by Laurence Yep
If only his Miss Drake had enchanted me too.
At the same time, the mean stall keeper dropped to his knees at the feet of Lily and her father. “My whistle!” he wailed.
I knew if I gave her enough time, my Miss Drake would save me. But first I had to get loose from Spoon Woman. But how?
When the Spoon Woman had shaken me, my unbuttoned jacket had felt a little looser around my neck. I wondered if I could slip from it.
Bending my knees, I shot my arms straight up. My jacket’s sleeves slid right off me, leaving the Spoon Woman holding my jacket like I’d just shed my outer skin. I sprang away like a rabbit before she could grab me again.
A man tried to nab me, but my forearm knocked his hand away. A woman stretched toward me, but I ducked under her fingers.
Behind me, I heard the Spoon Woman go, “Oof! Get out of my way, Clumsy!” she said angrily to someone. I wondered what kind person had blocked her.
What I wouldn’t give for my old running shoes right now. And while I was wishing, how about jeans instead of a frilly skirt and petticoat? As I ran, my big floppy hat flew off my head. Good riddance!
Despite my clothing, I could have gotten away quickly on a straight course with no obstacles, but I had to keep weaving through and around the mob.
“You’re not getting away from me, you little thief!” the Spoon Woman puffed. It sounded like she was gaining on me.
I raced blind around the corner of a building, and I bumped into something soft. I bounced off and onto the ground. As I lay there, a short, middle-aged woman looked down at me. Her long wool coat was open so I could see she was wearing a green striped blouse with a cameo fastened to the collar. “Are you all right?”
I could hear the Spoon Woman shouting from close by, “Stop, thief!”
I jumped to my feet and was going to take off, but the cameo woman grabbed my arm and I couldn’t break her grip. There was real muscle underneath all her softness. “Did you take something? Mind you, don’t try to lie to me.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s all a frame-up.”
She didn’t look at me long, but she looked at me hard like she was trying to read my mind. “I’ve taught a little bit and I’ve known a lot of children, so I can recognize when a child’s fibbing and when she’s telling the truth. Crouch down behind that statue.”
I squatted behind the tall pedestal of a pioneer woman and her children, barely a few seconds before the Spoon Woman came panting along.
“Have you seen a weaselly little girl running by?” the Spoon Woman demanded.
“No,” the cameo woman said. “I can truthfully say that I have not seen anyone of that description.”
“I’ll catch her, and when I do, that little thief is going to jail,” the Spoon Woman promised.
A few minutes later, the cameo woman said, “She’s gone. You’re safe.”
“Thanks for covering up for me,” I said when I stood up. When she drew her eyebrows together as if puzzled, I added, “You know. Lying for me?”
“I didn’t lie,” the cameo woman assured me. “You don’t look like any weasel I’ve met. But what did that disagreeable woman say you stole?”
“A big black bag,” I said.
The cameo woman nodded, satisfied. “Which she had in her hand.” She folded her arms to study me. “Frame-up. Covering up. You don’t talk like any girl I know. Where do you come from, child?”
I tried to figure how to answer her. Technically, I lived only a mile or two away, but time wise, it was a hundred years. “My home’s…uh…faraway.” That was sort of true. “I came with a friend, but she must’ve gotten lost.”
“Well, I’ll stay with you until you get together again.” The woman patted my arm. “I came with my daughter, and now I can’t find her either.” She added proudly, “Rose’s a crackerjack reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin, so she’s always stopping to chat with someone here and there to get a story. When she turns up, she’ll know how to locate your friend.”
When my mom and me were on the run from my granddad, I’d learned not to say much to strangers. And even though this woman had just saved me from jail, I didn’t want her asking awkward questions. I guess she thought I was being shy because she began chatting to make me feel more comfortable.
I heard all about her train ride from her Missouri farm, and then her round face started to glow when she told me about taking a boat ride on the bay at night and seeing the shining Exposition, and behind it the lights of San Francisco on the hills, twinkling higher and higher. “I tell you, I didn’t know where the lights stopped and the stars began.”
