The Glas s Town Game

“Ah,” the gray girl replied. “Then what have we said about introducing new friends?”

“?‘You don’t need to know anything about that because you’ll never have any friends but us’?” Victoria said, with the smallest twinkle in her pearl eye.

“That’s an awful thing to say. Who would ever say something like that?” said Napoleon. “Wasn’t me, I can tell you that much for the price of a smack in the mouth.”

“It was though.” Victoria squared her shoulders. “Miss Agnes says: ‘Introductions provide sound construction for any social gathering.’ Branwell, Anne, this is my governess, Miss Agnes Gray.”

Governess! Anne stared up at the tall creature. Was this what she and Charlotte and Emily were meant to be when they were grown? All gray stone and prim little lessons that rhymed and serving tea fearfully to a master who was all bone and no heart? For Miss Agnes was afraid of her master, anyone could see it. The chalk dust on her slate cheek quivered whenever he moved. Anne didn’t want to be stone when she grew up. It wasn’t fair.

Victoria hadn’t stopped talking, of course. “And this is my Uncle Leon, who never told me his last name so I can’t be blamed for not knowing it, unless he doesn’t have one, in which case I still can’t be blamed, because there wasn’t anything to know, and we should all feel anxious because we have something he doesn’t. Miss Agnes, Uncle Leon, this is Branwell and Anne, whose last names I don’t know either, so I suppose I ought never to have brought up the subject of surnames in the first place.”

Uncle Leon, whose surname was, of course, Bonaparte, poured his own tea. He dropped in a lump of sugar, then reached for the lemons. He smiled knowingly and turned them in his hands so that Anne and Branwell could clearly read, in graceful green ink on the yellow peels:

Glass Town Royal Express Main Line

South Angrian Loop

One (1) Both-Ways Ticket

Entitles the Bearer to Passage,

Stashage, Gnashage, and Splashage

Does Not Entitle Bearer to an

On-Time Arrival, a Smooth Arrival,

Any Arrival at All, or Pleasant

Conversation With Staff

Luggage Rights Strictly Observed

The Emperor of Gondal and Lefthand Verdopolis pried both lemons apart with the bayonets on his rifle-arms. As Bran and Anne watched in speechless horror, Old Boney slowly squeezed each half into his tea. He squeezed and squeezed until all the juice was gone and the fruit was nothing more than four husks to be tossed out the window into the river with the rest of the rubbish.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, and slurped his tea down with a sigh of satisfaction. “There is nothing in this world or any other like a good cup of tea, non?”

Anne burst into tears.

“I knew you were bad,” she sobbed. “Bran said you were good but I knew he was only being contrary and you’re still ghastly old Napoleon!”

“No, he’s Uncle Leon! He brings me dolls and paper and ink! That’s goodness! It is!” Victoria cried.

“Is it?” Anne whirled on her. “Because I’m nearly certain that your Uncle Leon kidnapped you when you were a baby and brought you here on a giant fly and never let you out for years and years and never even fed you enough while he had you! He doesn’t love you, Victoria! You’re the Crown Princess of Glass Town! You’re his enemy!”

Victoria burst out laughing. Miss Agnes frowned a stony frown. “I’m the Crown Princess of England, Anne, and that’s all I’ll ever be Princess of! A funny country inside my own head! And Uncle Leon has been good to me! He let me hug him once!”

“He is good!” Branwell shouted. He was shaking all over. The lemons are gone, the lemons, our lemons! “Whenever we play Wellington and Bonaparte I am always Bonaparte because he is good, he is splendid, he’s dark and small and proud and good like me, and you don’t know anything. You side with Charlotte because you like her better, not because you know anything about what counts in a man—”

“Napoleon is Napoleon wherever you go. A tyrant is a tyrant wherever you go! Just like gruel,” Anne hissed.

“Stop it,” Bonaparte said, still smiling. “You’re hurting my feelings, ma petite fille. Victoria, what has Miss Agnes taught you about hurting people’s feelings?”

Victoria sighed. “?‘Though it may seem quite appealing to stomp upon the tender feelings of one who hurt you first, remember, it’s a kind of stealing. For when you stomp upon their feelings, you burgle their self-worth.’?”

“I do love poetry!” exclaimed Bonaparte.

“How are we to get home now, you beast?” Anne screamed.