London Art Chase (9 page)

Mia stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over people's heads. “I don't see him.”

“Over there, just past the lion, leaving the square.” Maddie was practically shouting now, willing Mia to see what she was seeing.

“I don't—” Mia began.

Maddie took off running, not waiting to hear the rest.

“Maddie Glimmer!” Miss Julia shouted, using the kind of voice that makes a person stop in her tracks.

Maddie stopped, but only after battling with herself about whether she should. She'd lost sight of the man. And even if she did spot him, like the director said, what would she do if she caught him, anyway?

Miss Julia took Maddie's hand with a firm grip. “Maddie, you know better than to run off. You all do. I
realize you're excited, but I need for you—all of you—to make better choices.”

“Did I make good choices today?” Lulu asked.

“Mostly,” Miss Julia said, raising a stern eyebrow before relenting and breaking into a smile.

“If there had been a thief, I bet we could have caught him,” Lulu said. “Remember how fast I ran across the square today?”

“Fast or slow, there will be no more running today,” Miss Julia said. “We've had our fair share of running.”

“Do you think the cellist will make the director call Mom?” Mia's voice was laced with worry.

“I think after she cools down, and especially if it turns out that her cello is okay, she'll let it go.”

“Her cello sounded fine to me,” Mia said.

“To me too,” Miss Julia answered. “It's not doing us any good to worry.”

“I don't think we should worry about the painting, either,” Mia said. “I mean, don't you think the museum director would know if a painting vanished off the wall?”

“But I just saw the thief walking away with a painting,” Maddie insisted.

“We don't know he's a thief,” Mia said.

“We saw him,” Maddie said. “You know we did.”

“I'm just saying we shouldn't worry. Miss Julia is right. Nothing seems to be wrong at the museum.”

“Everything is wrong.” Tears pricked at the corners of Maddie's eyes.

“You know what?” Miss Julia said. “I think we need a breather. Let's hail a cab and get some dinner into all of those hungry stomachs. And try not to be any later for the concert than we already are, okay?”

“Okay,” Mia said.

“We're sorry, Miss Julia,” Lulu said, taking Miss Julia's hand.

Maddie couldn't bring herself to say anything at all, not during the walk or the cab ride, not while they put on their concert dresses, not even while they ate dinner—her favorite, mac and cheese.

Miss Julia snapped a couple pictures of their concert outfits for the travelogue. Then they were off again, on their way to the concert hall.

FIFTEEN

N
ow, go in quietly, girls,” Miss Julia warned, holding the door open.

Of course, at that moment, Mom had just walked up to the microphone to start a new song. The crowd had fallen silent.

Into the silence, Lulu shouted, “Hi, Mommy!”

Mom looked over at the girls—actually, everyone in the entire hall looked their way. Maddie cringed, feeling all those eyes focusing in on them. Behind her, she felt Miss Julia tensing up too.

“Glad you could join us,” Mom said, smiling wide.

Maddie let out the breath she was holding and smiled back.

“Come on up here to your spot, girls,” Mom said, waving them to the front.

Lulu led the way, waving to the crowd as she went. Maddie stuck close to Mia, relieved to have her sister right there by her side. Sometimes, Maddie wondered how Mom could stand it, being up on stage with all those people—strangers, most of them—watching her perform for hours. Maddie occasionally liked putting on a costume and acting, but that was different. That wasn't being yourself up on stage. When Maddie had to play concert recitals, her hands would shake like leaves
in a windstorm while she sat in the audience waiting for her turn. Each time she'd be convinced she'd never be able to play. In the end, she'd calm down as soon as she put her fingers on the keys. But the walk up to the stage, out there in front of everyone, was very, very hard for her. This walk down the aisle wasn't quite so bad. Soon, they were in their usual spot, up close to the stage where they could almost reach out and touch Mom.

Mom nodded at Dad, who began to play, and the rest of the band joined in. “We're not here for me,” Mom said, and then pointed to her band, “We're not here for them, either. We're here to give glory to God.”

Maddie closed her eyes as Mom began to sing, letting the music and the words wrap around her, warm and soft and secure. She felt a tug on her arm.

“Maddie, someone over there is crying,” Lulu whispered.

Maddie looked over and saw it was true. In fact, a couple people were blinking away tears. One woman, though, had tears streaming down her face.

“Do you think she's okay?” Lulu asked.

Mia put an arm around Lulu and said, “Mom always has such a way of reaching people with her music.”

Lulu shook her head. “But I don't like it when they cry.”

“Those aren't sad tears,” Maddie said. “Remember when Mom cried when she sang us our song for the first time, when she was tucking us into bed? Hearing that song and watching her made me cry a little too.”

The song rose to its climax, and then Mom sang a few more pieces. Finally, it was time for “When I Leave the Room,” the song Mom had written just for them.

“I wrote this song for my little girls,” Mom said. “It talks about all the wonderful, difficult, sorrowful parts of life, how God gives us people to hold and say I love you to, and people who say it back to us.”

By the time the final notes played, Maddie's eyes had filled with tears, the way they always did when Mom sang this song. It didn't matter how many times Maddie heard it. She blinked hard and fast.

