Plum Puddings and Paper Moons

by Glenda Millard

  Dedication

  For Rosie with love — G.M.

  For my Richmond River cousins — S.M.K.

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  1. Red-Kite Kind of Wishes

  2. To-ings, Fro-ings and the Four Strong Winds

  3. The Buccaneers’ Banquet

  4. Cake Talk

  5. The Plum-Pudding Planetarium

  6. Hot Yellow Peaches and Holes in the Sky

  7. Unsayable Things and Eiderdowns

  8. Kiss-Me-Quick and Kryptonite

  9. Peace Talk and Pinking Shears

  10. Black Tights and Band-Aids

  11. The Rearrangement of Mrs Ogilvy’s Face

  12. The Bridge from Gypsy Bend

  13. Plum Puddings and Paper Moons

  A Note from Glenda

  Books by Glenda Millard

  Copyright

  1. Red-Kite Kind of Wishes

  Scarlet is the oldest of the Silk sisters. Tishkin was the youngest, but she died in the night while the others were sleeping, without a kiss or a cry or one last goodbye. The Rainbow Girls, Scarlet, Indigo, Violet, Amber and Saffron, and their brother, Griffin, remember how terrible it was to wake and find their smallest one gone, before she had words or walking or even a name.

  The Kingdom of Silk is a place where wishes sometimes come true. But even there, you can’t wish away something that has already happened, no matter how much you want to, or how tightly you close your eyes, or how hard you clench your fists when you wish. Nell says the best you can wish for is that it never happens again. Now she was fifteen, Scarlet wasn’t certain whether wishes ever come true. She had yet to discover what could be done with black tights and a broken bridge.

  Nell grandmothers the Silks, tells them true things she has learnt over her many years of living. She is old and wise and perhaps a little magic, as many grandmothers are. Nell says Grandmother Magic is left over from childhood; that we all are born with magic in us but many of us forget about it when we are grown up. Nell is loved and listened to. So all Nell’s Silks, even Scarlet, wished no-one else would leave their home the way Tishkin did — without a goodbye and until forever. But when Griffin and Layla wished it, they wished a little more as well. The little more was: until we are grown up enough not to be sad.

  Wishes like this are deep and silent and don’t need to be said. Made-aloud wishes are usually for fun and not important at all. For example, you might wish, like Griffin and Layla, that the rules were changed so dessert is always eaten before main course, or you got your name printed in The Guinness Book of Records for collecting the most caterpillars from the cabbage patch, or you owned a red kite that would fly and never fall. It didn’t matter much to Griffin and Layla whether these things came true or not. Their pleasure came from sharing red-kite kind of wishes.

  And that is exactly what they were doing one hot Tuesday in December. The teachers of Saint Benedict’s were having a conference about next year’s curriculum and students were not required to attend school. Layla never forgot to give her mother not-required-to-attend notes. And she quickly followed the giving of them by suggesting she stay at Griffin’s house for the day, reminding Mrs Elliott there was always someone at home at the Kingdom of Silk. Always.

  So that is why Griffin and Layla were inside the feed shed on that hot December morning, building a little-pig, little-pig, let-me-come-in kind of house with yellow straw bales and a hessian-sack roof. Their house of straw smelt sweet and summery inside and Griffin and Layla nestled like birdlets in the loose scattered hay, picking grass seeds from their peeled-off socks and making Christmas wishes.

  First they wished wishes for themselves. Griffin wished for a complete set of encyclopaedias bound in blue, with golden titles on their spines. A set exactly the right size to fill the gap on the top shelf of his bookcase, between Gargoyles and Griffins in Architecture and The Comprehensive Illustrated Ornithologist’s Bible. Then he wished Layla could spend Christmas at the Kingdom of Silk. And last he wished for boots in a box. Layla’s eyebrows shot up at this wish because Griffin was a barefoot kind of boy. But it wasn’t boots Griffin wanted at all.

  ‘Then I would give the boots to Nell,’ he said, ‘and keep the box to put my crickets in.’ Griffin had a whole family of crickets. They shared a Black Magic chocolate box with his collection of foil wrappers and sang to him at night.

