Alice-Miranda Keeps the Beat

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Myrtle asked.

  ‘I’m going to Downsfordvale to pick them up,’ Reg said, walking into the kitchen to collect the car keys. ‘Isn’t that what you’re saying? We’ve got two spare bedrooms and we can make up the airbed on the floor for the little ones.’

  ‘Heavens no!’ Myrtle blanched and took off after him, her hands flapping by her sides. ‘That’s a terrible idea. What about my ornaments? The woman has small children – several of them.’

  Reg walked back into the sitting room and sat down on the lounge with a whump. ‘Do you have a better idea? It’s very uncharitable to leave the family homeless.’

  Myrtle let out a long sigh. ‘I’m playing bridge with Henny and Hephzibah this morning. I’m sure that something will come to mind while I’m driving.’

  ‘I might go and see Stan then,’ Reg said. His brother-in-law lived at Wood End, and while it was quite a walk, he could do with the exercise.

  ‘You most certainly will not. I won’t have you rambling that far. You’re still recovering, Reginald. The doctor said that you must take things slowly and understand that you’ll never be the man you were before the accident, which is why I no longer give you any jobs – I couldn’t stand having that hospital bed back here in the sitting room. You have no appreciation for how hard it was doing the housework around you for all those years.’ Myrtle leaned down and kissed her husband’s forehead. ‘Why don’t you come for a drive with me to Caledonia Manor? The ladies would love to see you and we could do with a fourth player for cards.’

  ‘Only if you take me to see Stan tomorrow,’ the man said. ‘And I really wouldn’t mind if you gave me odd jobs to do here and there, Myrtle. It will make me feel useful again. After three years in a coma, I need to get on with things.’

  ‘Well, you do have that other ridiculous project I’ve been turning a blind eye to,’ Myrtle tutted.

  Reg grinned. ‘The most fun I’ve had in years.’

  ‘It’s unbecoming for a man of your age,’ Myrtle sniffed, ‘but I won’t stop you. I promised myself that, if you ever woke up, I’d agree to anything, just to have you back again. And perhaps there are one or two things you could do to help around the house.’ She fetched her handbag from the hallway while Reg collected his jacket.

  Myrtle popped a pillbox hat onto her head and opened the front door, giving their beloved gnome, Newton, a smile on the way out.

  ‘My, my, I wonder who that is visiting Ambrosia?’ she said, squinting at the shiny Aston Martin sitting in the driveway of Wisteria Cottage.

  Reg followed her out the door. ‘Whoever it is, I wouldn’t mind swapping vehicles.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Reg,’ Myrtle scolded. ‘You’d look absurd, like a desperate old man trying to recapture his youth.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that, dear.’ He chuckled, locking the door behind him. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Why are you really here, Neville?’ Ambrosia Headlington-Bear dumped the giant bouquet of flowers into the kitchen sink and turned to face her ex-husband. They’d been divorced for over a year now and their only communication had been via the lawyers.

  ‘I just wanted to see you and Jacinta,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t wait until the weekend, not after what happened yesterday.’

  ‘How did you find out about that?’ She flung a tea towel over her shoulder and filled the kettle.

  ‘That’s a new look for you,’ he said with a rakish grin.

  Ambrosia narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with either of us.’ She was determined not to cry, but this was the first time she’d even laid eyes on Neville since he’d told her that he wanted a divorce. She’d almost fainted when she’d answered the front door. And there he was, looking better than ever. She’d forgotten how much she’d loved those brown eyes that saw right through her. Ambrosia did her best to ignore the fact that her favourite car was parked in the driveway too. It meant nothing to her – not any more. She had made her own life with Jacinta and they didn’t need Neville. She turned away and dabbed at her eyes. He didn’t deserve her tears.

  ‘Could we see Jacinta after school?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Ambrosia said firmly. ‘I don’t want you upsetting her. What’s the real reason you’re here? Did your latest girlfriend dump you while you happened to be passing through the neighbourhood?’

  He sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, looking up at her with his big brown eyes.

  Ambrosia felt her heart flutter.

  ‘Haven’t you missed me just a little?’ he asked.

