He let Porky up and asked the same question with an explanation of what he expected. “Are you going to quit struggling? Start behaving, boy, because I’m going to keep dunking you until you stop this nonsense.”
Bealomondore won the battle of the wills. Porky settled down. The performance was repeated with Cinder, Grim, Ostes, Barm, Laska, and Jep. Some struggled more than others. Some gave up sooner. They all protested.
Ellie sensed that Bealomondore had lost most of his patience, so after supper she tackled the girls’ baths alone. She instructed Bealomondore to keep the boys busy and out of her hair and sighed with relief at his demeanor with the shiny-clean boys.
He introduced them to a game of cards called Climbing Mountains. She’d learned the same game as a child. Perhaps their backgrounds were not so different. Most Chiril children played this game. Bealomondore used the numbered deck to teach the illiterate crew how to add quickly. Like the baths, some took to addition easier than others.
Ellie waved sweet-smelling powder under each girl’s nose and used it to bribe them into the tub. She’d found the floral-scented talc while exploring one of the closer abandoned homes. She’d gone scavenging with Bealomondore many times. Even this was a part of the routine they’d fallen into. Their outings were precious moments alone, without the cumbersome burden of young children. Still, she thought Bealomondore would soon explode with frustration. Finding the way out of the glass bottle occupied most of his thoughts.
Soo-tie volunteered to go first into the sudsy water, and with her good example, the others tried to be calm. They squealed some, but did not physically fight like the boys had in a water war against her and Bealomondore. The colorful dragons hung around to sing and chitter while the gals soaped up and rinsed off.
Red Curls’s name was Carrie. She wanted her hair clean and shiny like Miss Ellie’s. Aval, Fister, Lisby, Fronna, and Disnat got in and out as quick as Ellie would let them. And the last child, Toady, wouldn’t get out of the tub, she liked it so much.
After a few days, baths became part of their routine, even if overall hygiene remained an ongoing battle. But a child who made the effort to be clean received special treats. Ellie spent a lot of time in Old One’s kitchen.
“I’m glad you’ve come to help,” she told the librarian one day.
“My library is overrun by hooligans,” he complained. “I come up here to escape the chaos. It’s not by choice I come to be a kitchenmaid.”
“No one’s forcing you to help me make daggarts.” She grinned at him, recognizing that he enjoyed being with her and actually doing something rather than sitting and reading all day.
“Daggarts?” He pronounced the word with a growl. “It’s not just daggarts but boiled tarts, finger pies, and anything else you come up with.”
She went over to him and hugged his upper calf, which is where her arms reached when he stood.
“I like having you here. And you’re changing. You are less grouchy, more agile, and”—she leaned back to look all the way up to the grouchy face staring down at her—“you aren’t as forgetful as you were when we first came.”
“Self-preservation. I’ve got to keep sharp, or you’ll bring in the rest of those ruffians.”
“We do get one or two more members to our clan as each week goes by.”
“I know it,” he snapped. “I’m not blind.”
A month passed, and Bealomondore tried not to act out his frustration. He endured the routine established by the inmates of the library, but just barely. He preferred digging through the books and exploring the subter.
Every morning, he and Ellie fed the children in the children’s area. Old One refused to take part in their meals, but he always sat within hearing distance. After breakfast, the girls tidied up and had baths. The boys had cleanup duty after supper and got plunged into soapy hot water just before bed.
Ellie taught the children how to play with the few toys in the children’s area. She also taught them to write numbers and letters. Airon helped teach songs they found in the children’s books. After noonmeal, Ellie read to them. And after they woke from a nap, Bealomondore took them outside to play games he’d played as a child.
But Bealomondore chafed at the time taken in the care of the little clan. His determination to get out of Rumbard City grew with each exasperating day of child-sitting.
He pored over the journals of Old One and of some of the deceased citizens of Rumbard City.
“What are you reading now?” asked Ellie during one of the afternoon rest times.
He held up the book in his hand. “Somas.”
“The architect.” She sat on a footstool opposite him.
Bealomondore looked at her dimples and smiled, welcoming her company. Her hands went to her cheeks, resting on the little dents beside her mouth. She blushed.
As much as he liked to famfoozle her, he didn’t like to keep her in a state of embarrassment. He continued on the subject at hand.
“Right.” He paused. Where to go from here? How much did she want to escape their confinement and the onerous job of running an orphanage for huge six-year-olds? “Ellie, I keep finding references to an underground city. It has to be real. Old One doesn’t remember, but Airon knows tumanhofer songs she said she learned in the ‘old’ library. I can only believe the ‘old’ library is beneath us.”
“Why would finding the old tumanhofer city be helpful to us?”
“Because the city would have more than one way to the surface. A dozen exits or more.” He leaned forward. “I’ve been through miles of the subter.”
He felt her frisson of fear as she frowned.
“I worry about you when you go exploring.”
“No need. Det is always with me, whether we are on the streets of Rumbard City or in the tunnels below. He always knows right where we are and the fastest way back to the library.”
“He’s a remarkable dragon.”
Bealomondore slumped against the cushions of his chair. “We haven’t come across one door that sounds like the one described.”
