THEO
Later, much later, Theo would think about how a single day—and a visit from two creepy strangers— split his whole life into before and after.
But, at that moment, Theo didn't have a second to think. He sat against the wall, snapping blocks together so fast he pinched his fingers. A sheet of paper with a rough design and some quick calculations lay on the floor next to him. He probably wouldn't be able to finish—the school people would be there soon—but maybe they'd be late. Really late. Drastically, dramatically late. And then his Tower of London model would be perfect. It would be complete. Even a person with no knowledge of history or architecture would recognize it.
As Theo worked, his mother glanced up from the stack of files she was reading. "That is amazing, Theo." "Thanks, Mom."
"You built the whole thing, grounds and all." "Yep," said Theo.
"And you won the contest." "Um-hmmm."
"And the school people will be here any second now." "Yeah."
"So, what are you doing?"
Theo snapped faster. He'd built all the structures that comprised the Tower of London, including the White Tower, the Salt Tower, the Broad Arrow Tower, the Bloody Tower, and the Tower Green where the wives of Henry VIII had lost their heads. He'd built the Royal Chapel, Traitor's Gate, the Tower Wharf, and the remains of the Lion Tower Drawbridge. He'd even built the moat around the entire compound, and the Thames River along one side.
But he hadn't built the Tower Bridge. It was only the most iconic bridge in the United Kingdom. And it was right next to the Tower of London. Why hadn't he built the bridge? He should have built the bridge.
So, he was building the bridge.
To his mother, he said, "Since we're just sitting here, waiting, I figured I'd keep busy."
"That model already takes up the entire dining room. And now you're building into my living room."
"So?" said Theo.
Mrs. Biedermann pinched the bridge of her nose. "It would be nice if you kids got into miniatures."
"Technically, this is a miniature."
"Technically, your family is going to end up living in the hallway because our home will be filled with the entire city of London."
"Um-hmm," said Theo. He could live in a hallway. Plenty of room in a hallway. Wasted space, really.
The hallway outside their apartment suddenly produced Theo's dad, who opened the apartment door and backed inside. He had a tray of coffees in one hand and a large white paper bag in the other.
"I come bearing coffee for all!" Mr. Biedermann announced.
"You're the only one who drinks coffee," said Mrs. Biedermann.
"You drink coffee, Mom," said Theo. "I gave it up," Mrs. Biedermann said. "Three days ago," said Theo.
Mr. Biedermann put the tray and the bag on the kitchen counter. "Correction: I come bearing coffee entirely for myself!"
Mrs. Biedermann tapped a pen on her case files. "I thought you were going up to Absolute Bagels?"
"Eh, the lines were full of snotty college kids." "Tell me that you didn't go to Sam's to buy a jelly doughnut."
"I didn't," said Mr. Biedermann. "I bought a dozen jelly doughnuts. And some blintzes, too. Maybe a lot of blintzes."
"Larry!"
"What?"
"You're supposed to be watching your cholesterol!" Theo said, "I guess he'll be watching his cholesterol go up."
"Ha-ha," Mr. Biedermann said. He dug around in the bag, pulled out a cardboard container and a fork. He opened the container and forked up a bite of blintz. "Where's Tess?"
"Walking the cat," said Mrs. Biedermann. "Good. She'll work off some of that anxiety."
Theo said, "No, she won't. Tess is like a Lion battery. She can't walk it off or run it out."
Mr. Biedermann laughed. "Oh yeah? What does that make you, kid?"
"Her extremely calm and well-adjusted brother," said Theo.
"Ah," said Mr. Biedermann, chewing, swallowing. He nudged a stray Lego with his toe. "I thought the school people would be here by now."
Mrs. Biedermann said, "Yeah, me, too."
"Though I suppose it could be all the commotion out front."
"What commotion?"
Mr. Biedermann shrugged. "I don't know. Someone filming a movie, maybe? I saw a crowd and some cameras and went around back to the service entrance."
Theo kept snapping furiously, liking the idea of a commotion. Maybe the principal would be forced to postpone till the afternoon. Or next week. Next month. Actually, September would be great, because then maybe he could build the whole city of London just like his mom had suggested. Or something else entirely. The Great Wall of China. The Shah Mosque in Iran. The Tower of David in Jerusalem. The Great Library of—
"I still don't get why you didn't build the Morningstarr Tower," Mr. Biedermann said through a mouthful of blintz.
Snap, snap, ow! His dad sounded just like Tess. Or Tess sounded like his dad.
