Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  “I used to love bacon,” Poppy said, “but now the smell makes me rather sick. It smells too much like—well, never mind. Here, I’ll give your waffle to the dogs.” He whisked my plate away and I was glad to see it go. “Or, better yet, to your mother.”

  “Good morning!” Mamma sang out, as she came down the Below Stairs. She was in her red silk bathrobe, and her hair stood straight up. She sat down at the kitchen table and Poppy put my plate in front of her. “Waffles, oh how I love waffles, and Hotspur makes the best waffles ever. You look bleary, Flora. How was the show?”

  “I missed most of it,” I said, “so I don’t know. I had to be home, you know.”

  “Poor punkie,” Mamma said. “Even your gloomy face can’t bring me down today. I’m in a happy, happy mood because I finally got the stupid seating chart for the Warlord’s Birthday Ball worked out. I am a true genius, let me tell you. It’s no picnic trying to make sure that no one ends up next to their worst enemy and yet hierarchy is followed. Protocol is a real bitch. Pass that bacon over here, I’m starved.”

  I passed the bacon but Mamma had put her fork down and picked the paper up, and the sharp line between her eyes turned into a knife slash. “Pigface Psychopomp!” Then she said something else, much worse.

  “Buck!” Poppy said sharply “Language.”

  Mamma waved the paper angrily “This is just dandy. Florian’s going to squee, for Califa’s sake. Those idiot militia morons. They shouldn’t be allowed out of bed in the morning—turning a gas gun on civilians!”

  “At least it’s not your fault, Buck,” Poppy said. “No one can blame you.”

  “It’s not a matter of blame,” Mamma complained. “I was almost to the point of getting the Birdies to withdraw their detachments from Califa—I had them believing we no longer needed such oversight, and now this. I’m going to kick Colonel Oset from one end of the City to the other. And why didn’t anyone inform me of this earlier? Where was the Officer of the Day? I’m going to kick him, too!”

  Mamma threw the paper, and swore again. I would have felt sorrier for Colonel Oset if I hadn’t seen the gas gun in action. Instead, I felt like being kicked by Mamma wasn’t nearly enough punishment. But Mamma’s ire seemed more about the militia’s reaction than the Horses of Instruction’s instigation, which was good. Good for Firemonkey, and for Idden, too.

  “I’ve got to get back to the Presidio,” Mamma said. “Wrap me up some bacon, will you, Flora?”

  Poppy plunked a coffee cup down in front of Mamma. “Buck, it’s over now—rushing won’t do you any good. They know you are coming and bringing hell to pay Let them stew.”

  “True enough—” Mamma was interrupted by a barking chorus. The dogs had left off their begging to hurtle themselves toward the back door, woofing a welcome to Lieutenant Sabre, Mamma’s aide-de-camp, who had appeared in the doorway, his hat in his hand.

  “Did you see the paper, Aglis?” Mamma said, when the dogs had subsided enough to allow Lieutenant Sabre to come into the kitchen. Alas, he did not emerge completely unscathed; his skirts were now covered in paw prints and dog hair, ruining his usual perfection.

  “I did, General,” he said. “Ave, Colonel Fyrdraaca, Madama Fyrdraaca Segunda.”

  Mamma said, “I want to give a statement to the press immed—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, General,” Lieutenant Sabre said. “May I speak with you privately? It’s important. Very important.”

  Lieutenant Sabre, I noticed, looked rather pale, and his lips were pinched together so tightly that they were almost white. But, like a good yaller dog, the golden buttons on his frock coat gleamed, his collar was perky, and his tie perfectly tied. I used to think that Lieutenant Sabre was terribly stuck-up. But he’s the only aide Mamma’s ever had that lasted more than a few weeks, so he clearly has sand.

  “I already know all about the idiot militia, Aglis.”

  “It’s not that, General,” he said, and suddenly I knew exactly what it was. My stomach sank into my slippers.

  “All right, then. Come upstairs to my study” Mamma took her coffee cup, and Lieutenant Sabre followed her upstairs. I watched them go, the sour feeling in my tum growing. Mamma was already in a bad mood; it was only going to get worse. Blast Idden—she wasn’t even here, and she was causing trouble.

