by Jean Ure
“I don’t grizzle,” said Harriet.
When Harriet arrived home, Professor de Vere was there. He was in the sitting room with Dad. Harriet heard his voice, high and fluting.
“The train was running approximately three minutes late … I tell a lie! It was nearer four. I checked my watch most carefully against the station clock. Four minutes late as we left Paddington. And no explanation! There never is, of course. I find nothing more irritating than being left in ignorance. A simple exercise in customer relations, that is all it takes. Just a simple exercise …”
Harriet deposited her box of slides in the hall, next to the Professor’s. She was about to investigate the Professor’s box, to see if his slides were as boring as Mrs Wheeler had claimed, when her dad shot out of the sitting room and almost tripped over her. He had a glazed expression on his face.
“Oh, ah, Harriet!” he said. “What are you doing? Don’t touch things. Go in there and – um – keep the Professor entertained until lunch is ready.”
The Professor was an extremely long, thin man with long, thin hair that grew all round the edge of his head but not on the top. The top was smooth and shiny, like a billiard ball. Harriet wondered if he polished it every day with furniture polish.
Professor de Vere seemed uncomfortable in Harriet’s presence. He sat in silence as she prattled – Harriet’s idea of entertaining being to talk non-stop – and was obviously relieved when Harriet’s mum appeared with the egg plants and avocados.
“Ah! Sustenance,” he said.
Over lunch, the Professor told Mum about his train being four minutes late as it left Paddington.
By the end of lunch, Mum also had a glazed expression on her face. (Harriet kept herself amused by staring at the smooth bald top of the Professor’s head.)
The lecture was to last from four o’clock till six. At half-past three, they set out for the church hall.
Harriet went with them as far as Stinky’s house. She carried her box of slides. Stinky was going to be really pleased with them!
Harriet had said to Lynn, after lunch, “I’ve bought some slides. They’re called ‘What the Butler saw’.”
Lynn had looked at her through narrowed eyes.
“You filthy little beast!” she said. “It’ll be all dirty pictures!”
“Will it?” said Harriet.
“Well, of course it will! It’s what nasty old men used to put pennies into slot machines for.”
“So they could see the dirty pictures?”
“Yes,” said Lynn. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“I didn’t know they were dirty,” said Harriet.
“So what did you think they were?”
“Just pictures of food and stuff.”
Food on the table. With sauce. Saucy, like Michael Wren had said.
“You’re pathetic,” said Lynn.
Harriet didn’t see there was anything pathetic about making money. She bet she had her trainers before Lynn had her ice skates!
Harriet and Stinky went down to the far end of Stinky’s garden so that they could hold the slides up to the light and see the dirty pictures without Stinky’s mum or dad coming to ask them what they were doing.
“Let’s have a look, let’s have a look!”
Stinky jostled Harriet for possession of the box.
“I was the one that found them,” said Harriet. “I bags look first!”
She took one out and squinted at it.
“What is it?” said Stinky. “Is it a naked lady?”
“It’s a – an empty room,” said Harriet. “I think.”
It was a bit too dark to be sure, but she certainly couldn’t see any naked ladies.
“Try the next one!” said Stinky.
They tried the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.
“They’ve got to be somewhere!” cried Stinky.
They looked and they looked, but they couldn’t find a naked lady anywhere. All there were were lots of people dressed up as servants.
Servants washing up, servants scrubbing floors, servants lighting fires, servants sitting round a table cleaning cutlery …
Harriet swallowed. “I think something’s gone a bit wrong,” she said.
“You’re telling me!” shouted Stinky. “You’ve been done! This is rubbish! I want my two pounds back!”
“I want my slides back!”
Harriet bundled all the boring servants into their box.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll make far more than two pounds once I’ve got the right ones back!”
Harriet ran as fast as her legs would carry her to the church hall. As she burst in through the main door she bumped into a group of people coming out.