Theo said, "I just wanted to do something different."
Mr. Biedermann nodded as if he understood. Then he said, "Why?"
Before Theo ever started the Tower of London, he had tried to build the Morningstarr Tower. The Morningstarr Tower had twelve elevators that could move in any direction, escalators that zigzagged up the middle of the building, entire rooms that could be rotated and recombined to form new rooms of any shape or size. And that was only the beginning. It had taken the Morning-starrs fifteen years to complete. Theo could have worked for months and months and still not gotten the model right. Not even close to right. Sure, he could have built a serviceable representation of the building's facade, but that would be like making a mannequin and saying you'd created an actual human being. He would never have finished the whole thing soon enough to enter the Lego contest, which offered scholarship money in addition to more Legos. And hadn't Grandpa Ben used to say, "Is your work finished or is it just due?" So, Theo had tried to build something easier, something faster. And he'd won! Yet here he was, still building, almost out of time.
A sudden pounding on the door made him fumble with his blocks.
"The school people?" said Mr. Biedermann. "How did they get in?"
"It's probably just Cricket careening around the halls with her trike again," said Mrs. Biedermann.
Mr. Biedermann said, "Or her little brother practicing his karate kicks."
"I'm not sure that putting Otto into martial arts was the best idea."
"Remember the damage he did with the Wiffle ball bat? At least he can't knock the bulbs out of the fixtures anymore."
More pounding.
"No," said Mrs. Biedermann, "but he might just kick down the door."
Mr. Biedermann scooped another bite of blintz, threw open the apartment door. But instead of a six-year-old on a trike or a hyped-up four-year-old wearing his father's necktie for a headband, there were two men in suits, fists raised. One of the men was so tall, his head reached the top of the doorway, bright red hair buzzed close enough that he looked as if his scalp had been scalded in hot oil. The other man was a foot and a half shorter, light brown hair slicked back from a pallid, pockmarked brow. As the taller man ducked his head in order to see into the apartment and the little one bared gray teeth, the bit of blintz fell from Mr. Biedermann's mouth to the floor.
"You dropped your lasagna," the short man said in a flat voice.
The tall man said, "That's not lasagna. That's a blintz."
The short man said, "What's a blintz?"
"A crepe, usually filled with cheese and fruit," said the tall man. "I have to admit I prefer a savory blintz. No sweet tooth, I'm afraid." He smiled brightly, blandly. "The ones with caviar are my favorite."
"Caviar is fish," said the short man. "I don't like fish."
"Technically—" Theo began, but his father cut him off.
"Who are you people?" Mr. Biedermann said to the men. "Who buzzed you into this building?"
"We buzzed ourselves in," said the short man.
"And how did you do that?" said Mrs. Biedermann, and swept her own jacket aside so the men could see the badge on her belt.
The tall man held up a large and bony hand. "Let me back up a bit. I'm Mr. Stoop and this is Mr. Pinscher. You must be Mr. and Mrs."—he consulted his clipboard—"Biedermann."
"Mr. and Detective Biedermann."
"Detective. I'm sure you know why we're here, so I'm just going to give you these documents and we'll move on to the next apartment." He held out a packet of papers. When the Biedermanns didn't take the papers, his smile drooped at the corners. "You didn't watch the press conference this morning?"
"What press conference?" said Mrs. Biedermann. "It was all over the news. There are crews out in front of this building right now interviewing people." "Interviewing who? What was all over the news?" "That explains it," said Mr. Stoop, smile back on his face. He pressed the clipboard to his heart. "I myself believe it's important to keep up on current events, but not everyone agrees."
Mrs. Biedermann snatched the packet of papers away from the man. Theo stood and walked over to his parents. Up close, the tall man's skin was so white his freckles looked a bit like cereal floating in milk.
"You'll find all the relevant dates and numbers on the documents," said Mr. Stoop. "Don't hesitate to call should you have a question. Have a great—"
Mrs. Biedermann didn't look up from the papers. "Don't move. Either of you."
Mr. Pinscher rolled creepy, colorless eyes. Theo wondered if there was a scientific name for them, then decided creepy covered it.
Mr. Stoop heaved a great sigh. "Detective, we do have other documents to deliver."
"You can wait," said Mrs. Biedermann.
Mr. Stoop's attention moved from Mrs. Biedermann to Theo, to the blocks he still had clutched in his hands. "Those were my favorite toys when I was a child," said Mr. Stoop.
Child? Theo swallowed his annoyance. "They're not toys."