  “He looks like a man going to his execution,” Poppy remarked, and he would know what a man going to his own execution would look like, I supposed. “Poor bugger.”

  He went back to frying bacon and I fiddled with my coffee cup, tense and waiting. After a few minutes, noises began to echo down the Below Stairs. At the stove, Poppy froze, bacon dangling from his tongs. The dogs swiveled their ears, though their eyes never left the bacon. I froze, cup in hand.

  Mamma was shouting. Shouting! Mamma never shouts. The angrier she is the quieter she gets; you have to lean in to hear what she’s saying, and each word hurts all the more for having to strain to hear it. Mamma shouting: This was worse than I had expected.

  “Finish your breakfast, Flora,” Poppy ordered, abandoning the bacon and running upstairs, dogs falling in behind him.

  Of course, I didn’t just sit there. By the time I got upstairs, Poppy had vanished into Mamma’s study; the door was closed, but that didn’t mute the shouting. I hardly even had to lean against the door to hear what she was saying.

  “—the hell did it take this long for him to inform me?”

  Mumble, mumble. Poor Lieutenant Sabre, the bearer of bad news through no fault of his own.

  “Calm down, Buck.” Poppy.

  “Three weeks—she’s been missing three whole weeks and I only find out now!” Mamma shouted. Warm fur pushed against me; I looked down to see the dogs huddling around my legs. Their ears were flat on their heads. Somehow dogs always know when something bad has happened. I petted them reassuringly, though I did not feel reassured at all.

  For the next few minutes, Mamma shouted, Poppy and Lieutenant Sabre tried to be soothing, and I huddled against the door, my ears burning. Most of Mamma’s anger was focused on the fact that Idden’s commanding officer hadn’t sent a courier as soon as Idden had disappeared from Fort Jones. He had waited a full week before marking her absent on the post returns, and another week before changing her to absent without leave. Only then did he send a courier to the City with his report, and due to heavy rains, the journey from Fort Jones to the City took an extra three days. That’s why Idden had been gone for three weeks, but the report had only arrived now. I felt sorry for Idden’s commanding officer, caught between a rock and a hard place—Idden’s desertion and Mamma’s fury. He had probably hoped Idden would come back before he had to report her.

  The door flung open. I jerked out of the way just in time, and Lieutenant Sabre came barreling out. He shut the door behind him and stared at me, wild-eyed. He was practically quivering.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’d rather face all the Flayed Riders of Huitzil,” he said, “than the General when she’s angry.”

  “You and me both.”

  Lieutenant Sabre unbuttoned his tunic and breathed heavily for a minute, then took a case out of his sleeve and wedged a little packet of snus into his lip. He wiped his forehead with his hankie and then rebuttoned his tunic.

  “The General is threatening to go to Fort Jones to investigate,” Lieutenant Sabre said. “She doesn’t believe that Captain Fyrdraaca deserted. The General thinks that Captain Fyrdraaca may have met with some misadventure, perhaps while hunting. That she might have fallen in a ravine or been attacked by a wild animal.”

  Huh, I thought. If only Mamma knew, she might wish idden had been eaten by a bear.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  Lieutenant Sabre snorted. “Captain Fyrdraaca was acting quartermaster at the time of her departure from Fort Jones. She is missing and so is the entire quartermaster treasury. That seems pretty definitive to me.”

  Pigface! Idden had forgotten to mention that to me.
So if they caught her, they could court-martial her for desertion and theft. Fabulous, Idden, just dandy.

  “Can Mamma go to Fort Jones?” I asked.

  “She’ll have to get permission from the Warlord, but, of course, that’s just a formality He’ll hardly tell her no. But it’s a bad time for the General to be absent from the City The EI causing all that commotion, the Warlord’s Birthday. We need the General here. She’s a stable influence, and it would look bad to have her gone right now.”

  And Idden long gone from Fort Jones, too, I thought, so an entirely wasted trip.

  “Maybe the Warlord won’t let her go,” I said, hopefully.

  “Lay off, Reverdy!” Mamma’s voice rose again. “I need your support here!”

  Lieutenant Sabre and I leaned back against the door and heard Poppy say, “Be reasonable, Buck. Rushing off to Fort Jones isn’t going to solve anything. If Idden has deserted, she’s long gone.”

