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elsewhere. “Where’s your house, then?”
    â€œBastille Row? It’s across the field—there, you can’t quite see it from here, what with Miss Pelham’s tree in the way. What is that tree, anyway?”
    â€œLaburnum. You’ll be able to tell easier in May when it flowers.”
    Jem’s attempt to distract her failed, however, with the second “Ohh” confirming that the sound came from the same place as the movement. This time Maggie heard it and immediately located the source. Jem tried but couldn’t stop his eyes from being drawn back to the summerhouse. Maggie began to titter. “Lord a mercy, what a view!”
    Then Jem did step back, his face on fire. “I’ve to help Pa,” he muttered, turning away from the window and going over to his father, who was still working on the chair leg and hadn’t heard them.
    Maggie laughed at his discomfort. She stood at the window for a few moments more, then turned away. “Show’s over.” She wandered over to watch Jem’s father at the lathe, a heavy wooden frame with a half-carved leg clamped to it at chest height. A leather cord was looped around the leg, the ends attached to a treadle at his feet and a pole bent over his head. When Thomas Kellaway pumped the treadle, the cord spun the leg around and he shaved off parts of the wood.
    â€œCan you do that?” Maggie asked Jem, trying now to smooth over his embarrassment, tempted though she was to tease him more.
    â€œNot so well as Pa,” he replied, his face still red. “I practice making ’em, an’ if they be good enough he’ll use ’em.”
    â€œYou be doing well, son,” Thomas Kellaway murmured without looking up.
    â€œWhat do your pa make?” Jem asked. The men back in Piddletrenthide were makers, by and large—of bread, of beer, of barley, of shoes or candles or flour.
    Maggie snorted. “Money, if he can. This an’ that. I should find him now. That smell’s making my head ache, anyway. What’s it from?”
    â€œVarnish and paint for the chairs. You get used to it.”
    â€œI don’t plan to. Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out. Bye for now, then.”
    â€œZ’long.”
    â€œCome again!” Maisie called out from the other room as Maggie clattered down the stairs.
    Anne Kellaway tutted. “What will Miss Pelham think of that noise? Jem, go and see she be quiet on the way out.”

6
    As Miss Pelham came up to her front gate, having spent a happy day visiting friends in Chelsea, she caught sight of some of the wood shavings Maisie had scattered in front of the house and frowned. At first Maisie had been dumping the shavings into Miss Pelham’s carefully pruned, O-shaped hedge in the front garden. Miss Pelham had had to set her straight on that offense. And of course it was better the shavings were in the street than on the stairs. But it would be best of all if there were no shavings at all, because no Kellaways were there to produce them. Miss Pelham had often regretted over the past week that she’d been so hard on the family who’d rented the rooms from her before the Kellaways. They’d been noisy of a night and the baby had cried constantly toward the end, but at least they didn’t track shavings everywhere. She knew too that there was a great deal of wood upstairs, as she’d watched it being carried through her hallway. There were smells as well, and thumping sometimes that Miss Pelham did not appreciate at all.
    And now: Who was this dark-haired rascal running out of the house with shavings shedding from the soles of her shoes? She had just the sort of sly look that made Miss Pelham clutch her bag more tightly to her chest. Then she recognized Maggie. “Here, girl!” she cried. “What are you doing, coming out of my house? What have you been stealing?”
    Before Maggie could reply, two people appeared: Jem