Wood Sprites

18: Learning The Layout

Aunt Kitty was in the kitchen the next morning, making French toast, her one and only dish. She was wearing three-inch heels, tight black leather pants, and a bright yellow blouse that accented her dark ebony skin. “You have to not let her get to you.” Aunt Kitty waved a spatula, making all her many gold bracelets chime like a tambourine. “You control how you feel, not her. She can try and make you feel things, but if you don’t let her, then she’s not going to succeed.”

Louise paused on the stair’s landing, aware that she was interrupting a private conversation. She sat down on the top step, leaning forward so she could see her mother standing in the corner, glaring into her coffee.

“Do not quote my mother to me.” Her mother was dressed for work in a quiet business suit and low heels. She was still half a foot taller than her “adopted” sister.

“Why not? She was the smartest woman I ever met.” Aunt Kitty lifted a corner of the toast and checked to see how done it was. “Anna Desmarais is simply a paranoid racist. You control you, and you’re not going to allow yourself to sink to her level.”

“And I’m not supposed to be angry that she’s involved my kids?”

“Oh, come on, you’re saying that your girls wouldn’t jump at a chance to go to this? You know how much Jillian likes everything connected to movies. And they wanted to go to the Today Show to see Nigel Reid and you wouldn’t let them. You know how much Louise would have loved to meet him. You’re going to tell her that you’ve got tickets to this and you’re not taking her?”

Louise yelped with excitement and charged down to the kitchen. “What tickets? To some kind of event? Will Nigel Reid be there?”

Her mother sighed loudly, shaking her head. “Oh, now you’ve done it.”

Aunt Kitty laughed and flipped the French toast.

“Mom!” Louise cried.

“Anna Desmarais has given me four tickets to NBC’s charity gala in June. They’re going to have a lot of their network stars there and a handful of ‘special appearances’ like Nigel Reid.”

“Really?” Louise squealed. It was hard to rein in her excitement, but obviously her mother didn’t think it was wonderful news. “What’s wrong with the tickets? Are they fake?”

“They’re real tickets.” Their mother sighed into her coffee. “Honey, sometimes when people suddenly start acting all nice to your face, you have to start looking for knives behind their backs. After all this. .” She caught herself about to swear and covered by sipping her coffee. “After calling me a thief, and dragging us through two audits in an attempt to find proof, Desmarais gave me nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of tickets.”

“The woman is married to a billionaire,” Aunt Kitty pointed out with her spatula. “Everywhere she goes, she rides in that big limo with two drivers when the car can bloody drive itself. A thousand dollars is nothing to her. It’s probably what she pays to keep her hair that blond and beautiful at her age.”

“She says she doesn’t dye her hair.”

Aunt Kitty snorted. “You know what your mother would say to that? ‘Maybe she was born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.’ Seventy and still blond? No, she dyes.”

Her mother pointed at Louise. “Don’t you ever repeat that.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

Aunt Kitty served out the toast to Louise and her mother and started a second batch.

Louise wanted to beg and plead to go to the event. It would be the perfect opportunity to give Nigel the gossamer call without the risk of meeting him privately someplace. (Not that she was scared he would do anything, but their mother would simply kill them if she found out.) “Maybe Mrs. Desmarais is sorry about how she treated you, and that’s why she gave you the tickets.”

Her mother sighed, drank the rest of her coffee, and rolled up her French toast so she could carry it. “I need to go. We’ll talk about this later.” She kissed Louise on the forehead and waved the toast at Aunt Kitty. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.” In the foyer, she paused to shout upstairs. “George, you’re going to be late. Jillian, come down for breakfast!”

Normally she would have left without waiting for Jillian to answer, but instead she stood at the bottom of the steps until Jillian came trotting down with Tesla on her heels. She kissed Jillian good-bye and gave her a hug.

Jillian came into the kitchen, so bright-eyed that she positively radiated “I’ve got a plan.” She came to lean against the back of Louise’s chair, presenting a united front. “Aunt Kitty, can we go to the Museum of Natural History today?”

