“To spy on me, you mean,” I shot back.
It was a mean thing to say, but I said it. I quite liked Dieter, but the thought of him being under my sister’s thumb made me livid.
“Come on, hop up,” Dieter said, bringing the tractor to a full stop. “Your bicycle, too.”
“No, thank you very much. We prefer to be alone.”
I began pedaling to get ahead of the tractor. I suppose I could have pulled over and waited, then climbed aboard for a graciously accepted ride into the village.
But by the time I thought of it, I was already halfway up the high street.
I was disappointed not to find Dogger at work in the greenhouse. It was always such a pleasure to slip in, sit quietly down beside him, and fall into easy conversation, like two old gaffers on a bench beside the duck pond.
Second choice, when I wanted information, was Mrs. Mullet, but as I discovered when I stepped into the kitchen, she had already gone home for the day.
I’d have given anything to be able to pump Daffy about the Hobblers, but something kept me from asking any more of her. I still hadn’t taken my revenge for her part in the cellar inquisition, even though I had already twice broken my injured silence to ask her about Poseidon and about Hilda Muir—or Hildemoer, to be more precise—and the pixies.
It seemed to me that you couldn’t possibly win a war in which you were forever going over to the other side for advice. Also, fraternizing—or whatever you call it when sisters do it—with the enemy diluted one’s resolve to kick them in the teeth.
My head was fairly fizzing with information, and there had been little time to sort it all out.
Some of the more interesting points had already begun to come together in my mind, clustering and curdling in much the same way that silver chloride (good old AgCl) forms a sort of chemical cheese when a soluble chloride is added to silver nitrate.
One thing was immediately clear: I needed to know more—much, much more—about the Hobblers, and it was clear that no Hobbler of my immediate acquaintance was going to make my life easier by spilling the beans.
TWENTY-ONE
I AWAKENED TO THE roar of water on the roof tiles and in the drains—the sound of Buckshaw in the rain.
Even before I opened my eyes, I could hear that the whole house had come alive in a way that it never did in dry weather—a deep, wet breathing in and out—as if, after a mad dash down the centuries, the tired old place had just thrown itself across the finish line.
There would be little winds in the corridors, I knew, and sudden cold drafts would spring up in out-of-the-way corners. In spite of its size, Buckshaw had all the comfort of a submarine.
I wrapped myself in my blanket and stumped to the window. Outside, the stuff was coming straight down, as if it were lines drawn with pencil and a ruler. It was not the kind of rain that was going to pass away quickly—we were in for hours of it.
Father acknowledged my presence at the breakfast table with a curt nod. At least he didn’t try to make chipper conversation, I thought, and for that I offered up a little prayer of thanksgiving.
Feely and Daffy, as usual, were busily pretending that I didn’t exist.
Rainy days cast a darker than usual pall over our morning meal, and today was no exception.
Our September breakfast menu had been in force for almost two weeks now, and the base of my tongue shrank back a little as Mrs. Mullet brought to the table what I thought of as our daily ration of T.O.A.D.
The dates, stewed and served with cold clotted cream, were another of Mrs. Mullet’s culinary atrocities. They looked and tasted like something that had been stolen from a coffin in a midnight churchyard.
“Pass the dead man’s,” Daffy would say, without looking up from her book, and Father would fix her with a flickering glare until the latest philatelic journal dragged his attention back to its pages—a time span of, usually, no more than about two and three-quarter seconds.
But today Daffy said nothing, her arm reaching out robotically and shoveling a few spoonfuls of the vile mess into her bowl.
Feely wasn’t down yet, so I made a relatively easy escape.
“May I be excused, please?” I asked, and Father grunted.
Seconds later I was in the hall closet, fishing out my bright yellow waterproof.
“When cycling in the rain,” Dogger had told me, “being visible is more important than keeping dry.”
“You mean that I can always dry out, but I can’t be brought back to life when I’m impaled on the horns of a Daimler,” I said, partly joking.
“Precisely,” Dogger had said with a perfect tiny smile, and gone back to waxing Father’s boots.
It was still coming down like lances as I made a dash for the greenhouse, where I had left Gladys. Gladys didn’t
