Amy frowned. “I don’t think that’s very––” Philip kicked her foot. “––I mean, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“I certainly hope not,” said Philip’s mother. “The Times said there are barely any natives left in California, but even so it must be an exciting place for a young lady.”
A footman brought a silver tea setting and porcelain cups and plates along with a selection of small cookies. Amy took a small sip. The tea wasn’t as strong or bitter as the cup she’d had on the station.
“I didn’t see Ellie in the pasture,” said Philip. “Is she on the eastern grounds?”
“There’s the Philip I know,” said Lady Marlborough with a laugh. “Always making jokes, especially about horses that we sold years ago!”
“Sold Ellie? I don’t understand.”
Lady Marlborough turned to Amy. “Your dress is perfectly adorable, Miss Armstrong, and yet very familiar at the same time.”
“I won it in a card game,” said Amy.
Philip sprayed a mouthful of tea into the air and coughed violently for a long moment.
“Miss Armstrong … American … humor,” he finally wheezed.
“I’m not surprised,” said Lady Marlborough. “She seems a very jolly and pleasant young lady. Your sisters will be very put out not to meet her. They left for London this morning.”
“I assume father is in the study?”
Lady Marlborough’s eyes bulged and her face lost all color. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief.
“Philip! How dare you utter such a horrible thing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t make light of what happened, especially when we have a guest.”
“Mother! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Lady Marlborough peered at Philip’s face and looked him up and down.
“There’s something different about you, son. I swear you’ve grown since I saw you two days ago.”
“It must be his new shoes,” said Amy. “Philip was telling me about them on the train. They make him look taller.”
Lady Marlborough shook her head. “Your face is different; pale but stronger, like your father’s. Even worse, you’ve asked about him as if you had no memory of the accident.”
A distant thud rattled the windows and shook the china cups. Lady Marlborough stood up from the sofa as quickly as if the Queen Herself had strolled into the parlor.
“Heavens! That must be the boiler again,” she said. Her face relaxed into a gentle smile. “Please excuse me, I must find Mark. Oh, he’s down in London! Never mind, I’ll find someone.”
As soon as the door had shut behind his mother, Philip turned to Amy and grabbed her hand.
“Something horrible is going on!”
“I know what you mean,” came Sunflower’s voice beneath the sofa. “I found a dead bee. Wait––a family of dead bees.”
Amy frowned. “You mean the thing about your father? Or your horse being sold?”
“Yes and no,” said Philip. “I mean, yes. But that’s not the worst of it. Mother is never this nice to anyone, especially me!”
“Maybe she’s just being polite because I’m here.”
“She’s never polite to anyone, not even the Crown Prince! He came here to hunt one year and mother closed up all the windows and pretended we all had typhus. There’s a reason she’s called the Marlborough Monster, and I’ve got the scars on my legs to prove it!”
Amy bit into a cookie. “I don’t know what to tell you. This is your dimension, this is England, and according to Sunflower it’s the right year.”
“Don’t start questioning my work,” came the cat’s voice from under the sofa. “I pass my operator tests every year.”
“That’s because the cat that runs the test is sweet on you every year,” said Betsy.
“Don’t tell them that,” whispered Sunflower. “Besides, it’s not always a female cat running the test.”
“It’s not? Also, why am I whispering?”
A peal of thunder shook the windows and vibrated the floor. Everything in the room rocked back and forth, from the fringed lampshades to the oil paintings on the walls.
“Felt like an earthquake,” said Amy. “Do you have earthquakes in England?”
Philip ran to the nearest window and pushed aside the drapes. “Look!”
Amy jumped up from the sofa and peered over Philip’s shoulder. Above the trees a black question mark of smoke curled into the blue sky.
Amy sighed. “Let me guess––that’s the railway station and the flying killer inspector robot.”
“It’s not the inspector,” said Betsy, putting his paws on the lowest pane of the window. “It’s just the smoke from where it’s blowing up things and shooting lasers.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Betsy.”
