As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(44)

She glared at us, one at a time, as if daring us to contradict her, her eyes like little black searchlights. “Let us say that we require water here and now. Let us say that one of us has sustained an injury, and that boiling water is required at once for emergency surgery. Where shall we find it?”

Gremly’s hand shot up. “In the radiator of the bus!” she shouted, grinning at us, pleased as punch to have guessed the answer straightaway.

Miss Moate nodded her head slowly, as if to say, “I might have known some idiot would suggest that.”

“And what, pray tell, if the radiator is full of antifreeze?” she asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Remember, Gremly, we live in a harsh northern climate, and not, as you seem to suppose, in the land of the bandaged pharaohs.”

Some of us laughed dutifully. But others didn’t. A dark image flashed on a screen in a back room of my mind—then quickly flickered out.

“The lake,” Scarlett suggested. “We could bring water from the lake in buckets and boil it.”

“It’s seawater,” Gremly interrupted. “The salt would make us sick!”

“It’s not salt water,” Scarlett shot back, fanning her face furiously, even more alarmingly red. “Any fool knows that the Great Lakes—”

“Girls! Girls! Girls!” Miss Moate shouted, wheeling her chair round with surprising speed, charging into the middle of our little group—like a Roman chariot, I thought—and almost running us over.

I noticed now for the first time that the Sevens were standing in silence. It occurred to me that several of its members—Jumbo for certain, because she was head girl—had been through this exercise before, and knew perfectly well the expected answers.

Why, then, was she here? Why was she keeping quiet? Had she been ordered to? Was this whole stupid beanfest being staged for my benefit? Or for the handful of us who were the latest arrivals?

Which of us, then, were the players—and which of us the audience in this charade?

I decided to dig in my oar.

“Water may be obtained,” I said, “by finding the lowest point of the terrain, constructing a condensation trap—”

My Girl Guide days hadn’t been entirely wasted.

“Correct,” Miss Moate snapped. “Bowles will demonstrate the correct technique.”

Bowles? I didn’t connect until Jumbo marched off down a slight slope to the west. Of course—Bowles was Jumbo’s surname.

Miss Moate did not follow as the lot of us straggled off in Jumbo’s footsteps.

At the bottom of a gully, Jumbo dragged a rusty garden spade from behind a tree.

“First thing to know: Be prepared,” she said, and began digging. It was obvious—at least to me—that she had done this before, and at this very spot. The soil was unusually loose.

“Give us your mackintosh, Druce,” she ordered, and Druce reluctantly handed over a tightly bundled waterproof packet.

“Druce is always prepared, aren’t you, Druce?”

“Yes, Jumbo,” Druce said meekly. “But be careful. My mother said she’d beat my brains out if I ruined it.”

“No danger of that,” Jumbo said, and everyone, even Druce, smiled as she began digging. Scarlett and I stood off to one side to watch.

“About Brazenose—” I prompted her quietly, keeping my eyes on the growing hole in the ground.

Scarlett’s eyes went as wide as the dog’s in the fairy tale. “I saw her last night,” she whispered.

“What?”

The word flew out of my mouth before I could turn down the volume.

“Come on, you two,” Jumbo said. “Stop horsing around and pay attention. This is serious. I’m not having black marks against my name because of you slackers.”

Caught in the act. Think fast, Flavia.

I threw my hand over my mouth and turned quickly away. With my back to Jumbo, I rammed my middle finger down my throat and gave my uvula a jolly good prod.

The uvula is that little fleshy stalactite that hangs down from the back of one’s throat, and its sole purpose, as far as I can tell, is to trigger a quick vomit when one is required on short notice, as it was now.

I spun round, took a couple of reeling steps, and threw up into Jumbo’s condensation trap.

And Druce’s mackintosh.

Just enough to be convincing.

“Sorry, Druce,” I said, trying to look repentant. “It must have been the bus. Motion sickness, and so forth.”

“Oh, you poor kid!” Jumbo said. “I’m sorry. I thought you were just clowning around. Honestly.”

This was even better than I’d expected. Sympathy and an apology to boot.

I waved off her words gracefully and set off on unsteady legs for the closest tree trunk.

“Go with her, Scarlett. Fetch her a cold drink. There’s a canteen in the bus.”

And so it came to pass that Scarlett and I found ourselves propped comfortably under an elm watching the others clean up the contaminated condensation trap.

Which goes to show that the old saying is true: that just when things seem blackest, things often turn out for the best: the darkness before the dawn, et cetera.

“Now, then,” I said, “tell me about Brazenose.”

Scarlett was still gaping a little. “You’re astonishing,” she said.