The Lost Property Office Read online

  Think!

  Sadie had seen a man in a brown coat, some guy who looked like their dad. Then Jack had looked up and she was gone. No . . . She had said something else, hadn’t she? He’s going to leave, Jack. Not just leave the lobby. Leave the hotel. While Jack was playing on his phone, Sadie had followed some random guy out into the street. His mom was going to kill him.

  The exit from the Eurotrek Lodge was a big, automatic revolving door that moved at the pace of a hundred-year-old tortoise. Jack tried to push it, but that only made it stop. He pushed again and it squawked at him in the excessively calm voice of a digital Englishwoman. “Caution. Door in motion. Door in motion.”

  Jack threw his arms in the air. “No it’s not!”

  Once the revolving door finally let him out, the situation did not improve. The hotel stood on one corner of a busy four-way intersection, meaning Sadie could have followed the man in the brown coat in any direction. Horns honked. Taxi drivers shouted. Bells jingled in every direction. And beneath it all was the relentless buzz of pedestrian chatter.

  A man to Jack’s left was calling in late for work. A woman to his right was on the phone with her bank—he heard the account number and everything. At the same time, some synapse deep in his brain informed him that the engine of the nearest double-decker bus needed tuning.

  I don’t care about the bus! He almost shouted it to the crowd as he covered his ears again. But covering them didn’t help. The street noises were too numerous, too loud. Fighting a headache, he scanned the pedestrians, all shuffling along in one direction.

  One direction. Of course. This was rush hour. Sadie had followed a random guy in a brown coat, but Random-brown-coat guy had his own, not-so-random purpose for being in London. Odds were that he was headed in the same direction as everyone else at seven thirty in the morning—downtown. Jack clenched his teeth and dove into the stream.

  The shuffling pedestrians absorbed him into their amoebic train, bumping and shoving him along so that he barely kept his feet. The onslaught of chitchat and cell phone conversations hit him from every side—flashes of color in his brain that obstructed his vision.

  White noise. I need white noise. His mother had suggested the solution several months ago. She had bought an MP3 for his phone—a continuous loop of rushing rivers and ocean waves that drowned out the world. He fumbled with his earbuds, struggling to plug them into his phone and constantly missing the port, thanks to the jostling of the crowd. Suddenly the phone flew from his grasp. It clattered to the pavement behind him. Above the horns and engines and the buzz of the crowd, Jack’s oversensitive ears picked up a heart-wrenching crunch.

  Chapter 5

  SO MUCH FOR white noise.

  Fighting through his frustration, Jack rose up on his tiptoes to scan the crowd ahead. He knew there was no way he would see Sadie among all those adults—she was barely four feet tall—but he might see the coat she was following.

  It is Daddy, she had insisted back at the hotel. Same brown coat and everything.

  Jack knew exactly which coat she meant. His dad hardly wore anything else when the weather at home in Colorado turned cold—a suede duster, a sharp reddish-brown overcoat like no other Jack had ever seen. “Like a red stag,” his dad would always say. “A man’s coat.” Jack almost smiled at the memory. Then he caught sight of his quarry.

  Sadie’s mystery man was a good fifty feet ahead, passing a strange wall covered in shrubs, like a sideways garden. The red stag overcoat looked right at home against the vegetation. He did look like their dad, and it wasn’t just the coat. He wore a bowler hat. What were the odds that two different guys who favored old-fashioned hats and rust-colored suede were wandering around London? No way. Jack’s heart beat against his chest. Tears came to his eyes. He rose up on his toes and waved a hand above the crowd. “Dad! John Buckles!”

  The mystery man turned with the crowd to descend a set of stairs, and Jack got a look at his face. His heart crashed within him. There were two men who favored bowlers and suede. The mystery man’s chin was too short, hardly even there, and his face too grim and grizzled. Jack wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his T-shirt. Why had he let Sadie get his hopes up? Why had he let her draw him in to her denial? Then the implication of the stairs caught up to him.

  The Tube.

