Author's Note: Well! I've decided to slip a little extra Peter/Charmain into this chapter. Whether it's a reward to you guys for reviewing (thanks!) or it's because I just felt like it, I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter Eight

In Which Charmain and Peter Find a Use for the Ballroom

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After breakfast, Peter and Charmain went to the study to read for a while. Charmain felt a little uncomfortable that she had taken the cosiest chair, but Peter had insisted.

"You still have 'flu," he said, settling into the second-cosiest chair. "The symptoms are gone, but your body's still fighting the infection. The best thing to do is rest as much as you can."

She tossed her book aside. "But I don't want to rest! Can't we do something?"

"No," said Peter firmly, picking up his own book. "Anyway, you like reading."

"Well, yes," Charmain said, "but I don't feel like it at the moment. I want to do something!" She sighed and picked her book up again.

They kept reading until lunchtime, when Charmain closed her book and stood up. "I'm hungry," she said, "and I'm not going to read all the afternoon. I'm going to explore the house a little. Would you like to come?"

Peter nodded and put down his book. "How do omelettes sound for lunch?"

Charmain shuddered slightly. "I'll have turned into an egg by the time Great Uncle William gets back. Fine, omelettes it is."

After a mostly-satisfactory lunch, Charmain unfolded the short key to the house. "See, all this bit here is unexplored," she said, tracing her finger along a line. "I think you have to turn left at this door to get to the eastern bits."

Peter nodded thoughtfully. "That looks about right," he said. He put his elbows on the table to look closer. "Turn left through this door, then one step right, then two steps forward, then left through that door, then turn a full counter-clockwise circle to get there, and thenturn right and step forwards once." He extended an arm for Charmain to lean on. "Do come along, my dear," he said in his best imitation of Prince Ludovic's snobbish voice.

Charmain snorted, then stuck her nose in the air and rested her hand on his arm, trying to ignore the odd tingles she could feel in her fingers and her sudden nervousness. "It would be an honour, my lord," she said, mimicking Prince Ludovic's equally snobbish assistant. She snatched her hand away from his arm with a strange mixture of relief and gloom, and swept a deep curtsey. She leant on his arm again, feeling both terrified and elated, and grinned at him.

Peter grinned back nervously. He couldn't help feeling amused, scared, thrilled and shocked, all at once.

They managed to get to one of the many corridors before they had to open the map again. "Which door is it?" Charmain wondered.

Peter's hand quivered over the paper for a second. "That one," he said finally, pointing to the closest door.

Charmain stared at the paper again. "Actually, I think it's that one–" she started, but Peter had already gone through. She sighed and followed.

When they both came back into the light, they were nowhere near the room filled with teapots, which is where they should have been. Instead, they were in a very large, dusty room, with a huge chandelier and a parquet floor.

"The ballroom!" exclaimed Charmain.

Peter gaped.

The room was enormous and extremely grand. There were spider webs hanging from the chandelier, and there was only a little light as the windows were filthy, but the walls and ceiling were carved with the heavy, ornate patterns of an earlier age, and the vivid paint was hardly chipped or faded. The mirrors at either end of the ballroom, although spotted with age, were so tall that neither Peter nor Charmain could have touched the top of either of them, even if they were standing on the King's shoulders. There was gold leaf everywhere, almost as bright as when it was first applied. The two of them stood and stared – two lanky, simply-dressed young teenagers – and felt as though they had stumbled into somewhere from a hundred years before.

Charmain was the first to break the silence. "I feel as though I should be wearing a ballgown, don't you?" Her voice echoed eerily through the empty hall.

Peter laughed nervously. "I'm not sure a ballgown would suit me," he said. "But yes, I do feel rather underdressed." He looked around at the old-fashioned wall carvings, then bent down and touched the floor. "It's really slippery! How could they have danced on it without falling over?"

Charmain shook her head. "I don't know. But that gives me rather an excellent idea." She sat down and unbuttoned her boots.

Peter stared at her. "Why are you taking off your shoes?"

"Well, the floor's too slippery to even walk in boots, and you need to learn how to dance," said Charmain smugly, slipping her feet out and standing up. She had decided to wear her second-oldest clothes that morning (her oldest being her horrid pink dress), and she was very glad she had.

Peter looked at her, aghast. "Are you joking? Me, dance? I don't know right from left!" He blushed and covered his eyes as Charmain started to take off her left stocking. "What are you doing? I – I don't want to learn to dance anyway!"

Charmain, standing on one leg and rolling down her stocking, tried vainly to keep her balance. "That's why I want to teach – argh!" She slipped slightly, tried to put her left foot down, and skidded a good three feet across the floor before toppling to the ground in a flash of white petticoat, red skirt, and flailing arms. She squeaked in surprise, sat up, pushed her unravelled hair out of her mouth and attempted to pull her skirt down a little to cover her knees properly – although it didn't work, as it was all twisted under her.

"That…" She squinted at her now-filthy hand and choked slightly. "That was fun!" She burst out into surprised laughter, as did Peter, once he'd managed to look away from her legs.

"You – you looked like a baby giraffe!" Peter laughed. "All limbs, and no idea where to put them."

Charmain looked mildly affronted. "I'd like to see you look less clumsy! It's like skating on a mattress."

