Chapter 6
After what Emily had said, I felt like was still in France, instead of in America. I heard a deep rumbling in my stomach. Emily must have heard it too, because she said, “You must be hungry. Here is the menu.” She handed a purple menu to me. “You may order anything you want.” While I was still flipping through it, she gently showed me where the French food section was.
“How did you…” I tried to say to her. But she had already gone to take care of another boy, who had broken his arm. When she came back to me, I said that I wanted the escargot, the foie gras, and the boeuf bourguignon. She walked away into the hallway to get some food for me and the other kids.
When she came back, pushing a cart of food, she yelled, “Lunchtime!” the children gathered around the food and took their trays of food. One particularly mean boy pointed to my escargot and pinched his nose, as if it were stinky.
“Hey!” I shouted, as best as I could in English. “Not nice!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath. “But that still stinks… like you!”
“Even not nicer!” I argued, struggling in my French accent.
As I enjoyed the delicious food, that mean boy called his posse of mean friends. They cheered me on when I started to eat the snail, but then punched me on my tummy after I ate it for some strange American reason.
When it was too much to take, I vomited onto their face—partly on purpose, partly by mistake.
“Eww!” they yelled in a synchronized way.
“Serves you right,” I said victoriously, folding my arms. Then, Emily came to clean up the mess, while I told the whole story—in English!
“In a few days, you will be leaving us. It is almost time for you to go. You have almost recovered.” She said. When I started to cry, she left me. I started to think about my unluckiness in life. As I sat there thinking all about the sadness in my life, a memory came to mind. I half remembered that Charlotte’s kidnapper had turned left, to the abandoned theater.
I reached into my knapsack to pull out my journal to record that thought, but I felt a warm tongue on my hand. I realized that Acorn had been in my knapsack for days, with nothing to eat. I pulled him out, and cradled him in my arms. He pressed the button with his nose that would alert the nurse about needs. When Emily came in, I told her that I was still hungry. I stared hard at the American selection of food, then ordered the plate of baby carrots, gravy, and steak.
When it arrived, Emily gave me a cup of water. I put it to Acorn’s mouth, and he chugged the water down. He certainly looked very thirsty. I handed him the plate of food, and he gobbled down as much as he could fill. After he finished it, he licked the plate clean just like I did after I finished a meal.
A few days passed, and I was ready to go. I put my knapsack on, and Acorn was riding on top of the pink suitcase. Emily had used her own money, and had booked a hotel room at Hilton for me. I wondered why she had done that for me. She was merely a hospital nurse. Anyway, I thanked her six hundred trillion times before getting on the car that would take me to the hotel.
The man in the car was (I thought) Dr. Nixon. But boy, was I wrong. In the middle of the car ride, I thought I saw someone’s feet sticking out from under the seat. I blinked a few times, and rubbed my eyes. I tried pinching myself on the arm to see if I was dreaming. After my arm was sore and red, I realized that they were Dr. Nixon’s feet! They were the only feet in the world that were size 34! He even won the world records for that!
The driver turned around and flashed a scary, toothy grin at me. “You… you…” I said. Before I could finish my sentence, a wild turn crashed me into the window. I tried to unlock the doors and escape, but it was practically impossible. I tried to break the windows with my fists, but that
didn’t exactly seem to work. Besides, it WAS shatter-resistant glass. I tried to plunge my favorite purple pen into his back, but the wild turns and swerves he took always drove the pen into the seat next to me.
He stopped abruptly, and I swear I flew out of the seat. I would have crashed through the front window, but I held onto the steering wheel. I unlocked all the doors, and Acorn seemed to be reading my mind that day. He opened the driver door, and I kicked the kidnapper out of the car. We high-fived as best as we could with Acorn gripping the armrest for his life, while I had both hands on the steering wheel, one leg trying to hold the door from opening too much, and one foot on the brakes.
A red stop light came. I sighed with relief. I could finally pause my hectic driving. Seeing much time to spare ahead, I closed the door, closed the windows, and locked everything. Why was this stoplight taking so long? I saw busy moms come and go, rushing students dashing here and there, but one thing I saw caught my eye. It was Charlotte’s kidnapper! He stood in front of the car, as if he were about to commit suicide. I would have run into him when the light finally turned green, had not Acorn tugged my shirt to the right.
