by Julie Berry
Poor little Winnifred looked stung. “I…I didn’t mean to.”
I stared at her.
“Mostly I didn’t mean to,” the sheepish creature admitted.
Alice’s gentle frown was probably far worse than a punch in the nose from me. “You mustn’t listen at doors, Winnifred,” she said. “It’s not ladylike.”
I swallowed a laugh. “That’s right, Winnifred,” I said. “Alice and I would never dream of listening at doorways to private conversations.”
Alice blushed crimson.
Winnifred looked up at us both. “Then…you’re not angry at me?”
I sat down on my bed. “We will be,” I said, “if you make a habit of it. But this time, you’re forgiven.” A twitch of her eyebrow made me pause. “Have you been making a habit of it, Winnifred?”
She squirmed.
“Winnifred,” Alice said severely. “Do confess. It’s better that way.”
Winnifred buried her face in her hands. “It’s just that I’ve been so worried about you,” she sniffled. “I heard you say ‘sardines’ and ‘expelled,’ and I was just so terribly sure—”
A terrible coldness came over me. “So terribly sure of what, Winnifred?”
Winnifred peeped out from between her fingers, then hid her face in Alice’s shoulder. “See? See? She is angry with me! I knew it, and now she’ll chop my hair off! And…and knock my teeth out!”
“Whose teeth have I ever knocked out?” I demanded.
“Maeve.” Alice held up a hand to shush me.
I restrained my voice, though it just about killed me to do so. “What about sardines, Winnifred? What were you going to say about that?”
Winnifred pried herself away from Alice’s protection and faced me. Her lip jutted out defiantly. “It’s not all my fault, you know, Maeve.” She sniffled once more. “You started it.”
“Started what?”
“Shh!” Alice hissed. “You’ll bring down the headmistress upon us!”
Winnifred took a deep breath. “It was the night before winter hols,” she said. “We went over to the Industrial School, or whatever they call it. Remember?”
I nodded. “And?”
She swallowed hard. “And I was there, ready to present my muffler and my sweets to the one orphan boy who’s…” She paused.
A wicked laugh bubbled up from down in my belly. “Who’s what?”
“Never mind,” Winnifred said hastily.
I wouldn’t let the poor girl go free. “Who’s handsome? Is that it, Winnifred?”
Winnifred turned orange. Alice patted her on the shoulder.
What a lark! Wait till I told Tommy there were girls here who thought he was handsome! Wouldn’t his stomach turn at the thought?
“Well, anyway,” I said, “you were ready to present your offerings to an orphan, never mind who—”
“And then you cut in front of me,” she said angrily. “Like you always do. Like everyone always does. I get so sick and tired of it!”
I grinned. “That’s the spirit, Winnifred! Stand up for yourself! Don’t let anybody push you around.”
The color drained from Winnifred’s face. “Well, as to that,” she said, “I decided I wouldn’t. Or at any rate, I decided I’d take my vengeance.” She clasped her hands nervously on the desk once more. “So, I, uh, that is, I, um…”
“Out with it!” I cried, earning another shush from Alice.
Winnifred clenched her fists. “I told Mrs. Gruboil you were hiding sardines in your room. Sardines you’d probably stolen from the larder.”
I saw red, and purple, and silver, and black.
“You did what?” Alice cried. Now she needed shushing.
“I heard Maeve talking about them that very evening, right before we went over to the boys’ home,” Winnifred explained.
“Eavesdropping at our door again?” asked Alice.
Winnifred nodded.
“I was just so angry at you,” Winnifred said. “But I never meant to get you expelled.”
So, Winnifred ratted on me to Mrs. Gruboil—the miserable cook who burnt everything, and bossed us around, and who was always suspecting us girls of stealing food from her larder.
The cook who had given notice over the holidays and not returned to the school!
I rose and held out a hand to Winnifred. I needed to get her out of here. “I’m not expelled, Winnie, so there’s no harm done. I forgive you. Let’s shake and be friends, shall we?”
