Free On the Day I Died by Candace Fleming Page B

exhibits can be found.”
    “That sounds very sensible, Blanche,” Father had said, bestowing an indulgent smile on her. “An enlightening day indeed.”
    “What about the chocolate Venus de Milo?” I had asked. “What about the eleven-ton cheese?”
    Blanche had pretended to be shocked. “Really, Evelyn, those sorts of exhibits are for the riffraff. We are going to the fair to absorb its grace and refinement.” She gave a superior-sounding laugh. “Sometimes you can be so common.”
    “But … but …,” I had stammered.
    “Mind your sister, dear,” Mother had said. “She’s been studying the guide. I’m sure she is only interested in elevating your aesthetic sensibilities.” Mother had been listening to Blanche’s plan with a rapt expression. Why didn’t she ever look at me that way?
    “Indeed, Evelyn,” said Blanche, a snakelike smileslithering onto her face, “when it comes to erudition, I
do
know best.”
    Gritting my teeth, I lifted my butter knife and hacked my hard-boiled egg into pieces.
    Hours later, the morning’s breakfast conversation still rankled. Grudgingly, I quickened my pace. Blanche and I walked directly into the wind, weaving in and out of the crowd and crossing an ornate footbridge. As we passed a fountain of Pegasus, colored water spewing from its mouth, the wind gusted again. Water sprinkled over us, tickling our cheeks and freckling our dresses. I squealed with delight, but Blanche looked as if she had just swallowed a sour grape. “This wind is absolutely maddening. Just look at what it’s done!”
    She was still grumbling and brushing at the red silk skirt she had so fastidiously picked out in the morning, when we arrived at the Palace of Fine Arts. The guarding stone lions observed us as we climbed the steep marble stairs and entered the columned exhibit hall.
    Even inside, there was little escape from the wind. Doors and windows shook. Walls groaned. At any moment, I thought, the place could crumble as easily as one of Mother’s sugar cookies. I looked up to the ceiling, to the sweeping gilded cupola that had been imported all the way from an Italian monastery. I imagined it crashing into a golden heap on the marble floor, leaving one of Blanche’s lace-gloved hands jutting from the rubble.
    Blanche’s hand.
    I suppressed a giggle.
    Blanche moved through the massive exhibition space, taking in Winslow Homer’s swirling seascapes and Mary Cassatt’s tender portraits as if she was searching for something. No doubt it was some wearisome objet d’art she had read about in her precious handbook. I could just hear her bragging to our parents, “And did I tell you I saw Daniel Chester French’s
The Angel of Death and the Sculptor
? I admired it ever so much. Sadly, Evelyn appeared unmoved.” She’d roll her eyes. “I believe she even yawned.”
    I narrowed my eyes at her.
    And Blanche rearranged her expression. That searching look disappeared, replaced by a perfect imitation of the intent, absorbed expression worn by the other art lovers. Feigning sophistication, she glided about, peering at canvases and into glass cases. But she was fully aware of the admiring looks several of the young men in the hall were giving her. I was disgusted to see her widen her eyes and tilt her head. She posed prettily, utterly pleased with herself.
    No one admired me, of course. Who would, with Blanche around? Turning away from her, I drifted toward the grand staircase. “Don’t get separated,” Father had warned before we left. “Be sure to stay together.”
    But some demon was tugging at me, urging me to be perverse. Deliberately, willfully, without even a backward glance, I climbed to the second-floor landing.A suit of armor guarding the long corridor stared down at me accusingly as if it sensed my oozing, spiteful mood. I stuck my tongue out at it, then headed down the corridor—farther and farther away from Blanche—through a seemingly endless array of bucolic landscapes and