A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin Page A

touched my finger to a set of brass measuring scales. They bounced in reaction. I jerked my hand back and inspected a distillation tube connected to a copper beaker atop a heating platform. The damper on the small oil burner could be opened or closed to perfectly control the heat. Remarkable .
    Miss Stranje stood at my elbow. “The copper tubing can be removed,” she said, and pointed to the clasps on the rim of the beaker.
    â€œWhere did you get it?” I marveled.
    â€œA gypsy caravan came through last month. Their tinker did respectable work so I commissioned him to make that and some of these other devices.”
    â€œBut why?”
    She pointed to several small glass beakers. “These I procured from a glass blower in London.” She pointed to a bank of small drawers on the side wall. “You’ll find the bins filled with various minerals. I wasn’t certain which you needed so I ordered an assortment.”
    I rushed to the small drawers, pulled several open, and couldn’t believe my eyes. Sulphur. Magnesium. Saltpeter. Copperas. Precious cobalt.
    â€œThis was my grandmother’s stillroom.” Miss Stranje inhaled deeply. “The smells never fail to remind me of her. I still remember her teaching me to distill rose oil and make almond extract.” She picked up a worn marble mortar and pestle. “This was hers.”
    I pulled open a bin marked “mollusk shells,” fine iridescent shells that could be ground into purple powder. How did she know they were a component in so many dyes? Then, I spotted my books stacked on a small desk beside the cabinet. My books! The History of Persian Alchemy, a treasure my brother had procured for me, and Lavoisier’s Manual . Even my notes were laid out, unwrapped, unpacked from my trunks—without my permission.
    â€œWhy!” I spun around. “Why have you done this? My parents hired you to purge this sort of thing out of me, to rid me of my, my…” I was going to say defects .
    She watched me, waiting without mercy to see how I would describe that which my mother hated in me.
    My stomach twisted into a sickening knot just as it had last night. Except, this morning, it tightened around sausages and curried eggs. I refused to get sick. I would not humiliate myself in front of her. So, despite the squeezing knot in my belly, I clamped my lips together and swallowed hard. If only I could run from the room and curl up in a corner somewhere. Maybe then, I wouldn’t feel like retching. But my stern headmistress stood between me and the door, searching my face for weakness, waiting for me to say those torturous words. My defects .
    I would’ve preferred the rack. Thrusting my chin into the air, I said, “My eccentricities.”
    â€œ Eccentricities ?” The corner of her mouth angled up slightly. “Is that what you call it? I should rather have thought of it as the workings of a brilliant mind.”
    I blinked. No one, except my brother, had ever said such a thing about me before. Wary, I edged away. “I saw your torture chamber. I know what you do in this school.”
    â€œDo you?” She feigned innocence.
    â€œYes. Everyone knows your reputation. I daresay there are hangmen considered more merciful.”
    Her shoulder lifted in a minuscule shrug.
    â€œI saw with my own eyes. Bruises and cuts on the other girls. Manacles. Whips. Jane locked in a spiked mummy case.”
    She squared her shoulders. “The chamber has its uses.”
    â€œOh, yes, I imagine so.” My chest heaved with indignation. “Useful for reforming brilliant minds into unexceptional ones. For ridding your students of their eccentricities.”
    â€œDo you really think such punishments could accomplish all that?”
    Her question caught me off guard. I drew back. It wouldn’t work on me. I would rather die. “No,” I admitted.
    She waved her hand at the laboratory equipment.