Lost in Paris (5 page)

9

I dragged Henri to the petmobile, careful not to pull too hard or run too fast. Brigitte was letting Fifi pee-pee.

“It's time to fly,” I said to Brigitte. “Henri knows what this is and where to go.” I opened the back door for Henri, picked up Fifi, and put her on his lap.

“You are all dirty,” Brigitte said to Henri. Was she worried he might soil white fluffy Fifi? “Buckle Fifi up, please,” she asked him.

He messed around with the seat belt and the dog harness, and the whole time Fifi licked him on the face.
He didn't appear to enjoy the bath, but it washed off some of the ash.

Henri directed Brigitte to la place de la Concorde.

“I know where it is. I just can't believe I didn't recognize it. I guess because it was so small,” Brigitte said.

“You drive very slow,” Henri said to her.

“I am careful and safe.”

“It feels very slow,” he said again.

“Safe,” she corrected.

I think he might have said “slow” again under his breath.

“Là-bas!”
Henri shouted. Fifi barked.

There it was. A tall obelisk surrounded by an oval boulevard. Two magnificent fountains occupied where the twelve o'clock and six o'clock spaces would be if this whole oval were, in fact, a huge sundial. I saw a royal blue shirt in the distance. “Pull over. I'll run and get the next clue.”

Brigitte honked the barking horn to get people to move out of the way. Henri and I jumped out before the petmobile came to a complete stop and ran across the cobblestone street that became a sidewalk.

The Shock Value rep stood at the base of the obelisk. “Hi there,” she said. “Good to see you.” She handed us a royal blue bag. “Good luck.”

A woman holding a microphone, followed by a
cameraman, walked over to me.
“Bonjour,”
she said. “I'm Murielle duPluie, covering music news. Can we ask you a few questions?”

Did they want to interview us because we were in first place? We must be pretty far in the lead for this to be news. OMG, I was going to make the French news!
How cool is that?
“Okay,” I said.

“What is your name and where are you from?”

“I'm Gwen Russell, from the US—U-S-A!—and I'm Shock Value's number one fan.”

“Can you tell me, Gwen Russell from the USA, how does it feel to be in last place?”

Last
place?
“Well, I wasn't . . . I didn't . . . ,” I sputtered. I was going to be a laughingstock on the French news. I was representing my country, not unlike an Olympic athlete, and I was letting all Americans down.

Murielle duPluie asked, “What is your strategy to get back in the game?”

“Umm . . . we need to find the clues faster, I think.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“We, umm . . . we . . .”

Henri came into the frame of the camera and said, “She has me on her team. I am Henri and I am
formi­dable
at puzzles and soccer. I am the team's . . . how
would you say? . . . A missile that no one knows about.”

“A secret weapon?” Murielle duPluie asked.

“
Exactement!
We will see you, Madame duPluie, at the next clue, and we will not be last,” Henri said.

He'd saved it. Maybe I wouldn't be a total embarrassment to my country. But now the pressure was really on. We'd made a public declaration not to be last. All eyes were on us.

Henri and I were walking toward the petmobile with our royal blue bag when two people blocked our way.

“Ha! ha!
Bonjour
, Henri,” said a guy wearing a Paris Football Club shirt. “Your car barks.”

“It is a petmobile,” Henri clarified defensively. “
Bon­jour
, Sabine,” he said to the girl with him. It was the girl with the piercings who had occupied space number five at Venus de Milo.

She asked me, “Is Henri on your pet team?”

“I am helping them,” Henri answered for me.

Soccer Guy said to me, “You don't have a chance.” He laughed. To Henri he said, “You got lucky at the game, but it won't happen again. Not at soccer and not at this contest.” Then he made a mean bark.

A car screeched to a halt. Sabine and the guy laughed and barked as they got into it.

Another boy in a soccer shirt was driving. He yelled out the window, “
Salut
, Henri! How does it feel to be in last place?”

They drove away with squealing tires.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“They are the . . . what did you call them? . . . sore losers,” he explained. “Sabine and I, we sort of . . . how do you say? . . . go together?”

“Date?”

