The Mistaken Masterpiece Read online

  “Ohhhh,” I groan. “Life is so unfair. I’m going to sleep. When I wake up, all this is going to be a bad dream. My nose didn’t get smushed beyond recognition and my father definitely did not meet the most awesome guy in the galaxy.”

  “Or forget to ask him for an autograph for his beautiful but tragically disfigured daughter,” adds my betrayer, who then bolts, laughing, from my room before I have a chance to hit him with a pillow.

  Or something much, much heavier.

  Parents just don’t understand. (Hey, somebody ought to write a song)

  I sleep away the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, too. When I finally open my eyes and look at the clock, I am thoroughly confused, thinking it is three-thirty in the morning. And then I reach up to touch my face and it all comes back to me. The bandage is still there. It wasn’t a dream.

  Dragging myself to the bathroom, I check myself out in the mirror again. The swelling around my eyes has gone down quite a bit, but now the circles are darker. It’s official: I am a raccoon.

  I crawl back into my bed to pout some more about the general unfairness of life. A few moments later, Dad knocks on the door.

  “I have to leave for the restaurant,” he says, “but your friends are here to keep you company. They’re helping themselves to some cookies in the kitchen—I wasn’t sure if you were ready for visitors.”

  “They’re going to see me sooner or later,” I say. “Might as well get the abuse over with now.”

  “Oh, and this came for you.” He sets a box on my bed.

  “What is it?”

  “It is a box.”

  “Thanks, Dad. Where did it come from?” There’s no return address, just my name and apartment number.

  “The lobby. The doorman—”

  “No! I mean—oh, you know what I mean.” I peel the tape off one end and open it. Inside, wrapped loosely in newspaper, is a shallow brass bowl, about a foot across and only a couple of inches deep. It definitely falls into the “used” category; it has its share of dings and dents and is badly in need of polishing. It’s no thing of beauty.

  “Huh,” Dad says. “Let me see.”

  I dig through the newspaper again, looking for a card or a note, but find nothing. “I don’t get it. Why would someone send me an old bowl?”

  “This is maybe a good question for your friends. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “Nope. All set. But, Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “If Nate Etan comes in …”

  “I know. Autograph. Picture.”

  “Riiiight.”

  Margaret, Becca, and Leigh Ann stick their heads into my room, and I can’t help laughing at their different reactions as they see me in my damaged state.

  Becca is her usual brutally honest self. “Holy crap, Soph. You look terrible.”

  “You should see the other girl,” I say.

  “Yeah, I hear Livvy’s hand is really beat up,” she says.

  Leigh Ann, trying to be nice, lies to me, which I appreciate. “No, really, it’s not that bad. The way Margaret described it, I was expecting worse. It does look like it hurts, though.”

  Margaret sees the glass as half full, or in this case, the nose as only half broken. “It looks a lot better than it did this morning. How does it feel?”

  It? Not me, just my nose. Like it’s a separate entity, with a life force of its own.

  “Eh, comme çi, comme ça. Better. It kinda aches. And I really need to blow it, but I’m afraid to.”

  “Ye-ouch,” Leigh Ann says, cringing at the thought.

  “Oh, go on,” Becca encourages. “No pain, no gain.”

  “What’s the story with this bowl?” Margaret asks, holding it up and examining it.

  “Oh, that,” I say. “I was hoping you could tell me. It showed up here today in this box, with no card, no nothing.”

  Becca turns her nose up at it. “Dude, it’s ugly. Looks like a used birdbath. Now come on, get your butt out of bed. We’ve got stuff to do.”

  “We do?”

  “Didn’t you get my message?” Leigh Ann asks. “We have to go over to the park. Nate Etan could be there right now.”

  “Well, you guys won’t believe this, but my dad met him last night.”

  “What! Where?” Leigh Ann exclaims. “Did he get his autograph? A picture?”

  “He came into the restaurant with a bunch of other people. And no, Dad just talked to him. He didn’t know I liked him.”

