I’d moved closer, trying to find a clue as to the meaning, when the hand in one of the sets suddenly waved.

I jumped, but Bess giggled as the TV playing cartoons rose slowly to reveal a very real and three-dimensional face grinning back at us. That wasn’t a sculpture inside the pyramid—it was Sven!

I stumbled back but managed to regain my balance. Sven’s stunt had shaken me a little. Crossing my arms, I waited for him to explain himself.

He clambered out of the pyramid and took a bow. His yellow jumpsuit was the exact color of scrambled eggs.

Bess applauded, starry-eyed. “It’s magnificent,” she said.

Magnificent? To me, Sven’s art felt more like a dirty trick.

“You must not think so much, Nancy Drew,” he said, noticing I hadn’t joined in with the praise. “Art is not a mystery. Art is entertainment. An artist writes his name in flashing lights in letters a hundred feet high! Only through spectacle can anyone see the truth. Take this building, for example. It was once a supermarket. Now it is a market of ideas.”

Sven’s face assumed a serious and businesslike expression as he offered his hand for me to shake. But when I reached out, he grabbed hold of my wrist and spun me around and around, faster and faster. He was stronger than he looked in his jumpsuit, all skinny muscle. I struggled, but he held me tight.

“Sven, stop!”

“Let her go, Sven,” Bess cried. “That’s not nice.”

“Art is not nice! Art doesn’t care how you feel!” he shouted, then released me. My foot caught on the TV power cord snaking across the floor, and I slammed hard into the tower of televisions, sending two sets crashing to the floor. The screen of the TV on top went black, and the tower caved in on itself with a terrible clamor.

Bess ran over to help me up, checking me for bruises. I was a little breathless, but otherwise unhurt. It was lucky the TV screen hadn’t shattered. I gathered myself to my full height, avoiding Sven’s stony gaze. I wasn’t particularly sorry about what had happened to his piece, and I didn’t really want to apologize for the damage. After all, he’d thrown me into the installation.

“Sven, that was too much! Apologize to Nancy,” Bess said, “or I won’t help you with your performance.”

He sighed deeply, and after a minute, he mumbled something that sounded like “sorry.” Or maybe “sausage.”

“Come on, everyone. Let’s put the tower back together,” said Bess. “Come on, Nancy.”

If I didn’t love my friend as much as I do, I would have rolled my eyes. But Bess had always been a peacemaker. She was happiest when everyone was getting along. So I bit my tongue and helped reassemble the TV pyramid. To defuse the tension, Bess asked Sven how he’d gotten interested in Duchess Strickland’s art collection.

“After my senior year at River Heights High School, oh, five long years ago now, I took a summer art class. Mona Pearl Strickland, the Duchess’s granddaughter, was in that class. She was already a prodigy. She could paint, she could sculpt, she could master any medium. Everyone said that was because she’d learned from the masters. She’d grown up copying the paintings in her grandmother’s collection. Nobody else had access to art like that.”