The Apothecary Page 0,67

gone.

Benjamin pulled his jacket off. “I know this is awkward,” he said. “You can turn around if you want. But you should undress, too. I won’t look. We need to move quickly.”

I turned to face the towel rack, which had a blue towel hanging from it, under a framed needlepoint of a basket of flowers. Each blossom was made of tiny cross-stitches. I felt frozen with shyness and indecision, and wished we still had the rolling blackboard as a screen.

“Hullo!” I heard Pip say downstairs. “Can I help you?”

I couldn’t hear the woman’s exact words, but she sounded surprised to have the door opened by a smallish boy. I heard Benjamin step into the water behind me, and imagined his lean body sliding into the tub. I took off my school blazer and dropped it to the floor. Then I slipped off my shoes.

“My auntie Jenkins isn’t home,” Pip said downstairs. I could tell he was making his voice a little sweeter and more childish than usual, and his accent more like Benjamin’s. “She’ll be here soon. I’m meant to have a bath. Is there a message?”

The woman stammered an uncertain apology.

I managed to roll my tights down under my skirt, and hopped on one foot to pull them off my toes. I pretended I was just slipping a swimsuit off under a towel, after junior lifesaving, with a bunch of other kids on the sand in Santa Monica. It was the same as that, I told myself—but of course it wasn’t.

The tub water sloshed, and I turned and saw wet, foot-shaped depressions form on the tufted blue bath mat. I stood there in my skirt with the cool air on my bare legs, knowing I had to unbutton my shirt next, and that Benjamin was standing naked—invisible, but still naked—in front of me. I could see one of his knees.

“I promise I won’t look,” Benjamin said. “But you should hurry.”

I fumbled with my shirt buttons, wondering if he really wouldn’t look, then slid the shirt off my arms and dropped the pleated skirt. As I moved towards the tub, my bare shoulder brushed Benjamin’s invisible one.

“Sorry!” we both said at once.

I stepped into the bath and sank down into its enveloping warmth, with my eyes closed and the world silent and sealed away. I left the tip of my nose out, and when I sat up and opened my eyes, the rest of me seemed to be gone.

A towel floated in the air as Benjamin held it up for me. I pushed myself up out of the bath and accidentally kicked the lever that controlled the drain plug, stubbing my toe.

“Ow!” I said.

“Janie!” Benjamin said.

The mechanism behind the wall of the tub had opened the drain, and the water was rushing out at an alarming rate.

“Oh, no!” I tried to push the lever down again to stop the drain, but it was stuck. I tried to close the drain itself, but it wasn’t one you could push into place.

I felt Benjamin’s arm slide wetly against mine as he tried to force the lever down, but he couldn’t do it either. I held my hands over the drain, but it wasn’t a small one, and the water went through my fingers. I put my foot over it, and that finally stopped the water, but by then there was only an inch or two left in the bath—not enough for Pip to get fully invisible in.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Downstairs, Pip’s voice said, “I’ll tell her you called round, then. It’s time for my bath. Ta!” We heard his footsteps on the stairs, and he came into the bathroom.

“You two in here?” he said, pulling off one boot. “I don’t think she believed me. She might come back.” Then he saw the bath, and heard the last of the bathwater draining away. “You didn’t save none for me?”

“I kicked the drain lever and it stuck,” I said. “I’m so sorry!”

He looked around the empty bathroom. “There’s no more potion?”

“We used it all,” Benjamin’s voice said.

Pip sighed. “All right, then. I’ll jus’ find another way onto the boat.”

I took the towel from Benjamin, thinking that if anyone could get on that boat visible, it was Pip. But I also thought that if Pip had gotten in the tub before me, he would never have kicked the lever. “I’m so sorry,” I said again.

“S’all right,” he said. “Dry your hair off. It’s cold out.”

There was another knock at the front door, downstairs.