So for the next half hour James makes guesses as to what kinds of birthday presents his family has gotten him, and Aimee announces what she would like when it is her birthday in March, but maybe she would like those things for Christmas too, because Christmas is sooner, and they talk about cake and the piñata and how Penelope Carder did not look like the kind of girl who could swing the stick hard enough to whack a hole in it, and James feels a bit better about Julia and Con being in trouble on his behalf, although he still does not understand his mother's ideas about quality people and why Sean and Liam only seem to count part of the time.

The next day he finds out from her why she did not want to invite them to his party, although her explanation does not make any more sense to him than Con's did.

"I did not want them to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed or out of place," she says. She has beckoned James into her bedroom and shut the door so they may have some privacy. James half expects to see Aimee and Julia standing nonchalantly in the hallway, pretending they were not trying to listen.

( But they were happy to be here )

words: 3053
total words: 47,155
quickie research: lionel trains, erector sets, model planes, the red baron, fruit in season, treasure island (yes i had to look it up because i never read it and needed to make sure it really was about pirates)

In October, William turns twelve and Mrs Godwin has a party for him. She invites all the boys in his class at school as well as his brothers and sisters, but Aimee declares she does not want to attend because the party will just be a lot of boys. Lucas and Matthew both put in an appearance, however, mostly to wish William a happy and to deliver their presents, and while the younger boys are running around the ballroom playing party games under the watchful eyes of Luisa and several other nannies, Mrs Godwin and her stepsons sit in the parlor and chat and nibble on cake.

Marcus comes by the house as well, just to say hello and drop off a wrapped box and a card, but he does not stay. William does not particularly want his older brothers at his party with all his friends and classmates, so it does not bother him that none of them stay in the ballroom or the larger dining room, where refreshments and cake are served after the games.

( James does not want to attend the party any more than Aimee does )

words: 2016
total words: 40,675
quickie research: bobbed hair, vogue

It turns out that lying to Luisa is the easy part. But escaping Lucas' watchful eye is a whole other thing. James suspects that Lucas is watching him closely because he thinks Con is a bad influence and James is unduly swayed by his moody older brother. James does not think Con is a bad influence, but neither does he think that of Julia, and Julia has formulated a plan to sneak him out of the house and spirit him away to Luna Park without their parents' permission or knowledge.

But either she has told Con or he figured it out himself, because he somehow manages to convince Lucas to let them out of the house, and then distract him so Julia and James can make their escape.

( James is thrilled. )

words: 2250
total words: 36,843
quickie research: coney island, mata hari

"What would Matthew ask him to do?"

"I do not know. Hold his tongue for half an hour?"

James finds that incredibly funny, and Julia cannot keep from laughing either.

"What is so funny?" Aimee asks, appearing behind Julia.

"Con thinks he is a gentleman," James says. Aimee does not look convinced. Julia giggles to herself.

"Why?"

"I do not know. He made a bet with Matthew over baseball teams, and shook on it like gentlemen. They called it a gentlemen's bet."

( Aimee just shrugs, not only unconvinced but uninterested, and walks out of the room. )

words: 2396
total words: 30,279
quickie research: hell's kitchen, chelsea

The next week, school lets out for the summer and James feels as if he has been set free. But it turns out that there is a great deal to do during the summer - Miss Ellis now comes to the house twice a week for piano lessons and Mrs Godwin has suggested James learn how to play, Julia and Aimee and William are all signed up for dance lessons, of all things ("It will teach you grace and balance," Mrs Godwin explains to William, when he kicks up a fuss), and there is tennis and horseback riding and football and walks in the park, and Luisa takes them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the paintings and the blue Egyptian hippopotamus, and to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur bones and the exhibits on ways of life in other parts of the world, and to the Bronx Zoological Gardens to see the wild animals, and they are even allowed to go to the movies on occasion.

( One day Julia and James sneak out on their own )

words: 712
total words: 25,935
quickie research: metropolitan museum of art, natural history museum, bronx zoo, movies in 1919

There is a parade for Memorial Day this year – as James supposes there was one last year, although he does not remember – and his school lets out two hours early so the students can watch it if they wish. Nathaniel has come down from his recuperative spa, ostensibly to march in the parade but also so that Mrs Godwin can fuss over him in person. She has organized a luncheon for her friends which also serves as a fundraiser for an organization that helps care for veterans of the Great War who may not have the means or the families to care for them, and even though she genuinely loves Nathaniel and does not wish to cause him stress, she has also asked him to be the guest of honor to show her wealthy society friends what kind of care his fellow soldiers might need.

