Tracking the Flour

A/N: This will make more sense if you've the entries in A Narnian Challenge that star Margaret the maid. I based her on Margaret Dashwood's character in the Emma Thompson movie, adventure-loving and irrepressible. I wrote the snippet in response to a prompt by JesusPS3.

"Edmund, hurry up!" Susan urged, standing in his bedroom doorway.

"For what?" he asked, blinking as he looked up from his book, and Susan sighed.

"Margaret's going-away party, remember? Her father got better work, so he's going to send her to school, instead of hiring her out as a maid. The professor allowed a farewell cake."

"I hope she lands a school with an understanding dean," Edmund muttered, but he was already shutting his book and standing up.

"I hope she finds friends who also like adventure," Lucy called from down the hallway. "If she were several years older, she would have made a wonderful nurse on the front."

"Or a resistance fighter," Susan murmured, falling into step beside Edmund. "Some of her ingenuity in pranks, and her creative hiding places, would have served the resistance quite well."

"I'm going to find Peter, he should be there too," Lucy announced, disappearing down one of the many long halls in Professor Kirk's home.

Edmund frowned. "Peter isn't already there?"

"He said he was going ahead, but…" Susan shrugged. "We didn't see him." They walked through another corridor, following Lucy's path as they headed to a room that was just off the kitchen. It was a very large house. "So we thought he came to find you."

Edmund shook his head. "I've not had a sight of—I say, Lu, what's up?" he asked as they turned the corner to the hall by the kitchen, only to see Lucy standing outside the closed kitchen door. She was staring at the floor.

"Come see," she said. The other two came up behind her, looking over her head. There were white footprints coming out of the kitchen and wandering off down the hallway.

"Were there going to be games at the party?" Susan asked after a moment.

"I don't see the Macready letting that happen, not with something that messed up the house" Lucy responded. The three waited a moment more, before Lucy said, "Should we follow them?"

Edmund let his gaze track the footprints till they disappeared, noting how they wandered close to the wall in one place, then across the hall, as if the person was slightly drunk. "I think we should find Peter first." He'd rather not have to restrain Lucy and defend himself, if they ran across something dangerous.

"But then the footprints might be gone. Besides—wouldn't it be fun to tell him about it later? Just like that time we found the small mice the Talking Mice were keeping as pets—remember Peter's face when we told him about it?"

Then again, Edmund thought, this English countryside couldn't be too dangerous. Why not? "Lead on, then, Valiant Queen! Though I hope this adventure doesn't have mice."

Despite his words, Edmund kept pace with Lucy. Susan brought up the rear as they followed the footprints down the hall, up the carpeted stairs-with one white handprint wrapped around the railing at the bottom-and into the study the Professor sometimes used when his main study was being cleaned. Even weirder, the footsteps coming out were black, not white, and wet. The three poked their heads inside the study.

"This is definitely not a game. Macready will be most upset," Susan said in a low tone, surveying the Professor's desk. There were white handprints on one side, and on the ink bottle, which had been turned on its side. Ink had run down the side of the desk and pooled on the wooden floor. The black footprints led out of that pool.

"We should clean this up," Susan said after a moment.

"We should stop this imp before they cause further damage," Edmund disagreed in a dry tone.

"Let's do both," Lucy suggested, taking a handful of the professor's used paper from the trash can and setting it in the ink pool, letting it soak up. "There, they can deal with the rest later."

"And we'd better hurry," Edmund said, already turning back towards the hallway and beginning to hurry. They chased the footprints halfway down one hall before they suddenly stopped.

"What now?" Susan asked, panting slightly.

"There, a handprint!" Lucy called, taking off at a run again. She'd seen it on a door handle leading outside, and moments later she opened the door herself, Edmund right behind her, reaching to pull her back if he needed.

But he didn't, for the first thing they saw (Susan had caught up) were Peter's shoes, covered in black ink, lying on the ground outside. And then they saw Peter, white from head to foot, blindly feeling his way towards the pump at the side of the house. Edmund choked, accidentally pulling Lucy back into him and nearly falling when she stepped on his feet.

"Peter?" Susan called after a moment, and he turned. He was covered in flour, as white as a ghost. Edmund began laughing, hard, and Peter had to call loudly to be heard.

"Su? Is that you? I say, could you help me find the pump? I can't see?"

"Why can't you see?" came a cheerful voice from the corner of the house, and a moment later Margaret rounded the corner, saw Peter, and clapped her hand over her mouth.

Peter's three siblings rushed forward, Susan and Lucy taking Peter's wrists and pulling him forward, while Edmund manned the pump. Peter, hearing the water, stuck his flour-covered hands into the clear, cleansing stream and began washing the flour out of his face just as Margaret ran up.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she repeated, over and over.

"For what?" Lucy asked.

Margaret looked ashamed, and Peter (whose eyes were visible, if a little caked at this point) looked at her. "You rigged a bag of flour over the kitchen door, didn't you."

Margaret bit her lip, nodding. "The Macready was supposed to go in and get the goodbye cake."

All four children froze. "You were going to dump flour on the Macready?" Lucy whispered in awe, and Margaret shrugged.

"I'm leaving."

The children exchanged glances, the other three beginning to fight smiles as they saw the results Margaret's actions coating Peter.

"I guess we called the wrong person imp," Edmund said, and all five began to laugh.

"I'll help you clean it up," Margaret said cheerfully, taking the pump handle from Edmund.

"We'll clean up the ink Peter stumbled into before it's found," Susan said, pulling Lucy back towards the door.

"And I might go rig up the bag of flour again," Edmund murmured. He knew he wouldn't, not really, it wouldn't be kingly, or kind. But then again…