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“Now comes my favorite bit,” said Caroline, her eyes shining, and Great-aunt Maddy threw herself into the story of sadistic Hazel with her best Sunday dress on, standing up to her neck in the liquid manure, screeching, “Just you wait, Madeleine, I’ll pay you back for this!”
“And so she did, too,” said Great-aunt Maddy. “More than once.”
“But we’ll listen to that story another time,” said Mum firmly. “You children must go to bed. You have school in the morning.”
We all sighed, Great-aunt Maddy loudest of all.
* * *
FRIDAY WAS PIZZA DAY, and no one skipped school lunch. Pizza was about the only edible dish the school ever served. I knew that Lesley would die for that pizza, so I didn’t let her stay in the classroom with me. I had a date with James there.
“Go and have lunch,” I said. “I’d hate for you to miss pizza on my account.”
“But then there’ll be no one here to act as lookout for you. And I want to hear more about yesterday, with you and Gideon and the green sofa—”
“Look, with the best will in the world, I can’t tell you any more than I already did,” I said.
“Then tell me again. It’s so romantic!”
“Go eat that pizza!”
“You absolutely must get his mobile number,” said Lesley. “I mean, it’s a golden rule: never kiss a boy if you don’t have his phone number.”
“Delicious cheese and pepperoni…,” I said.
“But—”
“Xemerius is here with me,” I said, pointing to the windowsill where he was sitting, chewing the end of his pointy tail and looking bored.
Lesley caved in. “Okay. But make sure you get something to eat today. All that waving Mrs. Counter’s pointer about does no one any good! And if anyone sees what you’re up to, you’ll be carted off to the loony bin in short order, remember that.”
“Oh, go away,” I said, pushing her out of the doorway just as James was coming through it.
James was glad we’d be on our own this time. “That freckled girl gets on my nerves, always butting in! She treats me like thin air.”
“That’s because so far as she’s concerned you are … oh, forget it!”
“Well, so how can I help you today?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me how to say hello at a soirée in the eighteenth century.”
“Hello?”
“Yes. Hello. Hi. Good evening. You must know what people used to say when they met. And what they did. Shaking hands, kissing hands, a bow, a curtsey, Your Highness, Your Serene Highness … it’s all so complicated, and there’s so much I could do wrong.”
James had a self-satisfied expression on his face. “Not if you do as I tell you. The first thing you should know is how to curtsey to a gentleman of the same social rank as your own.”
“Oh, wonderful,” said Xemerius. “The only problem is, how will Gwyneth know what his social rank is?”
James stared at him. “What’s that? Shoo, kitty, shoo! Go away!”
Xemerius snorted disbelievingly. “What did you say?”
“Oh, James, take a closer look,” I said. “This is my friend Xemerius, the gargoyle demon. Xemerius, this is James, another friend of mine.”
James shook a handkerchief out of his sleeve, and the scent of lilies of the valley wafted through the air. “Whatever it is, I want it to go away. It reminds me that I’m in the middle of a terrible nightmare, a feverish dream in which I have to teach a pert minx how to behave.”
I sighed. “James, when are you going to face the facts? Over two hundred years ago, you may have had a feverish dream, but since then you’ve been … well, you and Xemerius are both … you’re—”
