Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket (12 page)

I patted her on the head. ‘I have a birthday surprise for Mrs Roach, which is sure to win her affection. And one bite of my almond cake will have Mother Snagsby and those girls eating out of the palm of my hand.’

‘What sort of cake is that?’ said Mother Snagsby when I put the plate down on the side table.

‘Almond.’

She murmured her approval. ‘It doesn’t look
completely
inedible.’

Bernadette eyed the cake greedily. And I distinctly saw Philomena lick her lips.

But Mrs Roach was less enthusiastic. ‘I despise almonds –
the nut of peasants
, my late mother used to say.’

‘Was your mother something of a halfwit?’ I fished out the candles and placed them by the cake. ‘I only ask because it’s a known fact that almonds are the finest nuts in the world. Queen Victoria munches on them morning, noon and night.’

‘What a dreadful thing to say!’ snapped Mother Snagsby.

‘My mother was a woman of great accomplishment,’ declared Mrs Roach haughtily. ‘She spoke seven languages, studied art in Rome, was made an honorary Professor in Greek
Mythology
and
could recite the entire works of Shakespeare line for line.’

I smiled sympathetically. ‘The poor cow must have been exhausted.’

The entire Roach family seemed to clutch their chests and gasp as one.

‘Who’s for tea?’ chimed Mrs Dickens loudly. ‘Ivy, you fetch the cups and I will pour.’

I did as she asked. And felt it was the perfect moment to make pleasant chitchat.

‘Mrs Roach,’ I said, holding a cup and saucer while Mrs Dickens filled it with piping hot tea, ‘your entertainments are the talk of London. Everywhere I go I hear people exclaiming that Mrs Roach is a –’

‘Lemon!’ growled Mrs Roach.

‘Well, you’re slightly sour, dear, but I won’t fret about it. As I was saying, if I were to be invited to one of your wonderful –’

‘My tea, you fool!’ she hissed. ‘I want
lemon
in my tea.’

I released a playful giggle. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that you are an unpleasant shrew with a vinegary nature. It was just a slip of the tongue. A joke between friends.’

‘Idiotic child,’ muttered Mother Snagsby.

With the tea poured, I dropped a slice of lemon in the cup and handed it to Mrs Roach.

‘As you recently celebrated a birthday,’ I said, starting to place the candles around the cake, ‘I thought it only fitting to mark the occasion with a few candles.’

Mrs Roach’s stern expression softened. Just slightly. ‘How kind.’

‘A cake so fine needs to be presented properly,’ said Mrs Dickens. She placed the plate on a silver trolley and wheeled it before Mrs Roach and her daughters.

‘We must all sing a round of “Happy Birthday”,’ I said, retrieving a box of matches from the mantel.

Mrs Dickens brought over a stack of serving plates. ‘Where on earth did you get the flour, lass? I only just brought a pound home from the market as there wasn’t a speck left in the pantry.’

I took out a match and struck it, the head sparking into life. ‘Ezra keeps some in the workshop,’ I said, igniting the first candle, then using it to light the rest. ‘He practically insisted that I take it.’

‘Flour in the workshop?’ said Mrs Dickens doubtfully.

At which point, Mother Snagsby leapt up from her seat and ran at me. She may have also cried out, ‘Stop! Stop!’

Which was rather odd.

‘What on earth?’ huffed Mrs Roach.

I was placing the last candle back into the cake when Mother Snagsby lunged, grabbing my arm with tremendous
force. This caused the lit candle to drop from my hand and fall on to the cake. That really shouldn’t have been a problem. Except that it was.

For the cake did something rather unexpected. It exploded. In hot chunks. Bursting into the air and flying about the room like missiles. Pieces splattered against the wall, the windows and the door. Dark ash fell about the room like rain. But the real damage was done to the Roaches.

Cake detonated all over them. Mostly over their heads. Mrs Roach had a chunk up her nose and in her left ear. Bernadette’s eyes and forehead were smothered in icing and almonds. Philomena had largely vanished behind a mask of red-hot cake.

And they were all shrieking and hollering as if something dreadful had just happened.

‘Have you no sense?’ barked Mother Snagsby, as a generous lump of icing slipped from her gigantic mole. ‘That was not flour you
stole
from Ezra’s workshop, it was gunpowder!’

‘Well, that explains things,’ I said brightly.

‘Gunpowder?’ squawked Bernadette.

‘My girls could have been killed!’ cried Mrs Roach. ‘
I
could have been killed!’

And poor Philomena began rocking back and forth, mumbling something about a bomb strike and urging us all to hurry to the nearest bunker.

‘My skin is on fire!’ bawled Mrs Roach. ‘I will be scarred for life!’

Mrs Dickens and Mother Snagsby were doing their best to clean up the guests with napkins and water. But I knew that something else was required.

So I bolted from the room. Stormed into the kitchen. Grabbed the necessary items. Then bounded back upstairs.

‘Fear not,’ I declared, bursting into the drawing room, ‘I have a most excellent remedy for cake burns.’

As I approached her, Mrs Roach began to recoil. There wasn’t time to apply the treatment with a brush. Which is why I cracked the egg on her forehead.

‘Young lady!’ thundered Mother Snagsby.

