Chapter 12
Twelve
For the briefest of moments, Annaliese found herself devoid of anything to say to that—until her gaze drifted over the front lawn and settled on a group of students who were sprawled on their backs in the grass, many of whom sported cloths over their faces, something that implied they were in the process of recovering from some form of the vapors.
She returned her attention to Seth. “How many of those skunk deterrents did you give Norma Jean?”
“I didn’t give her any of them because, as I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t had time to test them out.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She must have helped herself to some of them last evening when she and Mother stopped by my house to drop off a set of dishes my aunt Thelma wanted me to have.”
“You left skunk deterrents lying around in the open when you know Norma Jean has a tendency to help herself to your possessions?”
“Of course not. They were in a box in my workshop, and frankly, I’m surprised Norma Jean helped herself to even a single skunk deterrent since I specifically labeled that box Danger of Extreme Skunk Smell if Broken.”
“One would have thought that would have been enough to warn her off, but exactly what is this skunk deterrent invention of yours?”
“I’m not sure it rates the word invention as it’s just essence of skunk contained in a thin vial, the thinness chosen so that when it’s tossed to the floor, it’ll break on impact.”
“And you created this gadget with the intention of giving it to adolescent girls as a safety device?”
Another hand rake through the hair was Seth’s first response to that. “I might not have thought through the ways in which this skunk deterrent could be put to use by girls who have yet to reach their majority.”
“Clearly, although Norma Jean certainly seems to have thought of different ways to put the skunk deterrent to good use. But speaking of your sister . . .” Annaliese lifted her chin.
“I believe it’s past time I have a chat with her since it’s now obvious that the academy was not invaded by a surfeit of skunks and—”
“How delightful to learn that you know a group of skunks is called a surfeit, Miss Merriweather,” Phoebe suddenly interrupted as she stole up beside Annaliese and promptly directed a bright smile her way.
“Seth knows that as well, and as I believe I mentioned, people who share common knowledge . . .” Phoebe abruptly stopped talking, undoubtedly because Seth had stepped directly next to her and had, if Annaliese wasn’t much mistaken, given Phoebe a bit of a nudge.
“I don’t really think this is the time for furthering your agenda,” Seth said, earning a widening of the eyes from Phoebe before she nodded.
“An excellent point. I’ll just go help Riley with the water, but know that I’ll be available if the two of you want to continue talking about common interests with me after you get the skunk situation under control.”
As Phoebe skipped away, Annaliese arched a brow at Seth. “I take it you’ve figured out what all the plotting is about?”
“As well as figured out that the girls aren’t interested in becoming inventors.”
“Which is probably a good thing considering what you recently invented, but speaking of that invention . . .” She frowned.
“I suppose I should show you what Harriet found in the dining hall before speaking with your sister. I would hate to accuse her of skunking up the school if it turns out your skunk deterrent isn’t what Harriet found. ”
Holding out her hand, Annaliese waited until Harriet abandoned her interest in the necklace she was wearing and scrambled over to take the offered hand before she nodded to Seth. “Shall we?”
“I suppose we have no choice but to find proof of Norma Jean’s skullduggery, but know that I’m truly sorry about all this, and also know that I’ll be certain to destroy the rest of the batch just as soon as I get home, as well as clean up the mess in the academy that my deterrents undoubtedly caused. ”
“Apology accepted,” Annaliese began as she headed for the castle. “And thank you for offering to destroy the rest of your deterrents, although there is every chance Norma Jean helped herself to all of them.”
Falling into step beside her, Seth frowned. “If that’s the case, I may have far more cleaning up to do than I imagined, although know that, after I track my sister down, Norma Jean will be helping with the cleanup as well.”
“A fitting punishment, even though cleaning up the mess won’t be the only repercussion Norma Jean, and whomever else was in on this, will face.”
“Should I assume you’re going to expel my sister if it turns out she’s responsible?”
Annaliese shook her head. “I won’t go so far as to expel her or anyone else involved, as it’s not as if there are any girls here who’ve amassed disciplinary actions against them. But they will be suspended, although for how long, I’m not sure. I’ll need to confer with Seraphina about that.”
“That sounds fair, even if Norma Jean won’t be in agreement, since she’ll probably find herself confined to the house for months after my mother finds out she’s been suspended.”
“If your mother is like my mother, Norma Jean will probably only face a month’s sentence for this first suspension.
