Bill dropped his faux-Transylvanian accent before he left the bedroom the following morning, but he picked it up again as soon as Annelise had taken Will and Rob to Anscombe Manor for their riding lessons. After they’d gone, I spent a gruesome hour in the kitchen, listening to Bill deliver such gems as, “I vant to drink your…tea” and “I vill have my bacon…rare” before fleeing back upstairs to dress.
I was afraid Count Bill would never go away, but my husband knew better than to push a joke too far. He slipped into his suave, international-lawyer persona the minute we got into his Mercedes and didn’t utter a single “vill” or “vant” all the way to Upper Deeping, the busy market town in which Morningside School was located.
The rain had tapered off during the night, but a chill mist clung to Upper Deeping’s sidewalks, and the sky was as gray and leaden as my mood. My husband’s apparent willingness to take the situation seriously should have heartened me, but I was beyond heartening. I’d spent half the night imagining the myriad ways in which a pair of energetic and intelligent five-year-olds could aggravate a humorless headmistress. By the time Bill parked the car in the school’s small parking lot, I was a nervous wreck.
“Cheer up,” he said as we got out of the car. “It’s not as if you’re going to the dentist’s.”
“The dentist is looking real good to me right now,” I muttered dismally.
We made our way to the school’s front entrance, where Ted, the security guard, checked our IDs before handing us off to Mrs. Findle, Miss Archer’s stout, gray-haired personal assistant. Mrs. Findle never discussed her boss’s business with a parent, so she and Bill exchanged innocuous remarks about the weather while she relieved us of our raincoats and escorted us down the long, echoing corridor to the forbidding double doors at the far end.
I was too jittery to join in the conversation. Although I’d dressed with particular care—in cashmere, Harris tweed, and classic pearls—the closer we got to those double doors, the more I felt like a guilt-ridden eleven-year-old with scraggly braids, scabby knees, and dirty elbows. Half of my brain remembered that I was a responsible adult, but the other half was wishing that I hadn’t blown all those spitballs at Corky Campbell in the fifth grade. My legs were actually shaking when Mrs. Findle opened the double doors and ushered us into Miss Archer’s office.
As far as I was concerned, Miss Archer’s office was as creepy as she was. Whereas the rest of Morningside was decorated in gay primary colors, the headmistress’s inner sanctum reflected the somber taste of the school’s Victorian founder. In my opinion, the funereal furnishings and heavy drapes served only to accentuate the unhealthy pallor of the present headmistress’s complexion and the unnatural glossiness of her tightly bound cherry-red hair.
After greeting us perfunctorily and motioning us to a pair of disturbingly familiar hard wooden chairs, Miss Archer resumed her seat behind her mahogany desk, smoothed her gray wool skirt, and began leafing through the pages in a file folder that lay open before her.
While she leafed, Bill sat back in his chair, relaxed and politely attentive. I, on the other hand, perched rigidly on the edge of mine, braced for a scolding. Old habits die hard.
An eternity seemed to pass before Miss Archer closed the folder, placed her hands on top of it, and fixed us with a penetrating stare over her black-framed half-glasses.
“I apologize for asking you to see me at such short notice, and on a workday,” she began, “but a situation has arisen that requires your immediate attention.” She removed her glasses, laid them on the desk, and folded her hands. “I believe you are acquainted with Louisa Lawrence.”
Bill nodded. “We met Mrs. Lawrence and her husband last month, at parents’ day. Their little girl, Matilda, is in our sons’ class.”
“Indeed, she is,” Miss Archer said gravely.
I shrank back in my chair, wondering what on earth the twins had done to little Matilda Lawrence.
“I received a rather disturbing telephone call from Mrs. Lawrence yesterday,” Miss Archer continued. “She informed me that Matilda has been having nightmares ever since she started school. It wasn’t until the small hours of Tuesday morning that Mrs. Lawrence was able to ascertain the cause of Matilda’s most recent nightmare.”
“And the cause is…?” Bill prompted.
“Your sons,” Miss Archer replied succinctly.
“Will and Rob have been giving a little girl nightmares?” I said, aghast. “How?”
Miss Archer pursed her lips. “Before I answer, let me say first that no one appreciates creativity more than I. The curriculum at Morningside School is designed, in part, to nurture the creativity inherent in every child. There comes a time, however, when the creative imagination must be reined in.”
