Nav gave him a frosty frown. “Yes. That was my point.”
“How do we get our hands on that kind of information?” Kit asked.
Nav began to answer, but he wasn’t as fast as motormouthed Josh, who said, “Lady C’s got to have a copy of the bill of sale.”
“I was just about to say that!” Nav protested.
“Pick up your pace, brah. Look, if you talk like me, dude? You get way more stuff done.”
Kit ignored the boys’ one-upmanship game and thought out loud, “We just break into her office.”
“You are very brave, Kit,” said Peaches. “Like a girl in a novel!”
While Kit wondered what that was supposed to mean — and why Peaches was sitting with them and not Elaine, anyway — Josh said, “Except why make this harder on ourselves? I mean, why don’t we just do the old distract-and-snatch?”
“Forgive me,” Nav said politely, “but I don’t speak Criminal.”
“Aw, c’mon, roomie.”
Kit saw that a proper demonstration was in order. She let out a big fake sneeze with a big fake, “Achoo!”
“Bless you.” Nav, ever the gentleman, offered her his handkerchief. And as he did so, Josh snatched Nav’s pudding cup and began to snarf it down.
When Nav noticed his dessert disappearing down Josh’s gullet, he rolled his eyes. “Oh. Right. I get it. Do they just teach you this at birth in the Wild West?”
Kit realized something. “But wait, guys. I can’t be anywhere near Lady C today, not after my blowout this morning.”
“Hey, we got this — don’t worry,” Josh assured her. “We just need to find a way in.”
Peaches spoke up, her eyes fixed on Josh’s pudding cup. “Can I have the dessert?”
Josh held the pudding protectively. “No way, Peaches. Find your own scam.”
Peaches aimed her response at Kit, not Josh. “What if I told you I could get you an appointment with Lady Covington? Bystro.”
Kit had no idea what bystro meant, but Peaches seemed quite serious. Kit had always thought of her as Elaine’s loyal minion, but the offer sounded too good to pass up. So Kit snatched Josh’s pudding cup and handed it to Peaches. “I’d say you just scammed a dessert!”
Peaches started eating, giving Josh a sneaky, “Heh, heh, heh!”
Kit was glad to see that Josh took it well. At least the scammer knew when he’d been outscammed.
An hour later, Elaine entered the student lounge, excited about her first tutoring lesson with Will. He was due to arrive any minute. “All right, everyone out,” she told the four students who were there.
They all glowered at her.
“Come on, you know the drill!” Elaine jerked her thumb over her shoulder to further indicate her wishes. “I need the space, and that means I don’t need you in it, thank you. I’m sure you can find somewhere else to study. Spit-spot!” She clapped her hands as if she were commanding toddlers.
The students grumbled, gathered up their books, and left. Elaine smiled as she watched them go. It was satisfying to know that they understood who ruled the roost. She didn’t enjoy ordering people about; that wasn’t her goal at all. It was simply a matter of practicality. Those students could study anywhere. She, on the other hand, needed the lounge in order to help a fellow student. Her needs were more important.
She chose to conduct her lesson on one of the plush red couches rather than at one of the tables. Couches were more comfortable and therefore more conducive to teaching a peer, she decided. Especially a very cute one. She straightened the cushions and plumped up the pillows before setting her books on the nearby coffee table. Then, after straightening her uniform jacket and arranging her skirt so that it would fan out just right, she sat.
The sound of footsteps approached. Hastily she grabbed her lip gloss and put some on, pressing her lips together to distribute it evenly. Perfect!
Will appeared in the doorway. She waved him over. “Hi,” she said, a little breathlessly. Goodness, he looked handsome. She never ceased to marvel at how he could energize a room simply by being in it.
“Hi.” Will plopped down next to her, dumping his backpack at his side.
“Um, so,” Elaine began, trying to ignore the fact that Will’s hair was all rumpled. It was so adorable that way. . . . “We’ll just dive right in.”
“Yep, sounds good.”
With that confirmed, Elaine reached for her textbook and opened it on her lap.
Will frowned at it. “Oh. You want me to write this down?”
