Secret of the Forbidden City Read online

  While we were nosing around, I couldn’t help but notice the unusual wallpaper decorating the living room. It was covered with—you guessed it—pigeons. Some were hovering over bushes. So, once again, I thought about Dad’s texted clues:

  A bird in the hand is often hiding the one in the bush.

  Is that why Dad was flapping his arms at me in Beijing? Or why he gave us the idea about pigeon racing to distract our Chinese handlers? Was he really trying to tell us to fly here, to their pigeon-filled roost in Munich?

  While I was checking out the wallpaper, Beck, Storm, and Tommy dug up a few other clues.

  A jelly jar filled with ticket stubs from a local movie theater called the City Kino.

  Stacks of empty, grease-speckled popcorn tubs.

  The German version of the board game Clue.

  “Enough with the clues,” said Beck, sounding frustrated. “Maybe we should go downstairs and grab that snack.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, spotting something interesting. One of the wallpaper pigeons was facing the wrong way.

  Guess what happened when I bopped it on its bumpy beak?

  A small, secret door sprang open.

  CHAPTER 56

  The cabinet was the narrow kind you could store a fold-down ironing board in.

  As it flopped into the room, I noticed a rolled-up canvas lashed to the ironing board with twine.

  “Looks like a painting,” said Beck, our family art expert. “Help me out, Bick.”

  Very carefully, very slowly, we unfurled the canvas.

  It was amazing. An abstract portrait of a Jewish rabbi done in bright canary greens and yellows and blacks.

  Beck was kind of hyperventilating.

  “OMG,” she gasped. “It’s a Chagall. It’s a masterpiece. This painting has to be worth a fortune.”

  Storm nodded. “And, it’s degenerate art.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tommy. “Sure the colors are a little weird, but I wouldn’t call it ‘degenerate.’”

  As the family wordsmith, I, of course, knew that degenerate means immoral, corrupt, wicked, or decadent. So I had to agree with Tommy. The painting was a little bizarre, but it certainly wasn’t as degenerate as, say, a sleazeball like Dionysus Streckting.

  “Degenerate art,” explained Storm, “is what Adolf Hitler and the Nazis called almost all modern art. They couldn’t understand it, so they hated it. Many German artists were branded as enemies of the state and a threat to German culture.”

  “So the Nazis forced them to stop painting this way,” said Beck, choking up as she spoke.

  Hey, my twin sis is an artist. I can’t imagine how horrible she’d feel if somebody took away her pens and sketchbooks and told her she couldn’t draw the way she wanted to draw anymore.

  “Hitler’s storm troopers stole Picassos, Chagalls, and Matisses from their rightful owners,” Beck continued. “Mostly Jewish families and art museums. The stolen paintings the Nazis couldn’t auction off at a high price in countries like Switzerland they just burned—the same way they burned books.”

  “Some of the so-called degenerate art was never found,” said Storm. “It was still missing after the war.”

  “Like the Picasso painting we saw in Beijing,” added Beck. “And now this Chagall.”

  “Do you think that’s what Streckting’s after?” I asked. “The art stolen by the Nazis? Don’t forget, it was his German goons, not the Chinese, who chased us out of the Beijing art gallery. And now Streckting sent us here to Munich. Maybe Mom and Dad were close to finding the spot where the Nazis hid all their looted art treasures.”

  “The painting was hidden here recently,” Storm remarked as she inspected the cabinet.

  “Chyah,” said Tommy. “I bet Mom and Dad stashed it here while they tracked down the rest of the art.”

  Suddenly I heard wood splinter.

  A boot heel punched a hole in the front door.

  Beck and I rolled up the Chagall as quickly as we could.

  But it wasn’t quick enough.

  CHAPTER 57

  Dionysus Streckting stalked over to me and Beck and practically ripped the canvas tube right out of my hands.

  He worked the painting open.

  “Ah. Very nice. Very nice indeed.”

