Free The Mourning Emporium by Michelle Lovric Page B

hummingbird earrings quivered on Miss Uish’s earlobes. Teo realized: “They’re real! Or were. Poor little stuffed birds! How cruel.”
    Having silenced the Scilla’s crew, Miss Uish consulted a fob-watch attached to her left shoulder by a fleur-de-lis picked out in black brocade.
    “I must attend a reception at the Town Hall. On my return, I shall expect to find that mast revarnished in its entirety. Am I understood? First, a word about feeding arrangements.”
    “Feeding?” thought Teo. “Like animals?”
    “Cake is henceforward banned,” announced Miss Uish. “I’m imposing a dietary regimen much more suitable for unwanted orphans. Have the cook brought forward!”
    Peaglum frogmarched Cookie in front of Miss Uish. The poor man shook uncontrollably. His waxen face was distorted, as if he’d been punched. He could not bring himself to look at Miss Uish, or to speak.
    “Here’s your new recipe book for feeding these whelps.” She threw a slim volume at his head. He ducked and knelt humbly to pick it up from the deck.
    “I believe you already have some idea of what might happen if you don’t follow my instructions?”
    He nodded wordlessly, clutching the book. Teo saw a tear slide down his plump cheek. “What’s she done to him?” she raged silently.
    Miss Uish fastened on her head a hat that looked like a tea tray with a vast meringue on top. Then she stalked away, slipping down the gangplank with grace, and leaving in her wake a cloud of expensive-smelling yet slightly metallic perfume.
    Over her shoulder, she called, “Malfeasance, count the brats and write down all their names. And what they’re good for, if anything.”
    While Peaglum busied himself bullying boys with his notebook, Teo and Renzo rushed to Professor Marìn’s poop-deck stateroom. There was no sign that he had ever occupied it. It was now overflowing with Miss Uish’s considerable wardrobe of clothes and accessories. An ornate black cuckoo clock ticked menacingly on the wall.
    The colors of Miss Uish’s clothes were strident: electric blue, magenta, purple, arsenic-green, acid-yellow. She favored shiny checks and stripes, made up into costumes with a faint naval flavor, grandly ornamented with frogging.
    Renzo’s eyes popped open wide at the sight of the stiff rows of corsets, all black, yet decorated with pink stitching and jaunty pink satin bows. The hooks and lacing grommets almost seemed to strain with the hidden presence of their owner. He did not feel comfortable turning his back on them.
    An open box on the dresser revealed a large heart-shaped locket on a chain, a link bracelet fastened by small heart-shaped padlocks; even her gloves had four heart-shaped celluloid buttons. Somehow, the effect was the opposite of romantic.
    “She said she was ‘Miss’ Uish,” Teo commented.
    “She wasn’t wearing a diamond solitaire engagement ring either,” added Renzo. “Mind you, I can’t imagine any man in his right mind wanting to marry her. In fact, I’m not even sure she’s human.”
    “Do you think she’s a ghost? But she doesn’t make you feel cold around her.”
    “How can we tell? We’re always cold since the ice storm.”
    The desk was littered with magazines: The Ladies’ Gazette of Fashions, illustrated with color plates, and the Court Circular, which described Queen Victoria’s daily engagements.
    Piled in one corner were boxes labeled FINEST AUSTRALIAN LAMINGTONS and HOADLEY’S FRUIT JELLIES.
    “Where’s Professor Marìn?” lamented Teo. “He wouldn’t just abandon us.”
    Renzo, visibly thinking of his mother, murmured, “Unless something … happened to him.”
    Teo threw him a sympathetic look. “He certainly wouldn’t leave us to a creature like her by choice. I think she’s raving mad! Did you see how she changes from second to second: one minute acting sweet as pie, the next minute, like a wolf?”
    “And how can we be sure she’s even qualified to run a sailing school? I don’t see any