Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) (35 page)

I
HAD THOUGHT
I’d had all the surprises I could ever have, that nothing could ever surprise me again. But I was wrong. If Lord Axacaya had suddenly turned a cartwheel and set his own hair on fire, I could not have been more thunderstruck.

“He’s not dead?” I repeated. “He’s not dead? Why isn’t he dead? I saw him die! I saw the Quetzals tear him to shreds and rip his heart out!”

“I’m afraid you and Udo stumbled into a little bit of sleight of hand designed to make it appear that Boy Hansgen had met his reward. You did complicate matters tremendously, and I have to admit that initially I was quite annoyed by your intervention. But then Boy persuaded me that you and Udo had done no harm and, indeed, had shown quite a bit of courage and initiative—qualities in rather short supply these days.”

“But I don’t understand. Why did you want us to think that Boy Hansgen was dead?”

“Not you, my dear, but others who were watching and taking an interest in his fate.”

“You mean Mamma?” I was still confused.

“General Fyrdraaca—and the Birdie overlords—and others, perhaps, too. I’m sorry, Flora, but I can be no more specific than that. You understand that this is a deep, deep secret? I must swear you to silence. If it should get out that he yet lives, then it would be a great danger to him—and to our plans. Will you swear?”

“I swear,” I said, thinking,
Wett, I won’t tett anyone but Udo, that is.
And also thinking,
I stitt am pretty super-darn confused, but what a retief to know that Boy Hansgen hasn’t been ripped to shreds after att.

Lord Axacaya stood and snapped his fingers. A spot of sunshine coalesced into a servitor with a sad camel-head and sad camel-eyes, who answered, “Your Grace?”

“Sitri, Madama Fyrdraaca is leaving now. She is in a hurry. Please have the closed coach brought around. She wishes to be both swift and discreet.”

The next thing I knew, Lord Axacaya had kissed my hand and Sitri was practically frog-marching me down the gallery, through the courtyard now flooded with sunshine, and into a carriage. Thus an end to that ordeal, and I had, in fact, made it through.

The ride home, my brain boiling like a teakettle at high noon in the Arivaipa desert: Lord Axacaya—Mamma—The enemy of my enemy is my friend—Boy Hansgen alive—The Quetzals—Poppy’s dead general—

Poppy.

Though all these thoughts roiled within my brain, it was Poppy who kept boiling back to the top. Poppy as I knew him today and Poppy as I had seen him at Bilskinir. A crazy shifty-eyed old man, bending and halting. A bright-eyed, bright-haired young man, tall and straight. Poppy with his shaking hands and his hollow eyes. Poppy laughing at the thought of burning down the Redlegs’ hay shack. Poppy screaming and clawing at his face with his own hands. Poppy kneeling before me, trying to hold on to me. Poppy now. Poppy then.

And Poppy and Butcher Brakespeare, his dead general. Had he loved her? He’d been her aide and had been captured with her by the Huitzils and gone to prison with her. But that had nothing to do with loving her. What about Mamma? Had he never loved her?

When I came through Crackpot’s back gate, Flynn was waiting. He yipped and curled with excitement, and tried to jump up on my poofy skirts. I pushed him down and kissed his nose, happy that I was solid enough for him to jump up on, never mind if he got paw prints on my dress.

The stables were empty of Mamma’s horse, which meant, to my extreme relief, that somehow I had beat her home. Bonzo nickered, and pawed at the bars of her stall, in expectation of carrots and sweet feed. I fed her and Mouse, and made sure they had water. Never had horse chores seemed so satisfying, and never again would I complain about mucking out the stables.

I came in quietly through the mudroom and found Udo sitting at the kitchen table, eating pie. A pistol lay to one side of his plate, and a stack of papers and an empty inkwell were on the other. Although he was shoveling the fork in as fast as it would go, he didn’t look like he was enjoying his food very much. A ring of dogs stood around him expectantly, and when they heard my step on the stairs, they broke into a belling bay and rushed me.

Udo looked up and choked, spitting crumbs. “Flora! Are you real?”

I waded through the dog pack, petting and kissing as I went. “Real enough to be pissed at you! I am off facing my doom while you sit on your hinder eating pie?”

Udo abandoned the pie and vaulted the kitchen settle to squeeze me tightly, swinging me up in the air. “Oh Flora, you are a sight for sore eyes—I thought you were gone for good!”

