understand what he wanted. He’d been reduced to flapping heavily across the room and actually pecking at the book he wanted her to read, or rather, to open so that he could look at the pictures. She’d have gone to Mem’sab with her problem, but their mentor was out on errands of her own that day and was not expected back until very late.
Grey cocked her head to one side, and made a little hissing sound that Nan had come to recognize as her “sigh.” She regarded Nan first with one grey-yellow eye, then with the other. It was obvious that she was working up to saying something, and Nan waited, hoping it would be helpful.
“Ree,” Grey said at last. “Lax.”
“She means that you’re trying too hard, both of you,” Sarah added thoughtfully. “That’s why Grey and I always know what the other’s thinking—we don’t try, we don’t even think about it really, we just do. And that’s because we’ve been together for so long that it’s like—like knowing where your own hand is, you see? We don’t have to think about it, we don’t even have to try.”
Nan and Neville turned their heads to meet each other’s eyes. Neville’s eyes were like a pair of shiny jet beads, glittering and knowing. “It’s—hard,” Nan said slowly.
Sarah nodded; Grey’s head bobbed. “I don’t know, Nan. I guess it’s just something you have to figure out for yourself.”
Nan groaned, but she knew that Sarah was right. Neville sighed, sounding so exactly like an exasperated person that both of them laughed.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t have plenty of other things to occupy their time—ordinary lessons, for one thing. Nan had a great deal of catching up to do even to match Sarah. They bent their heads over their books, Nan with grim determination to master the sums that tormented her so. It wasn’t the simple addition and subtraction problems that had her baffled, it was what Miss Bracey called “logic problems,” little stories in which trains moved toward each other, boys did incomprehensible transactions with each other involving trades of chestnuts and marbles and promised apple tarts, and girls stitched miles of apron hems. Her comprehension was often sidelined by the fact that all these activities seemed more than a little daft. Sarah finished her own work, but bravely kept her company until teatime. By that point, Nan knew she was going to be later than that in finishing.
“Go get yer tea, lovey,” she told the younger child. “I’ll be along in a bit.”
So Sarah left, and she soldiered on past teatime, and finished her pages just when it was beginning to get dark.
She happened to be going downstairs to the kitchen, in search of that tea that she had missed, when she heard the knock at the front door.
At this hour, every single one of the servants was busy, so she answered it herself. It might be something important, or perhaps someone with a message or a parcel.
Somewhat to her surprise, it was a London cabby, who touched his hat to her. “ ‘Scuze me, miss, but is this the Harton School?” he asked.
Nan nodded, getting over her surprise quickly. It must be a message then, either from Mem’sab or Sahib Harton. They sometimes used cabbies as messengers, particularly when they wanted someone from the school brought to them. Usually, it was Sahib wanting Agansing, Selim, or Karamjit. But sometimes it was Nan and Sarah who were wanted.
“Then Oi’ve got a message, an Oi’ve come’t‘fetch a Miss Nan an’ a Miss Sarah.“ He cleared his throat, ostentatiously, and carried on as if he was reciting something he had memorized. “Missus Harton sez to bring the gurrels to ‘er, for she’s got need of ‘em. That’s me—I’m‘t’bring ‘em up’t‘ Number Ten, Berkeley Square.”
Nan nodded, for this was not, by any means, the first time that Mem’sab had sent for them. Although she was loath to make use of their talents, there were times when she had felt the need to—for instance, when they had exposed the woman who had been preying on one of Mem’sab’s old school friends. London cabs were a safe way for the girls to join her; no one thought anything of putting a child in a cab alone, for a tough London cabby was as safe a protector as a mastiff for such a journey.
Nan, however, had a routine on these cases that she never varied. “Come in,” she said imperiously to the cabby. “You sits there. Oi’ll get the gels.”
She did not—yet—reveal that she was one of the “gels.”
The cabby was not at all reluctant to take a seat in the relative warmth of the hall while Nan scampered off.
