Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone

by Dene Low

  I stared at James and Jane and they stared back. My high opinion of the idea of going to see the professor was starting to sink, even if he was reputed to know every insect on our planet like members of his own family. To my eye the professor was as batty as my uncle.

  James must have noticed my incredulous expression, for he whispered, "Patience. You are witnessing a genius at work."

  The aforementioned Uncle Augustus struggled under James, who was sitting on him on the professor's settee. "I will not drink any such concoction." Uncle Augustus seethed. "I feel perfectly fine."

  Then his voice turned into peevish whining. "Speaking of perfectly fine, there are several rather fine specimens of insect over there on that wall. You wouldn't consider moving me a tad closer, would you, and unwrapping just one hand?"

  For the first time I realized that Uncle Augustus might see the cases full of carefully labeled insects on pins as several courses of supper. I joined James on the settee and took hold of one of Uncle's legs so he could not get a good purchase on the floor, heave James from his straitjacketed body, and wriggle into proximity of one of those cases. Jane took hold of the other leg. We should have thought of a way of binding his enormous mouth, which could do as much damage as his hands.

  I patted Uncle's head. "There, there, Uncle. The anthill will still be there when we get home, and Moriarty saw some termites in one of the cottages in the village. The tenants will be ever so grateful to you if you could rid their homes of the pests."

  Uncle Augustus brightened and stopped struggling. "Do you think so? I hadn't thought of termites. There might be thousands of them. Millions, even. And if they are in one cottage, they might be in others. I was beginning to fear that I would run out of delicacies on your estate in short order and I should be forced to search farther afield. But termites..." He hummed happily to himself, going off into what I could only think of as a termite-infested trance.

  James bit off a chuckle, but Jane looked away politely. She always did have more delicate sensibilities than her brother.

  "Yes, yes! Here it is! But it is preposterous." Professor Lepworthy shook the book before us, pages flapping within an eighth of an inch of his toupee, which had jerked up to the top of his head, leaving a great deal of gleaming skin between it and his eyebrows. "Look here. There can be no mistake."

  We rushed to his desk and looked, forgetting Uncle Augustus. That is, we forgot him until we heard a peculiar thumping coming from the direction of the nearest glass case. Uncle Augustus was throwing himself at the case, evidently in an attempt to break the glass.

  James sighed and picked Uncle Augustus up from the floor. He deposited my uncle in a chair, to which he tied him with the ends of the straps from the straitjacket. I really must go to Brighton with the Sinclairs. Such muscles. But duty intruded on my ruminations. Accordingly, I turned my attention back to the professor's book.

  There, on the page in front of us, was an exact replica of the insect we had seen slightly squashed on the ransom note before Uncle Augustus ate it—the insect, not the paper. The insect was a butterfly of some sort, with wings that had a purple background and bright yellow and turquoise markings that spelled "Phui!"

  Jane cleared her throat. "Ahem. It really is quite preposterous. Imagine having a word spelled out on a butterfly."

  Professor Lepworthy looked at Jane as if she were an imbecile. "That is not what is preposterous. There is an entire genus of butterflies with words spelled out on their wings. Why, the Tanzanian novella butterfly has entire chapters written in Hindi. Of course, you have to read them with a magnifying glass, but they are well worth the trouble—very action packed. Sometimes the stories continue for generations. I have heard of entomologists, though, who have gone crazy because the last novella generation in an area died out before the end of the story—"

  I interrupted. "Most fascinating, Professor Lepworthy, but we are more interested in why this particular butterfly you pointed out to us is preposterous." Uncle had said I was good at interrupting, and I felt as if I should put the skill to good use.

  "Of course. To the point, and all that. If you must know what is preposterous, it is not the butterfly itself, but where it comes from." He paused as if for dramatic effect, which was spoiled by his toupee slipping back farther.

  "Which is...," James, Jane, and I all said in concert.

  "Tou-eh-mah-mah Island. The same place your uncle's beetle came from. I say, having two insects come here from an island thousands of miles away is ... is..."

  "Preposterous," we said.