“The museum? Really? I thought you would want to relax at home or go to the movies.”

“Nothing good is playing,” Jillian complained truthfully. “And the museum has this exhibit on the Alpha Centauri colony that we just found out about.” Again, truthfully as they had started to research the AMNH just two days ago. “It’s only there for a few more weeks. We really want to see it!”

Aunt Kitty looked to Louise to see if it was truly a joint decision.

Louise nodded slowly. They had planned to go alone to the museum to examine camera placements and security measures — things not easily found on the Internet. The bombing changed everything. The image of people scattered on the ground like broken dolls flashed through her mind and she shuddered.

“Are you okay, Lou?” Aunt Kitty gathered Louise into a hug.

“I’m fine.” Louise had to be okay or everyone would start watching them closely. Normally the television would have been on, playing their parents’ newsfeed. Obviously it was off because all the news was focused on the bombing and their parents didn’t want them upset by it. “I just want something to think about that doesn’t have anything to do with — with that.”

Aunt Kitty hugged her tighter. “It’s okay to be upset. Most people would be.”

“We’re fine,” Jillian said in Peter Pan’s carefree voice. “None of our friends were hurt. It was a bad thing, but it’s over.”

Their father careened into the kitchen, hair sticking out in every direction, looking like a startled scarecrow. “Louise. Jillian. Are you two okay? Is everything all right?”

“We’re fine, Daddy,” they said.

He combed both hands through his straw hair, making it stick out even more. “I should stay home.”

“I got this covered,” Aunt Kitty said. “Go on. The last thing this family needs is one of you losing your job.”

He gazed at the twins as if they’d been horribly wounded by the bomb.

“Daddy, go!” Louise pulled out of Aunt Kitty’s hug to give him a push. “We’re not even going to stay home. We’re going to the museum.”

“Aunt Kitty is going to get us each something from the gift shop!” Jillian stated as fact.

Aunt Kitty laughed. “Oh, am I?”

“And we’ll have pizza for lunch!” Jillian continued with the list of treats for the day. “And we’ll bring home Thai takeout.”

Louise looked at her twin with surprise. What was this greediness?

“Guess I can’t compete with that.” Their father nevertheless looked more relaxed at the idea of leaving. Jillian must have guessed that the adults would believe they weren’t too upset if they were trying to milk the day for all it was worth. He took out his phone. “Here, let me give you some money to cover—”

Aunt Kitty waved off the offer. “No, this my treat to them. I missed their birthday because I was buried in work. Let me play best aunt ever.”

“Thank you. Call if there’s any problems.” He gathered them both into one big hug, kissed them each on the temple, and went without breakfast or coffee.

It was impossible to avoid news on the bombing. Everyplace they went had newsfeeds spilling out updates. Everyone they brushed up against was talking about it. By the time they reached the 59th Street — Columbus Circle Station, they had learned that authorities had determined that the bomb had been in a truck rented by Vance Roycroft, who had ties to the radical group Earth for Humans. His target apparently had been an art gallery about to open in the building across from their school. Because of the riots, the owners had been careful not to draw attention to the fact they would be selling only artwork from Elfhome. There had been crate upon crate of elf-made pottery, woodcarvings, and clothing. The newsfeeds carried photographs of the artwork. As with most things Elvish, the pieces were exquisite and one-of-a-kind, handcrafted by people that had forever to master their art and the time to create stunning individual pieces.

Roycroft had attempted to pull into the alley behind the art gallery. Finding it blocked by a broken-down garbage truck, he’d double-parked in front of the building and walked away. Judging by the remains of the truck, police were able to determine that the bomb had been in a shipping crate identical to the ones that gallery used, complete with EIA paperwork from the Pittsburgh border. They theorized that Roycroft initially meant to deliver the bomb as a package delayed by customs. They also believed that detonation was controlled remotely by someone other than Roycroft who didn’t realize that the delivery had gone astray. While the blast had been designed to do structural damage, it didn’t contain shrapnel to cause harm to humans. If the bomb had detonated inside the gallery, police speculated, there would have been no loss of life.

