Becky rapped softly on Sara's door. It was very early morning; the sun was not yet up, and if it had been, the gloomy sky and smog of the city must have drowned it in grays. Becky carried a candle-stump, which cast ominous yellow shadows on the old floorboards. "Miss?" Becky called anxiously as she had many times before. "Time to get up, Miss!" She waited. There was no answer from inside, no sound of stirring.

Becky slowly pushed the door open and walked over to Sara's bed. "Time to get up, Miss!" she repeated. The form beneath the blanket didn't move. Becky suddenly shivered. She shook Sara's shoulder. "Miss Sara?" Sara still didn't move. Fear fell like ice into Becky's stomach. She pulled back the covers and put her hand in front of Sara's mouth and nose, breathing a sigh of relief when she felt a hot breath on her hand. Becky covered her friend up again and ran to her room to fetch her own blankets to put over her. Then, taking the candle, she fled downstairs in a panic and ran to the young ladies' sleeping rooms.

Silently, she set the candle down on a table in the corridor and pushed the door open. Lottie slept near the door and Becky shook her gently. "Miss Lottie!" she whispered frantically. "Wake up!"

"What is it?" Lottie asked blearily.

"It's Miss Sara!"

Lottie's eyes flew open. The girl in the next bed stirred and rolled over. Lottie followed Becky out into the hall. "What about Sara?" she asked urgently.

Becky twisted her apron with both hands. "She's sick, Miss!" Becky's lower lip trembled. "I can't wake her up!"

"We have to get her a doctor."

"Minchin'll never allow it!" Becky said. Tears began to fall down her cheeks. "Oh, whatever'll we do, Miss?" she wailed.

"Hush," Lottie said brusquely. "Let me think." She paused. "We have to get her out of the house. Do you know if there's anyone that would take her in?"

Becky's eyes grew wide as platters. "Prince Henry!" she gasped.

"Who?"

"Mr. Eshton as lives across the street!" Becky exclaimed. "'E's in love wif Miss Sara! He's do anything for her!"

"Perfect!" Lottie clapped her hands. "Go get our coats. We're going to visit Mr. Eshton."

"Now?!"

"Yes, now," Lottie said impatiently. "I'm getting dtressed." She left Becky gaping in the hall.

0000

In ten minutes, Becky and Lottie were slipping out the door and across the dark street. Becky pointed out the house and they climbed to the front door. Lottie boldly knocked on it. It was a long wait, Becky hopping nervously and coldly from foot to foot. Finally the door opened, and a lascar stood in the lamplight.

"I need to speak with Mr. Eshton, please," Lottie said, putting her chin up.

The lascar looked puzzled. "I'm afraid Mr. Eshton is still abed," he said apologetically.

"Please wake him," Lottie requested unceremoniously. "We wouldn't have come this early if it weren't very, very important."

"Of course." He opened the door to let them inside and ushered them into the parlor. "May I ask who's calling?"

"Becky, from the seminary," Lottie answered calmly. Becky stared at her wide-eyed. The lascar bowed himself out of the room.

"Oh, Miss Lottie, why'd you give him my name?" Becky asked fearfully.

"To get into the house past the butler, it had to look like an upper-class person were visiting. But Mr. Eshton wouldn't recognize my name, and maybe he wouldn't come down. He knows you."

0000

As it happened, Maria had woken up early feeling peckish. She slipped out of bed and down the stairs to the kitchen to fetch a snack, which she carried up to the breakfast room. On the way, she met Henry coming hastily down the stairs in his dressing gown.

"Well! What are you doing up?" Maria asked in surprise.

"Apparently, I have an early caller," he said, reaching past her to open the parlor door. "A very early caller."

The two girls inside jumped up when the door opened, and the very pretty blonde one came forward. She check when she saw Maria. "Are you the lady of the house?" she asked.

"Yes," Maria answered, a good deal surprised.

"Will you please stay? What we have to ask concerns you."

Maria nodded and took her usual chair near the door.

"What is this all about?" Henry asked, not unkindly.

"Oh, please Sir!" Becky spoke up for the first time. "Miss Sara's awful sick. I can't get her to wake up!"

"You see, Miss Minchin—the headmistress—would never send for a doctor if she knew," Lottie interjected. "And we were wondering if..." She faltered. It had seemed the most sensible thing in the world in the corridor of the seminary, but actually standing in someone parlor asking them to shelter a friendless servant-girl seemed terribly impolite. "We wondered if you'd take her in and call a doctor for her," she finished in a rush, her face burning. She looked hopefully between Henry and Maria.