  “Well, yeah, I mean, how would he?” Becca asks, looking around the room. “His pictures only completely cover one wall. Maybe when you run out of space in here and have to start sticking them up out in the hallway …”

  “What did he say?” Leigh Ann asks. “What was he like?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Dad said he seemed nice.”

  “Nice? That’s it?” Becca says. “Man, your dad really is kind of clueless, isn’t he, Soph?”

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  Mom puts the kibosh on any thoughts I have of going with them to the park. I’m just about to pull on my favorite denim jacket when she strolls in the door carrying her violin and a couple of bags of groceries.

  She almost cries—again—when she sees my face. “Oh, sweetie. How are you feeling? Are you in any pain? What can I get you?” Then she realizes I have my jacket on. “Sophie, you’re not going out—not yet. You have to take it easy. You should be lying down.”

  “I just got up!” I protest, but Mom steers me to the couch, pulling my jacket off on the way.

  “That’s all right. It’s probably too late, anyway,” says Margaret. “By the time we get over there, it’ll be dark and we wouldn’t be able to see him.”

  “Who is this him you want to see?” Mom asks. “Raf?”

  “Nope, her other boyfriend,” Becca teases.

  Mom raises an eyebrow at me. “Other boyfriend?”

  “First of all, Raf is not my boyfriend. He’s my … he’s a … well, anyway, it’s not Raf. Nate Etan is filming a movie in the park. And Leigh Ann is just as obsessed as I am. Maybe more.”

  “Well, at least that explains the crowd of girls,” Mom says.

  “What crowd of girls?” Leigh Ann asks nervously. “Oh no. We’re too late.”

  “I walked through the park on my way home, and they were lined up by the boathouse. Hundreds of them.”

  “Well, it’s not like you could expect it to stay a secret,” Margaret says.

  Leigh Ann sticks out her bottom lip. “A girl can hope, can’t she?”

  Indeed she can.

  I’m having my breakfast, totally engrossed in reading the back of a box of Lucky Charms and enjoying every sickeningly sweet, marshmallowy bite, when my dad sits down across from me.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say, peeking around the cereal box. “Why are you up so early?”

  He reaches over and pushes the box aside. Of course, he can’t do it without a disdainful French grunt at its contents. He slides a large envelope across the table to me without a word.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  He shrugs as only a true Frenchman can. “Nothing big. You probably won’t like it.” He starts to pull it back.

  I slap my hand down on the envelope, my mouth opening in disbelief. “You didn’t.”

  Another shrug.

  I peek inside the envelope. He did it. He really did it. “Ohmigosh. Dad. I love you.” I pull out a glossy eight-by-ten photo of Nate Etan—and it’s signed!

  For Sophie—hope you’re feeling better! XOXO, Nate Etan.

  I jump up and hug my dad. “Thank you thank you thank you. You are the best. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”

  “What’s this all about?” Mom asks, walking in mid-hug.

  “Your daughter has decided that I’m all right after all,” Dad says. “And she hasn’t even heard the good part yet.”

  “There’s more?” I ask.

  “Oui. Friday afternoon, you and your friends are going to s
pend the day with him.”

  My knees give out on me and I sit down right there on the kitchen floor. “Whachewtalkin’boutDad?”

  He looks to Mom for a translation.

  “Trust me, she’s happy,” Mom says.

  “How?” I manage to ask.

  “Apparently the young man spent his summers in France with his father, who is a diplomat of some kind. And my poulet au vinaigre reminds him of his childhood—he came back last night and ordered it again.”

  “And then you asked him for a picture?”

  “In a way. First he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Mom says. “What kind of offer?”

  “He has to go on location to London for a week or two, and then he’s coming back to New York for a few days of filming. He wants me to be his personal chef while he’s in town. He offered me a ridiculous amount of money for the job, so I told him I would do it on one condition.”

  “Which is?” I ask breathlessly.

  “That you and your friends get to meet him and spend a day on the set. There’s no school on Friday, right? I checked your schedule and it’s some kind of teachers’ day or something. You four are going to be his guests for the whole day.”

