Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #11 (4 page)

Etoile was nowhere to be seen. Stanley found himself staring out at a river, which ran like a giant stone-lined canal through the center of the city. If he looked to his left, he saw a grand cathedral in the distance. He glanced right and saw the Eiffel Tower far away on the opposite bank. He looked down at the sketchbook.
Montmartre, Paris.
But which way was Montmartre?

As Stanley started walking, a sweet odor wafted through the air. At a nearby street cart, a jolly man in a cap was making razor-thin pancakes on a round griddle, topping them with fruit or chocolate. The smell hypnotized Stanley. His stomach grumbled, and he realized he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

“Une crêpe?
” the man offered.

Stanley suddenly remembered Chef Lillou, the famous French chef who had plotted to steal La Abuela's secret ingredient in Mexico. In a fit of rage, he'd called Stanley a “crêpe.” For the first time, Stanley understood why: A crêpe was even flatter than he was!

Stanley pulled out the pockets of his overcoat to show that he had no money. The man shrugged, slathered a crêpe in fresh strawberries and cream, folded it up, and handed it to Stanley.

“Merci!
” said Stanley gratefully. Then he held up Etoile's book and pointed to the address on the cover.
“S'il vous plaît?
” he said.

“Ah, Montmartre!” the man said. He pointed in the distance and made the shape of a tent with his fingers: a hill, that way.

Stanley said
merci
again and hurried on his way.

A Fresh Canvas

Winding his way through the streets of Paris, Stanley finally found a grand stone building in a maze of cobblestoned streets. The sign above the doorway read
L'école d'Art
, the same words that were on the sketchbook.

Stanley pushed open the giant door. Once inside he realized what
l'école d'art
meant: It was an art school. He crept down a dimly lit hallway lined with empty classrooms until he came to one at the end, where he spotted the spidery teacher from the museum through the door's window. Inside, a handful of students were painting.

Stanley scanned the room. . . . There was Etoile, painting near the back! He'd found her! Now all he needed to do was find a way to return her sketchbook.

Stanley quickly removed his scarf, hat, boots, and gloves. The less he wore, the more invisible he could make himself when he snuck inside. He even pulled off the puffy-sleeved shirt from the painting, so he was wearing only a white undershirt and his pants. He folded everything into a neat pile and hid it behind a trash bin in the corner of the hall.

Then, holding nothing but Etoile's sketchbook, he slipped beneath the closed door.

Stanley stayed low, skirting the edge of the room until he was directly behind Etoile. She was painting a young woman bending over a piece of lace she was mending. It reminded Stanley of one of the paintings he'd seen at the Louvre.

When the teacher's back was turned, Stanley popped up between Etoile and her painting. Her big blue eyes widened in surprise, but she stayed quiet. Then her eyes darted across the room—she was clearly worried that Stanley would get caught. As the teacher looked their way, Stanley quickly handed Etoile her sketchbook and folded his head and arms back behind her easel so his white T-shirt looked like a blank canvas itself.

Etoile immediately started painting on him. Stanley tried not to giggle as she gently dabbed her brush against his chest.

Fifteen minutes later Stanley held his breath as the teacher came to look at Etoile's painting.

“Très bien
, Etoile,” the teacher said in an unusually soft voice. Stanley remembered that meant “very good.”

Soon class was dismissed. Etoile said something to her teacher in French as the other students filed out—Stanley guessed that she was saying she wanted to finish her painting. The teacher left, closing the door behind her. And then they were alone.

Etoile said something excitedly in French.

Stanley rose up and shook his head. “I don't understand a word you're saying,” he told her.

She grinned and poked his shoulder. “You were in the painting at the Louvre!” she said in English.

Stanley gulped. His mission was supposed to be a secret! “How do
you
know?”

The girl gestured at Stanley's T-shirt. He looked down and saw that she had perfectly re-created his painting.

“Who
are
you?” she said, her blue eyes dancing.

“My name is Stanley,” he replied.

“I knew it!” she said, throwing up her hands. “I told my friend Martine you looked like Stanley Lambchop, the famous flat boy!”

Stanley felt himself blushing: Etoile knew who he was! “You dropped your book,” he said. “I thought you would want it. You're a really good artist, you know.”

Now it was the girl's turn to blush. “Madame Sévère would have been very angry if I had lost it. Thank you for returning it to me.” Then she said, “What are you doing in a painting in Paris, anyway?”

“Uh, j-j-j-just visiting,” Stanley stammered. He couldn't let on that he was a spy!

Etoile raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Well,” she said, “at least let me give you a tour of Paris. As a way of saying
merci
.”

Beautiful City

“This neighborhood, Montmartre, has been home to great artists for centuries,” Etoile told Stanley after he had put his puffy-sleeved shirt and trench coat back on and they returned to the street. “Claude Monet painted here. So did Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.”

“Do you want to be an artist when you grow up?” Stanley asked.

“I am an artist already,” Etoile said. “L'école d'Art is a special boarding school for artists. Madame Sévère says the only way to paint like the masters is to copy them. Every day we go to a different museum to draw the paintings. And then we come back to our classroom and paint.”

They walked down the hill of Montmartre, passing the famous Basilica of the Sacré-Coeur. As they wandered the streets of Paris, Etoile explained how the city was laid out in a series of rings, one inside the other. In the center was the neighborhood around the Louvre.

While they walked, Etoile asked about Stanley's travels. He told her about performing with the Flying Chinese Wonders and jumping from a plane over Africa. He asked her questions about herself.
Etoile
meant “star.” She had grown up in a seaside town in the south of France. Sometimes she missed her family. Stanley knew just how she felt.