by Julie Berry
“Thanks, friend,” I whispered.
“Who?” he replied.
I very nearly hugged him. But that might not be safe for either of us. I returned to the warmth of the stove. This cold, I feared, might never leave my bones.
Mr. Poindexter was arranging the stuffed owl on a high shelf and talking with Tommy.
“What you really need to see, my lad, is New Zealand,” he told him. “A land of wonders, it is! Pools of water so blue, so green, like you’ve never seen. Mountains! Fjords! Volcanoes! Caves of glow-worms, strange lizards and kiwi birds…”
Perhaps Tommy was part glow-worm, too, for his eyes shone like the caves the shopkeeper described. Mr. Poindexter’s stepladder wobbled just then, and the stuffed owl slid off the shelf. Tommy deftly caught it and handed it back up to the man.
“You’ve saved me a heap of trouble,” he said. “Too bad you weren’t here this morning to catch the pottery I knocked over in the back storeroom.”
“I wish I had been,” Tommy said. “I…I could come help out, you know. Any time you wanted.” He caught himself, and stared at his feet.
“Well, now,” said Mr. Poindexter. “That is indeed something to consider.” He situated the owl, wiped his hands on his trousers, and descended the ladder. Seeing me watching them, he made his way over to the stove.
“Young lady,” he said, “were you able to bring those Persian artifacts you described to me yesterday?”
I couldn’t answer him. My throat wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t look him in the eye.
Tommy and Alice gathered in to listen.
“That’s brilliant!” Tommy said. “That bracelet and ring, and that what-d’you-call-it, they should be here, in this shop!”
Alice prompted me. “You brought them, didn’t you, Maeve?”
I nodded. “I brought them,” I told the dark wood of the floor, “but I lost them. Just now.”
“You lost them?” Tommy groaned. “How did you manage that?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said, my anger rising. “Their original owner took them from me. Just now.”
Tommy and Alice’s jaws dropped.
We all stood there, glued to the floor by awkward silence.
Tommy broke the spell. “But you’ve got your djinni,” he said. “Just make a wish and get them back.”
His eyes grew wide, and he clapped his hand over his mouth. He’d mentioned the djinni in front of Mr. Poindexter.
“It’s all right, Tom,” I said. “I told him about it.” I wanted to crawl under the stove and stay there. “But it’s no use. I lost that, too.” I swallowed hard. “Someone stole it from me at school.”
Tommy closed his eyes and kept very still. I knew what he was thinking—he didn’t steal the sardine can when he could’ve, and now it was beyond his reach forever. That’s what I’d be thinking if I were him. And that he was a fool to trust a friend. Maybe not even a friend.
Tom had talked of adventures, but he needed Mermeros to save him from a short life in a cotton mill. My big mouth and stupid mistakes hadn’t only cost me my hopes.
I couldn’t bear to look at him.
Alice had the goodness to take Tommy by the elbow and lead him away to a different part of the store to explain the ugly truth to him, leaving me alone with Mr. Poindexter. I waited for his scorn to fall upon me. He just stood looking thoughtfully at me for a long moment.
“Young lady,” he said.
I waited.
“It’s a wonderful thing to dream big dreams.”
The lack of reproach in his voice disarmed me. I looked up into his muttonchop-whiskered face.
“It’s an even more wonderful thing to imagine impossible, beautiful, strange, and exciting dreams.” He gestured to the store. “None of this would be here if I didn’t dream and imagine, too.”
I knew a setup when I heard one. I waited for the punch.
“It doesn’t do, however,” he said, “to tell falsehoods about your dreams. Not to others, and not to yourself.”
I took a deep breath to tell him what I thought of his patronizing sermon.
I found that I couldn’t.
Much as I hated admitting it, I knew his intentions were kindly. Would I believe my stories, if I hadn’t seen all that I’d seen? A djinni, a sorcerer, a deadly ring, a magic trip to Persia? Of course, I wouldn’t.
He rested a hand on my shoulder a moment, then walked over to where Mr. Bromley stood beckoning him with another urgent question about scarab beetles.
