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named it.”
    About three inches long, it had a delicate, antler-like yellow pattern on its back. It stood quite still, except Angelica thought she saw it blink.
    “It’s adorable!” she said. “Is it a boy or girl?”
    Giselle shrugged. “We’ll know if it lays eggs.”
    She put it in a large, bone-white bowl of sand that rested on the low table in front of the couch.
    “It should be safe there,” she said.
    “No-” Will tried to stop her, but he was too late.
    All over the house bells and whistles suddenly went off. The hour had struck. Eleven in the morning, the tiny green dragon began its puffing on the wall by the stairs. The little gnome village came alive with a burst of activity, and above them the war zeppelin hissed and zoomed around in circles on its tether, firing off shots from its tiny cannon.
    In the bowl there was movement. Jets of steam hissed out of the swirling sand like weird geysers! The tiny tortoise froze in terror. One by one, eleven miniature iron skeletons rose out of the sand and began dancing and twirling in a macabre celebration. Some had little musical instruments in their hands, and others held swords.
    Velocitus tucked itself tightly inside its shell. Recovering from her shock, Giselle scooped the tortoise out and kissed its back while rubbing its belly gently.
    “There now,” she soothed. “It’s okay. Begekkin steemspeel.” Crazy steam toy .
    “Your home has steam clocks, too,” Will said defensively.
    “Not like yours! We have dancing bears and woodpeckers and healthy, happy things. Not miniature grim reapers.”
    “This isn’t the first time it’s scared you.”
    “So I forgot. And I’m not scared. I was worried for Velocitus.” She turned to it. “Poor baby. There now.”
    “You seem more touchy than usual.”
    “Now I’m touchy?”
    “You’ve freely admitted it in the past.”
    “All right! Ganoof!” Enough already !
    She put Velocitus back in her pocket and stood up suddenly, forgetting that the empty tea cup had been balanced in her lap. It went sailing. Fast and agile, little Angelica reached out and snatched it safely out of the air.
    “What if I am touchy?” Giselle admitted crankily.
    Like a deflating balloon, she sat back down. Her eyes sank to the floor, and it seemed that all the energy had drained out of her face. Will hadn’t seen her like this before and grew concerned.
    “My father vanished, too,” she said.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
    another cousin heard from
     
     
    “Six bushels of ‘maters,” said the burly man in the sweat-stained tee-shirt and denim overalls. Tomatoes . Born near the West Virginia border, he spoke with a strong mountain drawl. “Sev-‘n-a-haif bushels of cukes.” Seven and a half bushels of cucumbers . “Sixty haids of green lettuce, fo’ty of red. Five bushels of mixed summer squarsh, eight dozen aigs.” Squash and eggs . “Nine quarts of goat cream, and a large sack of toadstools.”
    As worried as the Steemjammer kids were, it’d been easier to busy themselves with chores, as they had little idea how to go about finding their missing parents. Over the weekend, they’d spent a lot of time searching for a secret door, the possibility of which intrigued Giselle.
    When that got tiresome, they hunted wild mushrooms, picked vegetables, collected eggs, and ran several days’ worth of goat’s milk through a separator to get cream. On Wednesday they loaded their wagon, hitched the horse and went to a country market a few miles up the highway.
    “Those are good mushrooms,” Will protested.
    “I’m sure they are, son,” said Mr. Carter, the burly store owner. “But if even one’s pizen,” poison , “there goes my bizness. So, whatcha need today?”
    Will rattled off a list that included pickling salt, flour, cracked corn, and other items of food and hardware. Mr. Carter wrote it down.
    “Don’t forget frozen herrings,” Angelica said. “And hot dogs. I love hot dogs.”
    “Okay,” Will