The Secret Cellar (2 page)

Rebecca’s turn. Madame Zurandot takes her hands into her own and squeezes so hard that Becca opens her eyes wide. “You are standing alone in the midst of great
beauty—a museum, perhaps. There is a single window on one wall, and when you look through it, you see a dead man, facedown at his desk, his pen still in his hand.”

She drops Becca’s hands and slumps down into a chair, her eyes closed and palms flat on the table.

The three of us stand there for a long time, waiting for her to say or do something. It’s getting awkward, and just as I’m about to clear my throat to remind her that we’re still in the room, she suddenly blurts out, “Others seek the same treasure you do, and though your quest may become dangerous, you must not give up. Be careful who you trust.”

She opens her eyes and looks up at us, her face expressionless. “And that is all I see.”

“Ummm … yeah,” Becca says. “About those things you saw. Are those all things from the past? Or are they things that haven’t happened yet?”

One corner of Madame Zurandot’s mouth turns up into a half smile. “That is a question I cannot answer. Perhaps you will find more money on the sidewalk another day and you will return.”

I feel my mouth fall wide open. “Wait. How did you—”

“Duh. She’s psychic,” says Becca, earning herself a slug in the arm.

“Look to the stars,” adds Madame Zurandot mysteriously. “The answers are in the stars.”

• • •

“So, do you still think it’s a bunch of hooey?” Becca asks as we start back uptown. “She totally nailed it. The dog, the man with the cane, looking for something under a stone floor—it’s like she knows everything we’ve done for the past three months. She’s like Galadriel.”

Leigh Ann and I share a look, our faces blank. “Who?”

Becca, who is obsessed with
The Lord of the Rings
, shakes her head sadly at us. “Remember? She’s the one who makes Frodo look into her mirror, which is really just a big bowl of water, but it’s where he sees the future. Except it might not be the future if he can destroy the ring. Jeez, do you guys pay attention at all?”

“It
was
kind of creepy,” Leigh Ann admits. “That thing she said about someone I love waving at me from a boat? My dad just emailed me a picture of himself in Cleveland, and guess where he was standing. On a boat. Some guy he knows recently bought it.”

“Wh-what about the dead guy she saw? Facedown at his desk, his creepy, twisted fingers still gripping his pen. That definitely hasn’t happened yet,” I note. “Has it? Or this blue door with the number nine on it.”

Becca grins mischievously. “Maybe, maybe not. I would tell you, but Madame Z. said not to trust anybody. So, where to next? I’m really hungry.”

Leigh Ann throws her arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, Soph, is your dad home today? Why don’t we just go there for lunch? Maybe he could make us some of those croque-sandwichy-things again. That way we can save some money … and then, see, you could buy him an even nicer Christmas present. We would be helping him, in a way.”

My dad is French, and the chef in a downtown restaurant—the kind of place grown-ups go for birthdays and anniversaries—and from Leigh Ann’s first bite of his fabulous, Frenchified version of mac ’n’ cheese, she has been trying to figure out a way to have my parents adopt her.

“Sorry, he’s out at some winery on the North Fork. A couple of his friends from when he was a kid just started working there.”

“I vote for pizza,” Becca says.

“Big surprise there,” I snort.

“It’s the perfect food,” she replies. “Bread, vegetables, dairy—”

“Yeah, yeah. Heard it before. Fine. Can we at least go to Luciano’s? Their slices are better than our usual places. They’re almost as good as Trantonno’s.”

“And the guys who work there are cuter,” Leigh Ann notes.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I lie.

That, of course, doesn’t get past Becca. “You are such a liar, Sophie. When we were in there last week,
you couldn’t take your eyes off that kid with the bright blue eyes. The one who gave you the free garlic knots.”

I fight off the biological urge to blush. “You’re crazy. He’s like sixteen years old!”

“And besides, she has Raf,” says Leigh Ann. She pauses, smiling mischievously at Becca. “And Nate.”

Becca gives her a high five. “Nice one, L.A.”

