Free Pretty Wanted by Elisa Ludwig Page B

was a Ferris wheel. Next to that was a school bus and a gigantic praying mantis, and an airplane hull. We looked down to the ground level, where there was a large complex of monkey bars from which several kids were swinging delightedly. Every time I was ready to hate St. Louis, it went and gave me a beautiful landmark or a plate of delicious ribs or some crazy-looking joint like this.
    “What is this place?” I asked.
    “The City Museum and World Aquarium,” he said, reading the sign on the side of what looked like an old factory building. “So what about this?”
    “This what? Sleep here?”
    “Why not? If we pay admission now and stay with the crowds we can hide until after it closes. It’ll be like the library. You said yourself we can’t break into a house.”
    He had a point. The library had worked out well for us. And this place looked just huge and busy enough that we could purposely get lost in it.
    “All right,” I said, after weighing the nonexistent options. “But no screwing around.”
    He saluted me. “Aye, matey.”
    “I think you’re mixing pirate and military metaphors,” I said.
    “Always a stickler, Colorado.” Our eyes met, his crinkling. That was our tentative attempt at a peace treaty.
    We entered, waited in line, and paid our admission like normal people, though my heart was pounding the entire time. One person. All it would take was one person to recognize us, call us out. Crowds were equal parts danger and safety.
    But we made it through, clipping the little square aluminum museum tags onto our collars, and here we were on the other side of the atrium.
    “Amazing,” I said, looking around and taking it all in.
    The floor was covered in a mosaic of bugs and other creatures. Discarded industrial parts had been fashioned into stairways and slides, with cement supports in the shape of dinosaurs. The walls of the lobby were lined with metallic tile like zippers. Above us, people scampered around, yelping with delight. We crossed into another room where the ceiling was hung with crystalline icicles. Kids explored the inside of a beached white cement whale. Columns glittered with imagery of waving squid and dancing octopi. It was like a Dr. Seuss book come to life.
    I’d never seen anything like it.
    Inside, Aidan and I slipped into bathrooms to change our clothes. Then we tried as best as we could to disappear. We started on the upper floors. On the fourth floor there was a humongous thrift store. I didn’t even know they had thrift stores in museums.
    Through the window, I spotted a red 1980s dress with a sweetheart neckline and a flouncy skirt. It would have been perfect—you know, had I not been on the run and stuff.
    Aidan was behind me. “Do you want it? I’ll buy it for you.”
    “You can’t buy it for me,” I said. “We can’t spend the money right now.”
    “I’ll steal it for you then.”
    Was he crazy?
    “Absolutely not.” I grabbed his elbow and led him out of there, away from the temptation.
    We went down a floor and wandered through the Granger Pavilion, a wing of the Architecture Museum, named, I could only assume, for the very same State Senator Granger we kept seeing on TV. The guy got around.
    We crossed through rows of antique busts, statuary, columns, all pieces of masonry that had been taken from real buildings in the city. They also had the cement cross that was used in the movie The Exorcist.
    Next to the cross, a large sculptural frieze caught my eye. It was the type of thing that would have been on top of a temple or government building. Inside the triangular frame were two figures huddled together. What struck me was the bird they were holding, which was the same shape as the one on my necklace. Words etched into the bottom read THE WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW .
    A little placard beneath it explained that the frieze had once been part of the city’s original courthouse building that was built in 1910, in the neoclassic style. The