  It’s a good thing I’m already on the floor, because all the blood leaves my head.

  “Sophie, are you all right?” Mom asks.

  My head is spinning as I pull myself to my feet and squeeze her and then Dad. The blood starts to return to my head, giving me a headache, and that’s when it hits me. Friday is only two days away.

  “Ohhh nooooo!” I cry.

  Poor Dad is very confused. “What’s wrong? I thought you were happy.”

  “My nose,” I say, pointing at the mass of bandages holding my face together.

  “What’s the matter? Does it hurt?”

  “No! It’s fine. But he can’t see me looking like this!”

  Mom, who, like Margaret, always sees the glass as half full, tries to convince me that, one, it doesn’t matter, that he’ll be happy to meet someone who’s obviously a real fan, regardless of how I look, and, two, by Friday I won’t be quite so hideous. Okay, so those aren’t her exact words, but they might as well be. I’m still going to have this stupid thing on my nose, but even if I take it off, everything under it and around my eyes is still going to be gnarly-looking.

  “Livvy,” I mutter. “This is all her fault. God, it’s so humiliating.”

  What if those fifty million Frenchmen are wrong? Has anyone even considered that possibility?

  On the way to school, I wear a Yankees cap pulled down over my face as far as possible. I know I’ll be able to remain incognito in the cafeteria until the first-period bell rings, but sooner or later I’m going to have to walk past Sister Eugenia’s office. For somebody who, according to school legend, came to the New World on the Santa Maria, her eyesight is just fine, thank you very much; she can spot a uniform infraction from an ocean away. Make that two oceans.

  “It doesn’t look that bad, Soph,” Leigh Ann says. “Let me put a little makeup on those circles—I’ll bet I could make them almost invisible.”

  “How ’bout that big ol’ bandage?” Becca says. “Can you make that disappear, too?”

  “C’mon, Becca. We need to be supportive,” lectures Margaret, who then turns to me. “Okay, Sophie, what is this big news you have? Some kind of secret plan for Friday, you said.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you, but, guys, you have to promise: no screaming. I almost fainted when my dad told me, but I did not scream.”

  It’s a self-improvement thing. Ever since that now-famous incident when I looked out the window in Mr. Eliot’s room, saw that face staring back at me, and screamed bloody murder—right in the middle of English class—I’ve been working on keeping my emotions under control. How am I doing? For now, let’s just say it’s … a work in progress.

  “Promise?”

  “We promise. Get on with it,” Becca nags.

  So I tell them.

  They scream. Like banshees—whatever those are.

  I mean, jeez! Suddenly everyone in the cafeteria is looking right at us, and believe me, in my current condition, that is just about the last thing I want. I bury my head in my hands as the three of them work through the first stage (shock and disbelief) of Acute Celebrity Encounter Disorder (ACED) and progress directly into the second: eternal gratitude to yours truly for having a dad with the proper connections. When I finally lift my head to acknowledge their vows of lifelong devotion to me, however, I see a couple of eighth graders hovering over our table. Not a promising situation. As seventh graders, we know all too well that we rank only slightly above cockroaches in the upper-school hierarchy, but the occasional eighth grader loves to remind us of our lowly place in the world.

  These two are not trying to bully us out of our table, though.

  “Um, aren’t you the girls who are, like, detectives or something?” the tall one asks, catching us off guard.

  “Uh-huh,” Becca growls. “What about it?”

  Margaret elbows her. “Don’t provoke the natives,” she whispers.

  I recognize the other one as the snooty, headset-wearing wannabe producer from the Dickens of a Banquet, which took place back when we were looking for the Ring of Rocamadour.

  She looks right at me. “We were, like, wondering, um, if you, like, had a nose job. You know, the bandage. And, like, you used to have kind of a … well, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” I say, glaring at her. “What did I used to have?”

  “Never mind,” she says with an embarrassed giggle.

