Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)(52)

The boys and Vieve watched all of this in impressed silence.

Finally, Pillover said, “You are getting a good education!”

I suppose I am. By that time Sophronia was all the way inside the room, hand extended, twine and ribbon stretching toward a crouched toadlike device to the right, slightly behind the door.

Vieve bustled over to it. “Compressed tension vent with boiled beet projectiles. Ingenious! Not dangerous, but it would cause quite the mess and definitely identify any intruders. Just a moment; let me disarm the catapults.”

The young girl made a few adjustments. There was a sad squelching noise, and the pull against Sophronia’s hair ribbon relaxed. She untied it from the twine and put it back into her pinafore. This is fun!

The room in which they found themselves was built of gray stone and was bare of all furniture, even chairs. There were only the trap and a series of telescopes and other devices set to look up at the skies. These were spaced out, with one to each of the many slotted windows, none of which had glass. The place felt very old, as if they had stepped into some fairy tale. Rapunzel, perhaps? If Rapunzel were a particular fan of astral observation.

One of the windows was bare of devices, and outside it, someone had built an unstable-looking balcony.

“There we are,” said Vieve proudly.

They all went over to the window and looked.

“Rickety,” pronounced Pillover.

Sophronia pointed to a lever and pulley system on one side. “I think it raises and lowers, like a dumbwaiter. Follow me.” She climbed out onto the platform.

“This is not a good idea,” Pillover said, following her.

Soap only grinned and bounced after. Vieve came last and immediately went over to examine the pulleys.

“Looks sound to me,” she pronounced.

Well, Vieve hasn’t led us as ktLooktray so far, thought Sophronia. “Shall we?”

Vieve turned a little crank. Nothing happened.

“You aren’t strong enough,” accused Soap.

Vieve looked frustrated and not a little offended. “Actually, I don’t have enough mass. Being young is so terribly inconvenient!”

“On the bright side, you’re only nominally young,” consoled Sophronia. “You don’t act your age at all.”

Vieve blushed crimson in delight. “Oh, why, thank you very much!”

Soap went over to help her man the lever. He looked gangly, but with all the coal he had to move every day, Sophronia suspected him of being quite strong. So he proved.

The contraption raised them up to the roof, where they disembarked to finally face the infamous communication machine. It looked like a deformed cross between a potting shed and a portmanteau.

“That’s it?”

“I guess so.”

“It looks like two privies,” objected Soap.

Sophronia elbowed him. “Don’t be crass.”

“Well, it does!”

They made their way over to the structure. It looked, if possible, even more odd up close, perched in embarrassed shabbiness atop the turret, which was all ancient stone and crenellated edges. They opened the door. The shed was divided into two human-sized compartments, each filled to bursting with a peculiar assortment of tangled machinery. There were tubes and dials, and what looked to be glass boxes filled with black sand, and here and there blank cradles in obvious want of further enhancements.

Vieve immediately dropped down and crawled in, squirming her small form under various compartments to examine the undersides and any attachment points.

Pillover looked around in a lackluster manner, poked at a few things, and then mooched away. Sophronia and Soap were more entertained by watching Vieve’s antics than by the communication machine itself, which was utterly incomprehensible to both of them.

“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 me kt-tt up inssaging, 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.