by Charlotte Lo
A muffled noise came from outside the van, and I peered out of the window. Unicorn Lady waved at us from the other end of the beach. Next to her was a man with a patchy beard, who I knew was one of the other guests. Their hair was still wet from their swim.
My hands turned clammy. What if Mum was with them? How were we going to explain where the ice-cream van had come from, and why? One of us should have stayed behind to keep an eye on them. I’d been afraid something like this would happen.
“Is this an ice-cream van?” asked Unicorn Lady, when she reached us. It looked like she and the man were alone.
“No,” I lied.
Beardy Man glanced up at the sign above the window. “But it says Carmella’s.”
“Oh … well, yes, technically it is,” I replied.
“What on earth is an ice-cream van doing in the middle of an island?” asked Unicorn Lady.
“It’s a surprise for our dad,” I said quickly.
Fabien nodded. “Yeah, he loves ice cream.”
“You won’t tell him, will you?” asked Margot.
Unicorn Lady looked pointedly at the cheesy rejected ice cream next to me. “I think we could be persuaded to keep quiet, couldn’t we, Darrel?”
Beardy Man’s tummy rumbled. “Yeah, I reckon so.”
Before I could stop them, Unicorn Lady and Beardy Man reached through the window, grabbed the tub of cheesy ice cream and dug into it. I wrinkled my nose as they spooned the ice cream into their mouths, and their expressions changed from excited to confused.
“Tastes of feet,” spat Beardy Man.
“I like it,” replied Unicorn Lady, and she crammed another spoonful into her mouth.
Margot emptied the fourth batch of ice cream into a tub, and handed it to Beardy Man, who dug a spoon into it, had a taste and nodded approvingly. Apparently, we’d finally cracked it. Now we just had to make sure the pair didn’t say anything.
Unicorn Lady and Beardy Man sat down on the sand, and scoffed down their tubs of ice cream. By the last mouthful, Unicorn Lady had turned a little green. It served her right for being so greedy.
“I’m feeling a bit sick,” she said.
“We’d better get you back to the house,” said Margot.
We each grabbed one of Unicorn Lady’s arms, and half dragged her through the woods, while Fabien helped Beardy Man along. Mum was outside the house when we got back, making lunch for the guests. She waved at us, and an eel slipped out of her hands. Unicorn Lady dived towards a rose bush and threw up in the petals.
“Oh, no, whatever’s the matter?” exclaimed Mum.
“I think she swallowed some sea water earlier,” I lied.
“The salt can have that effect on people,” said Mum. “I once put a whole teaspoon of it in my tea by accident, and was sick all over a stranger’s shoes. They banned me from the café after that.”
Unicorn Lady threw up again.
“I think she ought to lie down,” I said, and we helped her inside, where she couldn’t say anything about the van, or throw up in front of Mum any more.
“Well, that could have gone worse,” said Margot, after we had shoehorned the lady into bed, and were heading to our rooms.
“Yeah, we just have to hope neither of them say anything now,” I replied.
The sooner the yoga guests went home, the better.
“Where are the yoga people?” I asked Margot the next day, slipping into her bedroom.
“Gone to the mainland with Mum,” she replied.
“Oh good. That’ll give us chance to figure out how to stop anyone else finding the ice-cream van,” I replied, keeping my voice low so as not to wake Dad, who was napping in the next room.
I went to fetch Fabien, who was halfway through knitting a poncho, and we bundled on to the end of Margot’s bed.
“OK, I’ve got an idea,” whispered Margot. “We can put up signs warning of quicksand near the beach. That ought to make people turn back.”
“All right, but where will we get the signs from?” I asked.
“We’ll make them,” replied Margot.
Fabien beamed. “I’ll get my craft box! We can start on the decorations for the festival, and the posters and tickets too.”
He skipped out of the room and returned a few seconds later with a big box. I peered inside at the brightly coloured tissue paper, scraps of fabric, pipe cleaners and mountains of wool. It was what I imagined the inside of Fabien’s head looked like.
