Blue Lavender Girl

by Judy May

  Jenny had the idea of renaming the tearoom. We all agreed to that, but wanted to take ideas from everyone because we were worried that with her in charge of the name it might end up being called ‘Fluffy Singsong Tearoom’ or something like that.

  In fact Jenny suggested, ‘The Cosy Tea Corner’, which was quite reasonable, but a bit ‘cottagey’ for such a grand building.

  Bob suggested something in Latin, just to show off that he knew Latin, and Jenny thought that was a better idea than hers.

  Jackson suggested ‘The Last Waltz Tearoom’, which I thought was the best and I expected the others to vote for that. So I was really surprised when my suggestion of ‘The Blue Lavender Tea Palace’, led to a big ‘YES!’ from all of them. Naming tearooms, another thing I don’t exactly suck at. The lettering will have to be done really well so Bob and Jenny have volunteered to work on a stencil for it in Nanny Gloria’s house tomorrow morning. Bob is a bit of a showoff, but not badly enough that you wouldn’t want to hang out with him. He’s also way goofier even than Jackson, but he and Jenny are so sweet together. I hope he gets it together and kisses her soon.

  Jackson pulled me aside and whispered in my ear (again, a lot of that going on with him lately!), asking me to meet him in the courtyard at ten o’clock tonight for more dancing.

  I was so surprised or something that I forgot to answer, so he said, ‘We only have two weeks until the party and I’ll need you to dance with me so I don’t have to waltz with all my great aunties and the women who do charity work with Bob’s mother.’

  ‘I’m sure they dance beautifully,’ I said.

  ‘They lead,’ he said.

  So I agreed to meet him at the courtyard at ten tonight, purely a charitable thing to benefit him, and because I have a goal to reach.

  God this was a long day!! Usually I don’t do this much in a week!

  When I got back I had some oil on my new skirt (which must have come from the oil barrels in the warehouse) and was really upset, but luckily Aunt Maisie had a bottle of stuff that soon shifted it.

  I told her that we had a meeting at the Big House and she said she wasn’t happy about me being out that late, so I had to promise to be back by midnight. I put a cardigan over the white outfit. I’m now really confused because I love the new stuff but I don’t feel that it’s really me, and the old stuff isn’t me either. So I can feel self-conscious but stylish and fun in the new stuff, or depressed and comfortable in the old stuff. I love the new clothes it’s just that my personality hasn’t grown into them yet.

  When I was cycling over to the Park just before ten I remembered that they lock the gates at night, but this time Jackson was standing there with a key and he showed me that a spare was kept behind a nearby wooden post so now I can always get in. I thanked him and threatened to murder them all in their beds, which made him laugh. I left my bike leaning against the wall of the Gate Lodge we ran through the Park in the pitch darkness all the way to the courtyard. Now that I think of it, I don’t know why we ran, it was just kind of exciting to be doing something in secret in the dark.

  He got straight to it and taught me how to do a whole foxtrot. He had turned on the lights of the sitting room, which gave us enough light to see how badly I was doing. I kept stepping when I should be bouncing, and bouncing when I should be stepping, and going back on my left foot twice instead of backwards and then forwards. Then he produced a portable sound system from behind a pillar, which made me nervous about someone hearing us.

  ‘Grandfather is the only one around and he’s not likely to hear,’ Jackson reminded me.

  ‘And Bob?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Where’s he gone to? There’s nowhere to go around here.’

  ‘I meant sleeping, he sleeps like a log.’

  But Jackson is a really bad liar, he went totally red. Bob must have been with Jenny.

  It felt fantastic dancing to real music rather than just music in my head. I stepped on Jackson’s toes a lot, but these new shoes are a lot less clumpy, in fact they are rather dainty. The only problem is that I am not. Still, I’m getting better.

  I caught sight of the time on Jackson’s watch and it was ten to midnight. I said I had to run and he laughed and called me Cinderella and ran back with me to the gates. I grabbed my bike and cycled off and didn’t catch what he said as I left.

