Sophronia looked down the barrel of the thing and, accidentally, pulled the trigger. A fine mist of boot black hit her in the face, making her squeak, sputter, and drop the object.
She pulled out her handkerchief to repair the damage but left the apparatus where it lay in the leaves. “Automated shoe-shining kit?”
“Shoe-shining prong.” Felix picked it up and moved closer to her. “You are unhurt?”
Sophronia nodded, still trying to clean her face.
After a moment, Felix took the handkerchief away from her and began to tenderly remove all trace of the black. Sophronia submitted to his ministrations in a momentary lapse of training. Her mind went blank, and she couldn’t determine how to extricate herself from the intimacy. She was not prepared for tenderness.
A small cough and rustle of leaves interrupted the tête-à-tête.
Dimity was awake.
Sophronia grabbed her blackened handkerchief from Felix and ran to kneel next to her friend.
“What happened?” wondered Dimity.
“You fainted.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“And then Felix… uh… Lord Mersey came to our rescue with a shoe-shining kit.”
“Sophronia, have I told you recently that your explanations often lack a certain panache?”
“Well, you will keep fainting during the best bits.”
Felix ambled over. “How are you feeling, Miss Plumleigh-Teignmott?”
“Oh, perfectly topping, Lord Mersey. I’m always topping. And you?”
“Tolerably well. Shall we rejoin the rest of the party?”
“Jolly good idea,” said Dimity, accepting his hand up and his offer of an arm.
He offered his other arm to Sophronia. “Ria?”
Sophronia took it, not wishing to be churlish.
“Now, ladies, do we say anything of this to anyone?” he asked, not being trained by Mademoiselle Geraldine’s into the custom of never saying anything unless instructed otherwise.
“Of what, exactly?” wondered Sophronia.
“I fainted. I’ve no idea what you are on about,” added Dimity.
“Ah,” said Lord Mersey, “quite. I see,” just as if he did quite see.
Dimity and Sophronia looked at each other. Dimity nodded. Now, they both knew for certain that someone was after Dimity and Pillover. I hope their parents can shed some light on this situation, thought Sophronia. Or Dimity and I are going to have to take some seriously restrictive precautions. She was already planning ways to booby-trap their room of an evening.
THE SOOTIE CHALLENGE
Soap, where did you go after you let us off for the picnic?” Feeling she ought to take every advantage of the general befuddlement of a day spent groundside, Sophronia had decided to visit the boiler room that very night.
Soap paused in an attempt to sound out a word in his reading primer. “We went to take on more water, fuel, and a certain delivery.”
“Delivery of what?”
“Ah, miss, that I don’t know. But it must be important because we went well out of our way.”
Sophronia nibbled her lower lip. “Did Vieve notice anything?”
“Did Vieve notice any what?” asked Vieve, wandering up.
“This delivery the school took on. Soap says… wait a moment!”
“No, Soap didn’t say that,” said Soap.
Sophronia had noticed something unusual, or rather someone unusual, trailing Vieve. There was the expected crowd of nosy off-duty sooties, but there was also…
“Dimity! What are you doing in the boiler room?”
“Good evening, Sophronia. My, it’s rather dingy down here, isn’t it?” Dimity came forward out of the pack of sooties, looking embarrassed. The sooties were accustomed to Sophronia and Sidheag in their parochial garb, but Dimity wore a visiting gown and a bonnet with silk flowers. They had never seen the like in the boiler room.
“I had to bring her,” said Vieve. “I dropped in to check on Bumbersnoot, but you had left. She insisted.”
“How did she insist?” Sophronia found it difficult to persuade Vieve to do anything Vieve didn’t want to.
Vieve blushed. “She simply did.”
Dimity was self-satisfied. “I blackmailed her with a hat!”
Sophronia cocked her head. “Dimity, why are you down here?”
Dimity proclaimed, “I brought pamphlets!” and produced a small stack of parchment, homemade and cut to resemble those of the temperance movement.
“What?” Sophronia took one.
“To help the poor dears improve themselves, of course. There’s a whole section on cleanliness. See, here?” Dimity pointed to a drawing of a bar of soap. She began handing out the pamphlets to the sooties, none of whom were particularly impressed. A few checked to see if they might be rolled for smoking tobacco, and one used a corner to pick his teeth. Soap took his with alacrity and began to try sounding out the words.
Sophronia said, “Oh, Dimity, they can’t read, remember?”
Dimity was crestfallen. “I forgot that bit.”
“I’m learning, miss,” piped up Soap, waving both primer and pamphlet.
“Very good, Mr. Soap, most improving,” said Dimity, clearly under the impression that it was her charitable efforts that had encouraged his interest in education.
“You must excuse Dimity,” said Sophronia to the sooties at large. “She believes that to be a lady she must practice acts of charitable benevolence. She has selected you lot as her victims.” The sooties laughed. Dimity was not very prepossessing. She looked as though she couldn’t victimize a beetle.
Dimity ignored this slur on her character. “I do hope you don’t find my efforts condescending.”
“Not at all, miss,” said Soap. “This is my very first personal bit of paper. I’ve never owned a pamphlet afore. Thank you.” He wasn’t joking. Sophronia looked at her tall friend with new eyes. He always seemed to be so happy; did he actually suffer from deprivation?
One of the others asked, “Will your charitable actions come with more of them little cakes?”
“Oh,” said someone else. “Is she that Dimity?”
Dimity had encouraged Sophronia to filch nibbles from tea and pass them out to the sooties. Sophronia attributed the largesse to her friend. Thus, while none of the sooties had actually met Dimity, they all knew of her. They had been thinking of her as a kind of angel of pudding mercy.