Citing this “limited scope of intended damage” and the fact that authorities had already traced Roycroft’s movements to Adirondack Park in upstate New York, the authorities had decided not to shut down the city.

Ironically, none of the targeted artwork had been damaged. The shipping crates and a state-of-the-art fire-suppression system had protected all the pieces. There was an odd undercurrent to the words used to describe the art gallery. The newsfeed repeatedly mentioned that the gallery was empty — except for the art — and heavily insured because of the riots.

“They’re not saying it in so many words, but it’s like they think the original plan would have been acceptable,” Louise grumbled as they waited for the C train. Vance Roycroft’s face remained on the wall while the feed continued with updates on the manhunt for him, along with factoids on the massive state park.

“Why blow up an art gallery in the first place?” Jillian complained. “It’s stupid.”

Aunt Kitty agreed. “Um-hmm. If they were smart, they would have figured out a better way to make their point than with a bomb. The Waldorf Astoria and the UN building are both well protected. They must have decided that the art gallery was a safe Elfhome substitute.”

“Safe for them,” Jillian muttered darkly and then leaned close to Louise for comfort. It made Louise angry that this stranger had blindly lashed out in such a stupid, selfish way.

“The elves won’t ever know about this bomb!” Louise cried. “Humans bought the artwork on Elfhome and brought it to New York City. The elves were already paid; they’re out of the equation. The only people who are going to be impacted are humans. And besides, the elves have nothing to do with how big the quarantine zone is — the UN negotiated the space between the United States and the rest of Earth’s countries.”

“Exactly,” Aunt Kitty said. “The terrorists are protesting the expansion of the zone, and that’s controlled by a vote of the United Nations ambassadors, who are all right here in New York City.”

“They’re trying to control the vote? By blowing up children? If I was an ambassador, I’d be pissed off that someone nearly hurt my kid.”

The C train rumbled into the station, blocking the annoying newsfeed. For a few minutes they focused on getting on. Interestingly, the change in security level made Tesla much more aggressive in keeping between them and other people.

Once they got settled, Aunt Kitty asked, “Are there children of ambassadors in your school?”

“Yes. Several,” Louise answered. “We’re one of the top private schools in the city. I certainly wouldn’t vote in favor of anything if my kid were one of the kindergarteners hit by flying glass. Certainly everyone knows that if their kid was running late for school, they could have been killed in the street. When I was asked to vote, I’d say ‘screw those idiots’ and expand the quarantine zone. It wasn’t the elves that put Pittsburgh on Elfhome. It wasn’t elves that were logging the quarantine zone. It wasn’t elves that brought that artwork to New York. This is all a mess that humans made.”

Aunt Kitty nodded and gathered Louise close. “I know, honey bear. People don’t always think that clearly when it comes to hate. These terrorists hate elves, so their first target will always be something related to them.”

At some point along the way, unnoticed by Aunt Kitty or Louise, Jillian had gained a big bandage just above her left eye. To strangers, Jillian probably looked like a poor little war orphan. To Louise, the bandage gave Jillian pirate flair.

As the museum security stopped them at the entrance because of Tesla, Jillian explained with a convincing waver in her voice, “After what happened at our school yesterday, we feel safer with him. Can’t we please keep him with us?”

Aunt Kitty eyed the bandage with hidden dismay, but played along. “They go to Perelman. The bomb was right across the street. They had a rough day yesterday and wanted to do something to take their minds off the explosion.”

The girls had to produce their Perelman School for the Gifted student ID badges to verify this claim. After a quick conference with the powers that be and a search of Tesla’s storage chamber, they were allowed to take their “beloved” nanny-bot into the museum.

“Girl, you are going to be dangerous when you’re eighteen.” Aunt Kitty seemed torn between dismay and amusement. “Turn the world upside down and inside out.”

