The Pink Lemonade Charade Page 3

  Mr. Pirov, the chaperone, simply answered, “Da.” He still looked very unhappy.

  “Then that means I will see you again soon,” Natasha went on, wearing a broad smile. “My name is Natasha Samchenko. And your name?”

  “Chris. Christine Pratt.”

  The two girls shook hands, both looking very pleased over their brand-new friendship.

  “Listen, it was great talking to you, Natasha,” Chris said, suddenly remembering that more than five minutes earlier, she had been paged over the airport’s loudspeaker system—and that back at Gate Seventeen, Ms. Parker and the others were probably growing more annoyed, and perhaps even more worried, with each passing minute. “But I really have to run. I’m looking forward to seeing you again, though, and getting to know all your friends. Oh, and to seeing you dance, too.”

  Chris picked up her suitcase—the right suitcase, this time—and said a hasty good-bye. Then she dashed away, back to her group. Her cheeks were flushed as she took off. And it wasn’t so much because she was in a hurry as because she was so excited.

  Gee, just wait until I tell Sooz! she was thinking. Wait until I tell Holly and Beth and Ms. Parker ... and everybody else, for that matter!

  Meeting Natasha had made quite an impression on her; and she couldn’t wait to share the news.

  Chris was not the only one who was thinking about her meeting with the Russian ballet dancers as she hurried back to Gate Seventeen. The man in the gray suit, the dance troupe’s chaperone, Mr. Pirov, was also thinking about it. Worrying about it, even. After all, it seemed like a very strange coincidence that this American girl Christine Pratt had almost the same suitcase as the ballet company’s prima ballerina, and that she just “happened” to pick it up, supposedly by mistake....

  The more he thought about it, the more certain he became of one thing: He intended to keep a very close watch on this Christine Pratt over the next few days.

  By the time Chris reached her group, she felt as if she were ready to burst.

  “Guess what, Sooz!” she cried. “You’ll never, ever guess what just happened to me!”

  Immediately Chris began chattering away, telling Susan and Holly and Beth and everyone else nearby about her little adventure. As she did, she never dreamed that her innocent mistake was going to throw her into the most daring—and the most dangerous—escapade of her entire life.

  Chapter Three

  “Wake up, Beth!” cried Susan, shaking the shoulder of her sleepy roommate. “It’s almost eight o’clock, and our tour bus leaves the hotel at nine sharp. Unless you want to spend our very first day in Washington sleeping, you’d better get a move on.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, a head of dark tousled hair emerged from underneath the covers. “Is it morning already?” Beth groaned.

  “You bet. And we decided last night that we’d meet Chris and Holly at their room at eight-fifteen so we could all go down to the hotel coffee shop for breakfast together, remember?”

  Susan was already up and raring to go, as she had been ever since seven o’clock. She had found it impossible to sleep when she was about to be set loose in Washington for the very first time, guidebook and camera and maps in hand.

  The evening before, riding to the hotel from the airport had given her and the other Whittington High School students their first glimpse of the city. Her appetite had really been whetted. The imposing monuments, the Washington Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial, had been all lit up with white lights. The White House, with its manicured grounds, was stunning. The embassies, the government office buildings, the museums, the picturesque brownstones ... each thing that their bus driver pointed out to his eager audience, sitting glued to the windows, had helped make what had only been a fantasy up until that moment suddenly become a reality.

  And today she would have the chance to start exploring it all. She woke up early, immediately gave up on the idea of going back to sleep, and dressed in an outfit that was similar to what she’d worn the day before: a skirt and blouse, a pair of comfortable shoes, a sweater.

  Perhaps it’s not the most glamorous outfit in the world, thought Susan, glancing in the mirror as she pulled her dark brown hair off her face and fastened it on either side of her head with tortoiseshell barrettes. But at least it’s the most comfortable. And after all, isn’t that what being a tourist is all about?

