My Super Sister and the Birthday Party

by Gwyneth Rees

  ‘Aren’t you worried about your neighbours hearing things, Harriet?’ Dad asked, and I knew he was thinking about the noise her twelve garden gnomes make whenever they are animated.

  ‘Yes, well, my neighbour on one side is rather deaf, which helps,’ Granny said lightly, ‘and the other side think I talk to my plants . . . and to my gnomes, of course . . . I tell Henry to encourage them to think I’m a little bit . . . well . . . you know . . .’

  ‘Bonkers?’ Dad supplied helpfully.

  ‘I was going to say eccentric,’ Granny said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘I also told Henry to spread the word that I’m a retired ventriloquist – just in case they think it’s odd that the plants and gnomes talk back. Now, let’s all go inside and have a nice cup of tea, shall we?’

  ‘Aren’t you coming, Dad?’ Mum asked as Grandpa turned to go back inside the garage.

  ‘I’ve just got to finish off a tricky bit first,’ Grandpa said. ‘It won’t take me long.’

  I waited behind as everyone else headed for the house. Dad turned round when he reached the door and called out, ‘Come on, Emma. Grandpa doesn’t want anyone interfering with his top-secret project.’

  Grandpa nodded. ‘Sorry, Emmeline, no one’s allowed to see what I’m making until it’s finished. Don’t worry though. All will be revealed in a day or two.’

  ‘But I’m really good at keeping secrets,’ I whispered. ‘Please can I just have a little peek?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Emmeline. Not even your grandmother has seen it yet!’ And Grandpa gave me a little wink as he disappeared inside the garage and shut the door.

  I felt a bit annoyed then, and not just because he wouldn’t let me see what he was doing. He had called me by my proper name, which everybody else in the family knows I hate. Grandpa really didn’t know me – or Saffie – very well at all, I thought. Still . . . maybe this holiday would change that.

  ‘I must say I was amazed when Dad said he wasn’t going to bother with the allotment this year because he was too busy working on this new project,’ Mum was saying to Granny as I joined them in the kitchen. ‘So when do we actually get to see it?’

  They were standing by the kettle, and through the window I could see Dad and Saffie out in the back garden. Granny was right, I thought. Their new fencing was mega-high and I thought it made their large garden look a lot smaller.

  ‘He says he’ll have it finished by Friday, when you and Jim come back for his birthday,’ Granny replied. ‘Now . . . about the present . . .’

  ‘Cedric!’ An excited shriek came from outside as my sister spotted her favourite gnome over by Granny’s garden pond. Cedric is a fishing gnome with a very friendly face, bright blue eyes, white hair and a long white beard. He wears green dungarees, black boots and an orange pointy hat and he carries a fishing rod with a grey plastic fish dangling from the end.

  Dad took several nervous steps backwards as Saffie brought Cedric to life. Cedric’s fish came to life too, flapping away furiously on the end of the line.

  ‘There!’ Cedric exclaimed as he threw his fish into the pond where it could swim around freely. He wiped his hands clean on the front of his dungarees as he turned to grin at my sister.

  ‘Cedric, let’s have a game of frisbee!’ Saffie suggested at once.

  Cedric beamed. He was really good at frisbee – something my sister had recently discovered and which had elevated him above Walter to his current position as her favourite gnome.

  ‘Tell you what – I’ll go and get the frisbee from the car, shall I?’ Dad mumbled, looking relieved to escape.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jim? You’re not scared of Cedric, are you?’ Mum asked mischievously as Dad came into the kitchen.

  Dad pulled a face. ‘Those gnomes just give me the creeps, that’s all. Especially when I’m that close to one.’

  ‘Really, Jim,’ Granny said, sounding a bit offended. ‘It’s not as if you’ve never seen one of my garden gnomes come to life before!’

  Dad gave her a half-amused look. ‘Harriet, there are some things a person never gets used to, no matter how many times they see it. And I do believe that talking garden gnomes may be one of them!’

