by Brigid Lowry
PRAISE FOR BRIGID LOWRY
GUITAR HIGHWAY ROSE
‘Lowry’s deft and daring style is a heady mix of genres
and points of view which are never the less woven into
a seamless whole. . . a thoroughly enjoyable book.’ Magpies
‘Full of humour and one-liners. . . a romantic, entertaining
and thoughtful novel.’ School Library Journal, USA
WITH LOTS OF LOVE FROM GEORGIA
‘Lowry . . . seems to have a direct line
into the minds and feelings of teenagers’
Australian Centre for Youth Literature
TOMORROW ALL WILL BE BEAUTIFUL
‘Every so often you come across a book that makes you
think it was written especially for you. Lowry uses both
humour and bare emotion in this patchwork of tales and
poems. . . completely absorbing.’ Viewpoint
JUICY WRITING — INSPIRATION AND
TECHNIQUES FOR YOUNG WRITERS
‘Her writing is a joy. . . Dip into it
and you’ll find a jewel every time.’ Viewpoint
‘Save a permanent place on the shelf for this gem.’
Sunday Age
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRIGID LOWRY WAS born in New Zealand and lives in Perth. After the success of Guitar Highway Rose, she wrote Follow the Blue, and then she collaborated with her son, Sam Field, on the fantasy adventure Space Camp. Brigid’s next novel, With lots of love from Georgia, won the Young Adult section of the New Zealand Children’s Post Book Awards. Her collection of stories and poetry, Tomorrow all will be Beautiful, won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Young Adult fiction and was shortlisted for the New Zealand Post Awards. Her inspiring guide for young writers, Juicy Writing, was a finalist in the New Zealand Post Awards.
Brigid teaches creative writing and also writes poetry and fiction for adults. She is in favour of op shops, travel, nectarines, coloured pencils and rivers.
BRIGID
LOWRY
First published in 2011
Copyright © Brigid Lowry, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone (612) 8425 0100
Fax (612) 9906 2218
Email [email protected]
Web www.allenandunwin.com
A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from
the National Library of Australia www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 174237 4994
Teachers’ notes available from www.allenandunwin.com
Cover photo’s by Getty Images / iStockphoto
Internal illustrations by Kim Fleming
This book was printed in December 2010 by McPherson’s Printing
Group, 76 Nelson Street, Maryborough, Victoria, Australia
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
‘The writer provides one half and the reader the other.’
PAUL VALERY
And in the middle is the story. . .
THE WRITER
The writer lives in a house of many teapots. Outside her window are roses and violets, and cacti growing in old shoes. There are blue mosaic steps that lead nowhere in particular. The writer’s world contains cake, cherries, books, kind friends, and five pairs of slippers. It is a good life, yet the writer is not entirely content. She struggles with reality, despairing of the twenty-first century which involves stuff she is not in favour of, such as rampant capitalism, global warming, and Botox. The writer is often more gloomy than the situation demands. She struggles with the hurly-burly of a world in which young men drown and beloved dogs get run over. The writer is kind of nuts, yet she’s not nuts enough to think that there actually is a place where no bad things happen. However, she would prefer to live in a more elegant world which has less suffering and more happy bits in it. That’s why she writes books. She can’t control the world, but on the page she has supreme agency. Bad things still have to happen in a book, or else there would be no narrative, but at least in the world of words the writer gets to call the tune.
However, at present there’s no tune. The writer is getting jumpy. People keep asking her what she’s working on. For months she has mumbled excuses, but the longer she leaves it, the crabbier she becomes. Unless she wants to get a job in a supermarket, the writer must begin a new book.