  Her twin, however, didn’t happen to share her philosophy. When Susan and Beth knocked on the door of the double room across the hall from theirs, they were greeted by Chris—wearing electric pink pants and a bright orange shirt.

  “Well, you certainly don’t look very much like a tourist!” teased Susan.

  “That’s the idea,” Chris returned with a grin. “But just think how great these clothes will look when all the photographs come out!”

  “What photographs?”

  “Why, the ones you’re going to take with that camera you’ve got hanging around your neck.” Chris pretended to pose, “I’ll be happy to be your model, any time you want!”

  “You know what’s really interesting?” Holly observed as she came out of the bathroom. “You two don’t look anything at all like twins! I mean, even knowing that you’re both identical makes it hard for me to see the resemblance right now.”

  Chris and Susan looked at each other and laughed.

  “There’s a good reason for that,” Susan explained. “Even though Chris and I look the same on the outside, we’re very different on the inside.”

  “That’s right,” her twin sister agreed. “And when each of us dresses the way we feel like dressing, that’s bound to come out.”

  “Well, I think it’s kind of eerie,” Beth interjected. “Sometimes you two look so much alike that no one can tell you apart. Even your own parents! Or even us, your best friends. But other times, you both look so different that it’s hard to believe that you’re even sisters!”

  “I guess that’s just part of the fun of being identical twins,” Chris said with a chuckle. “But I didn’t come all the way to Washington to discuss being a twin, I came to do some sightseeing. Let’s go!”

  The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of activity. The twins and their friends boarded the tour bus promptly at nine and were treated to a ride around the city that helped get them oriented. It was fascinating, seeing some of the same sights they had seen the night before, only this time in broad daylight.

  Washington was a beautiful city, planned in the late I700’s by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a famous French city planner who designed the capital of the brand-new United States at George Washington’s request. And that careful planning was reflected everywhere. Streets were wide and lined with trees, buildings were spaced far apart, and everywhere there was a feeling of openness— and freedom. Spring flowers had been planted in front of most of the buildings and many of the parks, and their vibrant colors added a certain vitality to the crisp lines of this elegant city.

  After spending an hour observing the city from a tour bus, Chris and Susan were itching to get inside some of the buildings. Fortunately, their first stop was at the Capitol Building, where they sat in on a session of Congress. It was thrilling, sitting up in the balcony, listening as members of Congress from all over the country debated the pros and cons of a new bill that encouraged protection of the environment.

  “I feel almost as if I’m watching history being made,” Chris leaned over and whispered.

  “You are watching history being made,” her sister whispered back.

  After lunch there was a tour of the White House. Susan was thrilled to see the bedroom in which Lincoln and Kennedy had slept. Chris, meanwhile, spotted a man ducking into one of the rooms that was off-limits to tourists and was convinced that she had seen the president.

  When the tour was over, the students were given the rest of the day to explore the city on their own.

  “Gee, we’ve already seen so much!” Chris exclaimed as she, her twin, and their best friends crossed t
he Mall, a long, wide strip of grassy park along which many major museums were lined up.

  “Yes, but we’ve barely made a dent in the territory I hope to cover.” Susan unfolded her map of the city. “Let’s see, the Washington Mall. Oh, here it is. Wow, do you realize that there are six museums on this strip alone that I’d love to see? The American History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery— ”

  “Whoa—hold on!” Chris held up her hands dramatically. “Just listening to you rattle off that list is making my feet hurt!”

  “I don’t know about you,” Holly interjected, “but I really want to see the Air and Space Museum. I belong to the science club at school, and we just did a huge project on space exploration for the county science fair. So that one’s at the top of my list. Anybody care to join me?”

  Chris seconded that motion heartily. “I would! I heard somebody on the bus say that you can actually go inside some of the spacecraft! They’ve got them all, too. Let’s go there first.”

  Beth and Susan exchanged rueful glances.

  “Somehow, that one wasn’t on my list,” said Susan.

  “Me, either,” Beth agreed.

