by Anna Dale
It was a Thursday afternoon, almost four days after Mr Hardbattle’s departure, when the solitary lifestyle of a bookseller finally defeated Miss Quint.
On that Thursday in May, Arthur’s school bag was bulkier than normal. With half-term coming up, he wanted to get most of his homework out of the way so that he could help Miss Quint in the shop, and, more importantly, travel with her to Thornwick. In Thornwick there lived a lady called Mrs Carruthers, who had offered to make room for the magic on her farm.
Arthur had two tests to revise for, a page of sums to plough through, and he needed to finish a project which required drawing diagrams (not his forte at all). Scallywag’s walk was short that afternoon: to the top of the road and back, and Miss Quint was disappointed to find that Arthur was most unwilling to take part in even the briefest conversation.
‘You haven’t touched your squash!’ she said to Arthur, who was hunched over the little oak table, colouring something in.
‘Sorry, Miss Quint,’ mumbled Arthur. He picked up the glass and drained it without taking his eyes or his pen off the half-filled-in page in his exercise book.
‘What’s that you’re drawing?’ Miss Quint asked, attempting to peer over his shoulder.
‘A subduction zone,’ said Arthur, his scribbling getting more feverish.
‘Biology?’
‘Geography,’ he said, and tensed. Tactfully, Miss Quint withdrew.
Not having been a conscientious student, Miss Quint found it hard to understand Arthur’s devotion to work. She had been more than happy to scrape through exams, get mediocre marks and take home less than glowing reports. Her schooldays had been one long period of chatting too much and regularly losing house points.
Miss Quint began to wonder if it was her that was the problem. Arthur had seemed to get on famously with Mr Hardbattle. Perhaps Arthur had buried himself in schoolwork so that he did not have to talk to a gossipy, middle-aged female (charming and youthful-looking though she thought she was). Miss Quint was perfectly aware that she did not know the sorts of things that boys liked to talk about, not having any children or nephews of her own. She found herself wishing that Arthur were a girl. It was obvious that she and a girl would have so much more in common. There would be endless opportunities for long, intimate chats, and they could play cat’s cradle, make pastry together and sing songs.
Arthur pushed aside his diagram of a subduction zone and opened a book with squared pages, which was dotted with sums.
Bored and deflated, Miss Quint wandered around the bookshop, picking up books and reading random paragraphs. In one book, she found a passage about some children playing, and decided to read it aloud, but quietly so as not to interrupt Arthur.
It was an old book called High Jinks, which had been written in the 1950s. In the part that she read out, the central characters (a boy called Reginald and his best friend, Keith) were leaping in a daredevil manner from one playground device to the next. Also in the snippet was an unnamed girl who, in contrast to the energetic boys, was not moving at all. She was standing by herself beside some railings, waiting for a go on the swings.
‘If that little girl was here now,’ Miss Quint said, pressing her finger on the place in the book where the girl was mentioned, ‘we’d have a super time, I’m sure. I bet she wouldn’t want to waste her time doing homework.’ Miss Quint looked dejectedly over her shoulder at Arthur. ‘If only that little girl was here right now. Oh, how I wish she was!’
Making wishes out loud was a risky business in a building that was filled to the brim with magic, but Miss Quint, who had barely glanced at Mr Hardbattle’s instructions, was not to know. Ever so slowly and faintly, a light-coloured apparition started to glow in a corner of the shop. Miss Quint did not see it. She had closed the book containing the playground scene and moved on to another one. The hazy, fog-like blur morphed into a figure, which grew bolder in colour with every minute that passed.
Trunk was the first to see the girl. The sight of her made his black felt eyes try to pull away from their blobs of glue. When he realised that she was not his little girl, his surge of joy turned to bafflement. He had not heard the bell and could not understand how the girl could have entered the shop. Trunk examined his ears with his soft plump feet to check that the stuffing had not fallen out of them.