  CHAPTER 3

  For the first two days at Granny and Grandpa’s, Saffie and I were kept really busy. Granny took us to the park and to the shops and to visit a friend of hers whose grandchildren were also staying.

  On the third day, however, Granny hadn’t organized anything special for us to do, and by late morning Saffie was already complaining of feeling bored. I was pretty sure Saffie was also starting to miss Mum and Dad, though of course she wouldn’t admit it. Fortunately there were only two more days to go until Grandpa’s birthday, when our parents were coming back again to stay for the whole weekend.

  ‘What are we going to do on Grandpa’s birthday if we can’t have a party?’ Saffie asked me glumly as the daisy chain she was making broke yet again. Saffie is always too rough with delicate things like daisy chains and in the end she nearly always loses patience and gives up.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, taking her broken chain to finish it for her. ‘I expect we’ll all go out for lunch together or something.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Saffie was scowling as she plucked impatiently at the grass on the front lawn. She paused before adding, ‘I don’t see why we can’t have just a little party.’

  ‘Grown-ups don’t usually have birthday parties, Saffie,’ I told her.

  ‘They do if there’s an “O” in their age!’ Saffie said stubbornly. ‘Daddy told me that’s why he had that big party when he was forty.’

  ‘Yes, but Dad likes parties. Grandpa doesn’t, because he’s shy, remember.’

  Saffie just scowled even more. She’s never really understood what being shy means. She loves being the centre of attention herself and is only too happy to have everyone looking at her and listening to her the whole time whenever she’s in the room.

  ‘I don’t care about going out to lunch!’ she declared crossly. ‘If there isn’t a party it won’t be a proper birthday!’

  Now I was starting to get impatient. ‘Look, Saffie, it’s Grandpa’s birthday not yours, so it only matters what he wants, not what you want! Stop acting like such a baby!’

  ‘I am not a baby and you’re not allowed to say I am!’ she shouted, and she stomped off into the house to tell Granny I was calling her names.

  ‘OK, let’s give you girls a little time apart, shall we?’ Granny said after I’d followed her inside to defend myself. ‘Now . . . Saffie . . . why don’t you go and look for Cedric in the back garden? I’m sure he’d like another game of frisbee. And Emma –’ she waited until my sister had gone outside before continuing – ‘come upstairs with me, will you? I’ve got something I want to show you.’

  Granny and Grandpa have a very small room next to their bedroom, which they use for storing things. They call it their box room and it’s always kept locked. Granny says it’s packed full of delicate stuff and she doesn’t want us to accidently break something.

  I could hardly believe it that morning when she unlocked the door and actually invited me in.

  She must have seen the look of surprise on my face because she said quickly, ‘You’re getting older now and I know you’ll be careful not to touch anything . . . but you’d better not mention this to your sister.’

  I nodded, even more thrilled that I was being allowed to do something my little sister wasn’t.

  The curtains had been drawn to keep out the light, and Granny quickly stepped over a pile of dusty books and yanked the curtains back so that we could see better. She must have spotted Saffie in the garden as she looked out of the window, because she let out an exasperated sigh and told me she’d be back in a minute after she’d sorted her out.

  After she’d left the room I went to look out of the window myself and couldn’t help smiling when I saw what Saffie was doing. She had animated some of the clothes on Granny’s washing line and now they were dancing about
in the garden. Granny’s big pants looked especially funny as they tried to join in the game of frisbee.

  I turned my attention back to the room I was in. There were several shelves on the walls, most of them filled with small or half-finished model cars and aeroplanes. (Grandpa’s best work was on show in a proper display cabinet downstairs.)

  There were a lot of cardboard boxes on the floor, some taped shut and some with things poking out the top of them. My gaze fell on what looked like a large doll, half wrapped in tissue paper, sticking out from one of the boxes. I went over and carefully eased her out of the box.

  ‘Wow!’ I said out loud after removing the paper, because the doll was really beautiful.

