Read Online The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt - Free Book Online

finally, at exactly 1:50, we were free.
    We didn’t waste any time. We grabbed the bags we’d packed with our extra clothes, raced across this little park to the tube station, hopped on the next train, and ended up at the entrance to the National Gallery at 2:19. We’d probably set a new speed record.
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    We were feeling really good about this until we walked into the museum. That’s where the problems started.
    First a guard stopped us and wouldn’t let us in with our backpacks. They want everybody to leave their big bags in the cloakroom before they go in to see the paintings.
    I’d never thought of that, and I thought this meant we were completely meeped. But leave it to Lucas. She said, “We’re here to take a class. I think we came in the wrong door. You can look—all we have in our bags is clothes. It’s a class in fashion drawing.” She gestured with her head to where I was standing. “I’m going to draw her in some different outfits, and she’s going to draw me.”
    I held my breath. But the guard said, “I’ll take a look, if you don’t mind.”
    He opened both bags, dug around, and finally came up with the expensive digital camera Lucas’s parents had given her for the trip. “No cameras.”
    Lucas and I looked at each other. We were going to use it to take pictures of Gallery Guy and whatever he was doing. There went our entire plan.
    The guard must have thought we were upset because we didn’t know what to do with our camera while we were in class. “You can still go in,” he said. “Put your clothing in one of your bags and I’ll let you take that one in. But you’ll have to put the camera in the other bag and leave it in the cloakroom.”
    â€œOkay.” Lucas sounded as discouraged as I felt.
    â€œYou know where you’re going when you’re done checking your bag?”
    We nodded.
    â€œNext time, use the education entrance around the other side. More convenient for you.”
    â€œI can’t believe you got by with that,” I said when we left the guard. “How did you know they’d be giving classes in fashion drawing?”
    â€œI didn’t.” Lucas flopped her backpack onto an empty bench and sat down next to it. “I just figured the guards are in a different department from education, and they probably wouldn’t know anything about the classes. Basically we lucked out.” Nerves of steel, I tell you.
    â€œWhat are we going to do without the camera?” She looked at me and I looked at her. For once she didn’t have a suggestion.
    I sighed. “I guess we’ll think of something.”
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    Eventually we got to the deserted women’s room practically just downstairs from the Rembrandt room. There wasn’t much counter space, so we piled our stuff in one of the sinks. “How different do you think I look?” Lucas said. We were excited again, and this was maybe the seventeenth time one of us had said this.
    The day before, when we’d first visited the Rembrandt room, Lucas and I had both been wearing jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts. Lucas had been wearing her glasses—surprise, surprise—and had her hair up in a scrunchy. She’d looked fourteen. Now, in her dress, her contacts, and all the makeup, I thought she looked eighteen, at least. Maybe even twenty.
    â€œYou know, the good thing about that dress,” I said, not actually answering her question, because I’d already answered it a bunch of times that day, “is that it makes you look all feminine and, uh . . .”
    â€œKind of harmless, you mean.”
    â€œRight. Now if you can just keep your eyes closed, so Gallery Guy doesn’t see that you’re really a lion inside.”
    â€œJust call me Simba. Rrrraaah .”
    â€œSimba needs some blush.”
    â€œI think I look way younger than you,” Lucas said while