“Then perhaps it has become a sort of nervous tic with you,” I said, breaking the cookie into judicious bites to fuel my ideas. Bit of cookie, bit of idea, bit of cookie was the plan. “After all, you took me on.”

“That was twelve years ago. Besides, you were different,” said Sina. “I could see that right away. You were extraordinary. There was never going to be another you. Don’t ask me to break into song. I shan’t.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Not about the song part. Although thank you for that, too. About the extraordinary part.”

“Not at all,” said Sina. “Anyway, it’s done now and it can’t be undone. I’ve said that after school tomorrow she can drop off Winifred, Wilfred, and Zebediah and they can stay with us while she goes up to Comox.”

“Oh,” I said. This was a blow, but one must keep a stiff upper lip. “I see. Good thing we have all those maid’s rooms they can stay in way up on the third floor where maybe we can pretend they aren’t here.”

This was rather tricky of me, implying as it did that these strange children would of course be living on the third floor and not on the second with the civilized folk.

“Yes. Good thing!” said Sina, seizing on this immediately. “Although it is rather a long way to the outhouse from there. Three flights of stairs.”

“The back stairs are not so bad,” I said. “A bit steep, but they are swift if one’s calls to nature are very pressing. We could keep a series of coal lanterns burning at strategic points.”

“They’d trip on them and burn the house down. We had better move one of the rockers off the second floor landing, too. Boys can probably run around one rocker without breaking their necks, but two may issue too much of a challenge. Boys clatter. And we’ll hand out flashlights.”

“Yes, that should work splendidly. See, no problem at all,” I said happily now that it was clear that the Madden children would be a whole floor away from me and, I decided, not allowed in the cupola under any circumstances. “Well, then, for how long?”

“That’s just it. I really don’t know. Because it was Alice, you see.”

“Ah. So rather less talking, more crying?”

“Exactly,” said Sina. “A lot of crying and general carrying-on. She seemed to think that unless she joined her husband immediately up at the air force base in Comox he was going to do something stupid.”

“What kind of stupid?” I asked.

“Who knows? What kind of stupid things would a plane maintenance person do?”

“Drink the cleaning fluid?” I suggested. Sina and I loved this kind of speculation.

“Braid the mops?” suggested Sina.

“Perhaps it has nothing to do with his job,” I said. “Perhaps she is afraid he is taking up the tarantella and if left unfettered would soon be moving the whole family to Italy.”

“Italy?”

“It’s where it originated. It’s supposed to be mimicking what happens when you get bitten by a tarantula.”