"Enough!" Wigmere exploded. "I will not have my agents—even my junior agents—squabbling like children."
"One of them is a child, sir," Fagenbush pointed out, and I have to say I admired his bravery. I would not have risked more of Wigmere's temper.
"But you are not. I expect the two of you to work together for the good of the organization. If you can't do that, perhaps I'll have to assign someone else to the Museum of Legends and Antiquities."
I was tempted to point out that since my parents worked there, I couldn't very well be assigned somewhere else, but I refrained.
"Now, work together or I'll find others who can. You're both dismissed."
As the first step of Fagenbush and I working cooperatively together, Wigmere insisted we share a carriage back to the museum. It was a long awkward ride, let me tell you. Fagenbush stared out his window and I stared out mine. Neither of us broke the thick tense silence, except for the low growls and small yips that emerged occasionally from Fagenbush, but as those were involuntary, they didn't really count. After a particularly long string of yaps, Fagenbush looked so distressed that I took pity on him. "It should only last for another day or two. It's not permanent, you know."
He whipped his gaze from the window and glared at me. I shrank back against the seat. "It happened to me once too," I explained. Of course, I'd been much younger then, only eight, and my parents had merely thought I was playing a game. It's much easier to get away with barking when one is a child, I'll grant you that. However, my reassurance did nothing to lessen the look of loathing in Fagenbush's eyes. "Why do you hate me so?" I blurted out, surprising us both. I'd had no intention of asking any such thing.
"Because—yip-yap—you have set my career back ten years with your meddling and interference, that's why." He stopped talking for a moment, overcome with another round of barking.
"How?"
"How? Every time I manage to locate a cursed artifact, I discover that you've been at it already, either decursing it or nullifying it or removing it. I can't prove my worth if you've left nothing for me to do." He looked faintly surprised to have said so much without interruption. Perhaps the curse was already beginning to wear off.
"But how was I to know?" I said. "I thought I was the only one who could see the curses and such. I'm just trying to help."
His mouth twisted up into a mean, small knot. "You are the only one who can see them." His voice was laced with bitterness. "The rest of us have to utilize a series of slow, mundane tests."
And that was when it hit me. He was jealous of me ... of my ability. He wanted to be able to detect the curses the way I did and save himself a load of work. And show up his peers, no doubt. "Well, being able to feel black magic isn't all tea and crumpets," I pointed out.
"Even now, when you do know I'm employed by Wigmere, you still refuse to work with me, and you set me up for these vicious pranks of yours."
I squirmed a bit on the carriage seat. "It wasn't a prank," I insisted. And it wasn't. It was a diversionary tactic to allow me to get research done without him hovering about.
He leaned forward, his long thin nose quivering. "I will not be shown up by a slip of a girl who is playing at things she doesn't understand. I will not let you keep me from my rightful duties or interfere with the important work I've been sent here to do."
"Well, I'll let you be the one to explain all that to Wigmere," I said, flopping back into the corner. Honestly. Wigmere had no idea what he was expecting me to deal with.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Aloysius Trawley Comes Out to Play
MOTHER AND FATHER DECIDED TO STAY at the museum that night, giving me an opportunity to conduct a Moonlight Test. In spite of what Wigmere had said, I wanted to conduct that one last test on the tablet before hiding it for good.
My parents had spent the whole day retranslating all the rubbings they'd taken from the annex to Thutmose Ill's tomb in accordance with the new translation they'd come up with. They were reluctant to quit, afraid their streak would falter if they were to leave it. Luckily, they did think to send Henry and me out for dinner late that afternoon, possibly because Henry was a pill when he was hungry.
Henry came with me to Mrs. Pilkington's pastry shop, where she said she was very pleased to meet him and gave us each a hot cross bun, which she was making for Good Friday, the next day. They were still warm from the oven; the slightly sweet dough practically melted on my tongue. Henry positively inhaled his, which was rather embarrassing. I savored mine as Mrs. Pilkington wrapped up our meat pies. "You two have a lovely Easter now," she said as she handed me the package.
"We will, Mrs. Pilkington. You too."
We stepped out into the raw afternoon, where the biting wind had picked up; we huddled in our coats and began the long trek back to the museum. Two blocks from Mrs. Pilkington's, I noticed a tall black figure tailing us, and my stomach dropped.
Not the scorpions! Not when I was with Henry.
I glanced quickly at my brother, wondering if he had noticed, but he was busy jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk.
Half a block later, a second figure stepped out of an alleyway as we passed and fell into step behind us. Henry stopped his game and sidled closer to me. "Is that man following us?" he whispered.
"What man?" I asked, my mind whirring. So far the only exposure Henry had had to all this was as a game, an adventure to pass time in the boring old museum. But now, as I looked into his worried blue eyes, I wasn't sure he'd want to know the real truth.
"Are you blind? How can you not see that obvious fellow back there?" The scorn in his tone made me want to point out that actually there were two men, how could he not see that? I didn't say it, though. After all, I'd had a bit more practice at this than he had.
I pretended to glance over my shoulder, as if to look at the man he was talking about. "I'm not sure, Henry. I do remember Mother and Father talking about some intense competition from the British Museum. Perhaps that's who they work for."
"But why would they be following us, then?"
Bother. Seen the hole in that theory, had he? "Well, I'm only guessing. It could also just be your imagination, you know."
A furtive flutter of movement across the street caught my eye. A rather enormous thickset man was keeping pace with us. His hat was pulled low over his forehead and his coat wrapped tightly around him with the collar up. He looked vaguely familiar.
I was fairly certain he wasn't one of the Black Sunners. If I'd had any doubts, they were erased when one of the scorpions behind us crossed the street, heading toward the third man.
When the hulking brute saw him, he spun on his heel and began walking back the way he'd come. The other scorpion joined the first, and as they drew closer, he broke into a run, and then all three men disappeared down the street. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Henry. "See? They had nothing to do with us."
After supper, our parents returned to their workroom, and Henry and I settled down to play naughts and crosses. Henry lost two games in a row, then became bored and went to fetch the custard tart he'd been saving for dessert. "Hey! What did you do with my tart?" he came back and asked.
"Nothing at all, Henry. Maybe you left it with your marbles?"
"Ha-ha. Very funny. Now hand it over."
"But I don't have it. Really. Besides, I don't even like custard tarts. I prefer lemon."