truck. As if we don’t all know I’m the most important. Not that you others aren’t needed.But let’s be honest.”
When he first met Faye, Jasper was so nonplussed, so overwhelmed by her exotic and stunning beauty that he blushed whenever he looked at her. Her voice, with its delicate hint of India, had distracted him from hearing what she said. As the days passed and turned into weeks, then months, her brash rudeness and thoughtless outbursts stunned him the most. He opened his mouth, but Noah beat him to it.
“I’d like to see your bits and pieces make it on their own, Lady Faye,” said Noah, looking at her with sly amusement. “A horse’s rear may be where the kick is, but it can’t go anywhere without its head.”
“Are you...” Faye was fuming. “Are you calling me a horse’s bum, Mr. Gangly Oh-I’m-Afraid-Of-My-Violin Canto-Sagas? Or is that you back there following my lead?”
“Lady Faye, you amaze me. But you certainly do have a whole heap of kick in you,” said Noah, smiling and bowing in mock reverence. “And I await your command, as do we all.”
Faye opened her mouth to lay it on him but, realizing this would constitute a kick, backed down, taking that deep breath Miss Brett had taught her to take before saying something that would only make things worse.
“The carriages will be coming to fetch us,” said Faye grumpily, trying to appear unflustered. “They could be here any minute, for all we know. And we have no idea when he plans to leave. He’s always unpredictable.” She pointed her thumb across the field to a gawky man sitting in a tree—a birdwatcher who, according to the sign on his vehicle, was from the Daytonic Birdwatchers’ Society. With his binoculars and his notebooks, he had beenvisible out there more and more over the last few weeks, but not every day and at no exact hour. Luckily, he always managed to drive off before danger came around the corner. And today, he and his Knox truck would be the children’s means of escape.
Lucy felt sorry for the birdwatcher. Not only was he clumsy but, from the view through her spyglass, which Faye had returned to her, he had apparently shaved off half his moustache.
But then she saw something else.
“Oh, no!” shouted Lucy, pointing in the other direction. “Look at the road!”
It took but a second look to see what Lucy saw. The trail of dust winding through the fields, headed in their direction, was from the one road that led out of the farm and to the city. The dust was the familiar warning that they were coming. Every Friday afternoon, the carriages (and twice, motorcars) came, as if riding a great serpent of dust.
It was the men in black, coming for them. The men in black, the strangely sinister men who haunted their lives.
The men who took their parents away.
“I say we go now,” said Faye.
“What?” said Jasper.
“They’ll be here any minute!” Faye said. “It’s too big of a risk. We can’t wait any longer!”
“You mean leave Wallace behind?!” Jasper cried in disbelief, numb from the lash of Faye’s tongue. Abandon Wallace? Never.
But, as he turned, hurt and angry by the very sight of Faye, Jasper also saw the trail of dust. They all knew the men in black were coming for them.
And soon it would be too late.
A M ODEST P ROPOSAL
OR
HOW LUCY CAME TO BITE HER NAILS
O nly a few months ago—before the men in black, before Dayton, Ohio, and before their secret invention—life had been so very different for Lucy and Jasper. Indeed, it had been somewhat normal. Considering that both their parents were important scientists and nothing was normal about that, life was normal.
The Modest family lived in a comfortable house in a comfortable neighborhood on the west side of London. Lucy and Jasper ate their breakfast together every morning. They had supper with their parents, when their parents, Drs. Isabelle and Tobias Modest, were in town. And had the time. And chose to join their children for a