Spying on Miss Muller Read Online Free Page B

dark, and handsome, the way the movie magazines describe movie stars—more like medium tall, blondish, but definitely handsome. Ian had gray eyes, a sharp little chin, and a beauty mark at the side of his mouth. Some people might call it a mole, but Lizzie Mag and I decided it was definitely a beauty mark.
    â€œHe looks glamorous even in the middle of an air raid,” Lizzie Mag whispered.
    I nodded. For a minute we forgot about bombs or being killed or injured.
    I saw Ada’s brother, Jack, tramping in carrying his case. He and Ada looked so alike, they could have been twins. But they weren’t. Lizzie Mag once said a giant must have put a hand on each of their heads when they were born and pushed down. Even their legs were a little bendy, and their heads were perfect ovals, like rugby balls. They even had identical dimples in their chins. They waved to each other as Jack passed.
    â€œLook,” Lizzie Mag whispered. I looked and saw Miss Müller. She was wearing her black silky dressing gown, her black pajamas, and her black slippers with the little silver beads on them. Lizzie Mag and I were so close, we could hear Old Rose’s voice, cold now and accusing.
    â€œI understand you were not in your room when the air-raid siren sounded, Daphne.”
    Miss Müller faced Old Rose with her head up. “When the sirens started I remembered we had made no provision for the safety of Boots.” Miss Müller paused, then added, “Boots, the caretaker who is deaf.”
    â€œI know very well who Boots is. Go on.” Old Rose was making no effort to speak softly, and everyone was listening.
    â€œI knew he would be unable to hear the sirens,” Miss Müller said, “so I simply ran as quickly as I could to get him and bring him here.” She pointed. “Poor old man. Indeed he had not heard. I had to shake him to get him awake.”
    Old Rose and Lizzie Mag and I and all the mistresses and just about everybody within hearing distance turned to look. Boots sat on the last bunk. He looked dazed. His gray hair stood on end and his hands dangled between his striped-pajamaed knees.
    â€œThat was very commendable, Daphne.” Old Rose’s voice was warmer, and she actually put a hand on Miss Müller’s shoulder.
    â€œDo you think Miss Müller really did go for him?” Lizzie Mag whispered to me.
    I nodded. “Maybe. When she came down from the roof. But it still doesn’t explain why she was up there in the first place.”
    Maureen had opened her case and was rooting through it.
    â€œDo you know what time it is?” I asked her. She shook her head.
    Ada, who wore her watch night and day, said, “It’s twenty past four.”
    â€œIn the morning?” Maureen asked.
    â€œNo,” Ada said sarcastically. “In the afternoon.”
    â€œOh.” Maureen had found the mirror she’d been searching for and her soft 2B pencil. She drew in her arches and carefully rubbed a little Tangee lipstick over her mouth.
    I thought back to before the air raid. I didn’t know what time I’d drifted off to sleep, but Miss Müller had been gone for hours. It would have taken her only five minutes, maybe ten, to go to Boots’s quarters.
    I looked at her sitting there in her black dressing gown, blending into the shadows behind the hanging yellow bulbs. Up on the roof against the night sky, she would have been invisible, except for the light from her flashlight. Dit-da-dit. Dit-da-dit. And the sky itself dark with German planes.
    â€œDon’t you think it was a bit of a coincidence that Miss Müller was up on the roof on the very night we had our first air raid?” Lizzie Mag whispered.
    â€œYes,” I said. “A bit of a coincidence.”

Chapter Four
    A LOUD, ONE-NOTE WAIL, long and earsplitting, sounded from outside. The all-clear. We heard it on Fridays at five minutes past noon, so we recognized it right