I realized then that even though we had experienced San Francisco a hundred years apart, we felt the same wonder about this place.
“And then yesterday I waded in the Pacific Ocean.” She tapped her shoe on the ground as if she were dipping her toe into the sea. “Fancy that, me in all that water. It was wonderful. I do love the ocean so much.”
I grinned, relaxing at last. “Me too,” I said, putting out my hand. “My name’s Winifred Burton.”
“What a lovely name.” She took my hand and shook it. “My name’s Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
It took a moment for the name to click inside my head, and when it did, I stopped breathing. This was a dream come true.
“You can…um…let go of my hand, Winifred,” she said.
But I was too stunned and kept on holding onto her. “Not the Laura Ingalls Wilder. You’re my favorite author.”
Mrs. Wilder looked confused. “No, no, my daughter, Rose, is the author. Rose Wilder Lane, you must have heard of her. I just write a little column about raising chickens and such for the Missouri Ruralist back home.”
I thought about every time-travel movie I’d seen. Say the wrong thing and there’d be no Little House books to read. Or say the right thing and there would be. I flipped a coin inside my head and took a chance. “You should tell people about when you were a kid.”
“Aren’t you a caution?” She flapped a hand at me. “Now you sound just like my daughter.”
“I bet you got lotsa stories. You could fill up whole books. And…and…uh…” My voice trailed off. How far should I go? Or had I gone far enough?
“Books, is it now? That’s a good one, all right….” Her voice trailed off too, like something was tickling the back of her brain. “I intend to try to do some writing that will count….That’s my dream. Can you read my mind, Winifred?”
It’s funny how maybe everyone at the fair thought Mabel Normand was famous, while no one knew who Laura Ingalls Wilder was. And yet by my time they’d switch places. “I can guarantee you that’s the best dream.”
Her eyes twinkled at me. “Oh, so now you’re a fortune-teller from the Joy Zone.”
Before I could encourage her any further, a familiar voice trumpeted in my ear. “Well, there you are, Winifred.” Miss Drake set her hand on my shoulder. She gave it a firm squeeze, which I figured was a warning to shut up.
I was glad to see her but also sorry that she had butted in. “Oh, Miss Drake. I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Miss Drake said, shaking her hand politely. “I know your daughter’s work. I believe I saw her a few minutes ago near the bandstand interviewing Henry Ford.”
Mrs. Wilder spread her arms. “Now that you two are reunited. I think I’ll head that way and track down my wandering Rose. Good-bye, Winifred.”
As she walked off, I couldn’t help myself. “Remember, write books about when you were a kid,” I called. “Me and my friends’ll read ’em all, I promise.”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. “If you aren’t the strangest child.” But then she laughed. “Well, it’s one thing when Rose prods me, but now you too. Who knows what the future has in store? Books, oh, my!” And with a wave, she disappeared into the crowd.
Miss Drake pulled me in the opposite direction. “You weren’t supposed to tamper with the pa
st, Winifred Burton.”
When she used my full name, I knew she must be angry. “You heard her,” I argued. “I was just helping history along.”
“Leave it to you to start a time paradox,” she hissed in exasperation. “It will serve you right if her books are missing from your bookshelf when we get home. And it will tick off the Council to have to fix a mess you made.”
That would be awful, but it was too late now. “How come Mrs. Wilder could see you?” I asked.
Miss Drake let go of me to point at her collar. “I took off my charm and hid it.”
“Okay, well, why didn’t you warn me that I was going to get into trouble at the kiosk?” I asked.
Miss Drake dropped her arm. “I recall there was an attempted purse snatching, but I was too busy casting an invisibility spell on Caleb and myself. And anyway, even if I had looked at the suspect, I wouldn’t have recognized you because we hadn’t met yet.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to do magic in public where humans could see you,” I said.