Maria turned to ask Henry if this Sara were the girl he was in love with, but one look at his face obviated the need for the question.

"Of course," she said reassuringly.

Lottie heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Oh, thank you Ma'am!"

"Mrs. Carrisford," Maria said, smiling.

"Lottie Legh," Lottie answered, shaking her hand.

"Well, don't just stand there, Henry, go get dressed! I take it you have an act of bravery before you!"

Henry looked at her, puzzled. He felt a little dazed by it all, and the idea of Sara ill was making him feel ill with apprehension.

"You'll have to rescue your princess from the dragon of the Seminary," Maria explained patiently. "Go on!" Henry turned and practically ran from the room.

"Now, Lottie," Maria said. "Will the headmistress—this Miss Minchin—allow Henry to take Sara out of the school?"

Lottie shook her head. "She'll kick up a horrible dust."

"Well, then we will need a diversion for Henry," Maria said, getting into the spirit of things. "Do you think you can manage?"

A slow, mischievous grin spread over Lottie's face. Had her classmates seen it, they could have told Maria what it meant. It always meant the same thing:

Trouble.

"Oh, I think I can manage," she said sweetly.

Maria nodded and tugged smartly on the bell-pull. Ram Dass appeared so quickly in the doorway that if she didn't know better, she would've said he was listening at the keyhole. "Send for a doctor at once, and desire Mrs. Herrick to prepare a bedroom for a young lady." Ram Dass nodded and departed.

"Now, you'd better go set up this diversion," Maria said briskly. "Henry will go to the kitchen door in exactly—" she glanced at the clock on the mantel—"fifteen minutes." Lottie nodded, and Maria showed them out.

A ghostly light had stolen over the streets as Becky and Lottie ran for the kitchen door. Lottie felt a little bubble of excitement lodge itself in her throat.

Safely in the kitchen, she turned and took Becky's wrist. "Fifteen minutes, Becky. Be by this door to let him in, and show him up to Sara's room—you'd better take the backstairs—and try not to be seen. I'll create a diversion; get her out as quick as you can. Can you do that?" Becky nodded, her eyes wide. "Good. Now for the diversion," Lottie said, her face lighting up.

0000

Ten minutes later, the entire school was assembled in two orderly lines in the corridor outside Miss Minchin's office. When Maria had mentioned a diversion, Lottie had thought, I'll make it Bedlam. That had led her directly to a song that Sara had taught her and the other older girls a few years before—"Tom O' Bedlam's Song". They, in turn, had taught it to the younger girls, and every girl in the school knew at least the chorus, even the little ones. They had practiced it in secret, and Lottie doubt Miss Minchin had ever heard it. Until now.

Lottie, at the head of the lines, waved her hands for attention and counted quietly, "One, two, three!"

All together, the girls began to shout the song at the top of their lungs.

"From the hag and hungry goblin

That into rags would rend ye,

And the spirit that stands by the handsome man

In the book of moons, defend ye,

That of your five sound senses

You never be forsaken,

Nor wander form yourselves with Tom,

Abroad to beg your bacon."

Miss Minchin shot out of the office just in time to get the full effect of the young girls joining in the chorus, some of them singing, some shouting, some screaming:

"While I do sing: Any food,

Any feeding, drink, or clothing?

Come, dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing."

Miss Minchin found her voice. "Stop it, young ladies! Stop at once! At once!"

Lottie waved her hands like a conductor and led them down the corridor like the drum major at the front of a marching band. Miss Minchin followed behind, trying to clap her hands for their attention and yelling. But the students drowned her out.

"Of thirty bare years have I

Twice twenty been enragèd,

And of forty been three times fifteen

In durance soundly cagèd

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelet strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,

With wholesome hunger plenty.

And now I sing: Any food..."

0000

Becky stood by the area door, nervously fidgeting. There was a soft rap on the door, and she flung it open and dragged Henry inside. "Quick!" she said. "While 'Enrietta's in the dining room and cook's at the oven!" She led him up the stairs and peered around the door into the hallway. It was clear. She hurried him down the corridor to the backstairs, and they began to climb up to the attic. From somewhere in the front of the house, Henry could hear the horrible racket of twenty or so girls shouting "Tom O' Bedlam's Song" at the top of their lungs. His lips quirked.

0000

"When I short have shorn my sour-face,

And swigged my horny barrel,

In an oaken inn I pound my skin,

As a suit of gilt apparel.

The moon's my constant mistress,

And the lowly owl my morrow;

The flaming drake and the night-crow make

Me music to my sorrow..."

