Deadly Pink

by Vivian Vande Velde

  To the first 5 young ladies of the land to receive this—Y ou are cordially invited to Emil'ys house for English high tea at 4 p.m. today.

  Please come.

  Sincerely,

  Grace Pizzelli

  I folded the parchment in half, then stuck it in the envelope and looked around for the mail slot.

  “Emily,” I called. “Where does this go?”

  But she was asleep.

  I circled the room twice, and the grandfather clock was just going into its full on-the-hour routine before I noticed the cubbyhole in the desk itself that was labeled MAIL.

  Somewhere between the music and the actual bonging of the hour, I flung the envelope into the cubbyhole. Too late, I thought. I'd cut the time too close. What I needed was to invite someone over for dinner at six—or even the next day. If that worked at all. Which it probably wouldn't.

  But as soon as the clock finished its fourth bong, a doorbell rang.

  A butler, complete with suit, white gloves, and a snooty expression, made it to the front door before me. Where'd he come from?

  No matter; he opened the door and let in five young ladies, dressed as though they'd just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel. It couldn't have been coincidence that they conveniently ranged from my age to Emily's.

  “How kind of you to invite us,” they said. And “My! What a charming house you and your sister have.” And “That is such a beautiful dress you're wearing.”

  Well, all right, so they lost all credibility there, considering how dirty, sooty, and sweaty I was. I wondered how polite they'd be once they realized they had been invited under false pretenses, that there wasn't any tea prepared for them—high or otherwise.

  They dropped their calling cards onto the little silver platter the butler presented for that purpose.

  Was I supposed to read them, or were we pretending I actually knew who these girls were? Luckily, I didn't have to decide because a maid—a maid? Suddenly, we had servants coming out of the woodwork—held the library door open and curtsied and said, “This way, please, young misses.”

  In the fifteen or so seconds since I'd left the library, someone had brought in even more comfy chairs and arranged them—as well as the one in which Emily was still asleep—into a circle. And a coffee table had been set up—or rather, a tea table. There was a big silver pot, china cups and saucers, and trays that held small sandwiches, scones, and dessert-type goodies such as bite-sized fruit tarts, mini éclairs, cookies, and petits-fours. There were also more napkins, these monogrammed with a fancy E, since this was, after all, Emily's house.

  “How lovely!” the girls cooed. And “Perfect!” and other such complimentary things.

  “I'm glad you like everything,” I said. “Please sit and enjoy. Meanwhile, I need to find out from you how to get to Rasmussem.”

  The girls, though still looking at me, though still—apparently—addressing me, somehow seemed to be ignoring me. They continued to stand, and they continued to murmur appreciatively about how fine everything looked.

  Well, if we need Emily to ask before they'll answer, I thought, we’re out of luck. I tried nudging my sister, but she just made grumpy sounds and shifted position. My visitors commented on how her dress suited her complexion.

  The third time the maid cleared her throat, it finally occurred to me that maybe she didn't have a medical condition but was trying to tell me something. Once I glanced her way, I saw her shifting her eyes from me to one of the chairs. I could have assumed she had developed a twitch, but I'm a bit quicker than that. I sat, and that evidently was the girls' signal that they, too, could be seated.

  “Will that be all, miss?” the maid asked me.

  I don’t know, I thought. Is there anything else I need you to explain to me? So I suggested, “Why don't you stay and join us.”

  The girls looked shocked, and the maid laughed as though I were the funniest person in the world. “Oh, Miss Grace. You are such a jokester.”

  Yeah, that's me.

  But this explanation seemed to relieve my guests—that I simply had an odd sense of humor, which could be excused, rather than that I was scandalously common or insane. Invite a servant to sit with us! Evidently, that was Something That Is Not Done.

  Okay. I nodded to the maid, and she curtsied and left.

  “So,” I tried with the girls again. “Rasmussem?”

  But I guess I did still need the maid, for my guests didn't answer me, but instead declared how fine the weather was today, just as—it turned out—it had been fine yesterday, and—I learned—was due to be fine again tomorrow. Wow! Thrilling! Imagine that!

  Nobody commented on Emily, still snoozing away.

  And as yet nobody had touched the tea or goodies. I gathered that, just as good teatime manners must dictate that no one sit until the hostess does, perhaps they were waiting for me to get started. Maybe they would answer me once they were fed.

  I seemed to be on the right track, because they all smiled and sat up a little straighter when I picked up the teapot. However, once I'd finished pouring a cup for myself and looked up, I could see little frowns on their faces, and the chatter about such scintillating subjects as how the blossoms on the trees seemed especially vibrant today—all that seemed to be faltering.

  Okay, so I guess I'd once again failed in the manners department. These overly sensitive girls wouldn't survive ten minutes in the Neil Armstrong High cafeteria.

  What did I do wrong now?

  This was so freaking crazy! All this time being frittered away, just to set up something I didn't even know for sure would work.

  Calm, I told myself. Strangling one or more of my guests probably was not the key to getting them to cooperate.

  Hmmm, clearly, sit first was correct, but not serve myself first.