  Chapter Six

  In Which a Truce Is Negotiated

  WHEN ONE'S CHERISHED GUARDIAN HAS become a social pariah with no aspirations to change, one must reconsider one's personal goals. With circumstances as they were, my future had the brilliance of squashed toadstools. I was forced to envision my treasured dream of a London season receding over the horizon as if on the wings of an elusive Tou-eh-mah-mah butterfly unless Uncle Augustus's dietary preferences returned to normal, posthaste.

  My problem was that I had no suitable female relations whom I could trust to sponsor me, with the operative word being suitable. There were two aunts on the Arbuthnot side, but the only way I would ask them for help was if Great Britain were to sink into the sea, as did Atlantis of old, and I were stranded in a leaky lifeboat—and even then I might choose to swim. Jane and James's mother would no doubt take me on, but she was in India visiting one of her old school chums. No, it would be easiest if I had a hale and hearty Uncle Augustus.

  "I feel fit as a fiddle, I tell you," said Uncle Augustus as he leaped lightly from the seat of a Jacobean chair to the top of a Louis XIV armoire, both of which had graced the yellow sitting room in my home for generations. My ancestors were most likely turning in their graves at Uncle's treatment of heirlooms, and if they weren't, I was.

  "So I see," I said. I took a bite of one of Armond's delectable muffins. It had a calming effect.

  Uncle scrabbled about atop the armoire. "Did you know that the housekeeping staff doesn't clean up here? There were several dead spiders and flies and at least ten moths."

  "Were?" I asked and then thought better about pursuing the subject. Resolutely brushing muffin crumbs from my fingers, I said, "Uncle, do you think we might have a little chat?"

  Uncle Augustus caught the chandelier and swung nimbly into the chair across the tea table from me. "A tête-à-tête, as it were?"

  "Yes. Now that everyone has gone and we are alone, I thought we could discuss your condition."

  His brow furrowed. "Are you still trying to persuade me to drink that witch doctor's potion of crocodile dung and other bally ingredients?"

  "Well—"

  "I won't do it. I've never felt better in my life."

  "Yes, but—"

  "Look here. My old cricket injury has vanished. No more rheumatism in the knees or anywhere else, for that matter. It's as if I were twenty years younger." Uncle hopped about the room, first on one foot and then the other, to demonstrate.

  I sighed. "That's wonderful, but—"

  "It's more than wonderful. It's jolly magnificent!" Uncle snatched a fly from the air and transferred it into his mouth. Indeed, he looked as though he had been rejuvenated. I, on the other hand, felt one hundred years old. It was as if our roles were reversed.

  "Uncle, you do realize that now you are interrupting me?"

  He didn't look the least bit repentant. "What is it you wanted to say?"

  "I merely wanted to discuss—"

  A rapping on the French doors caught my attention. Through the window panes I spied the gleaming pate of Professor Lepworthy.

  I let the professor in. "Why, Professor. Whatever are you doing out there? Did no one answer the front door?"

  Professor Lepworthy entered without bothering to answer. All his attention seemed to be focused on my uncle. "I have been thinking," he announced as if that was all we needed to know.

  Uncle Augustus strode forward and grasped Lep
worthy's hand. "Welcome, sir."

  "Augustus, may I call you Augustus?"

  "Certainly," said Uncle.

  "Please call me Maximus."

  "Maximus, then. Come in and sit down." Uncle Augustus pulled a chair out and the professor sat.

  Professor Lepworthy laid an enormous book on the tea table. The title was Insectile Creatures. "I have something here that may be of great use to you in two ways, Augustus." Next to the book he placed a box of waxed paper.

  "What's this?" I asked. I did not see how those two objects could possibly help our present situation.

  Uncle leafed through the book, pausing to look at some of the pictures. "Yes, Maximus. It does whet the old appetite. But what good is that?"

  "Hunter-gatherers," Professor Lepworthy stated as if the term explained everything.

  "Hunter-gatherers?" I repeated with raised eyebrows.

  "Say what?" said Uncle Augustus.

