The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Now I breathed in happily. I had expected to spend this visit with a difficult cousin, and instead I’d spent the first night saving cherry trees.

  ‘Will I see Prince William at breakfast in the morning?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Bronte,’ Aunt Alys said. ‘He’s not here. I’ve sent him away, because …’

  She paused and bit her lip.

  I saw what she was trying to say. I helped her out: ‘Because he’s such a handful?’

  Aunt Alys blinked.

  ‘No,’ she said. She scratched her neck. ‘No, what makes you … no, it’s because I had a telegram letting me know that pirates were planning to kidnap him.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘That was a while ago, wasn’t it? And I met the pirate boy who sent that telegram, and his ship was wrecked and all the pirates arrested! So William is safe now. You can bring him home.’

  I was talking quickly, trying to talk myself away from my comment, but Aunt Alys was still back with it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, absentmindedly. ‘Lisbeth and Maya told me. And I’ll bring the prince home as soon as the pirates have been collected by the Anti-Pirate League. I’m sure the local constabulary are good folk, but those pirates could still overcome them … But listen, a handful?’ she said. ‘What makes you think my boy’s a handful?’

  This was confusing because it had become so clear in my head that Prince William was a handful. I hadn’t thought there’d be any question.

  ‘Well, isn’t he?’ I tried.

  ‘Not at all! He’s lovely! I mean, he’s not perfect, but then what child is? I think you and he would have got on wonderfully if he’d been here, Bronte.’

  I doubted that, but didn’t say so. Aunt Alys was clearly still waiting for an explanation. ‘It’s only,’ I said, ‘that you send telegrams to the other aunts asking for advice on how to bring him up. So, the other aunts think—well, they think he must be giving you … trouble.’

  At this, Aunt Alys burst into laughter. It was different from all the other aunts’ laughter: a sweet laugh, like a little phrase of music in a simple, major key.

  It made me smile.

  ‘Oh no, I’ve gone and ruined my poor boy’s reputation!’ she said, and laughed again. ‘I only ask them because I want to do the best job I can, bringing up my boy. I have advisers to help run the Kingdom, but I know nothing about raising children! I mean, he has a tutor, of course, and an elocution coach, but it’s only really me raising him, you see—his father was a palace gardener who has long since moved on to other kingdoms—and so all the decisions are mine. I don’t believe in books of advice about parenting. But I do believe in my sisters.’

  ‘And you listen to their advice about Prince William?’

  ‘Well,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I take about half of the advice that your Aunt Isabelle sends me. No offence, Bronte—I can see she’s done a great job raising you. It’s just a sister thing, really. We all take notice of half of what Isabelle says. And when your Aunt Nancy recommends something, I send back a message saying, ‘Thanks! Brilliant!’ and then I do the exact opposite.’ She grinned and then looked anxious. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. You won’t tell Nancy, will you? She’d be terribly insulted.’

  ‘Aunt Nancy offered me sausages for breakfast,’ I said, ‘then put them away in the fridge. I think you are doing exactly the right thing in not taking her parenting advice.’

  We smiled at each other again, and then my mind turned a somersault and I scrambled out of bed. I almost knocked Aunt Alys to the floor.

  ‘I almost forgot! I have to give you my parents’ gift tonight, before I go to sleep!’

  Aunt Alys waited patiently while I drew out the treasure chest—I was trembling a bit about almost having forgotten—and found the right package.

  She opened the gift with her perfect fingernails. It was a small box of dried lavender, tied with a pale purple ribbon.

  Aunt Alys made a small sound, like a breath of laughter, and stroked the sides of the box. When she turned to me, there was a tear poised on the edge of her eyelash.

  ‘I went home to Gainsleigh for a visit once,’ she told me, gazing down at the box of lavender, ‘when I was pregnant with William. I’d only been queen here for a year or so then, and I was still nervous—and my romantic affair with the gardener had just gone wrong. So I went home for a visit.