“What about the key? Who had it last? Where was it kept?”
“Mysteries.” Bealomondore puzzled a moment over their predicament. “But finding the key without locating the door would do us no good.”
She finished his thought. “Finding the door without the key would not be much better.”
Bealomondore tapped the closed book in his lap. “Somas gives the best clues yet. He talks about an underground cool-water stream. If we follow the stream, we come to the door.”
Ellie laughed. “Now we have to find a key, a door, and a stream. This doesn’t seem to me to be an improvement.”
“I’ll ask Old One again. Sometimes he remembers things.”
“And most of the time he doesn’t.”
“You’re being a pessimist, Ellie. That’s not like you.”
She looked down at her hands, shoulders drooping. “I hate to admit it, but I think I’m tired of caring for these enormous, demanding children.”
He refrained from commenting on what he considered to be the futility of their efforts. Ellie leaned forward. “Did you notice we have two new members in the clan again today? I’m quite positive we have more children in the library than Yawn commands outside our little sanctuary.”
He nodded. “I always smell them before I see them.”
She giggled. “Soo-tie and Toady have already told them they are going to have baths after story time.”
He grinned. “How’d they take the news?”
“Quite well. It seems Yawn is being particularly nasty and they’d rather be with us.”
“Understandable.” He hopped out of the chair and came to sit with his girl. “Ellie, Yawn is dangerous. If he ever gets hold of one of these children who has defected to the library, he’ll pound him or her.”
“I know.” She shuddered. He saw the image she dwelled on, the injured Porky when they first rescued him. She clutched Bealomondore’s hand. “They don’t venture
out farther than the fenced park. But I think they are getting dangerously restless. Mischief erupts out of boredom.”
He hugged her and kissed her forehead. “So wise for one so young.”
She laughed.
He gave her a quick peck on the lips, a move that always produced a sweet silence and glowing eyes. Her beauty radiated around them in a way that demanded to be painted. But they had work to do before he could jump full-time into his art. “I have an idea.”
“And you’re keeping it from me. I can’t hear your thoughts.”
He nodded. He’d kept the notion to himself until he’d planned out the details. Now was a good time to share, and if he waited much longer to be freed from Rumbard City, he might become loopy like Old One. “Let’s set up a hunt. The children are to find any and all keys and bring them to us.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“When the search goes outside the library, we will accompany them.”
“Where will they look?”
“Here first, then the homes of the prominent citizens of Rumbard City.”
She nodded, thinking of the possibilities of his suggestion. She hadn’t guarded her thoughts. Bealomondore followed them with little effort. She came to what he had thought would be their next step after a successful key hunt.
“And when we find the key,” she said, “then we turn to the exploration of the subter. Together we’ll find the stream and the door.” She grinned and clapped her hands together. “Oh, they’re going to like this, Bealomondore.”
Ellie’s head swiveled as she tried to keep an eye out for any of Yawn’s gang. At least she had four dragons with her, circling and scouting the roofs and alleys. Half of their forty children scampered around her, glad to be out of the confines of the library. Ellie had hoped to find the key inside their sanctuary and not have to venture into the streets. It was through no lack of trying that they had to extend the search. The children found dozens of keys but not the one Orli could identify as the right key.
Bealomondore had gone one direction with twenty urohm children and Det, and she’d gone the opposite with minor dragons, children, and Tak. They planned to seek out the more affluent neighborhoods where the city founders who’d held important posts had dwelled. Old One had actually been helpful, locating a directory from the town council.
They turned down a side street where mansions loomed under stunted trees. Outside the bottle, these morgym trees would be twice as tall. The delicate leaves shadowed the street with shifting dapples. Ellie took a big breath, savoring the rich, spicy smell of the morgyms. In the spring, the sap would rise. She could see signs on the tree trunks of having been tapped in the distant past.
“Let’s check the first house on the right,” she called to her charges.
Carrie stopped. “What right?”
Ellie didn’t scold the children for not knowing right from left. She mentally added it to the things she would teach them. “The yellow house.”
The children ran up the broad steps to the front porch and attacked the door.
Several called out. “It’s locked.”
Then, as if driven by a wild shepherd, they dashed down the steps and loped around the side of the house.
Ellie followed. “Wait for me! Remember Bealomondore wanted me to show you how to search.”
She hurried around the corner and almost cheered when she saw the children lined up before an open door. When she came to the steps, she saw Kriss, Maree, and Amee blocking the entrance. The children had not exhibited a rare display of self-control. She shrugged. She’d take what she could get. A month ago they would have plowed over the small dragons in their way.
She entered the kitchen and turned to make sure the children gathered in such a way as to be able to see her demonstration. When they were settled, she pulled open a drawer.
“Never dump the contents of what you are looking through. We’d just have to pick it up off the floor, and that would slow us down.”
She lifted a stack of tea towels carefully. “See. I pick up the towels, look underneath, then carefully replace them.” She picked up hot pads next. “I can go through the whole drawer without making a mess.” She raised the next stack of cloths.
“Why do we have to be so neat?” asked Jep. “Who cares?”
“It’s a matter of respect. These items belonged to someone at one time. Out of respect for their feelings, we take care of their belongings.”