“Put me down,” I said, pummeling his shoulders. “I can’t breathe!”

This demand only caused him to squeeze me tighter, and then I found that I was squeezing him back. He felt hard and real, and my eyes began to water in a most babyish manner. I no longer minded that he could toss me around, but I didn’t want to encourage him further, so I said, “Put me down, Udo! You are mussing my hair. Paimon worked hard on it.”

Hair mussing is a mortal sin in Udo’s eyes; he sat me down gently on the edge of the kitchen table, then stood there, grinning like a fool.

“Flora! I’d given up hope! You look fabulous—where’d you get that dress? And your hair—you actually look like a human being! I thought you were gone for good, oh Flora! Flora—Flora! Guess what! The Dainty Pirate is alive!”

“I know, but how do you?” I got off the kitchen table and shook out my skirts.

“I saw him! He came here—”

“What?!
"

“Ayah, see, I got back to Crackpot, and I sat here all night trying to think of what to do, but I kept thinking,
Wait, just wait another minute and she’ll walk in the door.
Then, finally, this morning, I gave up, and I thought to myself, Udo, you can’t stand this another minute. You have to go to Mariposa yourself and find out what has happened and, if you have to, gut Axacaya like a deer, if Flora needs revenge. So I thought I’d better fortify myself with pie before I went, and then once I finished that pie, I was going to march right over there, and Lord Axacaya and I were going to have strong words!” Udo said, in a tone I had never heard before. It was cold as ice and so, too, were his eyes. I was reminded of the vision I had of Udo as a man, the future Udo, and suddenly that Udo did not seem so far off.

“But what does this have do with the Dainty Pirate?”

“I’m saying, Flora—let me finish—so I was almost finished with my pie. There’s a knock at the back door, and I go to answer it, and it’s this guy, with a big pile of gifties, and he says, ‘I have a delivery for Flora Fyrdraaca,’ and I say, ‘She’s not here,’ and he says, ‘Well, you can sign for them,’ and brings them in—and then suddenly I realize that he’s familiar to me. And then I realize that it’s the Dainty Pirate!”

“What did he say? Did he explain what happened? How did he get away?” I asked eagerly. The Dainty Pirate
here!
And I had missed him, blasted bloody blast.

“He didn’t say, Flora—he just delivered the packages, then left.”

My excitement deflated. “But how did you know that he was the Dainty Pirate, then? He could have just been some delivery guy.”

“But I recognized him, Flora; I swear to you it was the Dainty Pirate. I mean, I couldn’t just say, ‘Hey, are you the Dainty Pirate?’ because he’s a wanted man, and supposed to be dead, and he’d deny it, anyway. But it was him, I swear, I know it. He winked at me on the way out—he knew that I knew, and I knew that he knew that I knew—we both knew.”

“Did you open the packages that he brought?” I asked. “Where are they?”

“I put them in the parlor. I waited for you. Wasn’t I nice?”

We stampeded upstairs and into the parlor, which was full of presents piled on the chairs, the sideboards, the tables. I had no idea I had so many friends, well, not really me, I guessed. People who wanted to keep on Mamma’s good side. Still, it is cheering to get stuff, even from people you don’t know. Udo threw packages around until he found the right ones: a big one and a small one, both wrapped in bright polka-dotted paper, green and gold—the Dainty Pirate’s colors!

“See, this one is addressed to you, Udo,” I said, pushing the large box to him.

Udo ripped paper and, delving deep into the box, withdrew a hat. Not just any hat, but the most marvelous bicorn hat, its brim pinned by a green and gold cockade, and its crown surmounted by a bright red feather—just the sort of hat a pirate would wear. In fact, it was the exact hat that the
Califa Police Gazette
always shows the Dainty Pirate wearing, right down to the garish plume.

“I told you! Open yours,” Udo said triumphantly. “Pigface, what a gorgeous hat!” He put the hat on, points front to back, and I had to admit that he did look quite handsome, very piratical, even.

My box was smaller, and inside was the most beautiful compass I had ever seen, with a rosewood case and golden pointers and mother-of-pearl inlay. I held it in my hand, and the arrow jiggled and spun a bit, and then, head-steady, pointed north.

Udo said, tossing through the packing paper, “There’s a note, but it’s blank.”

“Give it here.” The paper did appear to be blank, but surely it could not really be. Why would Boy Hansgen have included a note and not written anything on it? “Wait a minute. Get a trigger.”

