From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Sincerely,
Harold C. Lowery
Public Relations,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Claudia and Jamie walked from the post office to Grand Central Terminal and sat down in the waiting room. They sat perfectly quiet. Disappointed beyond words. Claudia would have felt better if the letter had not been so polite. A nasty letter or a sarcastic one can make you righteously angry, but what can you do about a polite letter of rejection? Nothing, really, except cry. So she did.
Jamie let her cry for a while. He sat there and fidgeted and counted the number of benches. She still cried; he counted the number of people on the benches. She was still at it; he calculated the number of people per bench.
After the big blobs of tears stopped, he said, “At least they treated us like grown-ups. That letter is full of big words and all.”
“Big deal,” Claudia sobbed. “For all they know, we are grown-ups.” She was trying to find a corner of her shredded Kleenex that she could use.
Jamie let her sniff some, then he quietly asked, “What do we do now? Go home?”
“What? Go home now? We haven’t even got our clothes. And your radio is in the violin case. We’d have to go home absolutely empty handed.”
“We could leave our clothes; they’re all gray anyway.”
“But we never even used your radio. How can we face them at home? Without the radio and all. With nothing.” She paused for a minute and repeated, “With nothing. We’ve accomplished nothing.”
“We accomplished having fun,” Jamie suggested. “Wasn’t that what you wanted when we started out, Claude? I always thought it was.”
Claudia began big tears again. “But that was then,” she sobbed.
“You said you’d go home after you knew about Angel. Now you know.”
“That’s it,” she sobbed. “I do not know.”
“You know that you don’t know. Just as the people at the museum don’t know. C’mon,” he pleaded, “we’ll enjoy telling them about how we lived in the museum. The violin case can be evidence. Do you realize that we’ve lived there a whole week?”
“Yes,” Claudia sighed. “Just a week. I feel as if I jumped into a lake to rescue a boy, and what I thought was a boy turned out to be a wet, fat log. Some heroine that makes. All wet for nothing.” The tears flowed again.
“You sure are getting wet. You started this adventure just running away. Comfortably. Then the day before yesterday you decided you had to be a hero, too.”
“Heroine. And how should I have known that I wanted to be a heroine when I had no idea I wanted to be a heroine? The statue just gave me a chance … almost gave me a chance. We need to make more of a discovery.”
“So do the people at the museum. What more of a discovery do you think that you, Claudia Kincaid, girl runaway, can make? A tape recording of Michelangelo saying, ‘I did it?’ Well, I’ll clue you in. They didn’t have tape recorders 470 years ago.”
“I know that. But if we make a real discovery, I’ll know how to go back to Greenwich.”
“You take the New Haven, silly. Same way as we got here.” Jamie was losing patience.
“That’s not what I mean. I want to know how to go back to Greenwich different.”
Jamie shook his head. “If you want to go different, you can take a subway to 125th Street and then take the train.”
“I didn’t say differently, I said different. I want to go back different. I, Claudia Kincaid, want to be different when I go back. Like being a heroine is being different.”
“Claudia, I’ll tell you one thing you can do different …”
“Differently,” Claudia interrupted.
“Oh, boloney, Claude. That’s exactly it. You can stop ending every single discussion with an argument about grammar.”
“I’ll try,” Claudia said quietly.
Jamie was surprised at her quiet manner, but he continued to be businesslike, “Now about this discovery.”
“Jamie, I want to know if Michelangelo did it. I can’t explain why exactly. But I feel that I’ve got to know. For sure. One way or the other. A real discovery is going to help me.”
“If the experts don’t know for sure, I don’t mind not knowing. Let’s get tickets for home.” Jamie started toward the New Haven ticket window. Claudia stayed behind. Jamie realized that she was not following, returned to her, and lectured, “You’re never satisfied, Claude. If you get all A’s, you wonder where are the pluses. You start out just running away, and you end up wanting to know everything. Wanting to be Joan of Arc, Clara Barton, and Florence Nightingown all in one.”
“Nightingale,” Claudia sighed. She got up then and followed slowly behind her brother. But she was feeling too low to go home. She couldn’t She just couldn’t. It just wasn’t right.
There were only two windows that didn’t say, “Closed.” They waited a short while as the man in front of them purchased a red commuter’s pass like the one that had brought them to Manhattan.
Jamie addressed the man behind the counter and said, “Two half-fare tickets for…”
“FARMINGTON, CONNECTICUT,” Claudia broke in.
“To get to Farmington, you have to go to Hartford and take a bus,” the ticket agent said.
Jamie nodded to the man and said, “Just a minute, please.” He stepped away from the window, grabbing Claudia’s arm. He pulled her away.
Claudia whispered, “Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”
“What about Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?”
“She lives in Farmington.”
“So what?” Jamie said. “The paper said that her house was closed.”
“Her New York house was closed. Can’t you read anything right?”
“You talk that way, Claude, and …”
“All right, Jamie. All right. I shouldn’t talk that way. But, please let’s go to Farmington. Jamie, please. Can’t you see how badly I need to find out about Angel? I just have a hunch she’ll see us and that she knows.”