  Ambrosia couldn’t take it any more. ‘Please leave,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You can’t be here. You can’t do this to us. I won’t have it.’

  Neville stood up. ‘All right, I’ll go, but I will come and see Jacinta at the weekend. I promised her.’ He kissed Ambrosia softly on the cheek, then walked down the hall and out the door.

  Ambrosia locked it behind him, then sank to the floor. ‘Why?’ she raged as she crumpled into a heap and sobbed her heart out.

  ‘Good morning, girls.’ Tabitha Crowley beamed at the group in front of her. ‘I’m so pleased to be here, but first things first, I’d better get to know your names, hadn’t I?’ She cast her eyes across the room, hoping that her studiousness the previous evening would reap rewards. In her experience, it made the children feel ten feet tall if the teacher knew them almost instantly. It made them far more pliable too.

  There were several girls she was certain of – Alice-Miranda being one of them. When she’d picked up the official school photograph of the secondary students, she realised that the girl who had been mentioned several times at supper wasn’t a relative of the Fayle sisters but rather the youngest student ever to have started at Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale at the tender age of seven and one quarter. Her academic ability had seen her accelerated to senior school much earlier than expected. Tabitha couldn’t help wondering at the wisdom of having a ten-year-old girl in classes with thirteen- and fourteen-year-old peers, but if Miss Grimm had decided it was the right thing to do, then who was she to question it? Interestingly, the senior school classes were vertically integrated anyway, meaning the children were with a mixed range of ages depending on their lessons. For a school that seemed quite traditional in almost every other way, the class groupings were a surprise.

  Tabitha smiled as she looked from student to student, rattling off their names with lightning speed and accuracy. She was doing exceptionally well until she wasn’t.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Crowley, my name is Caprice, not Millie,’ the willowy girl said, smiling sweetly. ‘Can I also take this opportunity to apologise for what you witnessed at breakfast? Millie and I had a small misunderstanding. We usually get on like a house on fire.’

  Millie almost choked. ‘That’s an unfortunate analogy, Caprice, given what happened yesterday, but don’t worry, Miss Crowley, mixing us up is an easy mistake. Caprice and I are almost twins,’ the girl said to great guffaws from her classmates.

  Caprice glowered at Millie then turned back to Miss Crowley, her face a picture of serenity.

  Miss Crowley frowned. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I know exactly who you both are, but I just had the names muddled in my head. It won’t happen again.’

  Tabitha was silently berating herself. She hated getting off on the wrong foot with her students and it was doubly silly seeing that she’d witnessed the pair’s spat in the dining room this morning. It was obvious there was no love lost between the girls and she would have to work even harder now to win their trust. Tabitha resumed acquainting herself with the students and breathed a sigh of relief when she got to the last child and hadn’t made another mistake. ‘Now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way, let’s get started, shall we?’ Tabitha said, and directed the girls to take out their workbooks.

  Millie was still smarting over her punishment from Miss Reedy. She hoped the woman wouldn’t object t
o her helping out at the stables for her school component, and shelving books at the village library as community service. Ten hours was a long time when she could probably only do one hour a day, if that. At least Miss Reedy hadn’t disqualified her from the television interview this evening. That was something to look forward to.

  ‘So, tell me about the text you’re reading as a class,’ Tabitha said. She was eager to hear the girls’ opinions. It wasn’t a book she would have chosen, but as Miss Reedy pointed out, she couldn’t very well go and change things willy-nilly halfway through the term.

  ‘Mrs Reeves only gave it to us last week and it’s horrible,’ Sloane said. ‘I’m never going to finish it.’

  ‘I agree,’ Ivory moaned. ‘The characters are awful and I don’t like the premise at all. Surely the kids could be more civilised and work out who was in charge rather than it becoming a free-for-all.’

  Tabitha wasn’t a fan of Lord of the Flies either but had thought the girls must have been studying it all term. An idea popped into her head. She had written a unit of work a year ago and had been itching to teach it again. Now was her chance. ‘Okay, change of plans,’ she announced with a clap of her hands. The girls looked at the woman eagerly. ‘We’re going to examine the way the illustrations enhance the text in a range of picture books, especially in relation to various themes.’