( Luisa is evidently under orders to bring James and William and Con home from school )

words: 2218
total words: 23,487
quickie research: memorial day, new york regiments, state flags
note: there was in fact an african-american regiment in ww1 - the 369th, aka the harlem hellfighters, but i don't know if they would have marched with all the white boys in a memorial day parade in 1919. i think this is the regiment that lucas and nathaniel served with.

On Monday at school James discovers that Hollis Campbell does indeed wish to be better friends with him. The boys have all been sitting at the same desks for the entire year, lined up in alphabetical order so that Alexei Fokine, who says his father is an exiled Russian prince, and Hugo Gerlach, who is chubby and quiet but quite smart when he opens his mouth, are sitting between Hollis and James, and the boys are not really supposed to carry on conversations with each other during lessons anyway. So Hollis is restricted to recess and lunch for his attempts to start a friendship.

( Some of the boys live close enough to the school to go home for lunch )

words: 1740
total words: 20,216
quickie research: russian and dutch last names, ww1 training camps (mr o'donnell was at fort meade during the war)

It seems mean to find such a thing amusing, but James does. He feels a bit sorry for Con, in fact - he would not want to spend a day trying on clothes and hats and boots and gloves, even if it did mean he could spend the day alone with his kind, beautiful momma.

He lets Julia tell him everything she and Mrs Godwin did that day, as well as what they ate for lunch, where they ate it, and the fact that the waiter looked like the father of one of her friend Caroline Watterson from school. But of course it was not him - Julia's friend's father is a banker who works downtown, and if he were a waiter, he could not afford to send his daughter to Julia's school.

"Perhaps he has a long-lost brother," James suggests, "who is working in a restaurant not knowing that his brother is a banker in the very same city."

Julia seems to consider this. "Perhaps. A long-lost twin, separated at birth by a greedy midwife who could not have children of her own, and who did not tell their mother that she was carrying twins. Each of them always wanted a brother as he was growing up. And little do they know that they each have a brother, and moreover grew up in the same city. Perhaps the waiter lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children, one of whom is a daughter Caroline's age."

( Does Caroline want a long-lost cousin? )

words: 2332
total words: 16,310
quickie research: the ny stock exchange, gilded age bedrooms, one thousand and one nights (god bless wikipedia, seriously)

On Monday James can resist no longer and has to share his Saturday adventure with some of the boys in his class. He is pretty sure that his retelling of The Millionaire Pirate is not quite accurate, but he doesn’t think any of his schoolfriends will be going to see it, so it does not matter. He asks Mr Van der Waal to teach them about Jean Lafitte, but the answer he gets is “Perhaps later”.

One of the boys in James’ class has a brother who is in William’s class, so the story travels from James to the boy to his brother to William to Luisa and then to Mrs Godwin. By the time she hears the story, it is a mangled version of the actual events, but there is enough truth there for her to sit Julia and James down and have a talk with them about lying to Luisa.

( It was my fault, Julia says. )

words: 1938
total words: 10,551
quickie research: none for this bit

Luisa and Mrs O’Donnell come to the house on Saturday - Luisa to look after James and Aimee and William, and Mrs O’Donnell because a housekeeper’s work is never done when the house and family are the size of the Godwins’ - and there is also a gardener, Mr West, who takes care of the bushes and trees in front of the house and in the courtyard. Sometimes Mrs Godwin will entertain friends and society ladies and occasionally the wives of Mr Godwin’s business partners at the house, and on those days, the little Godwins are encouraged to stay out from underfoot. William does not consider himself a little Godwin any more, but Luisa is supposed to watch out for him as much as James and Aimee. Con always seems to have his own things to do, unless any of the society ladies bring their daughters, and on those occasions he tries to work himself into any conversation, flirting with them the same way he flirts with Luisa. Sometimes Mrs Godwin tolerates this, and sometimes she has to ask him politely but firmly to leave the ladies alone.

Today she is out of the house, and Mr Godwin is off seeing to business, and Julia has a surprise for James – two dollars and the promise of a moving picture about pirates showing downtown.

( This is a secret, she whispers to him. )

words: 2453
total words: 7100
today's quickie research: top movies in 1919, serials. (i totally winged it about the streetcar, the movie theater, and the soda fountain.) the masked rider and the millionaire pirate do exist, or did in 1919.