Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 Read Online Free PDF Page A

said again, his voice even softer this time.
    Great-Uncle Thorne stepped inside, almost reverentially, and walked over to the desks. Maisie and Felix watched as he traced something carved into the top of one of them, his face wistful. He dipped his finger into a hole in one corner, then held it up to examine.
    â€œThe ink,” he said. “All dried up.”
    Slowly, he lifted the top of the desk.
    Great-Uncle Thorne gasped when he peered inside it.
    Maisie nudged Felix to follow her into the Map Room, but he hung back. Something about the way Great-Uncle Thorne looked made Felix feel like they should stay out here. But of course Maisie marched right over to Great-Uncle Thorne.
    â€œOld notebooks,” she said, also peering inside.
    Carefully, Great-Uncle Thorne lifted a pale blue notebook from inside the desk.
    Maisie saw T HORNE P ICKWORTH written on the cover, and beneath it W ORL D H ISTORY AND G EOGRA PHY .
    Felix watched as Great-Uncle Thorne opened the notebook and began to read to himself, his lips moving ever so slightly.
    After what seemed a long while, Great-Uncle Thorne closed the notebook and lowered the top of the desk, once again tracing something carved in the wood there.
    â€œIt seems like yesterday,” he said to himself.
    Maisie watched his finger as it traced the shape of a heart. Inside that carved heart were the letters
TP
+
PM
.
    â€œGreat-Uncle Thorne!” Maisie said. “That’s you, isn’t it?
TP
is Thorne Pickworth!”
    Great-Uncle Thorne, maybe for the first time since Maisie had known him, blushed.
    â€œBut who’s
PM
?” Maisie asked.
    â€œPenelope Merriweather!” Felix blurted from the doorway.
    â€œOh!” Maisie said. “You’ve loved her forever!”
    â€œPoppycock,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, but he smiled as he said it.
    Maisie turned her attention to the other desk. Although nothing was carved there, Great-Aunt Maisie had drawn a picture that covered the entire top of her desk. The colors were so faded that it was difficult to make out the images. But slowly, as Maisie stared at it, they began to take shape. A wooden roller coaster. A Ferris wheel. A boardwalk. Blurry figures on what appeared to be a beach with a wave washing up against it.
    â€œConey Island!” Maisie exclaimed.
    Great-Uncle Thorne sighed.
    â€œYes,” he said begrudgingly, “that’s Maisie’s drawing of Coney Island. I’m glad to see the thing fading away.”
    â€œThat’s where she met Harry Houdini,” Felix said.
    â€œThe beginning of the end,” Great-Uncle Thorne said with another sigh.
    Finally Felix walked into the room, too. Almost immediately he caught sight of an enormous globe in the corner. The globe stood taller than him, taller than Great-Uncle Thorne, and so wide that Felix wouldn’t be able to fit his arms around it. What really struck him, though, even more than the sheer size of the thing, was how part of it was in shadow and part was in light.
    Felix blinked.
    â€œHey!” he said. “This globe . . . It’s . . . spinning!”
    Great-Uncle Thorne let out a whoop.
    â€œStill? After all these years?” Great-Uncle Thorne said with delight.
    He went and stood beside Felix to watch the globe turn almost imperceptibly on its axis.
    â€œIs it rotating like we are?” Maisie asked as she joined them in front of the globe.
    â€œExactly,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, nodding.
    He walked right up to the globe and picked up a long wooden pointer like Mrs. Witherspoon used, except even longer.
    â€œSo it’s six thirty here in Newport, Rhode Island,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, pointing to the speck on the east coast of the United States, “and we’ve still got some light. But over here in . . . Let’s see . . .”
    He walked around to the other side of the globe and grinned, pointing the pointer.
    â€œIn Paris