I’d better explain about Nate, because it’s not what you’re thinking. In the Red Blazer Girls Detective Agency’s last case, in between getting my nose broken by Livvy Klack and solving the mystery of the Mistaken Masterpiece, I was Nate Etan’s dog-sitter. Yes, that Nate Etan—and, yes, I still have his private cell phone number and email address. (And, no, you can’t have them.) While it is true that my spending all that time with a big movie star did make the previously mentioned Raf just a teensy bit jealous, that’s all in the past, and Raf and I are just fine now, thank you very much. The boy with those remarkable, sparkling-blue eyes at Luciano’s? Hey, I was just being friendly. New York is, after all, the friendliest city in the world.

Back in my neighborhood, the East Nineties, Margaret meets us at the pizza shop, where, sadly, Blue Eyes has the day off. Becca and Leigh Ann are determined to tell her about our Madame Zurandot experience, even though I beg them not to. I’m outvoted, though, so all I
can do is listen, cringing at every cheesy detail, and wait for Margaret to scold us for wasting twenty bucks on a psychic.

But the new and improved, open-minded Margaret just listens and laughs. “I’m sorry I missed that,” she says, and I think she even means it.

“So, wait a second,” I say. “You believe in psychics?”

“I never said that. I just wish I’d been there to see the looks on your faces when she said all that stuff.”

“But what about what she said?” Leigh Ann asks.

Margaret shrugs. “It’s interesting, but it still doesn’t make me believe that she’s really psychic. There’s always another explanation. She could have recognized you guys from one of the stories in the paper about us. Or it could all just be a coincidence.”

From the pizza shop, we walk down to Eighty-First Street, where there’s a used-book store that Margaret wants to check out. With Christmas just around the corner, we decided to pool our money to buy a small present for our English teacher, Mr. Eliot. After all, this whole Red Blazer Girls thing got started in his classroom the day I saw Elizabeth Harriman’s face in the church window, and even Becca (who is certain that he doesn’t like her) has to admit that he’s been a huge help to us. Since he’s kind of—no, he’s seriously—obsessed with Charles Dickens, we’re looking for an old copy of one of Dickens’s books, something a little more interesting than your basic paperback.

Before I tell you about the bookstore, however, there’s something I have to confess: I absolutely love Manhattan in December. A few days after Thanksgiving, tens of thousands of pine trees miraculously spring up from the sidewalks overnight, courtesy of an army of French-Canadian Christmas tree farmers. I will go blocks out of my way to walk through the “forests,” slowing down to fill my lungs with air that, for a change, isn’t half carbon monoxide. For a few precious weeks, New York actually smells wonderful. (Now there’s something you don’t hear every day.)

The bookstore is so tiny that we’re almost past it when we see the sign painted on the door:

One of those old-fashioned bells jangles when we go inside. The shop is maybe ten or twelve feet wide, and it is crammed—floor to ceiling, front to back—with old books, giving it that distinctive dusty-old-book smell, which is, to me, right up there with the scent of the pine forests along Second Avenue.

Standing on the third step of an antique brass and wood ladder is a middle-aged man, mostly bald, peering at us over a pair of reading glasses. Because he’s up so high, it’s hard to tell just how tall he is, but he seems to be well over six feet, with long, birdlike arms and legs.

“May I help you?” he asks, shelving the book he was reading. Not exactly friendly (which is what I expect of a bookstore owner), but not obviously hostile, either.

Leigh Ann, Becca, and I are suddenly struck mute, and look to Margaret to take charge, which she acknowledges with a sad shake of her head.

“Hi, yes, I hope so,” she says. “We’re looking for a gift for our English teacher. He’s a huge fan of Charles Dickens, so we were hoping to find a nice old copy of
Great Expectations
or maybe
A Tale of Two Cities
. But we’re open to other ideas if you don’t have either of those.”

The man climbs down from the ladder without a word and moves to an eye-level shelf in the center stack, from which he removes a single book.

He opens the cover, beautifully bound in coffee-colored leather, and turns to us. “Do you have a budget in mind?”

We look at Margaret, and I’m sure we’re all thinking the same thing: please don’t say something crazy, like a hundred bucks. I mean, I
do
like Mr. Eliot, but let’s be reasonable.

“Um … twenty or twenty-five dollars?” she says.

“Twenty would be good,” I say.

The man—
MARCUS KLINGER
his name badge says sighs loudly and returns the book to its place on the shelf. “I see.” He moves to another shelf and pulls down a thin volume. “I have this copy of
A Christmas Carol
—I assume
you’ve heard of it. It’s forty dollars, but I could let you have it for thirty-five. That’s the best I can do.”

