Excerpt from My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A party of three stopped next to Penelope and blinked at the rain. The girl, who looked to be a year or two younger than Penelope's ten and seven, huffed. "Oh, it's too, too tiresome. Can't you get us a cab, Frederick?" She turned to the young man next to her. Judging by their similar looks, Penelope guessed him to be the girl's brother.

"I'll get deuced wet out there!" he exclaimed in a way young men reserve for sisters who irritate them. Then he seemed to remember a stranger stood nearby, for he inclined his head to Penelope. "I beg your pardon, miss."

"I must apologize for my son," said the third of the party, a middle-aged woman with a tall feather protruding from her coiffure. "He is a heathen, I'm afraid."

Penelope nodded at the lady. "Quite all right." She'd hardly call the young man a heathen for using the word "deuced" in her presence, but the woman couldn't know that Penelope had heard far worse language in her travels. "The weather shows no sign of abating, I fear."

"Freddie, get this lady a hackney as well."

Penelope shook her head. "I thank you, but I'm meeting someone."

The older woman frowned. "Here? At this time of night?"

Penelope gestured at the carts in the street and at the sheltered stalls beyond, inside the market building. Steam from the food the vendors were cooking dissipated into the dank evening air as a multiplicity of scents wafted toward Penelope. "A school friend invited me to join her here at the stalls for some culinary research. It seems this is one of the few places in London where one can find an authentic taste of the Americas." Though Penelope rather thought she'd be the judge of that.

"The Americas?" the woman repeated as though the thought of anyone seeking out food from the continents across the ocean had never occurred to anybody in the whole history of human relations.

"Are you a Culinarian, then?" the young man asked Penelope as he swiped a piece of damp hair away from his dark blue eyes.

She nodded. "I soon will be. I'm in my final term at the Royal Academy."

"My sister dabbled a bit but decided to go to the Royal Conservatory of Commoditas and Design in the end," he said with a gesture at the young woman.

"I never dabbled, Freddie. My design improvements to Lady Hammersley's chaise and four had her bragging to her neighbors for weeks. If anything, you're the dabbler." Freddie's sister wrinkled her nose.

"Well," said he with a rueful smile, "perhaps I am, but I make a dashed fine pheasant pie." He tipped his tall hat to Penelope, murmured something to his mother about going to look for a cab, and bounded off into the rain. As he stepped off the curb, he collided with a bedraggled young man in a shapeless brown coat carrying a wooden tray covered in cloth.

Penelope winced as two half-moon-shaped pies fell from the tray and plopped onto the dirty, wet cobbles.

"Watch yourself, why don't ya?" the young man said, throwing a glare at Freddie.

"I beg your pardon," Freddie said. He touched his hat and hurried down the street.

"Two pasties trod in the mud," the boy yelled at Freddie's back. He made a great show of covering the remaining pies with their protective cloth. "Some gentleman, jostling poor cooks and knocking their livelihoods onto the street," he said loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.

"Here, boy," Freddie's mother called. "I'll pay for what my son cost you." She turned to her daughter. "Clara, give the young man a shilling."

"Oh, he's your son, is he?" the boy said, approaching. Penelope figured he must be about her age, yet it was difficult to say, considering the quality of the gaslight flickering to the left of them. "Might have raised him better than to pay for his mistakes yourself. Fella might as well pay for his own mistakes, my ma always said."

"Do you care for the shilling or not, boy?" Clara asked, holding out the coin between gloved fingers.

Excerpted from My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen. Copyright © 2022 by Jennieke Cohen. Excerpted by permission of HarperTeen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.