by Jean Ure
As she stood in the hall she could hear Mum and Miss Fanshawe, talking. Miss Fanshawe was saying, “I don’t mind her being difficult, but why –” Miss Fanshawe’s voice broke – “why does she have to be so unkind to me all the time? Nothing I do is ever right for her. All she does is carp and criticise.”
“There, there!” said Mum. “I’m sure you’ve done your best. Tell me again what happened.”
Harriet heard Miss Fanshawe sniffing and blowing her nose.
“She threw her morning cup of tea at me and walked out. I didn’t realise until about an hour later that she’d gone. I thought –” Miss Fanshawe started to weep again – “I thought I’d let her stew in her own juice. I thought it would teach her a lesson. If anything happens to her, it will be all my fault!”
“No, no,” said Mum. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”
“But she hasn’t any coat!” wailed Miss Fanshawe. “And she’s only wearing bedroom slippers!”
“Excuse me –” Harriet opened the door and poked her head round.
“Not just now, Harriet! Miss Fanshawe and I are talking. Please go away.”
“But, Mum –”
“Harriet! Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, but M–”
“Mother!” Miss Fanshawe suddenly leapt from her chair and sprang across the room.
“Oh, there you are,” said the old lady. “I wondered where you’d got to. This is a terrible house, they haven’t any Earl Grey …”
“Oh, Mother, really!” said Miss Fanshawe.
“Harriet?” said Mum.
“I found her,” said Harriet. “Outside the supermarket.”
“And you recognised her,” cried Miss Fanshawe, “and brought her home! Oh, what a good, kind child you are! I can’t tell you how relieved I am! Let me give you a little something in token of my gratitude.”
Miss Fanshawe took out her purse and counted out five pound coins.
“I hope you don’t mind loose change,” she said.
Harriet turned, wide-eyed, to her mum.
“Is it all right?” she said.
“Of course it is!” said Miss Fanshawe. “Take it, with my blessing! If only there were a few more children like you around, the world would be a better place.”
One hour later, Harriet sauntered back into town looking for something to spend her five pounds on. There didn’t seem to be quite so many old people around as there had been in the morning, and that was just as well because Harriet had rather gone off the idea of helping them.
As she approached the shopping mall she met Stinky Allport.
“Hi,” said Stinky.
“Hi,” said Harriet.
They wandered on together.
“Look,” said Stinky. “They’ve set up the Space Ball.”
“Hake had a go at that,” said Harriet. “It made him feel sick.”
“Wouldn’t make me feel sick,” boasted Stinky.
“Wouldn’t make me feel sick,” said Harriet.
“If we had some money,” said Stinky, “we could have a go on it.”
“I’ve got money.” Harriet pulled out her purse. As she did so, a smiling old lady thrust a collecting tin at her. On the tin it said ‘Help the Aged’.
“I’ve got five pounds,” said Harriet.
“We could have two goes for that,” said Stinky.
The smiling old lady rattled her tin.
“Help the aged,” she said.
Harriet and Stinky walked on.
“Else we could have just one go and spend the rest on something else,” said Stinky. “Like we could go to McDonald’s or –”
Stinky broke off as Harriet suddenly stopped.
“What’s the matter?” said Stinky.
Harriet heaved a deep sigh. “Bother,” she said.
Stinky watched in disbelief as Harriet walked back to the old lady and dropped a pound coin in her collecting tin.
“What d’you go and do that for?” he said.
“I dunno,” said Harriet. “Just felt like it, I s’pose.”
WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
Harriet was short of money. It was nothing new: Harriet was often short of money. But on this occasion she was desperate. She needed thirty-three pounds and she needed it in a hurry. One of the shoe shops in town was having a sale, and in the sale was a pair of super de luxe Olympic trainers with red tabs, reduced from fifty pounds to thirty-five pounds. A bargain!
The only problem was, Harriet didn’t have thirty-five pounds. She didn’t even have five pounds. All she had, left over from her birthday, was a book token worth three pounds and some twenty-pence pieces which she had been keeping in a plastic tube that had once contained Easter eggs.
She said to her sister, “You wouldn’t lend me thirty-three pounds, would you?”
She knew that Lynn had far more than that in her building society account, because Lynn was saving for a pair of ice skates. She could easily have taken out a bit to lend to Harriet, but of course she wouldn’t.
“You must be joking,” she said.
It was what she always said when Harriet asked her for anything.
“I’m not joking,” said Harriet. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” said Lynn. “That money is earning interest. Are you going to pay me interest?”
“Will if you like,” said Harriet.
Lynn tossed her head.
“Pigs might fly!” she said, whatever that was supposed to mean.
What it meant was that Lynn did not intend lending Harriet any money.
“Not now, not tomorrow, not ever!”
It was terrible to have a sister who was so stingy, but then her parents were pretty stingy, too. It obviously ran in the family; they were all stingy except Harriet. Harriet would gladly have lent her book token to anyone who wanted it. They only had to ask.
When Harriet tried asking – “Mum, you couldn’t lend me thirty-three pounds, could you? For my trainers?” – all her mum said was, “You’ve already got a perfectly good pair of trainers! What do you want another pair for?”
