dimensions of the storage room, the space behind the next—and final—door must be about eighty feet by thirty-five. This huge chamber is accessed not by a simple metal fire door like all the others, but by a cold slab of stainless steel hung on a continuous barrel hinge. It is locked now, as always.
When he raps one knuckle against the door, it sounds solid enough to stand against battalions with sledgehammers, an impossible challenge for a nine-year-old boy.
If Harley is in there, he is lost. Leaning his forehead against the steel, however, Crispin convinces himself that the boy is not yet in this mysterious room. He is certain that he would know if his brother was this close and restrained; he would surely feel some of Harley’s despair.
He turns out the lights and retreats to the ground floor.
By the time he reaches the library, he decides that he must call for help. But call who? Giles Gregorio might be the richest man on Earth, and Clarette says that he is friends with not just the chief of police and the mayor, but also with kings and presidents all over the world. Crispin is a mere boy, with no money of his own, with no friend but his brother.
Firemen. Firemen are brave. They risk their lives for people. Maybe a fireman would believe him.
In the library, after ascertaining that no one lurks among the maze of stacks, he snatches up the telephone handset to call the fire department. No dial tone. He repeatedly depresses the plungers, but the line remains dead.
He doesn’t need to go room to room, trying other phones. He knows they will all be useless to him.
Clarette, Giles, and members of the staff have cell phones. But Crispin would have to be invisible to slip among them and steal one.
Before coming to Theron Hall, they didn’t have computers. But they never use those here, Mr. Mordred has not taught them, and Crispin doesn’t know how to send an email.
From a library shelf, he snares a book, another boy’s-adventure novel. He doesn’t intend to read it, only to use it as a prop.
Pretending to be immersed in the story, he wanders the house, apparently reading as he walks, pausing here and there to sit, hoping that when he is seen, he will not appear to be engaged in a desperate search.
After an hour and a half, Crispin has ventured everywhere that he is able, without discovering any hint of Harley’s whereabouts. He has even dared to enter his parents’ suite to search it.
Other than the basement room behind the steel door, the only places inaccessible to him are the servants’ quarters on the ground floor and Jardena’s suite on the third. If he thought Jardena might be out shopping, he would risk entering her domain, but in light of the approaching celebration, the matriarch is almost certainly at home. Preparing.
He suspects that Harley isn’t in Jardena’s suite or locked in one of the servants’ rooms. His perception in recent days that Theron Hall is bigger than it appears to be, that it’s continuously growing larger, now serves as a basis for a new conviction that the house contains secret passageways and hidden rooms that he must somehow find if he is to rescue his brother.
At six o’clock, he is in the children’s dining room, as they expect him to be, pretending to read his novel at the table, when Arula enters with the serving cart.
“I don’t know where Harley is,” Crispin says. “Probably playing something somewhere. He’s always losing track of time.”
“Oh, I guess no one told you,” Arula says, as she sets his plate before him. “The poor thing had a toothache. Your mother has taken him to the dentist.”
“Do dentists work this late?”
“For a child of a man as important and admired as Mr. Gregorio, people are willing to make all kinds of exceptions.”
After Arula leaves, Crispin stares for a while at his food: two chili-cheese dogs and french fries. He will never eat another bite of anything prepared in Theron Hall.
Anticipating a visit from Nanny
When he raps one knuckle against the door, it sounds solid enough to stand against battalions with sledgehammers, an impossible challenge for a nine-year-old boy.
If Harley is in there, he is lost. Leaning his forehead against the steel, however, Crispin convinces himself that the boy is not yet in this mysterious room. He is certain that he would know if his brother was this close and restrained; he would surely feel some of Harley’s despair.
He turns out the lights and retreats to the ground floor.
By the time he reaches the library, he decides that he must call for help. But call who? Giles Gregorio might be the richest man on Earth, and Clarette says that he is friends with not just the chief of police and the mayor, but also with kings and presidents all over the world. Crispin is a mere boy, with no money of his own, with no friend but his brother.
Firemen. Firemen are brave. They risk their lives for people. Maybe a fireman would believe him.
In the library, after ascertaining that no one lurks among the maze of stacks, he snatches up the telephone handset to call the fire department. No dial tone. He repeatedly depresses the plungers, but the line remains dead.
He doesn’t need to go room to room, trying other phones. He knows they will all be useless to him.
Clarette, Giles, and members of the staff have cell phones. But Crispin would have to be invisible to slip among them and steal one.
Before coming to Theron Hall, they didn’t have computers. But they never use those here, Mr. Mordred has not taught them, and Crispin doesn’t know how to send an email.
From a library shelf, he snares a book, another boy’s-adventure novel. He doesn’t intend to read it, only to use it as a prop.
Pretending to be immersed in the story, he wanders the house, apparently reading as he walks, pausing here and there to sit, hoping that when he is seen, he will not appear to be engaged in a desperate search.
After an hour and a half, Crispin has ventured everywhere that he is able, without discovering any hint of Harley’s whereabouts. He has even dared to enter his parents’ suite to search it.
Other than the basement room behind the steel door, the only places inaccessible to him are the servants’ quarters on the ground floor and Jardena’s suite on the third. If he thought Jardena might be out shopping, he would risk entering her domain, but in light of the approaching celebration, the matriarch is almost certainly at home. Preparing.
He suspects that Harley isn’t in Jardena’s suite or locked in one of the servants’ rooms. His perception in recent days that Theron Hall is bigger than it appears to be, that it’s continuously growing larger, now serves as a basis for a new conviction that the house contains secret passageways and hidden rooms that he must somehow find if he is to rescue his brother.
At six o’clock, he is in the children’s dining room, as they expect him to be, pretending to read his novel at the table, when Arula enters with the serving cart.
“I don’t know where Harley is,” Crispin says. “Probably playing something somewhere. He’s always losing track of time.”
“Oh, I guess no one told you,” Arula says, as she sets his plate before him. “The poor thing had a toothache. Your mother has taken him to the dentist.”
“Do dentists work this late?”
“For a child of a man as important and admired as Mr. Gregorio, people are willing to make all kinds of exceptions.”
After Arula leaves, Crispin stares for a while at his food: two chili-cheese dogs and french fries. He will never eat another bite of anything prepared in Theron Hall.
Anticipating a visit from Nanny
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