  Now he touched a Bluetooth device tucked into his ear. It looked very similar to the one Uncle Timothy was constantly yammering into.

  “We have the Chagall, Timothy. Kindly advise the high cultural minister that his new museum’s collection of masterpieces continues to grow by leaps and bounds.”

  Was that what this was all about?

  Retrieving art stolen by the Nazis and selling it to the highest bidder, who, in this case, just happened to be the Chinese high cultural minister with a new museum to fill?

  Streckting smirked at Tommy.

  “Well done, Thomas. I knew you knew things you didn’t know you knew.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. You found one painting. Now you must find the rest.”

  Streckting had a crazed look in his eye as he paced around the room with his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Paintings, sculptures, religious artifacts. Cubism, modernism, Dadaism. Picasso, Matisse, Degas. Hitler, the failed artist, hated it all. He had special units that looted art all over Europe and hid the booty in caves and salt mines to protect it from Allied bombing raids. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of pieces are still missing. Can you even imagine all the treasure waiting to be found?

  “You children call yourselves treasure hunters. Don’t you long to discover history’s greatest collection of missing art?”

  “Sure,” said Beck. “But only if we can return it all to its rightful owners.”

  “Ha! Don’t be ridiculous. Why would we want to do that when we could sell it for an incredible fortune?”

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Um, is Uncle Timothy working for you now instead of the CIA?”

  “My dear, innocent little boy. Your uncle Timothy has been working for me for years.”

  “And Dad figured that out,” said Storm.

  “Yes. Your father is a very clever man. He even faked his own death in that nasty tropical storm in a feeble attempt to make me lower my guard. When I realized he was still alive and trying to sabotage our overtures to the Chinese high cultural minister, I immediately flew to Beijing so your father and I could chat about the artworks stolen by Hitler and the Nazis. When I could not capture—that is find—Dr. Kidd to politely ask him where this fantastic hoard might be hidden, I went with Plan B.”

  He gestured toward us.

  Yep. We were Plan B.

  “Find me my missing masterpieces, children. Enough to fill an entire museum. Make your father proud—and save your mother’s life!”

  CHAPTER 58

  And so we basically spent the next few days under house arrest.

  “Can I go downstairs to grab a pretzel?” asked Tommy on day three.

  “Nein!” said Franz Hans, who was, once again, put in charge by Streckting. “You Kidd kids will go nowhere until you take us to the treasure trove.”

  Franz Hans Keplernicht and his armed heavies hovered around the edges of the apartment, waiting for us to come up with a plan for finding and salvaging the Nazi loot.

  The problem was, we had very little to work with. No treasure map. No clues, except for the pigeon wallpaper, the ticket stubs, the popcorn tubs, and the German version of Clue, with a Colonel Oberst von Gatow who looked a lot spicier than the American Colonel Mustard.

  No new text messages from Dad.

  “Think, Tommy,” I said. “Remember anything you can, no matter how small or insignificant, because Dad’s last text told us that the most important clues often seem small and insignificant.”

  Tommy nodded and said, “Anybody else seriously famished?”

  Down on the first floor, Woerner’s bakery was going full steam, distracting Tommy with its drifting arom
a of deliciousness.

  “No pretzels for you!” shouted Franz Hans. “Not until you find the artwork!”

  But, even though he racked his brain, Tommy’s memory of what Dad and Mom did while they were in Munich didn’t go much beyond the baked goods at Woerner’s, the glockenspiel and tourists in the Marienplatz, the Pichelsteiners in the apartment next door, and Munich’s Oktoberfest celebration, which is basically the world’s biggest fair—sixteen days of music, beer, lederhosen, and Bavarian hats called Tirolerhüte, which are decorated with goat fur.

  “I think that’s when I first started hating oompah music,” said Tommy. “It was very, very loud, and my ears were very, very small.”

  Finally, on day four of our lock-in, Beck and I hatched an escape plan.

  We decided we’d do what kids all over the world do best.