“We’re not, but it was either that or rip that horrid woman’s head off,” Miss Drake explained. “I assumed—quite rightly—that all eyes would be on the owner of the purse and the…um…alleged thief.” She tried to put her arm around me. “I would never have abandoned you had I known who you were.”
I was still hurt and mad—Dad used to say he could see smoke coming from my ears. I started to push her arm away. But could I really blame her? After all, to Great-Granddad’s Miss Drake, I’d been just another girl, maybe even a real thief. And since Miss Drake didn’t recall the suspect’s face, it wasn’t her fault for bringing me to the kiosk. “Well, you’re here now.” And I leaned against her, glad she was real and solid to me again.
I was happy until a cranky Rowan popped from a row of cypress trees. “What are you idiots doing? Taking off your charms is a serious offense.”
I already knew that losing my badge would get Miss Drake and me in hot water with the High Council. Miss Drake had talked about consequences and hinted that all of them would be bad.
But no one gets away with calling my dragon an idiot. “Well, I don’t see a charm on you, so you can’t snitch on us, or you’ll be in the same mess we are.”
“But you won’t be, will you, Rowan?” Miss Drake asked slowly. “I thought it was odd that a Shielder didn’t accompany the group. But you’re our sheepdog, aren’t you?”
“Woof, woof,” Rowan said. “With so many councilors on the trip, they thought an apprentice could keep an eye on things. After we got to the Exposition, I noticed you weren’t in the group. It’s taken me the whole day to find you.”
“Shielder?” I asked.
“They enforce the High Council’s decisions and watch for infractions. There are three ranks.” Miss Drake’s finger sketched three overlapping, inverted triangles. “The top are gold. The next are silver. And the third class are bronze.”
“And the apprentices are tin.” Rowan took a wallet from his pocket and opened it to show me the triangles in some dull gray metal. I guess that was tin.
My stomach did flip-flops. “Are you going to turn us in?”
“I should.” Rowan put his wallet away. “But I’m not. Miss Drake saved my father from prison.”
Miss Drake leaned her head to the side as she studied him. “Was your father’s name Gilbert by any chance? Gilbert the Guardian?”
“Yes,” Rowan replied. His eyes shifted as if he was even more cautious now. “He told me all his other pals turned their backs on him, but you came at night and used your fire to melt the bars to his cell and then his chains.”
“The iron was a very poor grade—just like his friends.” Miss Drake held her hands up like a picture frame. “I thought you looked familiar. You have your brother’s forehead and eyes.”
It’s funny, but that seemed to make him angry because he balled his hands into fists. “Is that so?”
Just then, shrill police whistles interrupted us, and I got scared. “They’re coming for me.”
Miss Drake glanced at her watch. “No, the Heart of Kubera should be missing by now. The police will be focused on that and not a purse snatcher.”
“How did I wind up with the purse in the first place?” I wondered.
“I think when someone shouted ‘purse snatcher,’ the actual thief threw it away. It was your bad luck that the purse wound up by you.” Miss Drake cupped her chin in her palm. “The real question is how your badge came off. When I fix a magical charm to someone, it stays fixed.”
I love Miss Drake, but sometimes I wish she’d admit that she wasn’t perfect. “Maybe there was something wrong with the badge’s pin.”
“You better tell me what happened so I know how to cover things up.” Rowan didn’t look at us when he spoke. Just like at the party, his eyes kept darting from side to side. I thought he was bored with us, but now I realized he had been checking for threats.
“You’d break your oath to the Council for us?” Miss Drake asked.
“My father always hoped to repay his debt to you, but he never got the chance. So now I have to do it for him.”
When Miss Drake and I were done telling him our story—except for the career advice to Mrs. Wilder—he bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Do you know where your charm is, Miss Drake?”
“Yes, I hid it not far away,” she said.
“Then the both of you had better go to the sand lot before you can do any more damage.” He pointed toward a row of flowers. “You’ll find my charm at the base of the third poppy from the left. Winnie should time-phase before anything else happens to her.”
