The Long-Lost Home Read online

  “Idiot, you have never been near a camel. How do you know what they smell like?”

  “I know they smell almost as bad as you!”

  “As you, you mean!”

  And so on. Penelope listened but did not interfere. They were horrible boys, from a horrible family, and they had no wish to change. Trying to stop them from being cruel was like trying to stop the tides.

  They walked along the granite embankments of the Neva, past the magnificent Admiralty building and its proud white columns, its countless statues and friezes depicting figures from myths and ancient times. “There are the four seasons,” she showed the twins as they walked, “and the four elements, and the four winds. There is the goddess Isis and the Roman god of the sea, Neptune.”

  By now they had reached the central gate. “Look up,” she said, pointing at the tower. “All the way up, at the top of the golden spire. There is a weather vane there in the form of a ship. It is modeled after one of Peter the Great’s actual ships.” Penelope knew all this from her Swanburne geography class. “The weather vane has a name. Korablik.”

  “That means ‘little ship,’” Boris said, grudgingly showing interest. His brother refused to look up.

  “Indeed it does,” Penelope said. “Imagine! A little three-masted schooner made of gold, sailing across the sky!”

  “Weather vanes don’t have names,” Constantin said, kicking at the ground.

  “This one does.” Penelope gazed up at it, awestruck. She wished she had Alexander Incorrigible’s spyglass, so she might get a better view.

  “Ships don’t sail in the sky,” Boris pointed out.

  “This one does,” she repeated. She had to shield her eyes from the harsh gleam of sun along the spire’s golden edge. It was like the needle of a compass pointing at the heavens. The shining korablik danced on top.

  Now, Penelope knew good architecture when she saw it. She had been to Buckingham Palace and the British Museum, and Ashton Place was nothing to sneeze at, either. But there was something so brave and solitary about this little ship of gold, weaving its way through the air currents. Never had she seen anything so exquisite.

  “I’d knock down that golden spire and melt it. Then we’d be rich!” Constantin said.

  As if in protest, the korablik gave a half spin in a sudden gust, then righted itself. What a highly unusual weather vane! It seemed to whisper words that only Penelope could hear: “Be brave, for you too will weather what is to come, and right yourself somehow, whichever way the wind blows!”

  She watched the korablik dance, and let its message console her and fill her heart with joy. How full of the unexpected life repeatedly proved to be! Only three years had passed since she was a schoolgirl in geography class at Swanburne, doodling funny pictures in the margins of Cecily’s notebook. Cecily the Great, she had scrawled beneath a drawing of Peter the Great, to which she had added freckles and two long pigtails. Who could have foretold that she would set foot in the city he founded, even if only for a day?

  All those unhappy days and nights in Plinkst might have dimmed her Swanburnian spirit, temporarily. But this new feeling within, this swelling gratitude and simple delight—it was something more than optimism. It was more, even, than optoomuchism. She suspected that Tolstoy fellow would understand right away. It was the true, clear knowledge that no matter what might happen later, for this single hour her eyes were wide open to the splendor of it all, the golden spire against a crisp blue sky, and the mirrored surface of the winding Neva reflecting them both, an even more perfect version of this already glorious world.

  And all the while, scampering in circles ’round her, poking each other out of boredom and meanness, the two horrible children who could not stop tormenting each other long enough to see the beauty of any of it. Foolish twins! But they had no model to learn from save the pettiness of their parents, whose heads were too full of worries about money and rank and the opinions of others to appreciate the riches they already had: a family, whole and healthy and all living under the same roof. Imagine how glad the Long-Lost Lumleys might be to possess such a treasure!

  It was a great luxury to be unhappy about small things, Penelope realized. All the petty complaints and discomforts of everyday life meant nothing compared to those sudden, unlucky swoops of fate that arrived with no warning, like a hawk that dives from a dizzying height to snatch an unsuspecting rabbit from the ground.

  The boys were restless. They raced ahead, turned corners, and paid no attention to where they were going. Penelope followed, but the side streets were narrow and full of shadows. It would be too easy to get lost.

