“Well, I’m glad we came all this way for this,” said Soap eventually.
“I did think it might give us some kind of indication as to the nature of the prototype, and thus where Monique might have stashed it.” Sophronia’s tone was apologetic. It seemed like a wasted trip.
Vieve reemerged at that juncture, very animated. “This is amazing! This isn’t like that benighted telegraph invention. I don’t think it requires any kind of long-distance wiring!”
“Then how could it possibly communicate from point to point?” Sophronia’s forehead crinkled.
“It looks like there might be an aether conductor in there!” Vieve came over, wiping her small hands on her jodhpurs, leaving greasy black streaks.
Sophronia frowned, wishing she’d read more on the atmospheres. “Do you think they might be trying to bounce directed messages through the aethersphere?”
“It would explain why it has to be on the roof—closer to the aether.” Vieve dimpled at her.
“And why they would involve our school. If necessary, we could lift the whole thing right up inside the aether,” added Sophronia.
Vieve’s eyes glowed. “Can you imagine, point-to-point messaging, long distances? It would revolutionize the whole world.”
Soap and Sophronia exchanged looks. Sophronia was thinking about the fact that she’d had no letters from her family on board, nor had she been able to write any. Theoretically, the students should have been asked for letters before arriving in Swiffle-on-Exe. But nothing had been said on the subject, and Sophronia was pretty certain her punishment, like Monique’s, probably extended to communication off-ship. She wondered if Pillover had received anything since she saw him last. I suppose it’s possible parents simply ship us away and then forget about us.
Soap was probably thinking about the nefarious applications for a communication device. Vieve, a true scientist, saw only the upside of any contraption. Sophronia could imagine why flywaymen might want access.
Sophronia said, “So we are thinking that the missing prototype must be a valve that somehow facilitates… bouncing?”
Vieve nodded. “Which explains the dodechedron shape you said you saw. Multifaceted for multiple directions and to sympathize with the aetheric humors, which we have always hypothesized are trapezoidal.”
Sophronia looked at Soap and Pillover. “You understand any of that?”
Soap shook his head.
Pillover shrugged.
Sophronia said, “Well, I understand I can clean that glove of mine now.”
“Come again?” Pillover looked at her in confusion.
“Long story, you were in it, and it was all for naught.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Only if you’re interested in the postal services.”
Pillover looked as though he might be, but Sophronia was starting to worry about the time.
Vieve was practically vibrating. “This is so exciting!”
“Yes, well, that said, we had better return to the airship, now that we have a bit of a better idea what’s going on.”
“Yes, I think we better had,” Soap agreed. He was looking at the position of the moon, clearly concerned.
They made their way safely back through Bunson’s—well, mostly.
About halfway down, they rounded a corner and ran smack-dab into a maid mechanical. Literally. Sophronia hit up against her with an oof and stumbled backward, banging into Pillover and stepping on Soap’s foot. This did not give them enough time to do the little dance of obscurity, nor for Vieve to use her obstructor. The maid identified Sophronia as female and instantly sounded the alarm—a high-pitched whistle. This, in turn, triggered a schoolwide alert.
Unlike the bells of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, Bunson’s alarm seemed to be based on the noise made by a wobbling saw, only louder. It was an amusing wob-woob that vibrated through the entire hodgepodge building. The hallways were instantly filled with mechanicals, and one or two humans as well. Sophronia leapt for a nearby door, opened it, and dove inside. The other three crowded after, only to find they had trapped themselves in a broom closet with no possible avenue of escape.
“Simply marvelous. What do we do now?” wondered Pillover.
“Quiet,” said Sophronia.
He ignored her, continuing gloomily, “We’re damned. I’ll be turned away, having achieved only discourteous. What will father say? No Plumleigh-Teignmott has ever been lower than spiteful genius. The family honor is at stake.”
“What’re you still larking with us for?” Soap wanted to know. “You’re allowed to roam free, remember?”
“Oh, good point.” Pillover straightened out of his slouch and made to leave the closet.
Sophronia grabbed his arm. “You can’t leave now! You’ll give away our hiding place.”
“It’s only a matter of time.” Pillover was unsympathetic. “They’ll do a schoolwide sweep.” Then he pointed to a nearby broom sharing the closet with them. “Sweep. Ha.”
“Delightful. Now we’re trapped in a closet with puns.” Sophronia gave him a dirty look. “Wait, of course—you are meant to be here. Perfect! Everyone turn away from me for a moment.”
The three others looked at her in confusion.
“Simply do as I ask, please?”
Despite being crowded into the closet, the other three all managed to turn their backs on her.
Sophronia shimmied out of one of her two petticoats. “All decent.”
They turned back around.
She handed the undergarment to Pillover.
