Chapter 134 Where Is Blanche?

LEO

By the time I returned to the exhibition hall in the afternoon, it already looked a little sad.

There were fewer visitors than before, and Liesel had begun taking the little paper labels off the walls. Fabian was standing beside his nine-headed dragon with both hands on his hips, staring at it as if he had only just realized how big it was.

“How are we supposed to move this?” he asked.

“Oh, don’t worry! My friends should be here any minute to help!” I said, remembering the arrangement Blanche made before we left in the morning.

Then Dimitri popped up right on time, together with Briant and Alexis, and walked over to the sculpture and grabbed it around the base.

“I can carry it.”

“Wait!” Fabian shouted. “Don’t just pick it up!”

Dimitri had already lifted one side off the floor.

Fabian made a sound like someone had stepped on his foot and rushed over to support the other end.

Alexis watched them with his arms crossed.

“I think this is going to be entertaining.”

Briant sighed and said, “We came here to help.”

“I am helping by identifying foreseeable problems.”

“That is not helping.”

I laughed and looked around.

Blanche hadn’t come back yet.

That wasn’t surprising. I had seen her leave through the front gate earlier with the two ladies while wearing Liesel’s green dress and a scarf over her head.

What surprised me instead was Liesel wearing Blanche’s black dress. Nobody wore black dresses except for funerals and Blanche. It was odd enough when I first saw Blanche wearing black on a normal day, but now I’d gotten so used to it that seeing someone else wear it just felt wrong.

“Isn’t that Blanche’s dress?” I approached Liesel and asked her quietly.

“Yes.”

“How come you guys swapped dresses?”

“You knew?” Liesel asked me, looking rather surprised.

“Mm-hm. I saw Blanche wearing yours earlier. I somehow didn’t think I’d see you in her dress, though.”

Briant, who had been stacking some of the smaller paintings against the wall, looked over immediately. His eyes widened at first, then narrowed, as he also noticed that the one he thought was Blanche was actually Liesel—disappointed, possibly? Heh.

“Listen, Leo. I don’t know what Blanche is up to, but she did ask me to keep it a secret.”

“Er, Liesel—I think anyone who actually sees you will know that you are not Blanche…”

“That’s not what I mean, silly. Just don’t go around telling people about it.”

I suddenly remembered Mario pulling me behind the tree and covering my mouth. He was trying to hide from me at first as well, and he certainly was trying to keep me quiet (until he got heatstroke).

Now that I thought about it, it seemed Blanche and Mario were playing some kind of game that only they knew. I didn’t think it would be a prank, considering Mario really isn’t the type to pull pranks on people. Maybe some kind of challenge?

Yeah, Mario liked those.

I wondered what kind of challenge it might be. Whatever it was, I would normally have bet on Mario when it came to anything—perhaps except arm wrestling with Dimitri? But then I realized—if Blanche and Mario were to have some sort of battle of wits, it wouldn’t be such an easy call.

“Anyway, can you help me take this down?” Liesel asked, pointing at the banner hanging high above the entrance to the hall.

“Sure!” I said and went over, stretched my arms to reach it, then realized that I wasn’t that much taller than Liesel. I turned back to look at Liesel, and she laughed at her own silliness for asking ME to do it in the first place. We needed a ladder or Dimitri for this.

Then, behind me, Fabian suddenly yelled,

“Not that way!”

I turned around.

Dimitri had lifted the dragon sculpture almost entirely by himself and was trying to turn it sideways through the door.

“You said you needed help carrying it,” Dimitri said.

“Yes! Carrying it! Not destroying it!”

“I’m not destroying it.”

“You nearly hit the third head!”

“As long as Vlad the Great is safe, it’s fine.”

Fabian stared at him.

“Who the heck is Vlad the Great?”

“You made this but you don’t know?”

“No…?”

“Aye, Vlad the Great is the second head here—” Dimitri began explaining, pointing at the second head with his chin (and somehow being respectful while doing so), but then Briant intervened.

