Thrown for a Loupe

Stephanie was buckled in the back despite pleading and begging and whining and even crying. She glared and pouted really hard when Gramma Bea refused to let her sit in the front seat.

Her grandmother was usually a push over. Apparently, safety was a line she drew. So Stephanie sat in back with her legs crossed, her sketch pad and pencils in her lap. Her backpack was loaded with all sorts of accouterments and paraphernalia, which her mother had tried heartily to convince her were unnecessary. But when her grandmother had come, the battle was instantly lost.

“Steph, you are not taking all that stuff,” her mother had chided. “You have your drawing pad and your pencils. That’s all you need. What is even in there?”

“Well,” Stephanie had clicked her tongue and sat upon the floor of her room as she opened up the bag of mysteries, She reached her hands in one after the other pulling items out, describing them, and replacing them with the flourish of an overzealous magician, “I have my magnifying glass in case I need to examine something closely, my locked notebook in case I need to take secret notes, some highlighters to emphasize—” she had paused to see if her mother was impressed with the knew word she learned (but she still looked annoyed), “—important information. Pandy, my stuffy, so I have a friend to talk to. And then some food for her, too.” She pulled out handfuls of items from her little sister’s play kitchen. “Oh! And my binoculars.” She zipped the bag and spun in a circle as she replaced the bag on her back, her dress twirling around her joyfully.

Her mother had turned to her father, who had appeared in the doorway with Stephanie’s little sister on his back, “Help me out here.”

He paused to think for a moment, and was just about to speak when Bea’s voice came up from downstairs, “It would seem the battle is already lost.”

“I’m heeeeeere! Where’s my wonderful granddaughter!?”

Steph’s mother had then rolled her eyes and stormed off, pasting on a smile for Steph’s grandmother, slapping her husband on the shoulder, whispering, “You’re no help.”

And now, here she was, in the back of Gramma Bea’s compact SUV, with her backpack full of stuff.

The convention center came into view, and Steph perked up, examining the scene. She peered through her window to see a giant building with a large banner draped over the main entrance advertising THE Antique Roadshow featuring THE Marion Kellner.

“Gramma, who’s Marion Kellner?”

“Oh, dearie,” Gramma Bea waved her perfectly manicured hand around as she talked, her white hair done up and curled, “Miss Marion is the host of Junk or Treasure, a special show were she examines other people’s things to evaluate what they’re worth.”

“Oh. Will there be a lot of people there?” Steph did not like crowds. She was loud and vivacious but only with those she loved and trusted. She no longer was this way with others. Not since the incident on the playground. She shook the thought away.

“Yes, dearie, there will be. Do you remember, dearie, the other day when we were playing the keyboard and I stopped to watch that show?”

Steph remembered. “Yeah.”

“Well, that was Miss Marion’s show. Miss Marion is so fierce.”

“Like a tiger?”

“Yes!” she slapped the wheel with her manicured hand, “Just like a tiger, dearie. Just like the fiercest tiger in the jungle. Anyway, she’s going to be here, so I’m going to get a selfie and have her evaluate an item that belonged to my great-granddaddy. Could you help me take a selfie, dearie?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, “Not if there’s people. And I don’t know if I like this Marion person. She’s new.”

“That’s true. You don’t have to, dearie, if you don’t want to.”

“What did you bring, Gramma?” She looked over her shoulder to peer in the bag of the car, but was hampered by her seat belt. She recalled the overbearing talking-to she got from her dad the other day for slouching in her seat, so she refrained from going further.

“It’s something so special, dearie. I found it in the attic… hold on.” She put her window down to talk to the security officer at the front of the parking lot, paid her parking, laughed and giggled with the man, then drove on in. “Now we just need a place to park.”

Steph opened her small notebook from her backpack, used the small key on the chain around her neck to unlock it, and took some notes:

• Marion Kellner, host
• Junk or Treasure, Miss Marion’s show
• Gramma’s Great-grandaddy’s item
• evaluate for money (she circled ‘evaluate’ like her teacher taught her)

Then she replaced the notebook as Gramma Bea pulled into a parking place. She got out of the car and walked around the back, where her grandmother was already opening the hatch and pulling out a cardboard box that she grunted with some heft.

“You found a box?” Stephanie was clearly confused.

“No, dearie, the box is for the thing that I found. Could you grab that bag, please.”

Stephanie did not want to help, but she grabbed the bag anyway. And with her notebook and pencils under one arm, the bag of rags in the other hand, and a backpack across her shoulders, she followed Gramma Beatrice through the parking lot, to an unfamiliar world where people peddled their junk as treasure in hopes of a payout.

And she could see from the parking lot that there were, in fact, a lot of people here.

Beatrice found her table after talking to the nice man with the tablet. From the bag Stephanie carried, she unfurled a silk sheet which she draped over the plain white folding table.

