Wood Sprites(81)
“And Earth for Humans is all worked up too,” Elle added. “It’s the only reason my mom sent me to school. She said that with elves in New York City, no one is going to even think about the undamaged art at the gallery.”
Louise had never considered the fact that the terrorist’s original goal had gone undamaged and thus remained a target. She glanced toward the window. Roycroft had been killed in a shootout in upstate New York but the police were saying that what they recovered indicated that he was working in a terrorist cell with at least two other people. Earth for Humans claimed that Roycroft had gone rogue and that they had no knowledge of who he was working with, or of the bomb. No wonder Elle was scared. But when Louise weighed all the factors, what scared Louise more was that the elves might take Dufae’s box back to Elfhome before the twins could get their hands on a nactka.
* * *
The rest of the day was devoted to getting caught up on the four days of school they’d missed. While the other kids were scrambling to learn material that would be on the upcoming state achievement tests, the twins multitasked between working on the class play and tracking the museum’s suddenly frantic level of emails. Dufae’s box was in France, and France was balking at sending its three treasures. Like Elle, they were worried that the elves would simply claim all the items on exhibit to be culturally important and ask for everything to be returned to them.
France obviously didn’t care about the box, because it rarely made an appearance in their side of the conversation. Their focus was on a crown worth a king’s ransom. Because it bore a resemblance to the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara, the crown was believed to be the inspiration of the Russian court jeweler Bolin. A stunning piece of fifteen intertwined diamond-encrusted circles with fifteen flame sapphires, which could have only come from Elfhome. In addition, there was Elvish scribed on the inside (although the twins couldn’t find a translation of the Elvish online). The history of the piece had vanished during the Russian Revolution, along with the tiara. Somehow it was found by the Nazis and recovered after the Second World War by the French. France’s claim on the crown was nebulous since it had originally belonged to Imperial Russia, and the equally fabulous copy was part of the British Crown Jewels by some odd chain of bloodlines and events. The French clearly wanted to state “finder’s keepers” without being completely politically rude. They pointed out that unless Queen Soulful Ember or her father, King Ashfall, had lost it while sightseeing on Earth, that the only way it could be in France was that the elves had sold it at some point to humans.
Of course, this circled back to the point of the exhibit, which was that the elves used to be frequent visitors to Earth, all the while keeping humans ignorant of Elfhome’s existence.
Because the elves were on Earth and the exhibit opened in two weeks, the curators of AMNH were in a frenzy to get the dispute settled as quickly as possible. In so many words, they pointed out that crowds came to see sparkly things like gold and gems, and that children would not be impressed by the carved wood and rich fabrics that made up much of the exhibit. France wanted a promise that the United States wouldn’t give the crown to the elves, but since the United Nations were debating the issue, the AMNH would have to obey the world’s decision.
“I could just scream,” Louise whispered to Jillian. “None of it is really theirs in the first place. Just being little pigs about the matter.”
Jillian nodded glumly. “Here comes Mr. Kessler. You should probably at least pretend to pay attention to class.”
Louise groaned quietly and closed up the web browser. Mr. Kessler paused at the doorway, obviously disoriented by the changes to their classroom. He eyed the new windows, the bare walls, and the desks rearranged by Miss Hamilton in an attempt to distract her students from the ruin of the building across the street. He spotted Louise and headed toward her.
What did he want? Louise sunk lower in her chair, wishing she could hide under her desk.
“Twin—Louise. Here.” He set a magic generator down on her desk.
Louise blinked at it, confused by its presence. “Where—where did you get that?”
Mr. Kessler opened his mouth, caught himself before saying something cutting, and forced out a level, “I made it. Since I dropped your original—by accident—I ran your program a second time. And I tried it out. I have no idea what you think this does but at least it doesn’t burst into flames when you plug it into a 220 outlet.”
Louise gathered it up, wanting to hide it so no one else would have the chance to examine it closely. “Thank you. Can I put it in my locker to keep it safe?”