Chapter Two
Caught In the Cookie Jar
One Hour Earlier…
Maria’s hand was just about to fall upon the stone surface of the massive statue that stood in front of her… but before her fingers could touch it, she was startled by a woman’s clearly projected voice.
“Young lady!” came the voice, strict and stern, and sharp as a whip. It was a voice that gave the immediate impression of authority, the voice of a person who was undoubtedly accustomed to being obeyed. “What, in the name of Amerigo Vespucci, do you think you are doing?”
Maria was quite impressed by the timber of that voice, and she found herself compelled to freeze in place. Despite the fact that she knew she should gracefully retract her extended hand, and assume a posture of innocence and naiveté, she found this impossible to do.
The voice that had been directed at Maria was simply too powerful, and it had a rather unbalancing effect on her. It was a voice that was crisp and brisk, cutting to the core like a late autumn wind.
Instead of withdrawing her hand and assuming the aforementioned position of desired innocence, Maria stood in an off-balanced pose, limbs akimbo like a total goofball. She precariously teetered in her odd (and suddenly uncomfortable) position, while she forced her freckled face into a smile that she hoped might be reassuring to the woman who had so efficiently scolded her.
She was currently standing on the ball of one foot, with her toes flexed within the confines of her sneaker, desperately trying to support her awkwardly distributed weight. Her other foot was well behind her, as she had been forced to stretch it out when she leaned over the barrier that was designed to prevent people from doing precisely what she was doing at the moment.
One hand was stretched out toward the statue that she was attempting to lay her fingers upon. Her other hand, Maria came to notice with dismay, had taken up the practice of wildly windmilling about behind her, in an effort to counterbalance her overextended reach. As such, she did not look particularly inconspicuous, as the entire student body of Hollow Oak Elementary came to turn its eyes upon her.
It probably looked, Maria realized, a whole lot like she had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Young lady!” the woman called again. “I see you are going to employ the disagreeable tactic of making me repeat myself, and so I shall, though I am in no way pleased with being forced to do so. And so, it is with great reluctance and irritation that I shall ask once again: What do you think you are doing?”
There were roughly three hundred students on the field trip, and all of them were currently gathered about this dialogue. Once the woman had finished her scolding, they collectively turned their eyes upon Maria, waiting to see how she would respond.
“Who?” Maria asked, as she stood precariously perched on one foot. She stretched her freckled face even farther, until her cheeks burned, testing the limits of her formidable smiling ability. “Me? Are you speaking to me, ma’am?”
A few giggles could be heard rippling through the sea of students, amid the shuffling of feet and murmuring.
“Yes,” the woman replied sharply. Her tone made it clear that she was neither amused nor bamboozled by Maria’s efforts to disarm her. “You.”
Maria had taken the briefest of moments to return her eyes to the object of her desire: that incredible statue that she so desperately wanted to lay her fingers upon. She knew that such a thing was forbidden, but she meant it no harm.
It was, quite simply, a breathtaking sculpture. It spoke to her, one might say. There was something about it that she could not define.
If only she could lightly brush the tips of her fingers upon it… and surely, she would not harm it, for it was sturdily built from a single, massive slab of granite, and it was in superb condition. It was marred by only the slightest touches of age, which was quite remarkable, considering that it had most likely been built thousands of years ago.
Maria turned away from the statue once more, her fingers remaining inches from their goal. As if magnetically summoned by the power of that voice, and unable to resist its pull, she swiveled her head. She looked away from the magnificent statue that had previously held her gaze, and redirected her attention to the woman who had scolded her.
She was a sharply dressed lady in her mid-thirties, and though she was small and slender, she seemed anything but weak. Every inch of her slightly built frame radiated a professional, no-nonsense attitude, and a strength that contrasted her petite stature.
She wore a suit that was charcoal in color and immaculately tailored. Her black, highly polished shoes gleamed beneath the lights, and not a single speck of dust dared to tarnish their surfaces. Raven-colored hair was tied back into a tight bun at the back of her head, held in place by a clasp that had been fashioned from a midnight-blue seashell.
Nickel-plated glasses were perched on her slender nose, and behind the lenses, a pair of penetrating eyes were directed at Maria. Those intense eyes were a deep, rich green, startling in their clarity. They conveyed alertness and a great sharpness of mind, and Maria found herself a bit unsettled to be the newfound focus of those eyes. The woman was, in a word, intimidating.
Her name was Evelyn Magellan, and for the past twenty minutes, she had been giving the students a tour of the Portsmouth Museum of Historical Artifacts. As the chief curator of the museum, she had a vast and thorough knowledge of the exhibits, which she dispensed as she led the students about.
Although she had thus far conducted her tour with the utmost professionalism, she was somewhat aloof and distracted. It seemed that she was not particularly excited about giving the tour to the students, and was just going through the motions… as if she were anxious to get back to greater, more pressing matters. For Evelyn, the tour was perhaps nothing more than a bothersome obligation that she had to fulfill, before returning to the duties that truly interested her.
“Oh, me?” Maria asked again, trying to stall for time, as she awkwardly perched on the ball of one foot. “Nothing, ma’am. I’m just standing here. Yep. Just standing here, that’s all.”
Evelyn arched one eyebrow. “It appears to me that you are doing a great deal more than just standing there.”
“Oh… well, it does a look a tad suspicious, I’ll grant you that. But I always stand like this, you see,” Maria assured Evelyn, as she windmilled her arm about for balance. She wobbled on one foot, desperately trying to ignore the giggles of her classmates. “It builds character and resilience, I believe.”
“That,” Evelyn slowly stated, “I find extremely unlikely.”
“Well, I suppose I should also point out that I’m a bit of a weirdo, ma’am,” Maria added, and this was met with more giggles from her peers.
Despite her uncomfortable position, Maria could not help but be somewhat impressed that she had thus far managed to maintain her balance and keep from spilling over. She felt as though this unconventional interrogation had been going on for an awfully long time.
If anything, Evelyn’s expression had turned even stonier. Her voice became quieter, but somehow, this only enhanced her aura of menace. “A weirdo, did you say, young lady?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” Maria confirmed. Her tone became somber, and it was a strange contrast to the buoyant smile on her face. “A first rate weirdo, I am. You can ask anybody here. There’s nothing that can be done for it – that’s what my dad says, anyway. But then again, my dad says that being weird is a good thing; it just means you see the world in a different light, a unique perspective. He always tells me, ‘Maria, if somebody says you’re weird, you should smile and thank them!’ Or break-dance, you can also do some break-dancing as a way of expressing your gratitude, which is pretty weird in and of itself. When was the last time you saw somebody break-dance? I bet it wasn’t very recent, was it?”
Evelyn’s eyes had narrowed as Maria expounded upon her theories about weirdoes. Based on her expression, it did not appear that the curator was particularly fond of
having questions about break-dancing fired in her direction.
Maria had the distinct impression that she was being closely scrutinized… in fact, she was beginning to feel something like an interesting insect beneath the lens of a microscope. Evelyn Magellan could have that effect on a person, Maria was discovering.