I don’t cry, as a general rule, but I wanted to weep for Tommy.
I thought of Mr. Poindexter’s words, his expression, his voice. My thoughts shifted to my father’s face, watching distractedly as we opened our Christmas gifts, keeping a brave smile on, all the while counting the cost and chafing over why things had turned so ill with him at the bank and his manager, Mr. Edgar Pinagree. If I’d given Mr. Treazleton the sardine can, just as I’d given the sorcerer his artifacts, my father wouldn’t be in trouble now.
True, the sorcerer king was, shall we say, more persuasive.
But if I’d thrown that reeking sardine can back in the dustbin when I found it, there never would’ve been trouble in the first place.
As for my dreams, my cricket team and my world travel—did they even matter now? Weren’t they just youthful, selfish fancies compared with other people’s more serious needs?
We finally left the shop, with Tommy promising to return to help Mr. Siegfried Poindexter, and Mr. Bromley promising Tommy the roast beef lunch of a lifetime. I followed the others into the carriage with my heart made of lead, splashing somewhere around in my stomach. Morris’s eyes watched me go. I wanted to take him with me and secretly cry in his feathers.
The last thing I saw through the carriage window, just as the horses began to move, and the wheels began to spin, was the peering face, the searching eyes, and the bowler hat of the ginger-whiskered man.
Chapter 27
The rest of my visit with Alice and her grandparents passed quickly, in hazy colors, like a dream. The memory of the sorcerer king still made me shiver, but as days slipped by, I figured that if he’d wanted to magically disembowel me, he’d have done so by now. Gradually, I stopped assuming every man in London had ginger whiskers. Though more than a handful of actual gingers gave me a momentary fright.
I stewed endlessly over my lost djinni. It would take a miracle, I knew, but when I returned to school I was determined to get it back. That resolve settled upon, I tried to enjoy the rest of my holidays.
The Bromleys were as good as gold to me. We took outings to the menagerie, to the Crystal Palace, to the Serpentine, to some very clever pantomimes. They proffered sweets and treats and parties galore. Evenings of checkers, chess, Hearts, and Old Maid in the drawing room. A grand party to ring in 1897.
After our New Year’s Eve party, as we got ready for bed, Alice handed me a small wrapped present. My heart leaped into my throat when I ripped off the paper. Sultana’s Exotic Sardines!
“My djinni!” I whispered. “I can’t believe it! You had it all along?”
Alice’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “Oh, Maeve. It’s not your djinni. I…I just happened to see the exact same tin in a shop window, so I bought it for you.” She blushed with embarrassment. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. I thought it could be a, um, a memento.”
I tried to smile, so she wouldn’t feel badly. What had I been thinking? If Alice had Mermeros, she wouldn’t have concealed the fact from me.
“Should we open it and see if there’s a djinni inside?” I said.
Alice couldn’t hide her relief. “Only if you’re in the mood for some fish.”
* * *
Too soon, the day came. Mr. and Mrs. Bromley climbed into a carriage with Alice and me and drove us back to Miss Salamanca’s school.
I
hated to leave. Their friendly welcome had almost made me forget my troubles. I understood better now why Alice loathed leaving home and attending Miss Salamanca’s school. If I had grandparents this warm and loving, I’d wish I could live with them forever, too.
The early January day was unusually warm and bright, with glistening drops of melted frost dangling from spindly tree branches in the parks. The pretty day might almost have made me forget I was returning to Miss Salamanca’s School for Upright Young Ladies. But I knew the truth. I was returning to fire and brimstone. And to Theresa Treazleton herself, a devil in training. My only consolation was the hunt for the djinni. Back at school, I could put my quest into motion.
“Well, I never,” Mr. Bromley said to his wife as we neared the school. “Take a look at that, Adelaide.”
He pointed out the window at the swarm of workmen hammering, roofing, patching, and painting the old mansion that shared an alleyway with the school: Darvill House. A steady stream of tradesman and deliverymen marched in and out the door, bearing furniture, rugs, pillows, drapes, culinary items, food shipments, cases of wine, houseplants, grandfather clocks, marble mantelpieces, and framed works of art.