“No harm done?” echoed Alice, eyeing me strangely.
Winnifred shook my hand like someone lost in a daze. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as sugar,” I said. “All’s well. Thanks for telling us. Stop listening at our doors. Off to bed with you now, before you get into trouble.”
I bundled her out the door, with her repeating her apologies every step of the way, and thanking me for being so forgiving. Forgiving? What a joke. I’d like to have boxed her ears in. She’d cost me Mermeros. But at least now we knew something we hadn’t known before.
I shut the door and locked it, then faced Alice.
“Do you realize what this means?” I whispered. “Mrs. Gruboil! That’s why she didn’t come back to the school after Christmas!”
Alice nodded mutely.
“So now all we have to do is figure out where she is,” I said breathlessly. “She must’ve left a forwarding address. Maybe you could ask Miss Salamanca for it. Or, if we had to, we could rummage through her desk and papers…”
I paced the room, my blood pumping with excitement. The hunt was on once more.
“You won’t need to do any of that,” Alice said.
I stopped my pacing. “How’s that, again?”
“You won’t have to search for where she’s gone,” Alice said, “nor travel far to find her.”
I shook my head. “Explain, please,” I cried softly. “You’re making me dizzy.”
“The voice,” Alice said. “The young woman talking to Miss Plumley. I think it’s the same person who asked us for directions to Darvill House days ago, remember?”
I was about to explode. “That’s very nice,” I said, “but what of it?”
“Your sardine tin,” she said softly, “must be in the locked closet in the mansion next door. Mermeros’s new master is this ‘Baroness Gabrielle,’ the ill-tempered lady of the house who strikes her servants. Formerly Mrs. Gruboil, the school’s cook.”
Chapter 30
I really and truly was leading Alice into a life of crime now, and no mistake. We were about to burgle a baroness’s mansion. Not a true baroness, but I doubted the magistrate would care one way or another about that.
If we didn’t end up as career criminals, I decided, Alice and I should become a pair of detectives. She could sleuth out the mysteries, and I could sock the villains in the nose. That was a smashing bit of deduction on her part there. I’d been too caught up in the poor servant girl’s story to see what ought to have been obvious.
We waited until the lights of the school had gone dark, as far as we could tell, then slipped down the stairs and out the back door. Bitter wind blew through my cloak and hat. We kept low and close to the school until we’d left it behind us by a good distance, then ran along the back alleyway toward the mansion, abandoned no longer. Two lit windows upstairs blazed into the dark night, like the baleful eyes of a monster, daring us to step closer. Probably Mrs. Gruboil’s bedroom.
Where to break in? How to locate the closet? How to get past its many locks? I hadn’t exactly rushed outside with a plan. Just rushed outside. Typical me.
We lurked in the darkness and watched. A stout shadow passed before the curtain, sat down on what must have been a bed, and lay down for the night. A lamp was blown out, and the two bedroom windows went dark. Only the reddish glow of a hearth fire lent any ligh
t to the room.
“Well,” I said, “we know we’re looking for a closet in Mrs. Gruboil’s bedroom, and now we know which room that is. So we’re off to a good start.”
Alice hugged her arms tightly to her body and shivered in the cold.
“A good start,” she said, “except that the house is locked, the closet has several locks, and no doubt the bedroom is locked as well. And the mistress of the house is still awake.”
“Let’s hope not for long,” I said.
“You two don’t ever sleep, do you?”
A voice in my ear made me jump out of my skin.
Tommy laughed.
I whirled upon him. “You’re hardly in bed yourself.”
He shrugged. “I’ll sleep when I’m old. Besides, I’m too excited to sleep.”
“Nice muffler,” I told him.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit lumpy and holey,” he said. “But the mittens are tops.”
Alice and I exchanged a look.
“Maeve has surprising talents,” Alice said kindly. “Now, what has you so excited, Tom?”
He grinned from ear to ear. “A couple of days ago, Mr. Poindexter from the Oddity Shop came to the orphanage and took me for an outing to his shop for the day. Talked about maybe taking me on as an apprentice.”