  She looked quite old, and at first I wondered if, like Elvira, she had once belonged to Mum. Then I thought that, if she had, Mum would definitely have told us about her. This doll was a lot bigger than Elvira and she had a very beautiful shiny face. She had amazing sapphire-blue opening-and-closing eyes, long dark eyelashes, rosy cheeks and a pink, bow-shaped mouth. Her goldy-brown hair was shoulder-length and styled in ringlets. She was dressed in a long lacy cream gown with a red velvet sash tied around the middle. On her feet she wore white ankle socks and sweet little red leather shoes with red straps.

  I must have stood there for ages with the doll in my arms, lost in a bit of a daydream as I let my imagination carry me away. The doll looked beautiful enough to have once belonged to a princess, I thought. Perhaps the princess and the doll had worn identical clothes and the princess had taken the doll everywhere with her until one day the doll had been lost and . . .

  ‘Emma!’ Granny’s cross voice made me jump. ‘Put that back at once!’

  I was shocked. Granny usually only sounds like that if she thinks we’re about to do something dangerous like touch a hot oven or run out into the road without looking.

  I put the doll back into her box so hastily that the box tipped up and the doll nearly toppled out again on to the floor. I felt tears sting my eyes. Why was Granny so angry?

  Granny took one look at my face and quickly told me she was sorry for shouting. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you, Emma. I’d forgotten that doll was in here and it gave me quite a fright to see you holding her.’

  ‘Why? Is she very fragile or something?’ The doll looked pretty robust to me – much more robust than Elvira – but maybe I was missing something.

  ‘Not really . . .’

  ‘So why can’t I touch her?’ I asked.

  ‘I was afraid you might bring her to life,’ Granny said, ‘and this is a doll who must never be brought to life again.’

  ‘Why not?’ I was even more curious now.

  ‘Hasn’t your mother ever mentioned Queenie-May?’ Granny asked.

  I shook my head in surprise. ‘Was she Mum’s doll then?’

  ‘Oh, no . . . Queenie-May is much older than that. She belonged to my sister Penelope when we were children.’

  ‘Penelope? You don’t mean Great-Aunt Penelope who was killed by a dinosaur?’ I blurted out excitedly.

  ‘Yes, I do mean her, and I wish you wouldn’t sound quite so thrilled when you talk about her tragic and untimely death, Emma,’ Granny said sternly.

  ‘Sorry, Granny,’ I said at once. But that still didn’t stop me feeling even more intrigued. I knew that Penelope had been Granny’s eccentric older sister who had believed in ‘throwing caution to the wind’ when it came to using her superpower. And I knew she had been killed years before I was born in what Mum always described as ‘a tragic accident in a dinosaur museum’. Mum never liked talking about her aunt’s death, except to impress on us that it could easily have been avoided if Great-Aunt Penelope hadn’t decided to bring to life a gigantic model of a pterodactyl and fly around the room on its back.

  ‘Penelope and I used to bring Queenie-May to life an awful lot when we were little,’ Granny explained now, ‘and since we were both extremely strong-willed little girls I’m afraid that in time Queenie-May became a doll with a very strong personality of her own. Eventually she became far too powerful when she was animated – too out-of-control for her animator to handle in fact.’

  I looked at Granny in surprise. I knew that toys tended to have their own personalities as well as being influenced by the personality of the person (or people) who brought them to life. And I also knew that the more often a toy was animated the stronger its personality became. But this was the first I’d heard of a brought-to-life toy being so powerful that its animator couldn’t stay in control of it.

  ‘Now . . . I want you to forget you ever saw this doll and you must promise not to mention any of it to your sister,’ Granny said briskly.

  ‘But—’ I still had lots of questions, but Granny interrupted me.

  ‘Now, Emma, come over here, will you? This is the toy I wanted you to see!’ And with a dramatic flourish she yanked the dust cover from the top of a large doll’s house.

  ‘Wow!’ I exclaimed in delight. I had always loved doll’s houses and this was a very beautiful one.

  ‘Grandpa made this for your mum when she was your age,’ Granny told me, smiling.

  The wooden house was double-fronted, with two storeys and a high-peaked red shiny roof. There were five windows, all with yellow metal shutters, and the yellow front door was framed by a sweet little porch. The front of the house had rambling roses painted all over it.

