Page 137 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“Pit ?” asked Rain, incredulous.

“It was the first thing he could think of. He didn’t want to say his real name, for his own reasons. The easiest thing was to turn his name backward, he said. Tip. Pit. Do you get it?” Scarly was very proud of getting it herself. Now that the stranger boy had been safely pegged into the class system of the household, which she could understand, the maid was eager to get back to studying the secret lessons that Rain had offered to resume.

Rain had her own scholastic travails to deal with. Despite the upheaval to the management of St. Prowd’s Academy, the session called Butter and Eggs proceeded on schedule. Miss Ironish, who customarily spoke to girls at great length about Feminine Virtue, this year marched to the doorway of the classroom and without bothering to enter said shortly, “Girls, the most important thing to know about Feminine Virtue is that you’re going to need a hell of a lot of it. Carry on, Madame Streetflye.”

Rain thought the mechanics of sex less compelling than, say, the way a bird learns to fly from a nest, or a snake contorts to shed its skin. She couldn’t imagine herself ever wanting to descend to what Madame Streetflye called the Happy Hello or to shiver with the Special Sneeze that sometimes followed. Despite all the rude information, she couldn’t picture how the experience was actually managed. But there was so much she didn’t know, and she would learn in time. People changed, sometimes more than you expect, she told herself.

For instance, she’d never imagined herself getting along with a bunch of children her own age. The one thing that hadn’t happened in all her peripatetic youth, she saw now, was having access to other kids. Adults had been such a mystery that she’d paid them no mind, but children might have provided something of a support circle. You don’t have to collect kids; they just clump of their own accord. Like rice otters or phantomescent spiders.

Now she had Tip, a best friend; and Scarly, who was a little miffed at being demoted to second position; and even Miss Igilvy wasn’t quite as damp as the others. Miss Plumbago was a rotter, though.

Still, Rain missed the few weeks of sharing a room with Tip, back in the paradise days before she’d heard of the Happy Hello. They’d never so much as touched hands after that one time their shoulders had brushed together on the ladder to the hatch. But they’d been closer without touching, without words, than all these girls who hugged and squealed and whispered and paraded about with their arms around one another’s waists.

At least she imagined that she and Tip had been closer. There was no way to know.

I5.

One afternoon, when Proctor Gadfry had been gone for a while and things were settling down into the new arrangement, the sky suddenly brightened with a sideways, vermouthy light. The air grew tinny. Ropes of clouds divided in parallel lengths, like carded wool. Since there’d been almost two weeks of cold rains, everyone went mad for a promenade.

In the old days the teachers had been considered competent enough to escort young ladies on their excursions, but with Proctor Gadfry gone for a soldier (pity the poor army), Miss Ironish had become more skittish. Or perhaps Shiz was considered marginally less safe this year than last. Who knew? So Tip, the school’s jack of all trades, was enlisted to accompany Madame Chortlebush and eleven girls from Rain’s section on their brisk stroll through the streets of Shiz.

Madame Chortlebush took a dim view of Miss Ironish’s precautions but she tried to toe the line. “You walk first, Pit, and check for anything that might threaten us. Fissures in the paving stones, wild beasts lurking behind lampposts, bands of crazy Munchkinlanders determined to kidnap us in broad daylight and take us hostage. We shall follow behind, marching in pairs and screaming for our lives.”

Ten girls chose their partners so quickly that Rain had to team with Madame Chortlebush. This didn’t bother Rain as she still had little to say to her fellow students. And Madame Chortlebush did seem to enjoy Rain’s company so.

Pit, Pit. Rain was trying to memorize his new name the way she had successfully learned to call herself Rainary. It was funny to see him kitted out in a somewhat i

ll-fitting school uniform found in the boys’ clothes press. Marching along in knickerbockers and thick stockings, and a stupid jaunty scarf knotted around his neck. Pit, Pit. “Miss Ironish’s aide-de-camp while her brother is occupied in military matters,” murmured Madame Chortle-bush to some friend on the street while the girls had been required to stop and gawp at the famous pleated marble dome of St. Florix. “Not my type, our Pit, but he has pretty legs for a boy.”

They had their lemon barleys at a café in Railway Square. Then they crowded onto a trestle bridge to watch the noon train for the Pertha Hills inch thrillingly beneath them, thickening the bright day with coal smoke and steam. When the air cleared and the girls were brushing smuts from their clothes and hair, Rain saw Scarly enter the plaza. She looked all around, frantically, until she spotted the school group descending the wrought-iron staircase at the other side of the tracks.

“Madame Chortlebush,” she cried, and waved. The teacher halted the girls on the pavement before Blackhole’s, the place where university students bought and sold their old textbooks. Scarly caught up with them there.

“Important news, Miss Ironish bade me find you at once,” Scarly said between gasped breaths. The news must be dreadful indeed, for what had been a bright sunny day an hour ago had gone glowery as they crossed the bridge, and the clouds that had pestered the region for two weeks were rushing back as if for a return engagement.

Scarly handed an envelope embossed with the St. Prowd’s emblem.

“I can’t imagine what is so important it couldn’t wait,” said Madame Chortlebush to Rain, while the other girls preened for the benefit of the young men from Three Queens or Ozma Towers brisking in and out of Blackhole’s. Madame Chortlebush ripped the envelope open with all the finesse of a hawk eviscerating a ferret.

Then those massive ankles, clad in boots like iron socks, twisted and buckled. The considerable weight of Madame Chortlebush fell upon Rain, who could barely keep from collapsing. Tip ran to help, and he and Scarly and Rain lowered the teacher to the pavement. A clerk outside Blackhole’s, covering the books on a pushcart in front in the event of rain, hurried over, too.

“She’s had news of some sort,” explained Scarly.

The clerk didn’t have to abide by the niceties of St. Prowd’s. He glanced at the folded sheet and said, “Quite quite dreadful. Her brother on the mountain front has taken a bullet.”

“Taken it where?” said Scarly, though Rain could guess, and by the look on his face, Tip could too.

“Taken it to hell, I suspect. Look, we can’t have fainting ladies on the pavement in front of the shop. Business is poorly enough as it is. I’ll whistle for a carriage over to Railway Square, and you can get her back to St. Prowd’s, if that’s where she goes.”

Someone came out with smelling salts. A passing student who studied magic tried to cast a charm of cheer, which made everyone’s noses dribble for a few moments but produced no other discernible effect. The clerk returned with the hired carriage. Wordless and shaken, Madame Chortlebush was helped aboard, and Scarly clambered in after her to see her home.

“Mind the girls are safe, will you, Pit, there’s a good lad,” murmured Madame Chortlebush through her tears as the landau bounced off.

It would have been easy enough for Tip to lead the girls back at a clip, since after months of pilfering and loitering he knew the streets of Shiz well. The skies, though, chose to open just then, with renewed vigor after the morning of sunny respite.

“What’ll I do?” he asked Rain, as the troupe of twelve huddled under an awning, pushing the elderly and indigent out into the downpour where they belonged.

“I saw a charabanc of some sort stationed at Railway Square,” she said. “If it’s still free, I bet we could all squeeze in.”

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