Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone Read Online Free PDF Page B

pieces of waxed paper from the book, he plucked out the enclosed flattened insect and crunched contentedly. Then he repeated the action so quickly that if I had not known what he was doing, I would have been unable to tell what had happened. He turned to me. "See, Petronella? I think we'll be all right."
    He looked so happy, I didn't have the heart to protest. "Very well, Uncle. We'll see how it goes." In spite of what I said, though, I didn't like the situation at all and could only hope he would see his way to taking the antidote soon.

Chapter Seven
In Which Luggage Portends Ominous Tidings
    WHEN ONE'S NEAREST AND DEAREST is trying one's patience beyond bearing, it does not do one's patience the least bit of good to be forcefully thrust into the presence of additional trying relations, especially when one has not slept at all well. Such was my thought upon descending the stairs later that morning and being presented with the horrifying sight of luggage. Luggage in itself is innocuous enough. However, luggage sitting in the entrance hall unannounced portends ominous tidings.
    At that moment Moriarty, my butler, glided across the hall carrying a covered tray. Moriarty always glides as if on roller skates in a manner that has fascinated me since I was a child. While still in the nursery, I often tried to mimic him, without success. I evidently do not possess the same muscu
lature as my esteemed butler. I'm not sure any other human being does, except one, and I preferred not to think about my great-aunt Theophilia under any circumstances.
    As Moriarty neatly circumvented the pile of luggage, I cleared my throat. He paused in midglide and looked up at me inquiringly. "Yes, Miss Arbuthnot?"
    "To whom does the luggage belong?"
    Moriarty permitted himself a small smile. "Why, to Lady Farworthy and Mr. Cyril, Miss Arbuthnot."
    I staggered and would have tumbled down the stairs had I not sunk down to sit on the stair just behind me. Oh, dear. Aunt Cordelia and her odious son Cyril. Nothing could be worse.
    "Are you quite all right, Miss Arbuthnot? You are looking a bit peaked." Moriarty glided up the stairs and whipped out his treasured vial of smelling salts.
    I jumped to a standing position before he could open the bottle. As long as I have known him, he has carried the thing in his pocket, waiting to afflict with its pungent aroma any poor fainting female who happened to be within his vicinity. The salts were of his own concocting, and one sniff of the vial's contents was guaranteed to bring one into a most startled upright position unless one were already deceased, and even then the effect might be equally salubrious. Jane and I called it the Vile Vial.
    "Petronella?" a stentorian voice brayed from the direction of the drawing room.
    My eyes rolled toward the ceiling of their own accord, and a shiver of apprehension ran through me. How would I ever explain Uncle Augustus to Aunt Cordelia, who was my father's next older sibling and had never approved of my mother's relations? I straightened my shoulders as much as I could and entered the drawing room only to be met by a sight that drained what little starch there was left in me out through my toes. Aunt Cordelia stood chest out, her khaki explorer shirt and skirt pressed, and her monocle firmly screwed into place. She would have been altogether intimidating if not for her absurd affinity for golden ringlets, which hung from beneath her pith helmet. I'd always wondered if those ringlets were her own hair, but I had never seen her without the pith helmet and so could not say.
    "Well?" said Aunt.
    Cyril sniggered.
    I shot him a look that he well understood. It said I would deal with him later, and I knew that if he remembered the incident of the pickled herrings, he knew that I could, too. Evidently he did, because the sniggering stopped in mid-snig.
    "Well, what, dear Aunt Cordelia?" I asked mildly, and smiled as a young girl should smile at an aunt she has not
seen in over a