The Little Secret (10 page)

“No indeed, Your Janeship, it's a lovely sunny day.”

“But I can hear thunder — there it is again!”

“That's not thunder,” Twilly said. “That's just the guns.”

“Guns?” Jane was properly awake now. “Where?”

“Just outside the palace walls, Your Janeship.”

“What are they firing at?”

“Us in the palace, of course!” Twilly said cheerfully.

“
What?
”

There was a mighty explosion, so close that the ornaments on the mantlepiece rattled. A thin shower of plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

Twilly said, “T-t-t!” and whisked the dust away with her little feather duster. She did not seem at all bothered by the gunfire.

“Twilly, who's firing at us?”

“Nothing to worry about, your Janeship.” Twilly held out a pink dressing gown. “I expect there's been another revolution. Your bath's all ready for you.”

“What do you mean?” Jane was scared. She had seen revolutions on the news — they were always full of shouting and shooting, and terrible fighting. “When did it happen?”

Twilly refused to say anymore. She simply pursed up her triangular mouth and shook her bouncing bedspring curls. She had laid out a green silk dress, with a long skirt and tight sleeves.

Jane looked at it gloomily. “Why can't I wear the things I came in?”

“Sorry, Your Janeship. The queen told me to burn them. I put them in the boiler.”

“She's such a cow,” Jane said crossly. “I'd like to burn some of her stupid clothes.”

Outside the window, voices shouted angrily. There was another explosion, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Jane screamed and clung to Twilly. “Please — tell me what's going on!”

Twilly was afraid. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You mustn't notice it — you mustn't say anything! If you mention it, the queen goes crazy! One of my sisters was a serving girl here, and she got sacked because a bullet came through the window and shot the dessert right out of her hands, and she screamed.”

“Are you telling me you're more scared of the queen than you are of the guns?”

“Oh yes,” Twilly said feelingly. “She's a terror. She had my poor sister whipped.”

“But that's awful! Your sister didn't do anything wrong!”

“She mentioned the unmentionable,” Twilly said. “Nobody does that here.”

Jane soon found that this was only too true. Captain Hooter escorted her to the royal breakfast parlor, and she found the royal family sitting around a small table, apparently without a care in the world. The guns thundered and boomed outside, and they carried on eating their breakfast. King Quarles was reading a kind of newspaper (very thin and crackly, with no pictures). Queen Matilda was eating more of the chocolate truffle. Both were wearing army uniforms.

Bullets cracked and whistled outside. An angry voice yelled, “Death to the oppressors!”

“Good morning, Jane,” the queen said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Remembering Twilly's warning, Jane made a great effort not to look scared. She even managed to eat a couple of bites of fried slug.

“I was just wondering what we should do today,” piped Staffa, “but I'm afraid we can't go out. We'll have to resort to rainy-day amusements.”

The window suddenly smashed, showering the nearby servants with broken glass. A large bomb — black and fizzing, like a bomb in a cartoon — landed in the middle of the breakfast table.

Queen Matilda sighed impatiently. “This is ridiculous! Quarley, put it in the sand bucket. And tell Hooter to arrest all the usual people.”

King Quarles (still looking at the newspaper and chewing his breakfast) calmly picked up the bomb and dropped it into a large tub of sand under the table.

“I'm glad to see that you're being sensible about this, Jane,” said the queen. “I should explain that certain Eckers are always plotting against the royal family. They have a silly idea that they should be ruling themselves, instead of leaving us to do it for them.”

Quarley folded his newspaper. His face was very pale and sad, but he gave the girls an encouraging smile. “You mustn't mind if you're left alone for a few days, just until we can sort this out.” He added, “It might be a good idea to keep away from the windows.”

*   *   *

The rest of that day, and the days after, were a mixture of fear and incredible, groaning boredom. Jane and Staffa were only allowed to go into each other's bedrooms and the palace library. The queen and Quarley were busy putting down the latest revolution — the queen was commander-in-chief of the army, and Quarley was fighting with the Students' Corps from his university. The two girls were expected to keep well out of the way.