“I’m really hoping that I don’t have to wait that long,” Jillian said.

Aunt Kitty laughed then.

Louise cringed inside. She hated that they had to lie to their aunt. In many ways, she was a cohort in crime, but only to a point. Much as she loved to kidnap them away for adventures, she always kept in mind that they weren’t her kids. She carefully never crossed any line that their mother set. Thus she never gave them Coke to drink, never let them stay up past their bedtimes, and never, never would let them rob a museum.

They’d programmed Tesla to search out security cameras and map out their field of vision. With what he was recording, they hoped to be able to find all the blind spots in the museum. His optic system abided by the museum rules on cameras since he wasn’t using a flash. If the security people had known how his guidance system could be exploited, they probably wouldn’t have allowed him to enter the building.

The twins picked up maps handed out at the ticket booth and glided upstairs on the escalators. Everywhere Louise looked, there was a security guard. The colony exhibit was in the Special Exhibition Gallery 3, which would also be the site of the Elfhome’s Lost Treasures. Judging by the maps they’d studied a few nights ago, the museum chose it because it was the largest space for traveling exhibits.

“You really wanted to see this?” Aunt Kitty asked as they pondered the first display.

“Yes.” Jillian hesitated and then said in what sounded like the truth but wasn’t, “We really thought it would be more interesting than this. And it closes at the end of the month, so this was almost the last chance to see it — just in case it was more interesting.”

The first display was a very detailed model of the Chinese hyperphase gate in orbit. It looked very much like a bicycle wheel with a large inner ring that was the gate part of the station. Dozens of thin spokes connected the inner ring to an outer one where the crew lived. The long, slender needle of a colony ship was poised to thread through the eye of the gate and jump to the Alpha Centauri star system. A sign identified the ship as the Minghe Hao, which had left Earth three years ago.

While the ship and gate were in scale to each other, the Earth below was not. The two threw a massive shadow down onto the planet, blotting out everything from Malaysia to the Philippines. Because of the scale problem, the International Shipyard loomed beside the gate, closer than it really was. The next colony ship, the Shenzhou Hao, was being pieced together from segments shipped up in large prefabricated pieces from China. Obviously the scene was totally a figment of the model maker’s imagination, as the Shenzhou Hao hadn’t been started when the Minghe Hao slipped through the gate with little fanfare. The Shenzhou Hao wasn’t finished; even through its original departure date had been years ago.

Louise wasn’t sure why the display seemed so uninteresting. She studied it for a moment, noticing that they hadn’t added weather patterns to Earth, nor sunlight to indicate the Earth’s revolution. Maybe they thought people would be confused by what geostationary orbit meant if the entire display spun. There was no movement at all, not even lights blinking in the Shipyard to indicate construction of the various sections of the spaceship.

She had a sudden and awful feeling that she was looking at a frozen moment in time. A doomed ship, forever stuck on the event horizon of disaster. Had the Minghe Hao actually arrived safely? Or had it crashed?

“Wǒ kàn bù dào!” a child’s voice complained loudly in what sounded like Mandarin.

Louise glanced across the room as she struggled to translate the complaint. I can’t see!

A flock of children crowded around the last display: a life-size statue of Jin Wong, captain of the first colony ship. Faces reverent, the children lightly touched fingertips to the glass. There were too many of them to be one family, but their ages were too scattered to be kids on a school field trip. A kindergartener with long black pigtails stood on tiptoe, trying to see past the older children, who looked like they could be in middle school.

“Wǒ kàn bù dào!” the little girl cried again in Mandarin. This time Louise was certain that she was complaining that she couldn’t see the statue.

A tall boy ghosted out of the shadows, gently shushing her. His quiet command was easy to translate. “Not so loud, Lai Yee Zhao.”

The little girl eyed the boy with almost the same awe as being leveled at Jin Wong. “Yamabushi zhànshì, wǒ xiǎng kàn tā!”

