As the people began to move toward them, Julia grabbed Emmy’s hand. Her little sister’s fingers were sticky from the meringue.
A couple approached the girls. They were older than Mum, younger than Nana would have been. The woman smelled like furniture polish and the man had a giant mole on his cheek that looked like it was made of roast beef.
They told the girls their names, Mr. and Mrs. Trimble, and said how nice it was to meet them. Then they asked the sisters for their names.
“I’m Emmeline Downtree and this is my sister, Julia,” Emmy said. Julia, wide-eyed, said nothing.
The woman bent down and touched Julia’s corn silk hair. “My, aren’t you a pretty little cherub.”
Julia looked up at Emmy. She could see her question in the little girl’s eyes.What’s a cherub?
“Say thank you,” Emmy whispered.
Julia obeyed.
The woman peered at Julia’s tag and then crinkled her brow in pity. “Oh. So, you’ve only a mum, then? What happened to your dad, little one?”
“He’s in India,” Julia said. “He’s making a movie about the treasure of the seven lost princes.”
“What’s that?” said the man.
Julia proudly repeated the answer to the question.
Mr. and Mrs. Trimble swiveled their surprised faces to look at Emmy.
“What is it exactly that your father is doing in India?” the woman said to her.
After a morning of not knowing what anything was about, to be asked something about which she had ample knowledge loosened Julia’s tongue. “Neville’s not her dad,” Julia said without a hint of embarrassment. “He’sonly mine. But I just call him Neville. We don’t know where Emmy’s father is.”
The couple stared at Emmy, thoroughly scandalized. Emmy didn’t care. Maybe if no one wanted her, she and Julia would be put back on a train to London. Several long seconds passed before Mr. and Mrs. Trimble recovered.
“Aren’t you a little old to be sent off to the countryside?” Mr. Trimble finally said to Emmy.
Emmy laughed; she couldn’t help it. For the last five days she had tried to convince everyone of this exact thing and no one would listen to her. Now here she was in a strange little village, standing in front of a couple obviously appalled by the details of her existence, and the man had pronounced—with no urging from Emmy—what she had so desperately wanted everyone else to say.
“Oh my!” the woman murmured. Emmy’s ill-timed chuckle only added to Mrs. Trimble’s growing impression of Emmy as an undesirable foster child.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Emmy said, reining in her amusement. “Believe me, I’d much rather be home than standing here talking to you.”
Seconds of silence.
“Well, we’ll just take little Julia here, then. Can’t we, Howard?”
“No,” Emmy said before Mr. Trimble could respond.
“I beg your pardon?” the woman said.
“I said no.”
Alice, hovering nearby, sidled up to the girls, her expression anxious. “We try to keep siblings together if we can,” she said, looking from Emmy to the couple.
“We can only take the little one,” the man said.
“Then you’ll need to keep shopping,” Emmy said. “Julia stays with me.”
Alice admonished Emmy with her eyes. She could read what the woman was communicating to her. It was something along the lines ofCan you please try to be nice?
“Come along, Margaret.” The man put his hand on his wife’s back to guide her away from the sisters.