  “But I’ll tell you what. Since we’re all interested in seeing different things, how about if we split up? Chris, you and Holly can go over there to the Air and Space Museum.” After glancing at her map one more time, Susan pointed to a huge modern building across the Mall.

  “And we can start at the American History Museum, Susan,” said Beth. “How does that sound?”

  “Perfect!”

  The two pairs split up, after agreeing to get together early that evening to share everything they had each seen and done on their own. Susan and Beth headed in one direction, and Holly and Chris went off in another.

  “We’re certainly managing to see a lot,” Holly commented as she and Chris started across the Mall.

  “I’ll say!” Chris agreed. “Good thing I remembered to bring comfortable shoes!” Laughing, she pointed to her sneakers. “And it’s also a good thing I practiced walking a lot before this trip. There’s nothing worse than missing out on sightseeing because your feet hurt!”

  As the two of them neared the Air and Space Museum and saw that beyond the dramatic glass wall that was its front there were suspended dozens of airplanes, rockets, and spaceships, they knew they were not about to be disappointed.

  “Wow! Just look at this place!” Holly cried. “They’ve got every rocket ship I’ve ever heard of!”

  “And they’re not just replicas, either,” Chris observed, glancing at one of the plaques hanging next to an old-fashioned glider. “These are the actual spaceships that people went up in. Gosh, what a collection!”

  Something unusual caught her eye then, and she grabbed her friend’s arm. “Ooh, look, Holly! There’s a piece of the moon! Oh, let’s go touch it. We’ll probably never actually get there, but at least we’ll always know that we came into contact with it once.”

  “So much for the romance of the moon.” Holly smiled ruefully. “Next time I’m out with Hank, gazing up at the sky on a clear night, I’ll be thinking about this dark, hard rock I’m touching. Those dreamy moonlit nights will never be quite the same again!”

  The girls decided to start at the top of the museum, on the second floor, which was really more of a mezzanine. As they rode up the escalator, getting closer and closer to the huge spacecraft suspended from the ceiling, their eyes opened wide and their mouths dropped open.

  “Hey, look!” Holly exclaimed, once they’d reached the second floor. “Here’s one of those exhibits you were talking about. You can go right inside the lab where a whole bunch of astronauts lived for a few weeks, so they could see what it was like staying up in space for a long time. Let’s start here, okay? Okay, Chris? Chris!”

  She realized then that even though her friend was standing right next to her, she wasn’t listening. Holly grabbed her arm.

  “Christine Pratt, what on earth has come over you? All of a sudden you’re a million miles away. I thought you were just as excited about being here as I am!”

  “Holly, look over there! Do you see what I see?”

  Holly peered over in the direction in which Chris was pointing, expecting to see some fabulous exhibit or an unusual space vehicle. Instead, all she saw was a group of tourists, shuffling along and looking awestruck, carrying guidebooks and cameras—just like hundreds of other people in the museum. Disappointed, she frowned.

  “Chris, all I see is—”

  But before she had a chance to finish, Chris interrupted her. “Holly, that’s her! I swear that’s her!”

  “Who? What are you talking about? Who is that, Chris?”

  “That’s Natasha!”

  “Who?” By now Holly was really confused.

  “Natasha! Remember? The Russian ballerina I met at the airport yesterday?”

  Suddenly it all made sense to Holly. She, too, grew excited.

  “Oh, of course! How could I have forgotten? Which one is she?”

  “The one with the dark brown hair, wearing the blue dress. At the back of the group. She’s walking with her friend, Katya. See, the one with the blond hair.”

  “Well, then, why don’t we show them how friendly Americans can be? Let’s go over and say hello. I’d love it if you’d introduce us.”

  Warily, Chris looked around first, anxious to see if the man in the gray suit was near the group of Russian dancers. Sure enough, he was, although he was wearing a dark blue suit today. Alongside him walked a woman in a brown dress, wearing the same serious expression that he wore. Chris immediately surmised that she, too, was a chaperone for the group.

