Audie dropped the coin. Again. “I’ll never get the hang of this,” she grumbled to Bimmy. “You’re so much more clever at these parlor tricks than I.” She once again studied the pages of Mr. Sachs’s book on sleight of hand.

“Don’t be discouraged.” Bimmy patted her shoulder. “After all, I’ve been performing since I was no bigger than a candy apple.” She had food on her mind; her midsection rumbled for the third time. It had been a long while since they’d eaten. And Cook and Beatrice had prepared such a lovely hamper of food!

As if on cue, Cypher pushed through one end of the train car, bearing the picnic basket. The jostling of the Pennsylvania Railroad train to and fro on the tracks gave him the appearance of a seasick sailor as he made his way to the seat the girls shared. Audie spied a slim volume tucked in his jacket pocket, but she could not glimpse its title. She was pleased to note they shared a passion for books.

A crumpled man wearing a brown-checked waistcoat and a robust imperial moustache entered from the opposite end of the train car a moment later. Audie paused. Was that a faint buzzing in her left ear? If so, this was nothing to be trifled with, as well she knew. Past incidents had signaled misfortunes, great and small. The small included Miss Maisie’s dismissal of the triplets’ red bumps as an unfortunate encounter with poison oak. Audie’s tingling ear had told her otherwise, prompting a phone call to Dr. Holm, who prescribed a triplet quarantine and oatmeal baths, staving off a chicken pox epidemic at the School for Wayward Girls. The great included Audie’s parents pooh-poohing of their devoted daughter’s warnings, which, tragically, had resulted in Audie’s current orphan status.

Audie concentrated. Was that truly a buzzing or merely residual train noise? Not only was the sound as weak as a cup of Miss Maisie’s tea, it seemed rather unlikely to find danger within the confines of the Pennsy train car. For one thing, the railroad had an impressive safety record. For another, her fellow traveling companions seemed as worrisome as a clutch of baby chicks. Bees and bonnets, the only thing she and Bimmy had to worry about at this moment was whether to choose a deviled ham or tuna salad sandwich from the picnic hamper.

The crumpled man took his seat across the aisle from the girls and their guardian. “Nice day,” he said, with a doff of the hat. Audie and her colleagues could not know it, but the man carried in his bag an assortment of magic tricks and handbills proclaiming the prowess of the Great Oberon, though the man’s given name was Wylie Wurme.

“Yes, it is.” Audie ignored Cypher’s glare. He had rattled off a series of instructions at the Swayzee station, including no speaking to strangers. But that surely didn’t apply to their fellow travelers, did it? “I do hope there’s some baghlava,” she said, attempting to change Cypher’s frown to a smile. She would never mention it, but in her opinion, he had consumed the lion’s share of Beatrice’s delicious home-baked treat.

“I think we should begin with something of more nutritional value.” Cypher held up two sandwiches. “Which would you prefer?” he asked, waxed-paper packages held in either hand.

“Tuna, please,” Bimmy said.

“Me too,” Audie said. “Please,” she added, almost as an afterthought. Hunger had taken the edge off her manners.

Cypher reached for the remaining sandwich, deviled ham, his least favorite, without complaint. One of his fellow operatives had told him about a Persian restaurant in New York City. He unwrapped his sandwich, dreaming about what he would order should he be able to locate that slice of heaven. Ghormeh sabzi. Morgh polou. Pilau, pilaf! He sighed to think of such dishes, taking a bite of the sandwich. He chewed, then paused.

“Is everything all right?” Audie inquired.

Cypher removed several strands of dark brown hair from his mouth. Not hair, he decided upon closer examination; the offending items were more fur-like. This was not only unpleasant but surprising given that Cook and Beatrice kept an immaculate kitchen.

Still, he was hungry. He carefully examined the remaining portion of bread, meat, and butter. There did not appear to be any additional foreign objects. Once the sandwich was dispatched, he reached for the volume in his pocket. Make what you will of its title, dear reader: Conversational French.

“It’s a long trip.” Audie daintily wiped her mouth. “And we’ve finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We took turns reading it aloud. Bimmy does a smash-up job with voices.” She sat back against the hard wooden seat, planning her next comment carefully. Cypher was quite impervious to inquisitiveness. “We are in need of a diversion.”

Bimmy nodded in agreement, though she wouldn’t have minded rereading Mr. L. Frank Baum’s story.

“A diversion?” Cypher tugged at his collar band. He’d known the girls would be a bundle of trouble.

“Yes. That or”—Audie primly placed her hands in her lap, delivering the coup de grâce—“tell us about our mission.”