Philip clenched a fist. “We must flee immediately! Clarence House may have protected my family from the Roundheads, but it won’t save us from an inspector. Follow me!”
Amy held up the skirt of her yellow dress. “You expect me to run in this? I have to change.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Armstrong, but there’s no time!”
The teenage boy sprinted out of the room and through the stately halls of the mansion. Amy had to gather up the delicately embroidered fabric of her skirt and petticoats and run with it balled at her chest, her long white bloomers exposed for all the servants to see. She might have felt embarrassed if she’d actually been a rich girl from the nineteenth century instead of a teenage burglar from the future.
Philip dashed through a kitchen area, dodged the astounded cook and her scullery maids, and burst out a rear door of the mansion. Amy, Sunflower, and Betsy ran after the boy as he jumped a fence and ran through a field of damp, knee-high alfalfa.
Amy cupped one hand around her mouth as she ran. “Where are we going?”
“A safe place!” Philip yelled over his shoulder.
A brilliant flash lit the sky behind them, and a second later a deep, crackling boom rolled over the grassy fields.
“How did it catch up so fast?” asked Betsy, his pink tongue lolling as he galloped as fast as he could.
“Don’t ask me,” gasped Sunflower as he ran beside the dog. “Maybe it took the train!”
Philip stopped at a wall of flat gray stones. He held Amy’s hand as she clambered over one leg at a time, her knee-length bloomers in full view.
“Such a gentleman,” said Amy. “Why is your face red? Are you embarrassed?”
Philip looked away. “Uh … no! It’s the exercise.”
They sprinted across green meadows dotted with sheep, along the bank of a lake, and into a forest of tall oak and maple trees. The thudding booms of the inspector’s weapons came at irregular intervals, but each time closer and closer.
The ground began to rise and the trees were spaced farther apart. At a wide clearing in the forest, Philip climbed to the top of a grassy bank and pointed at his feet.
“There!”
Amy climbed to the top and gasped at the sight. Below lay a deep rock quarry, three hundred feet wide and almost as deep. Water collected in a small pond at the bottom of the rectangular pit, and the sides were cut sheer and vertical, revealing multiple layers of earth and rock. Trees hung over the edges and a vast network of ivy grew on the south face of the pit. The gray timbers of the opening to a mine shaft protruded from the base of another wall.
Sunflower peered over the edge and quickly backed away.
“Are you two lovebirds going to jump? Keep me out of it,” he said.
Betsy wagged his tail. “Hey! I just realized. That’s what ‘lover’s leap’ means!”
“I’m not jumping and neither is he,” said Amy. “Are you?”
“Of course not,” said Philip. “We’re going to lose the inspector in the mine shaft.”
Amy crossed her arms. “Excuse me?”
“Jumping is a better plan,” said Betsy. “You’ll thank me!”
“They wouldn’t survive it like we would,” said Sunflower. “These are Old Earth humans, remember? They can’t walk two feet without breaking a bone or having a stroke.”
The terrier wagged his tail. “Sorry! I forgot. Do that other thing, the one Philip said.”
“How are we going to ‘lose’ it without getting lost ourselves?” asked Amy.
“My brothers and I have played in this old quarry since we could walk,” said Philip. “One benefit of having uncaring parents and a nanny we could boss around. With the light provided by Sunflower and Betsy’s emergency lamps, we won’t have a problem navigating the tunnels and confusing that bloody machine. Pardon my language.”
Sunflower nodded. “The electronics on board the inspector will be useless once we go underground. That’s how I escaped from it last time.”
The earth trembled from a massive blast. An orange fireball of smoke and flame boiled up from the trees behind them.
Amy shaded her eyes. “What’s it shooting at? It’s not even close to hitting us.”
“Squirrels,” whispered Sunflower. “It’s came from the dog army surplus, remember?”
“Squirrels?!! Where?” yelped Betsy, and chased his tail.
Philip hurried Amy, Sunflower, and the tree-rodent-hating terrier down a narrow path that had been cut along the inside wall of the deep quarry.