  Layla wished for a baby brother. She had wanted one for as long as she could remember. Next she wished she could celebrate Christmas at the Kingdom of Silk. Then she wished for a real and true piebald pony and a pair of elbow-length pink satin gloves exactly like the ones she’d seen in the window of the charity shop.

  After that, Layla and Griffin wished a wish for each other and then one for everyone else, which altogether took a very long time. Then, because everything inside the small straw house was good and golden and there was no hairy-chinned wolf huffing and puffing outside, Griffin and Layla could think of nothing more to wish for.

  In the hush that followed their red-kite wishing, Griffin began thinking about the deep and silent wish, and the little more as well, that only he and Layla had wished. He thought for as long as it took a mouse to steal an ear of wheat from a feed bin and drag it down a knot-hole in the floorboards.

  Then Griffin said, ‘I don’t think we can wish a wish like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Layla. She knew which wish Griffin meant because she had been thinking about it too. This is often the way of things when you are lying on your back in the hush and the hay with your best friend in the entire universe.

  ‘It’s the part about being grown up enough not to be sad. I don’t think it can come true.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because when Tishkin died, Daddy and Mama cried as much as the rest of us. And they were grown up when it happened,’ Griffin explained. ‘And Nell’s the oldest person I know and sometimes when she’s talking about Tishkin, I can tell she’s trying not to cry because her chin gets out of control.’

  ‘Why don’t we change the wish so it can come true?’ said Layla.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Simple. We just make a wish that if anyone has to leave the Kingdom of Silk it won’t be forever.’

  ‘Can you wish things like that?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Layla. ‘It’s a good wish. It means that even if someone does have to go away, they’ll always come back.’

  So because it was almost Christmas, when wishes sometimes come true, and because he couldn’t think of a better idea, Griffin agreed to change their wish.

  Layla decided to write down the new wish to make it official. She’d brought her school journal with her because she’d persuaded her mother to let her sleep at the Silk’s house and to catch the bus to school the next morning with Griffin and Perry Angel. Perry Angel was her second-best friend in the entire universe and the next-best thing to having a little brother of her very own.

  When Layla had finished writing, Griffin said, ‘Now I’ll tell you what to put in the fine print.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the fine print”?’ asked Layla.

  ‘It’s the tiny writing at the end that people always forget to read until it’s too late,’ said Griffin. ‘It tells you extra information. Just write this down: This includes Perry Angel. Annie is his mama now because his other mother left him at the Maxwell Street welfare office when she was sweet sixteen and couldn’t look after him properly.’

  Layla kept forgetting what came next and sometimes Griffin had to help her spell the words. But at last she said, ‘Finished!’

  ‘There’s more,’ said Griffin.

  ‘Oh Griff, my hand’s nearly worn out!’
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  ‘It’s important,’ said Griffin firmly and Layla sighed.

  ‘What is it then?’ she asked with a hint of grumpiness in her voice.

  ‘It also means Layla Elliott,’ said Griffin.

  Layla looked up from her journal. ‘You mean that’s what you want me to write?’

  Griffin nodded and Layla beamed.

  ‘And after you’ve finished, write: because Griffin’s daddy said Layla was sent to comfort them after Tishkin went away. Also because Layla’s mother said she might as well have been born a Silk on account of how much time she spends at their place.’

  When Layla had finished the fine print, she and Griffin read through the wish together.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Griffin.

  ‘What about Blue?’ asked Layla.

  ‘He’s family.’

  ‘I know, but he’s different to the rest of us, so maybe the wish won’t work if we don’t write him in the fine print.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Griffin, ‘let’s put him in just in case.’

  Without any help from Griffin, Layla wrote: And Blue because he is part of the Silk family except he is really a dog and not a person. Blue is deaf but we think he can lip-read. He might feel sad if he knew he wasn’t exactly like us. So we don’t mention it, because dogs have feelings too.

