Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy (12 page)

Ophelia walked past the elevator three times until she worked up the courage to enter it. She touched the superglue inside her coat. She had expected magic to be very clean and powerful, but instead it was messy and uncomfortable and full of decisions. It made her legs tremble.

Ophelia pressed the number 7.

The seventh floor was just as quiet and cold and still as it had been on her last visit. The elevator doors opened loudly, making her wince. She stepped into the silence. Her skinny knock-knees shook inside her too-big jeans; each breath caught in her throat. She reached into her pocket and very carefully took the plain key she had stolen from the box in the snow leopard room. She scratched a little at the greenish color with her fingernail and saw, engraved in small writing on its side, the number 707. She placed it back in her pocket.

In the left corridor she moved as noiselessly as she could, her heart beating in her ears. She took the superglue and unscrewed the top, and at door number 701 she inserted the nozzle in the keyhole and squeezed. She was careful with the drops. She moved to number 702 and then number 703, squeezing in the clear liquid.

When her breathing slowed and her heartbeat quieted, she could hear again. There were soft sighing sounds coming from behind the doors. She tried not to think of them. She tried not to think of the other rustlings that had now become apparent. She tried not to think of the very strong feathery smell. She glued up the locks of 704 through 714, skipping number 707. She glued up the locks of 715 through 721. She heard the clank of the elevator doors closing and the elevator going away to another floor.

Which meant that someone had called it.

Which made her freeze, with the superglue in her hands.

Maybe someone had called it and they were going to another floor, she thought. She turned the corner, where the
remaining doors were, and also the little white cupboard, from which she had stolen the first key. She quickly glued up locks 722 to 730. Then she did the same for 731, 732, 733, and 734.

She was back in the first corridor when she heard the whir of the elevator motor. The elevator was returning. She wished suddenly, more than anything, that she had never met the boy behind the door—it didn’t matter how interesting or exciting he was, it didn’t matter that he had been given lessons by wizards, which she shouldn’t really believe in, or that he had been given a blessing by a great magical owl. She took the two steps she needed as the elevator doors began to open, fumbled with the key to 707, inserted and turned it. Then she stepped inside and closed the door softly behind her.

The misery bird was five times her size and hanging upside down, fast asleep. She dared not breathe. It was just as the boy had said, the ugliest, most horrible thing she had ever seen. The bird had the head of a fierce eagle, tucked tenderly into the snow-white plumage of its chest. It had the black leathery wings of a giant bat, folded neatly at its sides. Its terrifying talons gripped a bar that ran across the ceiling. Each time it exhaled slowly, the wind from its silvery beak ruffled Ophelia’s hair.

Ophelia could not take her eyes from it.

It’s a monster. It’s a monster. It’s a monster, her head said.

The bird monster slept.

She heard footsteps in the corridor. The sound of high heels clipping on the marble. Ophelia was suddenly so cold that she
could not stop herself from trembling, and her teeth began to rattle in her mouth. It must be the Queen. A phone rang. The footsteps stopped suddenly, and Ophelia heard someone sigh.

“What?” a woman’s voice said. “Can you handle nothing alone? Must I do everything?”

The footsteps receded.

It must have been the Queen. Did Snow Queens use phones? It must have been.

Ophelia stood before the misery bird, trying to think of what to do. She heard the elevator doors open and shut and the elevator clank away to a lower floor. Everything would be all right. She would find the key. There in the corner of the room was a golden box. Only that golden box could contain the golden key that would work in the golden keyhole. She would open that box and take out the key. She would open the door and then glue it shut. She’d go to the elevator and press down and tell the boy that she couldn’t possibly help anymore. Yes, that was exactly what she’d do. She took one step toward the box, as quietly as she could.

The misery bird opened its wings.

The misery bird’s wings opened so suddenly and with such a snap that it made Ophelia fall backward and land with a bump on the ground. Its wings snapped open like a deathly black fan and trembled slightly. They almost filled the room. The bird opened its luminous gray eyes. It made a dangerous, low noise in its throat.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Ophelia. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

The bird peered at her.

Now she was going to be eaten. She knew it. It wasn’t fair. Her father would always wonder what had happened to her. He would say, “She went somewhere with superglue and then we never saw her again.”

Ophelia closed her eyes and waited for the end.

She waited and waited, and then she got tired of waiting and opened her eyes.

The bird was staring at her with its intelligent eyes. It stretched its long, thin neck out and came very close to her face. It sniffed her features slowly. Its breath made Ophelia close her eyes again. She made a little squeak. She couldn’t help it. The bird sniffed her hair and sniffed her shoulders and sniffed her pockets. First her right, then her left.

It took her left pocket within its powerful beak and ripped it clean off. The map, the sardines, the puffer, and the keys clattered to the ground. The bird stretched its neck all the way down and examined these things. Finally it took the sardine tin and brought it up to Ophelia.

She took it with shaking hands. She pulled the ring top and peeled the lid open.

“Is this what you want?” she croaked.

The bird opened its massive beak. She picked a sardine out and placed it on its hard gray tongue. When it had swallowed, it opened its mouth again. While she fed the bird, she knelt down and picked up the keys. She took a tiny step sideways toward the little box on the floor in the corner of the room. Then another. The bird’s neck stretched after her and the sardines.