Louise parsed through the sentence several times, trying to translate it and failing. She wasn’t sure what yamabushi meant, although zhànshì seemed to indicate it was a type of warrior. The last part seemed to be a complaint again that she couldn’t see the statue.

The boy scooped Lai Yee up so she could sit on his shoulder. She gazed in wide-eyed wonder and then pointed at the statue of Jin Wong.

“Is he dead?” the little girl asked, her voice still loud.

The yamabushi shushed her again. “We don’t know. He went away.”

“Why did he leave?” Lai Yee whispered loudly.

The other children half-turned to hear the answer.

The tall boy gazed at the starship captain for a moment before answering sadly, “To find another world for us to live on.”

“Elfhome?” the little girl asked.

And all the children shushed her.

Lai Yee was right: the first set of colonists had opened the door to another world. Ironically, Elfhome wasn’t light-years distant, but just an odd sidestep into another universe from any point on Earth. The distance to Alpha Centauri made all information on the colony four years out of date. Was that the reason the boy claimed that they didn’t know if Jin Wong was alive or dead? He’d been middle-aged when he left Earth; surely life as a colonist could not be easy for a man nearly seventy.

And what of Esme? How had she fared in the eighteen years? The bios all indicated that she was still alive, but they could be wrong. Something could have happened to the colony, and Earth wouldn’t know for years.

Jillian and Aunt Kitty were moving on to the next display, forcing Louise to guide Tesla into his next mapping position. Once Tesla was lined up, Louise pretended to study the model of the Alpha Centauri star system. As if to make up for the lack of movement in the first display, this one had the two stars whizzing through their complex dance with their various planets orbiting them. A red digital clock counted backwards, marking the time before the first reports about the Minghe Hao’s safe arrival would reach the Earth. Alpha Centauri was 4.37 light-years away; there remained four hundred and six days and a handful of hours before the fate of the ship could be known.

But there had been radio messages from the earlier ships. At least, Louise thought there had been. Why would the boy say that they didn’t know if Jin Wong was alive or not?

“Those poor people.” Aunt Kitty nodded at the crew photo of the Minghe Hao. “No one noticed when they left. No one will notice if and when they arrive. I don’t know why they keep sending out those ships. Even the first one — there was a ton of fanfare — and then Pittsburgh vanished — and everyone just forgot about the Chinese. It wasn’t until the Chinese started to flip the power on and off like a toddler with a light switch that anyone realized that the gate had anything to do with Pittsburgh blinking in and out of existence.”

And Elfhome had continued to steal the limelight since then. Despite their wealth of information on Earth’s mirror planet, the twins had known virtually nothing about the space mission that triggered its discovery until they learned of their own odd connection to it.

“The crews wanted to go.” Jillian led the way past the group photo of the second ship, the Zhenghe Hao, to stare at the crew of the Dahe Hao. Esme Shenske stood front and center as the captain. She looked so determined and fierce, like she was going to war. “They walked away from family and friends and ever coming back. I don’t think they cared a rat’s ass if anyone noticed or not.”

The tall boy glanced over as if he fully understood Jillian’s comment.

Louise looked down out of habit and nudged Jillian before she realized that she didn’t really know if he understood or what he thought. The twins were at the museum to plan a robbery to save their baby siblings. Until a month ago, they didn’t even know the names of the spaceships or any of their crew. Surely there was little common ground between her and this boy that worshiped Jin Wong, even if her genetic donor was a spaceship captain in her own right.

Louise looked back up at Esme. Don’t care a rat’s ass if anyone noticed or not. That’s how she had to be. Fierce and determined. They were going to war. Everyone better stay out of their way.

Only pretending to look at the rest of the Alpha Centauri exhibit, Louise focused just on the building. The hallway was one long, wide, vaguely boot-shaped corridor. There were only two openings, the toe into the reptile exhibit and the cuff into stair tower that faced West 77th Street.