  DAY 23

  I can’t believe I thought I would be bored here. Something really amazing happened today. Well, it’s not a good thing but it’s a good thing for me, and it means that I get to help out that elderly couple from the village with the uneaten fruitcake. I got a call from Jenny and the old man had another fall and had to go back to hospital and so they needed someone to mind their insane dog Buddy.

  Apparently Nanny Gloria is very strict about no animals because, as she said, ‘she likes everything spick and span and her floors clean enough to eat off’, (which doesn’t make sense as Buddy is the only one of us who would actually eat off a floor, and therefore make her happy). But Aunt Maisie said I could keep Buddy here if I take full responsibility and make up a bed for him in the shed.

  I have just spent the last hour tidying everything in the shed away neatly and making a space for his bed. I am now getting good at tidying and cleaning and it feels so good that I’ve no idea what my problem was with it before. It’s like how I couldn’t eat peas for years and then one day I suddenly couldn’t get enough of them. Jenny called around with three old blankets and we put these in a big cardboard box that I cut the front off.

  I hope Buddy gets on OK with all of us, especially Pie.

  Then Jenny and I rode over to collect Buddy. On the way I teased her about meeting Bob last night, but she genuinely didn’t know what I was talking about. She couldn’t deny that she likes him, I mean, she redoes her nail polish every day now. She is still not sure if he likes her. Well, she is, but saying she isn’t means that I say all the things she wants to hear.

  We glimpsed Buddy through the window of the house and he looked so sad all on his own. I had forgotten how scruffy he is, and because he is a medium-sized dog he doesn’t look cute, just scruffy and light brown. In fact he has to be the worst looking dog I have ever seen. I bet the other dogs play with him only out of pity. But he obviously doesn’t know because he thinks he’s the business, strutting around showing us his toys. He was a bit confused when we put all his stuff into a couple of plastic bags and tied them to our handlebars. I loosely fastened his leash to the back carrier and we cycled slowly back to Aunt Maisie’s with him running behind, really loving it.

  A hose-bath on the lawn was the first thing, because he was a bit stinky. I used this great apple-scented shampoo so he now smells like dessert. You’re probably not supposed to use human shampoo on a dog, but who cares.

  We left Buddy in Aunt Maisie’s shed and went to the tearoom, that is, the Tea Palace (God it’s going to take me forever to remember that, and I was the one who came up with the name!). We sort of got some things done, but Jenny and I wanted to get back to Buddy, and Jackson and Bob were yawning their heads off and not paying us any attention. So we agreed to meet back tomorrow afternoon. The afternoons are best because the coach tours of the Big House are usually from ten to twelve in the morning and one of them has to be there as the guide. Jackson and Bob say it’s fine to bring Buddy tomorrow as long as he doesn’t knock things over with his tail and can make friends with Pie.

  ***

  LATER

  I got a flashlight and a cushion and went and read with Buddy in his shed. Well, I was reading Jane Eyre (which I have been missing) and he was just looking at me waiting for me to do something interesting. It was not the best place to be reading it because it has all got a bit mental with this mad servant and ghostly laughs and someone setting fire to Mr Rochester’s room. Every time Buddy moved, I jumped about a mile.

  I would have been out there half the night, only my brother Aidan phoned. We talked for about thirty minutes and he sounded really
excited about his summer courses and he said that I sounded really great too. I was a bit sad when I got off the phone and felt like I wanted to kick something. So Aunt Maisie made us some scones and a hot malt drink, and I felt much better. I went out and gave Buddy one last hug before bedtime and explained why he had to sleep outside and he licked my face as if to tell me everything was fine. He is braver than me. You have to be very brave to be happy I think.

  DAY 24

  I had to cycle to the village for more dog food and I noticed that someone had fixed the door on the old warehouse. There was no time to investigate because I had a hungry dog waiting back at Aunt Maisie’s.

  My plan was to fill Buddy up so completely that he wouldn’t want to go snacking on Pie. Unfortunately this meant he couldn’t run as fast as usual and it took us forever to get to the Tea Palace (there, look at that, right name first time!).

