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“Very clever.”
“But Lady Arista and Aunt Glenda will be home in an hour’s time, and they’re sure to say he’d better put off the repair work until tomorrow.”
“Then we’ll have to hurry.” I gave him a quick hug and dropped a kiss on his untidy red hair. There had to be time for that! “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
Nick looked a little guilty. “Only Caroline. She was so … oh, well, you know how she always knows when there’s something in the air, and she asked lots of questions. But she’ll keep quiet and help us to throw Mum, Aunt Maddy, and Charlotte off the scent.”
“Particularly Charlotte,” I said, talking more to myself than Nick.
“They’re all still upstairs in the dining room. Mum invited Lesley to stay to supper.”
In the dining room, they were just leaving the table. Which meant that Aunt Maddy moved to her armchair by the fireplace and put her feet up while Mr. Bernard and Mum cleared the supper things away. They were all pleased to see me, all but Charlotte, that is. Oh, well, maybe she was just very good at hiding her delight.
Xemerius came down from the chandelier and cried, “There you are at last! I was nearly dying of boredom.”
Although there was still a delicious smell of supper and Mum said she was keeping something hot for me, I heroically claimed that I wasn’t hungry because I’d already had supper at the Temple. My stomach cramped indignantly at this shocking lie, but I couldn’t possibly waste time satisfying its demands.
Lesley grinned at me. “It was a wonderful curry. I could hardly stop eating. My mum is in one of her terrible experimental phases right now. Even our dog won’t eat the macrobiotic stuff she cooks these days.”
“All the same, you look quite … well, let’s say well nourished,” said Charlotte sharply. She’d braided her hair and pinned it up again, but a few little locks had come loose and were framing her face very prettily. How could anyone look so beautiful and be so mean?
“You’re lucky. I wish I had a dog, too,” said Caroline. “Or any kind of pet.”
“Never mind. We have Nick,” said Charlotte. “That’s almost like having a monkey.”
“Not forgetting you, you nasty, poisonous spider!” said Nick.
“Well said, young man!” crowed Xemerius, back up on the chandelier. He clapped his paws.
Mum was helping Mr. Bernard to stack the dirty dishes in the dumbwaiter. “You know you can’t have a pet because Aunt Glenda’s allergic to animals, Caroline.”
“We could get a nak*d mole rat,” said Caroline. “That would be better than nothing.”
Charlotte opened her mouth and then shut it again, obviously because she couldn’t think of anything nasty to say about nak*d mole rats.
Aunt Maddy had made herself comfortable in her chair. She pointed sleepily to her round, rosy cheek. “Give your old great-aunt a kiss, Gwyneth. It’s a shame we see so little of you these days. Last night I had another dream about you, and I have to say it wasn’t a nice dream.…”
“Could you tell me about it later?” As I kissed her, I whispered in her ear, “And could you please help to keep Charlotte away from the blue bathroom?”
Aunt Maddy’s dimples deepened, and she winked at me. All of a sudden, she looked wide awake again.
Mum, who had a date to meet a friend of hers, was in a much better mood today than for the last few days. No worried expression, no exaggerated sighing when she looked at me. To my surprise, she even said Lesley could stay a bit longer and spared us the usual lecture on the dangers of traveling by bus at night. Even better, she said Nick could help Mr. Bernard to repair the lavatory cistern that was supposed to have gone wrong, however long it took. Caroline was the only one out of luck. She was sent to bed. “But I want to be there when they discover the tr—when they dismantle the cistern,” she begged, holding back a tear when she couldn’t soften Mum’s heart.
“I’m going to bed now too,” Charlotte told Caroline. “With a good book.”
“In the Shadow of Vampire Mountain,” said Xemerius. “She’s reached page 413, where the young, although also undead, Christopher St. Ives finally gets beautiful Mary Lou into bed.”
I looked at him with amusement, and to my surprise, he suddenly seemed slightly embarrassed. “I only peeked at it, honest,” he said, jumping off the chandelier and down to the windowsill.
Aunt Maddy quickly moved in on Charlotte’s announcement. “Oh, my dear, I thought you might keep me company in the music room for a while,” she said. “I’d love a game of Scrabble.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Last time we had to throw you out of the game because you insisted that there was such a word as earcat.”
“And so there is. It’s a cat with ears.” Aunt Maddy got up and took Charlotte’s arm. “But I don’t mind if you say it doesn’t count today.”
“Nor do springbird and cowjuice,” said Charlotte.
“Oh, but there’s definitely a springbird, darling,” said Aunt Maddy, winking at me again.
