Free Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo by Ysabeau S. Wilce

notorious for being quarrelsome, arrogant, and vain. That explained everything else.
    And in the day before’s
Alta Califa
, I found the following notice:
Newly arrived on the steamer
Pantico,
Sieur T. N. Wraathmyr, representative for Madama Twankys fine luxury goods. Sieur Wraathmyr carries with him a fine array of exquisite linens from Seneg; sweet perfumes from the Huitzil Empire; the choicest fruits from the Kulani Islands; beaver hats, both fancy and plain; lace goods of all persuasions; Bradstock bootees; linen brollies; ETC. He will be staying at the Palace Hotel, for those who wish to peruse his samples and place orders
.
    Well, I did not wish to peruse Sieur Wraathmyr’s items or place an order, but he could bet his Bradstock bootees that I would be paying him a visit at the Palace Hotel as soon as I was dismissed. But first a day of tedious duty punctuated by only one joy: accompanying Buck to the Embarcadero, where we joined a huge throng and the Califa National Band in waving goodbye to the Infantina. The Zu-Zu, her Boy Toys (including Udo), and an enormous amount of luggage were to sail down the coast and meet up with the Infanta at Angeles and then travel back to Califa in the Infanta’s convoy.
    The sendoff was a big event, with the band playing, cannons firing, and the Warlord sniveling into his hankie, as though the Zu-Zu were going to be gone for a year instead of only a few weeks. I saw Udo from an extreme distance. Or, rather, I saw Udo’s hairstyle from an extreme distance: He’d swept his hair up into a giant pouf and perched a small wooden boat upon its wave. Judging from the admiring noises I heard from the crowd, he was about to start a trend.
    I hoped the Zu-Zu and Udo had a very nice voyage to Angeles. I hoped the sea was rough, and their ship was leaky, and maybe even that there would be sharks or a pirate or two.
Hope is free
, Nini Mo said.
You can have all you want
. I had to admit one thing: Sieur Wraathmyr might be arrogant, but he wasn’t a bootlicker. It was very hard for me to imagine him as anyone’s lap dog. Or wearing his hair in a giant pouf, either.
    That evening, I had to work late and then accompany Buck to dinner at the O Club with a bunch of yaller dogs, but as soon as I was dismissed, I hightailed it down to the Palace Hotel. Sieur Wraathmyr wasn’t there. According to the bellhop, he’d gone to Sacto and would return by the end of the week. I had no choice but to wait until he returned.
    So on to an excruciating week, filled with frantic days full of frantic preparation for the Infanta’s arrival, and frantic nights when I lay in bed and imagined what would happen if I didn’t get the map back. Four times I went down to the Palace Hotel to see if Sieur Wraathmyr had returned, just in case. He hadn’t, and by my third visit, the bellhops were nudging each other and winking when they saw me. Clearly they thought I had something other than Bradstock bootees in mind. Which was true, but not at all what they were thinking.
    Not at all.
    Never.
    As the week dragged on and on, my mood grew fouler and more desperate. I considered asking for leave and sneaking up to Sacto to confront Sieur Wraathmyr there. But Lieutenant Sabre had gone on sick leave, and I didn’t dare ask Buck. I even considered telling Poppy what I had done, sending him after Sieur Wraathmyr. Let’s see Sieur Wer-bear tell Hotspur to jump into the Bay! But I didn’t dare that, either.
    First, Poppy would kill me if he knew I had gone against our agreement that I stay out of the Current. And second, he didn’t know that Tiny Doom was still alive, and I wasn’t sure what he would do when he found out. Scream? Howl? Revert back to the crazy Poppy of old? Of course, he would find out eventually, but I’d just as soon put that day off.
    Time was slipping away, and with it my future; the Infanta would arrive in a few weeks and that would be it. It would be all be over. Califa would be fully Birdie-ized and my