  ‘Do you mean books like The Giving Tree?’ Alice-Miranda asked. ‘There are lots of lessons to be learned there. My granny read it to me when I was very little and we talked about the selfishness of the boy and the way the tree never stopped giving right to the end, when all that was left was a stump.’

  Tabitha grinned. Her misgivings that the child might not belong in the secondary school evaporated at once. ‘Exactly like that.’

  ‘Awesome!’ Sloane clenched her fists. English had never been her favourite subject and the idea of analysing picture books appealed to her a lot more than reading a whole novel.

  A ripple of excitement rolled around the classroom.

  Millie was telling Alice-Miranda about one of her favourite picture books from childhood when she noticed Miss Reedy standing in the doorway. The woman was watching intently but was yet to alert anyone to her presence.

  ‘Right, Caprice, could you collect all the copies of Lord of the Flies and pop them into the storeroom?’ Miss Crowley scanned the bookshelves behind her desk and began pulling out slender volumes. ‘Now, I want to integrate a range of other disciplines into our work as well. You might like to respond to the text by writing a play, poetry or even music. You could create your own illustrated picture book or undertake a science experiment. I’m open to all ideas.’

  Jacinta frowned. ‘So we’re not just going to answer an endless list of comprehension questions and write essays?’

  Tabitha shook her head. ‘You’ll never do that in my class if I have a say in it. And I can’t believe in this day and age anyone teaches like that.’

  ‘Miss Reedy does and Mrs Reeves,’ Sloane said. ‘It’s so boring.’

  Millie stole a peek at Miss Reedy, whose face resembled a thundercloud.

  Tabitha turned and startled when she realised the woman was there. ‘Hello Miss Reedy, can I help you with anything?’

  Livinia pursed her lips. ‘I just wanted to see that you had things under control.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Tabitha began to pass out books to the girls. ‘Perhaps you’d like to join us?’

  ‘Sadly, I don’t have time. I do, however, look forward to seeing a detailed program of this exciting new unit of work – the one with no comprehension questions or essays – on my desk at lunchtime,’ Livinia said, then spun on her heel and stalked off.

  Tabitha Crowley’s stomach flipped. It was plain to see that she was going to have to work twice as hard to win Miss Reedy’s approval, but if that’s what she had to do, then so be it. She marched back to the whiteboard and smiled at her eager students. ‘Shall we get started?’

  Alice-Miranda hoped the girls did their best and made the unit a great success for Miss Crowley’s sake. The woman was clearly taking a big risk.

  Millie looked at Alice-Miranda and grinned. ‘I like Miss Crowley a lot, even if she did call me Caprice.’

  Charlie Weatherly climbed down the ladder and stepped back to admire his handiwork. The sign had taken months to arrive, but it looked a treat and the weather had cleared long enough for him to put it up.

  ‘Hello Mr Charles,’ Alice-Miranda said with a wave. ‘That looks great.’

  ‘Well, it says what it is,’ the man replied, rocking on his heels. ‘I like that.’

  The girls had been wondering whether their senior boarding house was going to be named after a former headmistress or a pupil of renown, but in the end Miss Grimm and the Fayle sisters had decided that Caledonia Stables was best and not too easily mixed up with the newer stables that still housed horses over at the junior campus.

  ‘How are you and the girls feeling after your heroics?’ the man asked.

  ‘We’re fine, but the Abbouds have been on my mind all day,’ the tiny child admitted.

  ‘Yes, it’s a worry. Mehmet is one of loveliest fellas I’ve ever known and the man can cook, that’s for sure,’ Charlie said. ‘Something smells good in there today too.’

  ‘It’s spaghetti bolognaise and garlic bread. I can recommend both.’ Alice-Miranda was glad to be able to say that honestly. She’d bolted down her lunch and was now on her way up to Caledonia Manor to see Miss Hephzibah and Miss Henrietta, armed with the latest Highton’s catalogue that her mother had sent. She wanted to give it to them before afternoon lessons began.

