The Interrupted Tale (11 page)

Alexander in particular greatly enjoyed looking through the telescope, all across the farm valley of Heathcote. There was a comical incident when he turned the focus knob and unwittingly brought the face of a distant woolly sheep into close-up view. After some initial confusion over how a sheep had suddenly materialized in the observatory, the children jostled for turns to look through the lens at the unsuspecting creature. No matter how the children called to it and waved, the faraway sheep only blinked and chewed its cud.

Back down the spiral stairs they went. Penelope and Miss Mortimer walked at a safe distance behind the three sniffing, careening, sheet-clad children. Miss Mortimer could not stop marveling at their navigational skills—“Who knew the sky even had a scent?” she exclaimed—but Penelope was still brooding about the poultice. Had Miss Mortimer meant to imply that Penelope herself was in danger, and that her distinctive hair color had been camouflaged by subjecting the entire student body to the gooey ordeal of the poultice, every six weeks without fail, year after mousy-brown year? It was a mystery indeed, but Penelope knew better than to raise the subject again. Once Miss Mortimer clapped her hands about something, that was the end of that.

The children dashed ahead in a race to be first to the laboratory, a marvelous place full of test tubes and beakers that sizzled and smoked and gave off such foul odors that anyone with a nose would be able to find it in the pitch-dark, and blindfolded, too. “I take it the singing of the school song every morning has also been eliminated?” Penelope asked when they were out of earshot.

Miss Mortimer sighed. “The trustees found the song too entertaining and say it is to be saved only for special occasions. What those occasions are, we have not yet been told. I have overheard the girls practicing in private, though. When the time comes, they will be ready.” She paused. “And no more birthday parties, I'm afraid. The trustees feel they are too distracting.” In Penelope's experience, being ignored on one's birthday was far more distracting than a few moments of friendship and a spoonful of jam would have been. But it did not surprise her that the trustees felt differently, given what she had learned of them so far.

The laboratory was locked, but Miss Mortimer produced a ring of keys to open the door. The Incorrigibles ran inside and began experimenting, while the two educators lingered in the doorway.

“And what is this urgent matter you wrote me about, Penny, dear?” Miss Mortimer asked quietly, so that only Penelope could hear.

Penelope glanced at her three pupils. Already they had found a beaker of some thick green liquid, and another of red. Now they had combined the two and were heating the resulting mixture over a gas flame, which seemed harmless enough. “I believe that Judge Quinzy is an impostor,” she answered. “He is not who he claims to be. And I think I know his true identity, too.”

Miss Mortimer allowed one eyebrow to rise. “Who do you suppose he is?”

“None other than Edward Ashton.”

“But Edward Ashton is dead.”

“His body was never found.” Penelope leaned close and let her voice drop to a whisper. “I believe Edward Ashton faked his own death and then, some years later, reappeared in the guise of Judge Quinzy. His appearance is much altered, true, but only in ways that would be easily achieved by careful diet, a regular exercise program, and the modest use of stagecraft.”

“Eureka!” cried the children, for their bubbling liquid had turned a rich shade of brown, and the foul smell of the laboratory was rapidly giving way to a fragrance that was deliciously sweet. One might even describe it as cakelike. They called Miss Mortimer and Penelope over to admire and sniff.

After the concoction was duly praised, and the children were occupied once more, Penelope and Miss Mortimer retreated to a nearby table. Miss Mortimer lifted a flask of orange goo and gave it a thoughtful swirl. “Edward Ashton, alive. What a fascinating theory,” she said after a moment. “Have you any proof?”

“Not exactly.” Penelope kept her voice low. “But Fredrick's mother, the Widow Ashton, also believes the impostor Quinzy is Edward, and she swore she would never mistake her husband, no matter how changed his appearance. And there is a Gypsy fortune-teller of my acquaintance, Madame Ionesco. On a recent visit to Ashton Place, she used her powers to look Beyond the Veil, to where dead spirits dwell. She says Edward Ashton is not there.”

 

“Eureka!” cried the children . . .

 

As she spoke, Penelope found herself hypnotized by the swirling orange liquid. “You remember Madame Ionesco, do you not? I have mentioned her to you before. She was the soothsayer who claimed the Incorrigible children were under some sort of a curse. ‘The hunt is on,' she said—”

The delicate beaker slipped from Miss Mortimer's hands and shattered on the floor in a spray of glass shards and orange droplets. The crash made Penelope cry out, and caused the Cake-Sniffing Scientist Postal Dodo Ghosts to look up from their experimenting.

“How clumsy I am!” Miss Mortimer exclaimed. The headmistress paused, and Penelope was surprised to see her take one of those deep, calming breaths that all Swanburne girls were trained to rely upon when anxious. “Yet soothsayers are not always reliable sources of information,” she said at last. “And it still does not explain why Edward Ashton would do such a thing. Do you have a theory about that as well?”

“I do not,” Penelope confessed. “But there is something . . .
unusual
about the Ashtons. Lord Fredrick has told me so himself.” Briefly, she wondered if she ought to reveal the details of her employer's moonstruck condition to Miss Mortimer, but decided it was more of a medical matter and therefore ought to be kept private. “On a practical note, Miss Mortimer, if we could prove that Judge Quinzy is an impostor, surely he would have to step down from the board.” There was no mistaking the eagerness in her voice. “And then—”

“And there would be jam and singing and birthday parties at Swanburne once more.” Miss Mortimer took a broom from the classroom closet and began sweeping up the broken glass. “I wish it were that simple. Quinzy, as we will continue to call him for now, joined the trustees scarcely two months ago. Once sworn in, he quickly persuaded three of our longtime board members to resign.”

“Persuaded? But how?”

