Amy swallowed the last of the apple core and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“Never thought I’d be that hungry,” she said.
Claws scraped the steps beside her and Betsy appeared with a golden loaf of bread in his mouth.
“Mmm hmm mmm mmm,” said the terrier.
“Is that for me? Thanks!”
Amy pulled the loaf from Betsy’s mouth and bit into the fresh bread. She swallowed and sighed.
“That’s the best. Nothing makes food taste better than starving to death.”
“I know what you mean,” said Betsy. “There was this one time when I didn’t eat for two weeks. That first plate of ReCarb was the best!”
“Why couldn’t you eat? Were you stuck on a job?”
“No, I was at home,” said Betsy. “I just forgot to eat for two weeks.”
A priest climbed the steps and passed them, his eyes boggling. He kept watching the pair and stumbled straight into a marble column.
“Too many people around,” whispered Amy. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want to be on the cover of the evening papers with a picture of a talking dog.”
Betsy wagged his tail. “A talking dog? Who is it? I might know him!”
“It’s you. People are going to get suspicious if we keep talking to each other.”
“But how am I supposed to tell you stuff?”
“What stuff? I’m following you to Hyde Park. If there’s any problem, I’ll ask. You answer by wagging your tail for ‘yes’ and barking for ‘no.’ ”
“That’s confusing,” said Betsy. “I pretty much wag my tail and bark all the time.”
“Here’s a test––want to visit the glue factory?”
Betsy barked and wagged his tail.
Amy sighed. “Somehow, I think we’ll survive.”
She finished the loaf of bread and drank cold, clear water from a public fountain in a nearby park, then followed the brown and white terrier west through the city.
Betsy stopped under the marble lions of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square and let Amy’s feet have another break. Amy pulled off her boots and wished she had normal shoes or a pair of thick socks. This would have been a fun hike across the city if she weren’t wearing boots that weighed a ton and smelled like rotten fish guts.
“Who’s this Nelson guy on the column?” whispered Betsy.
Amy touched the soles of her feet and hissed at the pain.
“Nelson? He saved England from the French or something like that.”
“Why do they make him stand up there all day?”
“That’s a statue, you silly dog!”
More horse-drawn carriages and wagons than Amy had ever seen in her life clopped along the wide boulevard that circled the square. Streams of pedestrians from all walks of life crossed the open plaza or gathered in thick clusters at the edges, some waving hand-painted signs. A building faced in Grecian columns with a small dome stood at the north side, next to a church of white limestone. Amy watched a man in a top hat stroll through a cloud of gray pigeons. He dodged a group of construction workers in leather aprons and hopped into a hansom cab.
The uniformity of broadcloth and black wool suits was a source of amazement for Amy, and made the city seem like a disturbed mound of black ants. The exceptions were the working class, who wore uniforms appropriate to their job, whether it was a white apron for milkmen, red coat for the shoe-shiners, or long coat and bare, shaven faces for hansom drivers.
“There’s a water fountain,” whispered Betsy. “Why don’t you wash your feet?”
“Okay, but only if you play lookout. It’s probably illegal.”
Amy walked over to one of the two public fountains and dipped her feet in the wide pond below the splashing column. The freezing water quickly numbed her feet.
Betsy hopped onto the brown stone at the edge.
“Do you like this place?”
Amy shrugged. “It’s all right. The city smells like a horse sandwich with cabbage and coal on the side, but I don’t mind.”
“If you want to go back to the ship, I can take you,” said Betsy. “We can go right now.”
“Did you forget what I said about tail wagging and barking? Why should I go back to the ship?”
The voice of a young boy spoke behind Amy.
“Who’s it you’re talking to?”
The child looked about eight and carried a stack of newspapers tied in brown string in his thin arms. A floppy brown cap sat backwards on his head and he wore a filthy gray shirt, suspenders, and dark green trousers with shiny knees.
“I was talking to myself,” said Amy. “Don’t you ever do that?”
The boy shook his head and turned away. “Only when I’m drunk.”
“Wait! Can I have a paper?”
“That depends,” said the boy. “Can I have a ha’penny?”
“Sorry, I don’t have any money.”
The boy shook his head. “A Yankee pearl with no bangers? Never heard that one before. Massive Jeremiah in Aldgate and Spitalfields last night. Still burning, I hear. Everybody what’s anybody says gyppos started it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You bet your brass tacks! My brother was there last night, never you might what he was doing, and he says it’s a Kraut war machine.”
“You mean German? Why would Germany attack London?”
The boy turned up his nose. “Don’t you know anything? The Kaiser is one crazy geezer. If anyone loves to read and write, it’s him!”
“Read and write? Do you mean, ‘fight?’ ”
“Of course, you nonce!”
The boy skipped across the crowded square with his newspapers.
Betsy looked up at Amy. “Was he speaking French? I can’t speak French.”
“No, it was cockney.”
“Oh, wow. Now I also can’t speak cockney!”
Amy dried her feet and wrapped them as best she could with strips of cotton torn from the lining of her jacket.
“Is Hyde Park that far away? I don’t know how much walking I can do.”