  She peeled off a smiley-face sticker she’d been given for doing five journal entries in a row without any crossing out, and stuck it next to the fine print section, so people wouldn’t forget to read it. Then she and Griffin crawled out through the doorway of their straw house and set off to find Perry and Nell.

  2. To-ings, Fro-ings and the Four Strong Winds

  Perry and Nell were not wishing for anything. They were outside having lessons. Nell was relaxing in her deckchair on the raft wearing a large, black, three-cornered hat. Zeus, her one-eyed pet crow, was perched on the mast. Blue lay on the very edge of the raft with a patch over one eye and his nose between his paws. He was supervising Perry, who was doing the doggie paddle in the dam wearing red rubber water-wings, green goggles and a large and extremely realistic fake tattoo of an anchor on his left shoulder.

  When Layla and Griffin arrived at the dam, they realised at once Nell had used her Grandmother Magic to transform the Kingdom of Silk. It was now a place where galleons laden with treasure sailed the seven seas and pirates carried wicked-looking cutlasses clamped between their teeth. But even pirates have to go to school and what better place to learn than Nasty Nellie’s Floating Academy for Pirates and Plunderers?

  It was because of Miss Cherry, from Saint Benedict’s School, that Perry had pirate lessons. It was she who had first noticed Perry’s different way of learning. Miss Cherry knew that children with a different way of learning needed teachers with a different way of teaching. She also knew that Nell and Annie Silk were experts in different ways of teaching. And so, on Tuesdays and on Thursdays, Perry Angel had lessons at home with Nell or with Annie and sometimes with them both.

  Nell and Annie didn’t take any days off for conferences because they could speak to each other about the curriculum whenever they felt like it. They could also change the timetable at short notice. For instance, on a misty, mushroomy morning Nell might say to Perry, ‘Let’s have Nature Study this morning instead of Arithmetic’.

  Then she and Perry would put on their yellow raincoats and black gumboots and splash through the puddles to Mr Canning’s orchard to look for fairy rings in the rain-spangled grass. Or if a storm threatened while they were watching the robin redbreast build her nest in the Cox’s Orange Pippin, Nell might schedule a cookery lesson instead.

  Perry liked cooking classes but was not so keen on history. When Nell discovered this, she introduced a new topic called The History of Classic Australian Cuisine and included some excellent lessons including: How a Singer Named Melba Turned into a Pudding, Why Ballerinas Prefer Pavlova Without Strawberries on Top and Lord Lamington’s Contribution to Australian Cooking.

  Nell always began these lessons with the words, once upon a time, and usually ended them with a cooking demonstration. Soon Perry began to look forward to Nell’s historical cooking classes. As well as finding out about some very interesting people who lived in the olden days, Perry learned to cook and count, to measure and mix, sift and stir and sprinkle.

  On in-between days Perry had lessons in Miss Cherry’s classroom. He liked Miss Cherry, who had cheeks like her name. He also liked his grown-up friend and classroom helper, Mr Jenkins, and Mr Davis, the bus driver who called him Buddy. So as much as Perry loved learning with his grandmother and his mother, he didn’t mind going to school.

  Layla and Griffin went to Saint Benedict’s every day except weekends but would much rather have gone to Nasty Nellie’s Academy. They had been there before and knew the ropes. Knowing the ropes is pirate language for knowing how things work.

  Everyone had their own piratey name, including the raft. She was christened Sweet Suzy with a bottle of Nell’s home-made ginger beer tipped over her bow. Nell was Nasty Nellie the Pirate Queen. Layla was Sinbad the Sailor, Griffin was Jack Tar and Perry was Davey Jones. Even Blue played along. He was Long John Silver and Zeus was Jolly Roger, keeping a look-out from the mast and squawking a warning when he saw an enemy on the horizon. If Ben joined in, he was Barnacle Ben and when Annie came, she was Lorelei, the beautiful maiden who tried to lure the pirate ship onto the rocks with her songs.

  When she saw Griffin and Layla, Nasty Nellie raised a lunch-wrap tube telescope to her eye. ‘Shiver me timbers, there be trouble on the horizon! Ahoy there. State your business, land lubbers!’

