With Pete and Weasel clinging to the back, the carriage jolted its way through the crowded streets. At first, Pete saw nothing but ugly houses jammed side by side. Kids, a lot of them his age or younger, wandered in and out of dark alleyways. He couldn’t see their faces clearly, but their eyes were very big and their bodies really skinny. He glanced at Weasel, and even after only a couple of days without good food and soap with hot water, he was starting to look like those kids on the streets. Pete touched his own face. It felt gritty, but mostly it felt dry and tight. He didn’t need a mirror to know that hungry look was on him, too.
The farther they traveled, the bigger the houses got. Then they came to a park. Trees and open space were a major change from where they’d just come from. When the carriage turned onto a wide dirt road, Pete and Weasel craned their heads around the sides of the carriage to see where they were headed. It turned out to be a house, a house as big as a museum. It stood three stories high with pointed roofs and lots of windows. A porch wrapped around the front and the sides. Bright red, white and yellow flowers were just about everywhere.
“Okay. Tell me. Did we just travel to another time zone again?” Weasel asked.
“I don’t think so.” But Pete thought they might have.
The carriage continued around to the back of the house and into what had to be the stable Mrs. Greenly had talked about. There were six horses on one side of them and six on the other. Barn flies buzzed in lazy circles and the smell of straw and horses was strong. After all the coal and Mrs. Whitlock’s oatmeal, Pete didn’t mind the smell here at all.
Mr. Greenly came to the rear of the carriage. “Down with you now. We’ll be settling you in.”
Settling them in turned out to mean giving them two blankets, showing them beds with straw at the back of the stable and handing them over to the head groom for training.
“This here is Bailey,” Mr. Greenly said. “Do what he says and you’ll be around for the month. Don’t, and you’re back at the Spike. That’s the way of it. Understand?”
Pete and Weasel nodded, clutching their blankets tightly.
Bailey stepped in front of them, his arms folded across his chest. “So this is the best we can get, is it?”
When they didn’t answer him, Bailey turned his back and walked a few steps away before looking over his shoulder. “Well, come on, then. But leave those”— he pointed to the blankets—“right here.” He pointed to their straw beds and shook his head. “Spike boys ain’t the smart ones, I know it for a fact.”
Weasel tossed his blanket onto his bed. “I’m not a Spike boy!”
Oh no. Pete dropped his blanket onto the straw, then hurried to stand next to Weasel. “He means we got kidnapped, Bailey. We got family and everything. We’re not poor. Big mistake. But we’re here to learn. Really. You show us the ropes and we’ll be great.”
Bailey pinned them with a sharp look of suspicion. “Show you what ropes?”
Weasel did exactly what Pete knew he’d do. He glared. At Pete.
“An old family saying. It means show us what to do and we’ll do it.” Pete waited, hoping he’d smoothed out things with Bailey.
“Good way of looking at it. You remember who’s in charge”—he jabbed his thumb at his chest—“and we might get along.”
By noon, they’d hauled water to twelve horses. They’d pitched hay into all the stalls. They’d done what Bailey said was mucking out the empty stalls for the horses that would be there the next day. By noon their arms ached and their stomachs growled.
Bailey swaggered down the center of the stable, humming, his arms swinging. “Not the best work I ever seen, but not bad.” He nodded toward an open door. “That’s the tack room. Your food’s in there.”
“Can we wash up?” Weasel asked, holding out his hands.
“Par-tic-u-lar, aren’t we? Must be a royal, heh?” Bailey said. But he pointed to a pump outside. “Water’s there.”
They took turns pumping, and then dunking their heads under the gushing flow. They gulped the fresh-tasting water, and Pete couldn’t remember ever feeling this great about a clean face and hands.
The food was sausage and bread, and they had that gone in a few bites. Weasel leaned back against the wooden slats of the stable and burped.
“Here. Mrs. Greenly sent us some peaches.” Bailey tossed them each a piece of fruit and Pete held it to his nose, inhaling. He wanted to make this peach last for a long time.
“Tomorrow,” Bailey said, biting into his peach, “the carriages and horses are to come early. I do the unharnessing. You two cool the horses down and settle them in, like I showed you today. You got questions, you better ask them about now.”
They didn’t need to ask anything. What they needed was to lie down, but they still had hours of work ahead. They finished their last chore after dark, ate more sausage and bread, then fell onto the straw and slept.
Morning came way before Pete thought it should. They didn’t have time to do more than wash the sleep out of their eyes, wolf down a slice of dry bread and stand ready at the stable door before the first carriage pulled to the front of the house, unloaded guests and their trunks, then arrived at the stable.
Five carriages came with five horses. The coachmen followed Pete and Weasel around until they were sure the boys were taking care of the horses as they should, then they left.
The day went a lot like their first one, except there were more horses to tend to, less time to eat and even after dark, they weren’t done with their chores.
When they finally closed the last stall door, Weasel scuffed his way to his bed and fell onto his back. Pete was exactly one step behind him.
“Four more days,” Weasel said. “Then we’re stuck here.”
“Don’t give up, Weaze. We’ll think of something.” But Weasel was already snoring.