Stephanie watched as her gramma and the others set up their tables. She crawled under the table and took notes as the silk sheet fluttered over her view. On her stomach, she could see from underneath the cloth. Satisfied, she observed the arena.

The tables were all arranged in a square pattern with space in front and behind, so it looked like one rectangle around another. She saw that not all the people were older, like Gramma Bea. some of them were young, like the boy in the inner square. He had his brown hair pulled into a bun and a thick beard. He acted weird, glancing around like her friends when they are trying to not get caught. She observed that he was playing around with objects on his table, but unlike the others, he appeared to have nothing.

“Steph, come out here, dearie, and help gramma arrange these knickknacks.”

“Ok.” Stephanie made sure to finish her notes first.

• Square in a square
• Lots of stuff
• White tables
• Some people decorate
• Not all old people
• Weird guy with beard

Steph came out to see what was so important, “What is it, Gramma?”

Bea waved her hand at the table. In the center was an old vase decorated with ornate patterns and paint work. It shimmered in the fluorescent lighting. Around it were smaller vases of flowers and other objects that Bea was using for decoration. Steph looked around and saw that most people had done the same thing to their tables.

But not Weird Bearded Guy.

Quickly, she amended her notes:

• Weird guy with beard, no decorations?
• Where is his item?

An announcement hushed the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing, the host of your favorite resale show, Junk or Treasure, THE Marion Kellner!”

Cheers, whoops, and hollers erupted around the room. Stephanie looked around at all the people and noted that they were all jumping and spinning just like her friends at school when they realize they have a substitute teacher. “Look at them, Gramma…”

But when she looked at her gramma, she noted how she was behaving just as the others. She clapped wildly and whispered to herself, “Oh my goodness.! It’s her! It’s really her!”

Stephanie retreated to her base under the table. “Pandy,” she said to her stuffed panda who was perched on the floor with her snacks, “you should have seen them. They were acting like children.”

On her tummy, she used the binoculars to spy around. She first noted that Weird Beard Guy was no longer at his table. She looked around and noted that nearly everyone was at their tables, fastidiously moving objects around. Steph looked up to see her grandmother doing the same. She was a bundle of nerves as she paced back and forth.

Around the room, Steph watched as the lady with the poofy white hair, Marion Kellner, spoke with the people. At one point, she caught a glimpse of Weird Beard Guy pass her, but never saw him again.

Eventually, there was a second set of feet that showed up at their table and some others too, which were attached to cables.

Stephanie peered out, coming around the back of the table and noticed Miss Kellner and her fancy glasses. There were two men who were talking to Gramma Bea, one held a humongous camera and the other was very official looking, like he was the boss of a big business. Once he finished talking, Gramma Bea signed a piece of paper and then he walked off to the side. The cameraman came into position and a third man came up, huffing and puffing. He held a long stick with a fuzzy something on the end. Steph bet he was strong, because that stick looked heavy. She looked around some more as the lady and her gramma talked when she noticed that Weird Bearded Guy was at his table, looking around, and he had something small and fancy in his hand. She used her binoculars to look.

In his hand was a small cylinder. The ends were shiny, like they were made of glass. The object itself was mint green, one of her favorite colors, covered with what looked like butterflies and caterpillars. She made her notes when her gramma called.

“Steph, dearie, come meet Miss Marion.”

Stephanie peered around the end of the table to see the lady standing there with her Gramma Bea. reluctantly, she stood next to, if not more so behind, her Gramma.

“Steph, dearie, this is miss Marion.”

Stephanie looked up at the lady and noted how small she was. Gramma Bea was not that tall, but this lady was barely taller than some of her friends at school. Her hair was like a cloud attached to her head, and the lady’s glasses made her relax. They were bright pink with sparkles. And there was a chain attached to them that had little caterpillars and butterflies attached to it all the way around.

Those looked familiar…

“Good morning, sweet girl. How old are you?”

… But her thoughts were interrupted, “Uh… nine.”

“Nine! What a wonderful age!” Her voice was honey sweet, which helped Steph to relax a bit more. The lady leaned down on her knees, “I have three granddaughters that are your age.”

“That’s a lot of grand kids.” The thought slipped out.

“I suppose so. But when you have a lot of children, you have more grandchildren. Don’t you think so?”

Stephanie thought for a moment and shrugged her shoulders, “That is plausible.”

“Oh. Such a good vocabulary.”

Steph hid a bit more behind her grandmother, “I read it in a book.”

“Books are the best places to learn words, since they are filled with them.”

Stephanie agreed, but did not say so.

“Well, then, Miss Bea, can we look at your vase?” She said it the fancy way, vaaz.

Once more, Stephanie retreated under her table. She could hear her grandmother telling an elaborate story woven from cloth hundreds of years old, but ignored the details. What caught her eye was the fact that nearly everyone was still at their table, or they we milling around talking with one another.

