The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter Page A

great-grandmother had me when she was fifty-two. My oldest sister was thirty-one years older than me. By the time I was born, my sister had a three-year-old daughter. That was your mother. I was her aunt, even though I was a baby. That makes me your great-aunt. Got it?”
    Lucia nodded yes, even though she didn’t. There was a silence during which Lucia was trying to do the math.
    “Don’t you think you should let your brothers in?” Haddie asked.
    Lucia nodded again, but still sat there, frowning and thinking.
    Haddie leapt out of bed. “Lucia, isn’t it?” She even pronounced it right.
    “Yes.”
    Haddie pulled on a dressing gown that was flung across an oval standing mirror. “Come on. I’ll show you how to lower the drawbridge.”
    She led Lucia through a narrow stone hallway, lit by wall sconces, and down several twisting staircases. Everything was much smaller than it should have been. Even the ceilings were so low that a tallish adult would have had to duck while walking through the halls. Luckily, Haddiewas hardly taller than Otto, so they navigated fairly comfortably. Haddie led Lucia through an impressive-looking oak door banded and studded with iron, though not nearly as tall as a normal door, and outside into a courtyard. Straight ahead was a gatehouse, the opening of which was barred by a portcullis. Though Lucia had never seen an actual portcullis, she suspected that this one was on the puny side. In her books, it often took several large, grunting men to raise the portcullis and let down the drawbridge but Haddie managed it all very easily without any grunting at all. The drawbridge creaked down on its pulleys and landed with a solid thump.
    “Be you friends or foes!?” Haddie called out to the two nervous-looking shadows on the far side of the moat.
    Lucia thought that was a nice touch.
    “Friends!” Max called back.
    “Excellent! Proceed! And watch out for the crocodile in the moat!” Haddie called back.
    “Is there really?” Lucia asked her.
    “No. But I’m considering getting one. Do you think it could survive in an English moat?”
    “I think they’re rather tropical animals.”
    “Ooo,
rather
!” Haddie replied, and Lucia had the uncomfortable feeling that Haddie was making fun of her.
    “Hello!” Haddie stepped forward as the boys came across to the other side. “You’re Otto, and you must be Max.”
    Otto and Max shot a questioning glance at Lucia.
    “She’s Great-aunt Haddie,” Lucia said, happy to have the correct information before Max did. “It makes sense ifyou do the math,” she assured them, even though she still didn’t understand it.
    “Do you know that your shirt is squirming?” Haddie asked Otto.
    Otto nodded sheepishly.
    “You should let it out, don’t you think?” Haddie said.
    So Otto pulled Chester out from under his shirt.
    “Now let’s get down to business.” Haddie looked at them all with her hands planted on her boy hips, her brows pinched into a serious frown. But it wasn’t like most adults’ serious frowns. It was like she was imitating a serious frown. “Does your father know you’re here?”
    They considered lying to her, because they all, quite suddenly, wanted very badly to stay. But before they did, Haddie answered for them.
    “No, of course he doesn’t know,” she said. “He’d have never let you come here in the first place.”
    “Really? Why not?” Max asked.
    “Because . . .” Haddie squinted at them, then shifted her legs uneasily. She sucked air into her mouth, and worked her jaw around in a peculiar way, as though she were considering how to answer. Then she blew a spitball right into Max’s eye.
    “Hey!” Max clapped his hand to his eye.
    “Oh, sorry about that,” Haddie said blandly. She pivoted on her bare feet and said, “Onward and inward,” then headed back through the courtyard toward the house.
    The Hardscrabbles looked at one another for a moment. It was possible that the spitball was an