pulled them away from his face.

“Look,” she said, her voice so filled with wonder that Felix had no choice but to look up.

“They're shooting stars,” Maisie said, awestruck.

“Wow!” Felix said. “Cool!”

Both children stood, staring up as another star shot from the sky.

“How come we can't see these at home like this?” Maisie wondered out loud.

“Light pollution,” Felix said.

From the roof, the father's said, “Well, girls, did you make a wish?”

“I wished that someday I get to ride a star across the sky!” Meelie exclaimed.

“SSSHHHH!” Pidge reprimanded. “You're not supposed to say your wish out loud, Meelie. It won't come true.”

Their parents chuckled.

“I don't think even Meelie will be able to lasso a shooting star and take it for a ride,” their father said gently

“What a night,” her mother said with a sigh.

Pidge yawned.

“Bedtime,” her mother said reluctantly. “There are some nights, like this one, that I wish could last forever.”

“Me, too, Amy,” the father said. “Me, too.”

Maisie and Felix pressed themselves against the back of the shed so that the family wouldn't see them when they climbed off the roof. Meelie jumped down first, followed by Pidge, and then the parents came down more carefully.

Maisie watched as the father took the mother's hand in his, and she leaned her head against his shoulder and they watched their daughters run ahead, up the stairs and into the perfect white house.

“A family,” Maisie said sadly.

“We're a family, too,” Felix told her.

“A broken one,” she said.

And they both stared at the parents walking hand in hand across the grass and inside.

The shed was unlocked, so Maisie and Felix went inside it to sleep. The shed, Maisie thought, looked like a perfect shed. Rakes and hoes lined one wall. A big, silver watering can sat beside burlap bags of soil. Trays on a counter had seeds just beginning to sprout. Against another wall, a snow shovel leaned and four pairs of snow boots stood—two children's, a woman's slender pair, and a large men's pair. Under the window, tools glinted in the moonlight, saws and hammers of all sizes and screwdrivers and tools that Maisie didn't even recognize.

She dipped her hand into a bucket of nails and let them run through her fingers. Then she lifted her hands to her nose and inhaled the sharp metal smell on them. In the corner, she saw fishing poles, small ones and long ones.

“I think we've landed in the most perfect place in the world,” she said wistfully.

Felix had found some sleeping bags and he unrolled two.

“Come on,” he said, patting one of them as he unzipped and climbed into the other. “We should get some sleep. Who knows what tomorrow is going to bring?”

Reluctantly, Maisie agreed.

But when she got into her sleeping bag, she couldn't fall asleep. Her mind was too full of things. First, there were the weddings. Great-Uncle Thorne's and her father's. How she wished her family had stayed together, that there was no wedding to Agatha the Great, that Penelope Merriweather didn't want to get married so old. Then there was the play. Her excitement about getting the lead didn't quite assuage her stage fright. Finally, there was being here. Where were they? And who was Meelie or Pidge?

Maisie sighed and closed her eyes. Already, Felix was breathing softly beside her, asleep.

But almost immediately her eyes popped open.

The Ziff twins! Where are they? And are they all right?

She shivered remembering the gorillas and the lion.

“Felix,” she said to her sleeping brother.

“Mmmmm,” he murmured.

“Felix!” she said louder.

Felix mumbled and turned over, away from her.

How can he sleep when so many things are happening?
Maisie thought.

She poked Felix until he swatted her hand away and grumbled, “What?”

“The Ziff twins,” she said.

Felix rubbed his eyes and struggled to sit up. “I know,” he said, feeling guiltier than he'd ever felt in his life. “I know.”

“I was so afraid back in Africa,” Maisie said, “all I could think about was getting out of there. But now that we're here and safe . . .”

She couldn't say it out loud, but she didn't have to.

“They might be dead!” Felix blurted.

“Or worse,” Maisie added.

“What's worse than dead?”

“I don't know. Mauled by that lion or held captive or a million terrible things,” Maisie said.

“Stop!” Felix groaned.

“Of course, it's possible that they're okay,” Maisie offered.

“Sure,” Felix said, unconvinced.

“It's possible that they found Dr. Livingstone and gave him the map and are back in Newport already,” she continued.

As she spoke, that possibility seemed more likely.

“Yeah,” Maisie continued, nodding as she spoke, “that's what happened. For all we know, they even met Amy Pickworth! In fact, I bet they did!”

Feeling much better, Maisie snuggled back into the sleeping bag. Felix was going on and on about how
un
likely that was and how the Ziff twins might even have malaria or some other disease.

“Uh-huh,” Maisie said, certain that the Ziff twins were home in their beds.

The next thing she knew, sunlight streamed in the shed's window and it was morning.

Felix stretched and unzipped his sleeping bag.

“I'm going to peek outside,” he told Maisie.

Slowly, he pushed the door open.

Out of nowhere, the biggest, shaggiest dog he'd ever seen jumped on him, knocking him backward.

Felix yelped in surprise.

The dog began to lick his face.

“Yuck!” Felix said.

“A dog!” Maisie shouted happily. She ran over to Felix and the dog and petted the big, shaggy thing.

“What's your name, buddy?” she cooed.

“His name is James Ferocious,” came a girl's voice from outside the shed. “And at my command, he'll bite your head off.”

Maisie and Felix peered outside.

The freckle-faced girl called Meelie stood there in blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, a red-and-white-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a straw hat over her pigtails. She was chewing on a piece of grass and studying them as hard as they studied her.

“I think your dog is actually very friendly,” Maisie said. “He wouldn't bite us, even at your command.”

“Don't test that theory,” Meelie said.

Pidge's head popped out from behind Meelie.

“Did you sleep in the shed?” she asked in disgust.

“Yes,” Felix admitted.

“But why?” Pidge asked, coming out from behind her sister. She was dressed identically, except her shirt had blue-and-white checks. “Why would anyone sleep in a shed?”

“We . . . um . . . ,” Felix began, glancing over at Maisie. But Maisie was completely mesmerized by James Ferocious.

“Are your parents somewhere else?” Pidge continued.

“Yes!” Felix said. “Exactly!”

Pidge nodded solemnly. “Like when we stayed in Kansas, and Mama and Papa came here to Iowa,” she said to Meelie.

“Iowa,” Felix said to himself. Another one of those big states in the middle. He vowed to memorize every one of them when he got home, right after he looked up the Anglo-Boer War.

“But we stayed with our grandparents. Not in a shed by ourselves,” Meelie said, keeping her eyes on Felix. “Where're your grandparents, boy?”

“Dead!” Felix announced.

“Oh,” Pidge said. “That's sad.” She patted his arm sympathetically.

It was already clear to Felix that these two sisters were very much alike. Except that Meelie was obviously the leader, and Pidge her follower. Kind of like him and Maisie, he thought uncomfortably.

“So your parents are—” Meelie began.

“Somewhere else,” Felix said.

Meelie narrowed her eyes. “And your grandparents are—”

“Dead,” Felix said, nodding.

“And you two are just—?”

Felix shrugged. “For the time being, anyway.”

“Meelie,” Pidge said in her solemn voice, “I want to keep them. Can we? Please?”

Meelie seemed to consider this.

“I bet they're more fun than Laura and Ringa,” Pidge offered.

Meelie studied Maisie and Felix. “You think? I'm not so sure.”

“Well, these two are
real
and Laura and Ringa are make-believe—”

“They're invisible,” Meelie corrected. “Not make-believe. There's a difference.”