  “Pardon me! Excuse me!” Jack surged forward through the crowd. Amid the jumble of coats and briefcases on the stairs, he saw blue polka dots on a white background—the pattern of his sister’s blouse—surfacing and submerging beneath the waves of gray and brown. It was a miracle she wasn’t trampled.

  “Sadie!”

  Then she was gone again, out of sight beneath the street.

  Jack reached the stairs a few seconds later, and the Tube station below slowly came into view—a half-dozen aluminum turnstiles at the center, ticket machines decorated with plastic holly to the left, and a guard wearing a red-and-silver reflective coat standing in a Plexiglas box to the right. A musician leaned against the right-hand wall beyond the barriers, wearing a Santa hat and playing a rhythmic riff on his guitar, but no one paid him any notice.

  Another flash of blue polka dots caught Jack’s eye. Sadie walked patiently behind a woman in an electric wheelchair, following her through a wide gate at the end of the turnstiles.

  “Sadie, stop!”

  No one prevented her from going through. If the guard even noticed her, he must have assumed she was pushing the chair. Jack reached the same spot seconds later and hesitated, hoping another wheelchair would materialize. He glanced from side to side, bouncing nervously on his toes for a couple of seconds, then planted both hands on the barrier and vaulted over.

  “You! Green shirt. Stop!”

  Of course.

  Jack imagined that rebel types who routinely jumped turnstiles knew how to do it without getting caught. He was not a rebel type, and would have obeyed the Tube cop, but he needed to catch his sister before stopping to explain himself. He ducked into the crowd, turning left with the multitude down a passage marked BAKERLOO.

  “The boy in the green shirt,” the guard called out behind. “Stop him!”

  Despite the obvious authority of the Tube cop’s red, high-visibility jacket, no one heeded his command, leaving Jack free to continue squeezing his way forward through the shuffling mob. The passage arced slightly right and then straightened out so that he could see all the way to the platform. There, standing in the open doorway of a packed train, looking down to smooth out her flouncy polka-dot shirt, was Sadie.

  “Sadie! Get off the train!”

  She looked up as the doors closed, giving Jack an innocent little smile—glad to see that her brother had decided to join the chase. She tried to wave but had to grab the handrail instead as the train jerked into motion.

  Chapter 6

  “ANY OF YOU seen a kid in a green shirt?” Jack heard the Tube cop puffing behind him. He turned left along the platform, looking for a place to hide. All he found was an alcove, barely a foot deep. The gray door inside was labeled DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE and secured with a padlock. Jack pressed himself up against it, turning his head to make sure his nose didn’t stick out. His eyes fell on another teenage boy with spiked blue hair, wearing red skinny jeans and a black leather jacket with studs all over it. The boy was staring right at him. Jack gave him a pleading look. The kid snorted and turned to face the tracks.

  Thirty more seconds passed with Jack trying to look as casual as possible while pressed against the high-voltage door. Another train rolled into the station, and the same voice he had heard while trapped in the hotel’s revolving door said, “Mind the gap, please.”

  Spiky-hair kid sauntered on board.

  Jack had no choice but to follow. Sadie was somewhere down the line.

  Once on the train, Jack shrank into the nook at the front end of the car, trying to stay out of sight. Spiky-hair kid gave him a smirk, but he positioned himself between Jack and the window, blocking the sightline of the Tube cop on the pl
atform. Jack offered a grateful nod.

  Spiky-hair kid snorted. After that, the two boys did their best not to make eye contact.

  The train was mercifully quiet. No more street noises. The passengers played with their phones instead of talking on them. Unfortunately, the enclosed environment brought with it a new threat to Jack’s senses.

  On the street above, the cold and the westerly breeze had removed the smell of the pedestrians, leaving only the sooty, gray smell of any street in any big city. Here, in the warm, stagnant air of the train car, Jack could smell them all. Spiky-hair kid hadn’t bathed in a while, and had one arm raised to hold on to the rail. He had clearly tried to cover his personal musk with cologne, but succeeded only in creating a sort of fruity, leather-onions motif.

