London Art Chase (6 page)

“Do you think there will be any paintings that we like at the National Gallery? Won't all of them be old?”

“I love seeing old paintings. I'd like to try to draw some of them.”

“But sometimes old paintings are weird, like in colors I wouldn't choose, or . . . well, sometimes, they're naked people.”

“True,” Maddie said. “I'm not sure why artists were always painting naked people.”

Miss Julia looked up from her phone. “Artists have always been fascinated with the human form. It wasn't meant to be about the nakedness. They were trying to capture what the human form truly looked like, on canvas.”

“Well, I prefer seeing what they truly look like with clothes on,” Mia said. “Just sayin.' ”

At this, Miss Julia burst out laughing. “You girls are the best.”

The bus came to a stop, and over the speaker, the driver announced, “The National Gallery.”

“This is our stop,” Miss Julia said, herding Maddie and her sisters toward the stairs.

“Bye!” “Have a fun trip!” “Nice singing!” the other passengers called.

Once they were off the bus, Miss Julia snapped a photo of the waving passengers for her new travelogue.

“We're back at Trafalgar Square!” Mia said.

“Race you to the lions!” Lulu said, and took off running.

NINE

M
addie tried to be patient while Lulu insisted on Miss Julia taking more pictures of the girls riding lions, this time for the travelogue. Then Mia and Lulu tossed coins into the fountain and made wishes.

“Why don't you make a wish?” Mia asked.

Maddie shifted from foot to foot. “Can't we please go into the gallery now? Please??”

“I think it's time, ladies,” Miss Julia said. “Let's see what kinds of adventures the National Gallery has to offer.”

“Last one there's a rotten egg!” Lulu shouted.

Miss Julia caught her mid-step. “Lulu, we need to talk about your running off. I know you're excited, but we're in a strange city and we're halfway around the world from home. In fact, even if we were at home, it would be important for us to all stay together.”

“But if we're all racing, we'll be together,” Lulu said. “Come on, please, please, please, can't we just race to the steps?”

“She can't outrun me,” Mia said.

“Can too!”

“Can not!”

“Wanna bet?”

“Girls!” Miss Julia said. “All right. I'll count you off and you can race to the steps, but then you have to stop and we'll all go together. And no plowing into tourists, okay?”

“Okay!” Mia said. “Maddie, are you going to race too?”

Maddie looked down at her bag with sketchbook and pencils—not exactly convenient for racing. “Not this time.”

“Okay, girls,” Miss Julia said. “Ready, set, go!”

Mia and Lulu stayed neck and neck all the way across the square, but then at the last minute, Mia fell a few steps behind. Maddie was pretty sure she'd done it on purpose—sometimes Mia did the just-right thing.

“I won!” Lulu gasped, smiling ear to ear.

“Thank you,” Maddie whispered to Mia.

“Today's going to be the best day ever,” Mia whispered back, and then shouted so the world could hear, “Today's going to be the best day ever!”

A few tourists turned and smiled at this. One even snapped their picture.

“They're going to put that in their travel album with the caption: Crazy girls!” Maddie said.

The girls giggled their way up the huge stone steps. Inside, the National Gallery was just as impressive as it looked from the outside. They didn't have to pay, but they did have to walk through a metal detector before stepping into the echoing lobby. Steps led from the wide-open lobby to the second floor.

Miss Julia circled the information kiosk. “There's a special concert later today . . . Oh, but it's about the time we'll need to leave for your mom's concert.”

“What kind of concert?” Lulu asked.

“It's a small orchestra—it seems they play every Friday and Saturday night.” She studied a museum map. “Looks like most of the paintings are upstairs. Oh, and there are a few audio tours. Would you girls like an audio guide while we explore the museum?”

“Let me see!” Lulu said, pulling on the map to see the list.

“Art Detectives,” Mia read over Lulu's shoulder. “That one sounds fun.”

“Whoa, really?” Lulu asked, and then she spotted the title for herself. “Yes! The Glimmer girls have a new case!”

Maddie had to admit, it sounded fun to be an art detective, but what she really wanted was time to look at the art. Maybe the detective tour would help keep Lulu interested. If so, Maddie would have more time—hopefully enough to sketch too.

Miss Julia rented audio tour headsets, and they all listened to the introduction. The audio tour told the story of two special agents uncovering clues about the meanings of some of the most mysterious paintings in the collection. Maddie, Mia, Lulu, and Miss Julia climbed the marble stairs and then followed the tour from painting to painting. While Lulu looked for clues
in each painting, Maddie sketched what she saw. The questions in the tour were actually pretty interesting. Maddie liked thinking about why a painter might have painted a specific image, or what the painting might have meant to him or her.

They wandered from room to room, each one painted a different color. Most of the rooms had about thirty paintings on the walls, even though the rooms were large enough to hold many more. Maddie liked the way each painting had its own space with lots of wall around it. She thought about what Dad had said at tea—that she and her sisters each had their own space in the Glimmer family. If she and her sisters were each paintings, Lulu would be bright colors—fireworks, maybe. Mia would be leading a charge, maybe not in a battle, but her painting would definitely be bold and brave. Maddie wasn't sure what kind of painting she'd be. Maybe she'd be one of the calm landscapes with trees and lakes and mountains.

