Stealing Magic by Marianne Malone Read Free Book Online Page A

dog.
    “Are you from America?” the girl asked.
    “Yes,” Jack answered. “My name’s Jack, and this is Ruthie.”
    “I am Louisa.” She looked to be about the same age as them. She wore a cotton print dress with a blue cardigan sweater. Only the top button was buttoned, which seemed to be the style on lots of women out walking. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face with two fancy clips. “I could tell from your accent—and your clothes.” Ruthie and Jack both wore blue jeans and sneakers. Jack had the image of Sue the dinosaur from the Field Museum on his T-shirt, her toothy
T. rex
smile poking out from under his sweatshirt jacket. Ruthie wore a blue sweatshirt with the Oakton logo printed on it. “Does everyone dress like this in America these days?”
    “In Chicago,” Jack answered. “That’s where we’re from.”
    “I have heard there are gangsters there!” Louisa said.
    Ruthie was about to answer no, but Jack answered first.“It’s true. Al Capone.” Ruthie had no idea what Jack was talking about, so she kept quiet. “The FBI has caught most of them, though. It’s pretty safe now.”
    “What are you doing in Paris?” Louisa asked.
    Again Jack answered quickly. “Our dad is here on business. It’s our second time in Paris.”
    At least that’s half true
, Ruthie thought.
    “What about you?” Ruthie asked. She had noticed right away that this girl’s perfect English had an accent that didn’t sound French. And she was pretty sure that when the girl had told her dog to sit, she hadn’t said it in French.
    “I am German. My family came to Paris a few months ago.” She changed the subject. “What do you think of the exposition?”
    “We don’t know much about it. What’s it all about?”
    Frieda whimpered and tugged on the leash, so they all started walking alongside the fountain as Louisa talked.
    “This is the Exposition Universelle. The organizers say it is meant to celebrate progress and the future. Every country has a pavilion.” She gestured to the structures that lined the park. “Each pavilion shows what is new in that country.”
    “Oh, I get it,” Ruthie said. “It’s a World’s Fair.” Her father had told her about some famous buildings in Chicago built for one of those fairs a long time ago. The three of them walked up and down the Jardins du Trocadéro; they noted the pavilions of Poland, Finland, and Spain (Louisa helped them recognize the names withtheir foreign spellings). These buildings sat lower and welcomed visitors, unlike the looming structures from Germany and the Soviet Union, which seemed to command,
Stay out!
    Louisa asked all kinds of questions about Chicago, and told Ruthie and Jack a lot about Paris and Berlin and the people of the two cities.
    “The secret is,” she began, “sometimes I feel rather out of place here. Parisians are so different from Berliners.”
    “You’d fit in at our school,” Jack said. “Everyone is pretty different.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    “Lots of our classmates’ families come from somewhere else. Even our teacher, Ms. Biddle, grew up outside of the States—her mom’s Nigerian and her dad’s from England,” Jack explained.
    “That sounds fun,” Louisa said.
    “Do you go to school here?” Ruthie asked.
    “No, since it is temporary. My brother and I have a tutor for lessons, though.” Then she turned toward the river and pointed. “The United States pavilion is down by the Seine over there.”
    “Let’s go see it,” Ruthie suggested.
    They walked to the bridge that crossed the Seine, seeing the tourist boats pass under. The sunlight hit the waves created by them, glints bouncing off the white foam. On the other side, they turned to the right, passing the pavilions of Great Britain, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia. TheU.S. pavilion was a symmetrical building with a windowed tower in the middle that was much taller than the rest of the building. A single U.S. flag waved on top. It looked