According to e-mails between curators, it would take a week for the colony exhibit to be packed up and shipped to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The space would be cleaned as the Elfhome exhibit arrived from the Australian Museum in Sydney. The AMNH had scheduled a week to unpack and arrange the incoming display cases. During that time, Dufae’s chest would arrive from Paris, escorted by an assistant registrar. On June fourteenth, the exhibit would open to the public.

At the end of June, the frozen embryos would be thrown away.

It gave them less than a month between the time that Dufae’s box arrived in the United States and the last possible day to save their siblings. That narrow window opened in approximately twenty days. They had to be ready to slip into that opening and take what they needed.

At the end of the gallery, they continued through to the primates and then circled around through the North American birds, the New York State mammals and city birds and finally down through the African mammals to end up where they’d started. In the loop, the twins documented the two flights of stairs, the three elevators, the up and down escalators and the only restrooms on the floor. Since the access routes were grouped together into two tight knots, they only represented two main ways up to the level. A close examination of the map, however, showed that only one went all the way down to the lower level and access to the subway.

So while Jillian kept Aunt Kitty busy in the gift shop, Louise quickly mapped the second and first floors with Tesla. She noticed how many guards were walking around and the care that the staff was taking checking bags coming in and out of the museum. Even in the middle of the week, with the recent bombing canceling all school trips and most people’s travel plans, there were hundreds of visitors scattered among the floors. The twins couldn’t hope to set up the generator, open Dufae’s box, take out what they needed and get it locked again without a visitor seeing them. Obviously they were going to have to stage the robbery after hours.

The idea of sneaking around like cat burglars was at once thrilling and nerve-wracking. How in the world were they going to steal the nactka out of the Dufae box?

Louise returned to the gift shop to find that Jillian had picked out a souvenir slickie on the Alpha Centauri exhibit. Louise never saw the point of slickies. They weren’t connected to the Internet, so there was no way to share the data. They were barely indexed, so finding anything was a pain. And they often cut costs by making photos two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional with panning and rotation. She supposed that it allowed you to give something tangible as a gift instead of giving the “ethereal” download of a real book.

“You want that?” They’d planned on getting something in a box that was approximately the same size as a nactka, just in case they needed to get one through security the day of the robbery. Of course, they had to guess at the size.

“Yes.” Jillian gave her a look that said Louise was to play along even if she didn’t understand. Jillian held out the slickie flat on her left palm and flipped the digital pages with her right index finger. There might have been hundreds of colonists that went to Alpha Centauri, but judging by the quick flow of images, the only one that mattered was Captain Jin Wong. “It’s all videos they took of building the gate and the ships and training of the crews.” Jillian paused on the picture of Esme. Whereas the photo upstairs had shown her to be blond, this picture had her hair dyed a rich purple, the kind that only came with an expensive professional job. She hovered in midair, the Earth a blaze of brilliant blue behind her. She glared at the camera like she was going to plow it over. There was a bandage on her right temple, unexplained by the caption that read simply: Esme Shenske, Captain of the Dahe Hao, during final days of her training. “Isn’t it cool?”

Judging by the fact that all the Chinese children held one or two in their hands as they lined up at the check-out counter, maybe it was.

“Are you sure?” Louise had hoped that finding the right-sized object didn’t fall to her.

“Yes. And I saw some snow globes you might like.”

Louise followed Jillian, cringing inside. People were going to start thinking she loved snow globes if she picked out a second one for her birthday. The Pittsburgh on Earth/Elfhome one had a coolness factor that she doubted could be topped. A snow globe, though, would require a box.

She bit down on a sigh when she saw the selection. There was a small but adorable red panda globe that Aunt Kitty pointed to. There were also a handful with various dinosaurs encased in indestructible plastic. Snow flurried around the poor creatures as if their doom were quickly approaching.

With face carefully set to “excitement,” Jillian pointed to the largest, a replica of the Tianlong Hao suspended over Earth. Instead of snow, stardust littered the face of the planet, waiting for movement to send it whirling on a solar wind. In a band around the bottom were the words: Spread your wings, fly free. There was Chinese lettering, apparently repeating the sentiment, just showing on the curve of the band.