Without thinking about it—she suddenly knew exactly where Sarah and Grey and Neville were; she knew, because Neville was in the kitchen with the other two, and the moment she needed them, she’d felt the information, like a memory, but different.
Stunned, she stopped where she was for a moment. Without thinking about it—So that was what Grey had meant!
But if Mem’sab needed them, there was no time to stand about contemplating this epiphany; she needed to intercept Karamjit on his rounds.
He would be inspecting the cellar about now, making certain that no one had left things open that should have been shut. As long as the weather wasn’t too cold, Mem’sab liked to keep the cellar aired out during the day. After all, it wasn’t as if there was fine wine in the old wine cellar anymore that needed cool and damp. Karamjit, however, viewed this breech in the security of the walls with utmost suspicion, and faithfully made certain that all possible access into the house was buttoned up by dark.
So down into the cellar Nan went, completely fearless about the possibility of encountering rats or spiders. After all, where she had lived, rats, spiders, and other vermin were abundant. And there she found Karamjit, lantern in hand, examining the coal door. Not an easy task, since there was a pile of seacoal between him and the door in the ceiling that allowed access to the cellar.
“Karamjit, Mem’sab’s sent a cab’t’fetch me’n Sarah,” she said. “Nummer Ten, Berkeley Square.”
Berkeley Square was a perfectly respectable address, and Karamjit nodded his dark head in simple acknowledgment as he repeated it. “I shall tell Sahib when he returns from his warehouse,” Karamjit told her, turning his attention back to the cellar door.
He would; Karamjit never forgot anything. Selim might, if he was distracted or concentrating on something else, but Karamjit, never. Satisfied, Nan ran back up the stairs to collect Sarah, Grey, and Neville—and just for good measure, inform the two cooks of their errand. In Nan’s mind, it never hurt to make sure more than one person knew what was going on.
“Why do you always do that?” Sarah asked, when they were both settled in the closed cab, with Grey tucked under Sarah’s coat and Neville in his hatbox.
“Do what?” Nan asked, in surprise.
“Tell everyone where we’re going,” Sarah replied, with just a touch of exasperation. “It sounds like you’re boasting that Mem’sab wants us, and we’re getting to do things nobody else in the school gets to.”
“It does?” Nan was even more surprised; that aspect simply hadn’t occurred to her. “Well, that ain’t what I mean, and I ain’t goin’ ter stop, ‘cause summun oughter know where we’re goin’ ’sides us. What if Mem’sab got hurt or somethin’ else happened to ’er? Wouldn’ even hev’t’be anything about spooks or whatnot—just summun decidin’ ‘t’cosh ‘er on account uv she’s alone an’ they figger on robbin’ ’er. What’re we supposed ter do if that ‘appens? ‘Oo’s gonna lissen’t‘couple uv little girls, eh? ’Ow long’ud it take us’t‘find a perleeceman? So long’s summat else knows where we’ve gone, if there’s trouble, Sahib’ll come lookin’ fer us. But ‘e can’t if ’e don’t know where we are, see?”
“Oh.” Sarah looked less annoyed. “I’m sorry, I thought you were just—showing off.”
Nan shook her head. “Nah. I show off plenty as ‘tis,” she added cheerfully, “But—well, I figger around Mem’sab, there’s plenty uv things’t’go wrong, an’ why make it worse by bein’ stupid an’ not tellin’ where we’re goin’?”
“Clever bird,” Grey said, voice muffled by Sarah’s coat.
“Quork,” Neville agreed from within his box.
Sarah laughed. “I think they agree with you!” she admitted, and changed the subject. “I wonder why Mem’sab sent for us.”
“Dunno. Cabby didn’t say,” Nan admitted. “I don’ think ’e knows. All I know’s that Berkeley Square’s a respect’ble neighborhood, so it might be one of ‘er fancy friends again. Not,” she added philosophically, “that ye cain’t get coshed at a respect’ble place as easy as anywhere’s else. Plenty uv light-fingered lads as works Ascot, fer