“Dated. But now she dates Jean-Luc. The other guy, the driver, is Robert.”

“And you don't like them?” I asked.

“No. They are very mad that my soccer team is good.”

“They sound like jerks,” I said. “We have a saying in the US when we compete with people like them. Game on!”

“I like that.” He repeated, “Game on!”

10

We got in the petmobile and Fifi instantly licked Henri's face like he'd been gone forever and she'd missed him terribly. He didn't smile as he tried to wipe his face.

“What was that all about?” Brigitte asked.

“We're in last place,” I said. “That was a reporter who wanted an interview.”

“Did you mention Boutique Brigitte? It would be good for business for that to be on the news,” she said.

“Um, it didn't come up,” I said.

“What is in the bag?” Brigitte asked.

Henri asked, “If the game is on, am I in the game? Like, on the team?”

“I don't think my mom would mind. Besides, how can she actually be on the team when she isn't here to help?” I asked.

“I am here to help,” Henri confirmed.

“What about your job?” I asked him.

“It is like bending rubber.”

“What?”

“My boss, he is friends with my parents and he bends for me.”

“You mean it's flexible.”

“
Oui
. And bendable.”

“Then it's official. We three will be a team,” I said.

Henri gave me a high five. “
Formidable!
Now, what is in
le sac
?”

I opened the bag and took out a key hanging by a royal blue ribbon.

“Une clé,”
Henri said.

“I wonder what it goes to,” I said. “A door somewhere? A secret room? And inside we'll find the next clue.”

“Not a hotel,” Henri said. “They use cards.”

“True,” I said. “Do you think this is the last clue and Shock Value will actually be there? Like, we'll open the door and they'll
pop out
?”

“Or, maybe the key is to a box or a locker,” Brigitte said.

“The band cannot fit in a box or locker,” Henri said.

“Where would we find lockers?” I asked. “Train stations?”

“
Oui
, and bus stations and airports. But the lockers at bus stations and
metro
stations are like . . .” He pantomimed twisting right and left with his fingers. “And numbers.”

“A combination?”

“
Oui
. Combination,” Henri confirmed.

“Or you put in money and then take an orange key out of the locker. The key has a number, which matches the locker,” Brigitte said. “Does the key have a number?”

“No,” I said. I rubbed my fingers on the rough edges of the key.

“Well, while you're figuring it out, we need to feed . . . feed . . .” Brigitte looked at her clipboard for her next client. “Sylvie.”

I guessed Sylvie was another dog. Brigitte put the petmobile in drive and crawled into traffic, her nose inches from the windshield. She drove so slowly that I realized that earlier she
had
been hurrying.

“And maybe
un petit morceau de gâteau
?” Henri asked.

What was it with boys and food? My brothers couldn't
go fifteen minutes without eating, and Henri had been hanging with us for an entire hour. He must've been starving. I had to admit, a little cake even sounded good to me right now.

“There is a shop in Sylvie's building,” Brigitte said. “We feed her first.”

She parked in front of another apartment building. This one was newer and more modern than the other building. It was very clean and stark white, from the first to the eighth floor, and lacked the decor, details, and golden embellishments of Fifi's building and la place Vendôme, which both seemed hundreds of years older.

I put the ribbon and key around my neck and continued thinking about what the key could open. Brigitte put Fifi in a little pink purse and handed it to Henri. “You can carry Fifi,” she said. The doorman at this building also nodded like Brigitte was an important guest and we were too because we were with her. He held the door open for us.

When we got to the apartment, Brigitte said, “Wait here. The owners don't like it when people walk around here.” She took a pair of plastic booties that looked like shower caps out of a lab coat pocket and slid one onto each shoe. With her big key chain she unlocked the door to a foyer that could've popped out of a magazine. Everything was white—walls, tile, furniture—and
it smelled like Mom's Pine-Sol cleaner. She walked down the hall and into a room, where she spoke in French. “
Bonjour
, Sylvie. You are so pretty. Are you hungry? Here you go.” She waited. “Do you think that's yummy? Yes, you do.” She came out of the room with a giant snake wrapped around her shoulders like a pashmina.