“How wonderful!” Alice clapped her hands. “You must’ve made quite an impression on him.”
“If you worked for him, you wouldn’t have to go to…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t even want to say the words: “the mill.”
“I’d get to live there, and everything,” Tommy said. “We had the best day. He took me for a big lunch at an inn, and he showed me everything in his shop and told me about all his travels. He’s been everywhere.”
“Was that today?” I asked him. “During all the rain?”
Tommy looked at me, puzzled. “Nah. Three days ago.”
“Ah,” I said. “Has Mr. Poindexter visited you since?”
He shook his head. “No. Why do you ask?”
“It’s nothing.” I remembered seeing the Oddity Shop owner marching off angrily, but I waved the subject away with a mittened hand, then thumped my friend in the arm. “That’s tops. I hope it works out for you, Tom.”
“I get to visit him again tomorrow,” he said. I could feel his excitement, even through the cold. “I really think he means to take me on. And maybe I could travel with him on his next adventures!”
Alice smiled. “And look after Morris.”
“That’s right.” He looked around him. “But say, what are you doing out here so late?”
We explained to him about Mrs. Gruboil, and about “Baroness Gabrielle,” and what the servant girl said, and how Alice had pieced it all together. It would be just the sort of petty, spiteful thing for someone like Mrs. Gruboil to do—to wish for a fortune so she could live like a grand lady, right under the nose of her former employer. And to turn mean and cruel on the taste of a little bit of power, and beat her servants, when she’d been a domestic servant herself not long before.
“So that’s the plan?” Tommy asked. “Break in, and steal the djinni back?” He elbowed me. “You owe me that sardine can when you’re done with it, mind. Wishes, here I come!” He laughed. “’Course, if Mr. Poindexter hires me on at the shop, I won’t mind so much if I don’t get it now.” He took of his cap to scratch his red-haired scalp. “Funny thing. Mr. Poindexter was asking me all about your djinni, Maeve, and your antiquities, and our trip to Persia.”
“Did you tell him everything?” Alice asked.
Tommy nodded. “I figured since Maeve had told him about it already, there was no point in being secretive,” he said. “He seemed very interested in it all. I thought, if any adult would believe all this, it’s him.”
“And did he believe you?” Alice asked.
Tommy shook his head. “Nah. But that’s all right. Doesn’t matter.”
I hoped he was right.
Tommy blew on his fingers and rubbed his hands together. “We’d best get a move on, before we freeze to death,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s get your stinky fish-man back, Maeve. Then we can take another fantastical journey, all right?”
We stared at Darvill House. Was it just a few weeks ago that we climbed into this empty place, summoned Mermeros, and flew to Persia? Back then it was empty, spooky, and wonderful. Now it felt like the Queen herself might live here, with all the royal retinue. Armed guards especially.
As for how to burgle a locked mansion, I had no idea.
Tommy stepped closer to the building and examined its brickwork and exterior pipes. “I could climb this, no problem,” he said. “You could, too, Maeve. And you, Alice, could be our lookout. Then we just pop in through the windows.”
“Oh, don’t climb,” Alice cried. “You’ll fall to your deaths!”
“Not Maeve,” Tommy said. “She climbs like a monkey.”
“But surely the windows will be locked,” Alice said.
“Maybe they will,” Tommy said, “and maybe they won’t. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
“But Mrs. Gruboil will wake up if you rattle the windows,” Alice protested.
I took off my mittens, flexed my fingers, and tested the sturdiness of the pipe. “Let’s just hope she had plenty of wine with her supper,” I said. “She’ll sleep like the dead. She snores, anyway. She might not hear a thing.”
Alice caught my arm. “Don’t do this, Maeve,” she begged. “It’s bound to go wrong. You could be terribly hurt. And if you’re not hurt, you’re certain to be caught. Let’s think of something else, tomorrow.” She snapped her fingers. “I know! We could find a way to dress up as upstairs maids and go dust her bedchambers…”
I squeezed Alice’s hand. “Tomorrow’s too late,” I told her. “If I don’t stop Mr. Treazleton, he’ll get my father sacked first thing in the morning. His career will be over.”