  ‘Anyhow, your mother was pregnant with you at the time. One day, she and I went for a walk along the Gainsleigh River. Lida said she wanted to collect lavender—to bake lavender cupcakes, she said—and we gathered armfuls, chatting about our babies, and imagining their being friends one day. At the end of the day, guess what she did?’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She handed the basket of lavender to me. No clue how to make lavender cupcakes, she said. And then she said I should take the lavender back to the palace and have it dried, and whenever I felt worried or lonely, I should take a deep breath of lavender and ask for help. She said I tried so hard to be perfect, I always forgot to ask for help.’

  Aunt Alys set the little box on the bedside table and folded the wrapping paper carefully.

  ‘And that is why I ask my sisters for advice,’ she said. ‘Now, you tell me something about yourself. What made you play the trumpet? I’d have thought Isabelle’s choice of instrument would be piano?’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘Only, I always wanted to play the trumpet, on account of the trumpeter in my parents’ wedding photograph.’

  ‘The trumpeter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Aunt Alys looked thoughtful then her face cleared. ‘Oh, that will be Walter! He was a brilliant trumpeter. He was your father’s best friend all through school. A marvellous face: he has Faery in him, you know—plump people often are Faery—no wonder he caught your eye.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘yes …’ and then I admitted that I paid attention to the trumpeter—to Walter—because I was angry with my parents. As soon as I said this, I felt ashamed. How selfish and spoiled I sounded, how childish.

  But Aunt Alys was nodding at me vigorously. ‘Good!’ she said, which was very surprising. ‘No, seriously, I’m pleased with you. Of course you should be angry with your parents! I’m angry with them! I loved them both so much. And they disappeared! And then they died! I’m furious with them for that!’

  I stared at her. The light in the room was dim but her face seemed sincere.

  ‘The whole thing,’ she said, ‘is strange. I cannot think why they had to run off like that and disappear.’

  ‘Oh, I know why,’ I told her.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking it was because they were unkind—but then Aunts Maya and Lisbeth told a story about them being kind and you just did the same thing. So it must be my fault. They didn’t like me.’ Aunt Alys was making a peculiar face, but I was thinking hard. ‘It’s probably because I’m boring,’ I decided. ‘And that’s what my dream meant. You see, I dreamed about my mother finding a conversation deathly boring, but now I see it meant they found it deathly boring looking after me. So they had to run away. And that’s probably why they did the Faery cross-stitch: to make me have adventures and learn to be less boring.’

  At this, Aunt Alys surprised me again by bursting into tears. Not just one perfect, poised tear, but a rush of them, her face quite crumpled.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I murmured.

  ‘It’s not all right,’ Aunt Alys wept. ‘It’s all wrong.’ She hiccupped. ‘I promise you, Bronte, that you are not the least bit boring, and your parents didn’t run off because they didn’t like you. Your mother was fascinated by every single thing about you when she was pregnant. She and I loved to discuss our babies in detail, little feet kicking, little elbows prodding.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘We did. When we were collecting lavender that day, your mother stopped very suddenly and said, “I think the baby just blew a raspberry!”’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘S
he sat down and hunched over, trying to blow a raspberry back to you—I mean, back to her own stomach, hoping you’d get the message.’

  ‘But maybe when I was born, and she saw me, she thought, oh, I’ve made a mistake, she’s actually quite boring.’

  Aunt Alys smiled. ‘If you think it’s fun to blow a raspberry at your own belly, then try blowing a raspberry at a baby’s belly! It’s the most fun you will ever have.’

  She stood up then, wiping her eyes and cheeks, and picked up the box of lavender.

  ‘In any case,’ Aunt Alys said thoughtfully. ‘It’s a good thing for our Kingdom that you did look at the trumpeter in the picture instead of your parents. It’s ended up saving our cherry orchards.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Walter,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten all about him. I wonder if he still plays?’

  Then she kissed the top of my head and said, ‘For the next two days, you can explore the palace, picnic with me in the evening, and play the trumpet as the sun sets. How does that sound?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Sweet dreams, Bronte. And that’s an royal order.’

