Chantel dug at the belt with her fingers, but it just drew tighter. Everything went gray at the edges. Through the ringing in her ears she heard Mrs. Warthall bellow, “Nobody move, or this brat dies.”
And then suddenly Chantel and Mrs. Warthall fell together to the floor. The belt slackened for a moment, and Chantel struggled furiously. Then hands were pulling at her, yanking. She fought back.
“Stop it! It’s me!” Anna yelled.
Anna? Fighting? But there was no time to think about that, among all the yells and smacks and clangs. Chantel’s part in what came next was not much, because she found she could only sit and hold her throat and gasp. She felt as if she would never get enough air. She watched as the little girls, Anna, Franklin, and Bowser fought back. Mrs. Warthall had seized up the frying pan and was laying about her, but people kept coming at her from behind. Leila’s ladle was grabbed away from her.
Leila fled first, out the skullery door, and when Mrs. Warthall saw her lieutenant leaving, she admitted defeat and ran for her life.
“The door!” Chantel rasped. “Lock it! All the doors! Windows. Wards. Anna, wards.”
But Anna wasn’t as good at wards as Chantel was, so Chantel had to stagger to her feet and help her. Franklin, meanwhile, began tending to the little girls’ injuries with surprising expertise. He was ordering Bowser to bring him things.
“When Mrs. Warthall had that belt around your neck, Franklin came up behind and kicked her legs out from under her,” Anna explained, as they sealed the roof door.
“I want to know where Miss Flivvers is,” said Chantel, when they got back to the kitchen. It still hurt to talk.
“Locked into Miss Ellicott’s study,” said Daisy. “After Mrs. Warthall sent Frenetica away.”
“They locked her in?” said Anna.
“No, she locked herself in,” said Holly. “When it started.”
“Owl’s bowels!” Chantel swore. The little girls stared at her, impressed. “Well, come on,” she said. “It’s time for her to come out and face us.”
They all tromped upstairs and crowded into the hallway. Through the heavy paneled door, they could hear Miss Flivvers reciting, in hushed, desperate tones, the 17 Steps to Curtseying Correctly. Chantel knocked, grimly.
Miss Flivvers stopped reciting, but didn’t answer. Chantel felt the snake in her head tense, still and alert, as if it were about to tackle a field mouse.
“Miss Flivvers, open the door,” said Chantel. “I know you’re in there.”
No answer.
“Miss Flivvers, open up. It’s me, Chantel.”
Silence. Then, timorously: “You don’t sound like Chantel.”
Chantel looked to the others for help.
“It’s true, Miss Flivvers, it is Chantel,” said Holly. “And Mrs. Warthall is gone, and so is Leila.”
Pattering of feet in thin-soled shoes. The door opened and Miss Flivvers peered out. Dismay paled her face at the sight of everyone waiting for her.
“They’re gone,” said Chantel. Her throat still hurt; was that why Miss Flivvers had said she didn’t sound like herself? “And we’ve sealed the doors. But that’s not going to be the end of it. So we’ve got to decide what’s going to happen next, and we need you to come along and . . . and act your age. Please.”
“Chantel, I am absolutely shocked by the state of your hair and your robes,” said Miss Flivvers. “Go and repair yourself at once.”
“I can’t right now,” said Chantel. “This is an emergency. And it’s an emergency with you in it, Miss Flivvers. Come on.”
They gathered in the largest classroom. The snake in Chantel’s head seemed to feel that Chantel’s place was at the teacher’s podium. So she went there, taking a large mug of water that Daisy had fetched for her aching throat. Miss Flivvers made a dismayed little gesture of protest, then went and sat on a student bench.
“The first thing we need to consider is Mrs. Warthall,” said Chantel. She took a long gulp of water.
“She’s going to go straight to the patriarchs,” said Bowser.
“Who are the patriarchs?” said Franklin, in his twangy, Marauder drawl.
Miss Flivvers sat bolt upright and stared. “Chantel! Who is that!”
She did not point, because Miss Flivvers was the very model of deportment, but her nose quivered in consternation.
“This is Franklin,” said Chantel. “Franklin, Miss Flivvers.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Franklin distractedly.
“Chantel, that is a boy. You have brought a boy into this school, among all Miss Ellicott’s magical maidens. A boy.”
“Yes, Miss Flivvers,” said Chantel. “Bowser’s a boy too, and he’s always been here. Could we talk about this later, please?”
“This boy has a most unusual manner of speech,” said Miss Flivvers. “I fear he may be a savage influence upon poor Bowser.”
Bowser looked annoyed. He turned to Franklin. “The patriarchs are a bunch of rich guys who run everything in Lightning Pass.”
“Run everything?” Franklin frowned. “I thought you guys had a king.”
“We do,” said Bowser. “But he doesn’t really run things. The patriarchs just let him think he does.”
Miss Flivvers had subsided back to looking shocked. Although, Chantel noticed, she also looked rather fascinated. Well, it couldn’t be very interesting, being Miss Flivvers on a day-to-day basis. This was at least a change.
Chantel thought about what Bowser had said. She’d seen the king, walking in procession under a velvet canopy borne by four patriarchs.
And kings killed other kings so that they could be king. No one exactly said so, but it was clearly what happened.
But it did seem that whenever anything was actually getting done, it was the patriarchs who were doing it.
Right. Well, now the patriarchs were surely going to come to the school. And the girls would be sold, and the school would be closed.
“We have to have something we can offer them,” said Chantel.
“Other than to come along quietly?” said Anna.
“We could give them the rhyme,” said Bowser.
“We already offered them that, and you saw what happened,” said Chantel.
“But don’t you actually have the Buttoning spell now?” said Anna. “I mean, you opened that passage—”
“What are you children talking about?” said Miss Flivvers.
Anna briefly explained.
Miss Flivvers paled. “You went out into the Roughlands? Without asking permission? That was a terribly wrong thing to do.”
“Miss Flivvers, there was a fiend chasing us,” said Anna, sounding slightly impatient.
“If you must contradict someone, say ‘I beg your pardon,’” Miss Flivvers instructed.
“I beg your pardon, there was a fiend chasing us.” Anna turned to Chantel. “Anyway, you opened Dimswitch; can’t you seal it, now that you know where it is? You’re good at wards.”
“The spell is more complicated than that,” said Chantel. “It’s not a simple ward. It’s intricate. Even though Dimswitch looked like just one spot, it’s connected to the other switches and they’re all part of the wall.”
“How do you know all that?” said Bowser. “You didn’t know it before, did you?”
“The wall sort of told me,” said Chantel. “I had this idea of, kind of, a circle.”