Elaine wanted to say, “Of course! This is a grammar lesson! If you don’t write it down, you’ll forget it!” Will was distractingly cute, but when it came to language skills, he really needed all the help he could get. But what she ended up saying was, “Um . . . yes?” She didn’t want to scare him off.
“Fine,” Will said. “Fine.”
As Will rummaged for his notebook, Elaine began. “Okay, we’ll start simply. What is the hypothesis in this conditional statement? ‘If Walt drops Katie’s books, he will pick them up.’”
Will stared at her as if she’d spoken in ancient Mycenaean Greek.
“A conditional statement is written as: if A, then B, where A is the hypothesis and B is the conclusion,” Elaine supplied helpfully.
“Okay . . . so you’re saying . . .” Will thought for a moment. “I need to pick up her books.”
It was Elaine’s turn to be confused. What was he talking about? “Let’s try another one.” She flipped through her text. “‘If Walt takes good advice, he will be a raging success.’”
Will nodded, thinking. “So . . . if Walt . . . listens to the right people . . .”
“Which will be me, naturally. Then the conclusion is . . . ?”
“Then . . . it’ll all work out for him. Success.”
Elaine held back a sigh of relief. Good. He got it. “Brilliant!” she exclaimed. “Confidence and decisiveness.”
“Confidence and decisiveness — that’s your advice?”
Elaine nodded. “Always. Let go of the past. Start fresh.”
Of all the students at Covington to suddenly leap into a distract-and-snatch leadership role, Peaches would hardly be Josh’s first pick. He had her pegged as a total ditz — book smart, at least, because she’d gotten accepted into Covington, but personality-wise? A sweet but naive fool (she took orders from Evil Elaine, after all).
He was now discovering that he was way off base.
Once she’d gotten ahold of his pudding cup earlier that day at lunch, Peaches had proceeded to instruct him, Kit, and Nav to meet her by the staircase near Lady Covington’s office that evening at precisely seven o’clock. When Josh arrived at 7:03, she turned to him and said in her cute chirpy voice, “You are late, Mr. Luders. Bad boy. Five points off, and you get detention.”
Kit and Nav snickered as Josh said, “What?”
Peaches ignored him. “All righty, is everybody ready? Then follow me, please.”
Josh, Kit, and Nav followed her to Lady Covington’s office. As they walked, Peaches told them, “Every month, as arranged by my governess for my mother and as a favor to my father, I help teach Lady Covington Russian.” She held up a fat paperback book.
Josh found her statement hard to believe. “Really?” Peaches was teaching the headmistress? Yeah, right.
Peaches explained, “Apparently she has a longtime dream of biking from Moscow to Vladivostok.”
Josh was relieved when Kit asked in a very confused tone, “What are you talking about?”
“Teaching Lady Covington Russian.” Peaches reached the door to the headmistress’s office and continued matter-of-factly, “Why? What are you talking about? If you want, I can teach you, too. Or I could teach you Italian or French, Spanish, Hebrew, Mandarin, Japanese — oh yeah.” She grinned. “And Farsi.”
“You do not speak all of those languages,” Josh said. Not possible. No way!
Peaches replied with a sneaky twinkle in her eyes, “My dad’s a diplo
mat.”
Josh heard Nav mutter, “Ah.”
“But you guys cannot breathe a word about this!” Peaches warned them. “If Elaine finds out that I have secret audiences with Lady Covington? She’ll demote me. I’d have to hang around with”— she paused — “well, you guys.”
Josh’s ego took a massive hit.
“No offense,” Peaches added, as if that could take the sting off.
Before the insulted trio could think of an appropriate response, Lady Covington opened her door. Josh scrambled back around the corner with Kit and Nav. He heard the headmistress greet Peaches in Russian, and the last word sounded like a name: Pashkova. Then the headmistress added in English, “Close the door behind you, would you, Penelope?”
Ha! So that was Peaches’s real name: Penelope Pashkova! Josh began to wonder if this girl was more clever than anybody knew. He immediately saw that, yes, she was clever — she had left the door open! This was it! The chance she had promised! Josh jumped into action and slipped inside.
Peaches shut the door.