Two of the Chinese girls were intently inspecting it with surprisingly blue eyes. There was only one globe left, so if Louise wanted it, she was going to have to buy it out from under their noses, which were unfortunately large for their faces.

The yamabushi appeared between Louise and the girls. The tall boy was like a ninja or something; Louise hadn’t noticed him until he was right in front of her. “No, Arisu,” he told the Chinese girls clearly in English and then dropped to Mandarin. “It’s too big. No.”

“Mail?” Arisu apparently was the younger girl. She fumbled with the Mandarin word and then dropped to English. “Couldn’t we have it mailed. .?”

The yamabushi sighed and shook his head. He spoke slowly and clearly in Mandarin. “No. I’m sorry. We can’t mail anything to Pittsburgh.” The boy tapped his wrist, indicating a watch that wasn’t present. “We need to go. Hurry.”

Shutdown was on Saturday night at midnight, giving them less than three full days to get to the border.

The three Chinese children turned with easy grace considering the close confines of the gift shop and circled around, gathering up the rest of the flock. With speed unheard of in a group of American kids, the Chinese were gone without a trace.

It left Louise no reason not to buy the snow globe. Jillian sharpened her look. At least it wasn’t expensive.

“Oh, it’s wonderful. I just love snow globes, and this one is so cool.” She did love that it took them one step closer to stealing the nactka.

They had Tesla’s recording of the museum’s security camera placements, the number of security guards and their positions, floor plans, verification that the floor where Dufae’s box was going to be displayed was marble, train schedules from their house and school to the museum, and the gift-shop box (and the decoy snow globe). Louise wanted to get started on figuring out how to put them together into a logical plan.

Impatient as she was to get started on a plan, the twins had to entertain Aunt Kitty for the rest of the day. After the museum, they walked to Celeste on Amsterdam Avenue between 84th and 85th streets. The tiny Italian restaurant was packed with lunch rush. Louise would have been happier going home and ordering something delivered, or even a frozen pizza. Eating at the restaurant, though, maintained the image that the twins were perfectly fine.

The twins knew that they wanted margherita pizza, so they ignored the menu. They ordered Sprite. Aunt Kitty considered a glass of wine before telling the waiter that she’d have a San Pellegrino. She added in an order of the carciofi fritti.

While they waited for their drinks and food, Aunt Kitty checked her phone and answered a text. Whatever she read on the screen made her wince and sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Louise asked.

Aunt Kitty sighed again. It was probably more bad news; she’d already warned them that if their performance of Peter Pan was changed because of the bombing, she wouldn’t be in town for it. She had set up several business meetings the week after the original date. “Do you remember a little while ago — well, you probably think it was a long time ago, it was like the beginning of last year, I think — we talked about production companies?”

It had actually been three years ago, shortly before they posted their first video.

“Maybe,” Louise said cautiously. Perhaps Aunt Kitty had talked to Jillian about it last year.

Jillian caught Louise’s glance and gave Louise a surprised look to say she had no idea what Aunt Kitty was talking about. “No.”

“I’d told you that when people did videos, they had a production company and a logo? Like Spike Lee’s production company is 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, and the logo is the number forty over the letter A?”

That was the conversation from three years ago. Adults had a weird, loose concept of time. It was a full third of the twins’ life and they still remembered it completely.

“We remember that,” the twins said. Jillian added an impatient, “And?”

“Well, you picked out the name Lemon-Lime Jello.”

Louise’s stomach turned to stone and dropped to the floor. “And?”

“You can’t use it,” Aunt Kitty stated.

“What?” both girls cried.

“I just found out that someone else is using it,” Aunt Kitty said.

“They are?” They glanced at each other. Was a musical group taking advantage of their popularity?