“Disgusting!” they were saying. “Absolutely disgusting!”
Inside the entrance was a large sign which read:
Harriet followed the arrow until she came to another sign. This one said:
Harriet eased open the door and crept in. She was just in time to hear the Professor’s high, fluty voice.
“This is what you might have seen if you had looked into the servants’ hall.”
On the screen appeared a picture of a plump lady wearing frilly bloomers. The picture wobbled slightly because Harriet’s dad, who was operating the projector, was bent double, clutching at his stomach.
Harriet thought at first that he was in pain, but then a loud trumpeting noise burst from him and she realised that he was laughing.
Other people were also laughing, but rather more discreetly, making little squeaks and choking noises into their handkerchieves. Harriet could see her mum and Mrs Wheeler, their hands clamped to their mouths.
“And this,” droned the Professor, “is the view inside the butler’s pantry.”
Harriet’s eyes grew wide. A naked lady! A woman sitting nearby stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth; another, unable to control herself, staggered to her feet and made for the door. Small chirruping sounds were coming from her.
Harriet’s mum suddenly turned and caught sight of Harriet.
“Harriet,” she said weakly, “what are you doing here?”
Harriet didn’t like to say that she had come for her slides; it didn’t seem quite the right moment. She went back outside, into the sunshine.
The chirruping lady was there. She was leaning against a wall, gasping. She took one look at Harriet and erupted.
“Oh, dear! Oh, heavens! Oh, my goodness!”
The chirruping lady tottered off down the path. Harriet went to sit on a tombstone and wait.
She had only been waiting a few minutes when the door burst open and the Professor appeared. Harriet jumped up.
“Excuse me,” she said, holding out her box. “I think that these are yours and …”
She got no further. With a strangulated yelp, the Professor snatched the box from her.
“What about mine?” cried Harriet; but the Professor had gone.
Harriet’s slides were still in the hall – and if she knew anything about grown-ups they wouldn’t be returned to her.
Now what was she going to do? No slides, no money –
“Ah, Harriet!” Harriet’s dad had appeared, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. “Fancy seeing you here! Have you come to nag me again about your fancy trainers?”
“Um –” said Harriet.
“How much were they? Forty pounds?”
“Fifty to begin with,” said Harriet, “but then they put the price down. Then I …”
“Here!”
Harriet watched in amazement as her dad took out his wallet and peeled off four ten-pound notes.
“Take it! I’m feeling generous. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years. Laugh? I nearly split my sides!”
Harriet’s dad reeled off, clutching at his ribs. Harriet stared down, thoughtfully, at her four ten-pound notes.
That was thirty-five pounds for trainers, two pounds for Stinky, one pound for Salim, eighty pence for Wendy �
� and one pound twenty left over. Hooray!
Harriet turned and ran. If she went like the wind she might just reach the shoe shop before it closed.
HARRIET AND THE HOUND FROM HELL
“I wish I could have a dog,” said Harriet.
Harriet was always wishing she could have a dog – and her mum was always telling her that she couldn’t.
“What about Fat Cat?”
“Fat Cat wouldn’t mind. He likes dogs.”
Fat Cat, sitting on top of the kitchen cupboard, opened one eye and closed it again. Dogs were rubbish. Dogs were scum!
“See?” said Harriet. “He’s not frightened.”
“I don’t care; you’re not having one. I know what would happen if you had a dog.”
“What?” said Harriet.
“You’d get bored and wouldn’t exercise it. It would be left to me.”
“No, it wouldn’t!” Harriet was indignant. “I’d walk it every day. I’d take it up the park and we’d play together.”
“Oh, yes?” said her mum.
“I would,” said Harriet. She opened her dog book that she had borrowed from the library.
The dog book had pictures of every single breed of dog known to man or woman. Harriet pointed wistfully at a picture of a Great Dane.
“That’s the sort of dog I’d like.”
“No way!” said her mum.
Harriet flicked over the pages.
“That one?”