Harriet tried explaining how these were special trainers, de luxe Olympic trainers with red tabs, but Mum remained unmoved.
She said, “I’ll buy the book token off you, but I’m certainly not giving you thirty-three pounds.”
“I don’t want you to give it me,” said Harriet. “Just lend it.”
“Where’s the difference?” said Mum.
Imagine having a mother who didn’t know the difference between giving and lending!
Harriet’s dad wasn’t much better. He said, “Harriet, if I were made of money I would give it you gladly. As I’m not, I’m afraid you’ll have to manage without.”
“I only want to borrow it,” said Harriet.
“Borrow?” said her dad. He gave a hollow laugh. “That’s a good one!”
It was amazing to Harriet that they couldn’t find thirty-three pounds just to lend their own daughter. They didn’t seem to mind paying out small fortunes on other people.
On Saturday, for instance, a man was coming to stay. He was coming for lunch and for supper and sleeping overnight.
Neither Mum nor Dad had ever met him before but Mum was all in a flap about whether the spare bed was going to be comfortable enough, and whether they ought to buy a new duvet and a new duvet cover, and what they were going to give him to eat.
Ordinary food wasn’t good enough for Tristram de Vere. Tristram de Vere was a professor. He couldn’t be expected to eat spaghetti hoops or baked beans on toast.
Mum had to go to Sainsbury’s and buy all kinds of exotic stuff like egg plants and avocados, and passion fruit and mango, and sherry and wine and a bottle of whisky in case he was a drinker.
Why couldn’t professors eat ravioli or jam pudding? Mum said in shocked tones that you couldn’t offer ravioli and jam pudding to a guest (though it was perfectly all right to offer it to your daughter).
She said that Professor de Vere was coming al
l the way from London and deserved special treatment. He had been invited by the local history society, of which Mum and Dad were members.
He was going to give a lecture, with slides, on the subject of ‘Life Below Stairs in Victorian England’. Mum was really looking forward to it.
“What’s life below stairs?” said Harriet.
She thought perhaps it might be something to do with people living in cupboards, but Dad said it was “Servants, living in the basement. In the days when people had basements.”
That was a pity! It would be far more interesting to live in a cupboard.
Harriet had often considered the possibility of moving into the cupboard under the stairs and making it into her own private house, with carpet and furniture and a proper knocker on the door. Living in a cupboard would be a challenge: anyone could live in a basement.
“Won’t it be rather boring?” she said.
“Probably,” said Dad.
“Oh, Tony, it won’t!” cried Mum. “It’ll be fascinating! I’m really excited by it.”
Dad wasn’t excited but he had to go along to work the projector: Professor de Vere was nervous of technology.
“He says he always manages to put the slides in upside down!” laughed Mum.
“Sounds a right yum-yum,” said Dad.
Mum looked shocked.
“He’s been on television,” she said. “He’s written books. He knows all there is to know about the Victorian period.”
“So will people actually pay money to go and listen to him?” said Harriet.
“Amazingly,” said Dad, at the same time as Mum said, “Of course they will! The hall’s booked out.”
“And all he’s going to do is talk and show slides?”
“Isn’t that enough?” said Mum.
Dad and Harriet looked at each other. Dad shrugged his shoulders. Harriet shook her head.
“Weird!” said Harriet.
Anyone could just talk and show slides. Harriet herself could talk nineteen-to-the-dozen. She frequently did so.
If only she had some slides …
That afternoon she went into town to look at her trainers. She had to keep checking that they were still there, even if she couldn’t afford to buy them. There was one more week of the sale to go. What was she going to do? She had to have those trainers!
Harriet left the shoe shop, where the assistants were beginning to eye her suspiciously, and trundled gloomily out into the market. Most of the market was stalls selling fruit and veg and potted plants. Boring!
There was only one stall that Harriet ever looked at and that was which once upon a time had sold free-range eggs and now sold an interesting clutter of old books and gramophone records and what Harriet’s mum called “knick-knacks”. Harriet never actually bought anything, but she always liked to stop and investigate.
“You again!” said Michael Wren.
So what? thought Harriet. There wasn’t any law against just stopping to look, was there?
She lived in hope she might one day stumble upon something valuable, such as a hoard of Roman coins that Michael Wren didn’t know about.
He would sell them to her for, say, a couple of pounds – “Glad to get rid of’em!” – whereupon Harriet would go rushing off to the nearest museum, who would give her a thousand pounds on the spot, and loads more later on, so that she could buy all the super de luxe trainers that she wanted.
There weren’t any Roman coins today, but what there was was a box of old slides with a label saying
Harriet’s heart began to beat a little faster. All she needed were some slides and her dad’s projector …
“You didn’t ought to be looking at those,” said Michael Wren. “They’re saucy ones, those are.”
“Are they interesting?” said Harriet.
Michael Wren closed one eye in a wink. “I’ll say!”
“Would people pay to come and see them, do you think?”
“You’d better believe it!”
“They’re very expensive,” said Harriet. She knew you always had to bargain with people in the market. You had to try and knock their prices down.