There was nothing to do — no television to watch, no radio, no CDs. The library (the room Jane had seen when she opened the box) had nothing but very dull books by generals and politicians. She would have gone crazy, if it hadn't been for Twilly.

The kind little servant girl was the first person Jane saw each morning. She was cheerful and funny, and full of fascinating stories about life among the Eckers. As the dull days passed, Twilly spent more and more time with Jane, until she had turned into a real friend.

Jane couldn't help noticing, however, that this new friendship annoyed Staffa.

“You're supposed to be MY friend!” Staffa complained. “But whenever I want to talk to you, you're always with that Ecker!”

“Well, why don't you join us?” Jane asked. “She's really fun, Staffa — she knows all Migorn's songs, and some of her stories would make you die laughing.”

“Don't be silly. I can't possibly join you.”

“Why not?”

“She's an Ecker.”

Jane was tired of this argument. “Well, what if she is? What's wrong with being an Ecker?”

“They're not like us,” Staffa said coldly.

“Have you ever spoken to an Ecker?” Jane demanded.

“Of course, don't be silly. I've been surrounded by Eckers all my life!”

“Yes, but they're your servants. I meant, have you ever had a proper talk with an Ecker — as an equal?”

“An EQUAL!” Staffa was shocked. “Don't let Mother hear you talking like that!”

Jane was starting to be irritated. “You're being really funny about this, Staffa. I can't believe you've never had a real conversation with an Ecker — don't you have a maid?”

“Yes,” Staffa said, “but not a girl like Twilly. My maid is called Mrs. Ingry, and she's older than Mother.”

Jane suddenly saw how lonely Staffa's life had been, and stopped being annoyed with her. “You know what,” she said, “you should just try spending a little time with Twilly and me. And then you'll see how sweet she is — and the three of us could have so much fun!”

“Certainly not.”

“Just half an hour!”

“Oh, all right!” snapped Staffa. “But I'm only doing it because I'm bored!”

That afternoon, Jane, Staffa and Twilly met in Jane's bedroom. And at first, it was very awkward. Twilly could not forget that Staffa was a princess, and Staffa could not forget that Twilly was a servant. But Twilly was a naturally friendly person, and Staffa hungered for friends, and they gradually relaxed.

“I owe you an apology, Jane,” Staffa said later. “I was wrong. Twilly's lovely. I didn't know an Ecker could be so lovely, because I've never made friends with one before.”

That was the first of many long, happy afternoons. While the guns boomed outside, they all sat on Jane's bed, eating honey cake and drinking a local brew called Buttercup Yar (a little like cola, with a tang of licorice). Sometimes Staffa and Jane told Twilly about the Boy Garden. Twilly loved hearing about Jane's brothers. She knew all about large families because she had five sisters.

“There's Narcas, Pippock, Slingy, Hatbat, Toom — and me. I'm the youngest. The big girls try to boss me around.”

Jane grinned. “You should see my big brothers.”

“Martin, Dan and Jon,” Twilly said. “Don't your brothers have funny names?”

With her triangular mouth hanging open, she listened to Jane and Staffa's stories about DVDs, cars, videos, Playstations and airplanes. None of these things could be found in the kingdom of Eck.

“We do have a sort of electricity,” Staffa said. “Powered by burning moss. And there's a sort of marsh gas that lights the streets in town. But they both give very poor light.”

“And they both cost a lot of money,” Twilly said. “Most of us Eckers rely on beeswax candles.”

“This is why bee farming is so important to our economy,” Staffa said. “The bees make most of our light, and all of our sugar.”

Jane asked, “How did the bees get here?”

“King Harpong the Bee Lover brought a herd through the box about two hundred years ago.” Staffa said. “I have to learn all these facts and figures in my lessons — but I'm never allowed to see things for myself.”

Twilly told them of the heroic beemen, who lived out on the wild hillside on the bee farms. The beemen managed herds of enormous bees and harvested their wax and honey, and they were widely admired for their toughness. Twilly's sister Pippock was a cook on a bee farm, and she was soon going to marry one of the beemen. It was a “fine match,” Twilly said. The beeman's job was so hard and dangerous that the wages were very high.