  We’d drive the grown-ups crazy.

  “We’re the Kidds,” I declared to our guards. “We’ve lived our whole lives on the open sea or in the wilds of the jungle. We are used to big skies, fresh air, and salty water. We’re Wild Things. We go wherever the wind blows and the adventure takes us.”

  “Most days,” said Tommy, “I don’t even wear socks.”

  “He seldom uses deodorant, either,” added Storm.

  “Chyah. I’m a free bird.”

  “Let us out,” I started chanting. “Let us out! Let us out!”

  Soon, my sibs were joining in. “Let us out! Let us out!”

  We added some of those thunderous “we will, we will rock you” hand claps and foot stomps.

  “Let us out!” Clap-clap-stomp! “Let us out!”

  “Enough!” cried Franz Hans. “Put on your socks and coats. We are going out for a walk!”

  “Are you certain this is wise?” asked one of the other goons.

  “Twelve armed guards against four foolish children?” Franz Hans said with a chuckle. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  CHAPTER 59

  When we reached a street called Sonnenstrasse, very close to the City Kino movie theater, Beck and I initiated part two of our escape plan: Twin Tirade No. 501.

  “Okay, Bickford,” said Beck, coming to a dead stop. “Where exactly are we walking?”

  “Nowhere. We’re just on a walk.”

  “I want to go somewhere!”

  “We are somewhere. We’re out.”

  “Out is not a place.”

  “Yes, it is, Rebecca. And it’s much better than ‘in,’ which is where we’ve been stuck for days.”

  Beck jabbed her fists into her hips and glared at me. I did the same thing. We were nose to nose. Our guards looked a little nervous.

  Then we made them frantic. We went full, out-of-control, nutzoid bonkers on each other. People stopped to stare. A pair of police officers, too.

  To make Twin Tirade No. 501 even more special, Storm and Tommy joined in—just like I told them they should.

  “We want to see the movie!” shouted Storm.

  “I want Milk Duds,” hollered Tommy. “And Goobers.”

  “Junior Mints!” shouted Beck.

  “Raisinettes,” cried Storm. “And Twizzlers. A box the size of a small suitcase!”

  “Haribo Gold-Bears,” I said, because I understand they are very popular at German flicks.

  “Hey, look,” said Tommy, launching into the dialogue I had scripted for him. “There is. A movie theater. Let’s all go. To the movies.”

  Yep. Tommy still memorized lines in chunks.

  “We want the movie,” the four of us chanted. “We want the movie!”

  The police officers moved a few steps closer. Franz Hans looked even more nervous.

  Herr Keplernicht was grinning like a lunatic at the police, who were starting to eye him suspiciously.

  “Hurry, children,” said Franz Hans, ushering us into the cinema’s lobby. “We don’t want to miss a minute of the movie.”

  All sixteen of us marched into the City Kino.

  That’s right. It was part of our plan.

  Because City Kino was the name of the movie theater printed on all those ticket stubs we found in the safe house.

  CHAPTER 60

  Inside the theater, Tommy spent a little more time than usual at the concession stand.

  A very pretty German girl, maybe a year older than him, was working behind the counter, scooping up popcorn in red-and-white-striped cardboard tubs.

  “Your eyes are amazing, do you know that?” he told her. “You should never shut them, not even at night.”

  The girl used her amazing eyes to give Tommy a look. “That’s a line from a movie.”

  “Chyah. Ever heard it before?”

  “Ja. I’ve heard them all. Over and over. I work in a movie theater, remember?”

  “Your film is about to start,” said the girl behind the counter, handing Tommy his tub of hot, buttered popcorn.

  “Hey, this is a lot of popcorn. What would you say if I asked you to share it with me?”

  “Nothing,” said the girl. “Because I can’t talk and laugh at the same time.”

  Beck and I giggled. Sorry, but the German girl was funny, sharp, and quick. We’d never seen one of Tommy’s flirtation targets shoot him down so fast. We loved this girl.