“Expensive?” said Michael Wren. He sounded indignant. “Dirt cheap, they are! That’s ’cause they’re not quite a full set. If they was a full set, you’d be paying a darn sight more. But seeing as they’re not, I’m prepared to drop the price a little.”
“How much?” said Harriet.
“Nine pounds, take it or leave it.”
Harriet wondered if there was any chance of beating him down to a three pound book token and a tube of twenty-pence pieces. She decided, glumly, that there wasn’t.
“I’ll have to see if I can raise the money,” she said. “Could you keep them for me?”
“I’ll hold ’em till midday tomorrow. Not a second longer.”
“All right,” said Harriet. “I’ll be back!”
Tomorrow was Saturday, when Professor de Vere was coming. He was arriving at lunch time, to eat his egg plants and his passion fruits, then he was going off with Mum and Dad to the church hall to do his lecture.
Then he was coming back to drink all his whisky and sherry and spend the night under his new duvet cover before taking the train back to London. (He couldn’t drive a car because of being nervous of technology.)
Harriet went scuttling off to Stinky Allport’s. Stinky, like Harriet, was always looking for ways of making money.
“I’ve had this brilliant idea!” said Harriet.
“What?”
Stinky looked at her, guardedly. He’d had experience of Harriet’s brilliant ideas. They might sound brilliant, in theory, but in practice they never quite seemed to work out that way.
“We get these slides,” said Harriet, “and we borrow my dad’s projector –”
Stinky listened, and said that he was willing to put up “two pounds and no more”.
Now Harriet had two pounds, plus a tube of twenty-pence pieces, plus a three pound book token which she could sell to her mum.
She only needed another couple of pounds. Surely she could manage to raise those?
Harriet went on up the road to see Wendy Williams.
“I’ve had this brilliant idea,” said Harriet.
Wendy said it could be as brilliant as brilliant, it wasn’t any use coming to her.
“My mum’s stopped my pocket money. I’ve only got eighty pence.”
“That’ll do,” said Harriet. Every little helped. “I’ll try Salim.”
She marched on round the corner and up the hill to the new estate.
“I’ve had this brill …”
“Forget it,” said Salim.
“Pardon?” said Harriet.
“Not interested. Not if it means money.” Salim’s eyes gleamed. “I’m saving up for a new video game!”
“Well, this is it,” said Harriet. “I’m saving up for some new trainers. But I’ve had this truly brilliant idea! What we do, we buy these slides …”
Salim said he would put in a pound. “It’s all I can afford to risk.”
Harriet went back home to count her money: two pounds from Stinky, one pound from Salim, eighty pence from Wendy, three pounds for the book token, two pounds forty in twenty-pence pieces.
Nine pounds twenty! Hurray! She could afford to buy the slides and still have twenty pence left in her tube. She decided that she would go straight to the market after breakfast.
She went downstairs to sell her book token to her mum. Harriet’s mum was in the kitchen, drinking coffee with her friend Mrs Wheeler. Mrs Wheeler also belonged to the history society.
As Harriet entered the kitchen she heard Mrs Wheeler say, “Apparently he’s so boring that half the audience fell asleep. One man even starting snoring.”
“Oh, this is dreadful!” cried Harriet’s mum. “Why ever did we invite him?”
“It was Grace’s idea.”
“Didn’t she know?”
“Nobody knew! But then I got talking to this person
and she told me … They had him down in Dorchester and it was simply frightful!”
“Tony will go mad.” (Tony was Harriet’s dad.)
“So will Henry.” (Henry was Mrs Wheeler’s husband.)
Harriet’s mum heaved a sigh. Mrs Wheeler heaved another one.
“I thought it seemed too good to be true … someone willing to travel all the way from London for nothing but expenses.”
“Now we know why.”
Harriet pulled out a chair and knelt on it, elbows on the table.
“Is this the Professor?”
“Yes,” said her mum, “But don’t tell your dad!”
“I thought he sounded boring,” said Harriet.
“I thought he sounded absolutely fascinating!” Harriet’s mum looked pleadingly at Mrs Wheeler. “What about the slides? Surely they must be interesting?”
“Not according to this person. According to her he says things like, ‘This is what you might see if you’d looked into the servants’ hall’. Then he shows an old photograph of servants sitting round a table, cleaning cutlery. She said the photographs were so dark you couldn’t see very much anyway.”
“Oh, what have we let ourselves in for?” moaned Harriet’s mum.
My slides won’t be like that, thought Harriet. Her slides were saucy; Michael Wren had said so.
Next morning, Harriet took the bus into town. First of all she went to look at her trainers and check they were still there (they were) and then she went down the market to find Michael Wren.
“Oh, so you’ve come back, have you? That’s a surprise,” said Michael Wren. “I never thought the day would come when you’d stop fingering the goods and actually produce some hard cash! OK. Let’s see the colour of your money.”
Harriet handed over her nine pounds. Michael Wren handed over the box of slides.
“I hope they’re good,” said Harriet.
“They’re good, all right! Just don’t get on my case if your mum takes them off you.”
“Why should she?” said Harriet.
Michael Wren said nothing: just tapped a finger to the side of his nose.
“Don’t you come grizzling back to me,” he said.