‘Oh! H-hello,’ said a startled Miss Quint, when, after several minutes, she peered through a gap in a bookshelf and saw a person standing in the furthest corner of the shop. Being less observant and not as alert as Trunk, she could not be sure if the bell had rung or not, but, in any case, it was clear that her afternoon had improved vastly. A customer had come in.
Miss Quint walked briskly around the blocks of teetering shelves. She felt that she should speak to the customer face to face rather than hold a conversation through a tiny space with the chance that she might breathe in a shelf’s worth of dust.
‘Good afternoon!’ said Miss Quint, nearing the corner where the person stood. ‘How nice of you to visit our establishment.’
‘Hello,’ said the customer, sucking the end of her plait.
Miss Quint’s heart leaped. What a stroke of luck! She had wished that a little girl would join her in the bookshop and here one was!
The girl stared at Miss Quint solemnly. Under thickly powdered, pastel-blue lids, Miss Quint’s eyes took in the plain, chubby-cheeked, listless girl in front of her. The little girl was not quite the pretty, charismatic child that she had had in mind but, as Miss Quint had come to learn, you could not always have everything. She gave the girl her brightest smile.
‘How can I help you, cherub?’ she said.
.
Chapter Seven
A Full Shop
When asked what kind of assistance she needed, the girl was not forthcoming. She only seemed able to shrug her shoulders and say ‘Don’t know’. Eventually, Miss Quint was forced to resort to guessing games.
‘You’ve come to buy a storybook on ponies. Am I right?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said the girl. Her eyes were big and expressionless.
Miss Quint tried a different tack. ‘Perhaps you’re lost. Did you find yourself on your own and come in here to ask for help?’
‘No,’ said the girl dully. ‘I’m not lost – I’m waiting.’
‘Waiting for what, pet?’ Miss Quint was flummoxed. ‘For someone to find you? Your mummy, perhaps?’
‘I’m waiting . . . for a go,’ said the girl.
‘A go?’ said Miss Quint.
‘On the swings.’
Miss Quint was taken aback. ‘But the park’s a fair distance away. I don’t understand. It won’t do much good you waiting here.’ She had an idea that the girl must be simple. Miss Quint touched her gently on the arm. ‘This isn’t a play area. This is a bookshop, dear.’
The girl stared.
‘What’s . . . your . . . name?’ asked Miss Quint, speaking each word slowly.
‘Don’t know,’ said the girl.
Miss Quint’s patience deserted her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You must know what your name is! Everyone knows that. Now, think!’
The girl’s front teeth bit nervously into her bottom lip. ‘I don’t know what my name is,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t say.’
Miss Quint was close to having a fit of hysterics. ‘What do you mean, “it doesn’t say”?’
‘In the story,’ said the girl, biting her lip harder.
‘The story? What story is that?’ Miss Quint fell silent. Suddenly, everything the girl had said slipped into place and made perfect sense.
‘Good gracious!’ she said and seized the girl by her shoulders. ‘It can’t be possible! I’m crazy to believe it! You’re the girl I wished for. The girl in the book!’
The girl would have shrugged if she could have managed it, but Miss
Quint’s hands were like clamps.
‘I’ll get you an orange squash and a chocolate biscuit. Would you like that?’ Miss Quint asked sweetly. She fussed over the girl, retying her hair ribbons and making flattering comments about the colour of her eyes (which were an unattractive, murky blue). ‘I’m sorry that I was curt just now,’ Miss Quint said, pressing her cheek against the girl’s. ‘I didn’t realise who you were. I know this bookshop is magic, but I never thought that it could make wishes come true!’
With an arm around the girl’s shoulders, Miss Quint led the nameless child across the shop floor and up the stairs to the kitchen, where she laid on a feast. When they came down again, Arthur was closing his books and zipping up his pencil case, having made a satisfactory start on his homework.
‘I’m off now, Miss Quint,’ he said breezily. ‘It’s almost teatime. Thanks for the squash and stuff.’ His gaze landed on the po-faced girl holding Miss Quint’s hand. She could only be a year or two younger than he was, but she was kitted out like a kindergarten child. She had on a gingham dress, white ankle socks and sandals. Her hair was tied with ribbons and dangled down in thin brown plaits.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
Miss Quint gave a tinkling laugh and squeezed the girl’s hand. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to find out!’ she said. ‘I’ve decided to call her Susan.’