  "The Tou-eh-mah-mah people are hunter-gatherers. When they are in the same state as you, Augustus, they gather insects in finely woven picnic baskets to take with them wherever they go, thus avoiding the frantic compulsions you exhibit," the professor explained.

  "He can scarcely carry a basket everywhere in polite society. It would be remarked on," I said.

  "Ah, but if he had a book about his new interest in insects, people would merely consider him a trifle eccentric," said the professor.

  Uncle Augustus picked up the waxed paper and waved it about. "And if that book had several insects pressed between bits of waxed paper, it would be a veritable Tou-eh-mah-mah picnic basket."

  "You catch on quickly, Augustus." The two men smiled at each other. They were quite obviously kindred spirits.

  "But that does nothing to alter the situation. True, Uncle Augustus could go about more easily, but he would still be in the same state," I protested.

  "And a happy state that is," Uncle mumbled.

  I appealed to the professor. "Can't you do something?"

  "I brought the book." The professor tapped Insectile Creatures.

  "Which does nothing but enable him to continue as he is," I said. I could see my London season receding farther and farther into the distance.

  Lepworthy nodded. "True," he said. "It seems but a temporary solution. Augustus cannot carry such a large tome about forever, but it should do for now."

  "Carrying it shouldn't be too hard," said Uncle. He hefted the book under one arm and jumped from the tea table to the Jacobean chair and back without any difficulty. "Ha!" he said triumphantly. "And double ha."

  I considered what the professor had said. As a solution, the book was inconvenient. Perhaps Uncle Augustus would tire of carrying it and realize he needed to take the antidote. There was also the little matter of keeping the book stocked. "How will you get enough insects to be satisfied?"

  "Watch." Uncle darted out through the French doors.

  While we waited for Uncle to return, I tried to catch Professor Lepworthy's attention to tell him what I thought of his scheme, but he refused to meet my gaze and hummed tunelessly as he stared off into space. Less than thirty seconds later, my avuncular relation was back.

  The professor set out several bits of waxed paper. As Uncle Augustus placed an insect on each piece, the professor folded the paper and stuck it into the book. When the two of them were finished, quite a few slips of paper protruded from between the pages.

  Uncle Augustus stepped back and surveyed his work. "Very good. Very good, indeed." Sliding one of the pieces of waxed paper from the book, he plucked out the enclosed flattened insect and crunched contentedly. Then he repeated the action so quickly that if I had not known what he was doing, I would have been unable to tell what had happened. He turned to me. "See, Petronella? I think we'll be all right."

  He looked so happy, I didn't have the heart to protest. "Very well, Uncle. We'll see how it goes." In spite of what I said, though, I didn't like the situation at all and could only hope he would see his way to taking the antidote soon.

  Chapter Seven

  In Which Luggage Portends Ominous Tidings

  WHEN ONE'S NEAREST AND DEAREST is trying one's patience beyond bearing, it does not do one's patience the least bit of good to be forcefully thrust into the presence of additional trying relations, especially when one has not slept at all well. Such was my thought upon descending the stairs later that morning and being presented with the horrifying sight of luggage. Luggage in itself is innocuous enough. However, luggage sitting in the entrance hall unannounced portends ominous tidings.

  At that moment Moriarty, my butler, glided across the hall carrying a covered tray. Moriarty always glides as if on roller skates in a manner that has fascinated me since I was a child. While still in the nursery, I often tried to mimic him, without success. I evidently do not possess the same muscu lature as my esteemed butler. I'm not sure any other human being does, except one, and I preferred not to think about my great-aunt Theophilia under any circumstances.

  As Moriarty neatly circumvented the pile of luggage, I cleared my throat. He paused in midglide and looked up at me inquiringly. "Yes, Miss Arbuthnot?"

  "To whom does the luggage belong?"

  Moriarty permitted himself a small smile. "Why, to Lady Farworthy and Mr. Cyril, Miss Arbuthnot."

  I staggered and would have tumbled down the stairs had I not sunk down to sit on the stair just behind me. Oh, dear. Aunt Cordelia and her odious son Cyril. Nothing could be worse.

