There was nothing like a growly, tired-of-stale-baguettes stomach to make a guy’s eyes pop open when real food finally showed up.

“Le Gruyère?” A waiter in a white shirt and black bow tie put a steaming pot of hot cheese on their table and set a big basket of bread cubes beside it.

“Oui!” Henry practically shouted, reaching for a piece of bread. By the time they’d finished answering questions at Interpol headquarters and settled in at a restaurant near the bookstore, it was almost midnight, and Henry was starving.

“Forty thousand restaurants in this city, and we end up here.” Hem rolled his eyes. “Only tourists eat fondue in Paris.”

Henry lifted his tiny fondue fork and flicked a piece of bread at Hem from across the table. “This tourist is getting on a plane to go home in the morning. And I’m tired of those ham-and-cheese sandwiches, even though they’re pretty good.”

The fondue was perfect, Henry decided. Gooey and rich and hot and filling — everything that his last two days of meals hadn’t been. The grown-ups were at one end of the table, huddled over their own pot of cheese and going over society plans now that Goosen was finally behind bars. They hadn’t known that Vincent Goosen Junior had been working undercover as a double agent — only Miranda and a couple other high-ranking European members knew and were working with him. Henry thought it was kind of lame that they didn’t tell everyone, but Aunt Lucinda said it was the way things had to be to keep him safe and secret. They’d meet with Miranda to learn more when she returned from Auvergne.

Anna, José, and Hem were chattering on about the Interpol headquarters, how cool their surveillance equipment was, how the Interpol agents had planned to go after Goosen and whether it would have worked, but Henry was too tired to do much more than listen and nod every once in a while. He was glad to hear that most of the art from the other museums around the world had been recovered, too.

And he really perked up when he heard Anna’s mother talking about plans to get all the Louvre’s stolen art back on display — including the Mona Lisa.

“They found her?” Henry blurted through a mouthful of cheesy bread. He swallowed. “Is she okay and everything?”

Aunt Lucinda gave him a funny look. “Well, I certainly assume so. Why?”

“Because the last time I saw her, that girl with the mean-looking boots was running down the street with her.”

Aunt Lucinda tipped her head and frowned. Henry’s dad squinted, confused. And that’s when Henry realized — they didn’t know. He’d never told them.

His stomach dropped right down to the floor, and he wasn’t hungry anymore. But he had to explain what he’d done. Maybe there was still time for the Interpol guys to track her down. Henry took a deep breath. “You know when you guys left that note at the bookstore? The riddle?”

“You found that?” Anna’s mom looked at them, waiting.

Anna nodded. “We figured it out, so we went looking for the painting, and —”

José’s mother looked at Aunt Lucinda with daggers in her eyes. “I told you that was a bad idea.” She turned back to Anna. “And you looked … where?”

“The Catacombs. And we found it,” Henry said, “only it turned out to be Brittany instead, and —”

“Hold on …” Anna’s mom shook her head. “Brittany?”

“That’s what we called the painting to keep it a secret,” Henry went on. “But we found the decoy. The one that was all rolled up. I snuck it out in my pants.”

“Oh, Henry,” Aunt Lucinda said.

José’s dad swallowed a laugh. “Go on.”

“That’s when we went into the tunnels and found Hem and Vincent Junior. And then Anna and José went back for the real painting, but I was mad at him” — Henry jerked his thumb toward Hem — “so I went back to the bookstore and …” A lump grew in his throat. He swallowed hard. “I told Ursa what was going on. I thought she was on our side.” He looked at his dad, eyes burning with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

His dad nodded and slid his chair closer so he could put an arm around Henry. “You didn’t know. No one did until it was too late. You did your best.”

Henry shook his head. “But then I lost the painting, too. I was trying to trade and get you guys back and —”

“Hold on now!” Aunt Lucinda cut him off. “You tried to trade the Mona Lisa for us?”

Henry nodded miserably and told them the rest of the story — how he tracked down the real Mona Lisa after Anna and José and Hem had hidden it at the souvenir stand, how he’d left the note on the bookstore bulletin board and climbed the cathedral tower and waited in the rain and handed over the Mona Lisa and raced down to find everyone thinking that they were free….