  Even so, she thought, I shouldn’t let them bother me. Holly is right. Natasha and I are friends, and there’s no reason in the world why I shouldn’t go over and say hello to her.

  “Okay, Holly. Let’s go!”

  Wearing their biggest, friendliest smiles, Chris and Holly headed toward the group of Russian ballet dancers. They walked right over to Natasha and Katya.

  Even before they had said hello, however, Natasha noticed Chris. She broke into a wide smile and said, “Christine Pratt! Hello! This is certainly—how you say—little world!”

  “It is a small world,” said Chris. “It’s so nice to see you again, Natasha. This is my best friend, Holly.”

  “Hello, Holly, Christine. Holly, this is Katya. She is also ballet dancer.”

  “Hi, Katya. So, Natasha, how are you enjoying Washington so far?”

  “Oh, very much! Is very beautiful city. And already we have seen so much! White House and Capitol, all this morning on bus tour. And now we are seeing wonderful museum of space travel.”

  “We’ve seen a lot, too,” said Holly. “We took a tour of the whole city this morning, and we sat in on a session of Congress—”

  “Natasha! Katya!”

  All of a sudden, the four girls’ congenial conversation was interrupted by a harsh voice. The woman Chris had noticed earlier, the one she had decided must be a second chaperone, came over and began scolding the two dancers in Russian. Natasha finally looked over at Chris and Holly and smiled apologetically.

  “I am sorry, but we must go now. Mrs. Korsky reminds us that we have many more things to see today. And tonight we have dance rehearsal. We are very busy, so we must follow the schedule that has been planned for us.”

  Looking satisfied, the chaperone moved away. Chris was all set to say good-bye when Natasha reached into the bag she was carrying over her shoulder.

  “I have something for you, Chris,” she said softly. “I have little gift,”

  “A gift?” Chris blinked.

  “Yes, because you are my first American friend. I planned to give it to you when our two tour groups met at the rehearsal tomorrow afternoon. But since I see you here by accident, I give gift to you now.”

  She took out a beautiful book on ballet, filled with large colorful photographs. “Perhaps looking at this book will help you enjoy the performance o
f Coppelia even more on Saturday night. Perhaps it will help make the evening more memorable,”

  Chris didn’t know what to say. “I ... you ... Gee, Natasha, thank you!” She took the book and thumbed through it. “It’s even in English!”

  “I bought it for you this afternoon at one of the museum bookstores. Do you like it?”

  “I love it! I can’t wait to read it!”

  “I am so pleased.” Natasha placed her hand on Chris’s arm and said, with great earnestness, “Just make sure you read it soon, Christine. By Saturday night, at the very latest.”

  Chris was a bit surprised by Natasha’s vehemence, but she agreed. “Sure, Natasha. I’ll take a look at it the very first chance I get. Tonight, even, after dinner, when we all get back to the hotel.”

  “Good. I am so pleased! That you like the book, I mean.”

  Natasha looked around, as if she were suddenly nervous. “There—that is done. Now we must go. We still have so much to do today.”

  With that, Natasha dashed off.

  “Boy, that was sure nice of Natasha!” Chris was still marveling over her new friend’s generosity as she tucked the book under her arm. “I mean, we hardly even know each other, yet here she is giving me presents.”

  Holly shrugged. “I guess she’s taking this cultural exchange thing really seriously. She seems to think it’s really important to make friends here in the United States.”

  “Well, I just wish there was something I could do for her in return,” said Chris wistfully. “But I’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s get going! You and I have still got this whole museum to cover!”

  As Chris and Holly returned to their sightseeing, full steam ahead, Natasha and her generous gift were forgotten. At least for now.

  Chapter Four

  “It was fabulous!” cried Susan, plopping down on one of the two single beds in the pleasant hotel room. “I’ve never seen such a magnificent museum in my entire life. They had everything: costumes, old political campaign buttons—”