The Noble Ladies' Orphanage

Chapter 27

Not a mile away from the orphanage, Susana, Mr. Loboda, and Filip Timko tiptoed down the alleyway behind Mrs. Timko's boarding house. The bright moon cast their shadows against the stone buildings. When they finally reached Mrs. Timko's alley door, Filip tapped lightly on the door and waited, but nothing stirred inside the dark house.

"I'm sure she's sleeping," he said. "She never stays up this late. They took my keys at the palace, so I can't open the lock." He fiddled with the back window, but couldn't get it open.

"Which is her bedroom window?" Susana asked.

Filip led them around to the side of the building. "It's right there," he said, pointing to a dark window with lace curtains visible on the inside. A cat meowed at them from a shadow in the alley, and they all jumped. They turned to see its bright eyes shining at them.

"Maybe if you two lift me up, I could tap quietly on the window and wake her," Susana said.

They lifted her up, and Susana balanced on their shoulders. She tapped softly on Mrs. Timko's window with her fingernails. Nothing. She tapped a little louder. Nothing.

"You'll have to be a little louder," her father said. "We have no choice."

Finally, she knocked on the window with her fist and called in a loud whisper, "Mrs. Timko, wake up!"

A puzzled white face appeared at the window, and Mrs. Timko's eyes opened wide when she saw Susana just below the window. "She saw me!" Susana said. They put her down and went to the back door, where Mrs. Timko met them. She pulled them inside the back door, locked the door, and then smothered her son in kisses and tears. They kept having to tell her to keep her voice down so she didn't wake any neighbors.

Mrs. Timko opened her cupboard and brought out some bread and tea out. Filip looked around the cold, dark boarding house with piles of hats on the table in the front room. "Mother, I'm so sorry it's been so difficult for you. I wanted so much to help you."

"I know. Don't worry. I've been fine. But we have to leave here," Mrs. Timko said. "They'll never leave you alone, and I don't want to be without you."

"I've been thinking the same thing," Mr. Loboda said. "As much as I'd like for Susana and Caspar to have all the advantages I've enjoyed here in Brno, they will never be free to enjoy those advantages. Our house and fortune are gone, and there's no way we can get them back. We'll have to start over somewhere else."

Susana nodded. "What about with your brother and his family? Do you think we could find them?"

"Perhaps we could," Mr. Loboda said.

"How are we going to get Caspar without anyone seeing you or following me?" Susana asked.

The little group stayed up half the night, planning and plotting, drawing out maps on the backs of old accounting sheets, and reveling in the company they had longed for so often and so fiercely.

Mrs. Timko woke to loud banging on the front door. Everyone in the house had slept in a different boarder bedroom, but they all woke with the same dread in their hearts. They'd been found.

Mrs. Timko slapped her cheeks and put a shawl around her shoulders, gathering her courage with each step down to the front door. She practiced what she would say to the officers when she opened the door, but when she looked up to where an officer's face would be, she saw only the morning sunshine. Looking down, she saw Karolina, wearing a new straw hat and carrying three more in her hands.

"Oh, it's you!" Mrs. Timko said. Karolina walked in the front door, and laid the three hats on the table in the parlor.

"I tried something new with this one," she said, pointing to the one on top. I used four strands in the braid, and it makes more of a weaving design, see? I really like how it turned out. What do you think?" She took the hat on her head off, put on the four-strand hat, spun around, and curtsied dramatically.