Betsy wagged his tail and trotted across the square. He came back a moment later with a sturdy black umbrella in his mouth. Amy took it from the terrier and used it to support some of her weight.
“Thanks! I’m not going to ask where you got this.”
Betsy barked. “Good, because I forgot already!”
The strange pair left Trafalgar Square and walked along a street lined with white marble buildings, each one guarded by a doorman in a crimson jacket. The trees and green space of a park glowed in the sunshine at the end of the street beyond a two-story Roman arch. The manicured lawns and well-kept greenery of the park were a welcome sight to Amy and she hobbled on her umbrella cane with renewed vigor after the brown and white terrier.
Outside the clatter of the streets and early-morning hustle, leisure was the focus. Women in bright pastel dresses and hats walked along the dirt paths of the park, admiring the equally bright flowers on display. Tall maple and oak trees stood on the clipped lawns, too far apart to call them a forest and too close to call it a field. Pairs of riders bounced on the backs of chestnut horses, their silhouettes framed against a lake that rippled in the morning breeze. Mallards swam through cat-tail reeds at the edge of the lake, and the white triangles of sailboats flapped in the distance. At a cafe on the water, a black-uniformed waiter made the same sound as the sails as he unfurled and tossed white cloth over the wrought-iron tables.
“Finally,” sighed Amy. “We made it. Now where’s that cat?”
“This is the south end of the Serpentine,” said Betsy. “You said that Sunflower would be at the north.”
“Good gravy, not more walking!”
Amy and the terrier joined a line of well-dressed Londoners following the trail along the eastern shore of the lake, which curved like a new moon for at least half a mile before it tapered to an end.
Amy stopped in the middle of the path and leaned on her umbrella. “Here
we are! I’m not moving another step.”
Betsy snuffled the ground with his nose and ran a circle around Amy.
“I don’t smell Sunflower anywhere!”
Amy sighed and pushed into a thick stand of mulberry bushes.
“Come and get me if you find him. I’m taking a nap.”
She found a little hollow inside the mulberry and curled up on the dry leaves. The chatter of squirrels and swish of branches tossed by the wind quickly put her to sleep.
She walked on a beach. The bitter froth of the ocean constantly washed the wet sand from her feet, and a north wind brought the familiar smell of salt, fish, and rotting kelp.
Wake up
Amy spun on the wet sand, but she was alone.
“Who’s there?”
Get up stupid
Amy balled her fists.
“Who said that?”
She must be dead. Humans. Turn your back and they die faster than a poona jumping off a cliff.
A matted pile of olive-green kelp flew up from the sand and covered Amy’s face. She fell down and rolled on the beach, struggling to pull the soft mess with her fingers.
Amy opened her eyes. The kelp changed to yellow and orange fur in her hands, and the beach to mulberry bushes.
“Stop!” yelled Sunflower, and jumped down to the leaves. “I get it. You were just sleeping.”
Amy brushed cat hair from her cheeks. “Sunflower! You’re alive!”
“Did you expect something different?”
“I thought the inspector might catch you.”
The orange cat narrowed his green eyes. “Catch me? That’s a riot. I had to squeeze through some extremely disgusting tunnels, but no way in the seven lives of Saint Fluffy was I going to be found by that flying garbage can.”
“Where’s it now?”
“Where’s what? Identify your pronouns, girl.”
“The flying garbage can!”
“Who cares? As long as it doesn’t blow up the little part of England that I’m standing on, we’re golden.”
Amy frowned. “Speaking of that, were you sitting on my face just now?”
Sunflower blinked. “I thought you were dead.”
“How does covering my face in cat fur solve that problem?”
“It’s an old tradition,” said Sunflower sheepishly. “When a cat dies, his closest friends have to spend the night sitting on his head. It’s an old cat remedy to see if he’s trying to fake it or not. Quite effective, actually. No living creature can stand eight hours of cat butt in the face.”
Amy held up her hands. “That’s it––you cats are weird.”
“Don’t blame me! I didn’t start the stupid tradition.”
“Does this mean we’re friends now?”
Sunflower shrugged. “I’m here and not in Egypt, aren’t I? What happened to your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend! The idiot saw a ghost and ran off. I haven’t seen him since last night.”
“Good riddance. Now we don’t have to bother with his silly family.”
Betsy’s voice came from outside the mulberry bushes. “Hello? Are you in there, Amy?”
Sunflower’s green eyes popped wide. “What the devil?” The orange cat crawled outside to the manicured lawn. “Betsy!”
The brown and white terrier barked and wagged his tail. “Sunnie!”
“Where did you come from?”
Betsy shook his furry head. “You’ll have to ask my parents. They won’t tell me!”
“You imbecile,” hissed Sunflower. “I mean this dimension. How did you get here? There wasn’t enough power for another transport.”
“I don’t know,” whined Betsy. “Don’t ask me science stuff.”
Amy crawled out of the mulberry bushes and stood up. “The Lady sent him to catch us and bring us back.”
“Right,” said the terrier. “But I’m not doing that anymore.”