  Sinbad giggled, then cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘We want to board, Captain.’ For the moment she forgot all about the wish and stripped down to the swimming costume she wore under her clothes.

  ‘Surrender your weapons you scoundrels!’ shouted the Pirate Queen.

  ‘We haven’t got any weapons, Nasty Nellie,’ said Jack Tar, peeling off his T-shirt.

  ‘No weapons! What sort of pirate has no weapons? Come aboard this instant and I’ll find you some swords,’ said Nasty Nellie.

  Sinbad tossed her journal on the pile of discarded clothes. Then she and Jack Tar raced into the water and swam to Sweet Suzy. As they hauled themselves on board, the pirate vessel bobbed and dipped dangerously low in the water. But the Pirate Queen was perfectly safe, because Barnacle Ben was a carpenter in his spare time and had nailed the legs of her chair to the deck in case of stormy seas.

  ‘Welcome to the Academy,’ said Nasty Nellie clutching the armrests of her seat until Sweet Suzy steadied. Then she picked up a black pillowcase decorated with a white skull and crossbones and emptied out its contents. There were two enormous black felt moustaches, an assortment of eye patches, a pair of large golden hoop earrings, several spotted scarves and a stuffed shoulder-parrot. Last of all, two magnificent plywood cutlasses with plastic jewels stuck on the handles and wickedly curved gold-painted blades clattered onto the deck.

  ‘If you want to join our classes, you’d better make yourselves look respectable with some of these. You’ve already missed out on adding-ups and taking-aways,’ said the Pirate Queen, filling her hand with copper coins and letting them trickle through her fingers back into the bucket beside her. ‘Most important for pirates to know their adding-ups for when they find treasure, and their taking-aways for when other pirates steal it.’

  Then she pointed to Davey Jones with a pair of barbecue tongs sticking out from the end of her sleeve, the result of a terrible battle she’d fought with a shark.

  ‘Jones be learning to stay afloat in rough weather now, and growing strong muscles for digging holes and burying treasures. You can join him if you like.’

  Jack Tar lowered himself carefully off the edge of Sweet Suzy so as not to dislodge his moustache. But Sinbad forgot about hers and did a belly-whacker that sent up a water spout higher than a blue whale’s. The sea grew choppy and Long John Silver jumped in next to Davey Jones and dogg
ie paddled beside him for encouragement.

  After a while the Pirate Queen leaned down from her deckchair. With her one good hand and the barbecue tongs, she pulled a rope attached to Sweet Suzy at one end and looped around Davey Jones’s middle at the other. Then she hauled him towards the raft, like a net of sardines.

  ‘Your lips be as blue as the briny, Jones,’ she said.

  Pirates usually call the sea ‘the briny’ and people by their last name and get their ‘bes’ and their ‘ares’ mixed up, like this: ‘Be you cold?’

  Davey Jones clung to the edge of the raft, shivering so much he could barely speak. But as brave as could be and in proper pirate talk he said, ‘Nnnnnnno, I be nnnnnnot ccccccold.’

  Nasty Nellie was not convinced. She put the cardboard telescope to her eye and did an up-close inspection of Jones’s lips. ‘You’d better come aboard and dry off, me hearty.’

  Sinbad and Jack Tar helped Jones and his mate, Long John Silver, scramble aboard. They untied the rope from around Jones’s middle because his fingers wouldn’t work properly and the Pirate Queen towelled his hair dry and then the rest of him.

  ‘Nnnnnnot that bbbit,’ he said, pointing to the very realistic fake tattoo on his shoulder. Then, because even pirate grandmothers have a soft spot in their hearts, especially for small, blue-lipped pirates with fake tattoos, the Pirate Queen cuddled Davey Jones on her lap.

  When his bones at last stopped rattling she said, ‘Gather round crew, while we study the charts and plot a course to our next destination.’ She rummaged around in her piratey pillowcase, pulled out something which looked like a large deflated beach ball and handed it to Jack Tar. ‘Blow a stiff southerly into that for me, Tar.’