Except for Weird Beard Guy.

“Oh! Goodness me!” Stephanie heard Miss Marion call, “Where on earth is my loupe?”

The tone of the discussion changed. The man in the suit came over to talk with Marion, saying, “Cut.” Then he came over to talk with her. Stephanie peered out over the edge of the silken cloth that cast her home base in shadows. “What is it Miss Kellner?”

“It’s my loupe, Stanley. It’s missing.”

He waved his hands around, “We have to get filming finished, Miss Kellner. Can we use one of the spare loupes from the production closet?”

She looked at Stanley with narrow daggers, “Do you think my fanbase will notice, Stanley, that my signature matching loupe and chain—” she flicked the chain attached to her glasses in her fingers “—combination is missing? At least one-third of my viewers watch the show to check out this detail, Stanley! So no, I can’t continue filming without that loupe!”

Stanley must have known this was true because he immediately spun in a circle as Stephanie retreated back under the table just as his head popped under the sheet.

“Oh, hello there.”

Stephanie waved.

“You haven’t seen a loupe with fancy butterflies on it, have you?”

She shook her head.

“Oh.” His face fell into disappointment. “Thank you.” And then he was gone.

Stephanie reviewed her notes. There seemed to be a correlation here. And suddenly she had an idea.

She peered out from under the sheet to check Weird Beard Guy’s table. He was still not there. Taking a deep breath, she pushed away the laughter of her classmates that she heard in her head. Before her thoughts and doubts could restrain her, she crawled out from under the table and jogged in a crouch to his table on the other side of the room.

She examined his table and noticed that there were no remnants, residues, or other forms of human refuse. No evidence that anyone was here at all. She spun around. At her grandmother’s table, they were all looking around Gramma Bea’s table. Other tables were empty, but there were abandoned cups or other forms of trash. `Some tables were even askew.

Stephanie turned to the man at the table next to her. He was talking to someone on the phone. He seemed distracted, so she scanned the room and noticed there was an old gentleman who was sitting in a lawn chair. She looked to her grandmother who was desperately helping Miss Marion. Stephanie took a brave first step and walked up to the man who appeared to be observing the room. “Pardon me, sir.”

He looked at her and his steely eyes softened a bit, “Well, hello there, missy. What can I do for you?”

She gulped and held up her notebook, straightening her back, “I’m investigating a mystery and was wondering if you saw where the man at that table over there went?”

“A mystery?”

She nodded firmly. Be brave.

“Well, let’s see.” He rubbed his stubbly chin, " I do believe that the man at the table you mean walked the room for a bit, came back, made a phone call, then ducked into the hallway door over there.” He pointed to the side door.

A door that no one else seemed to be using.

“Thank you, sir.” She ran off, her backpack bounding off her as she went. She wished she had packed fewer things now, as it was making a lot of noise, making stealth difficult.

At the door, she noticed that it was slightly ajar, and could hear a voice coming from the other side.

“… no, look, I got something even better. It’s that thing the old lady uses to check all the people’s stuff.” A slight pause as the voice on the phone spoke. “I don’t know what a loupe is, Charlie!”

Miss Marion’s loupe! He does have it! She peered through the crack a bit. He was standing a bit off, but she could see his weird hair bun and the thick beard. She had found her man.

As she ran to tell Stanley, she stopped at the old man’s table, “Thank you, sir.” And then she was off again.

Walking back to the car was Stephanie’s favorite part.

Pandy rode on her head, and she held the straps of her backpack with a straight back and a smile on her face as they entered the sunny afternoon.

Police officers were parked out front and Weird Beard Guy was in the back of one of the cars. “Did the Weird Beard Guy say why he did it?” Stephanie asked.

“Who?” Gramma Bea stopped for a second and looked in her granddaughter’s eyes, then decided to let it go. “As a matter of fact, yes. Miss Marion said that he had fallen on hard times and was desperate to earn some money to pay his rent. He was looking for something valuable that he could pawn and ran across Marion’s loupe, which she had set down for a second to talk to one of the people at the show.”

Stephanie looked over at the man, seeing how heavy his eyes looked now. “I’m sorry he got in trouble.”

“I think he will be ok.” Bea added. “Marion is not pressing charges, and she is actually offering to pay his rent this month.

“That’s very nice of her.”

“Yes, dearie, it is. I just hope that man will learn better next time.”

“Gramma, I like your antique shows.”

She beamed at her granddaughter. “You do?”

“Yep. And I don’t think that I’m so scared of talking to people either.”

“Oh?”

Stephanie nodded emphatically, “Yep. I met a nice man who helped me find Weird Beard Guy. I think I can come to another show with you.”

“I’d love that.”

“Yeah.” She skipped to the car. “And maybe I can solve another mystery!”