Margot made a start on the quicksand signs, while I cut tickets from a pile of paper, and made a special one for Mr Billionaire. I could ask Kai to sell the tickets to customers at The Wig and Pen. We’d just need to keep Mum from talking to anybody who’d bought one. Maybe we could sneak some goat poo into her jacket pocket to keep people away.
Fabien plonked himself in the middle of the floor, and began to fashion a pile of decorations, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Before long, the bedroom was filled with bunting, little jars of fairy lights, and pom-pom blankets. Margot bent wire coat hangers into headbands, and glued paper flowers on to them, while I threaded bracelets to sell and Fabien made key rings out of washed-up bottle tops.
I glanced out of the window and saw a fishing boat sailing towards us. It was bigger than Lady Agatha, and I wondered who was at the helm. Margot grabbed a pair of binoculars and peered through them.
“It’s Doug and Kai,” she said.
“They must be bringing the stage!” I replied.
We raced down to the main beach, and I waded out into the water to meet the boat. The Lego Ferris wheel spun in the sea breeze, and the stage teetered behind it like a stack of Jenga pieces.
Doug moored the boat, nodded at us and then pulled his cap over his eyes for a nap.
“Delivery for Luna,” said Kai as he jumped off the boat. “I’ve bought the stage, and the wheel and an old popcorn maker I found at the theatre. You can borrow that too if you want it.”
“Of course! We can hide them all in the empty stable until it’s time to set everything up,” I said.
We carried the stage across the island, piece by piece, and then went back for the Ferris wheel and popcorn maker. Fabien tapped the wheel, and asked whether Kai would mind if he modified it after the festival to spin wool, while Margot praised its construction.
I gave Kai the tickets to sell, and asked him to collect the money for us. A few days ago, there was no way I’d have trusted him, but something had changed since I’d rescued the seagull. He’d helped us get the ice-cream van to the island, and now he was letting me borrow his dad’s Ferris wheel. I knew that made us proper friends, the type you’d send postcards to, and let have the last biscuit in the packet.
Kai and Doug had only been gone a few minutes when Lady Agatha came into view. Margot, Fabien and I stayed on the beach and waited for Mum and the yoga guests to land. A few of them looked a bit green.
“Was that Doug I saw heading off?” asked Mum.
“Yeah, he brought Kai over to borrow a book,” I said.
Mum shook her head. “Those two have far too much time on their hands.”
“I’ll make tea,” said Margot, and together we ushered the guests up towards the house, where they’d be out of the way.
We were halfway through the woods when Bald Man stooped down and plucked something from the undergrowth. My heart plummeted as I saw what it was. In his hand was one of the festival tickets. It must have fallen out of my pocket.
“Oh, how lovely!” he exclaimed, reading it. “I didn’t realise you held festivals here.”
“What’s that?” asked Mum.
“Nothing!” screeched Margot.
“Luna? Fabien? What’s going on?” she asked. “What festival?”
“It’s… We’re…” I stammered.
“We’re doing a play!” said Fabien.
Mum raised her eyebrows. “A play?”
“Yes! We’re doing a play that’s set at a festival. This ticket is just a prop,” he said.
/> “Imaginative play is very good for our emotional development,” added Margot.
Mum nodded slowly. “Uh-huh… And where are you performing this play?”
“Here. Tonight. It’s for the yoga guests,” said Fabien.
Seashell Lady clapped her hands together. “Oh, lovely, dinner and a show!”
Great. Now we had to rehearse a fake play and make the props for it, all within the next six hours. It was a nightmare.
“No, no, no,” said Fabien, as he read Margot’s script. “Where’s the goat pageant?”
“What goat pageant?” asked Margot, who had written a story about Amelia Earhart, the real-life, mysteriously missing aviation pioneer, who had somehow time-travelled to a modern-day music festival, where she started a band called Blue Sky Pilots.
“There needs to be a glamorous goat pageant, like the festival in Itchbottom had one for sheep,” said Fabien.
“That doesn’t fit with the storyline,” said Margot.
“Let him pretend to have a goat pageant. This isn’t a real play,” I reminded her.