But you might want to tell her that you know someone—that being me, although don’t tell Norma Jean that—who was confined to her room for two months after getting suspended a second time. ”
Seth stopped walking. “You got suspended more than once?”
“Indeed, although I’ve always felt that my suspensions were a bit of an overreaction on the Sherwood Academy’s part.
” Annaliese stopped walking as well. “I mean, how could I have been expected to ignore that Mrs. Austin St. John arrived at the Sherwood Academy one day with a cage filled with birds she’d picked up from a street market on her way to retrieving her daughter from school?
Fortunately, I overheard her telling another mother that she was going to take the birds to her milliner with the expectation that they would pluck the birds and use their feathers on a hat Mrs. St. John had her heart set on to wear to a garden party. ”
“Do not say you set those birds free.”
“Without a second thought. But then Alice Leery tattled on me because she’d seen me sneaking outside, and just like that, I found myself suspended.”
“And the other time?”
“It was hardly my fault that deciding to take a tarantula to class after my instructor encouraged everyone to bring their favorite pet to school to celebrate the end of term resulted with numerous students suffering fits of the vapors. Tarantulas, if you’re unaware, are incredibly docile creatures and rarely bite”
Seth was grinning a second later, his grin causing the butterflies to return to her stomach again, which was odd, given the circumstances. Before she could contemplate that further, though, Harriet released her hold on Annaliese’s hand and scampered up the steps leading to the castle entrance.
After taking a second to rewrap the scarf around her face, Annaliese waited while Seth tied a handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket around his face, then together they followed Harriet down the long hallway and into the great room.
They then followed her along one of the tables that still had all the dishes from lunch on it, Harriet stopping a moment later, where she promptly started chattering as she pointed underneath one of the chairs.
Seth strode forward, poked his head underneath the table for all of two seconds, then reared back right as he began coughing, undoubtedly due to the stench emitting from under the table.
Annaliese snagged hold of his hand and hauled him through a door that led to the back courtyard, releasing his hand as soon as they stepped outside.
She then pulled her scarf off and continued walking until she reached the balcony that overlooked Lake Michigan, gulping in breaths of fresh air as she leaned her elbows on the railing, stopping mid-gulp when the sight of her mother and Seraphina captured her attention.
Concerningly enough, those two were standing on the shoreline and seemed to be in the process of supervising three girls who were standing in the shallows, all of whom were armed with scrub brushes, and all of whom were no longer wearing their school uniform of white shirt and gray skirt, but old-fashioned bathing costumes that she and Seraphina had recently unearthed in an old trunk in one of the castle’s turret rooms.
“Everything alright down there?” Annaliese yelled over the balcony.
Irma looked up. “They got skunked,” she called back. “The soap isn’t working.”
“We smell horrible,” Penina Zambarello called next as her sister, Donata, nodded beside her.
“Our clothes are ruined,” Mabel called before she lost her balance and tumbled into the water, Donata hauling her to her feet a moment later.
Annaliese turned to Seth. “Any thoughts as to how to eliminate essence of skunk from one’s person?”
“Yes, but before we get into that, you should know that you definitely don’t have any skunks roaming around the castle as that was one of my vials smashed underneath the chair.”
“I probably should have asked this before, but on the chance that Norma Jean took your entire supply of them, how many vials of eau de skunk did you make?”
He winced. “I had forty-three stoppered vials at last count, which was far less than I was planning on making, as I was originally intending on giving every student here a vial if I thought they were a viable safety device. However, I didn’t make it past forty-three because the smell was getting to me, even though I was wearing a modified smoke inhaler over my face, one I invented for firefighters that does a somewhat credible job of masking scents, as well as smoky air. ”
Annaliese’s mouth dropped open. “Forty . . . three?”
“I’m afraid so. But given that I’m thinking only five students were involved with today’s event, I’d say the odds are at least sixty-two percent that not all the vials were deployed.”
“Dare I ask how many vials you’ve calculated that may have been used?” Annaliese forced herself to ask.
He tilted his head. “If I were planning an attack, I would have armed everyone with two to three vials to utilize, so ten vials at the least, fifteen at the most, which, if you think about it, is far more manageable than forty-three.”
It really wasn’t much of a surprise when, even though she readily admitted, at least to herself, that she’d been finding Seth McCormick rather appealing of late, she suddenly found herself wondering how one could go about the process of throttling a gentleman in a civil fashion, especially when one was a decorum instructor, and as such, was certainly expected to proceed with matters of throttling in the most proper of ways.