  I picked up my cup and saucer and passed them to the girl next to me, then held out my hand for the next, to show I'd pour for all. That must have been an adequate recovery, because they were willing to go with that, despite the sooty and blackberry-stained smudges my fingers left. I filled each of their cups, which they took while still looking right through me every time I asked, “Rasmussem?”—choosing, instead, to compliment me on the china and the tray linens. They kept using each other's names—“Aren't these chair pillows just divine, Chloe?” “Yes, Daphne, comfortable and beautifully embroidered”—which, I guess, was done for me to learn who was who.

  Was this ever going to get me anywhere?

  Enough already! I mentally screamed at them, though what I murmured was “Sugar?”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Helen?” I added, using one of the names I'd heard, though I wasn't sure who it went with.

  “Oh, yes, please,” said the girl next to me.

  Then we did the whole one-lump-or-two routine and passed the cream, their spoons making that distinctive sound that comes when using good china rather than ordinary ceramic mugs. Seemingly, they were able to select their own sandwiches, which were all on mini buns or small croissants or slices of bread with the crusts removed. I took the one closest to me—which turned out to be cucumber and a really soft cheese. Nobody went for the desserts yet, although that would have been my inclination, which I guess just goes to show how naturally bad manners come to me.

  Without even much hope at this point, I once again asked, “Rasmussem?”

  “Yes, darling,” said the girl the others called Beatrice. “What about it?”

  It took a moment for me to realize she was responding to me, not to Chloe's statement that her smoked salmon sandwich was possibly the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted.

  I jumped into the opportunity before it could close up and go away.

  “Well,” I said, “for starters, is Rasmussem a who, a what, or a where?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said with a giggle. Zoe and Chloe were twins. Chloe was the slightly fussy one; Zoe said everything with a giggle.

  Chloe expanded on her sister's answer. “Rasmussem is t
he name of the amusement arcade run by the gypsies. It's also the name of the gypsy king who owns and operates the fair.”

  “Where is it?” I asked, and, before we even moved on to the scones, my guests—now that I'd been the proper hostess—explained to me exactly how to get there.

  Chapter 17

  Finding Rasmussem

  EXCUSE ME,” I said to the Jane Austen fan club, setting my teacup down. I stood and moved over to where Emily slouched napping in her chair. “Emily.”

  She looked alert a lot more quickly than she had any other time that day, so maybe the food and the rest had done her good. She gave a little wave to the girls, as though not at all confused or surprised to see we had guests. For their part, the girls watched us with quizzical, suspicious expressions that I was sure covered the thought: What's this socially inept person going to do now?

  “Emily,” I said, “we've got a plan.”

  “Okay,” she answered. “Do you need me?”

  No way was I leaving her behind. “Yes,” I said.

  She even got up by herself. Sure, she needed a little bit of steadying—but I no longer felt like I was trying to prod a bag of kitty litter into moving.

  “Enjoy the rest of the tea,” I told the Austenites. “Ring for the maid if you need anything else.”

  They didn't say a word. They were too polite, and they didn't have to. Their appalled faces said it all: never had they witnessed anything so unspeakably atrocious as a hostess abandoning her own tea party.

  I was ready to run, but Emily was moving at more of a moseying pace. Then, when we got to the foyer, she made to go up the stairs.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I'm all grimy and nasty,” she said. “It'll only take a few minutes to shower and change.”

  “No,” I said. “That's just ... frivolous.”

  Frivolous? When had I become the kind of person who would say something that sounded so ... so like our mother? Even if I was right.

  We compromised by washing our hands and faces, taking off the top layer of dirt. I have to admit my spirits felt inordinately lifted for it, and I realized I probably should have taken the time to rinse off my hands in the kitchen before eating. Besides the boost to my morale, my food might not have been so gritty. I looked down at my wrinkled, sweaty, sooty, blackberry-stained dress. I knew it would feel a lot better to get out of those clothes, but it would feel better yet to get out of this treacherous game altogether, so I settled for exchanging my remaining, almost-worn-through silver ballet flat for a pair of sparkly flip-flops from Emily's closet, the only footwear she had that more or less fit my smaller foot.

  Once we were ready, Emily asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Into the forest,” I told her. “From what the girls said, I'm gathering Rasmussem is somewhere beyond where the unicorn was.” Then, because I wasn't sure how many unicorns there were, I added, “You know, the clearing where that guy was playing the lute for you.”

  Emily considered. “So, near the arcade?”

  I sighed in exasperation.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It didn't occur to you, when I said we needed to find Rasmussem, that we might try the Rasmussem Arcade?” Emily shrugged. “I didn't know the place had a name. Should I turn into a dragon to take us there?”

  It would save time, but transformations seemed to wipe Emily out. I could hope, but I couldn't count on her newfound strength lasting. “We'll walk,” I told her.

  “Walking seems like a lot of effort,” Emily said, following me to the front door. “Is there some special reason we shouldn't take the horses?”

  I stopped so quickly, she bumped into me.

  Naturally, there were horses. Don't little girls love horses?

  We went outside, and Emily whistled. Two times. After a moment, I heard a whinny. Then the clomping of hooves. Two horses—one black, the other gray—came around the corner of the house. Conveniently, they were bridled and saddled.

