CH. 3
I want to ask forgiveness from you guys. Real life just keeps catching up! And, I'm sorry for writing Alek off as a dummkopf. It's all for a cause! Anyways, I should have more time to work on my stories now, so chapters should be coming more regularly! Thanks for your support!
Deryn stared at the window, the light from the lamps reflecting the image of the compartment back to her. Jaspert was reading that morning's paper, while messages lizards scurried through their delivery tubes overhead.
She scratched at the sleeves of her dress. The entire pink monstrosity was lined with lace, and Deryn silently cursed her brother out for making her transformation into a girl so soon after getting back. Her blonde hair barely reached her shoulders, and it was starting to curl in the humid weather.
Thunder rumbled outside, loud and foreboding. Deryn was taken back to her first time on a Huxley, when she had nearly been smashed, incinerated, not to mention completely soaked before getting picked up by the airship that had been her home for those long months.
A pang of remorse ran up and down the length of her spine, making her shift uncomfortably in her seat. Jaspert glanced over, but paid her no mind. She'd been doing it for the entirety of the trip. Even the smallest reminders set her memories spinning.
The compartment slid open, letting in the muffled noise. Deryn glanced up to see a very tall man- no, boy. He had golden blond hair with chocolate brown eyes, and his face was slightly rounded.
"Hello." His voice was a rich baritone, and he was staring curiously at Deryn. "I couldn't help but notice, ma'am that you look very much like a girl that I went to school with."
"Really," Deryn said, trying to hide the sarcasm and indifference.
"May I ask your name?" The boy was starting to get on her nerves.
"Deryn," she replied. "Deryn Sharp."
The boy rocked back on his heels. "Butter me up and serve me on toast, it is you!"
"May I be kind enough to ask where I know you from?" Deryn started to get to her feet, but Jaspert waved her down behind the boy's back.
"Deryn, don't you recognize me?" he asked. "Hubie Brown, from primary school?"
The sudden memory of the mischievous boy who enjoyed dipping her braids in blue ink struck Deryn's recollections, and she let out an involuntary snort.
"Hubie Brown. It really is you, then?"
"In the flesh and at your service."He swept a bow and grinned.
"Did you need something?" Deryn asked.
"Just wanted to make sure it was you," Hubie replied.
"Hubie!" Another voice called from the hall. "Come on! Dinner's starting!"
"Ah! Got to go. We should catch up sometime!" Hubie called as he was dragged off to the dinner car by his pals.
"You don't seriously plan on meeting up with that guy, do you?" Jaspert asked, standing to shut the compartment door.
"Don't worry," Deryn said. "I wouldn't go near that guy with a ten foot pole. Not after what he did to my braids."
Jaspert laughed. "Was he the one that did that, then? Your hair was green for a week!"
Deryn glared at her brother, trying to hide her spreading grin. She couldn't hold it, and she quietly chuckled. It felt good to laugh, and she stored Jaspert's laugh in her memory. It'd been so long since he had laughed.
Maybe leaving the Leviathan wasn't so bad after all.
The train pulled into the Glasgow station a little after nine o'clock that night. The darkness was penetrated by the shouts of the station masters, the contented purr of the giant locomotives, and the rain. The rain was soaking everything in sight. Even the fabricated whale-skin tarps were shuddering, trying to shake the pooling water off.
Deryn and Jaspert wove through the streets of the city, clutching their few belongings tight under their overcoats. Their hair was plastered to their scalps and water clung to their skin. Vagabonds and beggars huddled under boxes and overcoats, and the shop windows were all dark, leaving only streetlights to illuminate the drenched city.
The Sharp residence was a quaint little cottage on the outskirts of the city. There were plenty of wide-open spaces, which had been perfect for Dad's flight experiments before his untimely death.
Auntie May was waiting on the porch, wrapped in a shawl and holding a lamp. "Come on in, dearies. She's been asking for you."
Though Mum always had a habit of annoying Deryn, seeing her like this was heart wrenching. Her normally rosy complexion had a sickly green tinge, and those strong hands that could cinch a corset to the point of suffocation were thin and trembling.
"Deryn? Is that you?" Even her voice, usually so strong from barking orders at their poor cook Maryella, was quiet and weak.
"It's me, Mum," Deryn whispered. "I'm home."
"I was so worried," Mum scolded. "After you ran off, I didn't know what happened. Than Jaspert wrote and told me what you'd done. I was so worried that you would get shot, or drowned, or..." She struggled up onto her elbows. "Are you wearing a dress?" She coughed violently, sending her back into the pillows. "Sweetie, I'm so proud!"
Deryn sighed. "She must be getting better," she whispered to Jaspert.
"Indeed she is," the doctor said as he stepped out of the shadows. "Just a violent strain of pneumonia is all. She'll be up and about in a few weeks." He handed Deryn a small bottle of antibiotics. "She should take one of these every day until she stops wheezing. Make sure she does, even if you have to grind it up and serve it in her morning cocoa."
"I will not take one!" Mum coughed. "The things are nasty!"
"Here," the doctor breathed. He also handed Deryn a bottle of sedatives. "Just in case you get too tired of her," he whispered.
Deryn nodded. "Will do, sir."
The doctor nodded and, donning his bowler hat, (Boffin, Deryn thought), left the room to return to his own home.
"Go to sleep, Mum," Jaspert said, forcing her back onto the pillows and pulling the comforter up to her chin.
Deryn went back to her old room. Everything was just as she had left it. The walls were the same pastel yellow, and the simple four-poster still had the calico-patterned comforter. Deryn, shutting the door behind her, peeled off the itchy torture device and stepped into her worn sky-blue pajamas. She slipped inside the familiar blanket, and slept deeply.