An idea has come to her about a fairytale. It will have magic in it and some fairies, possibly goblins as well. Perhaps she will chuck in an amulet and some poison. It’s time to begin.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE AND A HALF
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO AND A BIT
CHAPTER TWO AND THE NEXT BIT
CHAPTER FOURAND THREE QUARTERS
ANOTHER CHAPTER
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AND THRUPPENCE
A BIT THAT IS TOO SMALL TO BE A CHAPTER
A CHAPTER WITH A BAD MISTAKE IN IT
A CHAPTER WITHOUT A MISTAKE IN IT (HOPEFULLY)
A CHAPTER WITHOUT A BORING BIT IN IT (HOPEFULLY)
A CHAPTER WITH VOMIT IN IT
CHAPTER 74
A FLOWERY CHAPTER
A CHAPTER WITH A KING IN IT
A CHAPTER WITH A KING IN IT
CHAPTER WITH BALL GOWN AND TUMBLES
A VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER
CHAPTER THURSDAY WITH SURPRISES AND STARBLOSSOM
CHAPTER MOONBEAM AND A QUARTER
A ROSE PETAL CHAPTER
A CHAPTER CONTAINING TEA-LEAVES AND SUGAR-DUSTED INSECTS
A CHAPTER CONTAINING FURTHER DOINGS OF A SOMEWHAT DODGY CHARACTER
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SIX SEVENTHS
A CHAPTER CONTAINING VARIOUS EXCITING EVENTS AND SEVERAL ADJECTIVES
CHAPTER CONTAINING MERRIMENT, LIFE, AND DEATH
CHAPTER NEARLY THERE AND A BIT
CHAPTER WITH DRAMAS, DANCING AND DOUBTS
CHAPTER MIDNIGHT
THE LOVEY-DOVEY CHAPTER
THE WEDDING CHAPTER
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS SUMMERTIME when the girl glory came to the palace; a time of honeysuckle and bees. ‘Her mother was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,’ said Mrs Blossom, the cook. ‘But apparently the child has no magical powers, which is why she’s been sent to us.’
‘I heard her father drownded,’ said elda, the scullery maid.
‘yes, ’tis said he drowned,’ sighed Mrs Blossom.
‘I heard she has the reddest hair in all the nine counties,’ added alice, the garden girl, who’d just brought in a tray of peas and radishes.
Rolf, the kitchen boy, said nothing. He was busy watching a wasp struggle in a spider web.
‘we’ll find out soon enough, no doubt. Look lively, Lad. Them peas won’t pod themselves.’ Mrs Blossom heaved a mighty sigh and began rolling out a big lump of pastry on the cool marble table.
Those peas, thought Rolf. He was a boy of few words, but he knew how to use them. Mrs Blossom was a great one for misusing words, Rolf had observed.
‘They might not put her in the kitchens with us, anyway, it’s all theorezzical, but there are m
any places a lively girl could be useful round here. A palace doesn’t run itself, you know. She might be in flowers with Miss Hope, or . . . Get on with it, Rolf; stop dreaming, Boy.’
Please let her be in the kitchen with us, thought Elda. Alice is all very well, but she doesn’t have much laughter in her. Elda liked the sound of a girl called Glory who had the reddest hair in all of nine counties.
Glory had always known it was her destiny to leave her home and family, but it had seemed a far-off thing.
‘One day you shall go and live at the palace, as I did,’ her mother had said, ever since Glory was a tiny girl. Now the time had come. She was to go and live in the royal palace and take employment there. At least she would be able to send home some coins to help her family. Life was pinch and scrape since Glory’s father, a sea captain, had been lost in a storm, and she was much burdened by her mother’s thinness and worry. Some evenings, the widow took only a crust, denying herself curd and broth so that Glory and her brothers might eat. She took in sewing, and the coal her sons collected brought in a few coins, but times were lean. How Glory had loved her mother’s tales when they were but fancy stories. Many was the long winter evening they’d sat by the hearth, darning socks, enjoying the warmth and the flickering dance of the flames, while Jakob and Ptolemy slept.
‘You’ve been promised to the palace. It will be a great adventure for you, though many things will be different now. It is twenty long years since my time there.’