“Darvill House, in use again?” wondered Mrs. Bromley. “When I was young, it was a grand old home.”
“They’ve fixed it up in record time,” observed Mr. Bromley. “An astonishing pace!”
“Who’s taken it?” Mrs. Bromley asked. “Surely this must be discussed about town.”
“I haven’t the faintest,” Mr. Bromley said. “Most peculiar…”
“Maybe it’s an American millionaire,” proposed Alice.
“Or a cousin of Tsar Nicholas of Russia,” I added.
We stopped in the school courtyard, and the driver helped us all out.
“Why, look!” Mr. Bromley pointed eagerly across the way. “There’s your friend, Thomas, Alice.” He waved Tommy over.
I blew out my breath. Tommy would probably have plenty of hot words to fling at me, and I’d best prepare myself. But after he’d greeted Mr. and Mrs. Bromley, and Alice, he simply looked at me.
“Hello,” he told my shoes.
“Hello, Tom.”
I waited for the attack to hit me like a fist to the jaw. But it didn’t. The disappointment and betrayal in his eyes hurt far more than anything he could’ve said.
“It wasn’t your fault that the djinni got stolen,” Tom said. “Bad things just happen sometimes. That’s the way it is.”
Somehow, I felt he wasn’t only talking about my lost sardine can. Tom had long practice in disappointment.
“See you,” he said at length.
I nodded. “See you.”
Miss Salamanca came gliding out to greet the charming, the gracious, the affluent Bromleys. “My dear sir,” she purred. “My dear madam. Dearest Alice.” I poked my head out from behind Alice, and Miss Salamanca’s face took on a strangled look.
“And Maeve.” She pulled herself together and smiled for the Bromleys. “How good to see you.” She cast a sidelong glance my way. “All of you.”
She beckoned us indoors and offered tea to Alice’s grandparents. “You girls run along to the dining room,” she told us. “Cook is serving refreshments there for returning pupils.”
We went to the dining room gladly, and found a woman we didn’t recognize setting out plates of cut sandwiches and little tarts made with raspberry jam. She wore a cook’s uniform, and an apron tied tightly around her plump waist.
“Afternoon, young ladies,” the woman said. “Hungry, are we?”
“Who are you?” I blurted out.
“Maeve!” scolded Alice.
The woman smiled. “It’s a fair question. I’m Miss Plumley, and I’m the new cook. The former one gave her notice right before Christmas.”
I shook my head. “Mrs. Gruboil’s gone?”
“So it seems,” said our new cook. “The school’s loss is my good fortune.”
“Oh, she’s no loss,” I told Miss Plumley. “Don’t worry about that.”
Alice hid her eyes behind her hand. “Maeve!”
Miss Plumley chuckled. “That’s all right, Miss—”
“Alice,” I told her.
“Miss Alice. Very nice. Don’t worry about your friend.” She winked at me. “I think we’ll get along like two yolks in an egg.”
I turned my head at a small sound and saw Winnifred Herzig nearby, clutching a small bread-and-butter sandwich and watching me with anxious eyes that darted back and forth between me and Miss Plumley. Oh, that Winnifred! I was sick and tired of her mincing around me anytime we met, as if I were some three-headed monster.
But I’d told myself I’d try to be a bit kinder in 1897, so I gave her a smile. “Happy new year, Winnifred!” I told her.
She blinked several times, blew her nose, and fled the room, leaving her half-eaten bread-and-butter sandwich in broken bits on the floor.
As I say, most people ignore Winnifred Herzig, but it’s not as if she gives them no reason to.
* * *
Pleasant weather decided not to prolong its visit. All the next day, a cold and miserable winter rain slanted along the windowpanes. Londoners hunched down inside their coats and turned up the collars to endure the misery. Very much, I thought, like the way I had to face each day at Miss Salamanca’s school.
In needlework class, when Miss Bickle wasn’t looking, Theresa brandished her four-gauge needle at me. As if I could forget her stabbing me with it. The beast! The vicious, thieving, prissy beast. Her pimples seemed mostly to have healed up, but one spectacular one lingered right on the tip of her nose.
