“
Right,” she said. “Come down off that chair. I think we are ready for the next step.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am going to see Mrs. Carter tomorrow. I shall tell her that you are not able to keep up with the twins in lessons.”
“But--”
Miss Minton held up her hand. “Don’t interrupt, please. I shall tell her that I will set you to work separately because you are holding the twins back. That means I am trusting you to work on your own. I shall, of course, help you whenever I can, but you must keep up the deception.” She gave one of her tight smiles. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t have an interesting time. I have a book about the history of Brazil, and one by Bates, the explorer who first described this part of the Amazon. And another by Humboldt--a very great scientist. The twins may live as though they are still in Littleford-on-Sea, but there is no need for us to do so.”
Maia jumped from the chair. “Oh, Minty,” she said, and threw her arms around her governess. “Thank you. I’m sorry…I thought--”
“Well don’t,” said Miss Minton briskly. And then: “Come along, it’s time we opened my trunk.”
Miss Minton had been poor all her life. She had no trinkets, no personal possessions; her employers underpaid her when they paid her at all--but her trunk was an Aladdin’s cave. There were travel books and fairy tales, novels and dictionaries and collections of poetry…
“How did you get them all?” Maia asked wonderingly. “How did you manage?”
Miss Minton shrugged.
“If you want something enough you usually get it. But you have to take what goes with it”--and she pointed to her shabby blouse and mended skirt. “Now, let’s see---what shall we start with? Ah yes, here is Bates. He must have sailed down this very river not sixty years ago. Look at that drawing of a sloth…
”
”