“I see,” said Bill, cleverly refusing to agree or disagree with Miss Archer until he’d heard specific details. My husband was a good lawyer.
“I am also cognizant of the fact that certain children have difficulty adjusting to school,” Miss Archer went on. “The new setting, the new playmates, and the new routine can create a sense of disorientation that can lead particular children to act out in troublesome ways.”
I wrung my hands nervously, wishing Miss Archer would come to the point. I didn’t want to hear a speech about child psychology. I wanted to know exactly what my sons had done to join the ranks of Morningside’s maladjusted troublemakers. Bill evidently felt the same way.
“I don’t mean to rush you, Miss Archer,” he said, crossing his legs nonchalantly, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d answer my wife’s question. In what way are Rob and Will responsible for Matilda Lawrence’s nightmares?”
“Matilda Lawrence is not their only victim,” Miss Archer informed us, tapping the file folder with a rigid index finger. “I spoke with your sons’ teacher yesterday. Miss Brightman confirmed that Will and Rob have frightened several of their fellow pupils.”
“How?” I reiterated.
“Your sons have concocted a number of stories that can only be described as lurid,” Miss Archer answered at last, her lip curling in distaste. “They have shared these stories with their fellow pupils, some of whom are quite impressionable. When challenged by Miss Brightman, your sons have insisted that the stories are true.” Miss Archer tilted her head to one side. “While I do, to a certain extent, admire your sons’ inventiveness, I am as dismayed by their inability to tell fact from fiction as I am by their willingness to repeatedly terrorize their classmates.”
My nervousness fell away as my hackles rose. I would have held my tongue if Miss Archer had accused Will and Rob of disorderly conduct, but no one—not even a well-respected headmistress who scared the bejesus out of me—could accuse my sons of lying and get away with it. My boys were always truthful.
I squared my shoulders and gave her a look that should have made her duck for cover. “Are you suggesting that my sons are liars?”
“I’m not merely suggesting it,” she responded. “I’m stating it plainly.”
Bill must have realized that Miss Archer was treading on thin ice, because he put a restraining hand on my arm.
“An interesting statement, Miss Archer,” he said quickly. “Do you have evidence to support it? Perhaps you can give us an example of the sort of story Will and Rob have been telling their classmates.”
“I fully intend to,” said Miss Archer. “Thanks to Miss Brightman, I can recount the stories quite accurately.” She put on her glasses and opened the file folder. After referring to her notes, she regarded us skeptically. “In one tale a so-called bad man drags your sons from a castle on a faraway island and attempts to throw them into the sea during a tumultuous thunderstorm.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “Now, really—”
“Ha,” I interrupted, with icy disdain. “Will and Rob didn’t invent that story. It’s absolutely true. It happened less than a year ago, up in Scotland, and there was nothing ‘so-called’ about the bad man. The lunatic shot me in the shoulder at point-blank range.” I leaned toward her. “Would you like to see the scar?”
Miss Archer peered at me over her half-glasses. “I…I beg your pardon?”
“We had a run-in with a stalker last April,” Bill explained, adding helpfully, “It was written up in the Times.”
“Yet you didn’t see fit to mention it to me when we discussed your sons’ home life?” Miss Archer said, gazing at us in disbelief.
“It wasn’t part of their home life,” I said defensively. “It’s not the sort of thing that happens every day.”
“I should hope not.” Miss Archer blinked owlishly at us, then looked down at her notes and soldiered on. “Your sons also claim that an invisible man taught them how to curse.”
“Also true,” I confirmed. “The man wasn’t really invisible, of course, but Will and Rob couldn’t see him because he was tunneling underneath their floorboards. They could hear his voice, though, and he was a foul-mouthed old coot.”
“A…a foul-mouthed old coot was tunneling beneath your sons’ floorboards?” Miss Archer said, her eyes widening.
“Actually, he was using a tunnel that was already there,” I told her brightly. “It happened in an old mining district in Colorado, where we spent the summer, so he had a lot of mine shafts to choose from.”
“Naturally.” Miss Archer clasped her hands and tapped the tips of her thumbs together. “I can only presume that since the tunneling incident happened overseas, you didn’t consider it worth noting either when we discussed the boys’ home life.”
“Correct,” I acknowledged. “Besides, you didn’t ask us about our summer vacation.”
“Rest assured, I shall do so from now on.” Miss Archer cleared her throat and turned a page in the file folder. “And the story about the mountain exploding in the dead of night? Is it true as well?”
“It is,” I assured her. “There are court records to prove it, though you’d have to go to Colorado to find them.”
“My word,” Miss Archer said. “What colorful lives you lead.” She looked from me to Bill, then said, almost pleadingly, “But the story about the vampire can’t possibly be true.” She hesitated. “Can it?”
“V-vampire?” I stammered, brought up short. “The boys told a story about a vampire? How could they? We’ve never met one.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it,” said Miss Archer, raising a limp hand to her brow. “Most experts agree that vampires are imaginary creatures, but with your…er, dramatic history, it seemed almost possible…” Her words trailed off into silence.
I stared in puzzlement at a point just above Miss Archer’s left shoulder until a sudden flash of insight told me who must have put the idea of vampires into the twins’ heads. I shot an accusatory glance in Bill’s direction—only to find him glaring accusingly at me. It was transparently clear that he suspected me of telling the boys about bloodsucking headmistresses, just as I suspected him of practicing his Count Bill routine in front of them. He raised an eyebrow to signal that we’d discuss our mutual suspicions later, then turned a look of innocent perplexity on Miss Archer.
“I’m afraid we’re unfamiliar with the vampire tale,” he said. “What have our sons been saying?”
“They claim to have seen one,” Miss Archer replied.
“Where?” I asked. “When?”
Miss Archer glanced down at her notes. “They explained to Miss Brightman that a vampire appeared to them while they were riding their ponies at the Anscombe Riding Center. They didn’t mention a specific time or date.” She flipped a page over, then looked at us. “According to Mrs. Lawrence, however, Matilda suffered her first vampire nightmare on Monday night, so I assume that the story is a relatively new one.”
“We’ll look into it,” Bill told Miss Archer. “As for the other stories—”
“We won’t ask the boys to lie,” I declared adamantly. “Our sons can’t help it if they’ve faced more scary situations than the average child. Believe me, we wish they hadn’t.”
“Surely it’s good for them to talk about it,” Bill chimed in.
To my surprise, Miss Archer nodded.
“I concur,” she said. “Will and Rob must be allowed to process their traumatic experiences in whatever way suits them best.”
“Would you like us to keep them home from school this afternoon?” Bill inquired.
“Not at all,” said Miss Archer. “I don’t wish to upset their routine. I will, however, ensure that Miss Brightman curtails any storytelling in which they might engage today.” She removed her glasses and gazed thoughtfully into the middle distance. “It would be helpful if you would discuss the true stories—that is, the stories that do not involve vampires—with Miss Brightman at some point in the near future. She would then be able to discuss them with the class as a whole, in a way that might alleviate the other children’s fears.” She bent her head toward Bill. “May Miss Brightman contact you?”
“I look forward to her call,” said Bill. “In the meantime please extend our sincere apologies to Mrs. Lawrence. Tell her that our sons never meant to give Matilda or any other child nightmares.”
“I will,” said Miss Archer. “Once I’ve described your sons’…er, unusual experiences to her, I’m sure she’ll understand. I hope that you, in turn, will accept my apology for making assumptions I had no right to make. In light of what you’ve told me today, your sons are astonishingly well adjusted.”
“They’re good boys,” I agreed.
“We’ll have a serious talk with them tonight,” Bill promised. “And we’ll keep you and Miss Brightman informed on the vampire situation.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Archer.
She pressed a buzzer on her desk, and Mrs. Findle entered the office, carrying our raincoats. We took them from her, said good-bye to Miss Archer, and headed for the door, but before we reached it, the headmistress spoke again.
“As a matter of curiosity,” she said, “what do your sons want to be when they grow up?”
I grinned. “At the moment, they want to be horses.”
“Oh, no.” Miss Archer shook her head. “With so much good material to choose from, they’re bound to be bestselling novelists.”
A glimmer of amusement lit Miss Archer’s creepy eyes as she closed the file folder. I shuddered and escaped into the corridor.