I’d made up my mind, staring at that blemish that turned her nose into a rhinoceros’s horn. I was going to get that sardine can back at any price. I had one wish left, and I intended to make the most of it. I didn’t know how I’d break into the Treazleton home and snatch the can back, but I’d find a way.
I reminded Theresa what my fists look like. She swallowed, and focused intently on her stitching. That’s right, little spoiled princess. You’re lucky I don’t knock your teeth in after you stole my djinni.
I looked out the window to see a man leave Mission Industrial School and Home for Working Boys, open an umbrella, and hurry down the street. I didn’t trust my vision at first, through the blur of weather, so I sidled over to the window for a better look. I was right. Mr. Siegfried Poindexter of the Oddity Shop was hurrying away in the rain. I wondered what on earth he could be doing there, and what could be so important that it would bring him out in such weather. His expression seemed thunderously angry and upset. I hoped Tommy wasn’t in any kind of trouble. Maybe Mr. Poindexter merely hated bad weather.
After dinner at midday, during our twenty-minute break before classes resumed, I sat in the common room on my dormitory floor reading a book Alice had lent me by Mr. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby. It was a topper of a story. I was right at the part where Nicholas stopped his nasty headmaster, Mr. Squeers, from abusing a poor boy by whacking him with a stick. Great stuff! I was so engrossed by it that I didn’t hear the telltale clack of Miss Salamanca’s heels until she stood before me.
“Miss Merritt,” she said. “You have a visitor.” She stalked away before I could ask her any questions. Or whack her with a stick.
Miss Salamanca ushered me into her office where my visitor awaited. It was Mr. Alfred P. Treazleton. Shipping magnate, captain of industry, noted philanthropist, father, and thief. Coldhearted, stone-hearted, pernicious thief. Summoning me here, no doubt, to gloat at his triumph over me and boast of the magnificent, glorious marvels Mermeros was conjuring for him, perhaps even now.
He rose and shook my hand. “Miss Merritt. How nice to see you looking so hale and hearty.”
I curtsied and said nothing until Miss Salamanca, standing behind the eminent donor, jerked her head in his direction and sco
wled at me ferociously.
“It is good to see you as well, Mr. Treazleton,” I said, to spare Miss Salamanca a crick in the neck, though she deserved one.
Mr. Treazleton turned toward my headmistress, who replaced her scowl with beaming tranquility faster than one could say “school benefactor.”
“Miss Salamanca, would you be so good as to allow me a brief, but private, interview with my young friend? It continues the conversation we began before the holidays, but the weather today is too inclement for another stroll.”
It was almost worth being shut up with this man to watch Old Sally squirm, caught between propriety, curiosity, and the unstated rule that whatever Mr. Treazleton wants, Mr. Treazleton gets. He won. Of course, he won.
When the door had shut, Mr. Treazleton rested his palms and leaned his weight on the knob of his walking stick—a favorite pose of his. What would happen if I knocked it out from under him? Might he topple to the floor? Now there was a picture.
“Why do you smile, Miss Maeve?”
I bit the inside of my checks. “I’m not smiling.”
“Could it be, perhaps, because you think you have gotten the better of me?”
I bit down harder. What could he mean? Every instinct told me to keep my face flat and reveal nothing until I knew more.
“I will come right to the point,” he said. “You’re a clever girl, much too clever for your own good. Clever women, I find, though charming at first, become miserable, frustrated, nervous creatures before long.”
That monster!
“Because they’re suffocated in tight dresses, imprisoned at parties, and forbidden to use their brains, I imagine,” I said. “Because they must always defer to some pig of a husband.”
He made a dry laugh. “At last, you see what women are fit for,” he said. “You’ve been paying close attention in Miss Rosewater’s deportment classes. One wouldn’t know it, upon observing your manners.”
What on earth could he want with me? To toy with me, like a cat with a captured mouse?
“You said you would come right to the point,” I said, “but you’ve hardly done so.”