Cypher made a shushing gesture, indicating the man in the brown suit.

Audie gave a quick nod. “I meant, tell us about our missionary parents.” She smiled in the direction of their traveling companion. “They’re saving souls in Borneo. Might we share the Good Word with you?” She folded her hands as if in prayer, nudging Bimmy to follow suit.

The man adjusted his hat and found his feet. “I believe I’ll make my way to the dining car.” He exited their company with tremendous haste.

Audie grinned at her accomplishment. “Now you can tell all,” she said.

Cypher found himself in need of those headache powders again. The girl was much too imaginative. One adventure in the nation’s capital and she now fancied herself some kind of crime solver.

“Mission is an inaccurate term,” he clarified. Though it was a step up from assistant soup maker, the role she’d played in their last outing, Audie was likely to be disappointed by the reason she’d been brought along. He cut a glance at Bimmy, correcting himself. They’d been brought along.

Cypher slipped the book back in his pocket and reached for his leather valise, never out of his possession. He undid the latches as he brought it to his lap and then removed three ruby-red orbs.

“What are those?” Audie’s question was filled with wonder. She had never seen the like.

“Pomegranates!” Bimmy exclaimed. She might not be as well read as Audie, but her vagabond circus life had presented her with a richer variety of experiences.

“What are pomegranates?” The word felt magical in Audie’s mouth.

“Delicious!” Bimmy and Cypher answered in unison.

“Sorry,” Bimmy said, as if there was something to be forgiven.

“But you are most correct.” Cypher hefted one of the fruits in his hand. Then another, then a third. To Audie’s delight, the ruby orbs revolved like a sideways carousel in the air.

“You can juggle!” Bimmy clapped her hands in recognition. “I can, too, a bit.”

Cypher nodded without breaking the rhythm of his motions. He did some fancy crossover movements, and Audie was certain the pomegranates would fall. But they remained aloft. It was entrancing.

“Ready?”

Bimmy nodded and held out her hands.

“Zut!” Cypher called.

The southpaw Wayward expertly caught first one, then two, then three fruits. Bimmy gingerly rotated them in small concentric airborne arcs. When she bobbled one and they all began to tumble, Cypher deftly captured the fruits before they connected with the floor—one, two, three.

“Brava, young lady.” Cypher bowed in Bimmy’s direction.

She bobbed her head. “You learn a lot in the circus.”

Cypher waved his hands over the pomegranates, as a magician might. “And now for the best part of the trick.” A knife was removed from his vest pocket and, with expert motions, the skin was slashed in several places. Cypher turned a leathery portion inside out, revealing shiny seed jewels within.

He offered the fruit to Audie. “Try this.”

“What do I do?” she asked.

He showed her how to scrape several rows of the juicy seeds into her mouth.

“Oh, it’s like eating an adventure!” Audie said.

Bimmy almost declined her share of fruit out of shyness, but she had tasted pomegranates before. They were too delicious to decline because of social insecurity.

The girls ate, taking great care not to drip on their clothes, after Cypher warned them about the fruit’s staining properties.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Audie licked tart juice from her fingers. “The juggling, I mean.”

The slightest wisp of a smile briefly haunted Cypher’s handsome, ruddy face. He preferred not to reveal much of his past. “The house in which I was raised had many children.” As he spoke, a few small faces came to his memory, unbidden. The true danger in recalling his homeland revolved around the reason he had left it for America. He blinked away the faces, wrapping the now-seedless pomegranate skins in the waxed paper from his sandwich. “I think you have a saying here, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ It was of utmost necessity that I invent what you have called diversions.”

“Well, it was marvelous.” Audie dispatched one last seed, stuck to her lower lip.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Cypher said. “Because it’s time for you to learn.”

“To juggle?” Audie asked. “There will be fruit rolling all over this train if I try.”

From his valise, Cypher produced three silk scarves. “This is how one begins.” As he had suspected, Audie proved a quick learner. All that reading had worked wonders with her eye-hand coordination. With Bimmy’s help, Audie soon graduated from scarves to beanbags to small wooden balls.

She was flushed with pride at the end of the lesson. And weary. Audie curled up on the seat, murmuring, “Bees and bonnets, that was good fun but I’m bushed.” Bimmy likewise curled up. In a thrice, two girlish heads, one with wild auburn locks, one with soft jet-black curls, leaned against each other in slumber.

Cypher pulled the aforementioned book from his pocket and read lists of conversational phrases to himself: Bonjour. Comment allez-vous? Quelle heure est-il? Throughout the night, he alternated his studies with watching over the girls, satisfied that the first elements of his plan were falling neatly into place. Très bien.