Her mum looked.
“We are not,” she said, “having a thing that size in the house.”
Harriet sighed. She liked St Bernards.
“What about a wolfhound?”
“Certainly not.”
“Afghan?”
“Harriet, I’ve already told you – we are not having any dog.”
“Yorkshire terrier!” roared Harriet.
“I said any dog.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want a Yorkshire terrier, anyway.”
Harriet closed the book with a bang. She wanted a big dog. A real dog. Not some silly little niminy piminy thing with a bow in its hair.
Cousin Birdie had a Yorkshire terrier that wore a bow in its hair. It was called Poochie, and next weekend it was coming to stay while Cousin Birdie went off to London.
Cousin Birdie was old and rather peculiar. She had once had an entire houseful of Yorkshire terriers with bows in their hair.
She showed them at dog shows, where she sometimes won rosettes and quarrelled fiercely with the judges when she didn’t. Judges, according to Cousin Birdie, were biased. (Biased meant giving rosettes to other people’s Yorkshire terriers instead of Cousin Birdie’s.)
A woman called Maude Ffinch was her particular rival. Cousin Birdie was extremely jealous of Maude Ffinch because Maude Ffinch’s Yorkshire terriers had won more rosettes than hers.
Now Cousin Birdie only had Poochie; but Poochie, she assured Mum, was going to be a champion.
“He’ll beat Maude Ffinch’s tatty little beast into a cocked hat. That’ll show her! Thinks she’s the queen bee, her and her Laddy Boy.” Cousin Birdie’s lip curled into a hoop. “Laddy Boy! I ask you!”
Harriet couldn’t really see that Laddy Boy was any worse than Poochie Poochie (Poochie Poochie of Glenmore was his official name) but you couldn’t ever say anything like that to Cousin Birdie. She would brook no criticism.
“Poochie Poochie is going to win first prize, and Maude Ffinch is going to come absolutely nowhere!”
The dog show was being held only a few days after Poochie’s stay with Harriet and her family, so Cousin Birdie was naturally anxious that every care should be taken of him.
“No naughty walkies in the muddy parkie. No naughty playing in the muddy garden. Just walky walkies on the lead around the nice clean streets. And no talky talkies with other doggies, please!”
“Doesn’t he like to talk to other dogs?” said Harriet.
“Poochie is a house dog; he doesn’t care to mix. In fact, if you had a nice cat litter tray …”
There was a pause. Fat Cat, sitting on his elbows on top of the television, gazed down upon Poochie with silent contempt. Cat litter tray! He hadn’t used a cat litter tray since he was a tiny kitten.
“There really wouldn’t be any need for him to go out at all,” said Cousin Birdie.
“Oh, but surely,” said Mum, “he’ll get smelly if he doesn’t go out?”
“Not if he’s groomed properly. I’ve brought all his brushes and combs.”
Mum said quickly, “Harriet can groom him.”
Cousin Birdie swivelled her big marbly eyes in Harriet’s direction.
“He needs grooming at least twice a day, Harriet, or his coat will become matted.”
Harriet looked at Poochie’s coat. It was long and silky and hung down to the ground. On top of his head, his hair was tied into a bunch with a red ribbon.
“I think it’d be easier just to take him for a walk,” she said.
“I insist that he is groomed!” cried Cousin Birdie. “I can’t possibly leave him with you if you’re not going to groom him!”
“Harriet will groom him.” Mum said it soothingly, with a warning glance at Harriet.
Mum had a soft spot for Cousin Birdie. She said that she was eccentric but harmless.
“Don’t worry about Poochie. We’ll look after him.”
Looking after Poochie turned out to be a full-time job. As well as all his brushes and combs, Cousin Birdie had brought his own special dog bed with its own special blanket, his eating bowl, his drinking bowl, his tins of special dog food, his vitamin tablets, his conditioning tablets, and his special low-fat milk.
