CHAPTER 52

“Who would dare put those horrible nightmares on the walls of one of the most respected art museums in the world?” Beck fumed.

“Maybe it’s a new exhibit,” I suggested. “Ugly American Art.”

“I kind of like the cat,” said Tommy. “He reminds me of that famous grumpy cat on YouTube.”

“It’s horrible,” said Storm. “Beck is right—only an absolute art hater would hang these four eyesores in a museum as prestigious as the Hermitage.”

“They’re trying to get everybody to hate art as much as they do,” said Beck, making urping noises like she might hurl. “And it just might work!”

“Over there,” said Tommy. “That security-guard lady. She probably knows what’s going on.”

“Let’s go find out,” I said.

The four of us headed over to ask the security guard a few questions. She looked like she might’ve been the grumpier sister of that guard we’d bumped into at the Fabergé Museum when we first arrived in Saint Petersburg. I wondered if the cat in the painting was hers.

“Excuse me, madame,” said Storm.

“Da?”

Storm never got to ask her question.

Because Tommy was tapping her on the shoulder.

Behind the museum guard were six big men, all of them wearing creepy rubber Vladimir Putin masks!

And it wasn’t Halloween!

We turned on our heels and started walking fast.

The six frozen-faced Putins followed us.

We picked up our pace.

The Putins did the same thing.

“We need to go back and find out who hung up that horrible art,” Beck said as she trotted ahead.

“Chya,” said Tommy. “Definitely. But not right now.”

With that, he started running.

The rest of us raced after him down a long hall lined with paintings. We dodged around a statue of a woman wrestling a wild boar (don’t ask me why—there was no time to read the little explanation card) with the Putins still in hot pursuit.