  I held Buddy’s collar while he sniffed at Pie, who was being held by Jackson. They stayed sniffing at each other for a minute before Buddy gave Pie a lick and then barked at me as if to say he approved. As the day wore on, Buddy got so protective of Pie that the only one who can now get near the little bunny is Jackson, Buddy keeps the rest of us away from his new little pal.

  I could hear Jenny teasing Bob about his yawning. Jackson and I were prepping the chairs, and when he let out a huge yawn for the millionth time in five minutes, I said to him, ‘Come on, what’s going on at night? And you are a terrible liar so don’t even try it.’

  He glanced at Bob before coming clean.

  ‘OK, we might as well tell you. The other night on the way back from the Gate Lodge really late, we thought we saw someone running towards the Tea Palace.’

  ‘We ran after them,’ Bob continued, ‘But they were much faster than us. Which is how we know it wasn’t Mr Walsh. So for the past two nights we’ve been taking it in turns to wait up and see if someone shows.’

  Bob admitted that he fell asleep on his watch the first night, but that last night he did see someone at about one-thirty in the morning. He watched where the man went but he seemed to disappear around where the stone hut is.

  They looked completely wrecked so Jenny and I offered to meet them tonight, that way we can all hide in different parts of the Park and have more chance of catching him.

  It was time for a flapjack break, sitting on the cushions and things, and the guys fell asleep. We sneaked off and left a note in Jackson’s non-Pie pocket to tell them we’d meet them at midnight by the gates. I can’t wait!

  When I was cycling out of the Park with Buddy in tow, Mr Walsh was coming in. We said hello and he smiled and nodded back, so maybe he’s not so bad and we’re just making stuff up about him. What if that’s true, what if he’s just ordinary, like my dad, and we are such an ulcer that he’s stressed and mean whenever he sees us. He had white paint on his hands, so he must have started work on the east wing. That ‘win’’ stuff is so funny, it makes it sound like they live in an aeroplane.

  Aunt Maisie said I could stay over at Jenny’s tonight as long as she spoke to Nanny Gloria and cleared it with her first. I have collected black boots and trousers for me and Jenny to wear as night-camouflage and black sweaters and t-shirts for all of us. There you go, at least it’s good for something! I’m off now. I think it will be fun, much better than hanging around town late at night staring at groups of guys and girls we hardly know. I wonder how Dee and Kira are doing. I wonder if Mum and Dad have done anything unforgivable to my bedroom.

  DAY 25

  Last night at Jenny’s we did the real cliché thing of pretending we were tired early and going upstairs. We changed into the black clothes and got into bed and put the lights out. Jenny said that Nanny Gloria’s snoring is enough to register on some earthquake instruments two countries over. It was SO obvious as soon as she was sleeping.

  We couldn’t stop giggling all the way downstairs. Buddy couldn’t believe his luck when we came outside to the rug where we had tied him by his leash to wait for us.

  Jackson and Bob were waiting by the gates and put the black sweaters on over their t-shirts.

  ‘Tia is in charge of the world’s supply of black clothes,’ Jackson explained to Bob, who nodded as if it were actually true.

  As he outlined the plan, Jackson became so soldier-like and military that Jenny got another giggling fit and had to pretend to fix Buddy’s collar while she recovered.

  The plan was that Jenny and Bob would take one side of the Park and Jackson and I would take the other. I asked Bob how much he paid Jackson to put that in the plan, and he grinned and said, ‘Jackson didn’t put up much of a fight on that one,’ and then for some reason he winked at me.

  ‘Make sure to concentrate on what we are doing here, catching that man,’ Jackson warned them as they ran off toward the Blue Lavender Tea Palace.

  Which left me, Jackson, Buddy and Pie.

  By the time we were sitting on the ground behind a large tree near the hut, I simply had to know. It was as if the fact that it was so dark that I couldn’t see his face, made me brave enough to ask.