I shrieked and jumped back.

“Whoa!” Henri yelled. “That is a snake!”

My eyes bulged. “Do you know it's around your neck? Could it strangle you?”

“Do not be silly. Sylvie is very gentle. And isn't she pretty? She likes it when you tell her she's pretty.”

“Pretty snake,” I said to Sylvie.
Please don't kill Brigitte, or me, or Henri,
I thought. Sylvie's neck stretched around something round, like an egg or tennis ball.

“What's that?” I asked. “A tumor?”

“This? No. Not a tumor. She just had lunch. A rat.”

I held back the urge to gag. I hoped she hadn't taken that out of her pocket too. Were there more rats in the petmobile?

“Let's get her out for a while. I think she's lonely,” Brigitte said. “She likes to be around people. We will take her with us for cake.” She looked at the snake. “Do you like the sound of that?
Le gâteau?
” She lifted Sylvie's head for us to see. “She is smiling. She likes cake.”

We were really going for cake with . . .
wait for it
. . . a six-foot snake.

“Fab,” I said. “It'll wash down that mouse.”

“Rat,” Brigitte corrected me.

Brigitte slid the booties back off her feet and into her pocket, took an empty canvas bag from a hook, and locked the door, and the four of us went to the lobby, where there was a small
boulangerie
.

I anticipated a negative reaction to Sylvie followed by terrible embarrassment, so I was super glad when Brigitte curled her up and put her into the canvas bag and zipped it almost all the way shut. Through the opening she said to Sylvie, “You are very pretty.”

11

All the desserts looked so good. I ordered a cream puff with chocolate sauce. Brigitte got a baguette, and Henri salivated over a slice of strawberry savarin. We sat, and Brigitte dropped pieces of bread into the canvas bag sitting in the chair next to her. “It's not as good as the rat, eh?” she asked through the hole in the bag.

I examined my phone. “Let's see where the other teams are.” I opened Twister.com. “I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner,” I said as the site opened. I scanned it. “Looks like no one has made it to the third clue
yet. That's good. This is our chance to get in the lead.” I took the key off my neck. “We've just gotta get there first, and I want another chance with Murielle duPluie. If we come in first, she'll have a good story about a team going from tenth to first place. Wouldn't that be great?” I finally took a bite of my puff. Henri's plate was empty.

I peeked into the canvas bag to see that the first several inches of Sylvie's body were in the shape of a baguette.

“May I see
la clé
?” Henri asked.

I took the key off my neck and gave it to him.

He studied it while I ate, not like my brothers, but as fast as I could in a ladylike way, because I didn't want my puff to end up in Henri's stomach or Sylvie's neck.

Brigitte took a place mat and turned it over. She pulled a pencil out of another lab coat pocket. That coat was amazing. It was like a Mary Poppins coat. “Let's play a game.” She made blank dashes and a hangman symbol. “Pick a letter.”

“Game? We don't have time. We need to concentrate on that key,” I said.

“A quick game exercises the brain,” Brigitte said. “It will think better when you are done.”

“I love games,” Henri said. “I pick
A
.”

She wrote in
A
s where they belonged.

How could they be playing a game at a time like this?

It didn't last long. Henri guessed it was “Sylvie is a pretty snake.”

He looked at the key again. “There are a lot of books at the hotel. Let's go there and look for ideas.”

Since we didn't have any other leads, we decided to go back to the hotel.

“We will return Sylvie to her home first?” Henri asked Brigitte.

Brigitte asked Sylvie, who was still in the bag, “Do you want to go home, my sweetie?” She glanced at the snake's face. “No, she does not want to go home yet.”

Fifi licked Henri again. “How about Fifi?” he asked.

“She is having so much fun. She will love the old hotel,” Brigitte said as we got back into the petmobile and secured Fifi into her car seat.

Henri huffed like he wasn't happy to be driving around with a pooch and a snake. Maybe I could change the subject. “I love the old hotel too.”

“It was a mansion for guests who could not fit in the king's castle at the holidays,” Henri said. “When the city grew up, the hotel, it stay the same as before.”

