Great-Uncle Thorne waved his bony hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. He always loved our mother, Ariane, above all others.”
His eyes stayed on Aiofe, following her as she made sure everyone had what they needed before she left to get fresh coffee.
Once she was gone, Great-Uncle Thorne leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “Get those Ziff twins over here. I’m sending you all on a mission.”
Felix groaned. How could he possibly do even one more thing?
But Maisie was intrigued. “What kind of mission?” she asked.
Great-Uncle Thorne cocked his head, listening to be sure Aiofe wasn’t approaching before he spoke.
“Upstairs,” he said, “in The Treasure Chest, there’s something that will bring you to the Congo—”
“And Amy Pickworth!” Maisie said, excited.
Great-Uncle Thorne nodded solemnly. “And Amy Pickworth. I want you to find it and go there immediately.”
“What’s the object?” Felix asked.
Aiofe’s footsteps neared.
“I don’t know for certain,” Great-Uncle Thorne admitted. “I only know they went to find Dr. Livingstone.”
Maisie and Felix glanced at each other and shrugged.
“My sister was right,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “You two know nothing about anything at all.”
Aiofe walked in with more coffee and cocoa.
“After school,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, leveling his gaze on Maisie and then Felix. “Meet me in the Library. And bring those Ziff twins.”
CHAPTER 3
THE MISSION
Maisie’s teacher, Mrs. Witherspoon, clapped her hands for attention.
“People!” she said. Then louder: “People!”
Maisie caught Hadley’s eye and the two of them smirked.
“Today we are starting a new unit,” Mrs. Witherspoon announced when the noise died down.
Still looking at Maisie, Hadley crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
“Miss Ziff?” Mrs. Witherspoon said. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh no,” Hadley said sweetly. “I can’t wait to hear about it.”
Mrs. Witherspoon studied Hadley’s face for a moment before she continued.
“The new unit is on aviation,” she said, pulling the large world map down over the blackboard.
Inwardly, Maisie groaned. Aviation? she thought. Seriously?
“. . . Charles Lindbergh . . . ,” Mrs. Witherspoon was saying.
Surely there would be a report of some kind, Maisie thought. Mrs. Witherspoon loved reports and oral presentations.
“. . . the Space Age . . . ,” Mrs. Witherspoon was saying. “Your topic for your report can span the centuries!”
A smile crept over Maisie’s face. The Aviatrix Room! Right in Elm Medona. Her mother’s bedroom was the Aviatrix Room. It had real airplane wings suspended from the ceiling and an entire cabinet of early aviation mementos. My room is sepia, her mother had complained when they’d first moved into the mansion from the servant’s quarters. Maisie hadn’t known what “sepia” was until her mother threw open the door to the Aviatrix Room and said: Look! Sepia walls and draperies and . . . everything! Sepia was brown. The brown of old photographs and maps. And the Aviatrix Room was indeed sepia. Except the ceiling, which was the most beautiful blue Maisie had ever seen. The way those airplane wings were suspended from that ceiling, it actually looked as if a plane was disappearing into the sky.
“Where do you go, Miss Robbins?” Mrs. Witherspoon asked wearily.
Maisie glanced around the room. Everyone seemed to be staring at her, waiting.
“Uh,” she said.
“Miss Perkins is interested in doing a report on Neil Armstrong. Mr. Cooper wants to study Juan Tripp,” Mrs. Witherspoon said.
She leveled her gaze on Maisie. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas, Miss Robbins?”
Maisie grinned. “Either Brave Bessie Colman, Pancho Barnes, or Amy Johnson,” she said, naming the women pilots whose mementos were in her mother’s bedroom. Mrs. Witherspoon looked bewildered.
“They’re aviatrixes,” Maisie said smugly. “Female—”
“I know what an aviatrix is, Miss Robbins,” Mrs. Witherspoon said. “I’m just surprised that you know of so many.”
“Oh,” Maisie said, “you’d be surprised at the things I know.”
As soon as Maisie’s class entered the library, Felix grabbed his sister’s arm and pulled her into the stacks. His class was also doing a unit on aviation, and Miss Landers had brought them to the library to start researching their subjects, too. But Felix had looked up Dr. Livingstone instead.
“Malaria,” he whispered to Maisie. “Cannibals.”
Maisie shook her head. “Our unit’s on aviation,” she explained.
“Not the unit!” Felix said. “The Congo!”
When Maisie still looked confused, Felix said, “Dr. Livingstone. He went to Africa in 1871 to find the source of the Nile and he died there, just like every other explorer.”
“You mean Great-Uncle Thorne’s Dr. Livingstone?”