“Only I got there and you were gone!” He blinked as fast as he could, but he couldn’t keep up with the tears. Their waiter started to swoop in with a pitcher of water, but Henry’s blubbering scared him off. “And when I finally found you, it wasn’t you at all.” Henry shook his head, remembering. “It was this dumb guy in your jacket. And then the painting was gone.”

His dad looked at the other grown-ups, shaking his head. Then he looked back at Henry. “And then you tracked us down.”

Henry nodded.

“And got us out.”

“But I gave them the painting. And society members promise to protect —”

“One another,” Aunt Lucinda said quietly. “When we were on missions together years ago, your mom always reminded me that people come first. Art is important, but people come first.”

“I know.” Henry did know. He couldn’t imagine going on if he’d lost his dad or Aunt Lucinda or Anna or José or even Hem. But he wished he could have saved the painting, too. He picked up a piece of bread and pinched it into a tight little ball.

“Henry?” Aunt Lucinda said.

“Yeah?”

“The Mona Lisa is safe.”

Henry looked up from his bread ball. “They found her?”

Anna’s face lit up. “Already? That’s amazing! Where was she?”

“She was never lost,” Anna’s mother said. “The rolled-up painting … Brittany? Is that what you called her?” She made a face.

“It made sense at the time,” José mumbled.

“Anyway,” Anna’s mom went on. “That painting was a decoy. And so was the other reproduction that you went back for — an even more authentic-looking version on poplar, just like the original. Both were meant to throw the Serpentine Prince gang off track so they wouldn’t go looking for the real painting.”

“That’s awesome!” Anna pulled her notebook from the backpack Henry had returned to her. “But wait … aren’t they art experts, too? Wouldn’t they have known da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa on wood?”

“Goosen is most definitely an expert, and he would have known,” Anna’s mom said, “but he’s too terrified of heights to go down the ladders into those tunnels himself. And the thug criminals he hires for this kind of search job aren’t the brightest. They wouldn’t have had a clue the rolled-up canvas was a fake. If they’d found it, they’d have taken it to Goosen, and he would have sent them right back down to keep searching. It was all meant to buy us more time.”

“So. Cool.” Anna scribbled some notes and looked up. “So where’s the real one, then?”

“She never left the museum,” Aunt Lucinda said proudly. She looked at Henry. “The painting you lost — the one painted on the wood panel — was done earlier this week by a society member’s niece who happens to be a student at the Paris College of Art. She did a fine job, mind you, but she’s not quite up there with da Vinci yet.”

“Wow. That’s pretty awesome.” Henry felt warm, like all that cold dampness from the park bushes was finally gone. And just when he thought the night couldn’t get better, the waiter showed up with a pot of melted chocolate and strawberries and fluffy cake to dip in it.

Hem reached for a strawberry. Henry raised his eyebrows. “Pretending you’re a tourist?”

Hem nodded. “Chocolate is chocolate, mate. And it’s always a good way to celebrate.”

There was nothing like having slept in wet mulch under a bush to make a thinly cushioned bookstore bench feel like the most luxurious bed in the universe.

Henry had his duffel bag all packed and was settling in when José, Anna, and Hem came over to his bench by the bulletin board. He scooched over into a corner to make room.

“I guess Joan of Arc came through after all,” José said, climbing onto the bench with his quote book in his hand. Hem sprawled out on the other side of the bench. Anna sat down next to him and went back to writing in her notebook.

“Yeah, she was okay. I wonder if it works better if you actually pay for the candle.” Henry looked at the quote book. “Sorry if I got that kind of damp. I found some pretty good stuff in there.”

José nodded. “It’s fine. I spilled lemon-lime soda on it once, so the pages were already a little wavy anyway.”

Anna tore a page from her notebook.

“Finish your news story?” Henry asked.

“No. I’m going to be working on that for a while. I’ll need to make some calls when I get home, collect quotes, you know.” She held up the notebook page. “This is for the wall of fame.” She pulled a Band-Aid from the smallest pocket of her backpack, peeled off the back, and bandaged her notebook page to the wall, right where they’d found the orange napkin that started this whole thing. Henry got up on his knees to read it:

Dear Paris, Thanks for the adventure. Some day, I’ll be back to work at Connexion. Save some Nutella for me! xoxo Anna Revere-Hobbs

“I think you spelled connection wrong.” Henry pointed.