  “We have wandered too far from the main road,” she said, once she caught up with them. “We must retrace our steps.” The twins took this literally and walked backward, exchanging quick punches every time they bumped into each other. Soon they reached the Neva once more, and scoured the banks for rocks to skip along the water.

  Penelope watched as they fought over who saw which rock first, and whose rock had skipped farthest, and which of them would be first to touch the opposite bank in a swimming contest, and she wondered, could the Babushkinovs ever retrace their steps to a day when they were not so miserable, and chart a different course forward?

  “At least the Ashtons have a curse to blame for their troubles,” she thought. “If not for the terrible shipwreck that landed Admiral Percival Racine Ashton and his crew on an unmapped island, and if not for the admiral’s selfish desire for a new fur-lined vest, which made him cruelly hunt the litter of wolf cubs whose mother was the sacred animal of the tribe, and who laid her terrible wolf-curse upon him and his descendants, causing all sorts of difficulty and bother, until now there are only a few weeks left for me to get home and sort things out—why, if not for all that, the Ashtons might have been the happiest family in England!”

  She gazed across the water. “Of course, if not for the storm at sea, the shipwreck would never have happened in the first place. But one cannot blame the sea for what happens on dry land. Listen to me, inventing such sayings! I suppose I must have the blood of Agatha Swanburne in my veins after all.”

  The twins had grown bored once more; now they wanted to go back and torment their sister. To return to the barracks, they had to cross Nevsky Prospect, the city’s main boulevard that either began or ended at the Admiralty, depending on which way you were facing. The Admiralty was the headquarters of the Russian navy, and all along Nevsky Prospect were sailors in uniform. Naturally this made Penelope think of Simon, who had spent a fair amount of time at sea himself.

  Simon! Simon Harley-Dickinson! Repeating his name was like reciting a very short, very cheering poem. Simon was the best navigator she knew. Give him a sextant and a glimpse of the stars, and there was no chance of getting lost. Yet she was the one who had to find her way back home this time, and on her own, too.

  As they walked, she kept glancing over her shoulder at the golden spire of the Admiralty. The korablik caught the light, winking with each change of the breeze. Block after block they traveled, but the brave little ship stayed in view the whole time, just as the moon does.

  If only she could sail that glittering golden ship across the sky, all the way home to Ashton Place!

  THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

  A new baby nurse is hired.

  SIMON! SIMON HARLEY-DICKINSON! WITH THAT unruly, poetical forelock and the gleam of genius in his eye!

  Now, perhaps you too are wondering if we will ever see Simon Harley-Dickinson again. He had always been a difficult fellow to pin down, with his love of adventure and the wide-open seas, his endless search for a fresh plot twist, his yearning to explore Parts Unknown with only his sextant and the North Star to guide him. Whether the job was to jump on a stolen velocipede, win over a band of pirates, visibilize invisible ink, pen a sonnet, or don a disguise, Simon Harley-Dickinson was the man for it. But he had no fixed address, which made him, if not long-lost, at least easily misplaced.

  The Incorrigibles could n
ot help but think about him as they fashioned their disguises, for Simon was a man of the theater, skilled in the art of stagecraft. Putty noses, horsehair wigs, and phony accents were his bread and butter, so to speak. He would have leaped at the chance to transform three clever, well-mannered (if occasionally wolfish) children into the Horrible Incorrigible Babushkawoos.

  Luckily, the children had superb imaginations. They simply asked each other, “What would Simon Harley-Dickinson do?” Soon they had scores of ideas. Alexander and Beowulf each blacked an eye with candle soot, for they knew Boris and Constantin fought like two cats in a bag, as the saying goes, and often sported such bruises. They slicked back their hair with pomade and put on matching outfits, thus giving the impression of being twins. Lastly they obtained a pair of tattered men’s gloves from Jasper, one of the young manservants of the household staff, who had always been a good friend to them (he was a particular favorite of the Margaret’s, too; her distinctive high-pitched voice trilled like a skylark when he was nearby). They each tucked a single glove beneath the belts they had cinched ’round their waists. That it was only one did not matter. These gloves were not for wearing, but for challenging people to duels at the slightest provocation, or for no reason at all.