Margot huffed and, after a quick rehearsal, we gathered the yoga guests in the living room for the performance. Mum called Dad downstairs, and he perched on the edge of the sofa and picked at a cushion. I cleared my throat, ears burning with embarrassment as I gazed out at our audience. Suddenly I felt a bit nervous.
“You look just like Amelia Earhart,” I said to Margot, reading from her script.
“I am Amelia Earhart,” she replied. “But who are you? Where am I?”
Fabien backed into the room and rustled two cabbage leaves together. A second later, a muddy goat trotted into the living room and started gobbling up the leaves. I jumped with surprise, and Margot groaned into a cushion. Mum screamed, Dad started and the yoga guests gasped.
“GET THAT GOAT OUT OF MY LIVING ROOM!” yelled Mum.
The goat jumped up on to the coffee table, and ate a Hobnob.
“He’s part of the play,” said Fabien. “He’s one of the actors in the glamorous goat scene.”
“I don’t care if he’s the reincarnated spirit of Mother Teresa!” yelled Mum. “Get him out!”
Fabien stood between her and the goat protectively. “That’s not a very nice way to talk about him. Goats have feelings too, you know.”
As Mum turned a very peculiar shade of purple, Seashell Lady jumped up and lunged at the goat. Fabien swiped her out of the way, and the goat leapt off the coffee table and bumped into Dad’s knee. He gulped with surprise, and pulled his legs up. Mum collapsed into her chair and appeared to faint.
Unicorn Lady ran out of the room, down the hall and into the kitchen. She screamed as a pair of bats flew past her into the living room and circled our heads. Their wings fluttered inches above the yoga guests, and Margot stared at them in awe. Meanwhile, Fabien’s goat pulled a packet of Polos from Bald Man’s pocket and headbutted him in the shin.
I grabbed a lampshade and tried to lure the goat out into the hallway with it. “Look, goat, yummy, yummy.”
The goat cocked its head at the lampshade and trotted after it. Margot flapped her arms behind the goat, and herded it in a straight line, while Fabien shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, this is a fine way to treat guests,” he muttered.
I threw the lampshade on to the doorstep, and the goat bounded outside. The bats swooped past and disappeared into the evening clouds.
I looked back at the carnage in the living room. Seashell Lady sat shaking in the corner, while Beardy Man wafted a pot of potpourri under Mum’s nose. Dad got off the sofa, and navigated around a pile of warm goat’s poo. His lips twitched into a tiny smile.
“Well,” said Margot. “That should have distracted Mum from asking questions about the festival.”
“We’ve got a problem,” said Kai, when Margot, Fabien and I sat down at a table in The Wig and Pen.
“The yoga people are finally going home. Can’t we just be happy for a second?” I said, watching Mum load them into a minibus outside.
Kai waved a newspaper under my nose, and I leaned back to read the headline. I couldn’t believe it.
New Family Throws Summer Festival!
I scanned the article. There was a quote from Frank about his band, and from the mechanic about the ice-cream van, and from some lady called Marjory, who said she was really looking forward to the whole thing. At the bottom of the article was the date and ticket price.
Kai was right. This was definitely a problem.
“Have you already delivered the papers?” I asked.
“Had to,” replied Kai. “They’re all over the village.”
“We’ve got to stop Mum from seeing it,” I said.
Fabien shuffled in his seat uncomfortably. “Maybe we should just tell her.”
“Are you mad?” I asked.
“But she’s going to find out eventually,” he said.
Margot shook her head. “No, Luna’s right. If we tell her now, she could still make us cancel. It’s best to wait.”
I spied the last yoga guest climb into the minibus. Any second now they’d be gone, and we could coax Mum safely back on to the boat and to our island. Then we just had to keep her there until the festival. Thankfully there were only five days left to go.
Then I saw Doug heading across the harbour, and I screamed. Margot flung her chair back, and I hurried after her. The minibus set off, leaving Mum an open target.
“Let’s go!” I said to her.
“Wait a minute, we need to do some shopping,” replied Mum.
