The Apothecary Page 0,42

who falls in love with a beautiful rich girl.”

“And the girl falls in love with ’im, too?”

“I can’t give away the ending.”

“Huh,” Pip said. “Then I’ll ’afta read it.”

We found Sergei at chess club in one of the history classrooms. Six unassuming boys sat at chessboards set up on three desks. Sergei was across from the pimply kid from our Latin class, about to make the first move, but he jumped up from the desk when he saw us.

“Benjamin! Janie!” he said. “I have your—”

He caught Benjamin’s look of displeasure.

“Oh!” he said. “Sorry! But it’s only chess club. They’re my friends!”

Benjamin drew Sergei to the back of the room, out of earshot, and Pip slid into the vacated chair.

“Is this game like checkers?” he asked the pimply boy.

The boy rolled his eyes. “No. Well, only superficially.”

“What’s superficially?”

The boy thought about it. “On the surface.”

“Aright,” Pip said. “What do you play for?”

“Nothing,” the boy said. “For pleasure.”

“Pleasure,” Pip said. “That’s daft. Let’s say half a crown. Can I move this little round-headed one?”

I left them to their game and followed Benjamin and Sergei to the back of the room.

“I have the book right here!” Sergei whispered. “I’ve kept it with me! I was worried. Where did the police take you?” His face was flushed with excitement.

“Has anyone asked you about the book?” Benjamin asked.

Sergei thought about that. “No! What should we do next?”

“Nothing,” Benjamin said. “I just need it back.”

Sergei reluctantly handed over Benjamin’s satchel. “I didn’t even get to look at it,” he complained.

“I also need to borrow your Latin book.”

Sergei dug in his bag and produced Kennedy’s Latin Primer. “Can’t I help you? Please? I’m good at Latin.”

“We promised your father we’d leave you out of it,” Benjamin said.

“He doesn’t have to know!”

“Is he okay?” I asked Sergei. “I mean, did he get in trouble for what we said in your house?”

“I don’t think so,” Sergei said. “And he can talk again.”

“You should tell him to be careful,” I said. “He’s in a lot of danger.”

“Really?” Sergei asked.

Across the room, Pip said, “Checkmate!”

His pimply opponent was staring down at the board. He looked up at me in protest. “He asked if the game was like checkers!”

“That’s half a crack, please,” Pip said smugly.

“I don’t have half a crown.”

“S’all right,” Pip said. “I’ll take your marker. I think you’re good for it.”

We stood over their chessboard and Sergei studied it for a moment, then looked at Pip with respect. “Is it the Opera game?”

“The what?”

“It’s outright thievery!” the pimply boy said.

“The Opera game was played in sixteen moves,” Sergei said, “by an American master against two amateurs, in an opera box. Where do you study chess?”

“I don’t study it,” Pip said. “My uncle taught me down the pub.”

“Will you join our chess club?”

“Don’t let him!” the boy said. “He tricked me!”

“He can’t join chess club,” Benjamin said. “He doesn’t even go to this school.”

“I will soon!”

“Let’s go,” Benjamin said, and he nudged Pip towards the classroom door.

Sergei caught my arm. “Please take me with you.”

“I’m so sorry, Sergei,” I said, and gently pulled my arm free. “We can’t.”

So we weren’t, as you see, very good at being sneaky. We’d interrogated our own ally in a bugged house, and turned into birds in front of the entire population of Turnbull Hall, and now we’d hustled the St Beden’s chess club in the space of five minutes. We left Sergei looking brokenhearted, the pimply boy looking fiercely indignant, and the rest of the club looking like they weren’t sure what had hit them. If we were going to do anything unseen and unnoticed, we needed help.

CHAPTER 19

Invisible

Mr Gilliam’s chemistry classroom was locked, but it only took Pip a few seconds to open the door with a bent paper clip. The room was empty, and Benjamin relocked the door and lodged a chair under the knob.

I remembered that the invisibility spell the gardener had shown us in the Pharmacopoeia was on the page just after the Smell of Truth, and had the Greek letters ƒŸƒo at the top. I remembered because invisibility appealed to me—much more, even, than flying. We found the page, and the instructions were in Latin, so Benjamin started translating with Sergei’s primer.

“Balineum means ‘bath’,” he said. “I think we have to prepare a bath.”

“A bath?” Pip said. “Don’t you just drink a lickser?”

“Maybe you have to soak in this one, to be invisible,” I said.

We considered the classroom sink, which wasn’t deep enough.

“What about that?” Pip asked, pointing to