“I like that it feels old. Do you like working—oh no.” I cut myself off when I saw who was waiting at the front of the hotel.

“Mon Dieu,”
Henri said at the sight of Jean-Luc, Sabine, and Robert.

“Oh, look,” Brigitte said. “There are your friends.” She honked the barking horn and waved to them like they were well acquainted.
“Bonjour!”
she called out the window.

Henri sank into the seat, but there really was no way to hide in the petmobile. “What are they doing here?”

I said, “Maybe they feel bad about what happened at la place de la Concorde and they want to apologize.”

“Pfft,”
Henri said. I think the English translation of that would've been “no freakin' way.”

We pulled into one of the hotel's four parking spots.

“Can you get Fifi?” Brigitte asked Henri. “Put her in her pink
sac
. She likes riding around in that.” Her cell phone rang. “I will come in
un moment
.'' She answered it,
“Boutique Brigitte—Pour les Petits Animaux.”

Henri walked toward his three former friends with a white puffy pup in a pink bag over his shoulder. He stood up straight.
“Comment?”
—What?—he asked them, as tough as possible.

“Beau sac,”
Jean-Luc said.

“Pink is your color,” Robert added.

“Stop it,” Sabine said to them. “Pink is the new black.” Then to Henri she said, “We came to see how
you were doing with the key.” Now she was trying to be nice? Something fishy was going on here. Fish? Would that be Brigitte's next pet?

“Really?” Henri asked.

“You know, six minds are better than three,” she said.

“Like a partnership?” I asked.

“Pfft,”
Henri said.

“Yeah,
pfft
,” I added. “We're way close to solving this clue. We're not gonna help you.”

Brigitte, who finished with her call, joined us with Sylvie's bag, the snake's head now poking out through the hole for air.

Jean-Luc's, Sabine's, and Robert's eyes popped out at the sight.

“Afraid of a pretty little snake?” I asked them. “There's no way you'll be able to go to where this clue leads if you're afraid of stuff.”

“Comment?”
Henri asked me.

“Oh, don't worry,” I said to him. “I won't give it away. Even if I did, they would be too afraid to follow through.”

Just then the lacrosse bus pulled up. Perfect timing. We all stood and watched the muddy, tired American lacrosse team get off.

I could see Mom sitting in the last row of the bus. I took out my phone and sent her a quick text that, if
things went the way I hoped, would help with this little thing I was doing to Henri's so-called friends.

JTC each offered me a high five on their way by.

“Victory,” Josh said.

“Another win,” Topher said.

“We advance to the next round,” Charlie said.

They followed their team into the hotel.

Mom came up to us and glanced at her phone like I thought she would when she heard my message arrive. She said to me, “An abandoned metro station? I don't think so, Gwen,” she said.

“Shh—Mom,” I said, and bent my neck toward our three competitors, like she'd spilled some majorly secret and important beans in front of the opposing team.

“What? It's too dangerous. And sorry, but I'm too exhausted to go with you. We can talk about it tomorrow.” Then she looked at Brigitte. “Pretty snake.” She petted Fifi and departed.

Sabine, Jean-Luc, and Robert whispered to each other.

Jean-Luc said, “Since your mommy won't let you go to the old
metro
station at night, we will go on ahead and just beat you to another clue. Then we will tell the other teams where to go, and you will be last again.”

They walked off, laughing. Robert barked.

“I do not know what . . . what was that?” Henri asked.

“I knew that was exactly what my mom would say, so I made up something to text her. And, presto, those three morons are off on a wild goose chase,” I said.

“They are chasing a goose? Is that like a duck?” Henri asked.

“No. Sorry. It's just an expression. It means that they are off in the wrong direction, wasting their time.”

“I am glad they are chasing ducks,” Henri said. “You are . . .” He pointed to his head.

“Thanks,” I said. “I have three older brothers who've taught me pretty much every trick in the book.”

“What book?” Henri asked.

“Never mind. Sorry, there isn't a book.”

“Yes, there is,” Henri said. “Inside. Let's look for the key in the hotel books.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Do you want to go in the hotel?” Brigitte asked Sylvie, who was still nestled in the bag. “She does.”