“Here we are. Calle Farnese!” Antonio announced a little while later. “I will wait for you with Pumpkin while you solve your mystery. Please be careful. It is easy to get lost in Venice.”
“Thank you!” Ella said.
Antonio tied the gondola to a dock. Ella and Ethan stepped out of the gondola. On the side of an old brick building, they saw a black-and-white sign that said CALLE FARNESE. They rushed toward the sign. They were finally going to see the mosaic!
They turned onto Calle Farnese. Apartment buildings lined either side of the street, which was barely wide enough for both of them! Overhead, the twins could make out a thin sliver of blue sky.
Ethan and Ella wandered down the street, searching for the mosaic. They didn’t really know where it would be. They looked at doors, through windows, and on walls. They searched all over the ground.
“How are we ever going to find it? We don’t even know what it looks like,” Ethan complained.
“Grandpa said it was made up of little pieces of colored glass,” Ella reminded him.
They continued down Calle Farnese, but the mosaic was nowhere in sight. After a while, they decided it was time to turn around. They had to get back to the hotel before their parents returned and realized they were missing.
“I guess we’ll never find it,” Ethan said with a sigh.
“Wait! What about Grandpa’s other clue?” Ella reached for her purple notebook and flipped through the pages. “Here. ‘Look up.’ ”
The twins glanced up. But there was only sky, no mosaic.
“Look! Over there!” Ethan cried out suddenly.
Just ahead of them was a short alleyway that turned off to the left. Ella and Ethan ran over to it and tilted their heads to look up.
There it was, high on a wall!
Crafted from tiny bits of colored glass, the mosaic showed a scene of ancient Venice. A glittering glass palace stood on the banks of a glittering glass harbor. A king and queen rode on a gondola through the turquoise glass water. An amber bird soared through the brilliant blue sky.
It was the most amazing thing they had ever seen.