  Two days later, I arrived at Stantonville Post Office. The Mellifluous Royal Carriage had brought me to the coach station in Yearsdale, and from there, I’d taken the 73B Coach and Four to Stantonville.

  My parents’ instructions became quite detailed at this point. I was supposed to go into the diner next door to the post office, choose a window table and order a cheese-and-ham sandwich, a fruit frosty (Whatever that is, I thought), and a slice of cheesecake.

  While I waited for my order to come, I studied the view from the window. A dusty field. A broken-down wagon sagging in the middle. In the distance, low hills. A man sitting on a fence and smoking a pipe.

  Why did it have to be a window table? I asked my parents, inside my head. Nothing to write home about in THIS view.

  Still, I took out a postcard and wrote home about the view anyway, and about my journey to Stantonville from the Mellifluous Kingdom. By the time I had finished, the food and fruit frosty had arrived at my table.

  The fruit frosty turned out to be a frozen watermelon drink that was so delicious I added a postscript to Aunt Isabelle’s postcard:

  Next, I was required to buy a posy of violets for Aunt Carrie from the florist’s shop on the other side of the post office. No other aunt had got flowers. I wondered if that was fair. It didn’t seem fair.

  I decided not to think about it.

  At last, I was supposed to walk to Aunt Carrie’s cottage. I had met Aunt Carrie once before, when she was visiting Gainsleigh, and I was excited about seeing her again. There was a little map drawn into the instructions, with a scribbly line going across the fields, over a hill, through a gate, and past a few trees.

  I set off, swapping my suitcase and the posy of violets back and forth from hand to hand. It was hot and dry. When I reached the top of the hill, I stopped to catch my breath, and noticed a small, hand-painted sign nailed to a post:

  I took no notice, as the arrow was pointing in a different direction from mine. But the word ricochet made me think of Billy teaching us billiards on the Cruise Ship: ‘And do you see how the ball ricochets at an angle of—what would you say, 67.5 degrees there?’ he asked us once, and Taylor and I fell about laughing. I laughed now, tramping down the other side of the hill. What was a ricochet orange then? An orange you could roll across a billiard table?

  I stopped. I was almost at the bottom of the hill. Ricochet orange. I had heard of that before.

  Oh well, I thought. Who cares?

  I took another few steps, and stopped again.

  I cared. Where had I heard of Ricochet oranges? I tapped my forehead to try to tap the memory back. This never usually works, but today, it did.

  It was Aunt Sue in Livingston. She had told me never to try an orange from the Empire of Ricochet, because they spoil you for all other oranges.

  That’s all right then, I thought. I’m not going to try one.

  But then I remembered Aunt Sue calling to me as I left: ‘If you ever get a chance to try the oranges of the tiny Empire of Ricochet? Why, you must take it!’ And the cart driver had agreed: ‘Aye, never miss an opportunity to try a Ricochet orange.’

  I set the suitcase down on the dusty road and placed the violets on top of it.

  Now what was I to do?

  Aunt Sue had told me I must try a Ricochet orange. My parents’ instructions said nothing about detours to buy oranges. Was I allowed to make a detour? Even though that was not in the instructions?

  Well, the instructions did not tell me to breathe. And yet here I was, breathing.

  I sneezed. Too much dust.

  Had my parents told me to sneeze? No.

  I turned around and headed up the hill again.

  The path took me by a couple of old barns and a children’s playground. A boy and a girl were in the playground—not running, playing or even talking, but perfectly still. They stared at me as I passed.

  I reached a little shack with a sign out the front:

  ‘Are these really from the Ricochet Empire?’ I asked.

  A woman with a green scarf tied around her neck breathed out sharply. ‘Why would we have a sign if not?’

  I saw I had made a mistake in asking. ‘It’s just that the price is good,’ I explained. But that was a mistake, too.

  ‘Too reasonable for you, is it? Would you be happier if I doubled the price?’