Now that I could half-officially drive a car, I could try to rescue Charlotte. I turned around the block, and came back to the theater. It’s once majestic sign hung loose and waved in the wind like one of those old west deserted towns with tumbleweed rolling everywhere. I stepped into there, holding a kung-fu stick, ready to strike at a nanosecond’s notice. I passed the ticket booth, where I thought there was a standing person. It was, in reality, just a basketball on a stand. I must have passed a bunch of seats, because there was the stage looming in front of me. This place seemed familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I sat down in one of the seats and took a deep breath. The whole theater was silent, except for the occasional creak of the sign outside. I was just about to leave when I heard a defiant voice say, “I will never tell you where my friend is!”
“Then I will kill you!” the deep voice disputed.
“I would rather die then tell you where my friend is!” Charlotte’s bold voice said.
I didn’t know what I was doing, because I went backstage and saw Charlotte tied up with her head locked in a guillotine. I realized that I must do the right thing for Charlotte. I heard my angel conscience say, “You must do whatever’s right,” it said in a sweet voice. But then I would hear the devil conscience’s voice go, “I thought you hated it whenever she hogged the showers.” And then I heard the angel say, “But friends are friends!” The devil disagreed by saying, “You can have your life if you let her die.” I had finally made my choice. Ms. Odette had always called me her sweet little angel, but now I was partly expecting to be one.
“If you want her, you’ve got to get me first.” I said, in the bravest voice I could find. Instead, what came out was rather a squeak. The kidnapper didn’t seem to hear me. I repeated it, this time, with shouting, but it turned out to sound ghost-like.
They both turned their heads to look at me, but Charlotte beat him at it. She made a gesture for me to duck down, and I was so used to taking orders from Charlotte, I automatically ducked. The kidnapper must’ve heard my ghost-like voice, because he said, “AHHHH!!! The phantom of the opera is here!” I watched him flee the theater. I wondered, what the heck is the phantom of the opera?
“Psst, over here,” she whispered.
“Of course.” I said. As I untied her, I told her about what happened when I was in the hospital. Then I showed her the great sum of money the hospital had given me to keep myself alive until I found a home.
Suddenly, we heard footsteps and voices of two men. “The phantom of the opera is in that room.” He advised the other in a shaky voice. “I heard it with my own ears.”
“Let’s go see if that is really true.” The other said. The old door creaked open, and crack of light shone into the room.
“And the girl’s gone! The phantom of the opera freed her!” the first one said.
“Do something quick,” Charlotte’s face pleaded.
“I have come to haunt you…” I said in the ghostliest voice I could find. I even said it in English—clearly!
“AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!” they screamed. “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!” Charlotte and I giggled in the dark until our bellies hurt. We scurried like mice out of the theater and saw that the two kidnappers had driven off into the distance.
Luckily, they didn’t take Dr. Nixon’s car. We climbed into the car and freed Dr. Nixon. He had many bruises on his head, but he claimed he was fine. On the way to the Hilton hotel, he told us the story of how he was kidnapped. He even stopped at the local farmer’s market and bought us some home-made ice cream! While we walked along, we watched a little play. Those people in the play sure were making big bucks out of it.
Dr. Nixon drove us to the hotel.
We signed in at the front desk, and the nice lady gave us the key to our room. Dr. Nixon told us we could live there as long as we wanted. Before he left, he tipped his hat to us and waved good-bye. We rode the elevator, strode down the hallway, and turned left. I unlocked the door and we flopped down onto our beds, exhausted. I was the first to get up. “Wow, look at that,” I said to nobody. I pointed at the view out the window. I could see the famous movie stars’ homes and a few big letters: Hollywood. I had read somewhere that toyon trees were actually sometimes called Hollywood trees.
“Huh?” Charlotte joined me, then looked out the window. “I see what you’re talking about.”
“Isn’t the view fantastic?” I asked.
“I believe so,” she agreed.
“Let’s go buy some ice cream with some of our money!” I exclaimed. We went to the farmer’s market and bought some Neapolitan ice cream, where it tasted best. We sat down on a bench in Barnsdall park and started to eat the ice cream, spoon after spoon after spoon. When it was nearly time for the sunset, we climbed back into our hotel room and gazed at the sunset. Hues of orange and yellow and red and pink and purple filled the sky. I had memorized the book The Little Prince, in which the little prince moved his chair on his little planet so much that he saw 44 sunsets!
Pretty soon, we were getting hungry, so we called service. They brought us our favorite foods: escargot, foie gras, and boeuf bourguignon. After we finished eating, we changed into our matching Mickey Mouse pajamas. They had a baby blue background and Mickey mouse on it, winking. Ms. Odette bought it when we both got 100 % on a final test. We fell asleep, listening to the sweet sound of the grasshoppers and crickets singing their sad but sweet melody on the windowsill.