  Meanwhile, Cassiopeia found a length of pink tulle in Madame LePoint’s trunk of fabric scraps, left over from a petticoat made for one of Lady Constance’s gowns. This she fashioned into a ballerina’s tutu. A pair of socks with bows stitched on top served nicely as ballet slippers.

  “What is important,” Alexander said, when the costumes were complete, “even more important than the clothes—the most important part of our disguise!—is that we are horrible. In the words of Agatha Swanawoo, ‘If you wish to be convincing, first you must be convinced.’”

  Brimming with confidence, the Horrible Incorrigibles made their incognito exit, thus narrowly missing the fishy arrival of Edward Ashton and the even fishier return of Master Gogolev and his herring. (Note that fishy can mean both “suspicious” and “smelling like fish.” Carp is a type of fish; carp also means to complain. Flounder is a type of fish; it also means to be hopelessly confused. And sole, as you may know, is yet another type of fish. Sole also means the only one, as well as the bottom of the foot. If sole were the sole type of fish whose name had multiple meanings, that would be one thing to carp about, but three is enough to make anyone flounder. A fishy business indeed!)

  Even as their nemesis prowled the nursery, the Horrible Incorrigibles whined, punched, dueled, and pirouetted all the way to the bakehouse. All that bad behavior was exhausting, and they made frequent stops to rest. They did this by sitting and pouting, having lying-down tantrums, and giving each other the “silent treatment.”

  No one recognized them, and they felt proud of their disguises. Then again, it was midday and all the household staff were hard at work. The only person who actually saw the children was Old Timothy. He came across them as they lay belly down on the ground, pounding their hands and feet against the earth and blaming each other for their misery. One of the coachman’s eyebrows flew up as the other scrunched down, but he simply walked on, chuckling.

  Eventually the children reached the bakehouse, a stone cottage that housed a massive brick oven with a double-width chimney. When the oven was in use, the bakehouse grew hot as a sauna, and they pushed the door open with caution. But there was no fire lit. Along one wall was a wooden trough for mixing the dough and metal buckets for adding water to the flour. Tall iron baker’s racks held the rising loaves on one side and finished loaves on the other. Wooden paddles had been propped next to the oven, ready to slide the loaves in and out. (Nowadays you might see something similar in a pizza restaurant, although you can be sure that the Incorrigibles had never set foot in such an establishment).

  The bakehouse smelled deliciously of bread. All that was missing was the baker.

  “Yoo-hoo,” the children called, cupping their hands to their mouths. “Yoo-hoo, baker!”

  As they waited for an answer, they continued to complain and pick fights with each other. They planned to stay incognito until they knew for certain that the new baker was their old friend, the spooky Madame. But there was no one in the bakehouse at all, as far as they could tell.

  Surely the bread was not baking itself! After a brief discussion, they decided to make eerie ghostie noises. These would be likely to intrigue the soothsayer and lure her out of hiding, if she happened to be in earshot.

  “Boooooo!” they intoned. “Boo, boo, ahwoooooooo!”

  Bang! A cloud of ash billowed from the oven. The Incorrigibles jumped back as a tall, slim figure, bloodless and gray as some awful specter from Beyond the Veil, emerged from the chimney itself.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!” the children screamed, for it truly looked like a ghost.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!” the figure screamed in return, for he was just as taken aback as they were.

  Despite her lack of proper pointe shoes, Cassiopeia rose effortlessly to her toes out of sheer terror. Alexander and Beowulf shakily threw down their gloves.

  “I challenge you to a duel, you . . . you—oven monster!” Alexander yelled, to cover his trembling voice.

  “Me too, you . . . you—smoky ghostie!” Beowulf added. The boys raised their fists and tried to look fierce. The apparition loomed before them, pale as the moon.

  “Say,” the monster said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were those three horrible Russian children I once met in Brighton! But that’s not possible, is it? I must be dreaming. Or maybe I got some cinders in my eye while I was up there in the chimney—hold on a minute. . . .”

