Read Online The Unmapped Sea by Maryrose Wood - Free Book Online Page A

more tangled than before,” Penelope cautioned. “You must hold your hands steady.”
    Cassiopeia raised her yarn-wrapped hands to the top of her head and opened her eyes wide, until they were very round indeed. “ Arrivederci! ” she trilled in a high voice. “That is Italian. It means ‘I want to go shopping!’”
    â€œNow, now,” Penelope said quickly. “It is not polite to pretend to be other people—”
    Before she could say another word, the children plopped the whole mess of yarn on Penelope’s head. “Look at Lady Constance!” they cried, forgetting to be quiet. “Her hair is pretty and yellow as a daffodil in spring!”
    This time their fellow travelers stared openly. Some stood up to get a better look. Once more the whispers began.
    â€œMaking fun of Her Ladyship, tsk, tsk !”
    â€œNot very respectful, if you ask me.”
    â€œSets a poor example for the children . . .”
    Snore—
    Disaster! Penelope wished she might crawl under her seat and hide for the rest of the trip. “If this gossip finds its way back to Lord and Lady Ashton, it would be enough to lose my position over,” she fretted. “What an unfortunate misunderstanding that would be . . . hmm . . . now there is an interesting effect. . . .”
    Her worried thoughts trailed off, for she had caught sight of her reflection in the train window. The window was scratched and clouded, and with the landscape whooshing by on the other side, the glass offered an imperfect reflection at best—but one that, ironically,made her look much more like Lady Constance than a mirror ever could.
    Curious, she widened her eyes and tried to look silly. With all the blur and motion, the illusion was striking. “It is not that I look exactly like Lady Constance,” she thought. “But I give quite a convincing impression of Lady Constance, at a glance.” (Coincidentally, and only a few decades into the future, a group of French painters called the Impressionists invented a style in which landscapes and people were shown precisely as if they were glimpsed through the scratched window of a moving train. At first, no one knew what to make of these blurry paintings, but they soon became popular and now they, too, hang in the galleries of the world’s great museums to this very day.)
    Fascinated, Penelope turned her head this way and that, and stole quick glimpses of herself. “A professional thespian would hardly be surprised, but truly, it is amazing how a modest use of stagecraft can make one person resemble another. . . .” She swiped the yarn off her head. “Eureka!” she exclaimed. Everyone in the train car but the sleeping Mrs. Clarke was staring at her now, but she no longer cared.
    â€œWhat did you discover, Lumawoo?” the children begged to know.
    Penelope tapped one temple with a fingertip. “The answer to a riddle. The solution to a puzzle. The key to a conundrum.”
    â€œYou mean, you discovered . . . synonyms?” Alexander asked, puzzled.
    â€œI shall explain everything to you, later. Right now I must write a letter.” Filled with inspiration, Penelope extracted a sheet of stationery and a matching envelope from her bag. (Along with a supply of clean pocket handkerchiefs, a respectable person of any age should always carry some decent stationery, for one never knows when one will be called upon to write a thank-you note.)
    Beowulf could not contain his curiosity. “A letter to whom?”
    â€œTo Simon,” she answered, taking out her fountain pen. “To Simon Harley-Dickinson.”
    â€œSimawoo!” the children half howled. Penelope did not scold them, for she too would have howled with delight at the prospect of seeing Simon, had she been in the least bit prone to howling.
    â€œWill we see him in Brighton? He likes the ocean,” asked Cassiopeia.
    â€œAnd navigation,” said