CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE LUMIèRE DES ETOILES CASINO
Conner and Bree made it to the train station at St. Pancras a little before six o’clock that morning. They hadn’t slept all night but neither showed any indication of being tired. They were living on adrenaline and determination. Conner had never run away before but now he understood why Jack and Goldilocks preferred a life on the run. Despite the circumstances, it had been a very exciting day.
Bree hadn’t stopped smiling since they left the South Bank. “I’m friends with a lion statue, I’m friends with a lion statue,” she sang to herself over and over again.
They gawked at a large map over the ticketing counters and tried to make sense of all the colorful lines showing which trains traveled where.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything direct to Monte Carlo,” Conner said. “We’ll have to stop in Paris where that thick blue line ends and then get on the thin dotted orange line.”
“Your knowledge of travel terminology is so impressive,” Bree joked.
They stood in line and zigzagged to the ticket counter with the other early-morning travelers. The ticketing agent had frizzy red hair and huge bags under her eyes. She drank coffee from an enormous mug like it was water.
“Next?” she said.
Conner and Bree approached her. “Two tickets to Paris, please,” Bree said.
The agent looked at them like they had asked to borrow her car. “Do you have a guardian accompanying you? Or an unaccompanied-minor form signed by your parents?” she asked.
Bree and Conner froze. Both of them had somehow forgotten that being fourteen-year-olds might set them back on this trip.
“We… we…,” Bree began but nothing else came out.
Conner panicked and looked around the train station for a solution. In a far corner he saw a very elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair all by herself. Her hair was teased up into a large pouf and she had a full face of makeup on. She somberly stared at the floor as she held a purse and small suitcase on her lap.
“We’re traveling with our grandmother,” Conner said.
“We are?” Bree asked. Conner gestured to the old woman in the corner. “I mean, we are,” Bree continued. “Stupid me, make it three tickets to Paris,” she said back at the ticketing agent.
“That’s your grandmother?” the agent asked.
“Yes, that’s Granny Pearl,” Conner said. “She doesn’t speak a lick of English so she’s asked us to buy the tickets.” Conner energetically waved at the old woman. “Just one more minute, Gran!”
Pearl, as they christened her, was rather confused as to why two young strangers were waving to her in the middle of a train station but decided to wave back with a friendly smile. She also appeared to be a little senile, which was working in their favor.
The ticketing agent shrugged and checked the ticket options. “The only availability we have for three on the next train is in a first-class compartment,” she said.
“Great, how much?” Conner asked.
“Two hundred pounds each,” the ticketing agent said.
Conner gulped. “Boy, that’s a lot of weight, ha-ha,” he said. “We’ll take it. Good thing Granny Pearl gave us lots of money.”
He exchanged cash for the tickets and walked quickly away from the ticketing counter and toward Pearl. Bree glanced over her shoulder and saw the ticketing agent suspiciously glaring at them over her coffee mug.
“She’s still watching us; what do we do?” Bree whispered to Conner.
“Grab the old lady and get on the train, I guess,” he whispered back.
“We can’t kidnap an old woman!”
“What other option do we have?”
Their hearts were racing—they were about to commit the biggest crime of their lives. They leaned down to the old woman and quietly spoke to her.
“Hello there, would you mind doing us a favor?” Conner asked her.
Pearl just smiled blankly at them—he had guessed correctly; she didn’t know a lick of English.
“Wer sind Sie?” she asked.
“What did she just say?” Conner asked.
“I think she said, ‘Who are you?’ ” Bree said. “She’s German.”
“You speak German?”
“Only a little bit—my real grandma was born in Germany.”
“Ask her if she wants to go on a trip with us,” Conner said.
Bree licked her lips and tried translating. “Would you like… um… eine Reise with uns?”
Pearl blinked a couple times, causing her head to move slightly.
“I think that counts as a nod—grab her and let’s go!” Conner whispered.
Bree grabbed the handles of Pearl’s wheelchair and they pushed her toward the security line. Pearl smiled as cheerfully as ever, clearly without the slightest clue what was going on. They handed their tickets to the man at the security check and he carefully looked them over.
“Ich werde entführt,” Pearl told the man casually.
Bree panicked and nervously burst into fake laughter. “Oh, Granny, you’re so funny!” she said loudly. “You’ve been making jokes all day.”
The man handed back their tickets and allowed them to move forward.
“What did she just tell him?” Conner whispered to Bree.
“She said, ‘I’m being kidnapped,’ ” Bree whispered back.
“Oh,” he said, and guiltily looked down at their captive. Pearl’s big smile never left her face. “She’s taking it very well, then.”
They pushed her wheelchair all the way down the platform and boarded the car at the front of the train. The train attendant folded her wheelchair and stowed it with their luggage. Conner and Bree helped Pearl up the steps into the train and into their private first-class compartment. It was very luxurious for a pair of teenage runaways and a kidnapped old woman. It had red cushioned seats and white drapes over a large square window.
They gently sat Pearl down and took the seats across from her. Conner and Bree sat very still and watched Pearl like she was a poisonous animal until the train pulled away from the station. They were convinced at any minute she might start screaming for help, but she never did. Pearl just kept on smiling and contentedly watched the land move outside the window.
The train’s speed gradually increased and soon they were zooming through the English countryside on their way to Paris. Conner found a pamphlet in their compartment and looked at the map on the back of it—it was exactly like the map in the station.
“So once we reach Paris we’ll switch trains and head to Monte Carlo,” Conner said.
Pearl looked away from the window for a second to tell them, “Ich liebe Monte Carlo!”
“I guess she likes Monte Carlo,” Bree translated.
“Okay,” Conner said cautiously, and then continued with his plan. “Then, once we reach Monte Carlo we’ll try to find the Lumière des Etoiles casino and see if my chip means something to anyone there,” he said.