  And Smelly-spiky-hair kid’s musk wasn’t the worst part. An oozing, oily scent of digested fish hung in the air like a red haze. Jack guessed that at least half the people on the train had eaten herring for breakfast, and not one had brushed afterward. He scanned their faces. No one else seemed to notice. What was wrong with these people?

  The train slowed and Jack bent down to look out the curved window, searching the platform for any sign of his sister or the man in the brown bowler. He didn’t see either one. He didn’t see any Tube cops either. It seemed the men in the red high-visibility coats weren’t exactly Scotland Yard.

  “This is . . . Marylebone Station,” said the revolving-door-Tube voice. “Mind the gap, please.”

  Jack considered getting out, but he hadn’t seen Sadie, or even the man in the bowler hat.

  Smelly-spiky-hair kid raised one blue eyebrow.

  Jack shook his head.

  “This train is leaving the station.”

  Smelly-spiky-hair kid snorted, and the two continued avoiding each other’s eyes as the train lurched off toward its next destination. Jack did his best not to breathe, trying to balance a desperate need for oxygen against the smell of fruity onions and herring.

  “This is . . . Baker Street. Change here for connections to the . . . Metropolitan, Circle . . . and . . . Jubilee lines. Mind the gap, please.”

  Again, Jack bent down to scan the platform. The walls were covered in rust-colored tiles, painted with murals that looked like sketches from an old book. The nearest showed a huge, wolfish dog pouncing on a terrified man. Two other men raced up from the background, both carrying revolvers. One of them wore a bowler hat. Jack almost laughed.

  The doors opened and Smelly-spiky-hair kid leaned out of the way.

  Jack shook his head again. He didn’t see Sadie.

  “This train is leaving the station.”

  As the revolving-door-Tube voice made its announcement, the last of the disembarking passengers made their way into a tunnel labeled WAY OUT, giving Jack a clear view of the benches. There was Sadie, sitting quietly, hands folded in her lap as if waiting for the next train.

  Jack shoved his right hand between the closing doors, winning a shocked look from Smelly-spiky-hair kid. It would have felt like a victory if he wasn’t about to lose his sister again.

  “Please step away from the doors,” insisted the revolving-door-Tube voice.

  “I don’t think so,” grunted Jack, jamming the fingers of his other hand into the crack. He pulled with everything he had. Smelly-spiky-hair kid joined in and grunted too, letting out a heavy breath. Jack winced at the smell.

  The doors finally slid open. “Mind the gap, please,” said the revolving-door-Tube voice, determined to have the last word. As the doors closed, Jack gave Smelly-spiky-hair kid a thumbs-up through the glass. Smelly-spiky-hair kid only snorted and turned away.

  “I lost him.” Sadie looked crestfallen as Jack came running up to the bench. “I lost Daddy. He got off the train and then he was just . . . gone.”

  Jack knelt before his sister, so grateful to be able to take her hand that he wasn’t sure he would ever let go again. “It wasn’t Dad, Sadie.”

  “Maybe we can catch him. He’s not far. I can feel it.”

  The hope on his sister’s face tore at Jack’s heart. He squeezed her hand, trying to get up the courage to say what needed to be said. Even now, he couldn’t. He hugged her, kissing her forehead. “We’re gonna be okay, but we have to stick together from now on. Understand?”

  Sadie nodded, looking up with a smile that told him she didn’t understand at all.

  Jack sighed. “Okay. We need to get out of here.”

  The sign that declared WAY OUT looked tempting, but ticket barriers and guards going in meant ticket barriers and guards going out. They couldn’t go that way. Then his eyes fell on another gray door marked DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE. The padlock was missing. Jack pulled it open and found a dark, iron staircase that wound its way up through electrical boxes, cables, and rusty pipes. There were bound to be spiders. Maybe rats, too. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take Sadie into a place like that, until he leaned far enough through the door to see the platform at the very top of the staircase, where daylight streamed in through a partially open door. Jackpot.

  Jack winced as he and Sadie stumbled out into the light, back into the noise and chaos of rush hour. He looked up and down the sidewalk, shielding his eyes, searching for a quiet place to figure out how he was going to get his sister back to the hotel.