“Ixnay on the alkingtay,” hissed Sunflower.
A pair of ladies in lace dresses and parasols strolled by. When they walked a hundred feet down the path, Sunflower stuck his furry face close to Betsy’s nose.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” he spat. “You’re the worst operator alive. You couldn’t catch a cold!”
“That’s not very nice,” said Amy.
“Of course. That’s why I said it.”
“It’s not true!” blurted Betsy. “I’ve stolen many props for the Lady.”
“But––”
Amy knelt down to Sunflower and spoke in a whisper. “Listen––Betsy’s here now so stop arguing about it, especially in a public place where people aren’t used to cats and dogs arguing about it!”
“I don’t like it,” said the cat. “I still think it’s fishy.”
“Cats think everything smells like fish,” whispered Betsy. “Something’s wrong with their noses. Don’t growl at me like that, Sunnie. It was just a joke. Oh, I almost forgot, Amy! I found your boyfriend.”
Sunflower stuck his tail in the air. “See? Even the dog knows.”
Amy waved her arms like a windmill. “Listen, you four-legged nincompoops, he’s not my boyfriend. The next one who says that is going to learn how to fly with my foot shoved up his butt.”
“Why would you do that?” yelped Betsy. “It sounds painful.”
“Of course. That’s why I said it.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Sunflower, his tail twitching. “Take us to the boy––um, the thing.”
Amy and the cat followed Betsy along a dirt trail that crossed the tip of the lake to the west side. Philip sat on a wooden bench, elbows on his knees and head bowed as he stared at the ground. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps and the anxious expression on his face changed to a smile.
“There you are! I didn’t––”
Amy cut him off with a chop of her hand. “Don’t say a word, you coward. Why did you run away? Don’t answer that! Friends don’t leave friends in the middle of a strange city in another dimension!”
“I agree,” said Sunflower. “What a human thing to do. Let’s stuff his clothes full of leaves and throw him in the lake.”
“No, no! I’ve got it,” said Betsy, tail wagging. “Let’s throw his clothes in the lake and stuff HIM full of leaves!”
Sunflower nodded. “That’s probably worse.”
Philip sighed and stood from the bench. He dusted off his filthy jacket and glanced around the park for a moment. At last he turned to Amy.
“I’m sorry that I ran away, and I feel perfectly beastly about the whole thing. The thing is, I’m terribly afraid of ghosts! I know that’s not likely to make you feel better, Miss Armstrong, but––”
“It certainly doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I’m sorry. I’m certainly not worthy of your forgiveness. I sincerely apologize and I’ll try to make it up to you. On my word, I promise it will never happen again. I’ve been feeling like a terrible coward the entire morning.”
Amy frowned. “I don’t like it when people run out on me.”
Philip held a hand over his heart and bowed his head. “I think you’re a superb and bricky girl, but I understand completely if you want me to leave. Let’s shake hands and part ways in good humor.”
“I’m not done with you just yet, Phil. But if your parents aren’t loaded, we’ll have a huge problem.”
“Two problems,” said Sunflower.
Betsy barked. “I hate you, too!”
“If it’s gold and jewelry you’re after,” said Philip quietly, “I promise you’ll find more than your cold little hearts can imagine.”
Sunflower laughed. “I can imagine quite a bit, thank you very much.”
Chapter Eleven
3317 A.D.
Penal station in the former orbit of Kepler Prime
Recruit Officer Flistra sat down at a monitoring station full of blinking green lights and tiny round display screens. Detention Officer First Class Nistra stood with arms crossed behind the recru
it, as the sauropod nervously flicked a dozen toggle switches on the console with his sharp claws.
“I’m waiting,” growled Officer Nistra.
“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!”
Flistra blew into a silver microphone and tapped it with a claw.
“Prisoner Armstrong, Amy returned to ‘status temporalis.’ Testing 1, 2, 3. Can you hear me?”
“Of course she can hear you,” hissed Officer Nistra. He bared rows of needle-sharp teeth. “Use your eyes, poona-breath.”
Flistra glanced up at the holographic image floating just inches from his yellow eyes. At the bottom of a mostly-transparent sphere, a blonde girl in an orange jumpsuit sat up, her eyes squeezed shut and hands over her ears.
“Sorry. Reducing levels.”
Flistra twisted a knob. The holographic girl got to her feet and silently banged her clenched fists on the side of the sphere.
“You forgot to turn on the sphere volume,” said Nistra. “Holy cat vomit, Flistra––is this your first interrogation?”
Flistra bowed his scaly green head. “I … uh, I was sssick that day of training, sssir.”
“You’d better look sharp, egg breath. I’ve got so many people breathing down my neck to find Kepler Prime that the people breathing down their necks have people breathing down the necks of the people breathing down their necks!”
“Yesss sir. Sorry sssir.”
Flistra searched the hundreds of buttons on the console and flipped a toggle. The girl’s voice crackled through the air.
“––green-skinned, motherless piles of goose poop don’t let me out of here, I swear to God––”
The Girl Who Stole A Planet (Amy Armstrong Book 1) Page 15
