Sophronia heard the door slam.
“Oh, that man!” Professor Lefoux exclaimed in French to the empty room. Then there was silence.
Sophronia peeked through the window. The teacher was cleaning up the apparatus on the table, systematically putting everything away.
Sophronia signaled Vieve.
“Take a look,” she whispered, making room on the railing and assisting the smaller girl to look in. “What do you make of those parts?”
Vieve didn’t answer, face pressed to the glass, until the gas in the room was turned off and the interior black.
She swung her weight back and slid down off the railing. Sophronia followed.
“I don’t know. It looks almost like armor, but for what? Undersea exploration?”
“Perhaps it has to do with our trip? Perhaps we’re going to London because of your aunt or Professor Shrimpdittle and this invention.”
Vieve considered. “It’s possible. It’d explain why they need the whole school—access to my aunt’s laboratory.”
“You were saying about the valve?”
“That one you gave me, I have to run further tests. But I don’t see how it can affect mechanicals or the oddgob.”
“Keep at it, will you?”
“Until I get caught or something more interesting comes along.”
Sophronia patted her friend on the head in the manner of Soap, a thing she knew the girl found particularly annoying. “Good little inventor.”
The 6th test
GARNERING INVITATIONS
The girls entered the breakfast room to find the postal steward calling names and passing out correspondences. Since they had gone to white, Captain Niall must have undertaken a run back to Swiffle-on-Exe to retrieve missives. The teachers were always saying that the captain was not an errand boy at the beck and call of young ladies’ whims, but on occasion he did perform groundside services made convenient by his land-bound state and supernatural speed.
There was nothing for Sophronia, who sat bleary-eyed and exhausted at the end of the table while the other girls exclaimed. Her fellows exhibited new trinkets to their male dining companions and shared the latest gossip from home. It was an orgy of batted eyelashes, and Sophronia was finding herself unable to cope with fluttering on only a few hours sleep.
Felix Mersey ostentatiously picked up his place setting and moved it next to hers. “What’s wrong, pretty Ria? You seem to have lost your customary aloofness.”
“Oh, do go away. I’m not up to dalliance this morning.”
He pouted at her. “Is that all I am to you? A plaything, a speck of dust on a sunbeam, a bit of dandelion fluff on the breeze?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” Sophronia hid a smile at such silliness.
“Hard-hearted, that’s what you are.”
“You’re an imbecile, you do realize?”
Any further conversation was interrupted, as it was surely meant to be, by a squeal from Monique. It was emitted upon reading a gold-embossed letter and caught even Mademoiselle Geraldine’s attention from the head table.
Felix moved hastily out of indiscreet proximity to Sophronia.
“Miss Pelouse, have you something of note to share with the assembly?” wondered the headmistress.
The blonde girl stood gracefully, glancing over the entire room with a beneficent smile. She looked like a queen addressing her subjects, holding her gold missive in one hand as though an award received from on high. Her dress that morning was of royal blue with butter-lemon stripes, a row of gold pom-poms down the front in increasing size. It was almost as though it were intended to match the letter.
“Nothing of any consequence, Headmistress,” she said, blushing prettily. “It’s only that my dear mama has informed me that she intends to hold my coming-out ball when we arrive in town!”
Pandemonium reigned. The announcement of a trip to London had been one thing, and the presence of boys another, but this was the Thing to End All Things—a ball!
A breakfast selection of German sausage, broiled kidney, dried salmon, and muttonchops arrived, but few registered it. Some of the young ladies even ate the salmon without concern to vital humors—when everyone knew colored fish flesh could bring on an attack of hysteria.
Sophronia refused to be ruffled. She ate the same thing every morning: porridge.
Girls began to find excuses to call at Monique’s table to compliment the horrid girl on the cut of her dress or the size of her pom-poms, angling for an invitation.
“What lovely earrings, Monique.”
“Yes, aren’t they pretty? My father purchased them in Spain. Such an expense for little me!”
“Did you do your hair differently this morning, Monique?”
“No, but it is looking quite shiny, isn’t it?”
Pillover glanced up from his plate of sausage. “What a revolting spectacle.”
Sophronia privately agreed and contemplated breaking from her normal dietary routine and eating a sausage in order to cope.
Monique, mistress of the British Empire at that moment, seemed willing to gratify all sycophants. Most of the older girls, cronies of hers, were told right off that of course, she could not do without them in attendance. A few of the middle girls were told they might be allowed in, but the debuts—who shared her table and chambers—were left in suspense.
Preshea, at Monique’s right hand, smirked, anticipating an invite. “Can I pass you the butter, Monique? Would you care for a little more tea, Monique?”
Agatha looked terrified and Sidheag indifferent; they’d rather not be invited. Dimity kept glancing in Sophronia’s direction as if she wished they were on speaking terms so they could discuss this new kink in the workings of life.
Lord Dingleproops, Monique’s dining companion, paid her marked attention—to her evident enjoyment. Sophronia felt sorry for Dimity. Whatever false hopes he had once given her must now be crushed.
The ordeal of breakfast eventually ended. As they rose and made their way toward the exit, Sophronia snaked up behind her erstwhile best friend and whispered, “I shouldn’t be too upset. Lady Dimity Dingleproops sounds quite ridiculous, anyway.”
Dimity smothered a giggle and turned, eyes animated, prepared for a bit of a gossip—in that instant all ill feelings were forgotten. But Agatha, of all people, swooped in and linked arms with Dimity, practically dragging her away down the hall.
Through the course of that day, Monique became increasingly intolerable. She had Preshea and others running errands for her, bringing her little gifts. She would send one girl off and then make some snide comment about the poor thing’s appearance and lack of funds. Then she was all sugar when the girl returned, bearing a posy of violets or glass of barley water.
By the time Professor Braithwope’s etiquette class rolled around after sunset, everyone was beginning to show strain. The boys escorted the girls to the vampire’s door, but they had a lesson with Professor Shrimpdittle instead. Their presence made Monique worse. She latched herself onto Felix’s arm when he tried to leave her.
“Abandoning me to monsters, my lord?”
