The Glas s Town Game

“And for your splashables, a round of champagne flutes for all!” cried Gravey.

He held one well-manicured wooden hand in front of his face like a magician and waggled his thorny eyebrows. Four crystal flutes sprang up behind his fingers. But they had no champagne in them. They couldn’t possibly. These were the sort of flutes you played music with, not the sort you drank from. Any wine would just drip out through the finger holes.

“It’s a fine vintage, a crisp, dry, publicly rambunctious, but privately confused ’21 all the way from Acroofcroomb in the wicked wilds of Gondal!” The Leftenant waited for them to be impressed. He was disappointed. They only blinked a lot and opened their mouths and shut them again. Very unsatisfactory. “It’s absolutely contraband,” he pouted. “I swiped it myself at the Battle of Wehglon. All the other boys took jewels and paintings and silverware. But I knew what I wanted. I knew where to find the real Gondalier gold! I brought it out of my personal stash especially for you and you . . . you humans don’t appreciate it one bit and I shall NEVER recover! Good day to you!”

Leftenant Gravey turned on one oaken heel and marched out of the dining car in a bitter fury. Branwell called after him, but no answer came. He could not bear the fine fighting man’s looking at him with such contempt. Like he was no more than a little bug in a plaid scarf. He ought to have exclaimed at the soldier’s tale of battle and looting, so that they could bond together as stalwart men and become comrades. Stupid, stupid, Bran cursed himself silently.

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne stared down at their lunch.

“It’s all French!” Emily said with a hot little thrill in her voice. “Papa would make us throw it all out!”

But they could not quite sort out a plan of attack. They poked at their dishes with a few of the spoons, though the spoons didn’t make much of a dent. One white crystal one melted halfway to the stump the minute it touched Emily’s storm cloud. A rather brown, papery one started to smoke and smolder when Bran tried to get it up under a scoop of fire.

“Well, this is just the worst,” snapped Branwell, throwing down his burnt spoon. “We can’t eat this rot! They’re trying to poison us. Or make fun of us. Or both at the same time.”

Anne shrugged. She’d got the best out of the lot, if you asked her. She lifted her silver crown and put it on her head. If you had to miss lunch, better to get a new hat out of it! She giggled as it settled perfectly into her blond curls.

“Oh!” Anne shouted suddenly. “Oh! Em! Bran!”

She waved her hands frantically as the sensations of a wonderful meal filled her mouth and her belly, even though she hadn’t eaten a bite. The talk tried to get out, but it stumbled over her excitement and the taste of almond cream cake. “It’s marmalade and cheese on toast and a pigeon pie and almond sponge cake! I can taste it, I swear! As soon as I put the crown on! And I’m getting quite full. It’s so much!”

“Galette des rois,” Charlotte said thoughtfully, and in a very nice accent, for Aunt Elizabeth insisted that all the children learn French, now that all that nasty business with the war was over. She looked down at her little china pot and said: “Let’s see my vol

-au-vent, shall we?”

Charlotte lifted the blue china lid, but the bowl was empty. A swift, noisy whirlwind spun up out of it, twisting like a miniature tornado straight into her curious face. “Oh!” Charlotte coughed, and smiled for the second time that day as she breathed in the wind. “I’ve got roast lamb and buttered artichokes and a strawberry soufflé!”

Emily and Bran peered doubtfully at their rather more alive and dangerous food. Almost at the same time, they each stuck a brave finger in. They yelped together as the lightning shocked her fingers and the blue flames scorched his. But in half a second they were laughing with their sisters and stepping all over each other’s sentences.

“Mince pie and custard—” crowed Bran.

“Apple puffs and mushroom tart—” whooped Emily.

“And creamed lobster!”

“And oyster soup!”

“I’ve figured it out,” Charlotte announced with triumph. She put her hands flat on the table. You could always tell when Charlotte was thinking as hard as she could. She’d stretch her fingers out like she was reaching for the truth and just about to grab hold of it. “Galette des rois. Vol-au-vent. Pot au feu. Éclair. Listen! Everything here is just what it is!”

“What are you on about?” Bran rolled his eyes, savoring the salty, creamy lobster and the rich mince pie. They only ever got mince pies at Christmas back home.

“Look!” Charlotte pointed at Anne in her crown. The silver prongs slowly began to disappear as the girl finished her meal. “Remember our lessons! Galette des rois! That’s ‘kings’ cake.’ Vol-au-vent means ‘windblown.’ Pot au feu means ‘a pot of fire.’ And éclair means ‘a bolt of lightning.’ I think . . . I think in Glass Town, everything does what it says on the tin.” She pointed out the window at the blanket moors whipping by. “Doesn’t everyone always talk about the patchwork fields? Well, there they are! I think they haven’t got turns of phrase or colorful sayings or anything like that here, they’ve got the things themselves. Look!” She held up Bran’s blackened spoon, a strange, brown, papery thing made with what looked like old leaves. “Teaspoon.” She snatched another, a pale, fragile white one, then Emily’s craggy crystal spoon, and yet another sticky yellow one. “Egg spoon. Salt spoon! Mustard spoon!”

“And champagne flutes!” Emily laughed. She blew a high, gentle note on hers and grinned as the bubbling, golden taste of real champagne filled her throat. Her first real champagne! Tabitha would be scandalized.

Charlotte started to laugh, too, helplessly, holding on to her cheeks to keep her smile from flying away with her. She opened her arms to take in all the cluttered piles of old helmets and hats and medals and swords. “Don’t you see? We’re in the Officers’ Mess!”

Branwell roared until his stomach hurt. Anne started to hiccup, she’d laughed so hard.

Emily’s face went suddenly quite serious. “We must be very careful, then. We could run into a great deal of trouble if people think we mean just what we say.”

“But what about our tickets?” interrupted Anne, holding up her calligraphed lemon. “A ticket’s not a lemon and a lemon’s not a ticket.”

“Perhaps things get confused on the borderlands,” mused Bran. “Perhaps they’re only half what they mean. But I think . . . I rather think . . . every sailor needs to take lemons when he goes adventuring, or else he’ll never get home with all his teeth still in his head. We’d best not lose them, anyhow. They’re both-ways tickets. They’re our way home.”

A large wooden head popped through the door between carriages. It belonged to a wooden soldier with a wooden patch over one eye and several piratical earrings in his left ear. “Lads and Lasses, Officers and Enlisted, Lords and Laborers, Breathers and Bolters, Sweethearts and . . . and . . . oh, hang it all, I’ve run out. You lot! I am to inform you that the Glass Town Main Line is presently disembarking at the charming riverside destination of Port Ruby. Due to . . . er . . . local weather, you are also presently disembarking. Hold on to your luggage and do try not to get killed—it’s an awful bother. Mind the gap!”

“But that’s Rogue,” whispered Anne. “How can that be Rogue? I made his patch out of a bit of kindling and pitch and it wasn’t nearly so neat and tidy a job as he’s got now.”