Stealing Magic Read Online Free

perimeter walls, and the American rooms are in a U-shaped island in the middle of the gallery. Each has a corridorrunning behind the rooms that is off-limits to the public. To reach the Japanese room, which was the very last one, and check the bento box, Ruthie and Jack needed to get into the European corridor and follow it to the end.
    “We can’t unlock the door—there are too many people around,” Jack said.
    Ruthie looked about. The gallery was fairly crowded.
    “Okay, this is how we’ll do it,” she suggested. “Since it only takes a second or two to shrink, you can stand in front of me and hand me the key right here. I’ll shrink and squeeze under the door like we did before. No one will see because it’ll be so fast and you can block me.”
    “Sounds good,” Jack agreed.
    “But wait—how will I get up to the room?” The rooms were about four feet off the ground and would be unreachable to a five-inch Ruthie. “I don’t have time to build the staircase!” she worried aloud, remembering how long it had taken her to construct stairs out of the Thorne Rooms catalogues that were stored in the corridor.
    “Ta-da!” Jack pulled out of his pocket the string-and-toothpick ladder that he’d made for their last adventure. “I thought it might come in handy! But you’ll have to climb fast.”
    “And when I need to come out,” Ruthie continued, “I’ll look for you, okay?”
    “Yeah. Just peek under first, to make sure no one’s around. I might not be able to get here. If I’m not here, just leave the key there.” He pointed to the floor near thedoor hinge. “I’ll come back and get it right away.” Ruthie couldn’t hold the key without shrinking like Jack could—at least not so close to the corridor—so he would have to be the one to pick it up.
    Ruthie thought that was a pretty good idea, and she was almost sure she could accomplish what needed to be done in the brief time she had. But she worried about the magic. After all, it had been a few months since she had held the key and had its magic act on her. What if it didn’t work anymore?
    Ruthie and Jack hovered near the alcove. Trying not to arouse suspicion, he slyly handed her the string ladder to put in her own pocket so it would shrink with her. He held the key in his own hand.
    They waited. It seemed as though everyone in Chicago had chosen this day to come to the Thorne Rooms. Nearly three precious minutes passed before finally there was a break in the crowd, with no one looking in their direction. Jack stepped in front of Ruthie and swiftly pressed the key into her palm.
    She gripped the key, her fingers wrapping tightly around it.
Please let it work
, Ruthie thought fleetingly. But the worries flew from her head in less than an instant. She had almost forgotten the sensations involved in the shrinking process. In a split second, a gentle breeze began to blow her hair. Her clothes caught up to her new size as she got smaller and smaller; she perceived what she thought must be the minute sound of threads crinkling. Her skin temporarilytightened ever so slightly and her muscles contracted as she shrank under the unstoppable force of the magic. Jack and the room melted into a weird expanding blur around her. When the process stopped, just a few seconds after the key had touched her palm, Ruthie stood five inches tall, and the now-enormous room came into focus. Tiny Ruthie scurried across the carpet—the loops of wool came nearly halfway up her shins—and scooted under the door.
    The immense corridor was dark and dizzying. Ruthie, as small as a mouse in the vast space, crouched with her back against the giant door and looked up to the ledge that ran behind all the rooms. That was where she needed to be in order to have access to the rooms. She wanted to pause and regain her equilibrium, but she had to keep moving. She stood and let the key fall from her hand so she could go back to her full size, nearly losing her balance as she regrew.