“I’ve never known you to have a hunch before, Claude. You usually plan everything.”
“I have, too, had a hunch before.”
“When?”
“That night they moved the statue and I stayed in the washroom and didn’t get caught. That was a hunch. Even if I didn’t know it was a hunch at the time.”
“O.K. We’ll go to Farmington,” Jamie said. He marched to the ticket window and bought passage to Hartford.
They were waiting at track twenty-seven when Claudia said to Jamie, “That’s a first for you, too.”
“What is?” he asked.
“Buying something without asking the price first.”
“Oh, I must have done that before now,” he answered.
“When? Name one time.”
“I can’t think of it right now.” He thought a minute then said, “I haven’t been a tightwad all my life, have I?”
“As long as I’ve known you,” Claudia answered.
“Well, you’ve known me for as long as I’ve known me,” he said smiling.
“Yes,” Claudia said, “I’ve been the oldest child since before you were born.”
They enjoyed the train ride. A large portion of it went over track they had never before seen. Claudia arrived in Hartford feeling much happier than she had since they received the morning’s mail. Her self-assurance had returned to her.
The Hartford station was on Farmington Avenue. Claudia reasoned that they could not be far from Farmington itself. Why take a bus and worry about which stop to get off? Without consulting Jamie she hailed a cab. When it stopped, she got in; Jamie followed. Claudia told the driver to take them to the house of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler in Farmington, Connecticut. Claudia sat back. In a taxi at last.
(And that, Saxonberg, is how I enter the story. Claudia and Jamie Kincaid came to see me about Angel.)
9
UP THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF MY LONG, WIDE, TREE-lined road they came.
“Do you suppose that Mrs. Frankwe
The taxi driver answered, “This ain’t no highway. It’s all her propitty. I tell ya, this dame’s loaded. In front of the house this here begins to resemble wattcha call a normal driveway.”
Claudia discovered that indeed it does. My tree-lined avenue circles in front of my house. Jamie looked up at my house and said, “Another museum.”
Claudia answered, “Then we should feel very much at home.”
Jamie paid the taxi driver. Claudia pulled his arm and whispered, “Tip him.”
Jamie shrugged his shoulders and gave the driver some money. The driver smiled, took off his hat, bowed from the waist, and said, “Thank you, sir.”
After he drove away Claudia asked, “How much did you give him?”
Jamie answered, “All I had.”
“That was stupid,” Claudia said. “Now, how are we going to get back?”
Jamie sighed, “I gave him seventeen cents. So it wasn’t such a great tip. Also, it would never be enough to get us back. We’re broke. How do you feel about that, Miss Taxi Rider?”
“Pretty uncomfortable,” she murmured. “There’s something nice and safe about having money.”
“Well, Claude, we just traded safety for adventure. Come along, Lady Claudia.”
“You can’t call me Lady Claudia anymore. We’re paupers now.”
They ascended the low, wide steps of my porch. Jamie rang the bell. Parks, my butler, answered.
“We’d like to see Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” Jamie told him.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
Claudia cleared her throat, “Claudia and James Kincaid.”
“Just one moment, please.”
They were left standing in the reception hall more than “one-moment-please” before Parks returned.
“Mrs. Frankweiler says she doesn’t know you.”
“We would like her to,” Claudia insisted.
“What is the nature of your business?” he asked. Parks always asks that.
Both hesitated. Jamie decided on an answer first, “Please tell Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler that we are seeking information about the Italian Renaissance.”
Parks was gone a full ten minutes before his second return. “Follow me,” he commanded. “Mrs. Frankweiler will see you in her office.”
Jamie winked at Claudia. He felt certain that mentioning the Italian Renaissance had intrigued me.
They walked behind Parks through my living room, drawing room, and library. Rooms so filled with antique furniture, Oriental rugs, and heavy chandeliers that you complain that they are also filled with antique air. Well, when a house is as old as mine, you can expect everything in it to be thickened by time. Even the air. My office surprised them after all this. It surprises everyone. (You once told me, Saxonberg, that my office looks more like a laboratory than an office. That’s why I call what I do there research.) I suppose it does look like a lab furnished as it is with steel, Formica, vinyl and lit by fluorescence. You must admit though that there’s one feature of the room that looks like an office. That’s the rows and rows of filing cabinets that line the walls.
I was sitting at one of the tables wearing my customary white lab coat and my baroque pearl necklace when the children were brought in.
“Claudia and James Kincaid,” Parks announced.
I allowed them to wait a good long while. Parks had cleared his throat at least six times before I turned around. (Of course, Saxonberg, you know that I hadn’t wasted the time between Park’s announcement that Claudia and James Kincaid wanted to see me and the time they appeared at the office. I was busy doing research. That was also when I called you. You sounded like anything but a lawyer when I called. Disgusting!) I could hear the children shuffling back and forth impatiently. The importance of Parks’s manner is what kept them from interrupting me. They shuffled and scratched, and Jamie even emitted two very false sneezes to attract my attention. It’s particularly easy for me to ignore fake sneezes, and I went on with my research.
