Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [116]
He let Porky up and asked the same question with an explanation of what he expected. “Are you going to quit struggling? Start behaving, boy, because I’m going to keep dunking you until you stop this nonsense.”
Bealomondore won the battle of the wills. Porky settled down. The performance was repeated with Cinder, Grim, Ostes, Barm, Laska, and Jep. Some struggled more than others. Some gave up sooner. They all protested.
Ellie sensed that Bealomondore had lost most of his patience, so after supper she tackled the girls’ baths alone. She instructed Bealomondore to keep the boys busy and out of her hair and sighed with relief at his demeanor with the shiny-clean boys.
He introduced them to a game of cards called Climbing Mountains. She’d learned the same game as a child. Perhaps their backgrounds were not so different. Most Chiril children played this game. Bealomondore used the numbered deck to teach the illiterate crew how to add quickly. Like the baths, some took to addition easier than others.
Ellie waved sweet-smelling powder under each girl’s nose and used it to bribe them into the tub. She’d found the floral-scented talc while exploring one of the closer abandoned homes. She’d gone scavenging with Bealomondore many times. Even this was a part of the routine they’d fallen into. Their outings were precious moments alone, without the cumbersome burden of young children. Still, she thought Bealomondore would soon explode with frustration. Finding the way out of the glass bottle occupied most of his thoughts.
Soo-tie volunteered to go first into the sudsy water, and with her good example, the others tried to be calm. They squealed some, but did not physically fight like the boys had in a water war against her and Bealomondore. The colorful dragons hung around to sing and chitter while the gals soaped up and rinsed off.
Red Curls’s name was Carrie. She wanted her hair clean and shiny like Miss Ellie’s. Aval, Fister, Lisby, Fronna, and Disnat got in and out as quick as Ellie would let them. And the last child, Toady, wouldn’t get out of the tub, she liked it so much.
After a few days, baths became part of their routine, even if overall hygiene remained an ongoing battle. But a child who made the effort to be clean received special treats. Ellie spent a lot of time in Old One’s kitchen.
“I’m glad you’ve come to help,” she told the librarian one day.
“My library is overrun by hooligans,” he complained. “I come up here to escape the chaos. It’s not by choice I come to be a kitchenmaid.”
“No one’s forcing you to help me make daggarts.” She grinned at him, recognizing that he enjoyed being with her and actually doing something rather than sitting and reading all day.
“Daggarts?” He pronounced the word with a growl. “It’s not just daggarts but boiled tarts, finger pies, and anything else you come up with.”
She went over to him and hugged his upper calf, which is where her arms reached when he stood.
“I like having you here. And you’re changing. You are less grouchy, more agile, and”—she leaned back to look all the way up to the grouchy face staring down at her—“you aren’t as forgetful as you were when we first came.”
“Self-preservation. I’ve got to keep sharp, or you’ll bring in the rest of those ruffians.”
“We do get one or two more members to our clan as each week goes by.”
“I know it,” he snapped. “I’m not blind.”
A month passed, and Bealomondore tried not to act out his frustration. He endured the routine established by the inmates of the library, but just barely. He preferred digging through the books and exploring the subter.
Every morning, he and Ellie fed the children in the children’s area. Old One refused to take part in their meals, but he always sat within hearing distance. After breakfast, the girls tidied up and had baths. The boys had cleanup duty after supper and got plunged into soapy hot water just before bed.
Ellie taught the children