  The monster rummaged through his pockets and procured a filthy handkerchief. He rubbed his eyes and face and looked at the children again. This time he broke into a wide smile. The teeth behind his ash-gray lips gleamed white as a crisp new sail.

  “Well, I’ll be! I almost didn’t recognize you, Cassawoof, in that nifty dancing outfit. And look at you two fine fellows, with your hair all slicked back! Shows what I know about fashion.”

  “Simon!” the no longer horrible Incorrigibles yelled, and ran to hug him, filthy as he was. “Simon Harley-Dickinson!”

  ONCE SIMON HAD STRIPPED OFF the work coveralls he had worn over his clothes, and washed his face and hands with clean water from the pump out back, he looked nearly himself again. Only his hair was left silver with ash. “It would be a fine bit of stagecraft if I’m ever called upon to play my own grandfather,” he joked. “Then again, Grandpap’s life has been dull and contented as a frog’s on a rock. ‘Good lives make bad plays,’ as they say, but all that peace and quiet surely helps the digestion. So, Incorrigibles! We meet again. I’m glad of it. Any news from our Miss Lumley?”

  The children’s expressions of joy faded, and they shook their heads.

  Simon chewed his lip. “That’s too bad. I haven’t heard a peep from her either, and I’ve sent a letter just about every day.” He was quiet for a moment, then shrugged off his mood with ease, the way one might shrug off a coat upon coming indoors. With an open smile, he reached out and tousled the children’s heads till they too were cheerful again. “Well! I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”

  The children spoke at once. “New baker!—Madame Ionesco!—Gypsy cakes!”

  “Nothing gets by you three, does it?” he replied, laughing. He leaned close and dropped his voice. “You’re not wrong about any of it, but mum’s the word. The good Madame is in disguise. Here in the bakehouse we can speak freely. There’s no one near and the walls are solid stone. But outside this room, she’s Flora the Bread Lady. Understood?”

  The children nodded. “We are in disguise, too,” Alexander explained. “As the Horrible Incorrigible Babushkawoos.”

  Simon grinned. “That’s a relief. For a minute there I really thought I was seeing things! But why the secrecy?” His tone changed to one of concern. “Say, is anyone following you? Making threats? Causing trouble?”

  “We are
incognito as Babushkawoos because we thought Madame Ionesco was incognito as a baker,” Cassiopeia explained.

  “A regular incognito party, eh? And I expect you didn’t want to risk giving her away by being yourselves when she was being someone else?” The children nodded, and Simon grinned. “Clever as always! Anyway, I bet being horrible is fun, and a lot of work, too.”

  With this the children could not argue. “But why are you here, Simawoo?” Beowulf asked, which prompted a jumble of questions. “What were you doing in the oven?” “Why is Madame baking instead of soothsaying?” “How many Gypsy cakes would go into the tummy of an Incorrigible?” And so on, until Simon raised a hand for silence.

  “To explain all that is a tale, all right. It’s not a long tale, but a medium one—say, that’s not bad! A medium tale about a soothsayer.” The children groaned to show their appreciation for the pun, for they knew that “medium” was another word for soothsayer, and that a soothsayer who was halfway between large and small could fairly be called a medium medium. Once they were done groaning, they begged Simon to tell his tale.

  Ever the showman, he quickly arranged three upside-down buckets as stools for the children to sit upon, like a proper audience. “To begin with, since the last time I saw you three, I’ve done nothing but eat, sleep, and look for Madame Ionesco. It’s what our dear Miss Lumley asked me to do, for reasons that are what you might call urgent.”

  “What reasons?” Cassiopeia asked innocently.

  Simon looked uncomfortable. “Oh, nothing we need to go into right now. As I was saying—”

  “Does it have to do with the curse upon the Ashtons?” she interjected.

  “The one that says only one side the family can survive?” Beowulf asked. “Or else both will go extinct, like the dodos?”

  Whereupon Alexander mimed the death of the very last dodo, and a tragic, squawking death it was. Apparently the children had understood far more about the family’s troubles than the adults in their lives imagined they did. Simon tugged at his forelock, releasing a small cloud of ash.