Elise Runs and Dorothy Falls

Chapter 27

The Whim did, in fact, have a cook, just as Albbenaro implied back in Chapter 17. He hadn't actually been talking about her as he said to Commodore Striper, but if anyone bothered to go to the kitchen to see, they would concur she did exist.

Giada, as you would expect from a girl of eleven years—and particularly from one as small and shy as she—had spent many of those chapters hiding in a cabinet. Naturally, she didn't realize until much later that apparently no one checks the kitchen, and that she could have just as well spent her time eating jelly on toast without anyone being the wiser. In any case, after such a long time waiting (and thinking she might be alone now), Giada braved opening the kitchen door herself, which led into the rec room.

No one. She opened the door into the hallway next. Able to feel the sea breeze whistle through the poorly contained rear hatch, she decided to make her way quickly to the bridge, which she hoped would be warmer. When she put her ear to the door and didn't hear anyone, she peeked her head inside.

Each sitting against her own wall, Dorothy and Elise turned simultaneously to meet, with surprised faces, a young girl that neither had seen. A little younger than them, she wore white socks and simple leather shoes, a simple pink dress—almost a chemise—and most obviously a wooden mask, painted white and featureless, with two diamond-shaped eye holes behind which they could see very bright, very watery blue eyes. She had dark red hair whose bangs fell much further on one side than the other, and had very tan skin of no ethnicity they recognized.

The girl also shut the door very quickly again, and they could hear the pitter patter of feet as she retreated.

"The hell?"

Dorothy pulled herself up and so did Elise. Without bothering to say, "You have the bridge!" to Alexis (who would have much preferred she had), Elise followed Dorothy into the hall. They could just catch sight of the rec room door closing.

"Oi!"

The witch ran down the hall, too, and threw open the door. Looking around the rec room, however, she saw only the familiar couch, card table, and spare folding chairs.

"Where did she go?"

"What about there?"

Dorothy followed Elise's finger toward a door she for some reason hadn't noticed. With a few hard shakes, Dorothy made quick work of it and stepped inside. She saw only the girl's bottom as she tried to squeeze into a kitchen cabinet.

"Who da—frack—are you?"

"Dorothy, that's...!"

Dorothy, who had been upset for a while now, stomped forward, and, grabbing the girl around her flailing ankles, yanked her straight out of the cupboard onto the floor.

"THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH!"

Charging forward, and with anger the witch hadn't at all expected, Elise reached out with both hands and tossed her out of the way—so far that Dorothy hit the wall.

"Are you all right?" asked Elise as kindly as she could, after only a moment of deep breaths. Her braids did their best to contain her static puff. "I'm very sorry about my friend. She's a bit of a bully sometimes."

The girl didn't move, and, as if playing dead, her face planted into the floor, didn't dare to breathe. Her trembling gave her away.

"Dorothy." Elise's grey eyes pierced hers like iron needles. "Come over here, right now, and say sorry to her. Do it right this instant or I won't speak to you EVER again."

Feeling suddenly small, and rather meek, Dorothy found herself stepping forward without comment. She tried to look as tough as she could, but after such a tongue-lashing hardly managed. Her anger had drained away. Elise moved aside so Dorothy could stand over the girl instead.

"Um, look, I'm sorry..." muttered the witch. "Could you, uh, maybe turn around now, yeah?"

When Giada did at last, slowly, turn her head around, she found herself looking up at the most amazing girl she had ever seen: some kind of adolescent goddess figure—of victory or athletes—who had the most beautiful golden hair in untamed braids, and the most beautiful red eyes. Even Dorothy's pouting-tough-kind-of expression looked like Olympic fire to Giada. At first, just hearing her, she had thought she would turn around to face a young boy. Instead, her first crush was a girl.

"I'm... I'm Giada."

"Dorothy. Can I, uh, help you up I guess?"

Weakly the girl in the mask held out her hand. Dorothy took it, then pulled up the teensy girl as if standing up a fallen twig. Giada stood a little under five feet, just a little shorter than Elise but skinnier, too, and about two inches short of Dorothy, who had by far the most advanced physique.

"Hello, Giada. I'm Elise," said Elise stepping forward again after letting her hair calm down. "We didn't know you were onboard, which I think frightened us a bit. What do you do here?"

"I, um, cook, and clean, for Master Tyrio," replied the girl. She had a foreign accent they couldn't identify.

"MASTER Tyrio?" Dorothy let out a long, gay laugh. The sock atop her head bobbed and so too the incredible sword on her waist. Giada had noticed that bit, too, and thought it the brashest thing in the world to carry a sword on one's hip without a sheath. "You've got to be jokin'."

"He—he owns me."

Dorothy closed her mouth. Her body, tense, straightened.

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that."

Elise and Giada followed the witch at a distance as she strode onto the back deck, climbed the ladder, and, once atop the zeppelin's helium skeleton, pulled open a hatch and dropped inside the engine room. The two girls heard struggling and shouting, but after a few moments Dorothy reemerged the way she came and made her way back down.

"He did."