  ‘I thought maybe you might want to be with Jenny?’

  Although I couldn’t see his reaction it was like I could feel it.

  ‘God, No! I mean, not in the way I think you’re implying.’

  He was genuinely surprised, and I was completely confused (and not just because he used the word ‘implying’ when fifty easier ones could have done the job).

  ‘But when I first met you, you were always talking to her and looking at her…’

  ‘I’m just not good around new people so I tend to focus on whoever I’m already comfortable with, and I’ve known Jenny ever since I can remember. She’s like a sister to me. I know people say that a lot, but it’s true, especially as I don’t have any sisters, just a brother.’

  Then he pretended that he heard someone coming, just so he didn’t have to talk any more.

  We sat in the dark in total silence for about an hour. It was funny, but I felt really calm, just listening to me and Jackson and Buddy breathing. Sometimes we’d breathe at the same time for a while and then at different times. At one point I thought he was touching my hand, but it was Pie who had clambered out of his pocket and was pushing against my little finger with his nose. At that point I got worried in case Buddy was doing something similar and Jackson was thinking that it was me trying to get close. I know that’s a mental thing to think, but it worried me so much that I said,

  ‘Let’s go, there’s no-one coming.’

  He said, ‘I thought you were adventurous.’

  And I said that I am adventurous, and that real adventures are not about developing haemorrhoids from sitting on wet grass all night.

  ‘There’s only one thing to do with you when you get like this Tia.’

  ‘What?’ I said, in my most ‘back-off’ voice.

  Then he jumped up, pulled me to my feet and started to dance with me in tiny steps, holding me really close and very quietly singing the tune in my ear. I started to giggle immediately, and he said, ‘See … not so tough.’

  At that exact moment Buddy started to growl softly, but he is not territorial about me the way he is about Pie, so I knew there must be someone coming.

  It turned out to be a deer. There’s a small herd of them living in the fields on the opposite side of the lake to the Big House and the Blue Lavender Tea Palace. I was getting really tired and so was Jackson, and we had the bright idea that we could take a nap and Buddy could wake us when he sensed someone near. Just as I was about to close my eyes I caught sight of some stars between the branches.

  In the end it was Bob and Jenny who woke us up, not Buddy. Jenny was laughing at us both being asleep, but Bob got really angry, which is a bit much seeing as how he fell asleep the other night and didn’t have a dog to sound the alarm.

  Jackson explained that we had only fallen asleep half-an-hour before and that Buddy would have growled and woken us if anyone had come along. But Bob just w
ouldn’t let it go and kept on complaining until I finally lost it.

  ‘Bob, if you’re so into catching this person, how come you’re back over here and not in the Tea Palace keeping a watch out there? And don’t you think all your shouting has scared anyone away?’

  ‘Well if it hasn’t, yours certainly has,’ he yelled back at me.

  Jenny looked like she was going to cry and Jackson was completely fed up. I just grabbed Jenny and Buddy and went back to the Gate Lodge without even saying goodbye to Jackson.

  Jenny wanted me to go back and make up, but I don’t see why I should have to, after all, Bob was mean to me first. Because I was in such a mood I didn’t really talk to her either and then she got worried that I was angry at her.

  I think it is because her parents are diplomats and probably don’t yell much that she can’t handle it when people fall out. With me, I just feel so bad that I have to lose my temper so that the situation goes away, or I get to go away or something.

  Not that I feel good about it, it’s just what I do. Today I’m really pissed off with myself for reacting that way. I could have just seen it as Bob being in a mood and let him get on with it. But OH NO, I just have to wade in there shouting and sulking every time. From now on I must be nice no matter what I think. Great dancers are always very mannerly and lovely.

  As I left the Gate Lodge around noon today I told Jenny not to worry, it would all be fine. We agreed to give the Tea Palace a rest for today and just do stuff on our own.

  I just got a phone call from Jackson who has called a peace meeting tomorrow so we can work things out. I feel like wearing my jeans and long black sweater and my oldest boots, like I will be safer in that outfit.