JULIETTE STARED DUMBFOUNDED at the tiny little boy with the red hair who had just opened the door for her and Lisa. Not just because the boy, who without a doubt had to be the Nilly that Victor had told her about, was even smaller now that she was seeing him close up. He was also naked—aside from a towel around his waist—dripping wet, and had a blue nose clip pinched onto his nose. But the most surprising thing was that he had just said Bonjour, Madame, which is French and means “Hello, ma’am” as if it were completely natural for him, and his French pronunciation was perfect.
“Je suis Juliette Margarine,” Juliette said. “Et tu es Nilly?”—which is also French and means, “I’m Juliette Margarine. And you’re Nilly?”
“Oui, Madame Juliette,” Nilly said in a nasal voice, bowing deeply and opening the door the rest of the way for them.
Juliette and Lisa darted in. Lisa hurriedly locked the door while Juliette took up position by the window, looking down at the street below.
“Cliché’s hippos are after us,” Lisa said. “We managed to sneak away, but I’m sure they’ll be back soon. That guy who was sitting in the lobby reading a newspaper looked suspiciously hippo-like.”
“I’ll explain later. Quick, get dressed. We have to get out of here.”
Nilly looked like a wet, human miniature question mark topped with a few bath bubbles.
“Qu’est-ce que tu dis là?” he asked in that strange, nasal voice.
“Speak properly. We don’t have time for this nonsense,” Lisa said angrily and yanked Nilly’s nose clip off.
“So sue me, Miss Shrew, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” Nilly said.
“What don’t you understand?” Lisa asked.
“Hey, now I understand you!”
“Well it’s about time,” muttered Lisa, who had already started stuffing her things into her backpack. “Juliette is going to take us to a different hotel. Claude Cliché and his hippos have been spying on her for the last several weeks. They’ve had the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille under surveillance since Juliette has been here several times.”
“That’s why I didn’t dare come into the hotel and make contact with you here,” Juliette said. “I knew one of the hippos was sitting down there in the lobby in case I showed up. So I stood in the entryway of a building across the street and waited for you guys to come out, so I could make contact. I’m afraid I might have scared Lisa a little.”
“Yeah, maybe a little,” Lisa said. “Hurry up, Nilly. That hippo in the lobby saw us. They’ll be here soon.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me just concentrate,” Nilly said as he stared down at the clothes lying on the bed. “Let’s see. First the pants, then the shoes. FIRST the pants, THEN the shoes. Yes, that’s right.”
Then he pulled on his pants. And then his shoes.
“Um, what about the socks?” Lisa asked.
“Darn it,” Nilly said, kicking off his shoes again and putting on his socks.
“What have you been doing, anyway?” Lisa asked.
“I took a bath,” Nilly said. “And danced the cancan at the Moulin Rouge. One of the dancing girls thought I was cute.”
“Yeah, right,” Lisa said.
“It’s true,” Nilly said. “I just ducked down into the bathwater and when I came up again, I was at the Moulin Rouge. And it seemed like it was a long time ago, because everyone was wearing old-fashioned clothes.”
“Dude, don’t you ever get tired of making things up?” Lisa asked, slapping shut the top flap of her knapsack. She was ready to go.
“And there I was,” Nilly said. “Just as naked as the day I was born, in front of a huge audience and eight super-attractive cancan dancers. Boy, was that embarrassing.”
Lisa noticed that Juliette was laughing so hard she was shaking as she stood over by the window, keeping her eye on the street below.
“So I jumped back into the bathtub and submersed myself. I held my breath and wished I was back in the hotel room, here and now. And guess what happened? When I came up again, I was back here, as if nothing had happened!”
“That’s because nothing had happened,” Lisa said. “Aside from inside that weird brain of yours. And meanwhile a lot of stuff has been happening in the real world, so get a move on, would you?”
Before Nilly put the few things he’d unpacked back into his knapsack, he took out a small jar with a lid with several air holes in it. He carefully placed the jar in the side pocket.
“What’s that?” Lisa asked sternly.
“A seven-legged Peruvian sucking spider.”
“A what? You didn’t bring the …?”
Nilly shrugged his shoulders. “He seemed so lonely down there in Doctor Proctor’s cellar. No professor and so far away from all his buddies in Peru, huh? I decided to call him Perry. So sue me. But we did agree that we were allowed to bring small things that start with P, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Lisa groaned. “But hurry up now. And no more making up stories.”
“I haven’t made up any—”
“Oh, you haven’t, have you? How did you understand that that dancing girl said you were cute? You don’t happen to speak French, do you?”
They were interrupted by Juliette’s calm voice from over by the window. “Hey guys. I have some good news and some bad news.”
Nilly and Lisa turned toward her.
“The good news is that Nilly doesn’t need to hurry after all. The bad news is that the hippos have surrounded the hotel, so we’re not going to be going anywhere.”
“Uh-oh,” Lisa said softly.
“Uh-oh,” Nilly said softly.
“Now what are we going to do?” Lisa said. “The hippos are going to fill our pockets with small change and dump us in the Seine.”
“What?!” Nilly protested. “Small change? Those cheapskates. I want big change. I want bills!”
“Shh, kids,” Juliette said. “There might be a way for us to get out. But it would mean that you have to listen to me very carefully. All right?”
It seemed like that was fine with them. At any rate, both Nilly and Lisa shut their mouths and looked at Juliette while their ears sort of seemed to curl out from their heads a little bit so they could hear extra well. And a good thing, too, because Juliette was about to tell them something that would explain Nilly’s strange experience in the bathtub, how he was suddenly able to both understand and speak French, how Doctor Proctor had disappeared, and how Lisa and Nilly might—just might—be able to escape from the hippos and the watery depths of the River Seine.
But you won’t be finding out any of that until the next chapter.