Arthur frowned. His head was still congested with algebra, but he was sure that what Miss Quint had said had not sounded right. Had she just announced, gleefully, that she had renamed someone’s child? He was half inclined to get to the bottom of things, but his brain felt too overloaded to do any more working out. Besides, it was a Thursday, which meant that there were chips, eggs and beans for tea. Thinking that the girl must be a customer and that he must have been too absorbed in his homework to hear the bell jingling when she had arrived, Arthur made his excuses.
‘Mum freaks if I’m late for tea,’ he said, stuffing all his books and school gear into his bag. ‘Can’t come in tomorrow. Got to take Bubbles to the vet’s straight after school. He’s our cockatiel. I’m the only one he hasn’t tried to bite. We’re going to my granny’s on Saturday morning, but I’ll come round in the afternoon. You’ll keep it free, won’t you, Miss Quint, so we can check out that farmhouse. Bye then.’
‘Goodbye, dear!’ said Miss Quint gaily, untroubled by Arthur’s news that he would not be able to come to the bookshop until after lunch in two days’ time. What did it matter now? She had magicked up the perfect companion for herself!
Miss Quint tired of Susan long before Saturday afternoon came.
It was not that Susan was badly behaved. In fact, Miss Quint had never met a more compliant child. Susan did not lark about, throw strops or sulk. She accepted the name ‘Susan’ without a word of argument. She made no demands, did as she was told and never left Miss Quint’s side, trailing after her like a loose thread.
Conversations were one-sided. Miss Quint would think up an interesting topic upon which Susan would have nothing to say. She had no opinions of her own and no amusing anecdotes to share. It quickly became apparent that Susan was lacking any kind of personality, but when Miss Quint had another flick through High Jinks, the book from which Susan had been spirited, she realised that the girl’s blandness was not her fault. It was the author who was to blame. Susan was mentioned only once in the whole book; standing by the railings in the park in the extract that Miss Quint had read out. She was a girl waiting for a go on the swings and nothing more. There was no fuller description. She was a blank slate.
For an outspoken chatterbox like Miss Quint, having the constant company of a dreary, soulless person was the worst sort of torture imaginable.
When the telephone rang on Friday morning, Miss Quint rushed across the shop to answer it, muttering ‘Hallelujah!’ under her breath. The caller was an awkward old gent called Mr Wax who had caused offence to every other bookseller in the county. He spoke to Miss Quint in a rude and demeaning way, but she did not care one jot. In fact, she almost broke down with relief to finally talk to someone with opinions.
Mr Wax wanted three books to be delivered: ‘Not this afternoon. Not next week. Right this minute, thank you, Miss.’ If the books were in a damaged state when they arrived, he would, apparently, see to it that Miss Quint was fired from her job.
Glad to have the chance to escape from the bookshop for an hour or two, Miss Quint locked up Hardbattle Books and herded her two helpers into the bottle green van. Scallywag rode in the back with the books and in the passenger seat sat Dreary Susan (as Miss Quint had got into the habit of calling her).
Mr Wax lived in an isolated cottage twenty miles outside Plumford. It had once been surrounded by a large, thriving community until Mr Wax had moved to the area and upset everyone.
The excursion did them all good. Scallywag had a long sniff of a gatepost while Miss Quint stood on Mr Wax’s doorstep and refused to let him bully her. On the way back, Susan almost displayed excitement when she saw a herd of cows in a field.
The afternoon crawled by with sloth-like ponderousness, enlivened only by the antics of magic. One of the ducks from the painting of Lake Tahoe flew into the windowpane and had to be revived with a drop of peapod wine (nothing else seemed to do the trick); the paperclips linked themselves together and went on a march; and the black cat bookends spent several hours stalking a pincushion mouse. Wherever Miss Quint went, her new friend, Susan, followed. No customers came and the telephone did not ring. After unsuccessfully attempting to unwish Susan, Miss Quint had an attack of guilt. Vowing to be nicer to the girl, she asked her what she would like for tea, but, predictably, Susan did not know.