  “Well,” said Tommy, not giving in. “The movie lasts like two hours. Plenty of time for you to change your mind.”

  “True,” said the girl. “But not nearly enough for the brain surgeons to replace yours.”

  Even Storm laughed at that one.

  But Tommy would not admit defeat. He kept trying to charm his way into the German girl’s heart. “I think fate brought us together.”

  “Really? I was thinking it was just bad luck.”

  Now Streckting’s armed goons were grinning and elbowing one another. They were enjoying Tommy’s crash and burn, too. The little romantic comedy in the movie theater lobby was an excellent diversion. Our captors were too busy laughing at Tommy to keep their eyes on Beck as she scribbled a quick note on one of the ticket stubs she’d brought with her from the safe house.

  Finally, Tommy took his popcorn and, trying his best to keep looking cool, sauntered away from the concession stand.

  “Don’t worry, guys,” he said to the guards. “She’s just playing hard to get.”

  While Franz Hans and the guards mumbled stuff like “Er ist so ein Versager!” (which, I think, meant Tommy was, officially, Germany’s biggest loser), Beck passed her note to the girl behind the candy counter.

  We hurried into the theater to watch The Book Thief.

  But, if our plan worked, we wouldn’t be around to see how the movie ended.

  CHAPTER 61

  The movie was in German without English subtitles, but Storm translated for us in a frantic whisper.

  “Rudy Steiner just said, ‘You’re stealing books? Why?’ And Liesel said, ‘When life robs you, sometimes you have to rob it back.’”

  “Ja,” said Franz Hans, sitting in the row behind us. “Exactly! Life robs you, you rob it back. I like this Liesel.…”

  That’s when the whole theater went dark.

  No lights, no movie projector. Nothing.

  “Hey! Who turned out the lights?” I heard Franz Hans shout while the four of us ducked down and scampered up our row of seats. The floor was kind of gummy—thanks to spilled soft drinks and tons of squished gummi bears—so we had to tread lightly to keep our shoes from making sticky-tacky noises and giving away our escape route.

  Yep.

  Our plan was now in motion.

  CHAPTER 62

  Beck’s hunch had been correct.

  We could totally trust the popcorn girl. She did everything we’d asked her to on that tiny ticket stub.

  “Hurry,” the girl said, slamming the exit door shut again.

  “You have to come with us,” I said.

  “We don’t know our way around Germany,” added Beck. “And only Storm speaks the language.”

  “We’ll give you a big reward,”
I offered. “Just as soon as we find the treasure we’re hunting.”

  “Reward?” scoffed the girl. “I do not live my life in the hope of being rewarded for doing what I know is right.”

  “Well,” said Tommy, wiggling his eyebrows, “I’ve lived mine in the hope of meeting you.”

  “Some boys never change,” muttered the girl.

  “Wait a second,” said Beck. “You’ve met Tommy before?”

  “Let us just say I know your parents. And I would do anything for them.”

  “Um, have you seen our dad lately?” I asked.

  We heard voices inside the theater: “I think they went this way! Or maybe that way! Ouch! I stubbed my toe.”

  We also heard a bunch of “oofs” and “get off my foot.” Guess the lights were still out in the theater, and the musclemen were stumbling and bumbling into one another.

  “Come,” said the German girl. “This way. We can borrow a car I saw parked in the alley.”

  She darted up the slick cobblestone street. We followed her.

  Since we ran out about halfway through the movie, I’ve never actually seen all of The Book Thief. But this brave and feisty German girl reminded me of Liesel Meminger—a character I absolutely loved when I read the book.

  I loved the German girl even more when I saw the car. It belonged to one of the goons in Franz Hans’s crew.

  It was a Mercedes sedan with room enough for five.

  That meant it would be fast. Very, very fast.

  CHAPTER 63

  The German girl was behind the wheel as we sped up the autobahn, a multilane superhighway that winds its way across Germany like a snake.