“Now, girls,” Mom said, “it's time for you to go to the hotel, put on your pjs, and brush your teeth. I have just a few more songs to sing, but I'll see you in time to tuck you in.”

This was the way it happened every time they came to listen. Maddie loved the tradition of it, the way she could count on Mom to say just these words the exact moment Lulu's eyes started to droop. Now, they'd go home and curl up under the covers of the big bed that she and Mia were sharing and read, and talk with Miss Julia about their day. Soon, Mom and Dad would be home. Everyone would pile into the same bed and Dad would tell them a story. She could tell her parents about what had happened, about the thief, and about what she suspected. They would help her know what she should do, and then, maybe everything that had gone wrong today would finally be okay.

SIXTEEN

M
addie snuggled into the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin. The mattress felt soft enough to swallow her whole—she almost wished it could. She wanted today to be done so she could start over tomorrow. Even Mia had decided they hadn't seen a robbery, in spite of the fact that they absolutely, definitely saw one with their own eyes. Why had Mia changed her mind? The unfairness of it made Maddie want to throw pillows across the room.

“Let's add notes to our travelogue,” Lulu said.

Miss Julia scrolled through pictures on her phone, from the bus to the lions to the gallery, to their dresses and the picture of the three of them posed outside the concert hall. They had stopped to take that one even though they were late. Lulu had insisted. Mia and Lulu chattered about perfect captions for each picture, and Miss Julia typed them in.

“We should take some photos of Maddie's sketches to add to the travelogue,” Mia said, clearly trying to draw her into the project.

Maddie tried to smile, even though she was pretty sure she wasn't convincing anyone. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Mom and Dad's voices drifted through the doorway. Soon they were in the room, full of energy the way they
always were after a concert. Mom kicked off her stage heels. Mia and Lulu burst out, talking over each other.

“You'll never believe what happened today,” Mia said.

“We saw a robbery!” Lulu stood up and bounced on the bed, singing what had become her theme song. “Glimmer girls to the rescue!”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down.” Mom caught Lulu and cuddled into bed with the girls. “Let's start from the beginning.”

“Good night, all,” Miss Julia said, heading for the door. “I'll let the girls tell you about today, Gloria, but if you want to talk about it later, I'm all yours.”

“Thanks, Julia. See you in a bit.”

Lulu bounced while Dad joined them and everyone settled deeper into the bed.

“Okay, tell me,” Mom said to Lulu.

“Maddie found this painting that she loved so much she wanted to look at it
twice
, but when we went back to look at it the second time, we saw someone steal it,” Lulu said.

“We don't know he was stealing it for sure,” Mia pointed out.

“And then Maddie ran after him and we ran after her and we all crashed into an orchestra,” Lulu added.

“He
was
stealing the painting,” Maddie insisted, more quietly than her sisters.

“I don't understand,” Mom said. “Are you girls joking? You saw someone steal a painting?”

“I haven't heard any news about a stolen painting,” Dad said.

“And you really knocked into an orchestra? Is everyone all right?” Mom said.

“Well, the cellist thinks her cello might not be all right, but no one could see any dents,” Mia said.

“You knocked over a cello?” Mom asked, looking at each girl in turn. “You know how expensive and special instruments are, girls.”

“And you know better than to be running in a museum,” Dad added.

“But we saw a thief!” Maddie's cheeks burned. “No one listened to us about him. After we met with the museum director and Miss Julia gave him our information in case the cello was hurt, we left the museum and I saw him again—the thief. He was walking away with the painting, right down the street, and no one believed me.”

“I know you saw someone who looked like a thief.” Mia used air quotes around the last word, making Maddie's cheeks burn even hotter. “It's just that he couldn't have been an actual thief. Like I've been saying, there would have been alarms or something.”

“The museum director wasn't worried,” Lulu piped up.

“People don't just take paintings off the walls in museums and walk down the street with them,” Maddie said. “Not as part of their ordinary job. He had to have been a thief.”

“He was really far away, Maddie,” Mia said. “Maybe he was someone else entirely. And how do you know the exact size of the package he was carrying? Could you really tell from so far away? Plus, it was windy, and it was hard to see anything with all the coats whipping and dust blowing around. Maybe it was just a trick of your eyes.”

“It was pretty windy,” Lulu said.

“See, Maddie? It's like that bobby told us yesterday. The first thing to do when you think you see a crime is to consider all the possibilities. What makes the most sense is that we saw something that
looked
like a robbery, but wasn't, since no one freaked out.”

The longer Mia talked, the more Maddie's eyes filled with tears. She tried to blink them back, but they started running down her cheeks.

Mom looked from Maddie to Mia and back to Maddie again.

“Why's Maddie crying?” Lulu asked.

“You know what,” Dad said. “I was thinking I'd tell you all a story.”

“Great idea, Dad,” Mom said. “Why don't you tell Mia and Lulu a story? Maddie and I will be right back.”

Maddie climbed over Lulu and followed Mom out of the room, silently wiping the tears away. She knew she shouldn't be arguing with her sisters, but no one was listening to her or taking her seriously. Plus, she felt responsible for the painting, responsible for helping
it find its way back to the purple room wall, where it should be. Even though she knew she might be overreacting, she couldn't stop herself.