The Invention of Hugo Cabret

In a busy Parisian train station, Hugo Cabret climbs into an air vent and hides behind a clock face in the wall. He watches an old toymaker (later revealed to be Georges Méliès) as he works in his booth. A girl about Hugo’s age (named Isabelle, he learns in Part 1, Chapter 8) walks into the booth carrying a book. She and Georges argue before she runs away. When Georges folds his arms and closes his eyes, Hugo leaves his hiding place and sneaks up to the toy booth. As he reaches for a blue mechanical mouse, Georges grabs Hugo’s arm, causing Hugo to drop and step on the mouse. He calls for the Station Inspector, and Hugo panics. Georges tells Hugo to empty his pockets, and Hugo obeys, revealing many small trinkets and a worn notebook. Georges looks through the notebook and stares at a drawing of an automaton. He becomes angry and demands to know who made the drawings, but Hugo refuses to answer. Georges lets Hugo go but keeps the notebook and the items from Hugo’s pockets. He tells Hugo to leave, calling him a thief.

Hugo runs back into the air vent and makes his way to a group of apartments above the station’s main waiting area. All but one of the apartments is long abandoned. Hugo goes to his apartment and looks at the long rows of jars filled with pieces of the toys Hugo has been stealing from Georges’s booth over the past few months. His uncle’s uncashed paychecks sit on a table nearby. Hugo begins to tend to the station’s 27 clocks, just as his uncle has taught him. He starts with the two glass clocks high above the station. Hugo checks the time against his uncle’s pocket watch and oils the gears. Once he knows the glass clocks are running correctly, he works on the station’s remaining clocks from inside the station’s walls. Through one clock, Hugo can see the Station Inspector’s desk and the small cell waiting for any criminals found at the station. Through another, he sees Georges in his toy booth looking through Hugo’s notebook.

As Georges closes his toy booth, Hugo approaches him. Georges asks for Hugo’s name and reminds him to stay away from him and his booth, threatening to take Hugo to the Station Inspector if he sees Hugo again. Hugo demands that George return his notebook, but Georges says he will burn it, then walks out of the station. Hugo follows him and thinks about taking his notebook back by force but knows he isn’t strong enough. Georges and Hugo walk through the Paris streets as light snow falls. They reach a worn-down apartment building. Georges tells Hugo that “the sound of clicking boot heels can summons ghosts” (95), then enters the building.

Hugo stands outside the apartment building and throws a rock at one of the windows. The girl he saw earlier, Isabelle, pulls back the curtains and looks down at him. She motions for him to wait, closes the curtain, and comes out of the building to talk to Hugo. Hugo accuses Georges of stealing his notebook and says he must get it back. Isabelle says Hugo is the thief, not Georges. Hugo refuses to leave without his notebook but won’t explain why it’s so important to him. Isabelle promises to make sure Georges doesn’t burn the notebook and tells Hugo to come to the toy booth tomorrow.