Pearl turned to them again only to say, “Ich liebe das Lumière des Etoiles!” Apparently she was a big fan of the casino as well.
“Why are we going to a casino when we should be trying to find a bank?” Bree asked.
“Mother Goose said the poker chip would come in handy,” he explained. “When she gave it to me she said that if I was ever in Monte Carlo I should take it to the roulette table in the northwest corner and bet it on the black. It made no sense to me at the time, but now I think we’ll find something there that will help us. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
The train went dark as it swooped under the English Channel and the next time they saw light they were in the French countryside. France was only a couple hours from England, but once the train began decelerating into Paris they felt they had entered a completely different world. Paris made Conner and Bree feel like they were living in a painting. Every building was beautifully detailed, like it had been hand sculpted. Many were tall and narrow with iron railings at each of their multiple windows. Soon the train arrived at the Paris station, Gare du Nord.
Conner and Bree helped Pearl off the train and pushed her through the crowded station.
“We need to exchange our pounds for euros,” Bree told Conner. “We won’t be able to buy tickets to Monte Carlo until we do.”
They found a currency-exchange station and traded in all the pounds they had left. They proceeded to the ticketing counter to purchase tickets for the next train to Monte Carlo and once again pretended Pearl was their grandmother to avoid any suspicion.
“Would you like a first-class or an economy compartment, monsieur?” the Frenchwoman at the counter asked.
“Economy is fine if it’s available,” Conner said.
“Don’t go cheap on me now, Bailey,” Bree said.
“Fine, first class, please.” Conner griped, “I’m gonna be so grounded when I get home.”
Within the hour, Conner, Bree, and Granny Pearl were aboard another train enjoying another first-class cabin. It was a very long and bumpy ride and all three of them slept as much as they could. The train stopped in five or six cities along the way, and about six hours had passed by the time they reached the Monte Carlo station.
They gathered their luggage and Granny Pearl, and headed for the exit. They stepped outside the station and Conner and Bree caught their first sight of Monte Carlo.
The city was gorgeous. A cluster of colorful hotels, resorts, and residences grew down the Monégasque hills and stretched along the ocean side. The salty smell of the ocean was all around them. A bay a little ways along the shoreline was home to hundreds of boats and yachts that bobbed in the bluest water Conner had ever seen.
“So this is where postcards come from,” he said in awe.
It was almost impossible not to enjoy the refreshing breeze and the warm rays of the golden setting sun. Pearl hummed a cheerful tune as they pushed her along the paradisiacal city.
They wandered aimlessly through the streets looking for a directory or a sign that pointed toward the Lumière des Etoiles casino. However, they soon realized the whole city was made up of casinos.
“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Bree said.
“Why don’t you look it up on your phone?” Conner asked.
“I would but my battery died in Paris,” she said.
Just when they thought their luck had run out, Pearl tugged at Conner’s sleeve and pointed to a building at the end of the street.
“Das Lumière des Etoiles casino!” she said excitedly.
Bree and Conner were so happy they wanted to hug her, but since they still didn’t even know her name they thought that might be too forward and just hugged each other instead.
“Granny Pearl, you’re amazing!” Conner said as they pushed her toward the casino.
The Lumière des Etoiles casino was an enormous building with tall columns and was topped by a vast glass dome. If it wasn’t for the electric sign blinking its name, Conner would have thought it was an old town hall that had been painted a sandy yellow to match the rest of the city.
Conner and Bree had difficulty pushing Pearl’s wheelchair up the steps but they managed and then hustled inside. The casino had green marble floors and golden pillars lining the walls. A massive chandelier hung from the dome above and illuminated the sea of slot machines and card tables.
There wasn’t a single guest at the casino who was under the age of eighty. Everywhere they looked they saw wheelchairs, walkers, and white hair. Grandmas showed other grandmas pictures of their grandchildren before taking each other’s money. Old men showed off faded tattoos they had mistakenly gotten when they were younger. It was like they had stepped into a room full of Pearls.
“No wonder Mother Goose and Pearl like this casino so much,” Conner said. “I feel like we’ve found their natural habitat.”
They propped Pearl up in front of a slot machine and gave her a handful of coins to keep her busy. Just as Mother Goose had described, there was a roulette table in the northwest corner. It was the only table in the casino that was completely empty. Conner and Bree walked through the crowd of senior citizens, receiving the strangest looks from them as they did—they stood out like sore thumbs.
They got to the roulette table and Conner reached into his pocket for the poker chip. The roulette dealer wore a white button-down shirt with a black vest and bow tie. He put his hand up to stop them before they said a word.
“Sincerest apologies, mademoiselle and monsieur, but this table is reserved for special chips only,” the dealer said. “And I do not believe either of you are old enough to be in this casino, anyway.”
Conner showed him the blue poker chip. The dealer’s eyes lit up.
“We didn’t come here to gamble,” Conner said. “But I would like to bet this on the black.”
It must have been code for something because the dealer dropped his hand and raised an eyebrow at the teenagers. He looked at them shrewdly.
“I see,” he said. “One moment, please.” He picked up the receiver of a telephone under the roulette table. “Monsieur, nous avons quelqu’un avec un jeton noir,” he said in French to whoever was on the other end of the phone, and then promptly hung up. “The manager will be with you shortly.”
Conner and Bree didn’t know whether this was good news or bad. Had the chip actually led them to something useful or were they just going to be escorted out of the casino by the manager?
A moment later the manager of the Lumière des Etoiles casino met them at the roulette table. He was a tall, burly man with a thick black mustache. He wore a sharp suit and straightened his tie as he greeted them.
“Bonjour,” the manager said. “I believe I can be of some assistance?”