Tommy halted. “You’re not giving him the djinni, are you?”
I felt sick to my stomach. Tommy had trusted me all along to give him the djinni next.
“Not if I can help it, Tom,” I said. “I’d far rather use a wish to stop Mr. Treazleton than just hand it over to him.” Even still, I was misleading him. After my third wish, the djinni would vanish away. Tom didn’t know that, but I did. Sometimes a lie, even an accidental one, or a lie that comes from not speaking up rather than speaking, gets too big to fix. Or so it felt to me. If I hadn’t told him already, I didn’t see how I could now. And if we didn’t succeed in getting the sardine tin back, there’d never be a need to admit to what I’d done.
Still. I had to help my father. It was my fault his livelihood was in danger. I had to make it right.
“Come on, Tom,” I said. “Mrs. Gruboil’s bound to be sleeping now. Ups-a-daisy.”
I started climbing toward one window, and Tommy took the other. My fingers were stiff with cold, which didn’t reassure me any. I forced myself not to look down, but just to study the bricks and mortar before my eyes. Fortunately, this building had a good deal more ornamental brickwork and stone inserts than Miss Salamanca’s school. I had more to hold and step onto. Some of it was old and crumbly, though, and once my left foot gave way underneath me altogether. I only barely caught myself. I heard Alice gasp down below.
Tommy reached his window before me and climbed into its deep well. He tugged at the windows, poked and prodded at their frames. Nothing.
I said a little prayer, just in case—who was the patron saint of burglars, I wondered?—and continued my climb. Finally I reached the window, and with shaking hands and knees, I climbed onto the deep windowsill.
These windows were tall and side by side, opening outward like double doors. I could see a brass lock mechanism, a sort of rotating crescent blade holding the two sides together, by a glint of light from a streetlamp. It was locke
d, but only barely. The circular mechanism hadn’t been rotated all the way.
I pressed my head against the glass and listened for any sound. Nothing but Mrs. Gruboil’s rhythmic snores. I’d know her anywhere.
I pried my fingernails into the strip of wood on the inner edge of either window. On Mrs. Gruboil’s next snore, I tugged the windows toward me. They moved, just a smidge. I waited for another snore, and pulled again. Back and forth, back and forth, I tugged at the windows, begging the brass mechanism to loosen and yield.
On and on she snored, and on and on I tugged. I could’ve sworn the windows were swinging out a tiny bit farther now, and I was pretty sure the brass rotator had budged a bit.
“It’s no good, Maeve.” Tommy’s whisper floated across to me on the night wind. “It’s locked. We can’t get in.”
“I can,” I whispered back. “Hold tight. Once I get in, I’ll let you in.”
Back and forth, snore after snore, I worried away at that window until I was certain I was making progress. Once Mrs. Gruboil snorted herself half-awake. I froze in terror, but soon her sawing noises returned to their normal rhythm.
The windows moved, little by little. The brass locking mechanism strained against my pull. I was starting to lose all sensation in my fingers.
And it gave. The windows opened. I nearly fell backward to my death.
But I caught myself and held the windows mostly shut, lest the cold wake Mrs. Gruboil, while I planned what ought to be the best way to stealthily go in.
“Hurry, Maeve,” Tommy whispered through chattering teeth.
The clocks in the grand house began to chime for midnight. I used the noise as a cover to slide myself gently into the house. A thick carpet cushioned my footfall. I pulled the windows mostly shut behind me, then tiptoed to Tommy’s window.
He stood hunched and shivering on the window ledge. I threw the lock and pushed one side’s window open wide. Tommy edged toward it, and I slowly opened the other window.
He stumbled, and fell! I lunged forward to snatch at him.
I caught him by the muffler. My horrible, loose-knitted muffler! I vowed that if Tommy survived, I’d take needlework class more seriously from now on.