Margot intercepted Doug mid-stride, and began asking him questions about his boats. I pointed Mum towards Lady Agatha and started to tug her towards it. She wriggled her arms free, and batted me away as if I were a nuisance.
“Luna, what on earth has got into you?” asked Mum.
“You can’t go inside the pub,” I said.
“Why ever not? What have you done?” she asked.
“I’ve… It’s…” I began.
Fabien ran over to us, laden with paper bags. He handed them to Mum, who pulled out a cooked breakfast in a tin, and studied it in silence. I stood on tiptoes and peered inside the bags. They were filled with groceries: ham, spaghetti, toilet roll, candles. It was like he’d dashed around The Wig and Pen, and grabbed armfuls of the first things he’d seen.
“Surprise!” he said. “I’ve done the shopping for you.”
“How have you paid for all this?” asked Mum.
“Kai said he’ll invoice us later,” said Fabien. “I wanted to help.”
Mum smiled weakly, and lugged the groceries back to Lady Agatha to sort through them. I ran back and forth between the boat and The Wig and Pen, swapping all the rejected groceries for things actually on Mum’s list. Eventually she ticked off the last item, and I collapsed with exhaustion.
Mum climbed off the boat.
“What are you doing?” I shrilled.
“I need to get some nails from the DIY store,” she said.
“We’ll get them for you,” replied Margot.
Mum shook her head quickly. “No, it’s fine, you’ve all been helpful enough.”
I groaned. Mum was harder to herd than one of Fabien’s goats.
Unable to stop her, Margot and I ran on ahead of Mum, and Fabien defended us from behind. We were halfway up the high street when Mum stopped on a bench to tie her shoelace. At the other end lay a copy of the Wishnook Gazette.
“Grab that newspaper for the fire,” she said.
“Oh, you don’t want that! It’ll burn way too quickly,” I said.
“It’s good kindling,” she replied.
Mum reached over for the paper, but I lunged at her and knocked it out of her hand. The bench wobbled and tipped back on its spindly legs. I braced myself, and Mum’s arms spun like a windmill as we rocked backwards.
The bench crashed into a flowerbed, and I landed on Mum’s head. Yellow petals filled my mouth, and I coughed up a woodlouse. Across the street,
Daisy popped her head out of the newspaper’s HQ. Margot rugby-tackled her back inside. I wasn’t sure if Mum had seen or not.
“WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?” yelled Mum, after checking we were both still alive.
“Luna ate a whole bag of sugar inside The Wig and Pen,” said Fabien.
Mum shook her head. “Right, that’s it, everyone back to the boat! Where’s Margot?”
Margot reappeared from the newspaper’s HQ, her hair ruffled. I wondered what she’d done with Daisy.
“I told her the street’s full of wasps,” Margot whispered to me, as we headed back towards the harbour. “She’s gone to get her camera and boiler suit.”
We were almost back at the boat when I saw somebody coming at us from the corner of my eye. I turned, ready to spin them a story about how Mum had some contagious disease and shouldn’t be approached, when I realised it was Kai.
“You’d better get going soon,” he panted. “I’ve just heard there’s a storm coming.”
“Are you sure? There aren’t any clouds,” I said.
“The weather can turn quickly,” he replied.
Mum looked worried. “We’d best get a move on then,” she said.
I hopped into Lady Agatha, relieved we were finally leaving the mainland. Across the harbour, I could see Kai’s mum laying sandbags against the side of The Wig and Pen. To our left, Doug secured his boats with extra rope.
The waves rippled gently, and the sea was calm and clear.
I didn’t know what everyone was so worried about.
Dark clouds rolled towards us. I watched them from my bedroom window. They swallowed the blue sky and all the sunshine. A leaf zipped past and the birds took cover in the trees. I shut my window and wrapped my cardigan around me. Kai had been right after all.
“Did we close the stable door?” I asked.
“I think so,” said Fabien.
Margot paced across my rug. “What if we didn’t? My aeroplane parts could get ruined.”
“Maybe we should check?” I said. “Fabien, stay here and distract Mum.”