“Come on, come on!” Lulu crowed, tugging on Maddie's arm.

Soon, they were in Room 43 with the Impressionist paintings. Maddie thought the Gallery should call the rooms by their colors. If they did, Room 43 would be the Purple Room, which sounded much nicer to Maddie. As she glanced around the walls, one of the paintings caught her eye.

“Look at this one!” She moved in closer to study the image.

“I like the colors—the blues, purples, and pinks,” Mia said, joining her. “And it has just the right amount of detail.”

Maddie tilted her head one way and then the other. “I like the way the paint is so textured, with all the mixing in the clouds and the water and the rocks.”

Miss Julia came over and stood next to Maddie, reading the plaque. “It's called
Moulin Huet Bay, Gurnsey
. It's by Renoir.”

“I don't think that's the right name for this painting at all,” Maddie said. “It should be called something like . . .”

“Beachside Blues!” Lulu suggested.

“Maybe . . .” Maddie said. “But when you have the blues, you're sad. In the painting, the people are playing in the ocean and having a lot of fun.”

“So what would you call it?” Mia asked.

“Something that describes the way the paint is done in all of those splotches, like, I don't know . . . maybe ‘Sun-Splattered Afternoon.' ”

“I like that,” Mia said. “Like
Starry Night
. A painting's name should describe what the painting is all about.”

“Too bad Renoir isn't here so you could suggest that to him,” Miss Julia said. “What else do you like about the painting, Maddie?”

“Well . . .” Maddie started.

“What's that?” Lulu asked, loud enough to stop everyone in the room.

“Hush, Lulu,” Mia said.

“No really, what is that?” Lulu pointed to the oddest painting in the room. It was a face, or something like a face, but everything was in the wrong place.

“Lulu, you're being rude,” Mia said, pulling her away from the painting.

“Stop pulling me.”

“Well, stop shouting. You're making everyone look.”

It was true. Everyone in the room was looking. In fact, a security guard had started toward them, probably to tell Lulu it wasn't appropriate to shout in a museum.

“You know what, girls,” Miss Julia said, redirecting them toward the gallery door. “Maybe it's time for lunch. There's a dining room here at the Gallery that has excellent reviews.”

“But no one has answered my question,” Lulu said. “Why is everything in the wrong place on that painting? Why would a painter do that?”

“We can talk about it later,” Mia said.

It had to be a pretty embarrassing moment to make Mia turn bright red, and her cheeks were flaming. Maddie would have been embarrassed too, if she weren't so frustrated. She'd really wanted to look at “Sun-Splattered Afternoon” and to answer Miss Julia's question. Sometimes in this family there wasn't time to think. Every time she started to think about something for real, someone interrupted and they were off again in
some new direction, leaving Maddie and her thoughts behind.

Miss Julia and her sisters were nearly out of the gallery. Maddie had to jog to catch up, glancing back one more time at the painting. Her head filled with the words she would have liked to say to Miss Julia about what she liked about the paint and the figures and the artist's style. Renoir's style.

“When we come back, can we still be art detectives?” Lulu asked.

“We can,” Miss Julia said, leading the way downstairs to the dining room.

Maddie had to admit her stomach was growling. Maybe she could bargain for another look at “Sun-Splattered Afternoon” after lunch.

TEN

I
n the National Gallery Restaurant, the waiter gave them their choice of seats, because the restaurant hadn't filled up yet for lunch. They chose a table near the windows where they could look out over Trafalgar Square.

After looking over the menu, they chose Shirley Temples with cherries on top to drink, a couple orders of fish and chips to share, and a salad, which they all promised to eat a few bites of—even Lulu.

As Miss Julia took out an activity book for Lulu, Mia slid over close to Maddie.

“What's the matter?” Mia asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You're so quiet. You've barely said three words since we sat down to eat.”

Maddie shrugged. “I'm okay.”

“Come on, Maddie. I know you. You're obviously not okay. What's wrong?”

Maddie glanced over at Lulu, but her little sister and Miss Julia were too busy with the activity book to listen to their conversation.

“I was in the middle of talking with Miss Julia about that painting—you know, ‘Sun-Splattered Afternoon,' and then Lulu made all that commotion and we had to leave.”

“Did you really like the paintings, though?” Mia asked. “I mean, most of them were . . . I don't know . . . old, don't you think?”

“Well, yes, they're old, but isn't that what people like about them?”

“Is that what you like about them?”

“No. I don't know. It's interesting that they're old. I like thinking about the painters who lived a long time ago and painted them.”

“Would you want to hang one of them in our house? I mean, if we could actually do that?”

“Not most of them, no. But maybe ‘Sun-Splattered Afternoon.' I liked the colors and the texture of the paint. If you looked at the painting one way, it was just a bunch of splotches, but together they made such a beautiful picture of the sand and the sea. You know how when you're at the beach and there's sand and salt water and wind, and the air feels thick, like it has texture . . . Do you know what I mean? That's what the painting made me think of—the way the air feels at the beach. I wanted more time to look at it, maybe even time to sketch it.”