  I said no, thank you, that I was very happy with the price as it was, and I bought a huge sack of oranges. I’d only wanted one.

  While the woman watched, I packed the sack into my suitcase. I had some trouble buckling it again, but used my knee to force it closed. Then I headed back the way I’d come. The posy of violets was looking bedraggled by now, and the suitcase was dragging my shoulder right out of its socket. Or that’s how it seemed.

  As I passed the playground again, I saw that the boy and girl were in exactly the same positions. They hadn’t moved. The boy was sitting on a swing, but he wasn’t riding it, or even twisting it around, or kicking at stones. He was simply sitting. He wore a red jacket, the collar turned up. Too hot for a jacket, I thought. The girl, wearing a blue dress, was standing by the seesaw and staring at me.

  There was something hostile in the way she stared.

  ‘Hiya!’ she called suddenly.

  I stopped. ‘Good afternoon,’ I replied.

  She continued staring. I waited. Nothing happened, so I carried on walking.

  ‘Oi!’ she called now.

  I turned back.

  ‘Is this long enough, do you think?’ she demanded.

  I considered her question.

  ‘Is what long enough?’ I countered in the end.

  The girl looked left and right, and then she crossed the playground and strolled over to me. I put my suitcase down to wait for her.

  ‘We’ve been doing this for an hour or something,’ she said. ‘It’s getting boring.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to be agreeable. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘So.’ She squinted at me. ‘Can we stop now?’

  Again, I considered. ‘Can you stop what?’

  ‘Stop standing by the seesaw and sitting on the swing. Or at least, can we swap? So I get to sit down. My legs are hurting.’

  ‘Of course you can stop,’ I said. ‘Or swap.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she replied.

  She sniffed and looked at my suitcase.

  ‘What made you think you couldn’t?’ I ventured.

  ‘The letter?’ the girl said. ‘My brother and I got a letter saying we’d get paid ten silver pieces each if we went to the park and wore clothes in these colours and did this thing until a girl came by with a suitcase.’

  That gave me a start. ‘Whoa,’ I said. I don’t know if I’d ever said whoa before, but I couldn’t think what else to say. I thought of an alternative. ‘Who sent you the letter?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Nobody?’

&
nbsp; ‘No name. No return address.’

  We stared at each other a little longer.

  ‘That’s mad,’ I said finally.

  ‘Right?’

  I looked across at the swing. The boy was still slouched there, although he had set it swaying slowly side to side.

  ‘Hello!’ I called to him.

  He raised a hand.

  I looked back at the girl.

  ‘Bronte Mettlestone,’ I said to her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That is my name. Bronte. May I enquire as to yours?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  I took a break from this conversation to sort it out in my head. ‘I do,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Okay. But our names were in the letter that came to us. So.’

  ‘I didn’t send the letter,’ I told her.

  She shrugged.

  ‘All I can think,’ I said after a moment, ‘is that my Aunt Carrie sent the letter to you, hoping we’d run into each other as I passed, and make friends. Although, I only came this way to get the Ricochet oranges, so I could easily have missed you.’

  The girl sighed deeply now.

  ‘I guess we could be friends,’ she said at last.

  Our friendship didn’t seem to be getting off to a promising start.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I tried.

  The girl looked around vaguely. ‘There’s a pony in the field over there,’ she said eventually. ‘I could draw a picture of it. You could catch it and hold it still for me while I draw?’

  Well, that seemed like nonsense to me. Unfair both to myself and the pony. Even unfair to the girl somehow, depending on how much she liked drawing.

  This wasn’t working out.

  ‘It’s been a great pleasure meeting you,’ I said, and put out my hand. ‘But I really must get on to my Aunt Carrie’s house.’

  The girl looked at my hand in the air. After a moment, she raised her eyebrows and shook it. Her palm was quite dry. She turned around and kicked her way back to the seesaw. ‘Oi,’ she said to the boy on the swing, and she pointed to the seesaw.