Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7 by Ann Hood

retrieved,helping to stack them from largest to smallest.
    “There’s one more, I’m afraid,” the woman said apologetically. “A small square one?”
    Maisie glanced around. Sure enough, a small square package lay upside down in the mud. She picked it up and wiped it off on her own filthy dress before setting it on the very top of the others.
    Once again, the woman disappeared behind them, except her hat and bangs and her eyes which were—Maisie saw now that she stood so close to her—unusual. One eye was blue and the other green.
    “It’s these new pattens,” the woman said. “They’re slippery, which is silly since they’re for walking through the mud, aren’t they?”
    Maisie surmised that
pattens
must be the peculiar things on the woman’s feet, so she nodded.
    “Want to buy an orange?” Amelia asked sweetly.
    “Oh, dear, no,” the woman said, not unkindly. “I have no money left at all after so much shopping.”
    A pained look flashed across her eyes.
    “What a thoughtless thing to say!” the woman said. “I’m so sorry! Here you are, two children out on the street and I’m complaining…”
    Her voice trailed off.
    “I know!” she said suddenly. “You”—and here she directed her gaze at Maisie—“will come home with me so that I can give you a half penny for your help.”
    Before Maisie could answer, the woman said, “A half penny? No. I’ll give you a pence.”
    Maisie could tell she was smiling behind her packages.
    Another woman had stopped and was indeed buying one of Amelia’s oranges.
    But Maisie’s woman had stepped to the street and hailed a taxi. Maisie hurried to open the door before the little boys lurking about did it, and then helped the woman and her packages into it. Without hesitating, Maisie got in, too. She didn’t want the woman to change her mind.
    “I love when I have a brilliant idea,” the woman said happily, leaning back in the seat.
    “So do I,” Maisie said softly.
    “Thank you for your help,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. William Duckberry.”
    She said this as if it might mean something to Maisie, but of course it didn’t.
    “Maisie Pickworth,” Maisie introduced herself, deciding the name Pickworth sounded moreimpressive than Robbins. “Pleased to meet you.”
    The woman frowned. “Why, are you
American
?” she asked in disbelief.
    Maisie nodded.
    “Whatever is an
American
doing selling oranges on the streets of London?” she asked.
    Maisie couldn’t tell if this was a rhetorical question, but she decided to answer it.
    “I came here with my brother and my friends, and we got separated and the police put me in a workhouse—”
    “But where are your parents?” Mrs. Duckberry asked, horrified.
    “Back in America,” Maisie answered truthfully.
    “This is most confusing,” Mrs. Duckberry said, wrinkling her little button nose. “And most distressing! American children in a workhouse? Why, if President Lincoln ever heard we’d done such a thing he…he might start another war with us!”
    Mrs. Duckberry, Maisie decided, might have been the prettiest woman she’d ever seen. Her skin was creamy and white. Her lips were pouty and pink. She had that button nose and dark brown ringlets and those mismatched eyes with long curly eyelashes.
    “I must have another brilliant idea,” Mrs. Duckberry said. She sighed, as if trying to conjure one.
    After a few minutes of silence, Mrs. Duckberry brightened. “Aha!” she said. “You can stay with me until we straighten out this terrible mess. I’ll wire your parents. Where did you say they were?”
    “Um. Newport?”
    “Rhode Island?” Mrs. Duckberry said. “Wait a minute…Pickworth? Is Phinneas Pickworth your father?”
    Luckily, Mrs. Duckberry didn’t wait for Maisie to answer, because Maisie was too shocked to say anything.
    “I met him when I was there last summer,” Mrs. Duckberry said. “What a character!” She shook her head fondly. “Well, I will wire him immediately and