“But they’re long gone,” said Lisby. “They don’t know.”
“The simple answer is that Wulder would know. Bealomondore says Wulder sees everything we do. Wulder favors order and disdains destruction.”
Lisby scratched her scalp under the tidy ponytail Ellie had gathered on top of her head. “What does that mean?”
Carrie elbowed her. “It means He likes neat and doesn’t like mess.”
Ellie looked Lisby over, trying to find something that the girl counted as valuable. Untied shoes, scruffy leggings, a faded dress, and a wisp of a yellow scarf were the girl’s only possessions. Ellie pinched the edge of the scarf and pulled it gently from Lisby’s shoulders.
“Let’s say that it is three hundred years from now. I don’t know you, and you aren’t here, but I find your scarf.” She held it up for all to see.
Alarm opened Lisby’s eyes wider. Her eyebrows arched into her bangs.
“Now,” said Ellie, looking around the kitchen but not at the children, “I don’t see anyone here. Obviously, this yellow scarf belonged to somebody, but that was so long ago. I have mud on my shoes. Maybe I’ll use this rag to wipe the dirt off.”
Lisby grabbed for the scarf. Ellie deftly pulled it out of her reach.
“Or,” Ellie said, “I might cut it into squares and make handkerchiefs to blow my nose.”
Lisby made another desperate attempt to recapture her scarf. Again, Ellie eluded her.
“Or I might play tug of war with the scarf. Tak loves to play tug of war.”
“No, no!” cried Lisby.
Laska grabbed Ellie’s arm. “Don’t do it! She loves that yellow thing.”
Ellie patted his hand on her elbow. “You don’t have to worry.” She handed the scarf back to Lisby. “I wouldn’t damage the scarf, or throw it on the floor, or burn it in the stove. It is something that belongs to Lisby. And I don’t have the right to destroy it.”
“But you take stuff from the houses all the time. So does Bealomondore.”
Ellie nodded. “I do.” She looked around and picked up a bar of soap from the sink rim. “This soap belonged to the people who owned the house. I want to take it and use it. I don’t think they would object to my taking it since I really need it. I’m not going to destroy it. I’m going to use it.”
Laska wrinkled his nose. “So that’s different? Just because you’re going to scrub us with it? You can take it?” He shook his head. “Nah, Miss Ellie, it’s the same. You ought to respect that soap and leave it here.”
Ellie fought the giggle that rose to her throat. He’d turned her argument against her. “No, Laska, I respect the people, not the soap. And in respecting the people, I recognize that most people are generous enough to share a bar of soap. I’d give you a place to sleep if you needed it. I would give you my coat if you were cold.” She let a grin spread across her face. “And I would give you a bath if you were dirty.”
Laska put his hands up in front of him and backed away. “No, Miss Ellie, I’m fresh scrubbed.”
The other children laughed, and Ellie joined them.
She hugged the two closest to her, then released them. “All right. Let’s search this house. And remember to leave everything the way you found it.”
“Except the keys!” shouted one of the girls.
“That’s right,” Ellie said. “Collect the keys for Orli to examine.”
They worked their way down the street and had crossed to come back on the other side when Det flew over, circled, and landed on Ellie’s shoulder.
Her mind
speaking abilities had sharpened over the weeks, and she understood him easily.
“They think they’ve found the right key. We’re to meet the other half of the clan at the library.”
Their dash back to the center of Rumbard City included laughter and happy squeals. Ellie tried to calm them as they approached the area where Yawn and his few remaining thugs hung out, but she couldn’t contain the children’s excitement.
Ellie panicked. What would she do if those ruffians jumped out at her and tackled the children who had deserted Yawn and come to the library? She didn’t want a fight. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
“Shh! Be quiet!”
The children heeded for almost a full minute before they broke into noisy games of chase and tag as they walked through the wider, empty streets of abandoned shops.
Ellie remembered Bealomondore’s calm voice as he spoke to Wulder. He put a lot of trust in Wulder being real and interested in what Bealomondore said. Often her tumanhofer friend would list the things he liked, thanking Wulder for His provision. And he would list his concerns.
Sometimes he sounded like he was thinking things over aloud, but most of the time it sounded as if he was actually talking to someone. And he often sat, with his eyes closed, a small smile on his lips. Ellie would notice through their bond that a peace flowed through him, a peace she had never felt on her own.
In imitation of what seemed to work for Bealomondore, Ellie began to pray. “Wulder, please keep us safe. Keep Yawn occupied somewhere else. Allow more of the children trapped in Yawn’s hold to escape and come to us.”
For a moment she stopped praying. Did she really want more children to care for? No, if she was honest, she didn’t. Where did those words come from? She decided to try again and to keep control of what her mouth said.
“Wulder, please keep us safe. Keep Yawn away. Help us get to the library quickly and without any trouble. If any of Yawn’s brutes have decided to leave him …”
There it was again. She didn’t want to pray this way.
“Wulder, please let the key we need be among the keys we found. Help Orli identify the right key, and help us find the door to the underground city. Help us to decide what to do with all the children.” She stopped before she could add “even those from Yawn’s group.” What was the matter with her?