As she descended lower and lower, holding her skirt up and trying not to stumble, Amy felt as if she were leaving the world of light and passing into a realm of death and decay. The air was cold without the sun to warm it and full of the smell of moldering earth. The sounds of birds and insects, of leaves whispering in the breeze and branches knocking against each other, were all sucked up and silenced at the bottom of the pit as if it were the crypt of an ancient, malevolent queen.
Philip stopped at the timbered entrance to the mine shaft and held up a hand in front of Amy.
“Miss Armstrong, you must stay here. I know the tunnels well, and there’s no need to put you in further danger.”
“You want me to wait outside for that crazy robot? No, thanks. It’s all for one and one for all, like the Three Musketeers. Stop talking and get inside.”
Philip shook his head. “We have to lure the machine into the tunnel. That means staying outside until it sees us.”
“Sees us and blasts us!” growled Sunflower.
A mechanical voice boomed from above their heads.
“Halt! Operator SF063, you are ordered to return to synch point for debriefing and de-operation. Do you comply?”
The metal sphere and claw-tipped tentacles of the inspector floated above the rocky lip at the top of the quarry. The surface of the orb was covered with dozens of tiny dimples and stripes of carbon scoring marred the silver skin.
Sunflower looked up and laughed. “What if I don’t?”
The inspector made a sound like hundreds of ball bearings inside a tumble dryer.
“If you refuse to comply, I have the Lady’s authority to bring you back, squirrel or non-squirrel. Sorry––dead or alive.”
Sunflower bared his teeth. “You know what I say to that, you outdated pile of scrap?”
The inspector whirred and hovered high in the air. “Um … you say ‘I give up?’ ”
“No. I say, nuts!”
The orange tabby dashed into the black hole of the mine shaft, his tail straight up and Philip, Amy, and Betsy scrambling after him. The two animals switched on their emergency beacons, and bouncing red light from their foreheads lit the earthen walls and old supporting timbers of the mine shaft.
“Left here,” shouted Philip, and sprang to the head of the party.
He led them on a wild, twisting sprint through the black tunnels, dodging rusted mine carts and deep cracks in the earth. Amy ran as fast as she could, trying her best not to become separated from the group or fall and break her neck in a vertical shaft. The blue light of the inspector’s scanning beam flashed behind them at times, blasting warnings and the occasional thunderous laser at something in the darkness shaped like a squirrel.
One explosion cracked the stone ceiling and covered everyone in black dust.
“The tunnels won’t survive another one of those,” Philip yelled.
Amy wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “Well? Get us out of here! Now!”
After another five minutes of twists and turns, climbing up and climbing down, running through cross shafts and squeezing through narrow gaps, a square of light glowed ahead. All four burst out of the mine shaft and stood in the sunlight, coughing and leaning over the broken shale at their feet.
Amy let go of her heavy skirts and plopped onto the rocky ground.
“I’m not doing that again,” she gasped. “Need a costume change.”
Sunflower cleaned his blackened face and ears with a paw. “Bath time for me.”
“Now the inspector will take us back to the Lady,” barked Betsy. “Or he’ll murder us all. That’s life for you!”
Philip wheezed and coughed, his face and clothes covered in black dust. “I thought we’d find something to block the entrance, but there’s nothing.”
Amy lay on her back and stared at the sky far above the quarry. “Good gravy, that was a stupid plan. Now I’m going to die tired.”
“And filthy,” murmured Sunflower. “Sister, you do NOT want a mirror.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” said Philip. “If we had dynamite, I could close the entrance. I might as well wish for a regiment of Life Guards, as much chance we have of finding explosives.”
Amy sat up. “Explosives?”
Sunflower stopped licking himself and stared at her with his wide green eyes. “Don’t even think about it, you backwoods, undeveloped orangutan!”
“Tell me what’s worse, Sunflower. Eating cheese or letting that robot turn you into a cheese toastie?”