  ‘I love it!’ I declared, and Granny immediately suggested we took it downstairs so that I could look at it properly.

  But we were both so concerned with getting the doll’s house out of the room without dropping it that neither of us noticed Granny had forgotten to lock the door behind us.

  CHAPTER 4

  Granny set the doll’s house down on the kitchen table and showed me how the front swung open in two sections.

  The house had been partitioned off into six rooms, with a staircase connecting the two levels. The loose furniture and the dolls were all jumbled up inside, but it was still easy to see how gorgeous it was.

  Each room was decorated with a different wallpaper. There was flowery pink in the main bedroom, stripy gold-and-red for the living room downstairs and a paper that looked like tiny tiles for the bathroom. The floors were all carpeted, apart from the kitchen, which had yellow lino. Miniature curtains were hanging at the windows and there were little mini-paintings on some of the walls. All the rooms had lights hanging from the ceiling, and on the landing there was even a tiny glass chandelier. An oval mirror with a gold frame had been fixed on to the nearby wall so that the chandelier was reflected in it.

  ‘Wow!’ I exclaimed in delight. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Your grandpa always was one for attention to detail,’ Granny said with a smile. ‘Do you think you can sort out all the furniture?’

  ‘Of course!’ I said.

  ‘Good. You see I want you to use this doll’s house to practise your animation skills, Emma. Believe me it requires a lot of concentration and practice to become good at such dainty animation. I’ve never been very good at it myself and I don’t think it’s really Saffie’s thing either.’

  I was a bit surprised. ‘But if it’s too difficult for you and Saffie then it’s going to be far too hard for me,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense! You should learn to have more confidence in yourself, Emma! Now . . . I think I’d better go and check on your sister.’

  After she’d gone outside I slowly started to sort out the doll’s house. All the furniture had been knocked over, so I began by taking everything out so that I could put back all the pieces where I thought they should go. I began by finding all the items that belonged in the bathroom. There was a blue bath with tiny gold-painted taps, a matching blue sink and a teeny toilet with a gold seat. I also found a wooden towel rack with a miniature towel glued on to it and a matching bathmat.

  The kitchen was next. I had already spotted a cute plastic fridge that opened to reveal two movable shelves, a miniature milk bottle and a wedge of cheese inside. The
re was a little cooker, a table and chairs, and several loose pots and pans.

  Granny came back into the kitchen with Saffie while I was inspecting a sweet little dressing table which had a real mirror and drawers that you could actually open.

  ‘Emma, what are you doing?!’ Granny exclaimed. ‘The object of this exercise is for you to get the dolls to tidy up the house.’

  Saffie let out a gasp of delight as she rushed to join me. ‘You have to do it like this, Emma!’ And she promptly focused on a small plastic doll wearing a plain dress and a floral apron, lying under an upturned table.

  ‘Careful, Saffie,’ Granny warned as the doll leaped up so high she banged her head on the kitchen ceiling and let out a scream as the table flew across the room to crash into the wall. ‘Don’t blast her with your power. Concentrate on delivering it slowly and steadily – that’s what tiny objects need so they can function properly.’

  Saffie looked like she was struggling to keep her power reined in as the mother doll made her way clumsily across the rest of the ground floor of the doll’s house, wading through furniture and bashing into everything as she went. As she approached a baby doll lying on the floor in the living room, Granny said, ‘OK, Saffie, let Emma take over now before something gets broken. Come on, Emma. Show us how it’s done!’

  ‘But . . . but I won’t be able to do it better than Saffie . . .’ I said nervously.

  ‘Just try,’ Granny said firmly.

  So I tentatively fixed my gaze on the mum doll, which had fallen back on to the floor as soon as Saffie had stopped animating it.

  This is the part that’s hard to explain. Basically to bring something to life you have to sort of mentally zap it into action. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t got a superpower, but basically what I feel is a sort of funny ‘ping’ inside my head just before the animation happens, like a spring being released or an elastic band being snapped or something like that.