Okay, first he had to get to Lady Covington’s desk and hide. Peaches gave him a chance for that, too — she practically threw herself into the chair that Lady Covington was about to sit in, forcing the headmistress to take the chair that would make her sit with her back to her desk. Excellent! Josh crawled to safety.
Meanwhile he heard Peaches say, “Shall we begin?” She tittered nervously, sounding like a little bird: “Heheheheheh!”
“Yes,” said Lady Covington. She paused as Peaches tittered again. “Are you all right, Penelope?”
Josh peeked over the desk to see what was wrong. Peaches must have been more nervous by the situation that she’d expected because she kept making that birdlike tittering noise, a manic smile plastered on her face. “Oh,” she assured Lady Covington, “I’m fine, heheheheheheh!”
Lady Covington accepted the explanation and opened her copy of the same book Peaches had. She began to read in halting Russian. She could have been reading anything from a political biography to a superhero comic book. The Russian words floated past Josh’s ears, meaningless, as he quickly but quietly riffled through stacks of papers, searching for anything that looked like TK’s bill of sale. All he saw were forms and files that suggested the job of headmistress must be mind-numbingly dull. Nothing on the desk was any fun at all, just boring expense reports and supply lists and donor letters and whoa —!
Just in time, he caught the vase of yellow tulips that he’d knocked over. He recovered from a heart attack and placed the vase back on the desk, then looked up at Peaches, who gawked back at him, ready to freak.
“Heheheheheheh, I can’t do this. . . .”
Lady Covington thought Peaches was talking to her. “Oh, am I that off this evening, Penelope?”
“Oh, no,” Peaches said. “I’m just so wrapped up in the story, heheheh. I mean, imagine! A ghost! Heheheheheheh!” Her tittering was starting to sound hysterical.
Hesitantly, Lady Covington inquired, “Shall we continue?”
Josh caught Peaches’s eye and nodded at her. He still had a ton of papers to go through. She couldn’t stop now!
Peaches seemed to get the signal and gestured for Lady Covington to continue reading.
“Very well,” the headmistress said. Then, “Are you sure you’re quite all right? You seem a little excitable this evening.”
“Oh, no, Lady Covington. Uhhh — it’s your Russian! I’m just so impressed with your progress!”
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
Peaches tittered again as Lady Covington resumed reading. As she spoke a word that sounded like blecch to Josh, he found what he was searching for — an envelope marked RECEIPT CONTAINED. He held it up so that Peaches could see it and gave her a thumbs-up. Then he moved his finger in a big circle, indicating that she should wrap up the lesson so he could leave. He had no intention of squatting behind the desk for an hour listening to halting Russian. He didn’t think Peaches could control herself for that long anyway.
In fact, Peaches lost it right then, letting out a loud, “Heheheheheheheh!”
Lady Covington regarded her with serious concern. “Dear girl, are you sure you’re all right? You don’t need to see the nurse?”
“No!” Peaches squeaked. “I just need to, uh, wrap things up!”
Josh saw that her cheeks were flushed. Poor Peaches looked close to fainting. Josh gave her a reassuring smile.
“Heheheheheheheh!”
Okay, reassuring smiles weren’t a good idea.
Thank goodness Lady Covington stood up. “Perhaps that’s for the best then.”
“Okayheheheheh!” Peaches stood as well, clutching her book to her chest.
Josh prepared to make a dash for the door as soon as Peaches gave him an opportunity. Instead, Lady Covington opened the door to find Nav standing there. “Mr. Andrada,” she said in surprise.
Nav stepped boldly into the room. “Am I too late?” he asked. “Have I missed it?”
“Missed what?” the headmistress asked. “This has turned into a very strange evening. . . .”
“I was hoping to audit your lesson,” Nav said, stepping forward a little more so that Lady Covington had to step back — leaving Josh a clear path behind her out the door.
With silent thanks to Nav, Josh sneaked out.
Nav kept Lady Covington’s attention on him. “Peaches just raves about your progress.” He added in his most suave voice, “Now, if you’re ever inclined to learn Spanish . . .”
“Oh, no, my Spanish is actually quite perfect,” Lady Covington boasted. “Buenas noches, Monsieur Navarro.”
