“There isn’t,” Sissy said. “Someone has to carry me. And Mummy doesn’t like anyone uncouth, like the gardeners or grooms, handling me. So it’s hard. But I have a nice tea in the nursery with the twins and Mr. Carter, don’t I, Nanny?”

“You do, my love,” she said.

Far below, a gong sounded.

“That’s downstairs tea,” Sissy said to me. “I suppose you’ll be going down now.” She looked wistful. “Or you could always join us, if you like. We have a jolly tea up here, you know.”

“Why not,” I said, thinking how much nicer it would be to avoid the formality of tea below, with its added risk of dropping crumbs or squirting cream. I walked behind Nanny as she wheeled the bath chair through to an adjoining room. With a big bookcase, desks, a globe on the front table and currently a science experiment set up with test tubes and Bunsen burners, this was now the schoolroom. But one could see that it had been the nursery. There was still a lovely old dollhouse in a corner; ragged, stuffed animals in an old wagon, and a magnificent rocking horse had pride of place in one of the windows. Nick and Katherine were seated at a low table on which there was a tray of sandwiches, scones and a Victoria sponge.

“Here we are. Here’s Miss Sissy and a visitor for you,” Nanny said, parking the bath chair beside the table and then picking up the teapot. “Help yourself, my lady. And you others, go easy. I expect sandwiches to be eaten before you attack that cake.”

“Oh, but, Nanny, it does look awfully good,” Katherine said. “I don’t know if we can bear to wait that long.”

“You need to learn patience, young lady,” Nanny said. “Now, you make a good impression on our guest, or they’ll hear about it downstairs.”

“You wouldn’t tell, would you, my lady?” Nick asked.

“Only if you were about to blow up the house,” I said, smiling. “And you can call me Georgie.”

“Whizzo,” Nick said, and started attacking the sandwiches as only an eleven-year-old boy can.

“So where is your tutor?” I asked.

“We’re done with lessons for the day. He’s always glad to make a quick getaway.” Nick grinned. “Back in his own room—recovering from a morning of us, I expect.”

“Actually, they were jolly good lessons today,” Kat said. “We were doing wizard science experiments. He let us use the Bunsen burners, and he showed how you could start a reaction with potassium.”

“And we made volcanoes yesterday,” Nick said, “Only we can’t let him see that we’re enjoying things. He has to think that we’re beyond hope and that we should be sent off to school.”

“You want to go to school?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Katherine said. “It’s deadly dull here with no friends and only boring old Nick.”

“I am not boring. I’m more interesting than you!” Nick said angrily.

“I find you both boring and I’m stuck with you,” Sissy said. “At least you’ll be able to get out one day.”