“What about real sugar?” Jane asked. “I mean, sugar that doesn't come from honey, like in my world.”

Twilly and Staffa looked at each other uneasily. Staffa's white cheeks turned a little pink.

“Sugar from your world is almost priceless here,” Staffa said. “Unfortunately, my mother is absolutely addicted to the stuff. And I'm afraid she doesn't care how she gets it.”

Jane remembered the chocolate truffle. “I suppose Prockwald buys the stuff in my world, and leaves it outside the box,” she said. “And then someone comes out to fetch it.”

“She sends the army,” Staffa said. “And it's very difficult, dangerous work — imagine the number of men it takes to haul in a Mars Bar. They're constantly being killed by the gulls.”

“The queen keeps most of her sugary things to eat herself,” Twilly said. “But she sells the rest. My mam comes up to the palace to buy it — she's a master sugarsmith.”

There was a busy city beyond the walls of the palace. Staffa had only seen the rooftops of this city. She had never visited its narrow streets. She listened, enthralled, as Twilly talked of her home.

Twilly's dad worked as a “slug tanner.” He treated the tough skins of slugs, which were used to make waterproof cloaks. Jane supposed this must be like leather in our world. His daughters Toom and Hatbat worked with him (Hatbat was the one who had been whipped for screaming). They had a little house in the heart of the city's Slug District.

“Twilly,” Staffa said one afternoon, “I'd so love to see your home! Couldn't you take us to see it?”

Twilly was shocked. “Lawks, NO! The queen would have a fit! You're not allowed to mingle with Ecker folk — and neither's Miss Jane.”

“But we wouldn't be mingling, we'd only be visiting. And nobody would have to know about it.”

“It can't be done, Your Highness,” Twilly said firmly. “Anyway, it's too dangerous to go out at the moment, because of you-know-what.”

Right on cue, there was a loud explosion outside.

Staffa groaned. “You're quite right — it's a nutty idea. This revolution is so boring, it's obviously driving me crazy.”

“Oh, it never lasts for long,” Twilly said bracingly. “The queen arrests a few, and she hangs a few, and then the rest of the troublemakers run away to the hills.”

Once again, Staffa's thin white cheeks turned pink. She blurted out, “I know what you're both thinking. And you're quite right — now that I've got to know Twilly, I can see more clearly what I could never admit before. This is a terrible government, and my mother is a worse dictator than Harpong the Ghastly.” She glared at Jane. “Why on earth are you laughing?”

“Sorry — who was Harpong the Ghastly?”

Staffa relaxed into a smile. “A medieval warlord — the last of the purely elven kings before the box came into being. He was a ghastly person. He invented a special dance for doing on his enemies' graves. And Mother is exactly like him.” She took a defiant swig of her Buttercup Yar. “Twilly, I don't blame you Eckers for having revolutions. If I were an Ecker, I'd do it myself!”

Jane cheered.

Twilly looked frightened, and whispered, “Careful, Your Highness! It's not safe to speak your mind 'round here!” She looked at Staffa thoughtfully, as if trying to make up her mind about something. “Look, I've had an idea. Why don't you and Jane visit my sister Narcas?”

“Oh, that would be lovely — and Jane would find it fascinating — but dare we risk it?” Staffa was pale and eager. “Dare we?”

Twilly jumped off the bed. “Come on, nobody will see us.”

She led them out through the servants' door of the room. Jane had never seen the servants' part of the palace. They hurried through a maze of bare, dusty corridors. Instead of pictures, there were notices —
QUIET
!
YOU CAN BE HEARD IN THE THRONE ROOM
!
NO LAUGHING
!
NO HARD BOOTS BEYOND THIS POINT
!

Staffa said, “We're going to have tea with the old princess.”

“Who?”

“The oldest member of the royal family — well, not really royal. She's a human.”

Jane was very interested, and a little uneasy. “You said there weren't any humans here.”

“Officially, she doesn't exist,” Staffa said. “To tell the truth, Mother never really liked her.” Wary of saying anymore, she put her fingers to her lips and signaled to Jane to walk faster.