Page 129 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“I’m sure your maw will come. They all do. The girls expect it.”

“The girls are all sleeping in warm dormitories too.”

“I’m warm enough.” They giggled over nothing. Tay curled tighter, not so much a coil of greenish otter but a congealed heap of fur. Tay hadn’t cared for the winter in the Five Lakes and liked it even less in Shiz. All at once it perked up its ears, bowed points, and raised its head in a motion so fast they didn’t even see a blur.

“It hears something,” whispered Rain.

“What?”

“The ghost!”

They both tried to scare themselves more by making terrified faces, with huge eggy eyes showing white around the irises, with mouths dropped open. Then it stopped being fun and Scarly said, “I better go. You’ll be okay with the ghost on your own?”

“I have Tay.”

“Tay the Attack Otter.” Scarly got up and impulsively threw her arms around Rain from behind. “Really, you’ll be all right, Miss Rainary?”

“Honestly, Scarly. You don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

The maid swore she didn’t believe in ghosts, but she left the annex in double time. Rain settled back in the blanket. It held in some of the maid’s warmth long enough for her to get to sleep. She didn’t dream of ghosts, though when she woke up once in the frosty moonlight she noticed that Tay was still sitting with an erect spine and a needle-sharp attentiveness. Probably a new family of mice, she thought.

II.

Visitation Day arrived at last. Since Rain had no callers, she helped Miss Ironish pour tea and squeeze lemons. “You’re a very good child, Miss Rainary,” said Miss Ironish during a lull. “Madame Shenshen speaks highly of you, and Madame Chortlebush seems to be warming up. Slowly.”

“Madame Chortlebush is a fine lecturer.”

“I do hope you aren’t becoming attached inappropriately.” Miss Ironish saw impending doom in every situation. “It’s not correct to focus your attentions upon a single individual, Miss Rainary. These little tendresses can begin to happen in a school setting, but they must be strictly nipped in the bud. Using the Secateurs of Personal Government. Do you remember my lecture on the imaginary Secateurs we each have in our employ?”

Rain wasn’t paying much attention. “Do you have family to visit on Visitation Day, Miss Ironish?”

“The impertinence, Miss Rainary! My brother, Proctor Gadfry Clapp, is all the family one needs.” She arranged the lace cuffs of her sleeves for the thousandth time. “I would like to abolish Visitation Day as a distraction, but I am afraid we would have a revolution on our hands. I’m sorry, of course, that you haven’t heard from your mother. I trust no harm has come to her.”

Rain bobbed a slight curtsey. She had found that when she wasn’t sure what to say, a curtsey often smoothed over the silence. But today Miss Ironish said, “That’s common of you, Miss Rainary. A curtsey in this situation is what I would expect the parlor maid to drop. Don’t sell yourself short. Your mother may not have bothered to write or call, but still, you aren’t a member of the staff. You’re of finer stock than that. Despite your bullish awkwardness, good breeding will out. And if Madame Chortlebush and Madame Shenshen are right, you’ll be able to do solid academic work one day. So don’t pander.”

“Yes, Miss Ironish.” Rain stifled the urge to curtsey five or six times in a row.

At dinner Rain sat near Miss Mope, with her one-legged father in his narrow oiled beard, and Miss Igilvy, whose parents were so grizzled and birdlike their daughter must have been hatched from an egg. Above the chatter of schoolgirls, the talk was of the war.

“Fleecing us with taxes. Draining us dry,” asserted Father Mope.

“We defend all of Oz, and yet do the godless tribes of the Vinkus contribute anything in manpower or strategic thinking? I’m merely asking,” replied Father Igilvy.

“You wouldn’t want strategic thinking from the Yunamata. They can’t think far enough to build their houses with stone walls!”

The laughter was brisk and quickly over. “And yet we’re defending them, too,” said Mope. “And the Scrow, and I suppose those Arjiki clans in the Great Kells. They have more savvy than some of those other Winkies.”

“Oh yes,” said ancient Mother Igilvy, patting her daughter on the head as if she were a loaf of bread warm from the oven. “I went out to the West once, you know, and met some Arjiki royalty.”

“You never told me that, Mother,” chirped her equally ancient husband.

“Of course I did.”

“How divinely fascinating,” said Mope. “Did you write up your sentiments for the papers, or retail your anecdotes to Ladies’ Clubs?”

“Indeed. And I remember quite well telling about one castle high in the mountains. It was the place where that Witch was brought down, do you remember?”

Rain began to chew exceedingly quietly so as not to miss a syllable.

---