YEARS LATER, WHEN THE adventure was all over, Vanessa Kellow painted Toronto in a Matchbox, the masterpiece that made her famous.
This painting fit inside a standard-size matchbox and it showed the city of Toronto as it looked on the day that Sam went missing.
It showed the entire city covered with six feet of deep dry-powder snow. It was snow so deep that even the skyscrapers had soft white hats; snow so deep that the Gardiner Expressway closed down, and men and women traveled in from the airport on cross-country skis.
If you look for the corner of Yonge and King Streets in the painting, you will find the beautiful new King Redward Hotel, and if you take a powerful magnifying glass and peer into that line of lighted yellow windows on the second floor, you will find yourself, miraculously, looking at another, even smaller, painting of the great ballroom.
In this delicate perfect world, you will see the Perfecto Kiddo banners. You will see the three great crystal chandeliers. You will see an upper gallery in which people have crowded to look down at the spectacle below. In this gallery you might recognize Muriel and George, and in the ballroom below you should be able to find the small figure of Sam Kellow walking to take his place at the beginning of the Perfecto Kiddo Competition.
It is a wonderful painting, and justly famous, but it cannot tell you that Sam Kellow’s borrowed shoes were pinching his feet, or let you hear the loud noise they made as he walked across the shining floor in front of the judges.
It is really far too small a painting to show you the expression on his face. It cannot tell you that his nose tickled. Or that his head itched. Or that he imagined Mr. Lopate hated him.
When Sam walked across the grand ballroom of the Redward Hotel, he felt as if he had walked into a dream.
In the middle of the room was a sort of raised island on which the judges sat. There were three of them: a young man in a navy-blue suit, a middle-aged woman with a lot of gold jewelry, and a slightly disheveled old man with a handsome face, striking white hair, and rather mild blue eyes. This was Mr. Lopate and people always described those eyes as “kindly,” but when Sam saw those eyes watching him, he thought that the chief judge hated him.
On his left he saw the line of chairs George had told him would be there. He quickly found his seat: Number thirty-two was right in the middle of the row.
He sat down. Wilfred’s suit was tight under his arms and across his stomach. He undid the buttons of the jacket and put his hands under the belt, trying to stretch it a little looser.
George and Muriel were above the ballroom, on the very edge of the gallery, but even from that distance, they could not leave him alone. They waved and signaled for him to get his hands out of his trousers and do up the buttons of his jacket.
Sam thought they looked idiotic. Just the same, he took his hands out of his trousers and he did do up his buttons. Then he saw Judge Lopate observing him. The judge’s lip seemed to curl as he wrote on his scorecard.
He had that leaden feeling he got in his stomach before piano lessons. In a minute, he would have to dance.
Soon the other boy contestants came to sit beside him. These were the rich-looking kids he had seen in the hotel lobby—the redheaded twins in the brown velvet suits, the tall pale boy in the black tuxedo. They were scented like shampoo. They looked happy and as handsome as movie stars.
“Attention, please.” It was the youngest of the judges, the man in the navy-blue suit. “The first section of the contest will now commence.”
All the boys beside him stood up, so Sam stood, too. He looked up and down the line. There were tall boys and short boys, chubby boys and boys with legs like rake handles, but they all stood up and walked across the floor, as confident as kings, or ambassadors, or senators. They walked toward the girls, who remained seated on the other side of the ballroom.
Some of the girls were tall and some short, and some thin and some plump, and their hair was of different colors, but they had one thing in common: They all looked very glamorous and sophisticated.
There were strapless ball gowns made of organza, tight sheaths covered with shining sequins, dance dresses shaped like big Icelandic poppies.
Sam walked toward his opposite number—thirty-two. He felt clumsy and stupid in Wilfred’s tight suit.