I don’t like to waste time, so when I at last turned around, I did so abruptly and asked directly, “Are you the children who have been missing from Greenwich for a week?” (You must admit, Saxonberg, that when the need arises, I have a finely developed sense of theatrics.)
They had become so used to not being discovered that they had entirely forgotten that they were runaways. Now their reaction was one of amazement. They both looked as if their hearts had been pushed through funnels.
“All right,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me. I know the answer.”
“How did you know about us?” Jamie asked.
“Did you call the police?” Claudia asked at the same time.
“From the newspapers,” I replied, pointing to Jamie. “And no,” I replied pointing to Claudia. “Now both of you sit down here and talk about the Italian Renaissance.”
Jamie glanced at the newspapers I had been researching. “We’re in the newspapers?” He seemed pleased.
“Even your pictures,” I nodded.
“I’d like to see that,” Claudia said. “I haven’t had a decent picture taken since I’ve been able to walk.”
“Here you are.” I held out several papers. “Two days before yesterday you were on the fifth page in Hartford, the second page in Stamford and the front page in Greenwich.”
“The front page in Greenwich?” Claudia asked.
“That’s my school picture from the first grade!” Jamie exclaimed. “See, I don’t have one of my front teeth.”
“Goodness! This picture of me is three years old. Mother never even bought my school pictures the last two years.” Claudia held her picture up for Jamie to see. “Do you think I still look like this?”
“Enough!” I said. “Now, what do you want to tell me about the Italian Renaissance?”
“Is your butler calling the police while you stall us here?” Jamie asked.
“No,” I answered. “And I refuse to keep reassuring you. If you keep on with this kind of talk, I shall find you so dull that I shall call your parents as well as the police to get rid of you. Is that clear, young man?”
“Yes,” Jamie muttered.
“Young lady?”
Claudia nodded yes. They both stood with bowed heads. Then I asked Jamie, “Do I frighten you, young man?”
Jamie looked up. “No, ma’am. I’m quite used to frightening things. And you’re really not so bad looking.”
“So bad looking? I wasn’t referring to the way I look.” Actually, I never think much about that any more. I rang for Parks. When he arrived I told him to please bring me a mirror. Everyone waited in silence until Parks returned with the mirror. Silence continued as I picked it up and began a very long and close inspection of my face.
It’s not a bad face except that lately my nose seems to have grown longer, and my upper lip appears to have collapsed against my teeth. These things happen when people get older. And I am getting just that. I ought to do something about my hair besides have Parks cut it for me. It’s altogether white now and looks like frayed nylon thread. Maybe, I’ll take time out and get a permanent wave, except that I hate beauty parlors.
“My nose has gotten longer. Like Pinocchio. But not for the same reason. Well, not most of the time,” I said as I put down the mirror. Claudia gasped, and I laughed. “Oh, so you were thinking the same thing? No matter. I never really look past my eyes. That way I always feel pretty. Windows of the soul, you know.”
Claudia took a step closer to me. “You really do have beautiful eyes. They’re like looking into a kaleidoscope—the way those golden flecks in them keep catching the light.”
She was quite close to me now and actually peering into my face. It was uncomfortable. I put a stop to that.
“Do you spend much time looking in mirrors, Claudia?”
“Some days I do. Some days I don’t.”
“Would you care to look now?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
&
“We want to know about the statue,” Jamie stammered.
“Speak up, boy,” I commanded. “What statue?”
“The statue in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. In Manhattan. The one of the angel.”
“The one you sold for $225,” Claudia added.
I walked over to my files of newspaper clippings and pulled out a manilla folder, the one which has all the newspaper clippings about the auction and the museum buying the statue. It also contains the article about the crowds going to see the statue.
“Why did you sell her?” Claudia asked pointing to the picture of Angel.
“Because I don’t like to donate things.”
“If I owned such a lovely statue, I’d never sell it. Or donate it either. I’d cherish it like a member of my own family,” Claudia preached.
“Considering all the trouble you’ve caused your family, that isn’t saying very much.”
“Have they been worried?” she asked.
“If you hadn’t been so busy looking at your picture in the paper, you could have read that they are nearly frantic.”
Claudia blushed. “But I wrote them a letter. I told them not to worry.”
“Evidently your letter didn’t work. Everyone is worried.”
“I told them not to,” she repeated. “We’re going home anyway as soon as you tell us if Michelangelo carved Angel. Did he do it?”
“That’s my secret,” I answered. “Where have you been all week?”
“That’s our secret,” Claudia answered, lifting her chin high.
“Good for you!” I cheered. Now I was certain that I liked these two children. “Let’s go to lunch.” Examining the two of them in that bright light I saw that they looked wrinkled, dusty, and gray. I instructed them to wash up while I told the cook to prepare for two more.
Parks led Jamie to one bathroom; my maid, Hor-tense, led Claudia to another. Apparently, Claudia had never enjoyed washing up so much. She took forever doing it. She spent a great deal of time looking into all the mirrors. Examining her eyes very carefully, she decided that she, too, was beautiful. But mostly her thoughts were about the beautiful black marble bathtub in that bathroom.