Author's Note: What a long day Peter and Charmain are having! Anyway, this is the last of their Saturday. However, we'll just have to see what Sunday brings for our two accidental mischief-makers...

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Chapter Nine

In Which There Is Trouble With Baths

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Peter had been mostly asleep for the hour that Charmain was having a bath. In between two very confusing dreams – both involving running water of some kind – he woke up and thought that he had really better get out of bed. However, he dozed off before he could even finish the thought.

Finally, around five in the afternoon, he woke up properly, and was disconcerted to still hear the sounds of running water from across the corridor.

He hammered on the bathroom door. "Charmain!" he hollered. "How long are you going to be in there? It's been an hour!"

There was no answer except a trickling wetness under his feet. "Oh, help," he muttered, and banged on the door again. "The bath's overflowed, you idiot! Turn off the taps!" He didn't dare use a spell to dry up the water, so he just stood there with his feet getting steadily wetter.

The water had trickled past his feet and was making its way to the bedroom doors before Peter ran to find cloths to mop it up. "Oh, Charmain!" he panted as he ran. "What did you do?"

Unknown to him, Charmain had managed to fall completely asleep after turning on the taps and getting into the bath. It was fortunate that it had a high back that she could lean against, or she might well have drowned. As it was, she had been too deeply asleep to notice the water spilling over the edges of the bath, or to hear Peter's frantic hammering on the door.

In fact, she didn't wake up until she heard Peter yelling again. "Charmain, turn off the taps or I'll put worms in your bed!"

Charmain loathed worms. The idea of them worked its way into her subconscious mind, and she shuddered and opened her eyes.

"Oh, no," she gasped. She quickly turned off the taps and yelled, "Water, dry up! Now!"

It worked.

Charmain lay back in the now half-empty bath with a sigh. She reached for the soap and scrubbed herself clean as thoroughly as she could, ignoring Peter's annoyed sighs, hammering on the door and, eventually, his snores.

Charmain got out after another hour of scrubbing, drained out the now greyish water and wrapped herself in a warm towel. She poked her clothes with a reluctant toe. They were completely unwearable. It was fortunate that Peter had fallen asleep and would not see her dressed only in a towel. She took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door.

Peter had indeed fallen asleep. However, most of the doors in Wizard Norland's house were creaky, and the bathroom door was no exception.

"Finally!" was the first thing he said. "I thought you'd be all day!"

Charmain, shocked, let her towel fall.

Charmain was very lucky. Her hair was long enough to cover most of her upper chest, and she managed to catch the towel before it dropped below her hips. Nevertheless, Peter definitely saw more than Charmain wanted him to see, or at least more than she would ever admit she wanted him to see.

Peter's eyes went very wide. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, stammered something and stared at the floor with as much intensity as he could muster.

Charmain squeaked, clutched her towel around herself and ran for her bedroom.

She reached under her bed for a diary that she only wrote in when she could remember where she'd put it and when she needed to express her feelings in writing. As with many diaries, it was completely empty except for Charmain's name on the front page, with 'OPEN AND DIE!' scrawled beneath it, 'I hate Alexandra Black, she's such a pig, it was horrid of her to call me a book-loving maggot-faced idiot,' with a crude sketch of Alexandra with a pig's nose, and 'I wish I was as good at music as Charlotte is'. She opened to a new page and chewed on the end of her quill for a second before writing.

What to do when a boy who is a friend and ('and', as well as the next few words on that line were scribbled out; all were unreadable except for 'and') sees you in a towel and nothing else

- Panic

- Pretend it never happened

- Laugh it off

- Change the subject if he brings it up

- Hide

- (This suggestion was crossed out)

- Refuse to give him dinner until he promises never to mention it again

- ???

Charmain sighed and shut the book, ignoring the ink spreading to the next page. Making a list hadn't helped much.

Peter finished his bath a lot quicker than Charmain had, but didn't leave the bathroom. Instead, he began to mentally compile a list much like hers.

What to do when you see the girl you (there he stopped this thought, and continued) when you see a girl you are friends with only wearing a towel

- Panic

- Pretend it never happened

- Change the subject if she brings it up

- Hide

- HELP!

Peter breathed deeply, looked out into the corridor to check that Charmain wasn't outside the bathroom. Wrapping his towel neatly around his waist, he darted into his room without stopping to mop up the wet footprints he'd left on the floor.

They both came down in their most ridiculously modest clothes, the ones they usually reserved for visiting grandparents, and sat in the living room. Any other day, they would have laughed at each other, but they were far, far too embarrassed to even look at each other, let alone laugh. Although they were both reading, neither of them could concentrate on the page, so acutely aware were they of each other's presence. Charmain managed to read a whole chapter without taking any of it in.

It was Peter who spoke first. "Um, dinner?" he said, his voice cracking slightly.

"All right," said Charmain. "Fried eggs?" She blushed scarlet suddenly, remembering a comment a schoolmate had made about her figure. "I mean, um, scrambled. Or custard, or something." They had, after many trays of half-rotten food, managed to get some un-spoilt milk, some sugar, and a single vanilla pod.

Peter didn't notice her blush – or, if he did, he didn't say so. "That sounds fine. Do you need me to help you?"

Charmain shook her head. "No, no, I'll be fine." She fled to the kitchen.

Peter tried as hard as he could to concentrate on The Twelve-Branched Wand, but the clattering and occasional swearing coming from the kitchen. A loud crash decided him.

"What's going on in here?" he asked. A chair had been overturned, a pot was on the fire, and Charmain was red with exertion, heat and irritation.

"The custard has lots of lumps," she said. "And the scrambled eggs are hard."

Peter firmly took the stirring spoon away from her. "The scrambled eggs are hard because you cooked them too long. And the custard is lumpy because you didn't separate the yolks from the whites properly. You're only meant to use the yolk for custard."

Charmain picked the chair up and sat down crossly. "Well, I'm sorry, Mister I-Know-Everything-About-Cooking, but it didn't say either of that in the book. Let's just eat."

They spent a sullen ten minutes picking over their scrambled eggs, which their forks didn't even bounce off properly, and an even more sullen five minutes picking lumps out of their custard. They were both embarrassed, and were, by then, too sulky even to ask each other for salt and pepper. They stalked away from the table without washing their dishes.

They read half-heartedly in their rooms for another two hours before they both got sick of being grumpy. They walked into each other in the corridor when they were heading to each other's room to apologise.

"Ouch," said Charmain, rubbing her elbow. "Sorry."

"Me too," replied Peter, rubbing his forearm. "Listen, about before–" he started, but Charmain interrupted.

"Ugh, I was such an idiot. I knew I should have gotten dressed again."

"No, no, our clothes were filthy. It's really not a problem."

"It is, kind of. I'm sorry my towel slipped; I didn't think you were still in the hallway."

"No, don't worry. I'm sorry – I mean – I didn't see anything, but sorry."

"That's all right."

"Friends again?"

"Yes."

They turned back to their respective bedrooms, much relieved, and went to sleep.