She likes to be in control of things and usually is. Before, the Butler kept Crackpot in order, but now it’s Mamma’s Will alone that keeps the House in line. This does not happen too often, because Mamma is strict that it should not. Sometimes the long way is the short way and the short way is the long way, and occasionally there is no way at all. But it never moves like you would want it to, like before, when the potty would be next to your bedroom in the middle of the night, but tucked Elsewhere otherwise. Occasionally it groans and thrashes a bit, like a sleeping person whose body moves though her mind drifts far away. Now, the Butler may be banished, but that doesn’t mean that the House is entirely dead. It makes Mamma happy to pretend we are a happy family, so I sit and suffer through warmed-over takeaway and café au lait, and she asks me about school, and I ask her about work, and this morning time makes up for the fact that she stays at the War Department every night until ten and I usually eat supper alone.īut when Mamma is off on one of her trips, I sleep until the very last minute and rush off to Sanctuary School without my breakfast, but with an extra half hour of snore. And since that’s all we are ever going to have, that’s what we have to learn to like. On these occasions, it’s just Mamma and me, half a family, having half-a-family time. This, of course, is not really family time, since Poppy isn’t there, and Idden isn’t there, and the First Flora isn’t there.

When Mamma is home, she gets up at oh-dark-thirty and makes me get up with her, so that we can have family time at breakfast.

Thus, it is me who reaps all the inconvenience. Then he’s just a thin shadow in a worn cadet shawl and bloodstained frock coat creeping out the back door, off to buy more booze, so he hardly counts at all. Mostly just Poppy and I are stuck home alone, which really works out to just me alone, because Poppy only comes out of his Eyrie when the booze and cigarillos run out. At least she can count on having someone else do her laundry and cook her supper.

Idden, too, is nicely out of it, even if her current post, Fort Jones, is the back end of Nowhere. Thus, Crackpot’s crumbling is no particular bother to her. AS COMMANDING GENERAL of the Army of Califa, Mamma is in charge of just about everything, so she is not much home-she’s always off on an inspection, or maneuvers, or at a grand council somewhere, or just working late.

Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce