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“Oh, shit,” muttered Xemerius. “Everyone was fast asleep just now, honest!”
“Aren’t you a bit too old for Peter Rabbit pajamas?” asked Charlotte. She was leaning in the doorway, looking very pretty in a nightie with spaghetti straps, and her hair fell in glossy waves over her shoulders. (That’s the good thing about braided hairstyles—the braids act as built-in curlers, so you look like a Christmas tree fairy when you undo them.)
“Are you crazy, scaring me like that?” I whispered so that Aunt Glenda wouldn’t wake up as well.
“Why are you slinking along my corridor in the middle of the night? And what’s that you’re carrying?”
“What do you mean, your corridor? Do you expect me to climb up the outside of the house to reach my room?”
Charlotte moved away from the door frame and came a step closer. “What’s that under your arm?” she repeated, threateningly this time. It sounded even worse because she was whispering. And she looked so … well, dangerous that I didn’t dare to pass her.
“Uh-oh,” said Xemerius. “Someone has a bad attack of PMS. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her today.”
I had no intention of doing any such thing. “You mean my bathrobe?”
“Show me what’s inside it!” she demanded.
I stepped back. “You are crazy! Why on earth do you want me to show you my bathrobe in the middle of the night? Now let me by, please. I want to go to bed.”
“And I want to see what you’re carrying,” hissed Charlotte. “Do you really think I’m as naive as you? Do you think I didn’t notice those conspiratorial looks and all that whispering? If you want to keep something secret from me, you’ll have to be more subtle about it. What about the little chest that your brother and Mr. Bernard took up to you? Was what you’re carrying under your arm inside it?”
“She’s not stupid,” said Xemerius, scratching his nose with one wing.
At any other time of day, and if I’d been less sleepy, I’m sure I’d have thought up some story on the spur of the moment, but right now, my nerves just weren’t up to it. “None of your business!” I snapped.
“Oh, yes, it is,” snapped Charlotte back. “I may not be the Ruby and a member of the Circle of Twelve, but unlike you, at least I think like one! I couldn’t hear everything you lot were saying up in your room, the doors in this house are too thick, but what I did hear was quite enough!” She took another step toward me and pointed to my bathrobe. “So show me that this minute, if you don’t want me to take it.”
“You were eavesdropping on us?” I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. How much had she found out? Did she know that that was the chronograph? And it seemed to have doubled its weight within the last minute. I gripped it firmly in both hands for safety’s sake, dropping Nick’s flashlight on the floor with a clatter. By now I wasn’t so sure that I wanted Aunt Glenda to go on sleeping.
“Did you know that Gideon and I were trained in Krav Maga?” Charlotte took another step closer to me, and I automatically took one back.
“No, but did you know that at this moment you look like that crazy rodent in Ice Age?”
“Maybe we’re in luck and Krav Maga is just some kind of harmless smut,” said Xemerius. “Like Kama Sutra. Ha, ha, ha!” He giggled. “’Scuse me, I always think up my best jokes in desperate situations.”
“Krav Maga is an Israeli martial arts technique, and very effective,” Charlotte informed me. “I could flatten you with a kick to the solar plexus. Or I could break your neck with a single blow!”
“And I could call for help!” So far our conversation had all taken place in whispers, and it must have sounded like two snakes talking: hiss, hiss, hiss.
What would happen if I brought everyone else in this house on the scene? It would probably keep Charlotte from breaking my neck, but then everyone would know what I was carrying wrapped in my bathrobe.
Charlotte seemed to guess my thoughts. She laughed scornfully as she came closer, dancing about on tiptoe. “Go on, then, scream!”
“I would if I were you,” said Xemerius.
But I didn’t have to after all, because Mr. Bernard appeared behind Charlotte. As usual, he seemed to materialize out of nothing. “Can I help you young ladies in any way?” he asked, and Charlotte spun around like a scalded cat. For a fraction of a second, I thought she was going to kick Mr. Bernard in the solar plexus, purely as a reflex action, but luckily she didn’t, although her toes were twitching.
“I sometimes feel hungry in the night myself. I’d be happy to make you a little snack, since that’s what I’m off to do anyway,” said Mr. Bernard, impassively.
I was so relieved to see him that I burst into hysterical giggles. “I’ve just been doing that very thing,” I said, jerking my chin at the bundle I was clutching to my breast. “But the Karate Kid here is suffering from low blood sugar. I bet she urgently needs a snack.”
Charlotte strolled very slowly back to her room. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you,” she said, pointing her forefinger accusingly at me. She looked as theatrical as if she were about to declaim something dramatic. However, all she said was, “And on you too, Mr. Bernard.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” I whispered when she had closed the door of her room and the corridor was dark again. “She’s trained in Taj Mahal.”
“That’s not a bad one either,” said Xemerius appreciatively.
I held my bathrobe firmly. “And she suspects something! She may even know exactly what we found. She’s sure to tell the Guardians tales of us, and when they hear that we—”