‘Tell me, Mama.’
The widow’s weary face softened as she drifted down the dusty corridors of memory.
‘It is not a palace like a castle, made of stone and having moats, turrets and such things. It is a palatial mansion, with more rooms than you can count.’
‘How many?’
‘Eighty rooms or more. Two libraries, three kitchens, a grand ballroom, a star-gazing turret, and a small hospital. There are stately gardens with herbaceous borders, orchards, vines, a croquet lawn, vegetable gardens, a herb garden, gardens of flowers for picking to decorate the palace, and even topiary. It is a grander place than you could ever dream. It is a world within a world.’
‘Topiary? Is that a beast like a horse, Mama?’
‘Why would it be a beast? You are a funny girl, Glory. Topiary is the art of trimming trees into fantastic shapes, such as a giraffe or a teapot. The head gardener of my time, Mr Will, was a master of it.’
‘You jest, Mama.’ Trees cut into fancy shapes indeed. What silliness. Glory glanced around their humble cottage: an oak table, a stone fireplace, pots and pans, a closet for their clothes, two beds — one shared with her mother, one for her brothers. What, beyond this, would a person want or need? A little more food perhaps . . . Surely her mother was spinning tales to make her laugh.
‘You will see for yourself, Daughter, before too long. The grand ballroom has huge draperies of damask and crushed velvet, as ruched and fancy as ball gowns.
On the afternoon of the grand balls, servant boys polish the dance floor by grating beeswax upon it, then sliding about with auld sacks on their feet, skating and laughing most joyous, despite the admonitions of the head butler, whose face, as I remember, resembled a shrivelled prune. I do believe those lads had more fun readying the dance floor than the dancers did in the evening.’
‘It does sound wondrous indeed; this world within a world. Is the palace a happy place, then?’
A strange look came over her mother’s face.
‘It is a place like any other. You’ll find good and bad there, as you find anywhere else.’ Her tone was sharp, as if her daughter had spilt milk or forgotten to light the fire. ‘Come now, Child. It’s time for bed,’ she continued, more gently.
Glory lay quietly, but sleep was a long time coming.
It was not the moon outside her window — round and yellow as the yolk of an egg — that kept her from slumber, but excitement. The very next day she was to travel far away, to live in a palace.
The Reader
› Today had egg in it, and too much blue. It had Nigel Brown’s smelly farts and Dylan Carmody’s shitty behaviour. She is such a bitch to me. In Media she stuck a Post-it note on my back saying Nova is a Poo Head. I took it off straight away, but it was humiliating. I’m glad to be home, hiding in my room, reading my book. My mother gave me this one. I thought it would be crap because it’s not my usual sort of book, although I liked fairy stories when I was little. I remember magic shoes and dancing swans that turned into princesses; Snow White and Rose Red; crotchety dwarves who turned straw into gold; enchantments and strange elixirs and dragons. I liked those stories because they were full of love and fear, and extraordinary things could happen.
THE WRITER
It’s easy to begin a book, inside your head. You start with a sparkly good idea. Then the real work commences. You create a place, an imaginative landscape, inviting the reader in. Then you add characters. Not boring ones. Your characters have to be interesting. The reader must turn the pages avidly to see what becomes of them. It’s not enough to have a place and people. Things have to happen. One thing must lead to another. There have to be problems worth solving, and interesting adventures, big and small. Exciting, dramatic things are good in a story, but so are small, subtle things. If the writer thinks much more about this stuff, her head will explode.
She asks everyone she knows what a good fairy story should have in it. Tamsin says a pink princess. Sometimes it does not pay to ask Tamsin things. The writer lugs books home from the library and studies myths and legends. She doesn’t want a troll in her book, because they are evil-tempered; nor a brownie, for they have no noses. But what if one sneaks in? The writer finds that the more she tries to think sensibly, the less her creativity creates. It’s only during an afternoon spent on her bed, drinking tea, or in the middle of baking poppy seed cake, that her ideas arrive. The writer decides Tamsin was right about the princess, though perhaps not a pink one.