Mr. Pinscher snorted. Mr. Stoop's lips twisted in amusement. "Of course they're not." He gestured to the Tower of London with his chin. "Did you build that by yourself?"
"Yes," said Theo.
"No help from anyone else?" "No."
"Not even your dad?"
"Why would my dad build my model for me?" "And what's it supposed to be?"
"What?" said Theo.
"Is it a fantasy world? A school for wizards, perhaps?" Theo stared up at the milk-skinned man and his cereal face, moles and freckles that spelled out nothing good. "I should have built the bridge."
Mrs. Biedermann touched Mr. Biedermann's arm.
"Larry, these papers say that they sold the building." "Which building?" said Theo.
"This building," said Mr. Stoop.
Theo must not have heard the man right. He thought he said this building, but—
"That's impossible," said Mr. Biedermann.
"I'm afraid not," said Mr. Stoop. "I have to say that this wouldn't be such a surprise if you kept up on the news."
Theo looked at his mom and his dad. He looked at the Tower of London, at the unfinished bridge in pieces in the corner, at the blocks in his hands. Tess was just talking about this before she left, but Tess always worried for nothing, didn't she?
"This is a Morningstarr building," Theo said. "Yes."
"So, it's impossible."
"Oh, it's possible," said Mr. Pinscher.
Theo felt his lips move, his mouth shaping the words. "Who did they sell to?" Even as he asked, he knew. He knew because Tess had somehow known all along.
"So, Slant is our new landlord?" Theo asked. "I don't think so," said the short man.
Mrs. Biedermann said, "We have thirty days to vacate."
Theo took a step back as if someone had just shoved him. Vacate? In thirty days? It had taken him twice as long to build the model in the dining room. How would they pack everything up in thirty days?
And where would they go?
The tall man, Mr. Stoop, glanced over their heads, eyes darting around their apartment. Theo didn't have to turn around to see what the man saw: the well-worn furniture, webbed in cat hair; the books spilling out of the mismatched bookcases they'd bought at a flea market; the palm plant that had gotten so big that it grew in crazy loops at the top; Theo's sprawling model encroaching like a rising tide on the living room. A strange heat crept up Theo's neck into his cheeks. It wasn't grand, it wasn't even tidy, but it was their home.
To his mother, Theo said, "What will happen to this place?" But her face had gone stony, unreadable.
His mother tapped the paper in her hands. "I'm going to need confirmation of this."
"As you can see," said Mr. Stoop, "that is a legal document, signed, notarized, and served. But you can call the mayor's office if you'd like."
Theo squeezed the blocks so hard, the edges bit into his palms. He should have built the Morningstarr Tower like Tess had wanted. But how could he have known what was going to happen? That was Tess's thing, the what-if game she always played with herself, driving everyone else crazy. What if a great white shark swam up the Hudson River? What if a tornado touched down in the middle of Broadway? What if boys were girls and girls were cats? What if a greedy jerk bought your house right out from under you?
No, he shouldn't have built the Morningstarr Tower. He should have built 354 W. 73rd Street.
"Mom?"
In the doorway, Stoop and Pinscher parted to reveal Tess, frizzy hair coming loose from her braid, Nine hunched like a sad gargoyle beside her.
"What's going on?" she said. "There are all these people outside. They're saying . . . they're saying . . ."
Nine lowered her ears and hissed at Stoop and Pinscher, dropping some kind of paper she'd had clenched in her teeth. Mr. Pinscher bent to retrieve the paper, and Nine lunged with a yowl. Tess fought to control her cat, and everyone started shouting. Mr. Pinscher told Tess to call off her monster, Mr. Biedermann told the two creepy men that it was time for them to leave, and Mrs. Biedermann said something that Theo couldn't hear because a thin buzzing noise had filled his head, drowning everything and everyone out. His legs pivoted him, robot-marched him back to his model, stepped him over the wall. Like the debtors and disgraced royalty that had crossed the gates into the Tower of London before him, he stood in the courtyard, wondering how he had gotten there.
Tess, still wrestling with the cat, watched him from the doorway, frowning at him as if he were someone she'd met before but couldn't quite place. Look at that boy in the dead-cat T-shirt. He seems so weird.
The blocks dropped from Theo's hands and landed right on the Tower Green where the wives of Henry VIII had lost their heads.
And Theo—who, as it turned out, was neither calm nor well adjusted—lost his. He cranked up his foot and put it through the new bridge, the sound of the crash not nearly loud enough.