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“Bien sur.” Madame Rossini moved me to a stool at the dressing table and took my mobile when I held it out to her.
Xemerius unfolded his wings, flew over to me, and made a rather clumsy landing right in front of the china head with the wig on it.
“I suppose you know what usually lives in a wig like this, do you?” He put his head back and looked up at the towering white-powdered heap of imitation hair. “Crab lice, certainly. Probably moths as well. Maybe even worse.” He raised his paws in a theatrical gesture. “All I’ll say is TARANTULA.”
I bit back a sharp reply—I’d been about to tell him that urban legends were old hat these days—and yawned ostentatiously.
Xemerius put his claws on his sides. “It’s true,” he said. “And there’s more than just spiders for you to beware of. There are certain counts to watch out for too. In case you’d forgotten that fact in your enthusiasm for this costume.”
Unfortunately he was right. But today, well again and declared fit to go to the ball even by the Guardians, all I wanted was to think positively. And where could that be done more easily than in Madame Rossini’s studio?
I looked sternly at Xemerius and then let my eyes wander over all the dresses hanging side by side on clothes rails. Each was more beautiful than the last.
“I don’t suppose you happen to have anything green?” I asked wistfully. I had remembered Cynthia’s party and Lesley’s idea for us to go as little green men from Mars. “We’ll only need green garbage bags, a few pipe cleaners, some empty cans, and a few polystyrene foam balls,” she had said. “With a stapler and a hot-melt glue gun, we can turn ourselves into really cool Martians in no time. Kind of live works of modern art, and it won’t cost us a penny.”
“Green? Mais oui, said Madame Rossini. “When everyone still thought zat red-’eaded clothes ’anger would travel to ze past, I used many shades of green. It ’armonized perfectly with red ’air, and of course with zat bad boy’s green eyes.”
“Uh-oh!” said Xemerius, threatening her with one paw. “Keep off, lady. This is dangerous ground!”
He was right there. Zat bad boy—the bastard!—was definitely not on the list of positive things that I wanted to think about. (But if Gideon really was going to turn up at the party with Charlotte, I would most certainly not be wearing a garbage bag, whatever Lesley said about cool modern art.)
Madame Rossini brushed my long hair and fixed it on top of my head with a scrunchie. “By ze way, ’e will be wearing green zis evening, a dark sea green. I ’ave spent hours choosing ze fabric so zat your colors will not clash. In ze end, I looked at it all by candlelight. Absolument onirique. Togezzer you will look like ze sea king and ze sea queen.”
“Abso-loo-mont!” crowed Xemerius. “And if you don’t both end up dead, you’ll have lots of little sea princes and princesses together!”
I sighed. He’d have done better to stay at home keeping an eye on Charlotte. But he’d insisted on coming to the Temple with me, and that was rather sweet of him too. Xemerius knew how scared I was of the ball.
As Madame Rossini divided my hair into three strands and plaited them in a braid, which she then gathered into a bun, fixing it in place with hairpins, she was frowning with concentration. “Green, you said? Let me zink. We ’ad a riding ’abit of ze late eighteenth century, green velvet, and zere was—ah, yes, just ze thing!—an evening ensemble of 1922, eau-de-nil silk with a ’at to match and a coat and a ’andbag, très chic. And I ’ave copied several dresses by Balenciaga zat Grace Kelly wore in ze sixties. But ze best of all is a ball dress ze color of rose leaves. It would really suit you.”
She carefully picked up the wig. Snow white and decorated with blue ribbons and brocade flowers, it reminded me slightly of a wedding cake with several tiers. It even gave off a fragrance of vanilla and orange. Madame Rossini skillfully put the wedding cake over the bird’s nest of hair on top of my head, and when I next looked in the mirror, I hardly knew myself.
“Hey, I look like a cross between Marie Antoinette and my grandmother,” I said. And because of my black eyebrows, I also looked a little bit like Groucho Marx, if he’d dressed up as a woman.
“Nonsense,” said Madame Rossini, fixing the wig with large hairpins. They looked like little daggers, with glittering artificial jewels at the ends that stuck out of the structure of white curls like blue stars. “It is ze contrasts zat matter, my leetle swan-necked beauty. Ze contrasts are important.” She pointed to the makeup box lying open on the dressing table. “And ze makeup—smoky eyes were in vogue by candlelight in ze eighteenth century. Now, a little powder, et c’est parfait! You will be ze loveliest lady at ze ball!”
Not that she would ever know, because of course she wouldn’t be there. I smiled at her. “You’re so sweet to me! You’re the nicest of them all. And you deserve an Oscar for your costumes.”
“I know,” said Madame Rossini modestly.
* * *
“IT IS IMPORTANT zat ze ’ead go into ze car first and out of it first when you get out. Always ze ’ead first, sweet’eart!” Madame Rossini had accompanied me to the limousine and was helping me to get in. I felt rather like Marge Simpson, except that my towering pile of hair was white and not blue, and luckily there was room for it in the car.
“Who’d have thought such a slender girl could take up so much space!” said Mr. George, laughing, as I finally got my skirts neatly spread out on the seat.
“Too true. I really need a postcode all to myself in these clothes.”
Madame Rossini blew me a cheerful good-bye kiss. She was such a darling! When I was with her, I always entirely forgot how horrible my life was at the moment.
The car started moving off. At that moment, the front door of the Guardians’ headquarters flew open, and out came Giordano in a hurry. His plucked eyebrows were raised, and I was sure he was deathly pale under his fake tan. His mouth with its puffy lips was opening and closing, making him look like a deep-sea fish on the verge of extinction. Luckily I couldn’t make out what he was saying to Madame Rossini, but I could well imagine it. Stupid thing. No idea of history and dancing the minuet. She’ll put us all to shame with her ignorance. A disgrace to the human race.
Madame Rossini gave him a sugary sweet smile and said something that made his fishy mouth close abruptly. But then I lost sight of them both as the driver turned into the street leading to the Strand.
I leaned back, grinning, but my good mood quickly went away again during the drive, giving way to alarm and anxiety. I was afraid of just about everything: the uncertainty of it all, the people, the looks, the questions, the dancing, and most of all, of course, I was afraid of another meeting with the count. My fears had followed me into my dreams yesterday, although I was glad I had at least slept through the night. Just before waking up, I had a particularly confused dream in which I stumbled over my own skirts and then fell down a huge staircase to land in front of Count Saint-Germain, who helped me to my feet, hauling me upright by my throat without touching me. As he did so, he snapped, oddly enough in Charlotte’s voice, “You are a disgrace to the whole family.” And Mr. Marley stood beside him, holding up Lesley’s backpack and saying reproachfully, “There’s only one pound twenty left on the Oyster card.”
“How unfair! When I’d only just topped it up!” Lesley had laughed herself silly over my dream this morning. Although it hadn’t really been so far-fetched: her backpack had been stolen after school yesterday just as she was about to get into the bus, roughly snatched off her back by a young man who, according to Lesley, could run faster than Dwain Chambers.
By now we were fairly well used to the Guardians and what they might do. And we wouldn’t have expected anything else of Charlotte, who must have been behind the theft (indirectly, anyway). All the same, we thought those methods a little, well, crude. If we’d needed further evidence, it was the fact that the woman next to Lesley had been carrying a Hermès bag. I mean, honestly! What thief worth his salt would steal a shabby old rucksack instead of that?