“Don’t you need it?” I asked.
“I’m going to go to the kiosk to find your badge.” Rowan tapped his chest where his badge had been. “All the badges look the same, so no one will know we exchanged them. As long as my aunt has the same number of badges we came with, she won’t care.”
Relief flooded through me. “Thanks.” Then a new thought came to me. “But how am I going to find your badge? And how are you going to find mine? Aren’t they still invisible?”
“My aunt anticipated that problem in case someone lost their charm, so it’s part of the spell,” he explained. “The charm deactivates when it loses contact with a body and becomes visible. It activates again when someone puts it back on and becomes invisible. Which is why it would be so dangerous to leave yours lying around until the spell on it wears off at midnight.”
“You could be stranded,” Miss Drake warned.
He shrugged. “The High Council will send Shielders to get me eventually. Don’t worry. I’ll tell them the lost badge is mine.”
“There would be ‘consequences’ even for a tin boy,” Miss Drake said.
He stared at my dragon defiantly, his eyes as murky as Loch Ness. “It’s what my father would want me to do.”
Miss Drake gave him a polite nod. “Consider his debt paid in full.”
I was glad Miss Drake hadn’t turned him into charcoal after all. “You’re actually okay,” I told him.
His eyes kept watching the people passing by as if he were trying to ignore me. “What do you mean? I’m the same as always.”
I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. “No, you’re not. When we first met you, you were a snot.”
His lips twitched up briefly into a smile as if I didn’t understand how funny I was being. “It’s called ‘focusing on my job.’ ”
“Speaking of your job, is there someone you were specifically keeping an eye on?” Miss Drake asked.
Rowan was smart enough not to patronize Miss Drake like he had me. “You know I can’t talk about that. I’m taking enough of a risk to help you right now. And people aren’t supposed to know I’m a tin boy, so you can’t tell anyone.”
“You have our word,” Miss Drake said, “and thank you.”
After he left for the kiosk, I went to the flowerbed, but Miss Drake wouldn’t let me dig until she stood in front of me
, blocking the view of any passersby.
“All right,” she said, “now no one will see you when you disappear.”
I dug in the spot Rowan had said, and I thought what an exasperating boy he was. “Who was his father, and why did he owe you?”
“His father was a wizard who had great skill but very poor luck. As for why he was in jail,” Miss Drake said, “you’ll have to ask Rowan.”
“Yeah, like that’ll work.” I felt the round badge hidden under a thin layer of dirt. Dusting it off, I stood up and put it on.
Though she couldn’t see me now, Miss Drake spoke to the empty air. “Come with me and don’t get into any more mischief, no matter how tempting.”
I followed her about twenty yards away, where she had stashed her charm in a bush. She slipped behind it, the branches screening her from view. When she appeared, I could see the badge pinned to her collar and knew she was synchronized with me again.
She looked me over and said, “Someone is going to notice your hat, gloves, and jacket are missing. I better fix that.”
Hidden from the view of others, she swiftly moved her hands and fingers as if weaving invisible threads, and with a brief chant, she created my missing clothing for me. “Let’s return to the sand lot. I’ve had enough time travel for one day.”
“You and me both,” I said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Solving a mystery is like running a high-hurdles race. As soon as you clear one, there’s another ahead of you.
MISS DRAKE
Beaming with relief, Willamar met us just as Winnie and I crossed the line of stakes marking his future home. “You had us all so worried, dear ladies,” he said, and wrapped his arms around the both of us.
As the saying goes, “Better a hug from a boa constrictor than a troll.” Trolls simply do not know their own strength.
Fortunately, we dragons are born wrestlers. When we’re newly hatched, our limbs are too weak to carry our weight at first. Of necessity, we slither everywhere on our bellies, and as is the custom, I spent afternoons in the clan nursery with cousins of the same age. So I learned to escape their coiling grips before I could even walk or swim.