up in the war and we were more or less on the same side, he relaxed a little and he said They've been moved too, to a farm just outside of Kingly which is a Fair Distance East of Here and I'm sure you'll see them again All in Good Time.
I was kind of taken aback by his willingness to breach the Name, Rank and Serial Number stuff and tell me where they were and after that I didn't know what to say except possibly How 'bout showing me exactly where on a map and leaving me the car keys in case we decide to go see them in the dead of night and never come back.
I don't get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say.
Of course in order to survive Piper and I needed to have a plan, and I was the one who was going to have to make it because Piper's job was to be a Mystical Creature and mine was to get things done here on earth which was just how the cards were dealt and there was no point thinking of it any other way.
Our major plan, which we didn't even have to discuss, was to get back together with Edmond and Isaac and Osbert by hook or by crook. So far, I was pretty hazy on the details.
I did, however, get so far as to find a Road Map of the British Isles hanging around the house and look up Kingly and Reston Bridge and what I discovered was that good old Major Laurence McEvoy had told me the truth and Kingly was pretty much straight east of us and not that far from Aunt Penn's sequestered house, though a little farther away from Reston Bridge than was totally convenient given the current difficulty in securing a taxi.
The extremely good news was that our very own swimming and fishing river near the house was a branch of the same one that the bridge in Reston Bridge went over and I figured navigation-wise that was a big plus.
It's probably best to say up front that maps are not what I'm good at. So I did what every other sensible New Yorker has been doing for years in the Public Library, I tore the page out and hid it in my underwear. And from then on I always kept it with me Just In Case.
We went to bed early that night and pretty much every other night because without electricity and with even candles getting pretty scarce, there wasn't much point in sitting around in the dark. I didn't much like being in this boy's room with the stupid bimbos on the wall and I know Piper wasn't wild about it or being away from her brothers either.
Before she fell asleep she said Daisy—
And I said Yes Piper?
And she said, I always wanted a sister and if I had one I would want her to be like you.
She paused.
Though I always thought she would be called Amy.
I laughed a little then and said It's all right with me, you can call me Amy if you want Piper, but she looked a little hurt and I stopped joking around and said, I practically am your sister now Piper, and that seemed to satisfy her on the subject and she didn't say anything more about it.
I didn't tell her that I had never wanted a sister, in actual fact had spent most of my recent life desperately NOT wanting a sister, but that was only because of the circumstances in which I was likely to get one and besides I never imagined how much I could love someone like Piper though having said that there probably isn't another person anything like Piper this side of Kingdom Come.
She asked me what was going to happen to us and I told her I didn't really know but that nothing could hurt us when we were together. I asked her Do you know what invincible means? And she nodded because she's read more books in nine years than most people read in a lifetime and I said Well, as long as we're together that's what we are.
Then she said in a croaky voice Mum must be so worried about us, and there was something in the silence that followed that sounded so desolate that I went and sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair over and over and tried not to think about Aunt Penn's whereabouts or whether she was dead or alive. But you had to admit Piper had a point because if
I was kind of taken aback by his willingness to breach the Name, Rank and Serial Number stuff and tell me where they were and after that I didn't know what to say except possibly How 'bout showing me exactly where on a map and leaving me the car keys in case we decide to go see them in the dead of night and never come back.
I don't get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say.
Of course in order to survive Piper and I needed to have a plan, and I was the one who was going to have to make it because Piper's job was to be a Mystical Creature and mine was to get things done here on earth which was just how the cards were dealt and there was no point thinking of it any other way.
Our major plan, which we didn't even have to discuss, was to get back together with Edmond and Isaac and Osbert by hook or by crook. So far, I was pretty hazy on the details.
I did, however, get so far as to find a Road Map of the British Isles hanging around the house and look up Kingly and Reston Bridge and what I discovered was that good old Major Laurence McEvoy had told me the truth and Kingly was pretty much straight east of us and not that far from Aunt Penn's sequestered house, though a little farther away from Reston Bridge than was totally convenient given the current difficulty in securing a taxi.
The extremely good news was that our very own swimming and fishing river near the house was a branch of the same one that the bridge in Reston Bridge went over and I figured navigation-wise that was a big plus.
It's probably best to say up front that maps are not what I'm good at. So I did what every other sensible New Yorker has been doing for years in the Public Library, I tore the page out and hid it in my underwear. And from then on I always kept it with me Just In Case.
We went to bed early that night and pretty much every other night because without electricity and with even candles getting pretty scarce, there wasn't much point in sitting around in the dark. I didn't much like being in this boy's room with the stupid bimbos on the wall and I know Piper wasn't wild about it or being away from her brothers either.
Before she fell asleep she said Daisy—
And I said Yes Piper?
And she said, I always wanted a sister and if I had one I would want her to be like you.
She paused.
Though I always thought she would be called Amy.
I laughed a little then and said It's all right with me, you can call me Amy if you want Piper, but she looked a little hurt and I stopped joking around and said, I practically am your sister now Piper, and that seemed to satisfy her on the subject and she didn't say anything more about it.
I didn't tell her that I had never wanted a sister, in actual fact had spent most of my recent life desperately NOT wanting a sister, but that was only because of the circumstances in which I was likely to get one and besides I never imagined how much I could love someone like Piper though having said that there probably isn't another person anything like Piper this side of Kingdom Come.
She asked me what was going to happen to us and I told her I didn't really know but that nothing could hurt us when we were together. I asked her Do you know what invincible means? And she nodded because she's read more books in nine years than most people read in a lifetime and I said Well, as long as we're together that's what we are.
Then she said in a croaky voice Mum must be so worried about us, and there was something in the silence that followed that sounded so desolate that I went and sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair over and over and tried not to think about Aunt Penn's whereabouts or whether she was dead or alive. But you had to admit Piper had a point because if
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