“No, that’s how you spell it. It’s an English newspaper here. I was talking with one of the reporters at the Interpol news conference, and he said they have internships for college kids. I figure if I study abroad, I’ll be perfect. You know, because I already have so much experience here.”

Henry nodded. “Three whole days.”

“Well, yeah, but they weren’t ordinary days. Hey, you guys need to put something up there, too!” She tore some pages from her notebook and passed them out.

José and Hem started scribbling right away.

Henry hated blank pages. They reminded him too much of English class. He tried to draw a Mona Lisa, but her smile wasn’t right, and instead of long dark hair, she looked like she had a monkey flopped over her head.

Henry leaned over José’s paper. “What did you write?”

“Take a guess,” José said.

“Some quote, I bet,” Henry said. “Shakespeare?”

“Close.” José stuck his paper to the wall and moved back so Henry could read.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

— Albus Dumbledore

“He said a lot of great things, but that’s my favorite,” José said.

Henry nodded and looked at Hem. “Where’s yours?”

Hem pointed to the wall, at his map.

It traced their path from Shakespeare and Company, to Notre-Dame, the Louvre, and the Panthéon, to the Catacombs and the underground tunnels, and finally from the Conciergerie to the Eiffel Tower. Hem had even drawn in a stick figure of Vincent Goosen, scowling in the Seine near the boat.

“Nice.” Henry looked back at his own paper. The monkey and Mona Lisa looked as if they were waiting for him to write something. But he couldn’t think of anything smart enough. He needed better words. “Hey.” He tapped José’s quote book. “Can I borrow this for a second?”

José nodded, and Henry flipped pages until he came to the quote he was looking for. He knew it, but he wanted to make sure he got it right.

Walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.

— from Carousel

Then he added:

Buy jeans that fit, and you’ll never have to hide a painting in your pants.

— Henry Thorn

José nodded. “Good choices.”

Henry Band-Aided his paper to the wall, and they all sat for a few minutes, staring up at the quotes and notes and thoughts from people all over the world.

“It’s kind of cool to put something up there, you know?” Henry said. “Like we’re leaving but not totally.”

“You never really leave Paris,” Hem said. “Once you’ve seen the Eiffel Tower at night, a part of you stays behind in the reflection of the Seine.” He looked at Anna and José and Henry. “That’s so you’ll have to come back to visit. You have no choice, really,” he said.

Anna ran her hand lightly over the board, ruffling the edges of a dozen notes. “I bet all these people think they’ll be back some day.”

José stared up at the board. “All these people from all over the world — people we’ll never meet — knelt on this same bench and stuck their words to the wall like us. And now we’re all kind of connected, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” A few days ago, Henry would have thought that was dumb, and he sure wouldn’t have wanted to be connected to Hem. But now … it really did feel that way. “I hope —” He stopped himself because he didn’t want it to come out wrong. “It’s not like I hope art gets stolen, but … well, now that Goosen’s locked up, I hope I still get to see you guys.”

“I know.” Anna looked down and twisted her notebook rings. “I thought about that, too. Stopping the Serpentine Prince gang was such a huge part of the society’s work. What if …”

Hem’s laugh interrupted her. “You do realize that Vincent Goosen isn’t even fifty years old, yes?”

“What does that have to do with it?” Anna asked.

“Everything.” José smiled. “The society’s been around for hundreds of years, Anna. It was alive before Vincent Goosen, and it’ll go on after he’s gone.”

She nodded. “Of course. I just hope I’ll see you guys soon.”

“Me too,” Henry said. He had a feeling he would. Then he yawned. “But right now, I kind of wish you’d get off my bed so I could go to sleep.”

José and Anna and Hem laughed and left Henry to his bench. He plugged in his SuperGamePrism, then stretched out and pulled up his flimsy blanket and looked up at the rough paper corners sticking out from the wall of fame, words full of so many people’s promises and hopes.

Henry felt connected to all of them — to all the Post-it note scribblers, to Anna and José and Hem, too. And he knew he’d still feel that way when he was back on his own side of the ocean. Even when he said good-bye to Anna and José, they’d be connected, and it would be okay.

Finally, he closed his eyes and thought about getting on that plane tomorrow, flying away from Paris and its twinkling tower, toward his next adventure. He had a baby sister to meet.