With the egg slithering down her face, Mrs Roach squealed like a pig in a butcher shop. I plucked out most of the shell – being a stupendously considerate sort of girl – and began gently rubbing the yolk around her nose and ear.

‘I am dreaming!’ cried Mrs Roach. ‘This must be a hideous dream! It must!’

‘It only feels like a dream because the egg is so soothing, dear,’ I said tenderly. ‘This remedy is a balm that will ease the redness and leave no trace of a mark.’

‘Get off my mother!’ roared Bernadette, pulling me away.

‘Do not fret, girls,’ I said, picking up the four remaining eggs, ‘I have plenty for you as well.’

This clearly excited Philomena, because she jumped up and began running from the room, followed swiftly by her sister. Fortunately I reached the door before they did, slamming it shut.

‘You will thank me for this, girls,’ I announced, in my most calming voice. ‘In certain parts of Japan an egg to the face is a sign of great respect.’

‘Put down those eggs this instant!’ ordered Mother Snagsby.

‘Ivy, you mustn’t,’ offered Mrs Dickens.

‘Quite wrong, Mrs Dickens, for I
must
.’

The girls were now running about the room, pulling cake from their hair and crying like lunatics – and desperately searching for a way out. I had little choice but to chase after them, hurtling the eggs from a distance.

One smashed directly on Bernadette’s right cheek. She screamed and cursed my ancestors. Another hit Philomena square in the face. She wailed with gratitude. Even dropped to her knees.

‘Don’t be shy,’ I told them. ‘Rub the remedy in vigorously.’

‘Get away from us!’ screeched Bernadette.

‘Run, children!’ shouted Mrs Roach, leaping to her feet and making a dash for the door.

By that point I was on the other side of the drawing room with only one egg left. Bernadette pulled Philomena to her feet and they ran towards their mother, just as she threw the door open.

‘That child is a devil!’ Mrs Roach bawled as she bolted down the hallway, a girl clutched in each hand. ‘Snagsbys’ Economic Funerals has buried the last of us, you mark my words!’

‘Thank you so much for coming!’ I called after them. ‘I will keep an eye out for my invitation to your next glorious party!’

The drawing room was in rather a shocking state.

Mother Snagsby was sitting in an armchair with her head in her hands. Mrs Dickens was looking about the room in wonder. And Mrs Roach and her two daughters charged down the stairs and ran screaming from the house. Which was
most
undignified.

There was no supper again that night. Mrs Dickens was forbidden from bringing me so much as a breadcrumb. I was in exile. A figure of unutterable shame and disappointment. A daughter so beastly, Mother Snagsby said she could not bear to
look
at me.

Besides the glorious explosion, the only bright spot had been the tantalising question of why Ezra had gunpowder in his workshop. And why it was marked
Flour
. Tragically, it was all very innocent. The gunpowder was a relic from his hunting days. And he kept it in an old flour sack because he hadn’t anywhere else to put it. So no great mystery there.

My spirits were alarmingly low. Despair had taken hold. Nothing was going as I had planned. And sitting beneath the entire calamity, like a pit of tar in my stomach, was poor Rebecca.

But how could I be sure that what the stone had shown me was true? Perhaps it was a trick. One of Miss Always’ wicked schemes. A plan to lure me to Prospa to see if I was the Dual – the girl who would finally cure her world of the Shadow (the
plague that had killed millions). Then Miss Always would use me to control the kingdom. That is what Miss Frost believed. And even though she had lied to me about Rebecca being dead, I did not doubt her on that matter.

I scooped the necklace from under my nightgown and stared into the Clock Diamond, willing it to show me another vision. A clue to
exactly
where Rebecca was being kept. But all it offered was the night sky over London, starless and bleak. There was only one way to reach her.

But I could not risk lifting the veil. The infernal buzzing and the glaring light from the stone were the problem. Mother Snagsby had nearly caught me last time, and as she already thought I was a horrid sort of girl, I didn’t dare try it again. Not in the house, at any rate.

Which meant I had to get out. But how? Even though Mother Snagsby had stopped pacing the hall outside an hour ago, the door was locked and the only two keys were with her and Mrs Dickens. And the window had been nailed shut ever since I climbed out of it early one morning in an attempt to reach the kitchen door (I had been on the point of near starvation, not having eaten a morsel since dinner). Sliding down the drainpipe had proved rather difficult. It was raining and I had lost my grip, plummeting towards the hard ground. Fortunately, a passing milk woman had broken my fall.

But she had made a great fuss as her pails of milk spilled across the cobblestones. Mother Snagsby had come flying out, her nightcap fluttering furiously. She was quick to blame me for the mishap. Felt the need to declare that I wasn’t a blood relative and that she would have no objection should the milk woman wish to clobber me with her wooden yoke.

The window, therefore, offered no possibility of escape. Finding a way out was a monstrous challenge – even for me. I paced the bedroom until I grew tired. Although I had a great many talents, I hadn’t a clue how to get out of a locked room.

Defeated, I dropped down on to the bed and let out a bewildered sigh. But it was quickly replaced by a frown. For the blanket at the end of the bed had begun to rise, lifting up as if someone or something was under it. Naturally, I scrambled to the other end of the bed.