“Can I see it?” Margaret asks.

Another sigh as he holds out the book. “Your hands are clean?”

Margaret glares at him, horrified, before snatching it from his hands.

He doesn’t apologize; in fact, he seems completely oblivious. “Gilt edge. Calf binding. It’s a reprint, an American edition, of course. A bargain at thirty-five dollars.”

Margaret hands it back to him. “We’ll think about it.” She takes me by the arm and practically drags me out the door, with Becca and Leigh Ann on our heels.

“Man, what a loser,” Becca announces as the door slams shut behind her.

“I was gonna call him something a lot worse than that,” says Leigh Ann. “We have a word for people like him in Queens.” She pauses, then continues, smiling to herself, “Actually, we have a lot of words for people like that.”

“Tell me he didn’t really ask you if your hands were clean,” I say.

“Oh, he asked, all right,” Margaret says. “And if that book is worth thirty-five dollars, I’m Cleopatra, queen of the Nile. It’s a cheap knockoff that you can find anywhere for seven ninety-nine.”

“Begging your paaaardon, miss,” says Becca, mocking Mr. Klinger. “That’s a genuine turtle-skin binding. The paper was made from leftover bits of wood from Noah’s ark, and the ink was brewed from a baby bald eagle’s blood.”

“What kind of names are ‘Sturm’ and ‘Drang,’ anyway?” Leigh Ann asks, looking back at the door. “I wonder which one he was.”

“They’re not names,” says Margaret. “It’s German. It means ‘storm and stress.’ I think Goethe—he was a German writer—was involved somehow.”

“And you know this … how? Let me guess: the Harvard Classics. Right?”

“Naturellement.”

Margaret is the proud owner of the complete set of the Harvard Classics, also known as Dr. Eliot’s Five-Foot Shelf. Apparently, this Dr. Eliot guy (no relation to our Mr. Eliot) was the president of Harvard but used to tell people that all the books they really needed to be a well-educated person could fit on a five-foot shelf. (Why, then, are people so obsessed with getting into Harvard? I mean, their own president basically admitted that no one needs to go there. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?) One of Margaret’s (many, many) goals is to read every word—and we’re talking about a collection of books that includes a whole volume called
Prefaces and Prologues
. Thrilling stuff, I’m sure. Right up there with
Glossaries I Have Loved
and
The Year’s Best Tables of Contents
.

“Well, we can take a trip down to the Strand after school one day next week and look for Mr. Eliot’s book there,” I say. “They have everything, and they’re not going to try to scam us. And besides, I have a list of books I want to buy, but can’t afford them all if I get new ones.”

“Or you could go to the library, like a normal person,” says Margaret, who accuses me of having a compulsive book-buying disorder.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever walked down this street before,” I say. “Look at all those little shops on the other side. Let’s go check them out—maybe I can find something for my dad.”

“GW Antiques and Curiosities? Seriously? That’s where you want to shop for your dad?” says Becca. “I’m not going in. Those places make me nervous.”

“I know what you mean,” Leigh Ann says. “I’m always afraid I’m going to knock over a stack of china plates that’s worth a fortune.”

I ignore their fears and run across the street, where I press my face against the front window and peek at the treasures inside. “Come on, you guys. It’s not that crowded, and there’s some cool old boat models and stuff.”

As I step inside, I’m greeted by a woman who is
probably in her thirties, but dressed like she’s younger. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s rocking a natural, almost-no-makeup look.

“Good morning, er, afternoon,” she says, her eyes landing on the rock-star-cool jacket my parents surprised me with a few weeks back. “Wow. That is a great jacket.”

She’s right about that; it
is
pretty terrific. It’s not really warm enough for mid-December, but I just can’t bear to put it away until spring. If I have to suffer a little bit to look fashionable, so be it.

“Oh, thanks,” I say. “It’s my favorite.”

The door opens and Margaret comes inside; a few seconds later, Leigh Ann and Becca follow reluctantly.

“Are you all together?” the woman asks. “Of course you are. I’m Lindsay. Is there anything in particular I can help you with today? Or are you just browsing—which is fine, too.”

“I’m, um, kind of looking for a present for my dad,” I say, eyeing an old wooden model boat hanging from the ceiling above me. “Wow. That is beautiful. He would love that.”