“Ugh. What’s this for?”
“If you put it on and go out there, they will think it was all a false alarm.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Oh, come on, Pill, please?” Sophronia tried batting her eyelashes.
Pillover appeared to be immune to eyelashes. “The indignity of it!”
“We could come up with a reasonable explanation for your wearing it. Would that help?” wheedled Sophronia.
“Justification for my trotting around wearing lady’s undergarments? I hardly see how.”
Soap’s eyes were sparkling with amusement, and Vieve was dimpling openly at the very idea of Pillover in a skirt. Pillover stood holding the petticoat between thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated with some dreaded chemical.
“Go on, pull it on over your clothes and go out there,” Sophronia urged.
“You could say you were running some experiment dangerous to your nether regions,” suggested Vieve.
“You could say you were testing the response time of the maid mechanicals,” suggested Sophronia.
“You could say you like lady’s undergarments,” suggested Soap.
“I’m doomed.” Pillover rolled his eyes and flapped the petticoat.
“Oh, go on, Pill,” Sophronia pushed.
Pillover, grumbling, pulled the petticoat on and all the way up to his armpits, as it was far too long for him. Sophronia handed him her hair ribbon to use as a belt. Soap was clearly holding in laughter. Pillover took a deep breath and straightened upright with great dignity and aplomb.
Sophronia listened at the door, hand up to keep the others quiet. Then, when there seemed to be a lull in the activities outside in the corridor, quick as she could, she opened the door, dragged Pillover forward, and thrust him out, slamming the door closed behind him.
The rumbling in the hallway escalated for a minute and then quieted. Into the silence a deep voice boomed out, “Pillover Thaddeus Plumleigh-Teignmott, what are you wearing?”
They heard Pillover reply querulously, “A petticoat, Headmaster.”
“So I see. You had better have an excellently malevolent explanation as to why.”
“Well, you see, sir,” Pillover started to say, then, “Ouch. Please, sir, not the ear.”
“Come with me!”
“Yes, sir.”
A clatter of mechanicals on rails and the thud of footsteps followed, leaving the hallway in silence.
“What do you know?” whispered Soap at long last. “He was useful.”
After that, they managed to escape Bunson and Lacroix’s Boys’ Polytechnique without further incident. Running up the goat path, Sophronia turned back to look at it only once. She thought that the school looked like an ill-decorated, oversized mangle of chess pieces.
“Our academy is much nicer,” she asserted between breaths as they jogged along. The moor mists had not arisen, and the great caterpillar of multiple dirigibles pressed together that was Mademoiselle Geraldine’s floated gamely before them, lit by a picturesque golden moon.
“You believe so?” Vieve tilted her head in the manner of one who rarely considered the aesthetics of buildings. “Well, ours floats.”
“I mean, it’s less cobbled together.”
Vieve said, “I always thought it had a rather hatlike aspect—like a great floating turban.”
Sophronia tilted her head, but did not quite see it.
They raced on.
Sophronia was worried. “Do you think we made our window?”
Soap nodded. “Yes, but there might be another problem.” He pointed over at a distant hill on their right. There, under the light of the moon, was the shadowy form of a wolf. Wearing a top hat.
“Is that who I think it is?” Sophronia hoped despite herself that it might be some kind of very large dog.
“Know of any other wolves roaming the moors in evening dress?”
“He’s not supposed to be near civilization at the full moon!” Vieve objected.
“Guess someone made a mistake somewhere,” said Soap.
“This is not good,” Sophronia said, stating the obvious. The wolf’s muzzle was up and he was scenting the air. Almost as she spoke, his shaggy head turned in their direction.
“We’re closer to the school than he is,” Soap pointed out.
“Yes, but he’s supernatural,” said Vieve, who clearly had some experience in the matter of werewolves. Her little face, normally open and friendly, was pale with fear.
Sophronia took the lead. “Enough talk, everybody—run!” Hiking up her skirts, she suited her actions to her words, feeling no shame over the fact that she was down one petticoat and showing ankle to all the world.
Soap quickly outpaced her. His legs were longer, and he was unencumbered by skirts. When he reached the underside of the forward section he began frantically hopping about and gesticulating wildly. Only then did Sophronia realize that the rope ladder from the boiler room had yet to be dropped down.
She and Vieve came panting up. “Are we too early?”
“Possibly.”
Sophronia picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at the underside of the hull, close to where she thought the hatch might be. She missed completely; the ship was higher up than she thought. Soap and Vieve followed her lead. Vieve also missed, but Soap’s clod hit and spattered against the hatch.
Nothing happened. The werewolf had nearly reached their hill.
At the last possible moment, the hatch popped open and the rope ladder dropped.
“Soap, you go first, you’re fastest.”