comforting at first, until it occurred to me that a time machine might.
Don’t be silly, I told myself.
“All done,” said mini-Marc.
I buttoned him up. “Let’s wash your hands,” I said, lifting him up so he could reach the faucet. Then he wanted to use the hand dryer for longer than seemed entirely necessary.
“Come on, buddy, I’ve got to get back to work, and your mom’s going to wonder what happened to you,” I told him.
He reluctantly let me lead him out into the hall. Once there, he started charging down it. I ran to catch up. “Hey! Where are you going?”
“I gotta find my butter.”
“Okay, kid, hold your horses. Where’s your mom? Maybe we should take you to Ms. Callender.”
“I gotta find my
“Hey, calm down, sweetie. What is it? Are you hungry?” I knelt and took him by the shoulders. He shook me off and started stomping his feet.
“Where’s my butter? I want my butter!”
“Andre? Andre, where are you?” Marc Merritt appeared as if by magic at the end of the hall. He was full size. I felt a wave of embarrassment for having imagined that he’d been tampered with by a shrink ray.
The kid—Andre—ran to him, his little feet thudding like pneums, and threw himself against Marc’s legs, crying, “Butter!”
Marc knelt down and hugged him. “Brother yourself! Where’d you go to? Didn’t I tell you to stay put? You scared me! Don’t ever do that, okay?”
“Sorry, Butter. I hadda
Marc looked up as if noticing me for the first time. The look was not altogether friendly. He often looked arrogant, but this time I felt as if he was accusing me of something.
“I took him to the bathroom,” I said. “He said he was going to have an accident. So he’s your brother?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s Andre. Thanks,” he said, thawing a little. “Say thank you to Elizabeth, Andre.”
“Thank you, Libbet,” said Andre.
“Did you wash your hands?” asked Marc.
“Yeah, I like the wind thing. It goes
Marc swung him to his shoulder as lightly as if he were lifting a kitten, not a solidly built three-year-old. “Okay, bro, let’s get you to day care. Say bye to Elizabeth.”
“Bye-bye, Libbet,” said Andre, waving at me.
“Bye, Andre.”
“Thanks, Elizabeth,” said Marc, more warmly this time. “Thanks for taking care of him. Sorry for the trouble.”
It felt good to have Marc Merritt thanking me. I watched as he carried Andre off down the hallway.
I noticed he was wearing the brown work boots again. Were they his? I found myself wondering. Or were they the mysteriously misshelved ones? Stop it, I told myself. If I wanted to make friends, I needed to be more trusting.
I finished putting away the opera gowns and trundled my hand truck back to the staging area. Aaron was sitting at his usual desk. He was mending something under a bright lamp, which cast the usual sharp shadows across his cheekbones.
“Anjali?” he said, looking up.
“No, just Elizabeth,” I answered, slightly testily.
His face fell. “Oh. Hi, Elizabeth.” I could hear the disappointment in his voice. How flattering.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m darning a sock,” he said, holding it up to show me.
“What’s that lump inside it?”
“A sock egg.”
“A sock egg? I didn’t know socks hatched from eggs.”
“Only the best ones do. I can’t wear the cheap kind, the ones that grow on trees. They give me blisters.”
“Riiiiight, okay. Is that from the Grimm Collection?” I asked.
“Of course not. It’s just an ordinary sock egg,” he said shortly.
“I meant the sock.”
“Why would it be? And why do you keep asking about the Grimm Collection?”
“Because it makes you mad, and you look so funny when you snarl,” I said. “Is it? The sock, I mean. From the Grimm Collection.”
“No, it’s from my sock drawer. It got a hole. My toe was poking through—it was very uncomfortable.”
“Oh.” I was kind of impressed, despite myself. How many guys would bother to sew up a hole in their sock? “Seriously, what’s a sock egg?” I asked.
He reached into the sock and pulled it out. It looked like an ordinary chicken’s egg made of wood. “You put it in the sock to stretch it out where the hole is so you can sew it up more evenly,” he said.
“I see,” I said. “That’s kind of a clever idea. I wonder who thought of it. Do you think the first sock eggs were real eggs?”
“No way. Too fragile. That would be pretty gross, if you broke an egg in your sock.”
“So what do you think the first ones were?”
He shrugged. “Round stones, probably. If you’re really curious, you could take a look at the egg collection.”
“The Egg Collection? Is that like the Grimm Collection?”
He snorted. “Of course not. I just meant the various eggs in the repository.”
“There are eggs here?”
“Sure, lots of different kinds.”
“Hard boiled? Over easy?”
“Ukrainian Easter eggs. China eggs for tricking hens into laying. Ostrich eggs with scenes painted on them. Even a few fossilized dinosaur eggs.”
“Wow, what do those look like?”
“Big and round.”
“Could you use them to darn socks?”
“If you had giant feet.” He looked at my feet and grinned.
I’m a little sensitive about the size of my feet, and I felt myself begin to blush.
To cover my embarrassment, I said, “How do you know they’re dinosaur eggs and not giant eggs from the giant bird?”
“What giant bird?” Aaron sounded alarmed.
“The one that’s supposedly following people around and stealing their objects.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who told you about that? Marc?”
“No, Anjali.”
“Oh. Well, she shouldn’t be talking about that. And you certainly shouldn’t be joking about it!”
“Why not? Do you honestly believe there’s a giant bird stealing things?”
“Maybe. But it’s nothing to joke about, anyway.”
“Elizabeth?” said someone behind me. This time it
“Anjali!” Aaron said again, his voice full of pleasure like a kid who hears the ice-cream truck. He hadn’t sounded like that when he was talking to
“Hi, Aaron, mind if I borrow Elizabeth for a minute?” Anjali asked.
“What do you need her for? Maybe I could help you instead,” said Aaron hopefully.
“It’s girl stuff,” said Anjali. She drew me into a dark corner near the *V room. “I need your help with something . . . personal,” she said.
“Of course! What is it?”