  The girl waved goodbye to Charlie and wandered up the driveway and through the main entrance of the manor, down a long hallway and to the door marked ‘Private’. She knocked once and waited. Alice-Miranda felt something tickle her bare leg and looked down to find a black kitten.

  ‘Hello Cleopatra. That naughty Fudge hasn’t been chasing you again, has he? I think he’s staying with Mrs Howard this week, so you should be safe enough.’ She picked up the purring creature as Miss Hephzibah opened the door.

  The woman’s eyes crinkled like a concertina fan as she embraced the child, cat and all. ‘Good afternoon, darling girl.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t come at a bad time, but I just got the mail at lunch and Mummy sent this for you.’ The child passed Hephzibah the fat brochure. ‘She said in her note to let me know if there’s anything you and Miss Henrietta would like, and I’ll organise to have it sent right away. Mummy would usually do it, but she and Daddy have gone on a big adventure trekking in the Andes for a whole month.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely.’ Hephzibah smiled. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get this old brain around that modern-day online shopping – much better to have a book to look at. Come in and have a piece of cake,’ she said, standing aside to let the girl through. ‘I baked it this morning.’

  Alice-Miranda glanced at her watch. She still had twenty minutes before her PE class and she’d already changed into her uniform. ‘Thank you, that would be wonderful,’ she said, and followed the old woman into the huge country kitchen, where she was surprised to see Mr and Mrs Parker sitting at the table with Miss Henrietta. There were plates and tea cups and a deck of cards set off to the side.

  ‘Reg, it’s just not possible that we have the family stay with us,’ Myrtle said with a sniff. ‘I’ve told you that already. Please don’t bring it up again – I can only tolerate so much guilt.’

  ‘I still can’t believe there’s not a spare house in the village,’ Henrietta said, twisting her wedding ring. ‘The older girls have to go to school. The last thing their mother needs is to be worried about that as well.’

  Reg looked over and grinned. ‘Hello young lady. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?’

  Alice-Miranda hurried around to give the man a hug. He whispered something to her and she smiled conspiratorially before he drummed his forefingers on the tabletop and pretended to hit a high hat – ex
cept that he actually did tap his wife on the head.

  ‘Stop that, Reginald,’ the woman admonished, and was swiftly placated by a hug from Alice-Miranda.

  The girl gave Henrietta a squeeze too then sat down at the end of the table, in time for Hephzibah to place a wedge of hummingbird cake in front of her.

  ‘Oh, this looks delicious. Thank you,’ Alice-Miranda said. She picked up her fork and dug in. ‘Have you heard anything more about the Abbouds?’ When Myrtle explained what her friend Sue had told her, the girl frowned. ‘But that’s terrible. We have to do something.’ She wondered if she could organise the groceries from Kennington’s without her parents’ help. ‘Maybe there’s a house in the village that’s vacant or up for rent.’

  Myrtle shook her head. ‘We rang the estate agents and tried the council too and apparently there’s not a one. I still find that very hard to believe, but that’s what we were told.’

  The group had intended to play bridge that afternoon, but once Myrtle relayed what Sue had told her, they’d decided to brainstorm ways to help the Abboud family instead and had spent quite a deal of time on the telephone making enquiries.

  ‘Believe me, we have tried all avenues.’ Myrtle got up and bustled over to the kettle to refill the teapot. ‘The Abbouds will likely have to leave Winchesterfield. Even Downsfordvale didn’t sound promising, but at least I’ve managed to secure some donations of baby goods, which are being delivered to the hospital today.’

  Alice-Miranda’s eyes widened. She swallowed her mouthful and set down her fork with a delicate tink. ‘We could have a clothing drive at school. If every girl donated one item, that would go a long way to filling the children’s wardrobes.’

  ‘A marvellous idea,’ Henrietta said, clapping her hands.

  ‘That sounds relatively easy too,’ Reg said.

  Myrtle nodded. ‘And I can spread word in the village to see if we can get some clothes for Ada.’

  ‘It’s still not fair that the Abbouds will have to move away,’ Alice-Miranda said. She looked at the adults and their serious faces. ‘The fire was an accident. They shouldn’t be punished for that.’