There was a long list of feeding instructions – “He needs his food at regular intervals during the day, and please make sure it’s mixed properly, in the right proportions” – and an extra set of ribbons for his top knot, “because I like him to have a change of ribbon every day.”
Mum said that Harriet could see to Poochie’s breakfast and to his elevenses and to his lunch and to his tea and his dinner and his supper. She said that she would see to his ribbons.
“I think that’s a fair division of labour, don’t you?” She smiled happily at Harriet. “After all, you’re the one who wants a dog.”
Not a dog like this, thought Harriet.
It was difficult to think of Poochie as a dog at all. The only dog-like thing he did was bark, which he did practically non-stop until even Harriet, who was generally quite fond of a bit of noise, felt like screaming.
“It’s because he’s not exercised enough,” said Mum; but she wouldn’t let Harriet take him in the garden and play with him for fear he’d get dirty.
“Then what are we going to do?” cried Harriet.
“I suppose you could try him with a ball,” said Mum. “So long as you don’t get him over-excited. He’s probably not used to playing. We don’t want him having a fit.”
Poochie was so unused to playing that he didn’t even know how to.
Harriet tried rolling the ball and throwing the ball; she tried lying on her back and making doggy noises. She tried running around the room and crawling on all fours.
Poochie just sat and looked at her.
“I think he must be a bit simple,” said Harriet.
“He’s not simple,” said Mum. “He’s just never learnt. It’s because he’s a show dog.”
Harriet felt sorry for Poochie, being a show dog. What kind of life was it if you never learnt how to play or run about? If you were never allowed to go for walks or talk to other dogs?
“He must be really bored,” she said.
“Maybe he enjoys it,” said Mum, but she didn’t sound very convinced.
When Dad came home that evening he said, “Aha! The hound from hell! Have to be careful with that one – tear your throat out as soon as look at you.”
“He would not!” Harriet said it indignantly. She and Poochie were getting on quite well.
She had fed him all his meals and groo
med his coat, twice, and he had been as good as gold. Once he had even licked her hand. It had made Harriet feel almost fond of him.
“Dad’s only joking,” said Mum.
“I don’t think you ought to joke about Poochie,” said Harriet. “He has a very sad life.”
“Sad life?” said Dad. “Who are you kidding? I’ve never known such a pampered beast!”
“He’d far rather be outside, playing with the other dogs,” said Harriet.
“Ah, well, that’s the price you pay for beating Maude Ffinch into a cocked hat!”
“Nobody asked him if he wanted to beat Maude Ffinch!” cried Harriet. “I don’t think it’s fair!”
“Life isn’t,” said Dad.
When Lynn came in she said, “Ugh! So it’s here, is it? Yappy, smelly creature!”
Harriet couldn’t in truth deny that Poochie was yappy, but she rose up strongly at the suggestion that he smelt.
“I’ve groomed him twice! He smells beautiful!” And she caught him up and buried her nose in his silky fur to prove the point.
“He’d look a whole lot better,” said Lynn, “if he were clipped.”
Harriet secretly agreed with this. If all his ridiculous hair were taken off, then maybe Poochie could start to be a real dog.
“Poor Poochie,” she said. She bent her head and whispered in his ear: “Maybe I’ll take you for a walk tomorrow, if it stops raining.”
It rained all of Saturday and all of Sunday. Poochie stayed indoors (except for just going into the back garden when he absolutely had to), being groomed and eating his food at regular intervals, and barking.
It wasn’t until Monday that the rain stopped. Fortunately, as it was the summer holidays, Harriet didn’t have to go to school.
“Can I take Poochie for a walk?” she said to her mum.
Mum glanced anxiously out of the window.
“It’s all right,” said Harriet. “It’s dry as dry.”
“Well, keep to the roads,” said Mum, “and don’t let him sniff anything or talk to other dogs. And for goodness’ sake don’t get him dirty! Remember, Cousin Birdie’s coming back this afternoon.”