“I don’t give a fat rat’s bum about tunes or cards or anything except Gerald!” said Reg, eyes flashing. “What’s more, I think it’s past time I checked up on that boy. Saint Snodgrass only knows the kind of trouble he’ll get himself into if I’m not around to steer him right. For all we know he’s been tossed arse over teakettle into his first assignment, and how’s he going to cope with it if I’m not there to-”
“Reg, don’t,” sighed Melissande. “You’ll give yourself indigestion. I’m sure Gerald’s fine. If he was in trouble someone would’ve told us. Anyway, it’s far too soon for them to send him out on assignment.” She turned. “Isn’t that right, Monk?”
“Mmm,” said Monk, hair flopping over his face, and attacked another roast potato.
Bibbie frowned. “ Mmm? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it too soon or isn’t it?”
“Good question,” said Reg. “Now answer it, sunshine, before I forget I’m a lady.”
Monk put down his knife and fork. “It means that given his… special talents… they put him on some kind of accelerated training program.”
“Accelerated training program?” Melissande exchanged an alarmed look with Reg. “What do you mean, accelerated training program? Are you saying they would send him off on assignment so soon?”
“I’m saying I don’t know,” said Monk. “Haven’t you been listening? Sir Alec is secretive. When I tried a little discreet question-asking I nearly got my head bitten off.”
“Well, that’s just not good enough!” Reg flapped her wings and rattled her tail feathers. “I’ve been patient, Saint Snodgrass knows I’ve been patient, but if Gerald’s out on his first assignment I want to know about it. So just you forget about finishing your dinner until you’ve found Gerald with a seeking incant so I can-”
“ Reg!” Monk pushed his plate to one side and leaned over the table, his expression a muddle of exasperation and earnestness. “Don’t you think I would if I could? Don’t you think I’m worried about him, too? He’s my best friend!”
Bibbie drummed her fingertips on the tablecloth. “You’ve already tried to find him, haven’t you, Monk? But you can’t.”
He took a deep, affronted breath, ready to bluster… then blew it out noisily. “They’ve got him muffled or screened or something,” he muttered. “I can’t pinpoint his location.”
“And if you can’t,” said Bibbie, deflating, “then nobody can.”
“Which means he could be in trouble!” said Reg. “Or even-even-”
“No, Reg, he’s not dead,” Monk said hastily. “I do know that much.”
“How can you be sure?” she demanded, chattering her beak. Her dark eyes were suspiciously bright.
Melissande rounded on her. “ Stop it, Reg. You’re being ridiculously melodramatic.”
“Melodramatic?” screeched Reg. “ Melodramatic? Have you developed spontaneous amnesia, madam? Who was it knew your deranged brother tried to kill Gerald in the woods? Me. And would anybody listen? No. And was I right? Yes. So if you don’t mind we’ll have a little less ‘You’re being melodramatic’ and a little more ‘Gracious Reg, you’re amazing, you can see trouble coming a hundred miles away with both eyes tied behind your back.’ I think we should kidnap that sneering Sir Alec and-”
“Reg, we’re not kidnapping anyone,” said Monk. “ Especially not Sir Alec. For the last time, Gerald’s not dead. I was able to get that much out of Uncle Ralph before he swatted me like a mosquito. Now can we please eat our dinner before it’s completely stone cold? If the plates go back to the kitchen untouched Cook will complain to Mother and I’ll never be allowed to borrow the servants again.”
So they ate dinner, Reg grumbling under her breath the whole time. When they were finished, Monk took them on a guided tour of the old house. It was long on dust, cobwebs and hidden passages, and short on pretty much everything else, including curtains and doorknobs.
“I’m afraid Great-uncle Throgmorton was a bit peculiar towards the end,” Monk explained, as he opened the door to the huge attic that occupied all the space beneath the roof.
“And does peculiar run in the family?” said Reg, perched on Melissande’s shoulder. “Because if it does, and you’re thinking of popping the question to madam here any time soon, you might want to think twice. There are the children to consider, after all.”
Melissande felt embarrassed heat wash through her. “ Reg!”
“Well, somebody’s got to say it,” said Reg, unrepentant. “We both know you’ll be thinking it.”
“No, Reg,” she said grimly. “Only you would think-or say-something like that.”
“ Anyway,” said Monk, pushing the attic door wide. “Here’s where I’m experimenting. See? Nothing sinister, nothing dangerous, nothing to worry the Department at all.”
“Provided they never get wind of it,” said his sister, peering in at the bubbling test tubes, the thaumic agitators, the etheretic quantifiers and the multidimensional wavelength gauges. “Honestly, Monk. No wonder you’re too skint to pay for servants and doorknobs. All this equipment! It must have cost you a fortune!”
Monk mumbled something and pulled the door shut. “So anyway, that’s the house,” he said, shepherding them back down the creaking stairs. “A bit decrepit, but with possibilities.”
“Provided you don’t blow the roof to matchsticks,” said Reg. “Because just between you, me and the cobwebs, sunshine, one of those thaumic agitators didn’t look entirely stable.”
“What?” He frowned. “Are you sure? Because I’ve realigned the wretched thing four times tonight! I don’t understand what’s going on, it won’t hold its settings, but I could’ve sworn I-”
Bibbie rolled her eyes. “Just check it again, Monk, or else you will blow the roof to matchsticks and we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Right,” said Monk, backing up the staircase. “Right. Yes. Ah-look-this might take a while. I’ll have Dodsworth drive you home, shall I? Yes. Just give him a shout, Bibs, and he’ll bring round the jalopy. Thanks for coming, girls. I’ll see you both soon.”
“On second thoughts, madam,” said Reg, as Monk disappeared round the first bend in the staircase, “at the rate you two are progressing there’s absolutely no need at all to worry about the children.”
Melissande, staring after him, swallowed a sigh. Not even a chaste little peck on the cheek. Trust Reg to notice that. Sometimes I wonder, I really do wonder, if he remembers I’m Bibbie’s friend and not her sister.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Morning. Melissande groped for her glasses, slid them on, then rolled back onto her pillow.
After growing up as a princess in a palace, complete with courtiers, servants, extensively manicured gardens and frequent public outings to fulfil her “being ogled” duties, there was something deeply satisfying about living in a tiny bedsit in a tiny rented office on the top floor of an elderly four-storey building in a nook-and-cranny corner of a large and crowded city. It offered the kind of freedom she had never expected to experience, what with being a princess and then a prime minister, crushed beneath the burden of an entire kingdom’s welfare. Until Gerald hurtled into her orbit she’d more or less resigned herself to a life of duty, of obligation, of walking on eggshells around unpredictable, kingly Lional.
But Gerald… and Lional’s insanity… had topsy-turvied all her glum expectations and suddenly she’d found herself bereft of duty and obligation, given the chance to spread her wings, so to speak, and fly into a different future.
She’d snatched it with both hands and hadn’t looked back.
Here in Ottosland’s sprawling, cosmopolitan capital she was practically anonymous. She could walk the streets day or night and nobody stopped to point and stare. Or if they did it wasn’t because she was the local Royal Highness. The novelty of that was yet to wear off.
She’d definitely made the right decision… even if things weren’t entirely working out the way she’d planned.
As the city’s post-dawn symphony sounded beyond the bedsit’s single open window-chugging motor cars and clopping horse-drawn drays, optimistic street-sellers and barrow-girls and shrill messenger boys, barking dogs and rattling milk cans-she stretched beneath her blankets, luxuriating in the ongoing deliciousness of being plain Miss Melissande Cadwallader.
“Oy,” said Reg, gliding in between the faded curtains to land neatly on the bedsit’s single bookcase. “How