Miss Mortimer smiled ruefully as she swept. “Whoever he may be, the man is enormously wealthy. Generous gifts were offered in exchange for those resignations. The three empty seats were filled by Quinzy's friends. That means he now controls four of the seven votes on the board.”

Penelope performed a quick mental calculation. “So even if we could prove that Quinzy is a fake, it would make no difference, since he controls the majority,” she said.

“Correct. That is why the faculty and I decided to organize the CAKE. We hoped that if we could demonstrate the true spirit and value of our school, perhaps we might soften the hearts of the new trustees and win one of them over, somehow . . . for we only need one.”

She leaned the broom against the wall and took another deep breath. “What a promising aroma,” she said, loud enough for the Incorrigibles to hear. “But that is all the inventing we have time for at present, children. Mind your step, now; there is broken glass here, and a sticky orange puddle as well. We shall have to return to the laboratory later, after the floor has been properly cleaned.”

Like responsible scientists, the children extinguished the burner and put their lab equipment away, but they insisted that Penelope have a taste of their mixture before leaving. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed, after taking a spoonful. “That is a remarkable flavor. It is not quite chocolate, not quite vanilla, not quite caramel, but somehow the best of all three mixed together, and with a hint of butterscotch, too.”

“Do . . . I . . . smell . . .
candy
?” A voice roared through the halls of the school. It was a furious voice, and it grew louder and more furious with each apoplectic word. “There is a
rule
about candy, and the rule is this: There is
no
candy allowed in school! None! If anyone dares to object, they ought to come see me
right now
!”

Obediently, the children bolted in the direction of the voice.

“Children—stop! Mind the goo!” Penelope cried. But it was too late; the Incorrigibles had raced out of the laboratory, leaping neatly over the broken glass but leaving a trail of sticky orange footprints behind them as they skidded into the hall. There they crashed headlong into the source of the bellowing: a tall woman in a fur cape, who now lay sprawled on the floor with three orange-splattered ghosts hovering above her.

“Boo!” they cried. All three children moaned spookily and waved their arms beneath the sheets. “Boo! Boo! We want candy! Candy candy candy!”

“Take off those ridiculous outfits at once,” their victim snarled, unimpressed. “Is that any way to greet a baroness?”

“Baroness Hoover!” Penelope yelped. And indeed, that is who it was. The baroness and her husband, the baron, were close friends of the Ashtons, although even Lady Constance found the baroness a chore to be around. Penelope had met the haughty baroness on several occasions, and each time she had disliked her more than the last—a trend, she feared, that was about to continue.

“We are ghosts,” Alexander explained to the capsized woman.

“‘
Sheeted
ghosts.' As in Longfellow,” Beowulf explained.

“He means Hespawoo,” Cassiopeia added, for indeed, “sheeted ghost” was a phrase taken from “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” an absolutely thrilling poem about a shipwreck that the children knew quite well.

But the baroness had no appreciation for poetry, or so it seemed. Even as the boys helped her to her feet, she sneered. “Bad manners, dreadful noises, illegal candy making! And you are out of uniform as well. It will have to go in my report.”

Sheepishly, the children removed their ghost costumes.

Miss Mortimer stepped forward. “Baroness Hoover, greetings. I am afraid you are early! The CAKE is not until tomorrow. Allow me to present Miss Penelope Lumley, a Swanburne graduate of great accomplishment. These are her three students—”

The baroness waved her hand dismissively. “No need to make introductions. I have met the wolf children and their earnest young governess before. Such strange pets the Ashtons keep!”

Ever mindful of his manners, Alexander offered a sweeping bow. “I like pets,” he said gallantly. “For example, Nutsawoo.”

“Also for example, Bertha the ostrich.” The dignity of Beowulf's bow was marred by the appearance of Shantaloo, who had emerged from the shadows and now rubbed against his leg in a ticklish fashion. “Tygers, too,” he said with a giggle, and gave the little striped cat a scratch on the head.

“My for example is
woofs
.” Cassiopeia curtsied as she yapped. (By “woofs,” she meant wolves. Keep in mind that wolves do not generally make desirable pets. Nor do tigers, ostriches, or even squirrels, for that matter, but the Incorrigibles' circumstances were unusual, and their taste in animal friends is in no way meant to serve as a model for others to follow. However, bowing, curtsying, and handwritten thank-you notes are always appropriate, and are as appreciated nowadays as they were in Miss Lumley's day, if not more so.)

“What about chickens?” The baroness grinned wickedly and licked her lips. “I hear there is a whole chicken coop full of tasty poultry right here on the grounds of the school. Plump and delicious, with their juicy fat chicken thighs just waiting to be devoured.”

The children's eyes grew wide. A sheen of drool appeared on Beowulf's lower lip, and Alexander made a soft
buck-buck-buck
ing noise under his breath.

“Talk of chickens is best saved for lunchtime,” Penelope interjected. “If you will excuse us, Baroness, the children have their schoolwork to attend to.”

“Schoolwork? Sit, stay, and fetch is more like it.” The baroness turned to Miss Mortimer. “I am here on board business, at the chairman's urgent request. I require access to your office. I need to see the files.”

Miss Mortimer's eyebrows lifted in innocent surprise. “My door is always open, Baroness. But what files do you mean?”

“The student files, of course.” The baroness flicked her cape in annoyance. “Surely you keep files on your students? Medical records, test scores, birth certificates, that sort of thing?”

“Ah, the student files! Of course, we do keep such information. But my office is about to be painted, and all the files have been packed up for safekeeping.” Miss Mortimer smiled pleasantly. “They must be in storage; I do not know exactly where.”

The baroness's eyes went cold. “I suggest you locate them immediately. If you cannot find them by end of day tomorrow, we will conduct a thorough search of every square inch of this school. We will pull up the floorboards and slit open every one of those ridiculous pillows. And that would be
most
tedious.”