“I was approached to do a TV show soundtrack with an elf fusion music element to it. The network people brought with them a sample of what they’re looking for, and it was from a company called Lemon-Lime Jello. I’m not sure if they’re spelling it the same way you two were, but it’s close enough that you’ll probably have to find another production company name.”

“We had it first,” Jillian pointed out.

“Oh, Jilly, I know you thought of it first, but they got to market first. Apparently they’ve gotten quite famous even though they’re based on Elfhome.”

“Wait!” Louise realized that it wasn’t another company; it was her and Jillian. “This was an elf fusion soundtrack from a film production company called Lemon-Lime Jello?”

“Yes, the network copied the music from one of their videos and played it for me.”

“Did you see the video?” they both demanded to know.

“No.” Aunt Kitty waved them down, mistaking their alarm for being upset with the supposedly stolen name. “It was a short meeting. They’re after a very specific sound, something very authentic. People are starting to be elf fusion snobs and they want the sound of traditional Elfhome instruments.”

Jillian started to sulk. Obviously she was thinking of all the money they could be making if the networks hired them. Louise had to agree that it sucked that so much of their problems could be fixed if their parents wouldn’t be so focused on “letting them be children.” What was so wonderful about being a kid? They had to lie to go anyplace that they wanted to go to, and they wasted hours sitting in a classroom, supposedly learning how to fit in with the rest of humanity when quite frankly it seemed fairly pointless to try. They weren’t really humans; they were elves.

“So what are you going to do?” Louise asked as casually as she could.

Aunt Kitty looked at her in confusion.

“About the soundtrack?” Jillian clarified.

“I had to turn the gig down. They specifically wanted instruments that I don’t have.”

“Oh.” The twins shared a guilty look. They could have given her their software, but that would mean explaining about the videos. They couldn’t tell her the truth; everything would start to unravel. Lemon-Lime led to YourStore that led to a joint bank account under Esme’s name that led to what they really were doing at the museum.

“I know you really like the name,” Aunt Kitty continued. “But you need something new. I’m sorry to have to tell you, especially after such a bad day yesterday. If you promise me not to tell a soul, I’ll tell you a secret that might make you feel better.”

“Okay.” At least they were good at keeping secrets.

“NBC is going to green-light a series on Elfhome by Nigel Reid.”

“Really?” they both cried with amazement. Last they’d heard, Nigel had been blocked at every attempt to get to Elfhome.

“They do focus groups and such like that. And this Lemon-Lime Jello production group apparently used Nigel in one of their videos and suddenly he’s the hottest thing on the face of the planet. So the network is going to do a pilot and see what the focus group thinks.”

“Nigel got a visa for Elfhome?” Louise cried.

“No,” Aunt Kitty said. “Apparently EIA is being a pain. They want NBC to commit to a full season before giving Nigel and his cameraman visas, and that’s all they’re willing to cover. Nigel will have to pull a full working crew from the affiliate in Pittsburgh.”

Jillian tilted her head in confusion. “What are they doing for a pilot show if EIA won’t let Nigel on Elfhome?”

“They’re going to film using animals and plants here on Earth,” Aunt Kitty said. “The kuesi at the Bronx Zoo. Some of the songbirds at the aviary at the Queens Zoo. And there’s a herd of Elfhome red elk at the Philadelphia Zoo.”

“Oh, that’s going to be so lame!” the twins cried. Louise added, “The cool part of Elfhome is the forest and the elves and the weird monsters that need magic to survive.”

Aunt Kitty nodded agreement. “Since they’re calling the series Chased by Monsters, I think that’s the general idea that they’re going for.”

Louise squealed. “Oh, that sounds so cool! Nigel is perfect for it.” Although it did sound slightly dangerous, considering what had happened with the simple fire ants. “I hope he doesn’t get hurt doing it.”

“So this Lemon-Lime video made Nigel more popular?” Jillian asked.

“Yes,” Aunt Kitty said. “So some good came from these people stealing your name.”

The twins were saved from having to come up with an answer by the waiter showing up with their drinks.