  Pedestrians poured out of the station exit to his left, flooding the sidewalk. To his right, he saw a window display, filled with all sorts of knickknacks—a rotary telephone, stacks of vinyl records in yellowed sleeves, a top hat with edges so worn that the gray felt showed through the silk. An antique store. Quiet, but Jack had no desire to deal with the crusty old shopkeeper that probably lurked inside. Farther up he saw a grocery—aisles and anonymity. “Come on,” he said, taking Sadie’s arm and pulling her along.

  They didn’t get very far.

  A tall figure in a black overcoat came storming down the sidewalk, heading in the opposite direction. He bumped hard into Jack, spinning him back against the double doors of the antique shop. The man paused and glared down from beneath the shadow of a wide-brimmed fedora. Strangely, he had the same small chin and grizzled aspect as the man in the bowler. The look in his eyes made Jack’s blood run cold.

  “Excuse me,” mumbled Jack, and yanked his sister backward through the wooden doors. He kept on backing up until he bumped into the counter. The doors swung closed and the man in the fedora cocked his head, peering between the antiques in the window and staring at the children for a long, uncomfortable second. Then he finally continued on.

  “You can probably let go of me.”

  Jack glanced down at the iron grip he still maintained on his sister’s arm. “Sorry.” He let go, flexing his stiff fingers. “You okay?”

  Sadie massaged her arm and nodded.

  “Good. We’ll just hang . . . out . . . here . . .” Jack’s voice trailed off as his eyes shifted from his sister to the long counter behind them. The two of them slowly turned. This was no antique shop. It was some sort of government office, like the Department of Motor Vehicles back in Colorado Springs, except much, much older.

  Two nicked and dented counters made of dark-stained wood and lined with live evergreen garlands ran the breadth of the entire shop, with an absurdly tall podium jutting between them, its braided lip even with Jack’s nose. Fading letters were carved into the faces of the counters—LOST PROPERTY to the left, ENQUIRIES to the right—and a great bronze seal hung on the podium, so dark with age that it nearly matched the wood. The emblem on the seal showed a falcon in flight, eyes focused below. The title imprinted around the edges read:

  LOST PROPERTY OFFICE

  BAKER STREET BRANCH

  Chapter 7

  “AHEM.”

  Jack looked up to see a tall, matronly figure leaning out from behind the podium, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into an impossibly tight bun. The black dress she wore could have come from the same century as the dark wooden counters, with the barest hint of pouf at the shoulders and fabric buttons that rose
in two straight lines all the way up to the collar. She raised a set of stemless spectacles that hung from one of her buttons by a chain and held them against the tip of her nose to peer down at the children. “Enquiry or lost property?”

  Jack had no idea how to answer.

  The strange woman stood on a platform behind the podium, giving her an intimidating height. Her accent didn’t help either. She enunciated each syllable of the short question with such aristocratic distinction that Jack was tempted to believe he was facing the queen herself—or worse, the queen’s English teacher.

  “Kincaid!” shouted the woman, so suddenly and sharply that both of the children jumped. She let the glasses fall to the end of their chain, stern gray eyes shifting back and forth, searching the empty office. “Where is that clerk? Kincaid! We have clients!”

  No one answered.

  “I guess it’s up to me, then, isn’t it?” Her gaze settled on Jack again and she raised one pencil-thin eyebrow. “Let me elaborate on the question, child. Are you enquiring about something you have lost, or are you submitting lost property that you have found?”

  Again, Jack did not answer.

  “Lost,” offered Sadie, covering her brother’s silence. “We lost our daddy and—”

  “We’re lost.” Jack finally found his tongue. He pinched his nose, trying to clear his mind. “She means we’re lost. We only came in to get directions.”

  But the woman had already turned away. “Enquiry, then.”

  She pressed a knot in the wood-panel wall behind the podium and the entire section popped open like a cabinet door, revealing four columns of four cubbyholes each, all filled with papers of a different color. She held her spectacles to her nose and examined the labels. “Lost parasols . . . lost pearls. Ah, here we are. Lost persons.” She placed a finger on the selected cubby and gave it a stiff push downward.