Free Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) by Ysabeau S. Wilce

stop, but sit down, not just sit down, but collapse, which I did. The curb was dirty and wet, but I didn’t care. I had to get new stays; I was squeezed so tightly into the old ones that my lungs were sucking against each other, and all the blood was bouncing around inside my skull, so that I felt as though I was going to upchuck.
    Udo leaned over, folding his arms around his stomach, gasping. “What ... hell ... Flora ... hell? Your hair ... on fire...” His braids flopped over his bright red face.
    “An Ominous Apparition, followed by an Active Protective Sigil,” the Zu-Zu said. She was barely winded, but her hair, I noticed happily, had become even more disarranged. “Where did you learn all that, Flora?”
    “I didn’t,” I gurgled. “I dunno—”
    “Whatever. I want a coffee,” the Zu-Zu said. “Let’s go to el Mono Real, Udo, and you can get me a coffee.”
    I straightened up and tried to look refreshed and relaxed, as though I invoked Ominous Apparitions, flung forth Active Protective Sigils, and ran pell-mell from killers all the time, no big. What I really wanted to do was expel the contents of my tum and then collapse on the ground in a little pile of goo. “What about Springheel Jack?”
    The outlaw had kept pace with our flight and had stopped with our stop; he didn’t look winded at all, or concerned, or worried. Just blank and drooly.
    “Oh, he can have coffee, too, if he wants,” the Zu-Zu answered. “Come on, Udo. We’re only a block from el Mono Real. I’m perishing.”
    “Ayah, so,” Udo agreed, as though he was actually going to go with the Zu-Zu for coffee, thus leaving me to wait and see if the outlaws caught up with us.
    “Hey! What about Jack’s gang?” I demanded.
    “Are you kidding, Flora? I think at this point they probably know better than to mess with us,” Udo said. “Come on, let’s get coffee.”
    “And what are you going to do about Jack?”
    The Zu-Zu was already drifting down the street, a blot of imperious spookiness who didn’t seem to care if we followed her or not. Udo glanced at her and then back at me, and took two steps in her direction. “Turn him in tomorrow, Flora. Come on.”
    “I have to get home, Udo. I’ve got a curfew, remember, and so do you.”
    ’Don’t be a stick—”
    The Zu-Zu had stopped and turned. “Udo!”
    “Come on, Flora,” Udo said, half-pleadingly.
    “I have to go home, Udo. You can go get coffee, if you want—with your pallid girl and your zombie pard. But I have to go home.”
    Udo stood up straight and said loftily, “Then go. No one is stopping you.”
    And with that, Udo trotted after the Zu-Zu, Springheel Jack close on his heels, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the empty street.

Nine
Just in Time. A Handy Map. Bilskinir Baths.
    B Y RUNNING —actually more like loping, or maybe even staggering—and then taking a shortcut up Crackpot Hill (via the Straight-up Stairs, which are indeed straight up), I managed to slither in through the mudroom door just as the kitchen clock began to chirp twelve times.

    I was winded, sore, sweaty, and starving, but I was on time.
    The kitchen fire was banked and the lamps doused; the room was dim and dogless, but filled with a delicious smell. In the low glow of the night-light, I saw a row of hand-pies sitting on the sideboard—more of Poppy’s industry, I guessed. In addition to being thrashed, I was ravenous, so I snatched up three pies and stuffed them into my dispatch case before heading up the Below Stairs, making sure to skip the fourth step, which squeaks.
    The parlor was also dim and dogless, but I could see that the bust of St. Stostikaos was empty of Mamma’s hat, indicating she hadn’t returned from Headquarters. Sometimes Mamma is at the Presidio all night. Often this is annoying, but tonight it meant one less parent to sneak by, so I was grateful for her absence.
    Since he’d sobered up and come down out of the Eyrie, Poppy had been sleeping in