They went to bed early, when it was still light. Miss Quint had cleared out a box room for Susan to sleep in. Her bed was an old canvas put-me-up, but Miss Quint had found a feather quilt and a thick Aran jumper, which made a fine pillow.
By Saturday lunchtime, Miss Quint had nearly been driven round the twist by the absence of stimulating company. She had watched in vain for customers since nine o’clock, but none had arrived. It was a sunny day in May and the people of Plumford evidently had better things to do than poke around in dark dingy bookshops that smelt unpleasant. It reached the point when Miss Quint could no longer bear the poor companionship of Dreary Susan. If she could not unwish the girl then she would have to wish for some different people to join them both; adults, this time, with fully rounded characters and plenty of life experience. She took down books from the shelves and started to leaf through them, looking for anyone who sounded vaguely interesting.
Going through exactly the same motions as she had done before, Miss Quint pressed her finger on the character’s name that she had selected and wished out loud that they could be with her. The magic in the bookshop did not disappoint. People began to appear gradually, just as Susan had done. An eminent politician materialised in one of the wing chairs, wearing a top hat and a monocle; a parlour maid bobbed a curtsy by the fireplace; a bootblack took shape in a kneeling position, a tin of boot polish and a cloth in his hands. Thrilled by the emergence of each character, Miss Quint wished for more and more companions and, dutifully, the magic obliged.
Scallywag was ecstatic. Her tail wagged itself into a blur as she ran up to each new arrival, then she sat at their feet and leaned against their legs, inviting them to stroke her. Susan loitered shyly by the cash register, not possessing Scallywag’s talent for mingling. Trunk, meanwhile, was in a stew. He paced up and down his shelf, his grey ears flapping as he shook his head unhappily. There had not been a single jingle-jangle of the bell and yet the bookshop was filled with customers. He did not know how it had happened, not having a proper brain (even magic stuffing has its limitations), but he felt uneasy and was convinced that something was terribly wrong.
The bookshop had never been so full. By the time that Miss Quint had summoned her final guest, the floor was
almost impossible to glimpse under the multitude of feet. There was a mixed assortment of footwear on show, every pair of which was buffed by the bootblack over the course of the afternoon. Unlikely characters chatted together (who would have thought that an actress, a bellhop and a mountaineer would have anything in common?), and Miss Quint swanned and sashayed amongst them all, her face frozen in rapturous delight.
When Arthur turned up at ten past three, he could barely get through the door. He was amazed to find the bookshop heaving with customers, and by the look of the headwear on the hatstand they were a diverse bunch.
Miss Quint accosted Arthur before he had crossed the doormat. She thrust a shopping bag and a list into his hands. ‘And here’s my purse!’ she said, having to shout to make herself heard over the tumultuous din. ‘I haven’t got nearly enough in my cupboards to provide these good people with tea.’
‘Since when have we started feeding customers? Mr Hardbattle didn’t put that in his instructions,’ Arthur protested worriedly, ‘and where did all these people come from? You haven’t decided to have a sale, have you, Miss Quint? What would Mr Hardbattle say?’
‘Shush about Mr Hardbattle!’ ordered Miss Quint, growing more irritated with Arthur by the second. ‘He left the bookshop in my charge, didn’t he?’
‘Well, yes,’ admitted Arthur, ‘but he wanted me to look after it too.’ Arthur peered past Miss Quint and frowned. ‘Are these the sort of people he’d want in his shop? No one seems to be looking at the books or buying anything, and that bloke over there’s wearing armour AND he’s got a great big sword. You were meant to have closed the shop by three. Tell them you’re shutting and throw them out. Mr Hardbattle’s counting on us to take a look at that farmhouse. You promised that we’d go there today.’