We shared a smile, for of course the girl hadn’t known we were shameless. We simply didn’t care what she and her circle thought of us. Our indifference had demolished her campaign. Not to mention the syrup we had secretly smeared on her knots and bows, which soon attracted ants.
“Let’s go down before Rory does something he oughtn’t,” said Bee, taking my hand.
We gathered our treasures. As we started down the steps I heard splashing.
“Oh, dear,” I said. “We’d better hurry.”
When we reached the scullery we found Rory happily washing himself as he sang a spectacularly obscene song. Fortunately he was sitting in the tub, and had filled it with hot water. The water was already grimy with his dirt.
“Am I supposed to eat this?” he asked brightly, holding up a sliver he had cut off the cake of soap. Then he laughed as he set back to scrubbing himself. “You should see your expressions!”
“Be careful I don’t make you eat it!” muttered Bee. “Where on earth did you learn those crude verses?”
He brushed his lips as if he were grooming up the corners of his grin. “That’s a story! Do you remember when you sailed with the general and I was left behind with Brennan Du and Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti? I discovered they have houses here in Europa where all they do is pet all day and all night!”
“You can tell us another time, Rory,” I said quickly.
Bee and I retreated to the kitchen. I prepared a nourishing porridge from oats and pulse while she cleaned the fish and baked it plain, with only salt. Shockingly, we discovered a cache of actual sugar in a glass jar that had been shoved behind a small butter churn in the pantry. When Rory had finished bathing and clothed himself in a towel wrapped around his waist, I set him to watch the porridge while Bee and I bathed. We washed each other’s hair in a bucket, as we always used to do, then traded washing in the tub and rinsing with buckets of warm water from the stove. Afterward, we washed our underthings.
“I miss the shower and plumbing at Aunty’s boardinghouse,” I said. “This seems so awkward now. Think of the faucets in the town house where the general lived!”
“I do think of them,” said Bee with a melancholy sigh. “Even that was as nothing compared to the magnificent plumbing in the palace in Sharagua.”