“Dimitri, later. It seems heavy. Let us help you.”

Briant put his hands under the sculpture and gave it some much-needed support from the middle.

Alexis, then, still standing a step away from the sculpture with his chin in his hand, commented,

“Perhaps we should establish an agreed orientation before proceeding.”

“Perhaps you should just grab it, Alexis,” Briant said.

Alexis only then realized that he could—should—have offered to help in the first place, apologized quickly, and went to the other side to support the middle section.

Eventually, the four of them managed to get the dragon through the doorway without breaking anything.

Dimitri disappeared down the hallway carrying most of its weight while Fabian walked backward in front of him, repeatedly shouting instructions.

“Liesel, Dimitri’s not here and I can’t reach the banner,” I said.

“Oh dear, and I put all the chairs away already,” Liesel sighed.

Then she got an idea.

“Leo, why don’t you climb on my shoulders?”

“Eh?”

“Neither of us is tall enough, but we should be able to reach it together.”

“Then you should be the one to climb on me. Surely I’m heavier than you.”

“It’s not very ladylike.”

I imagined myself riding on her shoulders. I thought it’d be fun, but that didn’t look any more ladylike either.

“Just do it. Hop. Hop!”

Liesel was already crouching down for me to get on.

I sighed and sat on her shoulders.

“Are you sure?” I asked her one last time.

“HMPH!”

With that, Liesel shot up from the ground—way too quickly—and we began to wobble, almost falling over, but eventually managed to stabilize.

“Good! I almost got it. Just a step closer!”

“OK!”

Liesel was surprisingly strong and managed to hold me well. I grabbed one end of the banner and began to gently pull it down, but then heard a familiar voice from below.

“Bla—what…?”

I could feel Liesel go stiff underneath me, then waver a little. It made me accidentally pull on the banner too hard, making it fall down onto the person standing in front of us like a pile of snow.

Liesel then lost her strength, collapsed, and I fell right on top of her.

“So… sorry,” Liesel said, crushed under me.

“Ouch—sorry, Liesel! Are you okay? And Mathias! Sorry too!”

I quickly rolled off Liesel and helped her up. She got up very promptly as well and straightened her dress. It was only then that I realized Mathias still had his head covered by the banner like a child playing ghost. I slowly pulled it off.

Mathias looked at me, looked at Liesel, then at me again, and blinked a few times. His mouth opened, as if he was trying to say something, then closed again. Liesel and I were nervous, thinking that we might have made him angry—though I knew Mathias was kind!—but he eventually spoke.

“Where is Blanche?”

“She went off to see the festival, Sir,” Liesel said immediately.

“Leo?”

Mathias asked me.

“I—I don’t know.”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“When did you see her last?” Mathias asked me again.

“I don’t know… Mister,” I said.

“When did she leave?” Mathias asked Liesel this time.

“Maybe eleven?” Liesel said.

Mathias cracked a joint on his right hand.

He then, without another word, turned around and immediately began to pace away from the exhibition hall.

I looked at Liesel. She gave me a shrug, but her face was slightly pale, as if she was scared of Mathias.

“Don’t worry, Liesel. I don’t think he’s that angry! I will go talk to him.”

I then chased after Mathias, only to find that despite not running, he was moving surprisingly fast—I only caught up with him just outside the main building’s entrance.

“Mathias! I’m sorry!” I said to his back.

Mathias stopped, turned, looked at me, and said,

“Leo, go find Marius for me, please.”

I didn’t know where Mario was, but I nodded emphatically. This was the least I could do for him.

As Mathias headed to the main festival area, I saw five eagles soar high into the sky and start circling around.

Then I caught a squirrel from the corner of my eye, standing at the bottom of a nearby tree. It looked at me with a walnut in its hands and tilted its head.

“Go find somewhere to hide. Eagles are out,” I told the squirrel.

It nodded and scampered away, climbing up a tree and hiding in a hole.

I began to run toward the festival field to look for Mario too.