Opening the Door
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- Everyone gathers around the bedroom door expectantly, wondering what exactly Papa Georges is up to in there.
- There's a loud crash, so they all freak out and try to bust in the room.
- It's a good thing Isabelle has those lock-picking skills, and a bobby pin handy, too.
- Illustration
- Isabelle’s hand holds a bobby pin up to the keyhole. Let’s see if she’s able to work her magic.
- In the next picture, she has inserted the bobby pin in the keyhole.
- Hugo and Isabelle look at each other expectantly as she turns the doorknob. They look scared.
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- Papa Georges hasn’t destroyed the room in a rage after all. Instead, he’s moved the furniture out of the way and he’s sitting at a desk with a pen like the automaton.
- The projector is on and there are images of the film flickering across the entire wall.
- Papa Georges tells them his story. His parents were shoemakers but he wanted to be a magician—so he did that, with his wife as his lovely assistant. He also built the automaton.
- Then he heard about the movies and knew that he wanted in on that kind of magic. But then the war came and he lost his whole company. And then a great tragedy happened—two of his best friends, a cameraman and his wife, died in a car accident. Their baby daughter, Isabelle, survived.
- Papa Georges had to sell all his movies and then he bought the toy booth. He gave the automaton to the museum, but they never put it on display. He asks Hugo to bring back the automaton to him and Hugo agrees.