Dimity brightened as the sooties turned more affectionate eyes upon her. “I shall do my best. I’m certain stealing for charity is a worthy application of my intelligencer skills.”
“You and Robin Hood,” said Sophronia.
“Oh.” Dimity was confused. “Was he a spy, too?”
Soap had only really spent one evening in Dimity’s company, and that was during an infiltration. He turned to Sophronia at this juncture and said, “Is she always like this?”
“Pretty much,” answered Sophronia.
Soap returned to the pamphlet. “Prop-per, high-gine-y,” he read out. “What’s high-gine-y? Some kind of animal?”
“Nope.” Sophronia giggled. “It simply means clean.”
“I’m so stupid,” muttered Soap.
“You’re brilliant!” Sophronia defended him staunchly. “You simply haven’t learned yet. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”
“S’all right, miss. You really think I’m brilliant?” he fished hopefully.
“Of course,” said Sophronia without hesitation. “Book learning will only take you so far.”
One of Soap’s quick white smiles flashed.
Dimity finished passing out pamphlets and turned expectantly. “Right. What do we do now?”
“Usually, practice dirty fighting. This young man will help.” Sophronia beckoned Furnival over.
Furnival Jones was a kindhearted, scruffy boy and one of Sidheag’s favorite fighting partners. He had a perpetual expression of mild surprise on his face due to a near absence of eyebrows, the result of a close encounter with a boiler.
“Miss?”
“Be a dear, Furnival, and go at Miss Dimity here for a bit?”
Furnival looked Dimity up and down doubtfully.
“Oh, must I?” Dimity hated to fight.
“Certainly.”
“Oh, very well.” Dimity kilted up her lovely skirts and gamely grabbed a stoking pole, aiming it limply at poor Furnival.
The sootie backed away and looked helplessly at Soap.
Soap gave him the nod.
Sophronia said, “I know she doesn’t look like it, but she’s trained like Sidheag and me.”
The boy swung his own pole tentatively at Dimity.
Dimity blocked.
Sophronia, Vieve, and Soap watched for a bit. Dimity wasn’t very good, but Furnival treated her gently. Unless Sophronia missed her guess, the poor lad was already developing romantic feelings toward her friend. Many of the sooties probably were. Dimity was so pretty and chattery, she quite overpowered the average male. Many gentlemen were unable to cope with abundant chatter, which is why they so often married it.
Soap went to encourage the fighters. Dimity developed a bit of backbone under his tutelage and struck with more firmness. Furnival scrambled to block.
Sophronia turned to Vieve. “Anything new on that mini-prototype?”
Vieve’s small face went serious under her oversized newsboy cap. She dipped into her waistcoat pocket and produced the faceted crystalline object. “It’s giving me stick. Why put a communication device inside an oddgob?”
Sophronia took it from her, rolling it about in her hands. “Definitely for communication?”
“Yes, and I have a few theories as to application.”
“Of course you do. Anything you wish to share?”
“Sophronia, my dear,” said the ten-year-old, sounding not unlike one of the professors, “I must test the theories first.”
“Of course. Silly of me to even ask.”
“What are you two plotting?” asked Soap, leaving Dimity and Furnival to whack irresolutely at each other.
“Nothing,” said Sophronia and Vieve in unison.
Soap was not convinced and took the mini-prototype from Sophronia, his soot-covered fingers brushing the back of her hand most unnecessarily as he did so. He held the valve gingerly, as though afraid to smudge it. “What’s it for?”
“That,” said Sophronia, “is the question.”
A set of birdlike whistling noises floated into the air, the sootie version of a proximity alarm. The boys assembled to watch Dimity’s duel shuffled about uncomfortably and look over at Soap for direction. It was not unlike a group of pigeons disturbed by the presence of a partridge in their midst.
“Oh, ho, what’s going on here?” said a cultured male voice.
Felix Mersey slouched up, as if he always wandered the boiler rooms of floating girls’ seminaries. He was dusty with coal, having obviously climbed in from the outer hull through the hatch.
Sophronia’s first thought was: Oh, dear, he’s figured out how to get around the ship. Her second was: Thank goodness I wore a dress this evening. Her third was: Life probably would have stayed easier had Felix and Soap never met.
At an almost imperceptible hand signal from the taller boy, the young lord found himself surrounded by sooties, none of whom looked pleased to see him. Vieve melted into the shadows. Dimity came to stand with Sophronia.
Soap straightened, put down his primer, and walked over to the viscount. Felix Mersey might be the cream of the aristocracy, but in the boiler room Soap was undisputed king—grimy empire though it might be.
Felix was not impressed. “Who are you, darkie? And what are you doing with a guidance valve?”
Sophronia didn’t like anyone disrespecting Soap. But even while battling anger, she filed Felix’s comment away: the mini-prototype was called a guidance valve. She jerked forward to take back the guidance valve and show her allegiance to Soap.
Dimity held her back. Her friend was remarkably strong for such an innocent-looking creature. “My dear, we’d best let them deal with this in their own way.”
“But—”
“This is not a matter for ladies.” Dimity considered. “Or even intelligencers.”
“Oh, but I—” protested Sophronia.
“No, dear, no.”
Soap smiled his big, wide, welcoming grin at Felix. For once, it did not look friendly. “Ah, now, little lordling, you’re in our world. I’m thinking a bit of politeness might be in order.”
“To commoners? I think not.”
“We can boost you right back out that hatch you came in.”