Maisie frowned in disappointment. Here she was all the way back in Renaissance Florence, and she meets a painter no one’s ever heard of.
“Your hair,” Sandro said to Maisie with a sigh, “it’s beautiful.”
“It is?” she said, her hands instinctively smoothing her mess of tangles.
Unruly. Out of control. A wasp’s nest. She’d heard it all when it came to her hair. But beautiful? Never.
“The color,” he said, peering at the top of Maisie’s head, “it’s natural?”
“Well, of course it’s natural,” Maisie said, insulted.
He nodded, unaware that she’d been insulted. Or maybe he didn’t care.
“Clearly you are from the north,” he said as if he were thinking out loud. “Venice, perhaps? Or Milan?”
These were obviously rhetorical questions because Sandro kept on talking without waiting for an answer, circling Maisie as he spoke.
“Here,” he continued, “some women have to put dye in their hair three times a week to achieve this color. And for the face!”
He stopped circling Maisie and instead stood way too close to her, studying her face.
“For nine days they soak white beans in white wine. Then they pound the beans”—Sandro made a fist and pounded the air between him and Maisie—“and return them to the wine with goat’s milk, barley, and egg whites, and they let that sit for two weeks.”
He slumped his shoulders in fake exhaustion.
“Finally, they have the face water to wash their skin every day and make it pale and lovely.”
Sandro gave Maisie a small smile.
“Like yours,” he said softly.
Maisie felt herself blushing.
“Tell me,” Sandro said, still standing close to Maisie, “does everyone where you live have this yellow hair, this pale skin?”
“Not everyone,” Maisie managed to answer. She was trying to think of a boy cuter than this Sandro Botticelli, but couldn’t.
Sandro slapped his hands together, breaking the spell.
“I know!” he said. “I, Sandro Botticelli, will create a mask for you!”
“A mask?” Felix asked, happy to intrude. Sandro seemed to have forgotten Felix was even in the room.
At the sound of Felix’s voice, Sandro spun around to face him.
“Who are you again?” he demanded.
“Felix Robbins,” Felix said. “Her brother.”
At that, Sandro’s face softened.
“Ah! The baby brother!” he said.
Maisie giggled. “Yup,” she said. “He’s my baby brother.”
Felix glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Okay, baby,” Sandro said, “I will make you a mask, too.”
“A mask for what?” Felix said, frustrated.
“For Carnival!” Sandro exclaimed, as if Felix was the dumbest person he’d ever encountered. “That’s why you came to Florence, isn’t it? For Carnival!”
“That’s why!” Maisie agreed readily.
She put herself back in Sandro’s line of vision. “You’ll make us both masks?” she asked.
“Absolutely!” he said.
Cool, Maisie thought. We’ll have the best masks at the fair at school. She imagined the look on Bitsy Beal’s face when she caught sight of Maisie’s authentic mask, made by a real Renaissance artist.
“For now,” Sandro said, “I must finish the task of completing these brushes. But perhaps after dinner we could walk?” he said, again speaking only to Maisie.
“Walk? Where?”
Sandro laughed with great enjoyment.
“That’s what we do here in the evening!” he said. “We stroll. Arm in arm.”
He linked his arm through Maisie’s.
“Like this,” he said.
Maisie swallowed hard.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll walk with you.”
As quickly as he’d taken her arm, he dropped it.
“I’ll meet you on the San Giovanni Bridge, then?”
His eyes flickered over Felix.
“Baby brother will already be asleep, yes?” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“No,” Felix grumbled.
“So,” Maisie said as she watched Sandro return to his work, “what time on the San Giovanni Bridge?”
“When you hear the bell that sounds like a cow,” he said. “Moo-oo!”
“The bell that sounds like a cow,” Maisie repeated to herself. “Got it.”
She only hoped she could wait that long. Suddenly, the idea of strolling with Sandro Botticelli sounded like the best idea she’d ever heard.
“What a pompous jerk,” Felix said as soon as they stepped outside into the damp early-morning air.
“Mmmm,” Maisie said, not listening. She thought he was pretty cute.
“I don’t want his dumb mask,” Felix said, even though he did want it. Surely it would be the best mask of the entire class.
He paused to glance around.
They were standing on a cobblestone street surrounded by stone buildings, many with balconies hanging over the street. Alleys and other streets twisted and turned everywhere Felix looked. Ahead, he could see a large plaza. Behind, an arched bridge stretched across a river that appeared green in the misty morning light.
“What shall we do with an entire day in Florence?” Felix asked, his wound from Sandro’s teasing beginning to dull, and the excitement of being where they were taking hold.