Peter bent down to unlace his boots. "All right. I'll try. But–" he thought for a second, and continued "–if I manage to slide more elegantly than you did, you have to organise dinner for tonight, and you have to sort out all the books in my room. Without reading them."

Charmain laughed and shook her rust-red hair out of her face, and reached backwards to re-tie it into its everyday plait. "And if I slide more elegantly than you, you have to darn, patch, wash and fold allmy torn petticoats. Then give them back; I don't trust you to put them away properly. And then you have to tidy the books in my room."

They shook hands. "Deal."

Unbeknownst to them when they decided on them, they had both chosen a punishment that would rather appeal to the other.

Charmain and Peter were, naturally enough, curious about each other's room – after Charmain had nosed around that one time, with extremely embarrassing consequences, they had decided to fit locks on their doors and prohibit anybody except themselves going inside. It had been almost a month, and they both wondered rather whether the other's room had changed.

Charmain, in addition to her curiosity about Peter's bedroom, wanted to see what she could make with about two dozen eggs, half a loaf of bread, a fair amount of butter, and a couple of leftover apples.

Peter, who was moderately good at plain sewing, actually rather enjoyed it. He was also decidedly interested in Charmain's undergarments, for no particular reason that he would admit to.

It was hard to tell whether they were trying to win or trying to lose. Neither of them was especially clumsy when walking normally, but sliding on a wooden floor, either in socks or stockings, is difficult. However, while they were also trying to skid further and fall harder than the other, they almost seemed to be exaggerating their windmilling arms and shocked expressions, attempting to outdo each other in their ungainliness.

It was an hour before they were exhausted enough to stop. They were both covered in dust, and they were laughing ecstatically, uncomfortably sprawled on the floor. Charmain had somehow gotten a cobweb in her hair, which had fallen out of its plait so many times that she had eventually decided to leave it loose, and Peter – in a particularly impressive tumble – had managed to rip half the buttons off his shirt. They had scrapes and bruises on every exposed piece of skin, and tears on every piece of clothing. It hurt to move.

Eventually, they managed to calm down enough to stand up. Charmain looked down at her blouse and burst out laughing again. Her blouse, which had been white when she'd put it on, was now a dirty grey-brown, the sleeves had torn past the cuff-buttons and up to the elbows, and the shoulder seams had split.

She then looked sideways at Peter, and went almost into hysterics, laughing so hard that her eyes watered and made tracks down the dust on her face.

Peter was confused. "What's so funny?" he asked, looking down his front. Admittedly, half his buttons were missing, and his dark blue trousers had tears at the hem and knee, but he didn't look half so ridiculous as Charmain did, with the cobweb in her hair like some ridiculous hat.

Charmain gasped for breath. "The seam!" she wheezed, "on your trousers!"

Peter turned around to look at his back. Indeed, the seam at the back of his trousers had completely split, and his spotted undergarments were revealed, although so covered in dust that the original pattern was obscured.

Charmain collapsed again at the look on Peter's face. "I'm sorry!" she gasped. "I really am! But it's so funny!" She broke down in hysterical giggles.

Peter mustered up as much dignity as he could, which wasn't much. "Fine," he said stiffly. "You win. I'll darn your stupid petticoats."

Charmain managed to stop giggling with a very unladylike wheeze. "No, no," she said with a smile, although still gasping for breath slightly. "I think I was definitely clumsier, although you look a lot sillier. Remember, I managed to tumble head-over-heels for a good two yards that one time."

Peter chuckled and pulled her to her feet. "That's true. But I skidded at least three yards on my stomach a few times."

Charmain ignored the infuriating flutters in her stomach that always seemed to turn up when Peter touched her in any way. "So should we declare it a tie?" she asked, dropping his hands as though they burned.

"I suppose," said Peter thoughtfully, ignoring those self-same flutters. "But did we both win or did we both lose?"

Charmain contemplated for a second. "I actually do want to cook dinner tonight," she said. "So, if you don't mind a bit of darning, perhaps we both lost."

"That sounds all right," said Peter, shaking her hand quickly.

It took them a lot longer than they had thought it would to find their way back to the kitchen. Even though Peter insisted on walking behind Charmain ("So I know which way to go," he said, although it was really because he didn't want her seeing his underwear), they managed to make a few wrong turns, possibly because they were both exhausted. Indeed, they managed to make their way to the stables before they realised they'd gone the wrong way.

As soon as they had reached the warm, sunny kitchen, they both collapsed in the chairs. Charmain touched her wrist lightly. "Time," she said.

She looked at Peter sleepily. "It's only twenty-one minutes to four," she said. "I'm going to have a bath, and then I'll have a nap, and then dinner."

"That sounds fine, but I'm going to have a nap first." said Peter. "Then a bath."

Charmain looked at him, appalled. "But you'll get your bedclothes all dirty!"

He shrugged again. "I don't mind in the slightest. I need a rest."

Charmain sighed. "Fine. But I'm not washing your sheets." She walked towards the door and, resting her hand on the handle, turned back to Peter. "Oh, and by the way?" she said in her most sugary voice.

"What?" demanded Peter. He knew that whenever she used that voice, he wasn't going to like what she had to say.

"I'd suggest darning your trousers, too." And, with a sweet smile, she opened the door, walked into the living room, pushed the door open again and turned left to the corridor with bedrooms and a bathroom.

Peter stared after her. "You vicious, bossy little cat!" he said loudly.

A quiet giggle was his only answer.