“How do we get proof?” Emily asked.
“Don’t rightly know. All I do know is we got to keep our wits sharp, our eyes open, and our mouths shut, excepting to each other. Agreed?”
Emily nodded. “Agreed!”
“But for now,” Kipper went on, “lest you waste ’way to a minnow, as Pa always says, first thing you got to do is increase your appetite so’s you can eat the soup and the bread. If only you could have some o’ Pa’s fish syrup. That’d build up your appetite so’s you could eat just ’bout anything.”
“Fish syrup?” It sounded worse to Emily than all the pills and potions she had ever had to choke down in her life.
Kipper laughed aloud. “What a face! It don’t taste all that bad!” Still chuckling, he returned to scrubbing. But suddenly he sat back on his heels and slapped his leg with a loud, wet smack. “Dingus, Emily, I’m going to bring you some o’ that syrup! Pa’ll let me have all I want. I know he will for that poor little mite, which is what he’s calling you now. You can hide it in your room, and not the snake lady, nor Tilly, nor anybody else need know ’bout it. Will you take it if I bring it?”
“What if I can’t keep it down?” Emily remembered all too well her earlier experiences along this line.
“Oh, you won’t have any trouble,” Kipper said. “Fish syrup goes down smooth and easy. Ain’t anybody I ever knowed of giving it back once it slid past their gullet. Will you try it?”
Emily hesitated a moment, but finally nodded.
Kipper beamed. “You won’t be sorry. You’ll see. Pa’ll be pleased. Soon you’ll be eating everything. Then when you—”
As Kipper talked, Emily’s mind began to wander. It wandered right out of the laundry room, up the stairs and through the kitchen, past the dining room and the parlor, and on up the stairs to the upper reaches of Sugar Hill Hall. There it finally stopped as she thought, if there was something that could help her appetite, couldn’t it also help the appetites of the old people? Fish syrup. It certainly didn’t sound like something she would have chosen for a plan to help them, considering how she herself felt about potions and pills. But it had possibilities. And it was a beginning. Fish syrup. Well?
“Emily? Emily! Ain’t you been listening to a word I said?”
“Kipper,” Emily’s voice came from far away, “how many bottles of fish syrup will your Pa let you bring?”
“How many bottles?” Kipper looked puzzled. “As many as you like, but how many bottles can a tadpole your size put away?”
“Not me, silly!” exclaimed Emily. “The old people! If it can improve my appetite, it ought to improve theirs, too.”
“No doubt, ’cause it improves everybody’s. But who would give it to them, and how?”
“Me,” replied Emily. “And—and I could take it around to them in my cleaning bucket.”
Kipper shook his head so violently the red curls danced onto his forehead. “Too dangerous. I ain’t ’bout to ’low that.”
“Oh, Kipper, I’m certain I could do it safely. No one would ever find out.”
“We-e-ell …” Kipper scratched one ear with a soapy finger.
“Please, Kipper. Say you’ll bring it.”
“We-e-ell …” Kipper scratched the other ear. “Don’t know how Pa’ll take to it, you taking such chances.”
“Please!” Emily pleaded. “I’ll be so careful. I promise!”
“We-e-ell,” said Kipper. And with no more ears left to scratch, he finally agreed to bring enough fish syrup for everyone.
NINE
An Unexpected Invitation
Emily pushed open the kitchen door and peered stealthily across the dining room. Tock! Tock! Tock! Only the face of the grandfather clock, tolling its mournful tale, was there to look down on her. Still, she hesitated. She had long since begun to wish that Kipper had gone on scratching his ears until he had concluded that she could not take, that he would not allow her to take, the fish syrup around to all the old people. Having an exciting idea when talking with Kipper in the comparative safety of the laundry room was one thing, but carrying it out all on her own in the shadows of Sugar Hill Hall was another. She could not, however, stand there waiting forever.
Her heart lodged somewhere near her throat, she ran on tiptoes across the dining room. Then she peeked cautiously into the parlor. Even with the syrup bottle well hidden under the rags in her bucket, she was relieved to find no one there but a few old people, staring across the room with unseeing eyes. She scurried past the peppermints and started up the stairs. She had gone no more than three steps, however, when she heard the sound of heavy boots stumping down to the landing. She looked up with a start, expecting to see Tilly.
Instead she saw a man wearing an extraordinarily untidy sea captain’s uniform coming directly toward her. His face had not had the attention of a razor in some days and was as ugly a face as Emily had ever seen. Through a mat of coarse stubble, a bulbous nose, decorated by a wart large and black as a fly, swelled out over thick, rubbery lips. A scarlet gash seared one cheek from chin to ear.
Emily stared at the sea captain with fixed eyes, and he stared back. She felt as if she was suddenly covered with a sheet of ice. Who was this ugly horror of a man? What was he doing at Sugar Hill Hall? What might he do to her right then? His eyes seemed to drill a hole right through the bucket to the bottle of fish syrup.
But whatever his business there, it had nothing to do with Emily. He simply brushed right past her with only a twitch of a squinted, bloodshot eye. The grandfather clock must have tocked away a whole minute before Emily was able to move again. Still trembling,
