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Sophronia, on the other hand, felt self-conscious She stuck out like a puff pastry alad that when they stopped it was behind a ine to one side of the roorabbed an impish towheaded boy by one elbow "Rafe, fetch Soap, would ya?"

"Do it yourself, Trouble"

"Can’t I got ierous place, now could I?"

"Her?" The blond boy squinted into the shadohere Sophronia stood "What’s one of the her own business Now get Soap, would ya?"

The blond sniffed, but aas me," Vieve replied with a smile

"Or as adorable asher cap "Good evening, Miss Temminnick; Vieve To what do e this honor? Shouldn’t you be watching a play or sorab for her hat, but Soap held it out of reach "Can’t stand the theater"

"And I’m not allowed," Sophronia added "But Soap, Vieve and I ondering if you could help us get out?"

"Out?"

"We want to pay a visit to Bunson’s"

"But why? No one will be there"

"Exactly," crowed Vieve

"They’ve got so ant to see"

Soap was suspicious "What kind of so?"

"A corinning

Soap looked back and forth between them He ended with Sophronia "Not you as well? Gone barmy over mechanics, have you? I should never have introduced you two It’ll all end in tears and oil"

"Not really I’ued by this one’s desirability"

"What?"

"Flywaymen want it, or parts of it Monique failed because of it I’ve seen two air battles so far over stray bits of it"

Soap latched on to the last part of her statement "You sahat happened with theit"

"No joke I was squeaking for nigh on an hour because of all that heliu, repairs up top So?"

"Someone fired a cannon at us"

"Because of this communication ht make the communication machines actually co to play along "Well, very good, then, but I better coroundside unsupervised"

Sophronia arched her eyebrows "I assure you, I have been sneaking around with ilowered at her

"Oh, very well," said Sophronia, unwilling to waste any more time

Soap enlisted a few off-duty sooties so that a small, dirty herd escorted Sophronia and Vieve over to yet another hatch in the boiler room floor This was one Sophronia hadn’t noticed before, in a corner behind what she assumed was a hot water pu syste contraptions looked like grates in the walls, and they kicked in at night if it got icy, which it often did up high The one in Di that Diestive" This, then, was Boris’s origin

There was a coiled rope ladder resting nearby When the hatch flipped open, it becaround, perhaps only two stories up They were also at the edge of the moor Swiffle-on-Exe becaan to clioat path above the town, but it was far enough outside the village for Sophronia to be nervous that, should the moor mists rise up, they would not be able to find their way back The moon was full, which explained both the revels in the town and the absence of Captain Niall He would be a truehad explained that Captain Niall took himself off several days before the moon, far into the moor, away from civilization, so that his er to anyone Sophronia thought this sad Werewolves supposedly loved the theater

They dropped down to the grass, Sophronia first, then Vieve, and then Soap Soap saluted the sooties above and the ladder was pulled up They would lower it again in exactly two hours, right before the performance was supposed to let out Sophronia worried about the time constraint, but Vieve was confident that two hours was enough

Under the bright moon, the path into toell-lit Swiffle-on-Exe was a silvery hodgepodge of thatched roofs, church steeples, and the loo monstrosity of Bunson’s to the left They ates to the boys’ school in a little under a quarter of an hour

Sophronia hid while Soap pulled the porter’s bell rope They had decided to let Vieve face the porter mechanical initially, both because she had the obstructor and to ascertain whether the porter would recognize her as a female Vieve maintained that the identifier nodule apixiter, whatever that was, had to be the shape of the lower half of a human body and that if Sophronia would only don trousers like a sensible person…

Either Vieve was correct or some other aspect of her personality caate was thrown open and theher, he made no objection

Vieve stepped toward hionquin Shrih treble voice

"Give tosir," booears and cogs

"Can’t be done," replied Vieve "Orders are to deliver it directly"

The porter let out a blast of steam in apparent annoyance This flapped up the cravat pinned about his neck so that it momentarily obscured his clockwork face He whirred and clunked, sending out a puff of smoke froood, sir, follow me"

The porter made a wide loop on its tracks It hadn’t the pivot le-track an to trundle away, the wheelbarrow on its backside rattling side to side