“Nice birdie,” she said, plucking another sardine and placing it on its tongue.

She knelt down again, picked up the golden box from the ground, and placed another sardine in the misery bird’s mouth. She took the key and opened the lock, a task that required her to hold the sardine tin and the key together in one hand. A task that required her to remove her eyes from the misery bird’s face. She felt its breath on her neck. She squeaked. She fumbled inside the box for the key. There it was. It was a long golden key, exactly the right size for the boy’s prison door.

“More,” she said to the misery bird. “Have some more.”

She placed the last sardine from the tin in the bird monster’s mouth.

“Can I go now?” whispered Ophelia.

Trembling, she picked up her puffer and map and glue. The misery bird looked at her closely. It yawned with its sardine breath. It retracted its neck and tucked its head neatly under its wing. Ophelia thought that probably meant yes. She walked to the door, her legs like wobbly stilts.

She opened the door very carefully.

The bird watched her with one eye.

She closed it. She inserted the superglue nozzle in the keyhole and squeezed. She moved back along the corridor to the large empty room and the elevator. She would let the boy out, she thought, and then that was it. He was on his own. She pressed the elevator button and heard it approaching from below. If the Queen was in the elevator, it would be the end
of her. She knew it. She felt quite suddenly as though she was going to wet her pants. Up, up, up the elevator came. The doors slid open. It was empty. Ophelia pushed the button marked down and sank to the floor inside.

She was a girl without coat pockets. She stuffed the three keys in her jeans and ran with the map and puffer and the remains of the glue in her hands, throwing the sardine tin into a receptacle as she went. She wasn’t so sure about the Queen’s machine; the misery birds were probably the real reason children went missing in the museum.

It was late, the sun starting to sink behind the city and the great Christmas tree. On the streets the pale children, in their silvery puffy coats, were already arriving with their skates in their hands, to circle round and round the ice rink, with their frozen faces and their empty eyes. Her father would be waiting for her. Perhaps he already knew she’d lied. He’d probably ban her from coming to the museum ever again.

She ran past the
Triceratops
and the
Tyrannosaurus rex
—the guard now gone—and she ran along the darkening corridors. She ran upstairs and downstairs and in and out of the great glittering galleries until she found the small lonely room of teaspoons. She raced down the gloomy gallery of painted girls, across the celebrated sea monster mosaic, and into the room of broken stone angels. She collided with Mr. Pushkinova, the map, puffer, and superglue falling to the floor. The tall old man held her arms to stop her from falling too. His hands were grayish and cool.

“I’m so sorry,” said Ophelia. “I didn’t see you there.”

“What are you doing here?” asked Mr. Pushkinova very slowly and very quietly. She didn’t know if he whispered or hissed the words.

“I was just …”

“What have you got here?” he asked. He reached down to the ground, and Ophelia heard his bones creaking. He took the superglue first and examined it, then her puffer and the map. He opened the map and looked at all her careful shading. He handed the items back to her.

“Interesting.” He definitely hissed this time.

“It’s just …,” said Ophelia.

But she didn’t finish. Mr. Pushkinova leaned suddenly forward so that his face was inches from hers. Ophelia looked at his small, angry mouth and his ancient, stained teeth, which, when she was up close like that, looked a little too pointy. She looked into his terrible, cloudy eyes.

“I will warn you only once: do not meddle in magic, little girl,” whispered Mr. Pushkinova. “There is nothing that you can do which will help the Marvelous Boy.”

He took a deep breath. What was he going to do? Ophelia had a terrible sense that it wasn’t something very nice. Then he did the not very nice thing.

He bared his teeth.

A vile, low growl rumbled from within him.

Ophelia turned and ran. She ran as fast as she could. She ran across the sea monster mosaic, down the gloomy gallery of painted girls, into a small, hushed circular library. She crouched
beneath a spiral staircase. She hugged her arms around herself, shaking. She shook so violently that she thought her teeth were going to break apart. Then when she stopped shaking, she put her head in her hands and began to cry.

She sobbed until her sleeves were wet, because she had forgotten her handkerchief. She cried because she had no handkerchief. She cried because she didn’t know what to do. If her mother had been there,
she
would have known what to do.
And
she would have had a handkerchief. She cried because Mr. Pushkinova was a horrible man. There was nothing good about him. How could the boy say there was anything good about him? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she had been scratched by a snow leopard and pushed by ghosts and nearly eaten by a misery bird and growled at by a horrible man. She wasn’t used to that sort of thing. And now she was going to be late again, and Alice would look at her missing coat pockets and raise her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

Then in the middle of feeling sad, she started to feel angry.

What did Mr. Pushkinova know?

How did he
know
she couldn’t help the boy?

She wiped her eyes. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know anything at all. If she wanted to rescue the boy and find the sword and save the world, then she could. And she would.

That’s my girl
, her mother whispered in her ear.

Ophelia pulled down on her braids hard until she felt better, and then she stood up and ran to meet Alice in the foyer.

In which dinner is eaten in a revolving restaurant and Ophelia falls asleep at a crucial moment