Philip helped Amy to her feet. “Cheese! That’s a perfectly wizard idea, Amy! I mean, Miss Armstrong.”
“You pair of low-tech jungle-dwellers don’t know what it does to my system. I’ll be sick for weeks!”
Betsy jumped in the air. “He’ll be sick for weeks!”
Amy fished around her tiny handbag and pulled out a hunk of yellow cheese. “Take your pick: feeling sick, or feeling a laser blast?”
Philip clenched his fists. “Dash it all! Hurry up before the machine comes out!”
“All right, all right,” said Sunflower, with an exasperated growl. “But I don’t need that much. We don’t want to turn this place into the Crescent Canyon on Tau Ceti. Scrape off a tiny ball about the size of a mouse eye. Smaller! Also, one of you has to stay here and hold me tight, unless you want to see a cat fly through the air.”
“Miss Armstrong, I must insist––”
Amy shook her head. “Don’t even start with the knight in shining armor crap, Philip. Take Betsy and climb out of here.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Go on, you stupid boy! Leave!”
Philip stamped his foot. “Miss Armstrong! I deserted you once and I won’t do it again. I am not a coward!”
“I am!” barked Betsy, and scrambled up the narrow path to the top.
Amy held the tiny ball of cheese over Sunflower’s head.
“What now?”
The cat blinked with quiet disdain. “This is going to kill all three of us. Are humans born without brains or do they leak out of your heads naturally?”
“I live dangerously and die the same way,” said Amy. “Tell me what to do before I forget how much I like cats.”
“Fine, fine. Pick up your skirts and hold them in a ball at your chest, just like you were doing when we ran.”
“Why?”
“It’ll protect your monkey organs from the blast. Don’t ask questions, okay? Sit down inside the entrance to the mine and face the tunnel.”
“What about me?” asked Philip.
“Sit behind the girl and hold her, lover boy.”
“I really, really hate cats,” mu
ttered Philip.
Amy sat cross-legged under the timbers, her embroidered skirt and petticoats a large ball of fabric in front of her chest. Philip’s legs kicked up dust as they slid to the left and right of her hips, and his arms wrapped around her waist.
“Now what?”
Sunflower trotted up. “Grab me and hold on tight. No! That’s the business end!”
The orange cat turned his rear to the black hole of the mine shaft. A blue light flickered faintly in the tunnel.
“I see the inspector coming,” hissed Amy.
“Don’t panic,” said Sunflower. “Keep your mouth open and don’t hold your breath.”
“Why not?” asked Philip.
“Because the explosion will pop your stupid monkey lungs! No more questions!”
“Sorry.”
“Put the cheese in my mouth, point my rear at the tunnel, and hold on tight.”
Amy dropped the ball of cheese onto Sunflower’s pink tongue. The cat swallowed painfully and the orange fur on his back shivered.
“Aw, poopie,” he said.
A force like a sledgehammer hit Amy’s stomach and tumbled her backwards. The world exploded into a cloud of broken rocks and pain, where every breath was a jagged knife in her ribs, until black spots covered her eyes in complete and utter darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
3317 A.D.
Penal station in the former orbit of Kepler Prime
The curved walls of her prison and the images of the puppy and kitten disappeared and were replaced by a room with four equal walls and a tan carpet that smelled of mold. Amy looked down and found herself in a metal chair with her wrists and ankles fastened to the sides. No door, window, or opening broke the symmetry of the square room and the pale green walls.
A battered aluminum table flashed into existence.
“Surprissse!” hissed the disembodied voice of Officer Nistra. “Wait … that’s not the right button. Where’s the stupid manual … cheap, dog-designed poona crap … here we go!”
The giant lizard appeared behind the table in a long white coat and puffy chef’s hat. He slammed both fists on the table.
“Surprise!”
Amy sniffed. “Oh no. I just crapped myself in terror.”
“Ha! As you should do!”
The Girl Who Stole A Planet (Amy Armstrong Book 1) Page 20
