Chapter 5 & 6 - The Child in the Museum

Chapter 5

Amelia wasn’t sure why she felt so compelled to tell the little boy the truth about how she lived her life. Perhaps it was something about the open curiosity of his eyes, or the genuine way he asked her questions. Either way, there was something about him that made her feel confident he had a trustworthy heart. The worst thing that could happen would be that he would tell his mom, making his mom concerned and alerting some authority figure to her existence. Then someone would come to take her way...as Amelia’s mind drifted in this direction she realized that the stakes were actually quite high, that the implications of telling the little boy about her life were really big. She also realized that she had never told anyone that level of truth before. Her heart felt like it skipped a beat. Why did she choose this time to open herself up to such danger, to risk everything? The little boy was even eager to introduce her to his mom. What else could he have told his mom in the time since Amelia left them?

Amelia made a decision that she would have to find the boy again and emphasize the importance of keeping the secret. Until then, she would choose to believe that he already understood, that he could already tell the importance of the information. He seemed very intuitive. As Amelia walked the hallway of the French Room Decor and Furniture exhibits—the section she had made her home—she began to imagine what it would be like to live in complete hiding, to not just have to keep herself out of notice, but to actively conceal herself from people who were looking for her. The bedrooms in this section of the museum were beautiful, they were comfy, and they were obvious. They would be the first place she would look for someone presumably living in the museum. She needed to expand her territory of the museum. She had explored every inch of the museum she had access to of course, but she hadn’t considered other potential living situations, and more importantly: places to disappear. Simply put, she needed more hiding spots. With her hands on her hips, feeling more determined, she watched the guests idly walking by and looking into “her” bedroom. Today she would explore and find the little boy again. There was no time to waste. She needed to go to a whole new area of the museum and spend some time coming up with back-up plans as well. She realized she spent the least amount of time overall in the Egyptian section as it gave her the creeps. Therefore, it would be the perfect place to start.

 Amelia walked briskly in the direction of the Egyptian section, knowing that she needed to stop by the entrance as well. With all of the day's distractions, she had almost forgotten a very important task. Luckily, the entrance was on the way. As people were admitted into the museum, they were given a sticker to wear to show that they paid. The stickers had different colors and numbers depending on the day, and she had to make sure she could get her hands on a sticker as early in the day as possible to avoid getting stopped. The easiest way to get one was from the large exit sign that everyone passed as they left, in which people would discard their stickers on the sign as they went by. The trick for this task was  to time it for when guests would have left the museum after their visit, and that was usually a bit later in the morning. Today she had waited much later than usual, much past her normal comfort zone. As Amelia approached the entrance, she slipped in between a few clusters of excited tour groups. Thinking herself small, she quickly brushed past the sign, grasping a used sticker between two fingers, and hiding it in her palm. She walked with purpose to the other side of the entry hall, and stuck it on her chest before entering the Egyptian section. At every entry point, a guard waited, noticing each person’s sticker as they went into the section. Luckily so far, she had never had a problem. She learned fast in the museum, although it was difficult for her to pinpoint in her memory the exact moments that she had learned these tricks. She must have been very young. 

The Egyptian section didn’t have a lot of people at this particular midday time, and she knew there would be less and less the further into the exhibits she got. It felt a bit like a maze as you kept going: rooms leading to many other rooms, featuring many different eras from Egypt’s history, with an impressive—almost endless-feeling—amount of objects. Amelia knew she couldn’t go as far as where there would be no other people, because she didn’t want to be caught as a child in the museum all by herself. She settled herself in an area with many large statues and sarcophagi in the center of the rooms. She shivered as she imagined herself hiding inside one of the sarcophagi, and how scary and claustrophobic it would be. Were there bodies in there already? She wasn’t sure. Of course, they would have alarms, and that particular terrifying solution would be impossible, regardless. Over time, she learned how to tell which displays had alarms that would be tripped if you got too close, and she also developed a good skill of being able to assess the cameras out of the corner of her eye. She noted the direction they were pointing and where there were likely blindspots. 