I carried the paper to the parlor table lamp and removed the glass chimney. Udo lit the wick and I held the paper to the bare flame, close enough to heat but not enough to burn. Letters began to appear, pale yellow, darkening to brown.

“Well, now. Clever,” Udo said admiringly.

“It’s an old ranger trick. Lemon juice. Invisible until it reacts to heat. Here.” I handed the paper to Udo, and he read aloud:

Dear Flora and Udo:

Please accept my most sincere gratitude for your attempts to salvage me from an unsavory fate. As you see, although appearances may have lent themselves to indicating otherwise, I was able to make my escape. Someday I hope to explain further. Until such time, please allow these small remembrances to represent my deepest thanks.

The Dainty Pirate

“Wow! Flora! See—we weren’t in vain after all! See? It all worked out,” Udo said, admiring himself in the mirror. “The Dainty Pirate is alive, and so are you—and ain’t life grand? You have to tell me all about what happened at Mariposa. What was Lord Axacaya wearing—”

The hall clock chimed, and suddenly I forgot all about the Dainty Pirate—
Noon!
It was noon! My Catorcena ceremony was to start at two thirty. Noon! My stomach went cold, a chill that spread its way down my legs and into my feet, up my body, into my head. For a moment, the kitchen went black, and I actually thought I might faint like one of those silly greenhorns in a Nini Mo yellowback.

“Udo, it’s already noon! What happened to Mamma?” I said, a touch hysterically. “Mamma didn’t come home, did she, already?”

“Oh, ayah, we are lucky, so darn lucky, Flora. That fog bank that Paimon mentioned yesterday? It never lifted; it’s sitting there still. No ships can get through the Gate. Maybe we might even have to postpone the ceremony, if she can’t get through.”

I resolved to send Paimon more than just a plain thank-you note. Maybe candy, or perhaps a smoking cap.

Udo turned away from his preening. “Pigface, am I glad to see you. Now you gotta tell me everything that happened with Axacaya—I hope you didn’t sign anything. He didn’t make you sign anything in blood, did he? What was he wearing? And what about Valefor? Is he gone for good? But the House didn’t fall down.”

“Valefor should be all right, but he won’t be making any more waffles. He’s trapped in the Bibliotheca again,” I answered. I knew that I was going to have to go find out how it was with Valefor, but I wasn’t entirely looking forward to seeing him again so soon.

“Well, he deserves to stay there after all that, the little snapperhead. Why do you look so downcast, Flora? You are saved. The Dainty Pirate is saved. Everything is working out just dandy.”

I said gloomily, “Ayah so, maybe, but there’s still my Catorcena, and I haven’t finished my dress, or my speech, and now there is no time.”

Udo evicted a dog from the settee and sat down. “Don’t be a snapperhead, Flora. Look at what you are wearing. It’s the most magnificent Catorcena dress I’ve ever seen. It will do just as well as that other old rag, which wasn’t half as nice. You even got cleavage. And the House, it’s clean enough, I doubt Buck will notice if it’s any cleaner—she won’t be home long enough. The kitchen was the big thing, and I got that mostly done. And as for the speech—here—” Udo thrust a stack of papers at me. “Last night I was just sitting here, going crazy, and so I thought I had to do something, waiting for you to come back, so I wrote your speech for you.”

“Really?” I read the top sheet:
First and Most Fabulous of all the Fyrdraacas, Azucar Fyrdraaca was known for his fashion sense and exquisite taste
...

“Well, I guess you’d have to say I didn’t really write it, exactly, Flora. I mean, you’d already written a lot. I just fixed what was there. I lost the lines about being a slave, and how Crackpot only has one potty. Actually, I guess I had to redo most of it. You are lucky I’m a fast writer, and pretty good at the flattery, too.”

“Thank you, Udo,” I said. “It’s kinda cheating, though, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s really a collaboration. I never heard any rule about a collaboration, and besides, beggars can’t be choosers, Flora. You speak it from the heart, like you mean it, and that’s what counts, I think.”

The rumble of cannon fire shuddered through the House, and the dogs jumped up, alarmed, and flung themselves out into the back garden, yelping.

The ferry-arrival gun.

Mamma would be home within the hour.

S
O
U
DO WENT HOME
to change, for he couldn’t go to my Catorcena, he explained, with me looking better than him. And I had two things to do before Mamma came home, both of which I dreaded but felt I should do. Had to do.
Must
do.