  “I told you,” her dim friend says, dragging her away. “Those stupid doctors won’t touch you till you’re sixteen at least. You’re just gonna have to wait to get yours done.”

  I continue to give them the death-ray stare as they make their way across the cafeteria. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose,” I insist. “I mean, usually. Today doesn’t count. I do not need a nose job.” I look at Margaret. “Do I?”

  “Of course not,” Margaret replies. “Don’t listen to those idiots. You have a classic Gallic profile. And what is it they say? Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong, right? Plenty of people would kill for your nose.”

  “Speaking of your nose, there goes its worst enemy,” says Leigh Ann.

  It’s Livvy Klack and the rest of the Clique de Klack strutting in like they own the joint. Beth Aronson, who is Livvy’s first lieutenant, spots me and points right at my nose. She practically falls on the floor laughing. The lower-ranking minions all do the same, but Livvy, oddly enough, does not join in these reindeer games.

  “Could you be bigger losers?” she says—to her disciples, not to us.

  Which leaves everyone involved speechless, at least for a few seconds.

  “What just happened?” I finally ask as they move on to their usual table across the cafeteria.

  “Make a note of the time,” Margaret says. “I think we have just seen the first evidence that Livvy Klack has human DNA after all.”

  “Shoot. There goes my hyena theory,” says Becca.

  “You don’t think she actually feels bad about yesterday, do you?” I ask. “She didn’t exactly apologize after she whacked me.”

  Leigh Ann laughs. “Hey, anything’s possible. Since I started hanging out with you guys, I’ve seen all kinds of stuff that I wouldn’t have believed.”

  It does make me wonder. Call me naive if you must, but I don’t think Livvy crashed into me on purpose. Sure, she was annoyed that I’d beaten her in that 400 IM, and was trying to show me up, but for now, at least, I choose to believe it was an accident.

  Friday, 6:30 a.m. I’m standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom, waiting for Margaret. We’re supposed to meet Becca and Leigh Ann in an hour near the carousel in Central Park, which is where the day’s filming is scheduled to take place. As excited as I am to be spending the day with an honest-to-God movie star, I’m fe
eling a little guilty, broken nose and all. At this very moment, all my teammates are in the midst of whatever torture Michelle has conjured up for the morning practice. And here I am, putting on makeup and debating whether to take off the bandage. I start peeling up around the edges of the tape, trying to see how it looks underneath. So far, so good. I’m about to give it a good yank when Mom stops just outside my door.

  “Oh, good—I was making sure you were up. I should have known you’d be dressed and ready to go. I’m so excited for you girls!”

  “Um, Mom? I know the doctor said to keep it on till Monday, but do you think I could take this thing off? I’ll put a new one on tonight, I promise.”

  She gives me a look of pure pity and nods. “Go ahead. Just take it easy, okay? No soccer. Or fistfights.”

  I hug her. “Can you help me get it off? I think that doctor used superglue or something.”

  When the bandage is finally off, I get my first look at my nose in what seems like weeks. It’s not too bad; the swelling has gone down, and it doesn’t look any more crooked than before. The exact spot where Livvy clocked me with that big ol’ paw of hers is clearly visible as a purple line across the middle.

  Mom cringes as she wipes away the bits of glue and schmutz with her thumb and a little spit. “I’m not hurting you, am I? There—good as new. Well, almost.”

  The doorbell rings, and Mom lets Margaret in.

  “Hey, the nose looks pretty good. And your black eyes are fading, too.”

  “Well, I got a little, um, artificial help.”

  “Makeup? You? Why, Sophie St. Pierre!” She spins me around in the light to get the full effect and to check out the chic-but-not-trying-too-hard-to-look-chic look I put together (with a little help from a late-night consultation with Leigh Ann, my fashion guru).

  “Are you going to be warm enough in that?” Mom asks, eyeing my denim jacket. “It’s not going to get much above forty today.”

  “Ah, but I have a secret,” I say. “Layers. I have my long underwear on under everything. That way, I can stay warm while still looking cool. Leigh Ann is a genius when it comes to fashion.”