Miss Minchin had stopped trying to get their attention and was now following silently. Lottie led the parade into the schoolroom. The girls began to jump up ont ot he benches and the desks, scattering books and papers on the floor an drawing silly pictures on the chalkboard, singing all the while.

"The palsy plagues my pulses,

When I prig your pigs or pullen,

Your culvers take, or matchless make

Your chanticleer or sullen.

When I want provant, with Humphry

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Powles with waking souls

Yet never am affrighted..."

0000

"Up here, Mr. Eshton," Becky said breathlessly, leading him onto the attic landing. She opened Sara's door, and Henry went in.

It was frigid, as cold as an icebox. Henry went to the little bundle on the bed and drew back the blanket. Sara's face was pale as parchment, and when he touched her cheek with one tender finger, it was hot. But she shivered uncontrollably. Silently (his throat too tight to speak), Henry wrapped her up in the blankets and picked her up. Becky went before him down the stairs.

0000

"I know more than Apollo,

For oft when he lies sleeping,

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin weeping,

The moon embrace her shepherd,

And the queen of love her warrior,

While the first doth horn the star of morn,

And the next the heavenly Farrier..."

Miss Minchin had found her voice again and was trying to shout over the din. But the girls were completely out of control. They have behaved themselves so nicely for long that when they decided to get into mischief, it was no ordinary mischief! Several of the girls had joined hands around her and were skipping about in a circle, singing,

"The gipsy Snap and Pedro

Are none of Tom's comrades.

The punk I scorn, and the cutpurse sworn,

And the roaring boys' bravadoes.

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Me handle, touch, and spare not;

But those that cross Tom Rhinoceros

Do what the panther dare not!"

Miss Amelia appeared at the door, in shock. "Sister, what is going on?!" she cried.

Suddenly, the noise stopped. Miss Minchin stared, wide-eyed. The girls made a menacing circle around her and began to close in as they chanted, their voices rising in a horrible crescendo of incantation.

"With an host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows

I summoned am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end,

Methinks it is no journey."

Their voices rose to shouting level as they cried out the chorus as Lottie had instructed them.

"Yet will I sing: Any food,

Any feeding, drink, or clothing?

Come, Miss Minchin, be now afraid,

Miss Sara injured nothing!"

Miss Minchin broke from their circle and ran from the schoolroom in horror—only to stop stock-still in the hall facing a young man with Sara Crewe unconscious in his arms.

He only paused, then walked straight out the front door and into the street. The Misses Minchin gaped. Then Miss Minchin noticed Becky, cowering by the door. "You horrible girl!" She overcame her fear with rage. "You will leave my service at once!"

Becky swallowed hard, then a vision of Geoffrey appeared before her. She had no more call to be frightened of this woman ever again. She squared her shoulders.

"Thank the Good Lord for that, Mum," she said calmly, and left, singing, "Miss Sara injured nothing!" under her breath.

Miss Minchin stared. She seemed to be doing a lot of that this morning. Pulling herself together, she turned to look at Lottie, who stood at the head of the crowd of girls in the doorway of the schoolroom.

"I will write to all of your parents, particularly yours, Lottie," she said awfully, "and tell them of your infamy!"

"Go ahead," Lottie said calmly. "And tell them why we did it. Tell them we had to resort to subterfuge and misbehavior to save a girl's life. Tell them you took advantage of her, enslaved her, starved her, shamed her. Tell them." And with a courtly bow to her fellow students, she marched out the door to follow Becky.

Miss Minchin's face had gone as white as Sara's, and her lips were thin. "Come, Amelia," she said. "We have things to do." She turned and looked at her partner.

"No, Sister," Miss Amelia said, shaking her head emphatically. "Lottie's right. I resign." She handed Miss Minchin her keys and climbed up to her office past a wide-eyed Henrietta. Before the door shut, she heard the students break into applause.

AN: Wow, was that ever fun to write! A little note on Tom O' Bedlam's Song: I dropped one verse and changed on word in the first verse because I didn't think they'd be the sort of things well-brought-up young ladies of the Victorian era would sing. I left the linea bout the punk because I figured they wouldn't know that "punk" meant hooker. :) The rest I let stand, except of course for the change on the last chorus. Well, what do you think?
Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and thank you especially to R9-regrin9 for never holding back on what she thinks :) and to Princess Pat for pointing out on ch 8 that hsi name is TOM Carrisford, not JOHN. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Please review!
11/1/04: The only thing that changed here was Amelia's exit. Sorry!