  "Are you quite all right, Miss Arbuthnot? You are looking a bit peaked." Moriarty glided up the stairs and whipped out his treasured vial of smelling salts.

  I jumped to a standing position before he could open the bottle. As long as I have known him, he has carried the thing in his pocket, waiting to afflict with its pungent aroma any poor fainting female who happened to be within his vicinity. The salts were of his own concocting, and one sniff of the vial's contents was guaranteed to bring one into a most startled upright position unless one were already deceased, and even then the effect might be equally salubrious. Jane and I called it the Vile Vial.

  "Petronella?" a stentorian voice brayed from the direction of the drawing room.

  My eyes rolled toward the ceiling of their own accord, and a shiver of apprehension ran through me. How would I ever explain Uncle Augustus to Aunt Cordelia, who was my father's next older sibling and had never approved of my mother's relations? I straightened my shoulders as much as I could and entered the drawing room only to be met by a sight that drained what little starch there was left in me out through my toes. Aunt Cordelia stood chest out, her khaki explorer shirt and skirt pressed, and her monocle firmly screwed into place. She would have been altogether intimidating if not for her absurd affinity for golden ringlets, which hung from beneath her pith helmet. I'd always wondered if those ringlets were her own hair, but I had never seen her without the pith helmet and so could not say.

  "Well?" said Aunt.

  Cyril sniggered.

  I shot him a look that he well understood. It said I would deal with him later, and I knew that if he remembered the incident of the pickled herrings, he knew that I could, too. Evidently he did, because the sniggering stopped in mid-snig.

  "Well, what, dear Aunt Cordelia?" I asked mildly, and smiled as a young girl should smile at an aunt she has not seen in over a year—an aunt renowned for carrying on the Arbuthnot tradition of intrepid adventuring.

  Aunt Cordelia screwed the monocle in tighter and harrumphed a bit. "I leave for a mere few months of pleasant exploration in the jungles of Burma, and you not only decide to have your coming-out party without me, but you get yourself into a pickle." She shot the last word out in such a manner that if it had been a real pickle, she would have skewered me with it. I wondered if, after all, she knew of the pickled herrings, although I doubted that Cyril would have had the fortitude to tell his dear mama. In my opinion, Cyril was a disgrace to the Arbuthnot name, much more like his cowed papa over whom Aunt Cordelia ruled from u
nder her pith helmet.

  Aunt Cordelia waved a copy of the Times toward me as if its existence amply explained her perturbation. I caught a glimpse of the words Dame and Generalissimo on the front page.

  I was saved the necessity of answering, for at that moment the front door slammed open. Moriarty sailed from the room only to return moments later, barely keeping up with the only other person I knew who could outglide my butler—my great-aunt Theophilia, who was my father's aunt, although she was about his age. She was also the only person I knew who could cow Aunt Cordelia, and in truth my esteemed and ringleted aunt seemed nearly as taken aback as I was. One aunt was more than I could bear, but two presented one with enough reason to consider the murky depths of the Thames as a pleasant resting place for one's remains.

  Had it not been for Uncle Augustus's fortitude some years earlier, my aunts would have been in control of my considerable fortune. Since then, they had sought every opportunity to prove Uncle unfit as my guardian. I shuddered to think what they would do if they understood his present condition.

  Moriarty managed to maneuver himself in front of Great-aunt Theophilia so he could stand to attention and announce, "Her excellency, the Duchess of Worffingdon, and her daughters Lady Crimea and Miss Boeotia."

  Crimea and Boeotia stepped into full view, dressed to the nines in the latest tailored traveling suits and large, fruit-decorated hats. Crimea, older than I by a year, and Boeotia, a deceptively golden-haired, apple-cheeked child of six, smiled at me. I was sharply reminded of Great-aunt Theophilia's and Great-uncle Hevrington's practice of naming their children after places where he had served while in the military. Fortunately, they had never produced a third child. Great-uncle Hevrington's last stint had been in Famagusta.