  “I refuse to believe that Idden would ever desert,” Mamma said. “She is probably lying at the bottom of a ravine somewhere.”

  “For three weeks, Buck?” Poppy said quietly. “Then there really is no point, is there? Hardy’s letter said they searched for her and found nothing—no horse, no dogs, no Idden. And taking the QM funds is a sure sign that she scarpered. She’s gone, Juliet. She’s gone.”

  For a moment there was silence, and then Mamma said, “I can’t go through this again, Reverdy. I just can’t. I can’t lose another child. I have to find her.”

  “And if you find her? What then? Are you going to court-martial her and shoot her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How are you going to have any choice? Will you be so openly partisan?”

  Another silence, and Lieutenant Sabre and I looked at each other. Mamma would never have her own daughter shot, would she? Would she? The look on Lieutenant Sabre’s face said he certainly thought she would. Oh Idden, you snapperhead. I really hoped she had covered her tracks well. I hoped, hoped that she and the other Horses of Instruction were far, far from the City now. Long gone.

  We heard the footsteps just in time and retreated halfway down the Below Stairs, so it wouldn’t be obvious we’d been listening. Without giving a look our way, Mamma flung herself upstairs, her face as hard as stone, her dressing gown flapping.

  Poppy stood at the top of the Below Stairs, looking down at us. “She’s going to Fort Jones,” he said. “I tried to persuade her otherwise, but when has Buck ever listened to me? You’d better get packing, Aglis. You have a long trip ahead of you.”

  “My condolences, sir.” Lieutenant Sabre saluted and skedaddled, no doubt wishing he could flee somewhere no one had ever heard of the Fyrdraaca family. I knew how he felt.

  “I’m sure she’s all right, Poppy wherever she is,” I said, after a moment.

  “I hope you are right,” Poppy answered. “If you heard from Idden you would tell me, wouldn’t you, Flora?”

  One of the annoying aspects of Poppy being sober is that he now is much harder to deflect. He was looking down at me with a green gaze that pierced me to my very soul and made me want to start to blather. Mamma can do this easily, but I had not known Poppy had the same talent. Guilt stabbed at me.

  He continued, “I don’t care if she deserts from the Army a thousand times over. I just want to know she is all right.”

  Mamma had said: I can’t lose another child. The first Flora gone, and now Idden. I was the only Fyrdraaca child left. My waffles churned into a painful throb and for a moment I thought about spilling my guts—not my breakfast, but my guilt. Why should I cover for Idden? I didn’t know where she was. And I had crossed on the promise not to give her up, which meant it wasn’t binding. But what if I did tell Poppy I’d seen her? How could he help her? He could barely help himself. And if he told Mamma, then she would have no choice but to court-martial Idden and maybe even shoot her.

  When in doubt, keep your yip shut, said Nini Mo.

  So I said, “Idden can take care of herself, Poppy. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “No doubt you are right, but I wish I knew for sure. The Fyrdraacas dwindle,” Poppy said sadly. “I think we can fall no further, and yet there’s always more down.”

  Eleven

  Mamma Departs. Tactics. Getting Dressed.

  BY LUNCHTIME Mamma and Lieutenant Sabre were on the steamer for Aurora, the first leg of the journey to Fort Jones. I felt terrible that she was making such a long trip for nothing, but what could I do? I couldn’t think of any way to tell her the trip was pointless without giving away Idden. And I still had to worry about the Warlord’s Birthday Ball.

  In all the hullabaloo, I hadn’t had time to work on my Glamour or try to rescue my wardrobe. But then, unexpectedly, Idden did me a favor. On the ride to the docks, Mamma was full of instructions—one of which was that Poppy should send his regrets to the Warlord. She did not want him going to the Ball alone.

  I saw my chance and leaped, offering to go with Poppy. I pointed out that the Warlord might be insulted if our family made no showing at all. Poppy, surprisingly, sided with me, saying that at such a volatile time it was important for our family to show the Warlord support.

  Reluctantly, Mamma agreed. At the docks, she hugged Poppy good-bye and kissed each dog on the nose. Then she hugged me and whispered in my ear, “Keep an eye on your father, Flora.” I whispered back that I would, and then the steamer was chugging out onto the deep blue bay, Mamma a dark blur, getting smaller and smaller until we could not see her at all. But her flag stayed visible until the steamer rounded Black Point and was gone.