In the side of her vision, where she had been trying to locate cameras, a dark figure took her by surprise. She jumped and wheeled around, but as her body faced in the direction it should have been, she couldn’t see anything at all. There were no signs or security guards or staff, not even any other guests. Curiously, she went into the adjoining room to see if there were any other people around. As she turned the corner, she saw no one in sight. Amelia's stomach lurched, and she started walking as quickly as she could toward the entrance. She needed to get as far away from the strange shadow figure as she could get herself before having to wonder what it really was that she saw.

Chapter 6

Arthur watched over his mom’s shoulder impatiently as she made the final marks and smudges on her drawing. He knew she was done when she wrote her initials and the date in the corner. 

“Ready?” he said “Let’s go…”

“Yes, yes.” His mom smiled, putting the sketchbook under his arm. “And what part of the museum were you wanting to go to?”

“Upstairs!” He exclaimed, enthusiastically. The upstairs was so far the only place that was off-limits to Arthur to explore alone, and he couldn’t wait to see what was missing. He still hadn’t quite explored the entire downstairs, but there was nothing quite like the draw of a forbidden area.

Arthur’s mom smiled. “I know just the place.”

Once all of her art supplies were packed up and her hands thoroughly wiped on her black leggings, she took Arthur’s hand. Arthur took it away reflexively, “We aren’t on the street…”

They walked a little further before Arthur asked, “When will Dad be able to join us?”

“He’s in rehearsal all day today,” she said gently, “I’m not sure when he will be free to spend some time with us here, but I’m sure that when he can, he would love for you to show him around.” They turned the corner into the stairwell. “I’m going to show you the perfect spot to take him to.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, Arthur knew exactly why. The first sight that met his eyes were rows and rows of instruments—wooden stringed instruments to be exact—and a whole wall of violins leading to cellos in display cases, and even some instruments he had never seen before. In fact, as he approached the displays, some of the instruments that he felt like he did recognize also looked like nothing he had ever seen before. Some of them had the most intricate and ornate designs, some looked very old, and others had something else different about them.

Arthur’s dad played the double bass in orchestras. It was the biggest, most beautiful instrument of them all, Arthur thought. Arthur was used to being around many instruments, and had many of them, even, in his own house. He played around with a few instruments, but he was still deciding what it was that he wanted to focus on playing. He couldn’t wait until he was bigger and could handle the bigger instruments. His dad said that the instrument a person chooses to play reflects their personality, and Arthur wanted to make sure that he took the time to choose the right one. He always wanted to make his dad proud.

“This shows the history of the instruments, how they have developed over time. Many of these are very old and very valuable.”

“They seem a little lonely behind glass.”

Arthur’s mom smiled, “I think actually that instruments are healthiest when they’re played, and there are probably people who come and play them regularly here in the museum to keep them happy.”

Arthur spent some time wandering the exhibit. He felt very proud of the knowledge he had of instruments, and could tell when some of these had an unusual number of strings or shapes. He had never thought about the people who invented them. He imagined what it took to carve them out of wood, and thought about the patience it must have taken to continually edit and remake them, seeing which changes created the best sound. He wondered how long it had taken to get them just right. He couldn’t yet read the bigger words on the placards, but he could tell a lot of the instrument’s stories just by looking at them.

His mom was sitting and looking wistfully at a beautiful harp. He knew she had always wanted to play one, but had never quite had the opportunity. His mom had recently told him a story about a princess playing a harp in a forest, with birds sitting along the curve of the instrument, singing along. She liked to make life feel like a fairytale.

Arthur found a beautiful, and of course very large, double bass. It felt like a whole person in itself, with interestingly shaped holes in the front that felt like eyes, and the arch-shaped wooden piece in the middle as a nose. This one seemed very old and very wise. People often thought of the double bass as being a large cello, but he felt that they had completely different personalities and different faces than cellos. It wasn’t something he could easily describe, but he could imagine a story where each instrument was a character, and felt he could very much tell them all apart and identify which was which. He couldn’t wait to show this one to his dad! He wondered if the people in the museum would let his dad play it. He always loved to hear his dad’s music, and sat through many long classical music concerts with a patience that often surprised other people.

He followed the shape of the neck and the swirly carving at the top with his eyes, and as he looked through the glass case, he was startled to see another pair of eyes on the other side. It was Amelia! She put her finger up to her lips as if to tell him to be quiet.