CHAPTER ONE
AND A HALF
QUEEN PETRONILLA HAD ordered Princess Mirabella to sort her jewels, but the princess was not in the mood. The peacocks were screeching horribly outside her window, and her chambermaid, Cherry, had a warty sore on her face. The princess could hardly bear to look at her. furthermore, the peach on the princess’s golden breakfast tray was as hard as a cannonball. ‘You know my fruit must be ripe, Cherry.’ ‘I can’t do nothing about it, Princess Mirabella. I just take what’s given me by the kitchen. The kitchen just gives me what’s given by the tree. If you isn’t happy, I could bring you a napple.’ ‘I don’t want an apple, you foolish creature. I want a juicy ripe peach, not a hard rock with fuzz on it. This peach just will not do.’
‘Oh no, it just won’t do. But there it is. I am so very sorry, Mistress.’
Cherry’s tone was insolent, but she slinked from the room before the princess had time to reply. Mirabella would have liked to give her a good slap, but that wouldn’t do either. She found it very hard being a princess. Life felt most unbearable.
Arlo, the page, brought her jewellery casket: a rosewood box inlaid with mahogany. It sat like a large, daunting frog, glaring at her. The princess felt grumpy about her mother’s constant requests. As far as Mirabella was concerned, the queen had far too much time on her hands, especially when the king was away. She amused herself by ordering the staff about very energetically and concocting tasks for her daughter. Rarely did the princess wish to oblige, but this time she would obey; it was either that or stare out the window until she died of boredom. Oak, her horse, was being shod, so she could not ride. The long hours of the day hours stretched ahead like a dreary rope.
So she tipped the box, letting the contents tumble onto her cream silken coverlet. ’Twas a most fine coverlet, embroidered with roses and the royal crest, but made grimy by dust that had gathered amongst the royal jewels over the years. The princess saw by Arlo’s haughty gaze that he considered tossing them down onto her bed a poor way to treat her jewels. He was quite handsome, A
rlo, but he thought too well of himself, in Princess Mirabella’s opinion.
‘You may go,’ she ordered, and he did. His shoes tapped all the way down the long corridor. Now that she was listening, she heard the sleepy buzzing of the bees in the hedge outside her window. A sweet sound, but overlaid by the cries of the infernal peacocks and — oh no, here was her mother, squawking even more annoyingly, if such a thing be possible. The queen was most displeased by the tangle on the bed.
‘Oh, don’t fuss, Mother. They’re only things.’
‘What do you mean, you stupid girl? How dare you treat your precious jewellery so carelessly?’
Princess Mirabella responded with silence, which oft proved to be the best way to lessen the wind in the royal sails. Queen Petronilla sighed mightily, then changed tack.
‘This was your grandmother’s wedding bracelet, you know. Amethyst carries the meaning of devotion.’
‘Devotion. How amusing,’ Mirabella muttered. Her grandparents had not been the happiest of couples. She’d heard the whispers about King Randolph’s womanising ways and Queen Fortuna’s fondness for wines and spirits — purely medicinal, you understand. Her mother’s hearing was needle sharp. The princess should not have muttered thus, for now her mother was cross again.
‘You will stay in your chambers until all the jewellery has been properly attended to. Set aside any pieces that need cleaning or mending. Try on each one carefully and select a necklace, with earrings to match. You must look your very best at the ball. I’ll arrange for the tiaras to be brought to your chamber. We must see which one flatters your pretty complexion.’ The queen tried to sweeten her daughter into compliance, which only served to annoy.
‘Who cares about the stupid ball? I hate being paraded like a pony. You know I have no wish to make a match with any royal idiot, however great his fortune, however influential his parents.’
‘You are a rude, ungrateful girl, and I am weary of your vexing ways. The king shall hear of it on his return.’