  The only problem was that the last time I'd ridden had been at the Monroe County Fair so long ago that Emily and I had been together on the same horse. And actually, it had been a pony. For a dollar, the 4-H club girls had lifted us onto its back and led us around a ring.

  These horses were big. Big feet. Big legs. Big chests. Big teeth.

  “Yikes,” I said. I mean, I'm guessing they were normal size as horses go, but you get used to them looking a lot smaller when the only time you see them is in far-off fields rather than right next to you, stomping their feet restively.

  “They act very spirited, but they won't bite, buck, kick, or try to knock you off with a low branch,” Emily reassured me, patting the head and neck of the black horse as if they were old friends.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Those were things I didn't even know to worry about.”

  Both horses got down on the ground for easy mounting—a nice change from dragon riding. Clearly, the game's developers realized that a lot more little girls love horses than really have ever had any dealings with them. Once we were ready, our mounts eased back up to standing a lot more smoothly than I believe is actually physically possible. If horses even can lower themselves like that. Which they probably can't.

  Anyway, Emily took the lead, and my horse followed hers, both moving at a trot. I think. I'm not a horsey person, so I'm not sure. Any little girl would have sat there happy and confident, never imagining that she might fall off. The trouble is: I have a much better imagination than your average little girl.

  I was holding on so tightly, I didn't even reach out for the butterflies that fluttered around us as we rode through the forest, offering themselves up for ready cash, though Emily did.

  Making much better time than we would have walking, we reached the clearing with lute-guy in about ten minutes. Even though Emily hadn't been there in at least twenty-four hours, he was still strumming away, singing a song in Latin. Nothing beats those popular tunes from around the time of the fall of Rome. He didn't acknowledge us passing through, except to gaze at Emily adoringly.

  I was stiff because my anxiety had made me tighten up, but I think it was really only about another ten minutes until I could once again hear music. For about half a second I worried that we'd gone around in a circle and come back to lute-guy. But this melody was much more energetic. And a totally different sound. Another half second and I realized that we were hearing a calliope, one of those old-fashioned organ-and-drum contraptions that are part of vintage merry-go-rounds, the ones from the late eighteen hundreds. It was playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  We had found the arcade.

  Less than a minute later, we came to it.

  And, excuse me, Emily, but there was a big banner to mark the entry that said:

  RASMUSSEM ARCADE

  WELCOME!

  First impression, while we were still approaching on our horses: it looked like a cross between a Renaissance Faire and a Victorian amusement park.

  The carousel was front and center. It wasn't huge, but it had an assortment of brightly painted animals, including a zebra, a cheetah, a lion, an ostrich. Lots of detail. Embellishments. Gemstones. Manes and tails and feathers that fluttered in the wind as the animals went around and around and up and down.

  Meandering paths of sparkly crushed pastel stones wound among the trees and led to more rides, and to wooden booths protected from the sun by colorful awnings.

  Emily may have wobbled a bit dismounting, or that might have been my imagination, or it might have been that I wobbled a bit getting down.

  We left the horses without tethering them; Emily assured me they would wait for us however long we took.

  My hope, naturally, was that we wouldn't need them, that we would find a ready way to shut the game down in the next couple minutes. But just in case, it was good to know the horses wouldn't wander away.

  There were park benches and Adirondack rockers placed all around in case anyone grew weary from all the fun, and I wished we could have s
pared the time for a good long rest for Emily. But the fact that she already looked like she could use one proved that there was no time.

  Once we walked past the merry-go-round, I saw that the booths held an assortment of games of chance or stuff for sale: wind chimes, hammocks, Ren-Faire clothing, jewelry, stuffed animals that were as big as toddlers, decorative mirrors, food.

  Food. The air was thick with the smell of cotton candy, popcorn, and those greasy but fabulous fried dough things sold at amusement parks.

  The people who were enjoying the rides and the games were mostly dressed like they were from the eighteen hundreds: parasol-carrying women in white lawn dresses, men in elegant light-colored suits and top hats—which was what gave the place the Victorian amusement park feel. On the other hand, the people running the rides or manning the booths were the very stereotype of gypsies: the women in many-hued flounced skirts, hoop earrings, and bangles; the men with small, brightly colored scarves tied at their necks. It was these workers who gave the arcade its Ren-Faire atmosphere. Since I actually enjoy that sort of thing, this setting wasn't as in-your-face annoying as other places I'd been in this game. Which didn't make our situation any less desperate.

  As was typical in this world, the women were laughing and talking; the guys were there mostly to add visual interest. Except, on closer observation, the gypsy men were able to speak—just not English: I heard snatches of what might well have been German and Hawaiian, and that funny clicking, whistling language of the African bushmen.

  “If the gypsy king isn't female,” I said to Emily, “this conversation is going to be difficult.”

  “Oops,” Emily said.

  A fat lot of help oops was. I could only guess Emily's fatigue had made her punchy.

  We passed a fire eater (no wonder he wasn't talking, what with the scorched larynx and all) and a juggler, then we came to a woman doing acrobatics from these huge silk scarves that hung from a massive oak tree—very Cirque de Soleil.