There she was, holding up the number thirty-two. This was the very same girl who had smiled at him in the lobby. She had been wearing a tiara then. He had been plain Sam Kellow with his pathetic little bag of bread and peanut butter. Now she smiled at him again and showed a pretty dimple in her cheek. Sam liked her deep-blue dress, but this only made him feel sadder.
In a moment, he knew, this tall slender girl with the huge excited brown eyes was going to hate him. He knew he was about to step on her shining black shoes.
Then the orchestra began to play. All the boys around him swung their partners onto the floor. There was nothing for him to do but follow their example.
It had been easier dancing with Wilfred. It had been easier following the beat of George’s thumping foot. Here in the ballroom, the saxophones got in the way and Sam got lost in the music and stepped on his partner’s foot almost as soon as they started. When he saw her wince, he thought he could not continue.
“Look …” he began miserably.
“Just move,” she said. “Don’t be so tense.”
He danced one more step and watched her face grimace again. He was embarrassed, humiliated.
“Maybe you can get another partner,” he said.
“Come on, dance. Keep moving.” Her forehead was creased into a frown. “What are you doing here?” she said. “You don’t belong here. How did you get in?”
“It’s not my fault,” Sam said, dragging his feet after her From the corner of his eye he could see Mr. Lopate pointing him out to the other judges. “I was kidnapped.”
She did not believe him. He could tell.
“I sleepwalked out of my room,” he insisted. “And the door locked behind me and my parents couldn’t hear me knocking and these creeps grabbed me and put me in this stupid suit. That’s kidnapping,” he said. “That’s what kidnapping is.”
“The suit certainly doesn’t fit you,” she said doubtfully.
“Their son has chicken pox. It’s his suit and it’s really uncomfortable. I can hardly breathe. If I could breathe,” he said apologetically, “I could dance better.”
“Where are they—these ‘kidnappers’?”
“See, up there, with the red glasses and the droopy fellow with the long nose.”
The girl laughed so loudly, she put her hand over her mouth to stop herself.
“Oh,” she said, “that’s just perfect.”
“What? What?”
“That’s Wilfred’s parents.”
“Yes, Wilfred’s parents.”
“Did they really kidnap you? Did they really? I believe it. I totally believe it. Some of these Perfecto parents are a little strange, but George and Muriel are total fanatics. If they really kidnapped you, you could have them arrested. Everyone would be very happy.”
“You know them?”
“Well, I’m new. I don’t know anyone really well. But even I know about Muriel and George. I don’t know how they do it, but Wilfred always wins the boys’ prize.”
“Well, I want to be perfecto,” Sam said. “I want to win this time.”
She smiled. “I thought you wanted me to get another partner.”
“I have to win. I need the money. And you needn’t laugh,” Sam said. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I can do.”
She had been laughing, but now her expression became more sympathetic. “Tell me all about being kidnapped. Was it exciting?”
“I guess it wasn’t really kidnapped. I could have run away if I hadn’t wanted to win this prize so much,” he said mournfully. “They didn’t tell me I’d have to dance.”
“Actually,” the girl said, “you are dancing! Do you realize you’re moving to the beat? Not very well,” she said quickly, “but still, you’re almost promising. And you do have quite nice hair. The hair is at least half the points.”
When the music stopped, he looked across at the judges. Mr. Lopate was still staring at him.
“He can’t believe you.” The girl giggled. “He thinks you’re from the planet Mars.”
Sam was hurt by this, but tried not to show it.
“I’m going to win that prize,” he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the chief judge announced. “Please escort your partners to the allocated tables.”
“Come on,” the girl said softly. She put out her arm. “It’s spag and nag time.”
And they walked together to the fifteen tables, which you can see in Toronto in a Matchbox. These are round tables, at the right-hand side of the ballroom. Behind the tables, next to the kitchen door, you can see a grinning chef, holding a huge bowl. The bowl is gleaming white and rimmed with gold. Inside you can see, painted in the most meticulous detail, the meal that has the power to change Sam Kellow’s life.