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?”
Mr. Kessler flicked his hand toward the door and started for the teacher’s desk.
Louise hurried to their locker and stuffed it into Tesla’s storage compartment. What could they tell Mr. Kessler? Did they have to tell him anything? He seemed not to really care what the generator did, which was weird. Why would he even give it to her until he knew what it did? She was glad he had, but it seemed stupid of him.
“Seamus!” Mr. Howe barked in his classroom across the hall. “Sit!”
Oh. Yes. Mr. Howe had told Mr. Kessler not to bully the twins. Apparently Mr. Kessler was worried that breaking the fake generator would be considered being intentionally mean to Louise. He was making sure that everything was good before the joint stagecraft class, where Louise would have to give Mr. Howe a report of her progress or lack thereof. Eek! They hadn’t made a second fake generator! They’d just assumed that Mr. Kessler would report the first one smashed and that would be the end of it. Oh, how could they be so stupid? Of course, one way or another, they’d have to produce an unsmashed fake generator because they’d said it was necessary to put on the play! If she took the magic generator upstairs during stagecraft, Mr. Howe would insist it be stored with the rest of the play equipment — which was the whole point of having the fake in the first place. She needed a fake, and she needed it to be able to do something demonstrable.
What could it do?
She leaned against the cool metal of her locker, thinking. Something to do with the play that she had overlooked but would seem vital. The holographic projectors were to deal with the mermaids. What else was Peter Pan canon? Pixie dust? No, they were going to go with just glitter, and that was the most intelligent method. Wait — Tinker Bell! Traditionally the fairy was represented just by a pin spotlight and a shimmer of bells as the character spoke. The twins were planning to do a traditional Tinker Bell, but they could do it bigger.
She hurried back to her desk. Mr. Kessler glanced at her as she came in but didn’t stop his lecture on spreadsheets. She quickly checked his class schedule for the next few periods. As she’d hoped, he was floating from class to class today, spending the next four periods on the lower floors. It’d be unlikely he’d climb the eight flights up to the art rooms.
She then quickly checked a run time on a hybrid projector. Only three hours. Good. It gave her forty minutes to spare. If there was a teacher mode on the printer, then she should actually be able to load the program remotely. (Since the school was filled with gifted students, it really should have had a beefier security system. She and Jillian had hacked in as first-graders and set up a back door that no one had seemed to notice in the last five years.)
She winced at the printer’s log that showed who accessed the printer and copies of the programs they ran. Judging from the few times that the printer had been used, Mr. Kessler really did see the printer as “his.” In the last month, she and Mr. Kessler were the only ones using it. It felt wrong to leave any evidence of the magic generator anywhere in the school system, so she changed the log, swapping out the magic-generator program with the hybrid projector.
Twenty-three minutes later, she started the print job. Once the printer was finished, she would delete out all evidence that she — or rather Mr. Kessler — printed anything new. The only hard thing left was getting the hybrid projector off the 3D printer and into storage with the other play items. Since the entire class saw Mr. Kessler hand her the magic generator, she had fourteen witnesses that she had to go to the art room.
The end-of-period bell rang, and she followed Mr. Kessler out the door and watched him head to the stairs. His next class was with the second-graders, two flights down, but he did have time to run upstairs and back.
“Go down. Go down,” she whispered.
He paused at the stairs, checked his watch, and trotted downwards.
“Oh, thank God.” She collapsed against the wall with relief.
Jillian was grinning hugely.
“What?” Louise asked.
“We’ve got a second generator!” Jillian whispered. “It means we both can go to the museum.”
Louise gasped. She hadn’t even considered that side of things. “But it’s all useless if France doesn’t send the box.”
“They’ll send it.” Jillian’s grin didn’t waver. “Even if we have to get tricky about it.”
A full agonizing ten days later, the EIA talked France into sending just the box. Suddenly they had seventy-two hours to be ready to rob a world-famous museum.
21: Knock, Knock, Open The Box
Louise felt like she was going to be sick. She was so nervous her stomach was a queasy roil. At the same time, she couldn’t stop grinning widely. They were going to do it, actually rob a museum like two cat burglars.
Part of her really wished they were going to do a traditional middle-of-the-night entrance through a skylight, but it was far easier and simpler to slip into the museum in broad daylight while it was still open. With the museum closing at 5:45, they could even be home before their parents could deeply question their “working late on the play” alibi.