  Once again it was just Poppy, me, and the dogs.

  Of course, in the Fyrdraaca family there’s always a catch, and in this case, the catch was that Poppy did not think that I should get the day off just because we were going to the biggest social event of the season. Despite my protests that I needed to prepare for the Ball, Poppy insisted on study time.

  By the time he finally released me, I was so sick to death of tactics that if I had been called upon right that moment to lead a Flying Wedge, or Oblique Left Double-Time, or enfilade the enemy using Honeychurch’s Backward Line-Breaker, I would have just lain down on the ground and let my troops ride right over me.

  Not all battles are fought on a battlefield and not all weapons draw blood, Nini Mo said. Released from Poppy bondage, I could turn my thoughts completely toward the tactics to use at the Ball. I couldn’t just walk up to Lord Axacaya in front of everyone. I had to be subtle and discreet. I had to be calm and deliberate. I needed to give the impression of being a reasonable adult who should be taken seriously.

  Nini Mo says you should dress to fit the occasion, but that was easy for her to say. I’m sure she had a huge wardrobe of fabulous clothes, and if not, at least she had her own money to buy as many clothes as she could want. Nearly all my clothes were hand-me-downs from Idden. I remembered painfully that the Zu-Zu’s fashionable clothes were surely not castoffs. Which reminded me painfully of Udo’s treachery. He went off with her and left me in the lurch, the dolt. How could he? I would never desert him, no matter what. He was faithless. I should have known it would come to this. Udo is pretty but he has no staying power. Well, I hoped he enjoyed his new scrawny little friend. She was welcome to him, and he to her. Have fun, Udo.

  “Your kilts are too short, and your sleeves not long enough.” Valefor had perched on top of my wardrobe. He’d recovered a bit from his fright the night before, but not much. Now he was so wispy that if he didn’t hold on tightly to something, he bobbed up toward the ceiling, so he split the difference by holding on to something up high. “No one wears lacy collars now, nor pinafores unless they are doing yard work, Flora Segunda, and you are going to the Warlord’s Birthday Ball. The press will be there, and they will write that the Fyrdraacas have lost all their fashion sense. I shall die of shame.”

  I surveyed the mess strewn on the settee, on my bed, on my desk, heaped on the floor: every piece of clothing I owne
d, including the fluffy Catorcena dress, everything Idden had left behind, and some things pillaged from Mamma’s closet, which were just as old and out-of-date. “I think it shall take more than shame to kill you, Valefor. What am I going to do? I haven’t time to go buy anything. And how do you know so much about what is in style?”

  Valefor said primly, “I may be stuck in this house, but I can read. Udo’s been giving me his old Warlord’s Wear Weeklys. I like to keep up. Clothes really do make the woman, Flora.”

  It was stupid, but I rather felt like wailing. Never before had I been vain, for what cares a ranger about appearances? It’s getting the job done that counts. But what if the job requires you to look, if not fabulous, at least presentable? Maybe even alluring? I was not in the least bit alluring. Maybe I was the ugly ducking who would, one day, spawn into a swan. But somehow I didn’t think so. Life is rarely like the stories. If it were, my clothing problem would be quickly settled.

  In the sentimental yellowbacks, there’s always a point where the hero is stuck—has nothing to wear, can’t get her homework done, has to make dinner for ten but doesn’t know how to cook—and just as she is about to howl, there’s a mighty flash and her magickal auntie appears and makes it all right. Conjures up a fabulous outfit, or finishes the stupid word problem, or whips up a delicious eight-course menu. A magickal auntie would sure come in handy right now. Instead I had a red dog snoring in my bed and a useless denizen lurking on top of my closet.

  “If only you were more useful,” I said to Valefor. “If only you could conjure me some new clothes.”

  “Whose fault is it I’m not useful? You cannot put that against me, Flora Segunda. I tell you, I was a real stylesetter before. The outfit I made for Hotspur’s Catorcena was a real stunner—two days later everyone in the City was wearing its knockoff. À la Fyrdraaca they called it. The frock coat had a double tier of puffs on the sleeves, and the skirts were pinned back into a huge train...”