In picturing the transit, Ben had just assumed Melody could sit behind him on his broom, relieving the need for her to do anything other than hang on. Now that Aldous mentioned it, however, the entirety of the English Channel was a fairly long ride for her to be sitting side saddle. He had no idea whether she had any riding skills of her own to speak of, which meant, most probably, that she had none. At least, not ones sufficient enough to go a long distance over nothing but frigid water until they reached France. If they were taking stuff with them, too, it would prevent him from being able to help her much — even if the things they packed were shrunken down to pocket-sized or placed in an expandable bag.

Waiting for a boat, though, did not seem like the ideal option. They’d have to stick around long enough to see their faces in the paper after the news broke, and have to deal with some of the fallout. Was there another option?

“Art Pettigrew has a flying carpet,” Ben realized. “I’ve borrowed it before. I could get it from him again, and he probably wouldn’t ask why,” Ben offered. Or he would, and Ben could tell him some plausible excuse. He could even tell him the truth, he supposed — it was all going to come out sooner or later, at this point — but Art was probably going to be just as disappointed as Aldous was, and much more free about expressing how much of an idiot he thought Ben was, and how much trouble the Princess was, & et cetera. And Ben wasn’t particularly looking forward to that.