From his hiding spot around the corner, Josh could still hear the conversation. He slapped his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. Riiiight, Lady Covington knew Spanish — Monsieur was French! Josh couldn’t wait to post it on Chirper.
Nav, on the other hand, praised the headmistress. “Nailed it!” he said. “Adiós, señora Covington.”
“Heheheheheh!” Peaches tittered helplessly, trotting out after Nav.
Kit was waiting for them down the corridor by the tuckshop. Nav had insisted that she move away from Lady Covington’s office in case anything went wrong. Considering the disaster she’d already caused that morning, she had readily agreed.
Now Josh appeared with Nav and Peaches. He held out an envelope. “Got it!”
“We’ll find TK if it’s the last thing we do,” Nav added.
Kit took the envelope, her heart pounding. Her new Covington friends were the best! She opened the envelope and unfolded the paper. “Oh, no,” she said, skimming the contents.
“What?” asked Nav.
“This doesn’t tell me where TK went. It’s a bill for new curtains!”
Josh grabbed the paper and scanned it.
“Those curtains are very expensive,” Peaches noted. “She should reconsider.”
Josh slapped the paper down on the tuckshop counter. “I’m sorry,” he told Kit. “It was the only receipt-like thing in her whole office.”
“We’ll figure something out, Kit,” said Nav. “I promise.”
“We have to.” Kit tried not to be too disappointed. She knew they had taken a big risk for her already, but without their continued help, she wouldn’t stand a chance of finding TK. “See you guys tomorrow,” she said. “And thanks.” She turned and left the group.
As she walked out of the school’s main building and down the path leading to Rose Cottage, she heard the tippy-tap tippy-tap of Peaches’s steps behind her. She appreciated the fact that Peaches was keeping her distance. Kit didn’t want to be rude, but she wasn’t in the best mood now that she was right back where she’d started from in her quest to find TK. I’m surprised Peaches offered to help at all, she thought. She must really like pudding.
It didn’t surprise her that the tippy-tapping followed her into Rose Cottage. And since Peaches’s room was across from her own, Kit wasn’t surprised to hear the tippy-tapping follow her
up the stairs. “Good night,” she said over her shoulder, and moped into her room.
It felt so dismal without Anya. Kit tried to ignore the empty second bed, the empty shelves, and the empty desk and dresser on Anya’s side of the room. With a heavy sigh, she set her bag down.
Tippy-tap tippy-tap! The door clicked closed.
Kit turned around to see Peaches grinning at her. “Okay, what’s up with you? Why are you following me?”
“Elaine gave me to you,” Peaches announced, as if it was something that happened every day.
“What?”
“Because you lost your horse. And Anya’s gone. She figured you could use, well”— Peaches struck a pose — “me!”
“You have got to be kidding me. Elaine is pitying me? Oh, this is the worst!” Kit flopped onto her bed, smashing her face into her big soft pillow. It was one thing when people did you favors because you were depressed. It was quite another thing for them to loan their own friends to you like library books.
Peaches tippy-tapped closer. “I can’t really go back,” she explained. “She threatened to confiscate my fuzzy slippers.”
Right, Kit thought. Peaches is as much a victim as I am. Thank you, Elaine, for this heartfelt complication. Without raising her head, Kit pointed. “That bed is yours,” she muffled through her pillow. “Sleep well.”
Peaches tippy-tapped her way over to Anya’s bed. “Good night, new best friend!”
That made Kit raise her head.
Perched happily on the bed and smiling like a goof, Peaches merely stared at her.
Kit felt like she was living with a cartoon. “Promise me you’ll close your eyes? Eventually?” But for all she knew, Peaches sat like a grinning loon all night.
The next morning, Kit walked to the dining hall alone. Peaches must have gotten up early, and frankly, Kit found that to be a relief. She wasn’t interested in borrowing emergency friends, especially from Elaine.
She ran into Will in the corridor. “Hey,” he greeted her. “Josh told me about his and Nav’s little Russian spy act.”
“Hilarious, right?” Kit laughed. Getting serious, she added, “I mean, I wish they’d gotten somewhere, but . . .”
The Search for TK Page 2