Free The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Garth Nix, Joan Aiken, Andi Watson, Lizza Aiken Page A

moment anxiously of what would happen if they didn't know what she had written on the blackboard, but anyway, that was in the future. No use worrying about it now.
    At the end of what was presumably half an hour, Miss Allison turned round.
    "Well!” she said. “Harriet, you may put away your board. Mark, let me hear you recite. You should have it by rote now."
    "A, ab, absque,” he began.
    "Never let me see you recite like that, Mark. Hands behind your back, feet in the first position, head up.” Mark obeyed peevishly.
    "Now begin again."
    "A, ab, absque, coram, de,
    Palam, clam, cum, ex and e
    Tenus, sine, pro, in, prae
    Ablative with these we spy."
    "Very good, Mark, though your pronunciation is a little modern,” she said. “You may open that blue tin and have a caraway biscuit."
    Mark looked about for a blue tin, saw none, and opened an imaginary one.
    Harriet did rather badly over her wildflowers beginning with l. Half the ones she thought of, such as lady's smock, lady's slipper, lady's tresses, lords and ladies, and all the lesser stitchworts and lesser chickweeds were disqualified, leaving her with a very poor list. She got no caraway biscuit. However, as Mark's had been imaginary, she did not greatly mind.
    After this, they had to do embroidery. It also was totally imaginary. They held invisible pieces of linen, threaded invisible needles, and sometimes for the fun of the thing stuck them into their fingers and squeaked with imaginary pain. It was all very amusing. It soon appeared that even if they couldn't see their work, Miss Allison could. She kept up a running fire of comment, from which they gathered that Mark's was bad and Harriet's fairly good. This seemed reasonable enough. Mark was rather indignant at being expected to do embroidery, but after a while the governess began to read aloud to them a fascinating book called Improving Tales , all about some good children and some bad ones, so he just stuck his needle in and out and listened.
    "There,” said Miss Allison finally, “that will do for today. For your preparation you will both turn to page two hundred in your Latin grammars and learn the list of words beginning:
    "Amnis, axis, caulis, collis,
    Clunis, crinis, fascis, follis—and you will also each write me a composition entitled ‘Devotion to Duty.’”
    "Please,” said Harriet, “which is our Latin grammar?"
    "Why, Crosby, of course. The blue book. Now run along, dears. You will want to get ready for your walk."
    Mark wanted to go to bed, but she gave him such an extremely firm look that he went out with Harriet.
    "You'll have to sleep on the sofa in my room,” she whispered, “and creep back as soon as it's light. I wouldn't dare try to disobey her."
    "Nor me,” he whispered back. “She looks much firmer than any of the masters at school."
    Luckily it was very warm, and there were some spare blankets in Harriet's room, so he was quite comfortable and slept well.
    They were both rather silent and sleepy at breakfast, but afterwards on the river bank they discussed things.
    "What are we going to do about those wretched essays?” asked Mark sourly. “I'm blowed if I write about devotion to duty."
    "Oh, that's all right,” Harriet replied. “Don't you see, the composition will be just like the embroidery. We'll show up an imaginary one."
    "I don't quite understand that,” said Mark, screwing up his eyes and throwing stones into the mudbank; the tide was rapidly running out.
    "Nor do I,” agreed Harriet candidly, “but I think it's something like this: you see, she must have taught hundreds of children when she was alive, and I expect she made them all do embroidery and write about devotion to duty. So when we give her our imaginary things, she thinks about the ones she remembers. See what I mean?"
    "Well, almost."
    "No, what I'm worried about,” Harriet went on, “is if she asks us to learn things and recite. Because if we haven't got the books to learn them from—like this