The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [8]
Jack saw the hurt expression in his brother’s eyes and regretted it deeply, but there was simply no way he could begin to explain everything Warnie would want to know, and still have time to deal with the matter at hand: namely, Laura Glue. Never mind the fact that she’d mistakenly found them when she believed she was searching for one of the most famous playwrights of the time.
The girl sniffed at the tea Jack offered her, then wrinkled her nose in distaste. She allowed Jack to pour her a cupful of cream, which she sipped at dutifully, but she was more interested in the tea biscuits.
“You don’t have any little ones, do you?” she asked.
“What, smaller biscuits?” asked Jack.
“Yup,” said Laura Glue. “They’re called Leprechaun crackers, although I’m pretty sure there ain’t any real leprechauns in ’em.”
“Really?” asked Charles with a knowing smirk. “And how can you be sure?”
“Because,” the girl retorted, “usually you have to smoosh ’em up separate and spread ’em on top.”
“Ew,” said Charles.
“That’s not part of the official recipe in the book, mind you,” she continued, “but I added it in myself.”
“Laura,” Jack began.
“Laura Glue,” she reiterated. “Just calling me ‘Laura’ is just as bad as calling me ‘Glue.’ My name is my name.”
“Very well, Laura Glue. Tell us about the Caretaker you came to find. Tell us about Jamie.”
“That’s about all I knows,” the girl admitted. “I’ve only ever seen him twice myself, and that was before I went to the Well. The first time, anyway.”
Charles leaned close to John. “Not possible,” he whispered. “She wasn’t even born yet when we went to the Archipelago—and that was long after Barrie had given up being Caretaker.”
“I knows what I knows,” said Laura Glue, “and my ears hear like a fox.”
“Well, er, ah,” Charles stammered, “it’s just that you can’t have met him—”
“Can too!” Laura Glue exclaimed, standing and stomping her foot. “He said I was sweet, and he gave me a kiss. Look,” she continued, as she fumbled around inside her tunic, “I still have it.”
She held out her hand and showed them her “kiss”—a small, tarnished silver thimble.
“All right, Laura Glue,” said John with a placating look at his friends, “we believe you. But you must also believe us. James Barrie isn’t the Caretaker anymore. The Imaginarium Geographica was given to us, and we are the Caretakers now. So tell us what you need, and we shall do all that is within our power to help you.”
Hearing this, Laura Glue slumped back in her chair and deflated like a spent balloon. It was not the reaction they had expected.
“Then I’ve come too late,” she said mournfully. “I’ve failed. Grandfather will be so unhappy.”
“Your grandfather,” said Jack. “It was he who sent you?”
She nodded. “Yup. And he was sure that Jamie was still the Caretaker. So he sent me to find him, to help. Because he is who he is.”
“He is what, Laura Glue?” asked Charles.
“Grandfather’s enemy,” the girl replied. “There is something happening in the Archipelago. Something terrible. And Grandfather said that sometimes something is so important that the only ones who can help are your enemies. And he gave me the Compass Rose and said to fly to the Summer Country and find his enemy, the Caretaker Jamie, and he would come and help us.”
“And what was it that Jamie was supposed to do?” John asked.
The girl shrugged and sipped her cream. “I don’t know. Grandfather said that the message would tell him everything he needed to know. He is, um, was, the Caretaker, after all.”
“What message, my dear?” Charles asked.
“Oh!” the girl exclaimed. “I forgot.” She stood at attention, as if preparing to recite a composition in school. “‘The Crusade has begun.’”
“And?” promted John. “Is there more?”
“That’s it and that’s all,” said Laura Glue. “May I have some more of the big crackers?”
The three friends left Laura Glue munching on biscuits and moved into the hallway, where they could discuss the situation with some privacy.
“It’s an incredible story,” said Jack. “But there’s too